He led Maigret into an adjoining room, with the same dimensions, more or less, as Palmari’s little room and quite comfortably furnished. As the windows looked out on to the courtyard, it was darker than the other rooms, and Barillard turned on the lamps.
‘Take a seat, if you wish. Since I have no choice, I will listen to what you have to say.’
‘You just said something amusing.’
‘I can assure you I have no intention to amuse you. We had plans to go to the cinema this evening, my wife and I, and you will make us miss the start of the film. So what did I say that was so funny?’
‘That on principle you didn’t like to involve women in business matters.’
‘I’m not unusual in that.’
‘We’ll come back to that later. As far as Madame Barillard is concerned, at least, I’m inclined to believe you. Have you been married long?’
‘Eight years.’
‘Were you in the same line of business as you are now?’
‘Pretty much the same, yes.’
‘What was different?’
‘I was more on the production side, in a cardboard factory in Fontenay-sous-Bois.’
‘Were you living in this building?’
‘No, in a house in Fontenay.’
‘Let’s take a look at your case of samples.’
It was lying on the floor to the left of the door, and Barillard reluctantly hoisted it on to his desk.
‘The key?’
‘It’s not locked.’
Maigret opened it and, as he expected, among the luxury boxes, almost all of them tastefully decorated, he found some of those boxes that jewellers use for watches and jewels that are sold without cases.
‘How many jewellers have you visited today?’
‘I don’t know. Three or four. Clockmakers and jewellers are just a small part of our clientele.’
‘Do you keep a note of the establishments you visit?’
Once again, Fernand Barillard twitched.
‘I don’t have the mentality of an accountant or a statistician. I simply write down the orders.’
‘And of course, when you pass on the orders to your firm, you keep copies?’
‘Maybe others do that. I have complete faith in my employers and I weigh myself down as little as possible with paperwork.’
‘So you wouldn’t be able to provide me with a list of your customers?’
‘That’s right, I wouldn’t.’
‘What is the name of your company?’
‘Gelot and Son, Avenue des Gobelins.’
‘I’m sure they keep better records than you do, and I will visit them in the morning.’
‘Can you tell me what you are hoping to achieve?’
‘A question for you, first. You claim that you never mix women and business, correct?’
Barillard lit a cigarette and shrugged his shoulders.
‘But what if that woman is called Aline and lives on your doorstep?’
‘I didn’t know she was called Aline.’
‘But you knew straight away who I was talking about.’
‘There is only one other apartment on this floor, hence “on our doorstep”, and, as far as I know, only one woman in that apartment.
‘I’ve sometimes crossed her on the stairs or shared the lift with her and tipped my hat in greeting, but I don’t recall ever having spoken to her.
‘Maybe I might have just sometimes held open the door of the lift and murmured: “After you.” ’
‘Does your wife know?’
‘Know about what?’
‘Everything. Your work. Your various activities. Your relationship with Monsieur Louis.’
‘I told you that I don’t know Monsieur Louis.’
‘Yet an hour ago he telephoned to warn you that I was making inquiries on Rue Fontaine and he reported part of my conversation with the owner of the Clou Doré and his barman.’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Nothing. As you see, I’m doing the talking. Sometimes it’s best to be up front, lay all your cards on the table.
‘I could have waited until I’d seen your employers and questioned the accountant at Avenue des Gobelins. They wouldn’t have had time to fiddle the books to cover your back. And you know very well what I will find there.’
‘Names, addresses and figures. Lots of Pompadour boxes at a hundred and fifty francs a dozen. Lots of—’
‘Lots of jewel boxes at so much a dozen or a hundred.’
‘So what?’
‘Consider, Monsieur Barillard, that I have in my possession a list of jewellers in Paris and in the suburbs which have been the targets of major thefts in the last few years, whether hold-ups or, more recently, smash-and-grabs using tyre levers to break the window.
‘Do you see what I’m getting at? I am as good as certain that on the list of your clients that Gelot and Son will provide me I will find more or less all the names I have on my own list.’
‘So what if you do? Given that I visit most of the jewellers in the area, except the large firms that use only fine leather cases, you’d expect—’
‘I don’t think the examining magistrate in charge of the Palmari case will be of the same opinion.’
‘Because my neighbour is in the jewel trade too?’
‘In a manner of speaking. And for the last three years, since he has been an invalid, with the help of a woman.’
‘Is that why you asked me earlier whether—’
‘Exactly. Now, I am asking you if you are Aline Bauche’s lover and for how long.’
It was an instinctive reaction. In spite of himself, the man cast a furtive glance at the door, then tiptoed across and opened it to make sure his wife wasn’t listening there.
‘If you had talked to me like this in the dining room I’d have punched your lights out. You can’t just come into my house and cast suspicion in this way.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘The answer’s no.’
‘And you still claim you don’t know Monsieur Louis?’
‘I don’t know Monsieur Louis.’
‘May I?’
Maigret reached out for the telephone, dialled the number of the apartment opposite and recognized Lucas’ voice.
