Maigret's Revolver Page 8

  ‘You can sit down in here.’

  They had gone through the entrance hall and she had lit just the tall standard lamp in the drawing room. For herself she had chosen a large pale-green sofa, on which she was half-reclining. The breeze coming through the tall French windows ruffled the curtains. She stared at Maigret with the solemn expression of a child looking at an adult about whom they have heard a great deal.

  ‘I didn’t imagine you like this,’ she said eventually.

  ‘How did you imagine me?’

  ‘I don’t know. But you’re better-looking.’

  ‘The concierge said you wouldn’t mind my coming up to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘About Madame?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  It didn’t surprise her. Nothing seemed to surprise her.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-two, and I’ve been in Paris six years. You can go ahead.’

  He began by showing her the photograph of Alain Lagrange.

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  ‘No, never seen him.’

  ‘You’re sure? He’s never visited your employer?’

  ‘Not since I’ve been with her, anyway. Young men aren’t her type, whatever people might think.’

  ‘And why would they think that?’

  ‘Because of her age.’

  ‘Have you worked for her long?’

  ‘Since she came here. Nearly two years.’

  ‘So you didn’t work for her when she lived in Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette?’

  ‘No, I started work the day she moved in.’

  ‘And she still had her previous maid?’

  ‘I never met her. Seemed like Madame wanted to begin again from scratch. Furniture, ornaments, all brand new.’

  This seemed to have a meaning for her, and Maigret thought he could guess what was behind it.

  ‘You don’t like her?’

  ‘She’s not the kind of woman you can like. Anyway she doesn’t care.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She just lives for herself. She doesn’t bother to be nice. When she’s talking, it’s not for you, it’s because she wants to talk.’

  ‘And you don’t know who telephoned when she suddenly decided to leave for London?’

  ‘No. She picked up herself. She didn’t say any name.’

  ‘Did she sound surprised, annoyed?’

  ‘If you knew her, you’d know she never gives away what she’s feeling.’

  ‘And you don’t know anything about her past?’

  ‘Just that she lived in Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, that when she talks to me, she’s very familiar. And that she’s fussy about the accounts.’

  To hear her speak, this explained everything and, once again, he had the feeling he understood what she meant.

  ‘So you don’t think she’s a real lady?’

  ‘No, definitely not. I worked for a real society lady once, I can tell the difference. And I worked once in the Place Saint-Georges neighbourhood, for a kept woman.’

  ‘And Jeanne Debul used to be a kept woman?’

  ‘If she was once, she isn’t any more. She’s rich, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Did any men come to visit her?’

  ‘Her masseur, every other day. She’s very familiar with him too. She calls him by his first name, Ernest.’

  ‘Nothing between them?’

  ‘That doesn’t interest her.’

  Georgette’s pyjama top was very short and the kind that goes on over the head; since she was lounging back among the cushions, a band of pink flesh appeared above her waist.

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I don’t have any cigarettes.’

  ‘There are some over on the table.’

  She found it quite natural that he should stand up and offer her the packet of Egyptian cigarettes belonging to Jeanne Debul. While he struck a match, she held the cigarette awkwardly and puffed out smoke like a beginner.

  She was pleased with herself, pleased to have been woken up by as important a man as Maigret, and to have him listen attentively to what she had to say.

  ‘She has plenty of friends, men and women, but they don’t often come here. She rings them up; she usually calls them by their first names. She sees them in the evenings, at cocktail parties or in restaurants and nightclubs. I’ve often wondered whether she mightn’t have run a house in the past. Know what I mean?’

  ‘And the people who come here?’

  ‘Her financial adviser’s the main one. She has him come into her office. He’s a lawyer, Maître Gibon, he doesn’t live round here, he’s in the ninth arrondissement. So she must know him from before, when she lived over there. And then there’s another man, a bit younger, who works for a bank, and she talks to him about her savings. He’s the one she telephones if she wants to buy anything on the stock exchange.’

  ‘Have you ever seen a man called François Lagrange?’

  ‘The bad penny!’

  She corrected herself with a laugh.

  ‘It’s not me that calls him that. She does. When I announce him, she mutters:

  ‘“Oh, the bad old penny, turning up again!”

  ‘That tells you something, don’t you think? He always says when he arrives:

  ‘“Ask Madame Debul if she is willing to receive Baron Lagrange.”’

  ‘And she does?’ asked Maigret.

  ‘Almost always.’

  ‘And is that often?’

  ‘Maybe once a week. Some weeks he doesn’t come, and others he comes twice. Last week he came round here twice on the same day.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Always in the morning, about eleven. Apart from Ernest, her masseur, he’s the only one she receives in her bedroom.’

  And as Maigret registered this:

  ‘It’s not what you think. Even for the lawyer, she gets dressed. She dresses very well, mind you, very discreetly. That’s what struck me about her right away: the way she is when she’s in bed, and the way she is when she’s up and dressed. It’s like two different people. She doesn’t talk the same way, her voice is kind of different.’

