Maigret's Mistake Read online

  ‘How many months?’

  ‘Six weeks.’

  That made an impression on him, perhaps because he had children and his wife was expecting another. He turned to the waiter who was standing not far from them, trying to hear their conversation.

  ‘Give me something to drink, Ernest. It doesn’t matter what.’

  He’d forgotten that the minute had passed. From the bar, the owner was watching them.

  ‘I didn’t expect that.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ Maigret added.

  ‘I assume the professor’s too old?’

  ‘Men have fathered children at the age of eighty.’

  ‘If what you say is true, it’s one more reason why he couldn’t have killed her.’

  ‘Listen to me, Louis.’

  The musician was still looking at Maigret with a certain suspicion, but he had lost his aggressiveness.

  ‘You may hear from Pierrot. One way or another. I’m not asking you to give him up. Just to tell him that I’d like to talk to him, wherever he likes, whenever he likes. Have you got that?’

  ‘And will you let him go?’

  ‘I’m not saying I’ll call off the search. All I can promise is that when he leaves me he’ll be free.’

  ‘What do you intend to ask him?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Do you still think he killed Lulu?’

  ‘I don’t think anything.’

  ‘I doubt he’ll get in touch with me.’

  ‘But if he does …’

  ‘I’ll see he gets your message. Now, if you’ll excuse me …’

  Downing his drink, he climbed up to the balcony and secured the straps of the accordion around his waist and shoulders. The others didn’t question him. He bent over them, but only to tell them the title of the piece they were going to play. The men at the bar examined the seated girls from a distance, looking for the ones they would ask to dance.

  ‘Waiter!’

  ‘There’s nothing to pay. It’s on the house.’

  There was no point arguing. He stood up and headed for the door.

  ‘Have you found out anything?’

  There was irony in the owner’s voice.

  ‘Thanks for the marc.’

  It was pointless looking for a taxi in the neighbourhood, and Maigret walked to Boulevard de La Chapelle, brushing aside the prostitutes who didn’t know him and tried to approach him. Three hundred metres away were the lights of the Barbès intersection. It had stopped raining. The same fog as in the morning was starting to fall over the city, and the car lights were surrounded by haloes.

  Rue Briquet was not far. He soon turned the corner and found Inspector Lober, who was almost the same age as he was but had never risen in rank, leaning against a wall and smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Lots of couples going in and out, but I didn’t see him.’

  Maigret felt like sending Lober home to bed. He could have telephoned Janvier and told him to go home, too. And called off the surveillance in the railway stations, because he was sure Pierrot wouldn’t try to leave Paris. Only, he was obliged to follow routine. He couldn’t afford to take any risks.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  Lober already smelled of rum. As long as the corner bistro remained open, he’d be fine. That was why he would stay an inspector all his life.

  ‘Goodnight, my friend! If anything new crops up, phone me at home.’

  It was eleven o’clock. The crowds were starting to emerge from the cinemas. On the pavements, couples were walking arm in arm, and women had their arms round their partners’ waists; there were some who lingered in dark corners, embracing, while others ran to catch their bus.

  Off the lighted boulevards, every sidestreet had its own arrangement, its own shadows, and every one also had, somewhere along its length, the yellowish signs of one or two hotels.

  It was towards the lights that he walked. He went into a garishly lit bar at the Barbès intersection where at least fifty people surrounded a huge brass counter.

  Although he had intended to order a rum, he said mechanically, because of what he had drunk at the Grelot:

  ‘A marc.’

  Lulu had hung around here just as others were hanging around at this moment, attentive to the glances of the men.

  He headed for the phone booth, slipped a token in the machine and dialled the number of Quai des Orfèvres. He didn’t know who was on duty. He recognized the voice of a newcomer named Lucien, who had been a good student and was already preparing for his exams in order to rise in rank.

  ‘Maigret here. Anything new?’

  ‘No, sir. Except for two Arabs who got into a knife fight in Rue de la Goutte d’Or. One of them died as they were putting him on the stretcher. The other was wounded but managed to get away.’

  It was no more than 300 metres from where he was now. It had happened barely twenty minutes earlier, probably as he was walking along Boulevard de La Chapelle. He had known nothing, heard nothing. The killer might have passed him. Other dramas would occur in the neighbourhood before the night was over, probably one or two that would come to light immediately, others the police would only hear about much later.

  Pierrot, too, had gone to ground between Barbès and La Villette.

  Had he known that Lulu was pregnant? Was it to tell him the news that she had phoned him at the Grelot to come and see her?

  Dr Paul had said six weeks. That meant she must have suspected it for a few days.

  Had she told Étienne Gouin?

  It was possible, but not likely. She was more the kind of girl who would go to see a local doctor or a midwife.

  He could only speculate. Once back home, she hadn’t come to a decision for a while. According to Madame Gouin, the professor had gone to see Lulu after his dinner but had only stayed for a few minutes.

  Back at the bar, Maigret ordered another drink. He had no desire to leave immediately. It struck him that this was an ideal place to think about Lulu and Pierrot.