‘What is your client doing?’
‘She slept for a while, then she ate a slice of ham and an egg. She is getting agitated and has started pacing round the apartment, looking daggers at me every time she walks past me.’
‘Has she tried to make a phone call?’
‘No. I’m keeping a close eye on her.’
‘Any visitors?’
‘No, no one.’
‘Thank you. I’ll be there in a few minutes. In the meantime, can you ring headquarters and get them to send another man? Here, yes. I know Bonfils is downstairs.
‘I want a second man, and you will give him the following instruction: first, he should pick up a car; second, he should park outside the main door and never let it out of his sight.
‘His job is to tail a certain Fernand Barillard, if he emerges either alone or with his wife. He is the travelling salesman who lives in the apartment opposite the one you are in now.
‘I’m here now, yes. Have someone put a tap on his line.
‘Description of Barillard: about forty, one metre seventy-five, thick dark hair, slim dark moustache, elegantly dressed, a ladies’ man. His wife, if she happens to be with him, is about ten years younger, blonde, attractive, fairly plump.
‘I’ll stay here until the new inspector arrives. See you later, then.’
While he was speaking, Barillard was giving him a hateful stare.
‘I assume,’ said Maigret in an almost bland tone, ‘that you still have nothing to say to me?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘It will take about ten minutes for my inspector to get here. I intend to keep you company until then.’
‘As you wish.’
Barillard sat down in a
leather chair, picked up a magazine from a side-table and pretended to be absorbed in an article. Maigret stood up and started examining the room in detail, reading the titles of books on the bookshelves, lifting up a paperweight, opening desk drawers.
For Barillard these were ten long minutes. He would occasionally glance over the top of his magazine at this thick-set, placid man who seemed to fill the study with his bulk, to crush it under his weight, and whose expression was completely unreadable.
From time to time, Maigret took his watch from his pocket, for he had never got used to wristwatches and treasured the double-case golden fob watch he had inherited from his father.
‘Four more minutes, Monsieur Barillard.’
Barillard tried not to flinch, but his hands gave away his impatience.
‘Three minutes.’
He restrained himself, but only with the greatest difficulty.
‘There we are! I wish you goodnight and look forward to our next interview, which I hope will be just as cordial as this one.’
Maigret left the study and found the young woman, her eyes red, in the dining room.
‘My husband hasn’t done anything wrong, has he, inspector?’
‘You’ll have to ask him, madame. I hope not, for your sake.’
‘Despite appearances, he is a very gentle, affectionate man. He’s a bit short-tempered sometimes, but that’s just his nature, and he’s always the first to be sorry afterwards.’
‘Goodnight, madame.’
She saw him out with a worried look in her eyes and watched as he headed not for the lift but for the door opposite.
5.
When Aline opened the door to him, she looked worried; she gazed at him intensely, dark rings under her eyes. Maigret was more placid than ever. In the time it took to cross the landing, he had adopted that easy-going demeanour that his inspectors knew well and were never taken in by.
‘I didn’t want to leave the building without wishing you as good a night as possible.’
Lucas, who was sitting in an armchair, put the magazine he was reading on the carpet and stood up lazily. It was quite evident that the atmosphere between these two people who had just spent several hours together in the apartment and were destined to spend several more before morning was far from cordial.
‘Don’t you think you’d be better off going to bed, Aline? It’s been an emotionally draining day. I fear that tomorrow will be just as difficult, if not more so. Do you have some sort of sleeping pill or tranquillizer in your medicine cabinet?’
She gave him a hard stare, trying to read his innermost thoughts, furious that the inspector was giving her no way in.
‘For my part, I learned a lot this morning, but I need to verify certain things before I talk to you about what I have discovered. Only this evening, in fact, I made the acquaintance of the rather curious fellow who lives across the landing from you.
‘I was wrong about him at first and assumed he was merely a salesman working in chocolate and sweet boxes.
‘It turns out his business is more wide-ranging and incorporates in particular the world of jewellery.’
He took his time, refilled his pipe, apparently miles away.
‘With all this going on, I haven’t had dinner yet. I hope Monsieur Louis will still be there waiting for me at the Clou Doré and that we can eat together.’
Another silence. He pushed down the tobacco with a familiar prod of his index finger, picked out a stray flake, then finally struck a match, while Aline watched these painstaking movements with growing impatience.
‘A handsome man, that Fernand Barillard. I wouldn’t have thought one woman would be enough for him, especially as his wife seems a tad insipid for the likes of him. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know him.’
‘Naturally, the landlady of a building can’t know all her tenants intimately. Especially since I ask myself whether this is the only property you own.
‘I’ll find out tomorrow, from Maître Desgrières, with whom I have an appointment. This is a complicated business, Aline, and I don’t always feel I have a firm footing in it.
‘To be on the safe side, I’ve posted a man downstairs, in case Barillard feels a need to go out. And his telephone line, like yours, has been tapped.
‘So, you see, I’ve given you fair warning. No doubt you have nothing to say to me?’
