He said it reluctantly. He didn’t want Maigret to think he was ready to help him. Or perhaps the police had asked him not to pass on any information to the enemy.
“News of Samuel?”
“Yes. The particulars came by the afternoon post. And then Lucas telephoned from Paris. He’d had his eye on the man at one time, though it’s several years ago now.”
“What do they say?”
“They don’t know exactly where he came from. But they think he was born in Poland, possibly Yugoslavia. An uncommunicative man who never talked about himself. He had a business in Algiers. Guess what.”
“Something very dull, I should imagine.”
“Postage stamps.”
Maigret was delighted. Dealing in stamps seemed to him somehow just right for the man in the train.
“A business that naturally was only cover for another. But it was so well done that, though the police were watching them, they didn’t find out anything till Samuel was put on trial for murder. Then it all came to light. I’m more or less repeating what Lucas told me over the phone. His real business was supplying forged passports, immigration papers, and labor permits. He had a whole network of agents in Bucharest, Warsaw, Constantinople, and all over the shop.”
The sky outside was a deep dark blue, the tops of the houses barely visible against it. From down below came the familiar buzz of the aperitif hour.
“Strange,” muttered Maigret.
What he found strange was not Samuel’s profession, but to find in a place like Bergerac links extending from Warsaw to Algiers.
People like this Samuel—he had dealt with hundreds in his time. And he had always studied them with curiosity that was mixed with some other feeling—not quite repulsion—as though they belonged to a different species altogether from the one we call human.
You’d find them as barmen in Scandinavia, as gangsters in America, as casino owners in Holland, or else as headwaiters or theater directors in Germany, or wholesalers in North Africa.
And now they were cropping up again in this peaceful little town of Bergerac, which you would have taken for the most remote place imaginable from all the terror, sordidness, and tragedy that their doings involved.
Eastern and Central Europe between Budapest and Odessa, between Tallinn and Belgrade, an area teeming with a mass of humanity. In particular, there were hundreds of thousands of hungry Jews whose only ambition was to seek a better existence in some other land. Boat-loads and trainloads of emigrants with children in their arms, and dragging their old folk behind them, resigned, tragic faces queuing at border checkpoints.
There were more Poles in Chicago than Americans . . . France alone had absorbed trainloads and trainloads. In every town in the country there were people who at every birth, death, or marriage had to spell their outlandish names letter by letter at the town hall . . .
Some were legal emigrants, with their papers in order. Others didn’t have the patience to wait, or were unable to obtain a visa.
That’s where Samuel came in, Samuel and his like. Men who spoke ten languages, who knew every frontier in Europe, the rubber stamp of every consulate, and even the signatures of the officials. They could see to everything!
Their real activity would be concealed behind the façade of some other business, preferably international.
Postage stamps. What could be better?
To Mr A. Levy, Chicago.
Sir,
I am this day dispatching two hundred rare Czechoslovakian stamps with orange vignettes . . .
There was another traffic, too, which no doubt interested Samuel, as it did most of his kind.
In the maisons spéciales of South America it was French girls who formed the quality. Their purveyors worked in Paris on the Grands Boulevards. But the smaller fry, the cheaper end of the market, came from Eastern Europe. Country girls who left home at fifteen or sixteen, returning—if ever they did—at twenty, with their dowries in their pockets.
What bothered Maigret was the sudden irruption of this Samuel into the world of Bergerac, where previously there had been only the public prosecutor, the doctor and his wife, Françoise, Leduc, and the hotel proprietor to deal with. It cast a whole new complexion on the case.
Opposite, Maigret could see the little grocer’s, whose wares he had come to know so well. And then the garage with its petrol pump—which must have been for show, for they only ever sold petrol in cans!
But Leduc was speaking.
“I never heard of a show of that kind run from Algiers, but they say he did a lot of business with the Arabs, and even with the Negroes inland.”
“There was a murder, you said?”
“A double one. Two of his own race who were found lying dead on a bit of waste ground. Both had come from Berlin. There was a lot of nosing around. It was discovered that the two men had been working with Samuel for a long time. The investigation lasted for months. They found nothing. Samuel was taken ill and had to be moved from the prison infirmary to the town hospital.
“They more or less pieced it all together. The two associates from Berlin had come to complain of something. No doubt he was doing them out of their commissions. Perhaps they threatened him.”
“So he did away with them.”
“He was condemned to death. But there was no need to carry out the execution, for he died in the hospital a few days after being sentenced.
“That’s all I know.”
The doctor was astonished to find the two men in the dark. With a curt movement he switched on the light. Then he put his dispatch case down on the table, nodded a good evening, slipped off his light overcoat, and started washing his hands in the basin.
“I’ll leave you now,” said Leduc. “See you again tomorrow.”
He hadn’t realized the doctor would be coming, and was none too pleased at being found there. It was all very well for Maigret, but Leduc lived in the district. He didn’t want to rub people the wrong way.
“Look after yourself. Good-bye, doctor,” he said, slinking out.
Rivaud merely grunted as he soaped his hands.
“How’s the temperature?”
“Behaving very nicely.”
