‘Casino managers are professionals really, because, when it comes down to it, they’re gambling against the customers … When the house is banker on two tables, they’ll sometimes go halves with a gambling expert or a syndicate. That’s it, as far as well-established pros are concerned.
‘Then there are the people, not many, it has to be said, who live off gambling for varying periods of time, either because they have exceptional luck or because they have considerable financial resources and are especially smart.’
‘Can you gamble scientifically?’
‘Apparently. Some gamblers, again very few, can make complicated calculations of probability between the deal and choice of card.’
‘Have you heard of someone called Félix Nahour?’
‘Every croupier in France and beyond knows him. He falls into the second category, although for a while he was a baccarat banker with an American syndicate in Havana.’
‘Is he honest?’
‘If he wasn’t, he would have got a record a long time ago and be barred from the gaming rooms. You only find sleazy little cardsharps occasionally in the smaller casinos, and anyway they soon get caught.’
‘What do you know about Nahour?’
‘For a start that he has a very beautiful wife, a Miss some place or other, whom I met several times in Cannes and Biarritz. Then that at some point he worked with a group from the Middle East.’
‘A gambling syndicate?’
‘If you like. Let’s call it a group of gamblers who can’t or won’t play themselves. If a pro is going to take on the house at Cannes or Deauville, for instance, he needs to have enough millions to stay the course until his own luck turns. In other words, he has to be on an equal footing with the casinos, which have virtually inexhaustible funds.
‘Hence the creation of syndicates, which operate like finance companies, except they work more discreetly.
‘For a long time a South American syndicate used to send an operative to Deauville every year, and on a number of occasions the house found itself in a tight corner.’
‘Has Nahour always been backed by a syndicate?’
‘People say he goes it alone these days, but it’s impossible to check.’
‘Another question. Do you know the Saint-Michel Club?’
Lardois hesitated before answering.
‘Yes. I’ve raided it two or three times.’
‘Why’s it still going, then?’
‘You’re not going to tell me Nahour gambles there, are you?’
‘No, but his secretary, or assistant, spends a good part of the night there two or three times a week.’
‘Special Branch asked me to turn a blind eye. A lot of the club’s clientele are from the Middle East and live in that neighbourhood. It’s a good place to keep an eye on them and our colleague is no slouch. Has there been a fight?’
‘No.’
‘Something else?’
‘No.’
‘Is Nahour involved in a case?’
‘He was murdered last night.’
‘In a club?’
‘At his home.’
‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’
‘As soon as I know myself.’
Twenty minutes later, Maigret was sitting across the dining table from his wife, enjoying a delicious Alsatian sauerkraut of a kind you’ll only find in two restaurants in Paris. The salt pork was particularly flavourful, as the critics would say, and he had opened some bottles of Strasbourg beer.
The snow was still falling outside the window, and it was good to be in the snug, not have to venture out on pavements as slippery as Amsterdam’s harbour.
‘Tired?’
‘Not too bad.’
After a silence, with a slightly sardonic look at his wife, he added:
‘Policemen shouldn’t really marry.’
‘To be spared having to go home and eat sauerkraut?’ she shot back.
‘No, because they need to be familiar with all walks of life, to have a knowledge of casinos, say, international banks, Lebanese Maronites and Muslims, foreign restaurants in the Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain, Colombia’s younger generation. Not to mention the Dutch language and beauty contests …’
‘Are you finding a way through, though?’
She smiled, because he was gradually looking less worried.
‘The next stage of the investigation will tell.’
He felt heavy when he got up, but only because he had done the food and beer too much justice. What a pleasure it would have been, after an almost sleepless night, to lie down on the bed and take a little siesta, vaguely aware of Madame Maigret moving around in the apartment!
‘Are you off already?’
‘Keulemans is meant to be calling me back from Amsterdam.’
She knew him too, because he had come to dinner more than once. Maigret called a taxi this time and waited for it outside as always. When he got to the office, he found Janvier was back.
‘Any calls for me?’
‘Only Lapointe. As there was almost nothing to eat in the refrigerator, Nahour’s brother asked if he could get lunch delivered from a local delicatessen. Lapointe saw no reason to object, and in return they invited him to share their lunch. The two local inspectors have gone back to the station. The policeman on duty at the door has been relieved … Oh, I almost forgot: the young maid wouldn’t touch the food. She made a big bowl of hot chocolate and dipped slices of bread into it.’
‘Did Nahour and Ouéni eat at the same table?’
‘Lapointe didn’t say.’
‘I want you to go to Boulevard Saint-Michel, where you’ll find a bar, the Bar des Tilleuls. It has a gaming room disguised as a private club on the first floor. The club’s closed at the moment, but the entrance is in the bar.
‘Tell the bar owner that Lardois sent you, and that we don’t want to make any trouble for him. Try and find out if Fouad Ouéni went to the club last night and, if he did, what time he got there and what time he left.
‘On your way back, drop in at a restaurant called the Petit Beyrouth on Rue des Bernardins. The owner is someone called Boutros. Félix Nahour was one of his real regulars. Did he have dinner yesterday in that restaurant? Was he alone? How long had he been going there without his wife? Was there a time when the couple were inseparable? That sort of thing. See what you can get out of him.’
