‘Belhomme? Maigret here. I need your help, old fellow. It’s concerning a certain Manuel Palmari, who lives, or rather lived, on Rue des Acacias. He is dead. Some of his little friends decided that he had outstayed his welcome. Palmari owned a restaurant on Rue Fontaine, the Clou Doré, which he handed over to a manager about three years ago.
‘Did you get that? He lived with a certain Aline Bauche. She has an account in her own name at the branch of the Crédit Lyonnais on Avenue de la Grande-Armée. It seems that she deposited a portion of the Clou Doré takings there every week.
‘I have reason to believe that Palmari had access to more substantial sources of revenue. We found nothing at his apartment except a few thousand- and hundred-franc bills in his wallet and roughly two thousand francs in his mistress’s handbag.
‘I don’t need to draw you a diagram. The stash must be somewhere, perhaps in the possession of a lawyer, perhaps invested in a company or in property. I could be wrong, but I believe it is a large amount …
‘Yes, urgent, as always. Thanks, old man. See you tomorrow.’
Then a call to Madame Maigret, like the one he had made that morning.
‘I don’t think I’ll be home for dinner, and it’s possible I may not be home until late … Now? … Avenue de Wagram, in a bar … What will you have to eat? … A herb omelette? …’
Finally, to the Police Judiciaire.
‘Put Lucas on the line, will you? … Hello! Lucas? … Can you come straight away to Rue des Acacias? … Yes … Organize a night shift to take over from you at eight … Who’s available? … Janin? … Perfect … Warn him he will have to stay awake all night … No, not outside … He’ll have a comfortable armchair.’
The young man stood up, his cheeks crimson, and followed the woman, who was old enough to be his mother, as she weaved her way between the tables and chairs. Was it his first time?
‘Waiter, a beer.’
Outside, the air was sizzling, and the women looked like they weren’t wearing anything under their light dresses. If the self-important prefect could see Maigret now, wouldn’t he have accused him again of doing work inappropriate for a departmental head?
Nevertheless, this is how Maigret had succeeded in the majority of his investigations: by climbing stairs, sniffing round in dark corners, chatting to all and sundry and asking what at first seemed like pointless questions, spending hours in bars, not all of them entirely salubrious.
The little magistrate had understood that and envied him.
A few minutes later, Maigret entered the lodge of the building where Aline lived. Concierges are like cleaners: all good or all bad. He had met some who were charming, neat and easy-going, whose lodges were models of order and cleanliness.
This one, who must have been around fifty-five, belonged to the other category, that of the crabby ones, always complaining about their health problems and ready to blame their sad lot on the wickedness of the world.
‘You again?’
She was shelling peas, a cup of coffee in front of her on the oilcloth that covered the round table.
‘What else do you want from me? I’ve already told you that I didn’t see anyone go up, apart from the butcher’s boy who has been delivering here for years.’
‘I suppose you have a list of the tenants?’
‘How else could I collect all the rents? If only everyone paid the day it is due! When I think that I have to go up four or five times to see people who don’t want for anything!’
‘Could you give me the list?’
‘I don’t know if I should. It would be better if I asked the landlady first.’
‘Does she have a telephone?’
‘Even if she didn’t have one, I wouldn’t have far to go.’
‘She lives here in the building?’
‘Really? Are you making out you don’t know her? Oh well, too bad if I’m out of order. Now’s not the time to bother her, because she has enough worries as it is.’
‘You mean …?’
‘You didn’t know? No matter! You’d have found out one day. Once the police start sniffing around … Yes, it’s Mademoiselle Bauche.’
‘The receipts are filled out in her name?’
‘Who else’s name, since the building belongs to her?’
Without being asked, Maigret chased the cat from the wicker chair and sat down.
‘Let me see the list.’
‘On your own head be it. You’ll have to sort it out with Mademoiselle Bauche, and she is not always easy to deal with.’
‘Is she tight with money?’
‘She doesn’t like it when people don’t pay, not to mention her moods.’
‘I see that the apartment next to yours is occupied by someone called Jean Chabaud. Who is he?’
‘A young man, barely twenty, works in television. He is nearly always away travelling, because he mainly covers sports: football, motor racing, the Tour de France …’
‘Married?’
‘No.’
‘Does he know Aline Bauche?’
‘I don’t think so. I was the one who got him to sign the lease.’
‘And the apartment on the right?’
‘Can’t you read? There’s a nameplate on the door: Mademoiselle Jeanine Hérel, chiropodist.’
‘Has she lived in the building for long?’
‘Fifteen years. She’s older than me. She has lots of clients.’
‘First floor on the left, François Vignon …’
‘Is it a crime to be called Vignon now?’
‘Who is he?’
‘He works in insurance, married, two children. The youngest is only a few months old.’
‘What time does he leave the building?’
‘Around eight thirty.’
‘In the apartment on the right, Justin Lavancher.’
‘Inspector on the Métro. He starts work at six in the morning and wakes me up as he walks past the lodge at five thirty. A right grumbler with a bad liver. His wife is so stuck up. They should keep an eye on that daughter of theirs; she’s just turned sixteen.’
