‘She doesn’t have a dog or a cat?’
‘No, she’s content to hear the birds singing in the shop downstairs.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘Yes. She’s convinced she’s being followed.’
‘Has she spotted anyone?’
‘No, that’s the thing, but she’s absolutely sure about it.’
‘Is she likely to come here again?’
‘She’s determined to see you personally. In her eyes, you’re God Almighty, and apparently you’re the only person who will understand her. What should I do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘She’ll be back.’
‘Well, we’ll see then. But you could just go and ask the concierge at that address a few questions.’
And Maigret picked up once more the file he had been studying, while young Lapointe returned to the inspectors’ office.
‘Was she a madwoman?’ Janvier asked him.
‘Probably, but not like the usual ones.’
‘Do you know many mad people?’
‘One of my aunts is in a psychiatric hospital.’
‘I’m guessing this old woman made something of an impression on you.’
‘Yes, maybe she did, a little. She kept looking at me as if I was just a kid and unable to understand. The only person she trusts is Maigret.’
After lunch, Lapointe went over to Quai de la Mégisserie, where most of the shops sold caged birds and small animals. On this sunny afternoon, the cafés had put tables out on the terraces. Looking up, Lapointe saw that the windows on the first floor were open. He had some difficulty finding the concierge’s lodge, which was at the far end of the courtyard. The concierge, sitting in a patch of sunlight, was darning a pair of men’s socks.
He showed her his police badge.
‘Who did you want?’
‘Can you tell me what you know about Madame Antoine de Caramé? Is that the right name? An old lady who lives on the first floor.’
‘Yes, I know who you mean. Antoine was really the surname of her second husband, so officially she’s plain Madame Antoine. But since she’s very proud of her first husband, who was something important in the Council offices, she calls herself Madame Antoine de Caramé.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, is she a little odd?’
‘I certainly wonder why the police are interested in her all of a sudden.’
‘Actually, she came to us.’
‘What did she have to complain about?’
‘Apparently when she goes out, things in her apartment are moved around. She hasn’t mentioned it to you?’
‘No, she just asked me if I had seen any strangers go up there. I told her I hadn’t. But in any case, I can’t see people coming and going: the staircase is at the end of the corridor.’
‘Does anyone visit her?’
‘Her niece comes round once or twice a month. But sometimes it can be three months without her calling.’
‘So, would you say the old lady behaves just like anyone else?’
‘Well, like all old women who live alone. In her case, she’s obviously received a good education and she’s polite to everyone.’
‘Is she there at the moment?’
‘No. The slightest bit of sun and she’s off. She’s probably sitting on a bench in the Tuileries Gardens.’
‘Does she ever chat with you?’
‘Just a few words in passing. She mostly asks after my husband, who’s in hospital.’
‘Thank you for your time.’
‘I suppose I’d better not tell her you were here?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘At any rate, I wouldn’t say she’s mad. She has her funny little ways, like all old people, but no more than anyone else.’
‘I may be back to see you again.’
Maigret was in a cheerful mood. Not a drop of rain had fallen in ten days, there was a light breeze, a blue sky and in this ideal month of May, Paris was as colourful as the set of a musical comedy.
He stayed a little longer in his office, checking a report that had lain there a while and which he wanted to be finished with. He could hear cars and buses going past, and every now and then the hooter of a tug.
It was almost seven o’clock when he opened the door of the neighbouring office, where Lucas was on duty with two or three other inspectors, and wished them goodnight.
On the way downstairs, he wondered whether he might call in at the Brasserie Dauphine for an aperitif and had still not made up his mind as he went out of the doorway past the two officers on duty, who saluted him.
In the end, he decided he would rather go straight home and had only taken a few steps towards Boulevard du Palais when a diminutive figure appeared in front of him. He immediately recognized her from the description Lapointe had given him.
‘It is you, isn’t it?’ she asked eagerly.
She didn’t even say his name. It could only be him, the famous Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, all of whose cases she had followed in the newspapers. She had even cut out articles about him, which she pasted into scrapbooks.
‘I must beg your pardon for coming up to you in the street like this, but upstairs they wouldn’t let me through.’
Maigret felt a little ridiculous and could well imagine the ironic looks of the two policemen behind him.
‘I understand, of course. I don’t blame them. You have to be left in peace to work, don’t you?’
What struck Maigret most forcefully was the colour of her eyes, pale grey, a sort of washed-out grey, both gentle and sparkling at the same time. She was smiling at him. Clearly she was in seventh heaven. But at the same time, an extraordinary energy could be sensed in that frail body.
‘Which way are you going?’
He pointed towards the Pont Saint-Michel.
‘Would you mind if I walked with you as far as that?’
Trotting alongside him, she looked even tinier.
‘The important thing, you see, is that you must understand I’m not mad. I know what young people think about the old, and I am a very old woman.’