  ‘She didn’t tell Gouin,’ he muttered under his breath.

  It was in Pierre Eyraud she must have confided at first, which explained his hurried visit.

  In that case, could he have killed her?

  First, it was necessary to be sure she knew about her condition. If she had lived in another neighbourhood, he would have been convinced she had seen a local doctor. In the Étoile, where she was always a stranger, that was less likely.

  The next day, a note would have to be sent to all the doctors and midwives in Paris. That struck him as essential. Since the telephone call from Dr Paul, he had been convinced that Lulu’s pregnancy was the key to the drama.

  Was Gouin sleeping peacefully? Was he taking advantage of an evening off to work on some book about surgery?

  It was too late to go and see the cleaning lady, Madame Brault, although she lived not far from here, near Place Clichy. Why hadn’t she mentioned the professor? Was it credible that, spending every morning in the apartment as she did, she was unaware of the identity of Lulu’s lover?

  The two women chatted. She was the only person in the building who could have understood what someone like Louise Filon told her.

  The concierge had kept silent at first because she had a debt of gratitude to the professor and might well have been more or less consciously in love with him.

  It was as if all these women were determined to protect him. The prestige this sixty-two-year-old man enjoyed among them was not the least curious aspect of this case.

  He did nothing to win them over. He used them almost distractedly, in order to obtain a physical release, yet none of them seemed to resent this cynical attitude of his.

  Maigret would have to question his assistant, Lucile Decaux. And also, perhaps, Madame Gouin’s sister, the only woman so far over whom the professor seemed to have no hold.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’

  He got in the first taxi he found.

  ‘Bouleva
rd Richard-Lenoir.’

  ‘I know, Monsieur Maigret.’

  That gave him the idea that they should look for the taxi that had brought Gouin home from the hospital the previous evening.

  He felt heavy, numbed by the marc he had drunk, and he half closed his eyes as the lights glided past on either side of the car.

  It was Lulu he kept coming back to. He took his wallet from his pocket and looked at her photographs in the half-light of the taxi. Her mother hadn’t smiled either when she had had her photograph taken.

  5.

  The following morning, he had an unpleasant taste of marc in his mouth and when, at about 9.15, during the daily briefing, he was told that he was wanted on the telephone, he had the impression that his breath still stank of cheap alcohol and he avoided speaking too closely to his colleagues.

  All the heads of department were present in the commissioner’s office overlooking the Seine, as they were every morning, all of them holding files of varying thickness. It was still grey, the river was a nasty colour, and people were walking as quickly as the day before, especially those crossing the windswept Pont Saint-Michel, the men raising their arms to hold on to their hats, the women lowering theirs to keep their skirts in place.

  ‘You can take the call here.’

  ‘I’m afraid it might be a long one, chief. It’s best if I go to my office.’

  The others, who couldn’t all have drunk marc the previous evening, didn’t look any better than he did, and everyone seemed in a bad mood. It must have been an effect of the light.

  ‘Is that you, chief?’

  Maigret sensed a certain excitement in Janvier’s voice.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘He just dropped in. Do you want me to tell you in detail?’

  Janvier, who had slept on the sofa in Lulu’s apartment, couldn’t have been looking too good either.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Here goes. It happened a few minutes ago, no more than ten. I was in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee I’d made myself. I didn’t have either my jacket or tie on. I have to tell you, I didn’t get to sleep until quite late.’

  ‘Was it a quiet evening?’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything. I couldn’t sleep, that’s all.’

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘You’ll see, it was all quite simple. So simple, I still can’t get over it. I heard a slight noise, a key turning in the lock. I kept still, but placed myself so that I could see into the living room. Someone came into the hall, crossed it and opened the second door. It was the professor, who’s taller and thinner than I’d imagined. He was wearing a long dark overcoat, with a woollen scarf around his neck, and he had his hat and gloves on.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘That’s just it. That’s what I’m trying to explain. He didn’t do anything. He took two or three steps forward, slowly, like a man coming home. I wondered for a moment what it was he was staring at, and then I realized it was my shoes, which I’d left on the carpet. When he turned his head, he saw me and frowned. Slightly. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t seem either embarrassed or frightened.

  ‘He looked at me like someone whose mind is on something else and who needs a moment to come back down to earth. Finally, he asked without raising his voice, “Are you from the police?”

  ‘I was so surprised by his appearance, the way he was taking things, that all I could do was nod.

  ‘We were both silent for a while, and from the way he was staring at my bare feet, I had the impression he wasn’t pleased with my lack of consideration. It’s just an impression. Perhaps he wasn’t bothered about my feet at all.

  ‘I managed to say, “What are you doing here, professor?”

  ‘ “So you know who I am?”

  ‘He’s a man who gives you the feeling that you’re nothing at all, that even when his eyes come to rest on you, you don’t matter any more to him than a flower on the wallpaper.

  ‘ “I haven’t come for any particular reason,” he said. “I just wanted to have a look.”

  ‘And that’s what he did, he looked at the sofa where the pillow and blanket I’d been using still were, and sniffed the smell of coffee.

