Liberty Bar Read online

  At the police station the day shift was clocking off. The secretary was in a hurry to get Maigret to sign the forms.

  ‘Lock them up separately … I will probably come by this evening to see them …’

  Sylvie had sat on a bench at the back of the office. Joseph was rolling up a cigarette, which a uniformed officer snatched from his hands.

  And Maigret went off without saying a word, turning only once towards Sylvie, who wasn’t looking at him. He shrugged and muttered:

  ‘Too bad!’

  Wedged into his seat, he didn’t even notice that the bus had become crowded and an old woman was standing next to him. Turned towards the window, watching the headlights of the cars as they swept past, he smoked furiously. The old lady had to bend over and murmur:

  ‘Excuse me, sir …’

  He looked like he was emerging from a dream. He jumped to his feet, not knowing where to tip out his burning embers, and was in such a kerfuffle that the young couple behind him burst out laughing.

  At seven thirty he went in through the revolving door of the Provençal and found Inspector Boutigues sitting in an armchair in the lobby, where he was chatting to the manager.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He’s upstairs …’ replied Boutigues, who seemed troubled.

  ‘Did you tell him …?’

  ‘Yes … He didn’t seem surprised … I was expecting more of a protest …’

  The manager lingered a while to ask a question, but as soon as he opened his mouth Maigret hurried to the lift.

  ‘Shall I wait for you?’ Boutigues called after him.

  ‘If you like …’

  He knew well this mental state he had been in for the last two or three hours! And he was in a rage, as he always was in such situations! But that didn’t mean he was incapable of reacting …

  That confused feeling of making a blunder … He had had that feeling since he had met Sylvie at the door of the hotel …

  And yet something was impelling him to forge ahead!

  Worse than that, he was charging forwards all the more passionately since he wanted to persuade himself that he was right!

  The lift went up smoothly on well-oiled wheels. And Maigret repeated to himself the order he’d been given:

  ‘No dramas!’

  That’s why he was in Antibes! To prevent any dramas, any scandal!

  At any other time he would have gone into Brown’s suite without his pipe. Now he lit it deliberately. He knocked on the door and went straight in. The scene was exactly the same as the day before:

  Brown pacing up and down, impeccably dressed, instructing his secretary, answering the telephone and trying to dictate a cable to Sydney.

  ‘May I see you for a moment?’

  No sign of anxiety! Here was a man completely at ease in all the situations life threw at him. He didn’t even falter that morning while seeing his father off in such extraordinary circumstances. The presence of the four women didn’t seem to unsettle him in the slightest.

  And that afternoon, coming out of that shady hotel, he didn’t seem at all bothered. He didn’t even flinch.

  He continued with his dictation. At the same time he placed a box of cigars on the pedestal table opposite Maigret and pushed the electric bell.

  ‘Take the telephone into the bedroom, James.’

  And to the butler who came in:

  ‘A whisky!’

  How much of this attitude was posturing and how much was real?

  ‘A good education,’ mused Maigret. ‘He must have gone to Oxford or Cambridge …’

  It was an old grudge by a former student of Collège Stanislas. One tempered by a certain admiration.

  ‘Take your typewriter with you, please, mademoiselle.’

  But no! Brown saw that the typist was encumbered by her notepad and pencils. He took the heavy typewriter himself and carried it into the adjoining room, then locked the door.

  Then he waited for the butler to bring the whisky and indicated that the drink should be served to Maigret.

  Only when they were alone did he pull out his wallet from his pocket and take from it a stamped piece of paper which he glanced at before handing to the inspector.

  ‘Read this … Do you understand English?’

  ‘Not very well.’

  ‘It’s the piece of paper I paid twenty thousand francs for this afternoon at the Hôtel Beauséjour.’

  He sat down, a gesture of relaxation.

  ‘I should first of all explain a few small things … Do you know Australia at all? … A shame … My father, before he got married, owned a very large estate … as large as a French département … After his marriage, he was the largest sheep breeder in Australia, because my mother brought an estate of comparable size as her dowry …’

  Harry Brown spoke slowly, taking great care not to use superfluous words, to be clear.

  ‘Are you a Protestant?’ Maigret asked.

  ‘My whole family are. And my mother’s too!’

  He wanted to continue. Maigret interrupted him:

  ‘Your father didn’t study in Europe, did he?’

  ‘No! It wasn’t the done thing at the time … He only came here after his marriage … Five years after, when he already had three children …’

  Too bad if Maigret had got it wrong! In his mind’s eye he saw all this as a set of images: he sketched out a mansion, huge but austere, in the middle of the estate. And serious people who resembled Presbyterian ministers.

  William Brown, who took over from his father, got married, had children and occupied himself purely with running the business …

  ‘One day he had to come to Europe, because of a trial …’

  ‘On his own?’

  ‘Yes, he came on his own!’

  It was so simple! Paris! London! Berlin! The Côte d’Azur! And Brown realized that a man with his colossal fortune in this glittering new world, full of temptations, was like a king!

  ‘And he never returned home!’ Maigret sighed.

  ‘No! He wanted to …’

  The trial dragged on. The people with whom the sheep farmer was in contact took him out to places where he could have fun. He met women there.