Maigret hadn’t touched the morning post, which was stacked in a pile on his blotter, next to the pipes. He reached a hand out for a letter, yawned, then decided to do it later. Siding down a little in his chair, he lowered his head and closed his eyes.
When the telephone startled him awake, no one was shaking him by the shoulder, there was no need to struggle. The clock said 3.30.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret? Hello, is that Detective Chief Inspector Maigret in person?’
The switchboard operator had a thick accent.
‘This is Amsterdam. Stay on the line … I’m putting you through to Detective Chief Inspector Keulemans.’
Two or three clicks, then he heard the tall Dutch policeman’s unfailingly cheery tones.
‘Maigret? Keulemans here. Try and make a habit of giving me such easy jobs, will you? Naturally I found the landing cards at the airport. I didn’t even have to leave the office; I had the contents read out to me over the telephone. The woman is, as you said, Evelina Nahour, née Wiemers, living in Paris, Avenue du Parc-Montsouris. She’s younger than you thought. Twenty-seven. She was born in Amsterdam, that’s true, but she left the city at a very young age with her parents when her father was made assistant manager of a dairy in Leeuwarden in Friesland.’
‘Have you talked to her?’
‘She’s staying with her friend, Anna Keegel. The two women lived together for a few years when Lina was seventeen and her parents allowed her to come and work in Amsterdam.
‘She started off as a switchboard operator at a travel agency, then graduated to receptionist for a well-known doctor an
d finally became a model for a couture house. Anna Keegel has always had the same job: a punch-card operator in a large brewery – I pointed out its warehouses when we went on a boat ride on the Amstel.’
‘How did Lina Nahour react when you told her her husband was dead?’
‘First of all, I should say that she was in bed and that her doctor had just left.’
‘Did she tell you about her injury?’
‘No. She said she was very tired.’
‘Any sign of her friend?’
‘The apartment consists of a large bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom, so I would have seen him if he’d been there. After a silence, she asked:
‘ “What did he die of?”
‘I told her that I didn’t know, but that she was needed for the reading of the will.’
‘What did she say?’
‘That she hoped to be well enough to fly tomorrow morning, although the doctor had prescribed plenty of rest. Just to be on the safe side I left one of my men in the neighbourhood. Unofficially, don’t worry!’
‘What about the Colombian?’
‘Vicente Alvaredo, twenty-six, born in Bogotá, student, lives in Paris, Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs.’
‘Did you find him?’
‘Easily. Also very unofficially, as I had the Lomanstraat apartment’s telephone tapped. Lina Nahour picked it up before I’d left the street. She asked for the Rembrandt Hotel and was put through to Alvaredo. I’ve got the transcript of their conversation in front of me. Shall I read it out?’
Maigret’s only regret was that he couldn’t hold the receiver and fill a pipe at the same time. He looked longingly at the pipes lying in a neat, tempting row on his desk.
‘It begins:
‘ “Vicente?”
‘ “Yes. Has the doctor been?”
‘ “Half an hour ago. He believed what I told him and he gave me some stitches after cleaning the wound. He’s meant to be coming back tomorrow morning. I had another visit, someone from the police, a very tall, very nice man who told me my husband was dead …” ’
A silence.
‘You’ll notice, Maigret, that the young man didn’t ask any questions at that point.
‘ “The lawyer needs me for the reading of the will. I promised to get a plane tomorrow morning.”
‘ “Do you think you’ll be able to?”
‘ “My temperature’s only thirty-eight. The doctor gave me some tablets, I don’t know what sort, and now it hardly hurts at all.”
‘ “Can I come and see you this afternoon?”
‘ “Not too early, because I’d like to get some sleep. My friend rang her office and told them she had flu. Apparently a third of the staff are in bed. She’s taking good care of me.”
‘ “I’ll be there around five.” ’
Another silence.
‘That’s it, Maigret. They started talking in English and carried on in French. Anything else I can do?’
‘I’d like to know if she gets the flight and, if so, what time she’ll be at Orly. Naturally I’d also like an update on Alvaredo …’
‘Unofficially!’ Keulemans laughed, then signed off like Maigret’s colleagues with a cheery ‘Bye, chief!’
4.
It was a slow afternoon in the stuffy office, and the six or seven pipes lined up on his desk had all been smoked. Almost every investigation had what Maigret called the gap, a moment when a certain amount of information had been gathered but not yet checked, so couldn’t be used.
It was a quiet but frustrating time because the temptation was to construct theories, to draw conclusions that might easily be wrong.
If Maigret had followed his inclination, rather than tell himself that a detective chief inspector’s job was not to run around everywhere like a hunting dog, he would have seen everything for himself, as he used to when he was still just an inspector.
For instance, he envied Keulemans seeing Lina Nahour and her unprepossessing friend in the Amsterdam apartment which the two young women used to share.
He would also have liked to have taken Lapointe’s place and spent the whole day in the house on Avenue du Parc-Montsouris, nosing around, sniffing in corners, opening drawers at random, studying Fouad Ouéni, Pierre Nahour and the disconcerting Nelly, who was perhaps not as infantile as she was trying to make believe.