  ‘Still in a neutral voice, he said, “I’m surprised your boss hasn’t been keen to question me. You can tell him, young man, that I’m at his disposal. I’m going to Cochin now and I’ll be there until eleven. Then I’ll drop by the Saint-Joseph clinic before going home for lunch. This afternoon, I have a major operation at the American hospital in Neuilly.”

  ‘He looked around again, then turned and went out, closing both doors behind him.

  ‘I opened the window to watch him leave. A taxi was parked outside the building, and a young woman was waiting for him in the middle of the pavement with a black briefcase under her arm. She opened the door of the cab for him and got in behind him.

  ‘I assume that when she comes to fetch him in the morning she phones him from the lodge to tell him she’s downstairs.

  ‘That’s all, chief.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Do you think he’s rich?’

  ‘They say he earns a lot. He operates on poor patients for free, but, when he does work for money, he demands exorbitant fees. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because last night, as I couldn’t sleep, I made an inventory of the girl’s things. They aren’t what I was expecting to find. Yes, there are two fur coats, but they aren’t top quality, and one of them is sheepskin. Not a single item, from the underwear to the shoes, comes from a well-known shop. It obviously isn’t what she wore in Barbès, but nor are they the kind of clothes you’d expect to find in the apartment of a woman kept by a rich man. I didn’t find a chequebook, or anything to indicate that she has a bank account, but there are only a few thousand-franc notes in her handbag and two more in the drawer of the bedside table.’

  ‘I think you can come back. Do you have a key?’

  ‘I saw one in the handbag.’

  ‘Lock the door when you leave. Put a thread or something on it so that we’ll know if it’s been opened. Has the cleaning lady been in?’

  He had not told her the day before whether or not she could come back to clean the apartment. It hadn’t occurred to anyone that she hadn’t been paid.

  There was no point going back to the commissioner’s office, where the daily briefing would be over by now. Lober was still in Rue Briquet, most likely tired and chilled to the bone, although he’d probably warmed himself with a few glasses of rum since the bistros had opened.

  Maigret called the Goutte d’Or police station.

  ‘Is Janin there? Hasn’t he been in this morning? This is Maigret. Could you send someone to Rue Briquet, where they’ll find one of my inspectors, Lober? They can tell him that unless there’s anything new he should phone in his report and go home to bed.’

  Coming back from Barbès the previous evening, he had made up his mind to do various things this morning, and now he had to make an effort to remember them. He called Lucas.

  ‘How are things?’

  ‘Fine, chief. There was a time last night when two cycle officers in the twentieth arrondissement thought they’d laid their hands on Pierrot. They took the man to the nearest station. It wasn’t Pierrot, but a young man who looks like him and who also happens to be a musician, in a brasserie on Place Blanche.’

  ‘I’d like you to phone Béziers. Try to find out if a man named Ernest Filon, who was in the hospital in that town several years ago, still lives in the region.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘I’d also like the taxi drivers who usually park around Cochin in the evening to be questioned. One of them must have driven the professor home the day before yesterday.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘That’s it for now.’

  It was all part of the routine. And awaiting him on his desk was a whole pile of documents that needed signing, apart from the reports from the pathologist and from Gastine-Renette, which he had
to transmit to the prosecutor’s department.

  He interrupted his work to ask for the telephone number of his friend Pardon, who was a doctor and whom he saw more or less regularly every month.

  ‘Are you very busy?’

  ‘Four or five patients in the waiting room. Less than usual for this time of year.’

  ‘Do you know Professor Gouin?’

  ‘Several of my patients have been operated on by him, and I was present at the operations.’

  ‘What do you think of him?’

  ‘He’s one of the finest doctors, not only that we have now, but that we’ve ever had. Unlike many surgeons, he isn’t just a hand, he’s a brain. Thanks to him, there have been a number of discoveries that are really important and will remain important.’

  ‘And as a man?’

  ‘What exactly do you want to know?’

  ‘What you think of him.’

  ‘It’s hard to say. He isn’t very sociable, especially with an ordinary family doctor like me. But they say he’s distant with other people, too.’

  ‘So he isn’t liked?’

  ‘I’d say he’s more feared. He has a way of answering the questions you dare to ask him. Apparently he’s even harder with some of his patients. The story goes that an extremely rich old woman once begged him to operate on her and offered him a fortune. You know what he replied?

  ‘ “The operation would gain you two weeks, perhaps a month. The time I spent on it might save the entire life of another patient.”

  ‘Apart from that, the staff at Cochin love him.’

  ‘Especially the women?’

  ‘Oh, you’ve heard about that? Apparently as far as that goes, he’s quite something. Sometimes, immediately after an operation, he … You know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes. Is that all?’

  ‘He’s still a great man despite that.’

  ‘Thanks, old man.’

  Without really knowing why, he felt like talking to Désirée Brault. He could have summoned her, or had someone fetch her. It was the way most of the other heads of department worked: some of them didn’t leave their offices all day.

  He dropped in on Lucas, who was busy phoning.

  ‘I’m going out for an hour or two.’