Maigret was in the same buoyant good humor now as he had been during the first few days, when it had felt so good to be alive.
“Does it still hurt?”
“Oh, that’s nothing. I’m used to it by now.”
Once more the doctor went through the routine: unbandaging, dressing, rebandaging. His face was within a foot or two of Maigret’s. And suddenly the latter blurted out:
“One would hardly take you for a Jew.”
No response. Not a flicker. Not the faintest variation in the surgeon’s regular breathing. Only after the job was finished did he say:
“It’s safe to move you now.”
“What do you mean?”
“You need no longer be a prisoner in this hotel room. Wasn’t there talk of your spending a few days with Leduc?”
A man of prodigious self-control, if ever there was one! For a good quarter of an hour Maigret had been fixing him with a steady stare, and he hadn’t turned a hair. His careful capable hands had never trembled, never faltered.
“I’ll only be coming every other day now. The other days I’ll send my assistant. You can have every confidence in him.”
“As much as in you?”
There were moments—though they could hardly be called frequent—when Maigret could not repress a pert remark like that. But what really gave them their flavor was the artless way in which they were said.
“Good evening!”
That was all he got for an answer. The doctor was gone, leaving Maigret to resume his mental puppet show. And now Samuel, who had just been added to his collection, had now stepped forward to play the principal part. A man who had the rare distinction of having died twice.
Was he the man who went about strangling women? Was he the man who had a mania for sticking needles through hearts?<
br />
If he was, there were several questions that were hard to answer, two in particular.
First of all, why should he choose the neighborhood of Bergerac for the scene of his activities? People of his sort invariably preferred big towns, where the inhabitants were more mixed and where, as a result, there was a greater chance of passing unnoticed . . .
And apparently he had no connection with Bergerac at all. At least, nobody had been able to identify him. Moreover, with those patent-leather boots, he hardly seemed cast for the part of wild man of the woods.
If he didn’t live in the woods, where did he hang out? Was somebody hiding him? Who could it be? The doctor perhaps? Leduc? Duhourceau? The Hôtel d’ Angleterre.
Secondly, the crimes in Algiers had been clever, premeditated murders with a purpose—to get rid of two dangerous accomplices.
The Bergerac murders, on the other hand, were committed by a madman, a sadist, or a sexual pervert.
Had Samuel gone mad between the earlier and the later crimes? Or, for some subtle reason, was he feigning madness, using the needle as some sort of cover?
“I wonder if Duhourceau’s ever been to Algiers . . . !” muttered Maigret to himself.
His wife returned. She was tired out. Throwing her hat on to the table, she sank into the easy chair.
“What a trade! I’m sorry for you. To have to prowl around like that from one year’s end to the other!”
“Any news?”
“Nothing interesting. Nobody’s yet been able to identify the dead man. It seems they’ve had some information from Paris, but they won’t give it out.”
“I know it.”
“Leduc told you? That’s nice of him. One couldn’t blame him if he washed his hands of you. Everybody’s against you. Now people don’t know what to think. Some say that Samuel has nothing to do with it at all. He’s just a man who wanted to kill himself. And naturally they’re expecting the murders to go on.”
“Have you been past the doctor’s house again?”
“Yes, but there was nothing to see. On the other hand, I was told something, though it may be of no importance at all. Two or three times a woman has visited the house, and she’s thought to be Dr. Rivaud’s mother-in-law. A middle-aged woman, they say, and decidedly common. Nobody knows anything about her or where she lives, and she hasn’t been seen for quite two years . . .”
“Hand me the telephone.”
He rang up the police station.
“Is that the inspector’s secretary? . . . No. No need to bother him . . . I only want to know the surname of Mademoiselle Françoise, Madame Rivaud’s sister. No objection, have you?”
A few moments later, he smiled. With his hand over the receiver, he said to his wife:
“They’re calling the inspector to see if it is all right to give me the information. He’d have liked not to tell me. They hate the idea of helping me even that much! . . . Hello . . . yes . . . Beausoleil? . . . Thank you.
“A splendid name! And now there’s a very boring job for you to do. I want you to go downstairs and ask for the telephone directory—not the local one, but the big one for the whole of France. Look up the numbers of every medical school in the country and then telephone to each in turn. Ask for the registrar’s office, and inquire whether anyone of the name of Jacques Rivaud is on their list of qualified men . . .”
“You think he might not be . . . But he’s the person who is taking care of you . . .”
“Just do it.”
“You want me to phone from the kiosk in the lounge? People can hear every word you say.”
“Splendid.”
Left alone, again, he filled his pipe and closed the window, for it had turned a little chilly.
He had always loved the atmosphere of a house, and it fascinated him to speculate on that of the doctor’s and the prosecutor’s. There was certainly something haunting about the doctor’s.
Not on the surface. In fact, quite the opposite. A gay little villa with clean, simple lines, plainly decorated.
“They must be a happy household . . .”
That’s what the passersby must say as they saw the well-lit rooms, the brightly colored curtains, the flowers in the garden, the brightly polished brass knocker, and the car purring in the front of the garage . . . And that supple, graceful girl, Françoise, jumping in and driving off . . . Or it might be Rivaud, who, with his forceful, capable look, cut as good a figure as she did . . .
