Lucas came towards Maigret with his hand outstretched – and was surprised by the inspector’s weary gloom.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m fine.’
Lucas couldn’t help laughing at that, even though Maigret was his boss.
‘You certainly don’t look it! Well, since I haven’t had any lunch …’
‘Come to the hotel, they must still have something there to eat.’
They sat in the main dining room, where the hotel-owner served the sergeant himself. He hovered around Maigret and Lucas as they talked quietly and when he brought over the cheese he saw his chance to speak up.
‘Did you hear what happened to the mayor?’
Maigret reacted with such alarm that the man was taken aback.
‘Oh, nothing serious! It’s just that a little while ago, at home, he fell while coming downstairs. No one knows how he managed to do that, but his face is so battered that he had to take to his bed.’
Then Maigret had a brainwave. That is the right word, for his intellect deciphered the incident in an instant.
‘Is Madame Grandmaison still in Ouistreham?’
‘No, she took the car and left early this morning with her daughter. I suppose they went to Caen.’
Maigret’s flu vanished.
‘Are you going to sit there all day?’ he grumbled.
‘Of course,’ replied Lucas placidly, ‘it’s easy for someone with a full stomach to wax impatient watching a hungry man tuck into his food. Let’s say, three minutes more … Oh! Don’t take the camembert away yet please!’
6. The Fall Down the Stairs
The hotel-owner had not been lying, but the news he had passed on had been somewhat exaggerated, for Monsieur Grandmaison was not laid up in bed.
When Maigret arrived at the Norman villa, after sending Lucas to keep his eye on the dredger, he saw through the picture window a form sitting in the classic pose of the patient who must stay home to convalesce.
Although the inspector could not see his features, it was obviously the mayor.
Further from the window stood another man, but that was all Maigret could determine.
After ringing the bell, he heard more comings and goings inside than were necessary to open a front door. The maid arrived at last, a middle-aged, rather pinch-faced creature who must have felt infinite contempt for all visitors, for she never bothered to unclench her teeth.
Having opened the door, she went back up the few steps leading to the front hall and left Maigret to shut the door himself. Then she knocked on a double door and stood aside as the inspector entered the mayor’s study.
There had been something peculiar about that whole performance. Nothing blatantly bizarre, but jarring little things and a slightly uneasy atmosphere.
The house was a large one, almost new, in the prevailing style of the French seaside, but given the wealth of the Grandmaison family, chief stockholders in the Compagnie Anglo-Normande, a touch more luxury might have been expected. Perhaps they had saved such embellishment for their residence in Caen?
Maigret had hardly entered the room when he heard: ‘Here you are, inspector!’
The voice came from over by the window. Monsieur Grandmaison was ensconced in a massive club chair with his legs propped up on another chair. It was difficult to see him, because of the backlighting, but he was clearly wearing a scarf loosely knotted around his throat instead of a stiff collar, and covering the left half of his face with one hand.
‘Do sit down.’
Maigret took a tour of the room, then finally went to sit facing the ship-owner. He struggled to repress a smile, for the mayor was quite a sight.
His left cheek, which his hand could not entirely conceal, was puffy, and his upper lip swollen, but what he was most intent on hiding was a stunning black eye.
The man’s face wouldn’t have seemed that funny if he hadn’t been trying so hard to be as dignified as usual in spite of it! He was undaunted and stared at Maigret with frank suspicion.
‘You’ve come to report the results of your inquiry?’
‘No. You received me so graciously the other day, with the gentlemen from the public prosecutor’s office, that I wished to thank you for your hospitality.’
There was never a hint of irony in Maigret’s smiles. On the contrary! The more mocking he was, the more studiously solemn his face.
He looked around the study again. The walls were full of technical drawings of freighters and photographs of the ships of the Compagnie Anglo-Normande. The furniture was nondescript, good-quality mahogany, but nothing more. On the desk, a few files, some letters, telegrams.
And the inspector seemed to gaze with particular pleasure at the beautifully waxed floor.
‘It seems you’ve had an accident?’
Sighing, the mayor shifted his legs and grumbled, ‘A misstep, coming down the stairs.’
‘This morning? Madame Grandmaison must have been terrified!’
‘My wife had already left.’
‘The weather is hardly suitable for a seaside vacation, true! Unless one is an avid duck hunter … I suppose that Madame Grandmaison is at Caen with your daughter?’
‘Paris, actually.’
The ship-owner was carelessly dressed. Dark trousers, a dressing gown over a grey flannel shirt, felt slippers.
‘What was there at the foot of the stairs?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What did you land on?’
A venomous look. A strained reply.
‘The floor, obviously.’
A lie, a whopper! Falling on the floor never gave anyone a black eye. Still less the marks of fingers tightly wrapped around one’s throat!
As it happened, whenever the scarf moved the tiniest bit, Maigret could easily see the bruises it was intended to conceal from him.
‘You were alone in the house, naturally.’
‘Why “naturally”?’
‘Because such accidents always happen when there’s no one around to come and help!’