  ‘For two years he kept postponing his return …’

  ‘Who was running the business back home?’

  ‘My mother … And her brother … We received letters from locals who said …’

  That was enough! Maigret had all the information he needed. Brown, who had known nothing but his country estate, his sheep, his neighbours and church ministers, became a wild hedonist, indulging in pleasures he hadn’t even known existed until then …

  He kept putting back his return to Australia … He made sure that the trial dragged on even longer … And once the trial was concluded, he found new excuses to stay here …

  He had bought a yacht … He was one of only a few dozen people who could buy anything, who could have anything they desired …

  ‘Your mother and uncle finally placed him under legal guardianship?’

  Back home, they were defending their interests! They had legal rulings! And one day, in Nice or Monte Carlo, William Brown woke up to find that his entire fortune consisted of a subsistence pension!

  ‘He continued to run up debts for a while, and we paid them off …’ said Harry.

  ‘Then you stopped paying?’

  ‘Excuse me! I continued to pay an allowance of five thousand francs a month …’

  Maigret sensed that he hadn’t got to the bottom of things yet. He felt a vague unease that he expressed in a forthright question:

  ‘What did you come to discuss with your father, a few days before he died?’

  Maigret scrutinized Brown carefully, but in vain. He was unperturbed and replied in his usual straightforward fashion:

  ‘Despite everything, he still had rights, didn’t he? … He fought the ruling for fifteen years … It was a big trial back home … Five lawyers who worked on this case exclusively … And whil
e it went on we were in a state of limbo that prevented us from carrying out certain large undertakings …’

  ‘One moment … On one side, your father, living all alone in France and represented by lawyers in Australia who defended his interests.’

  ‘Lawyers of dubious reputation …’

  ‘Quite! … In the other camp, your mother, your uncle, your two brothers and you.’

  ‘Yes!’ He spoke in English.

  ‘And what were you offering your father to drop out of circulation completely?’

  ‘A million!’

  ‘In other words, he would be better off, since the pension you paid him was worth less than the interest on that lump sum, properly invested … Why would he say no?’

  ‘To get under our skin!’

  Harry said this in a soft voice. He probably didn’t know that the words sounded somewhat incongruous in his mouth.

  ‘He was obsessed … He wouldn’t leave us in peace …’

  ‘So he said no …’

  ‘Yes! And he told me that he had made arrangements so that, even after his death, our problems would continue …’

  ‘What sort of problems?’

  ‘The trial! Back home, it was causing a lot of damage …’

  Was there any need for further explanation? He only needed to imagine the Liberty Bar, Jaja, a half-naked Sylvie, William bringing provisions … Or the villa and the two Martini women, the young one and the old one, and the old car in which he drove them to the market …

  Then to look at Harry Brown, who represented the opposing principles, order, virtue, justice, with his slicked-back hair, his smart suit, his calm composure, his somewhat distant politeness, his secretaries …

  ‘To get under our skin!’

  William became more alive to him now! For so long of the same mould as his son, as all the others back home, he had made a break with order, virtue and good breeding …

  He had become the enemy and had purely and simply been dismissed from the family …

  He dug in, of course. He knew that he would not win the case! He knew that he would henceforth always be the outcast!

  But he would get under their skin!

  He would be capable of anything to do that – get under the skin of his wife, his brother-in-law, his children, who had disowned him, who continued to work to make money, always more money …

  ‘With his death,’ Harry calmly explained, ‘the trial would fizzle out, and all the problems and all the scandalous stories that the nasty people back home fed upon …’

  ‘Obviously!’

  ‘So he drew up a will … He couldn’t disinherit his wife and children … But he could dispose of part of his fortune … And do you know to whom he bequeathed it? … Four women …’

  Maigret almost burst out laughing. In any case, he couldn’t prevent himself smiling at the thought of the two Martinis, mother and daughter, and Jaja and Sylvie arriving in Australia to defend their rights …

  ‘Is that the will that you have in your hand?’

  It was a full document, properly drawn up in the presence of a notary.

  ‘That’s what my father was referring to when he said that, even after his death, this story would not go away …’

  ‘Do you know the terms of the will?’

  ‘As late as this morning I knew nothing at all … When I returned to the Provençal, after the funeral, there was a man waiting for me …’

  ‘Was his name Joseph?’

  ‘Some sort of waiter … He showed me a copy … He told me that, if I wanted to buy the original, I only had to go to a hotel in Cannes and bring twenty thousand francs … This type of person is not in the habit of lying …’

  Maigret had adopted a stern demeanour.

  ‘In other words, you were prepared to destroy a will! There was even an attempt …’

  Brown looked just as unperturbed as before.

  ‘I know what I’m doing!’ he said calmly. ‘And I know that these women are …’

  He stood up, glanced at Maigret’s full glass.

  ‘You’re not drinking?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I’m sure any court would recognize …’

  ‘That the gang back home must come out on top …’

  What had impelled Maigret to say that? The desire to blunder onwards and be damned?