What would they say to each other in the evenings, those three?
Was Madame Rivaud aware of what was going on between her husband and her sister?
She wasn’t pretty. And certainly she knew it. Nothing romantic or exciting about her. More like the resigned, long-suffering mother of a family . . .
Françoise, on the other hand, was simply overflowing with life . . . Yes, it was an interesting question—whether Madame Rivaud knew. Would she meekly accept it? It often happened. Maigret had come across such situations time and again, even in the most respectable families . . .
Or were there, on the contrary, a lot of lies and false pretenses? Secret meetings . . . Kisses behind doors . . .
What sort of people were these Beausoleils? And was this story about the hospital in Algiers true? . . . Common. That’s what was said of the mother. And even Madame Rivaud—there were little things that, if you looked closely, hinted at a humbler origin. She had never quite been able to pick up the step. Françoise was more intelligent, more adaptable . . . And, of course, she’d started younger. She could pass herself off anywhere.
Were they jealous of each other? Did they hate each other? Or would they have long heart-to-heart talks?
And their mother, who had come to Bergerac on two occasions . . . Maigret couldn’t help picturing her as a stout busybody, delighted at having got her daughters settled, and lecturing them on how nice they ought to be to so rich and important a gentleman as Dr. Rivaud.
Perhaps the rich gentleman paid her a small annuity.
“I can picture her in Paris, in the eighteenth arrondissement, or rather in Nice . . .”
Did they talk about the crimes over dinner?
But there was a limit after all to what could be imagined. If only he had been able to drop in and have a look! Even for five minutes. To see the rooms, the ornaments, the things left lying about, which told of the daily occupations of those who lived in them . . .
Duhourceau’s house too. He would have given a good deal for five minutes there. Certainly there was some connection between Duhourceau and the doctor. You could tell it by their attitudes. There was some sort of an alliance . . .
Abruptly Maigret rang the bell and asked the landlord to come up. As soon as the man appeared, he asked him bluntly:
“Do you know if Monsieur Duhourceau often dines at the Rivauds’?”
“Every Tuesday. I know very well because it’s my nephew who drives him in his taxi. You see . . .”
“Thank you.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all.”
The landlord went off, puzzled, while Maigret, returning to the doctor’s villa, spread a clean white cloth and laid the table for four . . . The public prosecutor would sit on Madame Rivaud’s right . . .
“Tuesday night! . . . And it was a Tuesday night—or rather early Wednesday morning—that I was attacked and Samuel was killed.”
So they were having dinner together that night. With the feeling that he was making a huge stride forward, he grabbed the phone.
“Hallo! . . . Is that the exchange? . . . Police Judiciaire . . .”
He spoke almost roughly, for he was afraid he might get the brush-off.
“I want to know if Dr. Rivaud received a call from Paris last Tuesday.”
“Hold on, will you? I’ll find out.”
It didn’t take a minute.
“Yes. At two in the afternoon. A call from Paris. The number calling was Archives 14-67.”
“Have you a numeral list of Paris sub
scribers? If you have, I’d like to know who Archives 14-67 is.”
“I think I’ve seen one. Hold on again.”
A nice girl. Pretty too, by the sound of her voice. And gay. Maigret smiled unconsciously.
“Hallo! . . . I’ve found it. It’s the Restaurant des Quatres Sergents, place de la Bastille.”
“Was it a three-minute call?”
“Three units. Nine minutes altogether.”
A nine-minute call at two o’clock. The train left at three. That evening, while Maigret was lying beneath his sleepless, tormented companion in that overheated compartment, the public prosecutor was having dinner with the Rivauds . . .
Maigret fumed with impatience. It was all he could do not to jump out of bed. He felt he was getting on the trail at last. It was no longer the time for leisurely musings. He mustn’t make a mistake now.
The truth was not far off. Very likely he had all the data he needed. It might be simply a question of seeing it clearly in its right perspective. But it was precisely at such moments as this that there was the greatest risk of dashing off on a wild-goose chase.
Let’s see. A table laid for four. Monsieur Duhourceau—why was it Rosalie had looked at him like that? Had he a bad name in the town? Was there a side of his life that ill accorded with his age and the dignity of his position? In a country town it was easy enough to get a bad name. You only had to pat a girl on the cheek to set tongues wagging . . .
And Françoise? . . . The type that made men of a certain age start thinking of things they shouldn’t . . . So they are at dinner and Samuel and I are on the train. Was Samuel afraid? Wasn’t that the most obvious explanation of his restlessness, his trembling hands, his breathing?
Maigret was sweating. From downstairs came the clatter of plates. It would soon be dinnertime.
“Did he jump out of the train to escape from somebody or to meet somebody?”
That was perhaps the most crucial question of all. In fact, Maigret felt pretty sure it was. If he could answer that, it would take him a long way. Once more he repeated:
“Was it to escape from somebody or to meet somebody? Which did the telephone call suggest?”
The Madman of Bergerac Page 8