  ‘She talks in a more vulgar way when she’s in bed?’

  ‘Yes. Not just vulgar. I don’t know how to put it.’

  ‘Is François Lagrange the only person she talks to like that?’

  ‘Yes. She’ll call out to him, whatever she happens to be wearing:

  ‘“Come on in, you!”

  ‘As if they were old friends.’

  ‘Or old accomplices?’

  ‘If you say so. Until I leave the room, they don’t talk about anything important. He’s timid; he sits right on the edge of one of her fancy armchairs, as if he’s afraid of creasing the satin.’

  ‘Does he bring any papers with him, a briefcase?’

  ‘No. He looks distinguished. Not my type, but he has presence, I’d say.’

  ‘And you’ve never overheard their conversation?’

  ‘That’s impossible with her, she guesses everything. She’s got sharp ears, all right. She’s the one who listens outside doors in this house. If I use the phone, I can be sure she’s somewhere spying on me. If I take a letter out to post, she’ll say, “Now who are you writing to?” And I know she looks at the address. See the kind of person she is?’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘There’s something else you haven’t seen and this’ll really give you a surprise.’

  She sprang to her feet and tossed the cigarette end into the ashtray.

  ‘Come with me. You’ve seen the drawing room. It’s furnished the same way all the drawing rooms are in this building. One of the best decorators in Paris did the work. This is the dining room, modern style too. Wait while I put the light on.’

  She pushed open another door and switched on the light, then stood aside so that he could see the bedroom, entirely furnished in white satin.

  ‘And these are her evening clothes.’ />
  In an adjoining dressing room, she opened a cupboard and fondled the silky material of the dresses hanging there in perfect order.

  ‘So. Now, come with me.’

  She went ahead of him down a corridor and the crepe pyjamas had managed to get themselves wedged in the cleft between her buttocks. She opened another door and switched on another light.

  ‘There!’

  This was a small office at the back of the apartment, an office that could have belonged to an accountant. No trace of a woman’s presence. A metal filing cabinet, painted olive green, and behind the swivel chair, a huge safe of a fairly recent model.

  ‘This is where she spends part of her afternoons, and this is where she has the lawyer and the banker come. Look . . .’

  And she pointed out to him a pile of newspapers: Stock Exchange Journal. Maigret did also notice alongside it a racing gazette.

  ‘She wears glasses?’

  ‘Just in this room.’

  A pair of large round horn-rimmed spectacles was sitting on a blotter with leather corners.

  He automatically tried the filing cabinet, but it was locked.

  ‘Every night, when she comes in, she shuts her jewels up in the safe.’

  ‘What else is in there? Have you ever seen inside it?’

  ‘Deeds and things. Papers mostly. And a little red notebook that she often looks things up in.’

  From the desk, Maigret picked up a telephone pad, the kind on which people note down frequently called numbers, and started to leaf through the pages. He read out the names under his breath.

  Georgette explained:

  ‘Milkman . . . butcher . . . ironmonger on the Avenue de Neuilly . . . Madame’s shoemaker . . .’

  When instead of a surname he read out a first name, she would smile in satisfaction:

  ‘Olga . . . Nadine . . . Marcelle . . .’

  ‘What did I tell you?’

  There were some men’s first names too, but not as many. Then there were some that the maid did not recognize. Under ‘Banks’, there were no fewer than five establishments listed, including an American bank in Place Vendôme.

  He looked for Delteil’s name, but it wasn’t there, although an André and a Pierre figured somewhere in the list. Could they be the politician and his brother?

  ‘When you’d seen the rest of this apartment, did you expect to find this?’

  To please her, he said no.

  ‘Aren’t you thirsty? Would you like a drink?’

  ‘The concierge kindly made some coffee for me.’

  ‘You don’t want a drop of something stronger?’

  She led him back to the drawing room, switching off lights as they went, and as if their conversation was going to last longer, took up her position on the sofa, since he had refused the offer of a drink.

  ‘Does your employer drink alcohol?’

  ‘Like a man.’

  ‘You mean she drinks a lot?’

  ‘I’ve never seen her drunk, except once or twice when she got in very late. But she pours herself a whisky after her morning coffee, and has another three or four in the afternoon. That’s why I said she drinks like a man. She takes her whisky almost neat.’

  ‘And she didn’t tell you which London hotel she was going to stay in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or how long she meant to stay?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me anything! She took just half an hour to pack her bags and get dressed.’

  ‘What was she wearing when she left?’

  ‘Her grey two-piece suit.’

  ‘Did she take any evening dresses?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘I don’t think I have any more questions for you, so I’ll let you get back to bed.’

  ‘Already? Are you in a hurry?’

  She deliberately allowed a little more flesh to appear between the pyjama top and trousers, and provocatively crossed her legs in a certain way.

  ‘Do you often follow up cases at night?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘You really don’t want a drink?’

  She sighed.

  ‘Now I’m awake, I won’t be able to get back to sleep. What’s the time?’

  ‘Nearly three o’clock.’

  ‘At four it’ll be getting light and the birds will start singing.’