‘The maid was doing her shopping.’
‘She’s the only servant here?’
‘I also have a gardener, but he has gone to Caen. He had some errands there.’
‘You must have been in real pain.’
What worried the mayor the most was precisely this solemnity on Maigret’s part. He sounded sincerely sympathetic!
Although it was only 3.30, evening was already coming on, and the room was growing dark.
‘May I?’
The inspector pulled his pipe from his pocket.
‘If you’d like a cigar, there are some on the mantelpiece.’
There was a whole pile of packing-cases in a corner. A bottle of aged Armagnac, on a tray. The tall doors were of varnished pitch pine.
‘And what about your investigation?’
Maigret gestured vaguely, making an effort not to look over at the door to the drawing room, a door that was vibrating for some mysterious reason …
‘Nothing to report?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Would you like my opinion? It was a mistake to let people think that this was a complicated matter.’
‘Evidently!’ grunted Maigret. ‘As if there were anything complicated about what happened! One evening, a man disappears and gives no sign of life for well over a month. He’s found in Paris six weeks later, with a skilfully repaired bullet wound in his skull, having lost his memory. Brought home, he is poisoned that same night. Meanwhile, three hundred thousand francs have been deposited, from Hamburg, into his bank account. It’s simple! Clear as day!’
This time, there was no mistaking the inspector’s meaning, despite his genial tone.
‘Well, perhaps the matter is less complicated than you think, in any case,’ insisted the mayor. ‘And supposing that this death truly is mysterious, it would be better, I believe, not to wantonly create an atmosphere of anxiety. By speaking of such things in certain cafés, one ends by unsettling minds that a
lcohol has already made only too unstable.’
Directing his stern, authoritative gaze at Maigret, he spoke slowly, carefully, as if delivering an indictment.
‘And on the other hand, the police have made no effort to obtain information from the proper authorities! Even I, the local mayor, know nothing of what’s happening down in the harbour.’
‘Does your gardener wear espadrilles?’
The mayor looked immediately at the shining parquet, where footprints were clearly visible on the waxy surface. The pattern of rope-soled shoes was unmistakable.
‘I have no idea!’
‘Pardon me for interrupting you! A thought that occurred to me … You were saying?’
But Monsieur Grandmaison had lost the thread of his speech.
‘Would you reach me down that box of cigars? … That’s it, thank you.’
He lit one, moaning faintly because he was opening his jaws too wide.
‘In short, how far have you got? Surely you’ve come up with some interesting leads by now.’
‘Not really!’
‘That’s curious, because those people down in the harbour aren’t lacking in imagination, in general, and certainly not after a few aperitifs.’
‘I suppose you’ve sent Madame Grandmaison off to Paris to spare her the distress of all this drama? And any unpleasantness that might be still to come?’
They were not fighting out in the open. Yet they were sparring with a certain covert hostility fuelled simply, perhaps, by the social divide between them.
Maigret drank down at the Buvette de la Marine with fishermen and lock workers.
The mayor entertained guests from the public prosecutor’s office with tea, liqueurs and petits fours.
Maigret was simply a man, impossible to categorize.
Monsieur Grandmaison belonged to a very definite social milieu. He was the most important man in a small town, the scion of an old bourgeois family, a prosperous and respectable ship-owner.
True, he put on democratic airs and cheerfully greeted the members of his constituency in the streets of Ouistreham. But this was a condescending, electoral democracy! He was patronizing them.
Maigret looked so rock-solid it was almost frighteningly impressive. Monsieur Grandmaison, with his pink face and rolls of fat, was fast losing a grip on his authority and sang-froid.
So he went waxed indignant to regain the upper hand.
‘Monsieur Maigret,’ he began.
And it was a thing of beauty, the way he said those first two words!
‘Monsieur Maigret … I take the liberty of reminding you that, as mayor of this town—’
So placidly that the mayor could only stare at him, the inspector rose and walked to a door that he opened as casually as you please.
‘Do come in, Louis! It’s irritating to watch a door that can’t stop shaking and to hear you breathing behind it.’
Maigret must have been disappointed if he had hoped to create a dramatic scene: Big Louis did as he was told. He came into the study with his head and shoulders awry, as usual, and stood looking at the floor like both a simple sailor overawed by the villa of a local magnate and a man suddenly finding himself in a difficult stuation.
As for the mayor, he was puffing heavily on his cigar and staring straight ahead.
Daylight was almost gone from the study. A gas lamp outside was already lit.
‘May I turn on the light?’ asked Maigret.
‘Just a minute … Close the curtains, first. There’s no need for people going by to … That’s it, the cord on the left, pull it slowly.’
Big Louis remained standing motionless in the middle of the study. Maigret switched the light on, walked over to the slow-combustion stove and automatically began to poke the fire.
It was a great habit of his. As was the way he would stand in front of a fire with his hands clasped behind him, toasting his back, when he was absorbed in reflection.
Had the situation changed? Be that as it may, there was a glint of mockery in the look Monsieur Grandmaison gave the inspector, who was thinking hard.