He wasn’t following any preconceived plan. He was going forwards, wherever that might be, trying above all not to form any opinions.
He smiled when there was a knock at the door and he saw the Pardons’ maid come into his office.
‘Hello, Monsieur Maigret.’
As far as she was concerned he was the monthly dinner guest, not a detective chief inspector with the Police Judiciaire.
‘I’m bringing you the report. Monsieur told me to make sure I gave it to you personally.’
It had been typed with two fingers on the doctor’s old typewriter, and was studded with crossings-out, missing letters and words run together.
Had Pardon started writing it the night before, after Maigret had left? Or had he written it a few lines at a time between patients? Maigret glanced through it, breaking into a smile as he saw how meticulous his friend had been, the effort he had visibly taken not to omit any detail as if he were giving a medical diagnosis.
He had no time to sit around pondering, though, because he was told there were journalists waiting for him in the corridor. He hesitated, then ended up muttering:
‘Send them in.’
There were five of them, plus a couple of photographers, and one of the reporters was young Maquille, who, despite being just twenty and cherubic-looking, was one of the most dogged members of the Parisian press.
‘What can you tell us about the Nahour case?’
Ah! It was already the Nahour case – no doubt that is what all the papers would call it.
‘Not much, boys. It’s early days.’
‘Do you think Nahour could have committed suicide?’
‘Definitely not. We have proof he didn’t because the bullet that lodged in his skull after passing through his throat is of a different calibre to the gun found under his body.’
‘He was holding the gun in his hand when he was killed, was he?’
‘Probably. As I can foresee what you’re going to ask next, I’ll tell you straight away that I don’t know who was in the room at the time.’
‘What about in the house?’ inquired young Maquille.
‘A young Dutch maid, Nelly Velthuis, was asleep on the first floor, in a room at some distance from the studio. Apparently she’s a heavy sleeper and says she didn’t hear anything.’
‘Wasn’t there a secretary too?’
They must have questioned the neighbours, perhaps even the local shopkeepers.
‘Until proven otherwise, the secretary, Fouad Ouéni, was in town and didn’t return until one thirty in the morning. He couldn’t get into the studio and went straight up to bed.’
‘Madame Nahour?’
‘She was away.’
‘Before or after the tragedy?’ the persistent Maquille went on, choosing his words carefully.
‘The question remains unresolved.’
‘But there’s still a question?’
‘There are always questions.’
‘That it might be a political crime, for instance?’
‘Félix Nahour wasn’t involved in politics, as far as we know.’
‘What about his brother in Geneva?’
They had made more headway than Maigret expected.
‘Wasn’t his bank a cover for other activities?’
‘You’re going too fast for me.’
All the same, Maigret resolved to check that Pierre Nahour had definitely arrived in Paris on the morning flight. So far there was no proof he hadn’t been in town the day before.
‘Had the gun found under the victim’s body been fired?’
‘It’s with the experts and I haven’t got their report yet,’ Maigret answered non
committally. ‘Right, you know pretty much as much as I do now, and I’ll ask you to let me get on with my work. I’ll be sure to call you in when I have any news.’
He knew for a fact that Maquille was going to leave one of his colleagues in the corridor to watch his office and make a note of any visitors.
‘Is …?’
‘No, boys! I’ve got a lot to do, that’s all the time I can give you.’
It hadn’t gone too badly. He sighed, imagining a nicely chilled glass of beer, but couldn’t quite bring himself to get one sent up from the Brasserie Dauphine.
‘Hello? Lapointe? What’s happening over there?’
‘The house is as gloomy as ever. The cleaner is furious we’re not letting her do any housework. Nelly is lying on her bed, reading an English crime novel. And Pierre Nahour is shut away in the office, going through all the correspondence and papers in the drawers.’
‘Has he made any telephone calls?’
‘Only one, to Beirut, to tell his father. The old man is trying to get a seat on the next plane.’
‘Put Pierre Nahour on, will you?’
‘He’s right here.’
The next thing he heard was the voice of the banker from Geneva.
‘Yes …’
‘Do you know if your brother had a lawyer in Paris?’
‘Félix mentioned him last time we saw each other, three years ago. He said that if he died his will would be in the possession of Maître Leroy-Beaudieu on Boulevard Saint-Germain. I happen to know Leroy-Beaudieu very well because I did some of my law studies with him, although we haven’t been in touch much since then.’
‘Did your brother tell you what was in his will?’
‘No. He only said rather resentfully that despite our father’s criticisms he was still a Nahour.’
‘Have you found anything in the papers you’re going through?’
‘Bills, mostly, which suggest my sister-in-law didn’t deal with the tradesmen, even the butcher and greengrocer, choosing to leave that chore to my brother. Almost daily reports from the nanny with news of the children, which show my brother was very attached to them. Invitations, letters from casino managers and croupiers.’
‘Look, Monsieur Nahour. You don’t have to stay in the house any more. You can go anywhere in Paris, as long as you don’t leave the city. If you take a hotel room …’
Maigret and the Nahour Case Page 6