  He stood up, feeling awkward at having to disappoint her, and perhaps she was still hoping that he didn’t want to leave, that he intended to approach her. It was only when she saw him heading for the door that she got up from the sofa.

  ‘Will you be coming back?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘It’ll never be a nuisance. Just ring the bell with two shorts and a long. I’ll know it’s you and I’ll open the door. When I’m here on my own, I don’t always answer the door.’

  ‘Thank you, mademoiselle.’

  That smell of bed and underarm sweat reached him once more. One of her large breasts brushed against his sleeve with a certain insistence.

  ‘Good luck,’ she whispered, as he reached the stairs.

  And she leaned over the banister to watch him go down.

  At the Police Judiciaire, Janvier was waiting for him, having spent several hours in Rue Popincourt. He looked exhausted.

  ‘How was it, chief? Has he said anything yet?’

  Maigret shook his head.

  ‘I left Houard back there, just in case. We turned the place upside down, but we didn’t find anything much. I just thought I’d show you this.’

  Maigret first poured himself a glass of cognac, and passed the bottle to the inspector.

  ‘You’ll see, it’s a bit odd.’

  Collected in a cardboard folder, apparently the former cover of a school exercise book, was a pile of press cuttings, some with photographs. Maigret, frowning, read the headlines, and glanced through the articles, while Janvier watched him with a quizzical air.

  All the articles without exception concerned himself, and some dated back seven years. Reports of cases, from day to day, sometimes containing a copy of the trial.

  ‘Do you notice anything, chief? While I was waiting for you, I read right through them.’

  Maigret did notice something, on which he was reluctant to comment.

  ‘It looks a lot as if someone has picked out cases where you seemed to be sort of on the side of the accused, doesn’t it?’

  One of the articles was even headed: ‘Chief Inspector Maigret has a kind heart.’

  Another was devoted to evidence given by Maigret as witness in a High Court trial, in which all his replies had shown his sympathy for the young man in the dock.

  Even clearer was another article, published in a weekly magazine a year earlier, which concerned not one particular case but the question of crime in general, and was entitled: ‘Maigret’s Humanity’.

  ‘What do you think of all this? The whole folder proves this fellow has been stalking you for a long time; he’s interested in all your sayings and doings, and in your character.’

  Some words were underlined in blue pencil, among others the words indulgence and understanding.

  And finally, one whole passage was outlined, in which a journalist reported the last morning of a criminal sentenced to death, revealing that after having refused a priest, the condemned man had asked as a favour a final conversation with Chief Inspector Maigret.

  ‘You’re not amused?’

  And indeed, Maigret was looking more solemn, more weighed down, as if this discovery had opened up new perspectives.

  ‘You didn’t find anything else?’

  ‘Just bills. Unpaid, of course. The Baron owes money right and left. His coal merchant hasn’t been paid for this past winter. Here’s a photo of his wife with their first child.’

  It was a poor print. The dress and hairstyle were no longer fashionable. The young woman posing for the photograph had a melancholy smile. Perhaps that was the ‘look’ of the period, in order to seem distinguished. But Maigret could have sworn that, ju
st from seeing the photograph, anyone would realize this woman was not destined to have a happy life.

  ‘In a wardrobe I found one of her dresses, pale-blue satin, and a cardboard box stuffed full of baby clothes.’

  Janvier had three children, the youngest not yet a year old.

  ‘My wife only keeps their first pair of shoes.’

  Maigret picked up the telephone.

  ‘Special Infirmary,’ he requested in a low voice. ‘Hello. Who’s that speaking?’

  It was the head nurse, a red-haired woman whom he knew.

  ‘Maigret here. How is Lagrange? . . . What did you say? I can hardly hear you.’

  She told him that the patient, who had been given an injection, had gone to sleep almost immediately after the professor had left. Half an hour later, she had heard a slight noise and had tiptoed in to see him.

  ‘He was crying.’

  ‘He didn’t say anything to you?’

  ‘He heard me come in, and I put the light on. There were still tears running down his cheeks. He looked at me without saying anything for a moment or two, and I had the feeling he was going to tell me something in confidence.’

  ‘Did he seem to be in his right mind?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘It’s not for me to say,’ she replied, beating a retreat.

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘He reached out as if he wanted to hold my hand.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘No, he began to groan and repeated the same thing over and over:

  ‘“You won’t let them hit me, will you? Please don’t let them hit me.”’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘In the end he started to get agitated. I thought he was going to jump out of bed. He was shouting:

  ‘“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! They can’t let me die . . .”’

  Maigret hung up and turned to Janvier, who was fighting off sleep.

  ‘You can go home to bed.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I have to wait till five thirty. I need to know whether that boy took the Calais train.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘To follow someone to England.’

  On the Wednesday morning, Alain had stolen a revolver and obtained ammunition. On Thursday, he had turned up at Boulevard Richard-Wallace, and half an hour later Jeanne Debul, who knew his father, had received a phone call and had left in a hurry for Gare du Nord.