Second floor on the left: Mabel Tuppler, an American woman, around thirty, lives on her own, writes articles for newspapers and magazines back home.
‘No, she doesn’t see any men. Men leave her cold. Unlike women …’
On the same floor, on the right, a retired couple in their sixties, the Maupois, formerly in the shoe business, and their maid Yolande, who lives upstairs in the garret. Three or four times a year the Maupois treat themselves to a trip to Venice, Barcelona, Florence, Naples, Greece or somewhere similar.
‘What do they do with their days?’
‘Monsieur Maupois goes out around eleven to drink his aperitif, always dressed to the nines. In the afternoon, after his nap, he accompanies his wife on a walk or to do some shopping. If they weren’t so stingy …’
Third floor. On one side a certain Jean Destouches, PE teacher at a school at Porte Maillot. Goes out of the house at eight o’clock in the morning, often leaving his girlfriend of the previous week or the previous night asleep in his bed.
‘It’s like a revolving door up there. How can he do sport when he doesn’t get to sleep until two o’clock in the morning?’
‘Do Destouches and Aline Bauche know each other?’
‘I’ve never seen them together.’
‘Was he here before she became the owner of the building?’
‘He only moved in last year.’
‘Have you ever seen Mademoiselle Bauche visiting his landing, going in or out of his door?’
‘No.’
On the right, Gino Massoletti, the French representative of an Italian car company. Married, with a very pretty wife.
‘Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,’ the concierge added between gritted teeth. ‘And as for their maid, who lives up in the garret along with the Lavanchers’ maid, she’s like a bitch in heat. I have to let her in after hours at least three times a week.’
Four
th floor: Palmari, the late Palmari rather, to the left, and Aline. On the same landing, the Barillards.
‘What does Fernand Barillard do?’
‘He’s a travelling salesman. He works for a luxury packaging firm: chocolate boxes, paper cones for sugared almonds, boxes for bottles of perfume. Last New Year he gave me a bottle of perfume and some marrons glacés that can’t have cost him a penny.’
‘What age? Married?’
‘Forty to forty-five. Quite a pretty wife, buxom, always laughing, a very blonde Belgian woman. She sings all day long.’
‘Do they have a maid?’
‘No. She does the housework and the shopping. She goes to a tea room every afternoon.’
‘Is she a friend of Aline Bauche?’
‘I’ve never seen them together.’
On the fifth floor, Tony Pasquier, second barman at Claridge’s, his wife and two children, aged eight and eleven. A Spanish maid who lives in the garret alongside the other three maids in the building.
In the apartment on the right, an Englishman, James Stuart, a bachelor, who never goes out before five in the afternoon and doesn’t return until the early hours. A man of independent means. A cleaner comes in the late afternoon. Frequent trips to Cannes, Monte Carlo, Deauville, Biarritz and, in winter, various Swiss resorts.
‘Any relations with Aline Bauche?’
‘Why do you keep asking about everyone in the building having relations with her? And what do you mean by “relations” anyway? Do you think they sleep together? None of the tenants even knows she is the landlady.’
In any case, Maigret put a cross next to the Englishman’s name, not because he had any connection to the present investigation, but because he might be a client of the Police Judiciaire one day. The Gambling Squad, for example.
That left the sixth floor, the garret. The four maids, from right to left: Yolande, who worked for the Maupois couple on the second floor; Massoletti’s Spanish woman; the Lavanchers’ maid; and finally Tony the barman’s maid.
‘Has Stuart lived in the building long?’
‘Two years. He took the apartment over from an Armenian rug seller and bought all his furniture and fittings.’
Another inhabitant of the garret was Mademoiselle Fay, who was known as Mademoiselle Josette, an old lady who was the longest-standing tenant in the building. She was eighty-two years old and still did her own housework and shopping.
‘Her room is full of birds in cages, which she puts on the window-sill in turn. She has at least ten canaries.’
An empty room, then the room of Jef Claes.
‘Who’s he?’
‘A deaf and dumb old man who lives on his own. In 1940 he escaped from Belgium with his two married daughters and his grandchildren. As they were waiting in northern France, in Douai I believe, for a refugee train to come and take them away, the station was bombed, and there were more than a hundred casualties.
‘Most of his family was wiped out. He himself received wounds to the head and face.
‘One of his sons-in-law was killed in Germany; the other remarried in America.
‘He lives alone and never goes out except to buy food.’
The peas had all been shelled a long time ago.
‘Now I’m hoping you will leave me in peace. I’d just like to know when the body will be returned and the funeral will take place. I should make a collection among the tenants to buy a wreath.’
‘We can’t be certain as yet.’
‘There’s someone over there who seems to be looking for you …’
It was Lucas, who had just come into the building and was standing outside the lodge.
‘Police. I can smell them at ten paces.’
Maigret smiled.
‘Thank you!’
‘I only answered your questions because I had to. But I’m not a snitch, and if everyone just minded their own business …’
As if to purify the lodge of the imaginary fumes that Maigret had left there, she went and opened the window that looked out on the courtyard.
‘What are we going to do, chief?’