‘You’re eighty-six, is that right?’
‘I see that the young man who interviewed me has told you about me. He seems very young for the job he’s in, but he’s well brought up and very courteous.’
‘Have you been waiting outside long?’
‘Since five to six. I thought you would be leaving your office at six o’clock. I saw a lot of gentlemen come out, but you weren’t among them.’
So she had been waiting a whole hour, on her feet, under the indifferent gaze of the policemen outside the doorway.
‘I feel as if I’m in danger. There must be a reason why someone is coming into my apartment and searching my things.’
‘How do you know that someone is searching your things?’
‘Because I don’t find them back in their exact place. I’m obsessive about tidiness. In my home, every object has had its precise place for over forty years.’
‘And this has happened several times?’
‘At least four times.’
‘Do you own any valuables?’
‘No, inspector. Just the little things you acquire over your lifetime and keep for sentimental reasons.’
She turned round quickly, and he asked:
‘Is someone following you now?’
‘No, not now. I beg you, please come and see me. You’ll understand better when you’re on the spot,’
‘I’ll do my very best to find a free moment.’
‘Do more than that. Quai de la Mégisserie is only a little way from here. In the next few days, come and see me, and I promise I won’t keep you. And I promise I won’t turn up at your office again.’
In fact, she was quite artful.
‘I’ll be along some time soon.’
‘This week?’
‘Perhaps this week. Or if not, at the beginning of next.’
He had arrived at his bus stop.
‘Now you must excuse me, but I should be getting home.’
‘I’m counting on you,’ she said. ‘I trust you.’
He would have found it difficult at that moment to know what he thought of her. Certainly, her story was exactly the kind that is invented by fantasists, with complete sincerity. But standing in front of her, looking her in the face, he was tempted to take her tale seriously.
He went home, where the table was laid for dinner, and kissed his wife on both cheeks.
‘I hope you managed to get outside in this beautiful weather.’
‘I ran a few errands.’
Then he asked her a question that surprised her:
‘Do you ever find yourself sitting on a bench in the park?’
She had to think back.
‘I must do sometimes, waiting for a dentist’s appointment, for instance.’
‘This evening I had a visitor, a lady who spends time almost every afternoon sitting on a bench in the Tuileries.’
‘There are plenty of people like that.’
‘Does anyone ever speak to you?’
‘I can think of one time. A mother with a little girl, who asked me to look after the child for a few minutes while she went to buy something on the other side of the gardens.’
The window was open here too. For dinner, as on the finest summer days, they ate cold meats, salad and mayonnaise.
‘Shall we go for a little walk?’
The sunset was still painting the sky pink and Boulevard Richard-Lenoir was quiet; here and there, people were leaning on their window-sills to take the air.
They walked simply for walking’s sake, for the pleasure of being together, but without having anything particular to say. They looked at the same passers-by, the same shop windows, and from time to time one of them would make a remark. They went round by the Bastille and returned along Boulevard Beaumarchais.
‘I had a strange old lady come to see me today. Or rather she saw Lapointe. But she waited for me outside on the embankment, and caught me as I went past. If you listen to her story, she sounds mad. Or a bit deranged anyway.’
‘Why, what’s happened to her?’
‘Nothing. Only she claims that when she gets back home after going out, some of her things have been moved from their proper place.’
‘Does she have a cat?’
‘That’s what Lapointe asked her. No, no pets. She lives just above one of the shops where they sell caged birds and that’s enough for her, because she hears them singing all day.’
‘And do you think she’s telling the truth?’
‘As long she was in front of me, yes, I thought so. She has light grey eyes and they seem to shine with sincerity and goodness. I might even say a certain simplicity of soul. She’s been widowed for twelve years, lives alone. Apart from a niece she sees only rarely, there’s no other family.
‘Every morning, she does her shopping in the neighbourhood, wearing her white hat and white gloves. And in the afternoon, she usually goes to sit on a bench in the Tuileries. She doesn’t complain about her life. She’s not bored. Doesn’t seem to feel lonely.’
‘There are plenty of old people like that, you know.’
‘I’m sure there are, but there’s something different about her that I can’t put my finger on.’
By the time they got home, night had fallen and the air was cooler. They went to bed early and next morning, since the weather was still fine, Maigret decided to walk to the office.
A pile of correspondence awaited him as usual. He had time to go through it and have a word with his inspectors before attending the daily briefing. There was nothing important in hand.
He spent quite an ordinary morning, decided to have lunch on Place Dauphine and telephoned his wife to say he would not be back at midday. After his meal, he was on the point of crossing the Pont-Neuf to go to Quai de la Mégisserie. A chance incident prevented him. He met on the pavement a former colleague, now retired, and they chatted for about a quarter of an hour, standing in the sunshine.