  Harry Brown didn’t turn a hair. Walking to the door of the bedroom, where the tapping of the typewriter continued unabated, he said:

  ‘The document is intact … I leave it with you … I’ll stay here until …’

  The door opened and the secretary announced:

  ‘It’s London on the line …’

  He had the phone in his hand. Brown grabbed it and started talking volubly in English.

  Maigret took the opportunity to leave, with the will. He pressed the lift button, but to no effect, so he ended up taking the stairs, repeating to himself as he descended:

  ‘No dramas!’

  Downstairs, Inspector Boutigues was drinking port with the manager. Two large cut-crystal tasting glasses. And the bottle close to hand!

  8. The Four Heirs

  Boutigues skipped along at Maigret’s side, and they had barely gone twenty metres when he announced:

  ‘I’ve just made a discovery! … I’ve known the manager here for ages, and he oversees the Hôtel du Cap, in Cap Ferrat, which is part of the same chain …’

  They had just left the Provençal. Before them, in the dark, the sea was nothing but a pool of black ink with barely a ripple on it.

  To the right, the lights of Cannes. To the left, those of Nice. And Boutigues pointed with his hand to the darkness beyond these swarms of fireflies.

  ‘Do you know Cap Ferrat? … Between Nice and Monte Carlo …’

  Maigret did. He had now more or less worked out the Côte d’Azur: one long boulevard starting in Cannes and ending in Menton, a boulevard sixty kilometres long, with villas and the occasional casino, a handful of luxury hotels …

  The famous blue sea … The mountains … And all the attractions promised by the tourist guides: orange trees, mimosas, sun, palm trees, stone pines, tennis, golf, tea rooms and American bars …

  ‘And what did you discover?’

  ‘Yes, well. Harry Brown has a mistress on the Côte! The manager has spotted her numerous times in Cap Ferrat, where he visits her … A woman around thirty, widowed or divorced, very proper, by all accounts, whom he has set up in a villa …’

  Was Maigret listening? He was looking at the impressive night-time panorama with a grumpy expression. Boutigues continued:

  ‘He goes to see her about once a month … And it’s a running joke at the Hôtel du Cap because he goes through a whole rigmarole to attempt to hide his affair … To the extent that, whenever he spends the night with her, he comes back in via the service stairs and then makes out that he’s not been out at all …’

  ‘Very amusing!’ said Maigret, so half-heartedly that Boutigues felt quite discouraged.

  ‘Do you want him put under surveillance?’

  ‘No … yes …’

  ‘Are you going to pay a visit to the lady in Cap Ferrat?’

  Maigret didn’t know! He couldn’t think of three dozen things at the same time, and at the moment he wasn’t thinking about Harry Brown, but about William. In Place Macé he lightly squeezed his companion’s hand and hopped into a taxi.

  ‘Follow the Cap d’Antibes road. I’ll tell you where to stop.’

  And he repeated to himself, all alone in the back of the taxi:

  ‘William Brown was murdered!’

  The small gate, the gravel path, then the bell, an electric light coming on above the door, footsteps in the hall, the door opening …

  ‘It’s you,’ Gina Martini sighed when she recognized the inspector and then stepped back to allow him to enter.

  A man’s voice could be heard in the living room.

  ‘Come in … Allow me to explain …’

 
; The man was standing up, with a notebook in his hand, and half the old woman’s body had disappeared inside a cupboard.

  ‘Monsieur Petitfils … We asked him to come in order to …’

  Monsieur Petitfils was a thin man with a long, drooping moustache and tired-looking eyes.

  ‘He is the manager of one of the principal letting agencies for villas … We called him for some advice and …’

  Still that same smell of musk. The two women had taken off their mourning clothes and were wearing dressing gowns and slippers.

  The place was a mess. Was the light even dimmer than usual? Everything looked a dull grey. The old woman emerged from her cupboard, greeted Maigret and explained:

  ‘Since I saw those two women at the funeral, I haven’t felt at ease … So I approached Monsieur Petitfils to ask his advice … He agrees with me that it would be best to draw up an inventory …’

  ‘An inventory of what?’

  ‘Of the objects that belonged to us and those that belonged to William … We have been at it since two o’clock this afternoon …’

  That much was clear! There were piles of linen on the tables, disparate objects scattered on the ground, stacks of books, more linen in baskets …

  And Monsieur Petitfils took some notes and put crosses next to certain objects on his list.

  What had Maigret come here for? It wasn’t Brown’s villa any more, so there was no point in looking for his memory here. They were clearing out the cupboards, the drawers, piling everything up, sorting, logging.

  ‘As for the stove, that has always belonged to me,’ said the old woman. ‘I had it twenty years ago, in my lodgings in Toulouse.’

  ‘Can I offer you anything, inspector?’ asked Gina.

  There was one dirty glass: that of the businessman. As he wrote his notes, he was smoking one of Brown’s cigars.

  ‘No, thank you … I just came by to say …’

  To say what?

  ‘… that I hope to arrest the murderer tomorrow …’

  ‘Already?’

  They weren’t that interested. Instead, the old woman asked him:

  ‘You must have been to see the son, is that right? … What did he say? … What is he planning to do? … Does he intend to come and take everything away from us?’