‘Was Big Louis here when you … had your accident?’
‘No!’
‘Too bad! That’s how you might have, for example, in tumbling down the stairs, landed on his bare fist …’
‘And it would have allowed you to stir up anxiety in the little harbour cafés, by telling fanciful tales. Best wrap this business up, don’t you think, inspector? There are two of us … We are both working on this case. You come here from Paris … You’ve brought with you Captain Joris, in a pitiful state, and all the evidence indicates that it was not in Ouistreham that he met with such injury … You were here when he was killed …You go about your inquiry in your own way.’
The man’s voice was positively cutting.
‘As for me, I have been the mayor here for ten years. I know my constituents. I consider myself responsible for their well-being. As mayor I am also the local chief of police. Well …’
When he paused to take a long puff on his cigar, the ash dropped off and crumbled over his dressing gown.
‘While you’ve been patronizing the harbour bistros, I, too, have been busy with this case, if you please!’
‘And you summoned Big Louis.’
‘As I will summon others if I see fit. And now, I suppose that you have nothing more of importance to tell me?’
He rose, a trifle stiffly, to see his visitor to the door.
‘I trust,’ murmured Maigret, ‘that you will have no objection if Louis comes with me? I already questioned him last night, but there are a few more things I’d like to ask him.’
Monsieur Grandmaison gestured dismissively by way of reply. It was Big Louis who stayed right where he was, staring at the floor as if nailed to it.
‘Are you coming?’
‘Nah! Not right now.’
It was more grunting than speaking, like everything Julie’s brother said.
‘Let me point out,’ observed the mayor, ‘that I have no objection at all to his going with you! I insist that you take note of this, so that you will not accuse me of trying to stymie your investigation. I sent for Big Louis to inquire about certain matters. If he prefers to stay, it’s probably because he has something else to tell me.’
All the same, there was tension in the air, and even fear – and not just in the air, for there was almost panic in the mayor’s eyes.
And the smile on Big Louis’ face was one of brutish satisfaction.
‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ the inspector told him.
But the reply he received was from the mayor.
‘It was nice seeing you, Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’
The inspector left the study. Hurrying from the kitchen, the maid sullenly showed him to the front door without a word and closed it behind him.
The road was deserted. In the window of a house a hundred metres away, Maigret saw a light; there were a few others, but at long intervals, for the villas on the Riva-Bella road are surrounded by extensive gardens.
Hands in his pockets, hunched over, Maigret walked to the front gate and looked out over empty ground, since all that part of Ouistreham runs alongside the dunes. Beyond the gardens lie only sand and beach grass.
A form in the darkness; a voice …
‘That you, inspector?’
‘Lucas?’
They quickly drew together.
‘What are you doing here?’
Without taking his eyes from the villa’s grounds, the sergeant whispered, ‘The man from the dredger …’
‘He came out?’
‘He’s here!’
‘Has he been here long?’
‘Barely fifteen minutes … Right behind the house.’
‘Came in over the fence?’
‘No. It looks as if he’s waiting for someone. I heard your footsteps, so I came to check.’
‘Show me where.’
They went around the garden to the back of the villa, w
here Lucas swore softly.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘He’s gone.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘He was over by the clump of tamarisks.’
‘You think he went inside?’
‘No idea.’
‘Stay here. No matter what happens.’
Maigret ran back to the road. No one … A ray of light showed at the study window, but the sill was out of reach.
He hurried back through the garden to ring at the door. The maid opened it almost immediately.
‘I think I left my pipe in the study.’
‘I will go and see.’
She left him on the threshold, but as soon as she had gone he went quietly to the study door and peeked in.
The mayor was still in his chair with his legs propped up. A small table had been set next to him. And on the other side of it sat Big Louis.
They were playing draughts.
The ex-con moved a piece and barked, ‘Your turn!’
The mayor, looking up in exasperation at the maid still hunting for the pipe, exclaimed, ‘You can see for yourself that it’s not here! Tell the inspector he must have left it somewhere else. Your move, Louis.’
Perfectly at home, Louis called after her, ‘And then bring us something to drink, Marguerite!’
7. Orchestrating Events
When Maigret left the villa, Lucas could tell there was trouble coming. The inspector was ready to explode, with staring eyes that seemed to see nothing.
‘Didn’t find him?’
‘I don’t think it’s even worth looking for him. We’d need too many men to hunt down someone hiding in the dunes.’
His overcoat buttoned all the way up, Maigret thrust his hands into his pockets and chewed the stem of his pipe.
‘See that gap between the curtains?’ he said, pointing to the study window. ‘And that low wall, right in front? Well, once you’re standing on the wall, I think you could see into the room.’
Lucas was almost as big as his boss, but not as tall. He hoisted himself on to the wall with a sigh, checking both ways along the road to make sure no one was coming.
The wind had picked up at sundown, a sea wind that strengthened with each passing minute and shook the trees.
‘Anything?’
The Misty Harbour Page 7