Twice more during the afternoon, he thought about the old lady, whom his inspectors had already christened ‘Maigret’s old madwoman’. Both times, he postponed his visit, thinking he would go there next day, for instance.
The newspapers would surely make fun of him if they ever got hold of this story about objects changing places.
That evening, they watched television. The following morning, he went to the office by bus, since he was late. It was almost midday when he received a call from the chief of police in the first arrondissement.
‘I’ve got a case here which must be of interest to your squad, because the concierge tells me one of your inspectors, a handsome young man apparently, was round asking questions a couple of days ago.’
He had a sudden sense of foreboding.
‘Quai de la Mégisserie?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you at the scene now?’
‘I’m on the ground floor with the bird-seller, because there’s no phone in the apartment.’
‘I’m on my way.’
Lapointe was in the next office.
‘Come with me.’
‘Something serious, chief?’
‘For you and me, yes. The old lady.’
‘The one with the white hat and the grey eyes?’
‘Yes. She’s dead.’
‘Murdered?’
‘I suppose so, otherwise the local police chief wouldn’t have called me.’
They didn’t take a car, since it was quicker to walk. Chief Inspector Jenton, whom Maigret knew well, was waiting for them on the pavement, standing next to a cockatoo attached to its perch by a chain.
‘You know her?’
‘I met her only the once. I’d promised to call on her one of these days. I almost came yesterday.’
Would it have changed anything?
‘Is there someone upstairs?’
‘One of my men and Doctor Forniaux, who’s just arrived.’
‘How did she die?’
‘I don’t know yet. A neighbour from the second floor noticed that her door was ajar at about half past ten. She didn’t think anything of it and went out shopping. When she returned at eleven, the door was still open, so she called out: “Madame Antoine! Madame Antoine! Are you there? …”
‘And since there was no reply, she pushed the door further open and almost tripped over the body.’
‘On the floor?’
‘Yes, just inside the sitting room. So the neighbour rang the police at once.’
Maigret climbed the stairs slowly, and his expression was serious.
‘What’s she wearing?’
‘She’s still got the white hat and gloves she’d put on to go out.’
‘No apparent wound?’
‘Not that I saw. The concierge said one of your men was here a day or two ago, asking about her, so I contacted you immediately.’
Doctor Forniaux, on his knees beside the body, stood up as the three men entered the room.
They shook hands.
‘You’ve identified the cause of death?’
‘Suffocation.’
‘You mean she was strangled?’
‘No. They must have used some cloth, a towel or a handkerchief even, and clamped it over her nose and mouth until she died.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘I’ll confirm it after the post-mortem.’
The window was wide open, and they could hear the chirruping of the birds down below.
‘And when do you estimate it happened?’
‘Yesterday, either late afternoon or evening.’
The old lady looked even frailer dead than alive. Just a small body, with one leg oddly bent, which gave her the appearance of a disjointed puppet.
The doctor had closed her eyes. Her face and hands were as white as ivory.
‘How long
do you think it would have taken to kill her like that?’
‘Hard to be precise. Especially given her age. Five minutes? A bit more or a bit less.’
‘Lapointe, phone the prosecutor’s office and the lab. Tell Moers to send a team over.’
‘You don’t need me any more, do you?’ asked the doctor. ‘I’ll send the van round so that we can take her to the Forensic Institute as soon as you’ve finished with her here.’
The local police chief sent his man downstairs, where a small group of people had gathered.
‘Tell them to move on. This isn’t a circus.’
They were both long accustomed to crime scenes. But they were nonetheless taken aback by this one, perhaps because it was a little old lady, and perhaps too because there was no evident injury.
And then there was the setting, which dated from the early years of the twentieth century or even from the nineteenth. The heavy furniture was made of mahogany, massive and lovingly polished, the armchairs upholstered in crimson velvet, the kind you can still see in some provincial front parlours. There were numerous ornaments, and framed photographs on the walls, which were papered in a flowered design.
‘We have to wait for the prosecutor’s office to send someone.’
‘They’ll be along soon. We’ll get one of the duty deputies with a clerk. He’ll just take a look round and that’ll be that.’
This was indeed the way things happened as a rule. Afterwards, the experts would move in with their cumbersome apparatus.
The door behind them opened quietly and Maigret gave a start. It was a little girl, who presumably lived on one of the other floors and had heard a noise.
‘Do you often come in here?’
‘No. I’ve never been in before.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Across the landing.’
‘Did you know Madame Antoine?’
‘I sometimes saw her on the stairs.’
‘Did she talk to you?’
‘She used to smile at me.’
‘She didn’t give you sweets or chocolate?’
‘No.’
‘Where’s your mother?’
‘In the kitchen.’
‘Will you take me to see her?’
He made his excuses to the local inspector.
‘Please let me know when the prosecutor arrives.’
Maigret and the Wine Merchant Page 15