Tight-lipped, she strode off with clipped, robotic steps to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
‘Is it true, chief, all that stuff you just said?’
‘Most of it. Goodnight. Try to stay awake. Make yourself as much strong coffee as you need and if anything happens ring me at Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. I don’t know what time I’ll be there, but I’m determined to get some sleep.’
Rather than take the lift, he slowly walked down the stairs, imagining the lives of each of the tenants as he passed their door. Some of them were watching television, and the same voices and the same music could be heard coming out of several different apartments. In Mabel Tuppler’s, heavy footsteps suggested one or two couples dancing. Inspector Lagrune was dozing at the wheel of a police car, and Maigret shook his hand distractedly.
‘Don’t you have a car, chief?’
‘I’ll find a taxi on Avenue de la Grande-Armée. Do you have your instructions?’
‘Follow that man, Fernand Barillard.’
Maigret felt less light at heart than when he had woken up that morning with sunlight streaming into his apartment, or when he had stood on the bus platform soaking up images of Paris coloured like in a children’s album.
People were often very keen to ask him about his methods. Some even thought they could analyse them, and he would look at them with mocking curiosity, since they obviously knew more about them than he did: more often than not, he simply followed his gut instincts and improvised.
The prefect would certainly not have appreciated what Maigret’s gut instincts were telling him that day, and the little examining magistrate, in spite of his admiration for Maigret, would probably have frowned.
For example, before questioning Fernand Barillard, Maigret should have collected as much information as possible about his subject, built up a case, already have at his fingertips the dates he was so sure of finding at Gelot and Son, the exact details that Maître Desgrières would possibly provide him with.
He had chosen instead to sow anxiety in Barillard’s mind, deliberately to put him on his guard, not hide the fact – indeed, quite the contrary – that he was under surveillance.
Momentarily, he had considered not saying anything at all to Aline and instead surprising her the next day by putting her in the same room as her next-door neighbour and observing their reactions.
In the end, he had played the opposite game, and now she knew that he had established a link between her and the cardboard-box salesman.
They were both under surveillance. They could neither meet nor make contact by telephone. They couldn’t leave the building without being followed.
Would they get a good night’s sleep under those circumstances? Maigret had done the same thing with Monsieur Louis, making it clear that his every move would now be recorded by the police.
He was still unable to establish the links between these three individuals. The only thing they had in common was their discomfort, which Maigret did his best to make as acute as possible for all three of them.
‘Take me to the Clou Doré, Rue Fontaine.’
There, too, he had effectively laid his cards on the table. And since he had to eat somewhere, he might as well do so at the restaurant of which Palmari was for a long time the owner, before putting it in Aline’s name, then selling it to Pernelle.
He was surprised when he walked in to find such a lively atmosphere. Almost all the tables were occupied, and there was a babble of conversation interspersed with women’s laughter, while the cigar and cigarette smoke formed an almost opaque cloud a metre from the ceiling.
In the
pink glow of the lamps, he noticed Monsieur Louis at a table opposite a pretty girl, while Lapointe was cooling his heels at the bar and nursing a bitter lemon.
Pernelle had his professional smile plastered on and was circulating among the customers, shaking hands, leaning over to hear a good story, or to take an order, which he then passed on to one of the waiters.
Two women, perched on stools at the bar, were trying to catch the eye of young Lapointe, who seemed embarrassed and was trying to look the other way.
When Maigret arrived, one of them turned to her companion, no doubt to whisper:
‘He’s a cop!’
So when Maigret walked over to talk to Lapointe, the two ladies suddenly lost interest in the young man.
‘Have you had dinner?’
‘I had a sandwich in the café-tabac when he stopped off there for an hour. Afterwards, he came here and waited for this young woman before they took a table.’
‘Not too tired?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I’d like you to carry on following him. When he goes home, telephone headquarters and ask for someone to relieve you. Same thing if he goes to the girl’s place, which is possible, or they go to a hotel. You’d better grab a bite with me.’
‘A beer, Monsieur Maigret?’
‘It’s a bit late, Justin. I’ve had my fill of beer for today.’
He signalled to Pernelle, who found them a small table illuminated by a golden lamp with a silk shade.
‘This evening I recommend the paella. You might have ramequins à la niçoise as starter. A nice dry Tavel to go with that, unless you prefer a Pouilly-Fumé.’
‘The paella and the Tavel.’
‘For two?’
He nodded and during the meal he seemed to be interested only in the food and the delightfully fruity wine. For his part, Monsieur Louis pretended to have eyes only for his companion, who nonetheless turned round at least two or three times to look at the policemen and no doubt asked questions about them.
‘The more I see him,’ Maigret sighed, ‘the more I think I’ve come across him somewhere before. A long time ago, maybe ten years ago or more. It’s possible I had dealings with him when he was young and thin, and his extra weight is confusing me.’
When the bill came, Pernelle leaned over in a professional manner and found the time to whisper in Maigret’s ear:
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