‘We’re going upstairs. Fourth floor on the left. Janvier must be dreaming about a cool glass of beer. That is, unless Aline has taken pity on him and offered him one of the bottles I spotted in her fridge this morning.’
When Maigret rang the bell of the apartment, Janvier answered the door with a strange expression on his face. Maigret understood why once he had gone into the living room. Aline was leaving out of the other door, the one leading to the bedroom. In place of the light-blue dress she had on that morning she was wearing an orange silk négligé. On a side-table there were two glasses, one of them half full, some bottles of beer and some playing cards which had just been dealt out.
‘Look, chief, it’s not what you think,’ Janvier said somewhat defensively.
Maigret’s eyes were laughing. He casually counted the hands of cards.
‘Belote?’
‘Yes. Let me explain. When you left I insisted that she should have something to eat. She didn’t want to listen and shut herself in her room.’
‘Did she try to make a telephone call?’
‘No. She lay on her bed for about three-quarters of an hour and then reappeared in a dressing gown, looking agitated, like someone who has been struggling to get to sleep.
‘ “Look, inspector, what’s the point of me being at home if I’m simply a prisoner?” she said to me. “What would happen if I decided to go out?”
‘I thought I was right to reply: “I won’t prevent you, but an inspector will follow you.”
‘ “Are you intending to stay all night?”
‘ “Not me. One of my colleagues.”
‘ “Do you play cards?”
‘ “Sometimes.”
‘ “How about a round of belote to pass the time? That would help take my mind off things.” ’
‘By the way,’ Maigret told Lucas, ‘you should telephone headquarters and get one of our men to come and stand guard outside the building. Someone good at not being given the slip.’
‘Bonfils is there. He’s the best at this sort of thing.’
‘He’d better let his wife know he won’t be home tonight. Where is Lapointe?’
‘At the office.’
‘Tell him to come and wait for me here. Have him come up and stay with you until I get back. Do you play belote, Lucas?’
‘I can hold my own.’
‘Aline will be calling on your services too.’
He knocked on the bedroom door, which opened immediately. Aline must have been listening.
‘Forgive me for disturbing you.’
‘You seem to regard this place as your own. I’m not wrong, am I?’
‘I simply wish to put myself at your disposal in case you need to contact anyone. There will be nothing in the papers until tomorrow at the earliest. Would you like me, for example, to inform the manager at the Clou Doré about what happened? The lawyer, perhaps, or family members?’
‘Manuel didn’t have any family.’
‘And you?’
‘They don’t care about me any more than I care about them.’
‘If they knew you were the owner of a building like this they would come to Paris in a flash, don’t you think?’
She took that on the chin and didn’t respond or ask him how he knew.
‘Best wait until tomorrow to contact an undertaker; you don’t yet know when the body will be returned to you. Do you want us to bring him back here?’
‘This is where he lived, isn’t it?’
‘I suggest you eat something. I’ll leave Inspector Lucas with you, whom you know. If there is anything at all you want to say to me, I’ll be in the building for a while longer.’
This time the young woman gave him a sharper look.
‘In the building?’
‘I thought I’d like to meet the tenants.’
She kept her eyes on him as he dismissed Janvier.
�
�I’ll send someone to take over around eight or nine o’clock, Lucas.’
‘I had Janin lined up, but I’d rather stay myself, if someone could bring up some sandwiches.’
‘And beer …’
Lucas pointed at the empty bottles.
‘Unless there are more in the fridge.’
For nearly two hours Maigret went through the building from top to bottom and from one end to the other: polite, patient but as obstinate as a door-to-door salesman.
Gradually the names given him by the concierge ceased to be abstractions and became shapes, faces, eyes, voices, attitudes – actual human beings.
The chiropodist on the ground floor could have been mistaken for a card-reader, with her very pale face devoured by almost hypnotic dark eyes.
‘Police? Why? I haven’t done anything wrong in my life. Ask my clients – I’ve been caring for them for nine years.’
‘Someone in the building has died.’
‘I saw a body being taken out, but I was busy at the time. Who is it?’
‘Monsieur Palmari.’
‘I don’t know him. Which floor?’
‘The fourth.’
‘I’ve heard the name mentioned. He has a very pretty wife, though she has a few airs and graces. I’ve never seen him. Was he young?’
Chabaud, the television man, wasn’t at home. The Métro inspector hadn’t returned from work, but his wife was there with a friend, sat in front of some petit fours and cups of hot chocolate.
‘What do you want me to say? I don’t even know who lives upstairs from us. If the man never left his apartment, then it’s no surprise that I never bumped into him on the stairs. As for my husband, he has never been higher than this floor. What business would he have up there?’
Another woman in the apartment opposite, with a baby in a cradle, a little girl with a bare bottom and a sterilizer full of feeding bottles on the floor.
On the floor above, Miss Tuppler was tapping away on her typewriter. She was tall, sturdily built and, because of the heat, was wearing only pyjamas, her breasts showing through the half-open jacket. She felt no compulsion to button it up.
‘A murder in the building? How exciting! Have you arrested the … how you say … murderer … And your name be Maigret? … Maigret from Quai des Orfèvres? …’
Maigret's Patience Page 5