It wasn’t the word he was looking for, or the one that corresponded to reality. The girl was certainly pretty, but there was something more, something hard to define. The photographer had even managed to bring her eyes to life, eyes that seemed to be asking an unanswerable question.
In two of the prints, she was wearing only her black dress; in another, she had on her brown check coat; in the last one, finally, she was in evening dress. You could imagine her on the streets of Paris, where there were so many girls like her, dodging in and out of the crowds, stopping every now and again to look at shop windows, then continuing on their way to God knows where.
She had had a mother and a father, friends at school, people who had known her later, men and women. She had talked to them. They had called her by her name.
But now that she was dead, nobody appeared to remember her, nobody was getting worried. It was as if she had never existed.
‘I hope it wasn’t too difficult.’
‘What?’
‘Finding a model.’
‘Only embarrassing. I was surrounded by a dozen of them, and when I showed them the dresses, they all wanted to try them on.’
‘In front of you?’
‘They’re used to it.’
After two years in the Police Judiciaire, Lapointe could still blush!
‘Have the photographs sent to the provincial flying squads.’
‘I already thought of that. I took the liberty of sending them without waiting for your instructions.’
‘Perfect. Have you sent them to all the police stations in Paris, too?’
‘They went off half an hour ago.’
‘Get me Lognon on the phone.’
‘At the second district?’
‘No. At home.’
A few moments later, a voice said into the phone, ‘Inspector Lognon speaking.’
‘Maigret here.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ve had some photographs sent to your office, the same ones that’ll appear in the newspapers in an hour or two.’
‘Do you want me to do the rounds again?’
Maigret would have been hard put to say why he didn’t think it would lead anywhere. The visit to Mademoiselle Irène, the origin of the evening gown, the time the murder had been committed, the place: everything seemed to indicate a connection with the neighbourhood where the nightclubs were.
Why, at nine in the evening, had the girl felt the need to get hold of an evening gown, unless it was necessary for her to go to a place where people dress up?
It was too late to go to the theatre, and, apart from the opera or a first night, you don’t absolutely have to wear evening dress there.
‘Try, just in case. Check especially those taxi-drivers who work nights.’
Maigret hung up. Lapointe was still there, awaiting instructions, and Maigret didn’t know what instructions to give him.
Just in case, he called the shop in Rue de Douai, too.
‘Mademoiselle Irène?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Did you find that address?’
‘Oh, it’s you … No! I’ve looked everywhere. I must have thrown the paper away or used it to write down a customer’s measurements. But I’ve remembered her first name. I’m almost sure of it. It’s Louise. The surname also starts with an L. La something … Like La Montagne or La Bruyère … Not that, but something like it …’
‘When she transferred the objects from her own bag to the silver bag, did you notice if there was an identity card?’
‘No.’
‘Keys?’
‘Wait! I think I can see keys. Not keys. Just one little brass key.’
He heard her calling:
‘Viviane, come here a moment!’
He didn’t hear what she said to her slave.
‘Viviane also thinks she saw a key,’ she confirmed.
‘A flat key?’
‘Yes, you know, like most of the ones they make nowadays.’
‘Was there any money?’
‘A few folded banknotes. I remember that, too. Not much. Maybe two or three hundred-franc notes. I remember thinking she wouldn’t get far with that.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No. I think that’s everything.’
There was a knock at the door. It was Janvier, who had just arrived. On seeing the prints on the desk, he had the same shock as Maigret.
‘You found some photographs of her?’ he said in surprise.
He frowned and took a closer look.
‘Did they do them upstairs?’
Finally, he murmured:
‘Strange girl, isn’t she?’
They still didn’t know anything about her, except that nobody, apart from a woman who hired out dresses, seemed to know her.
‘What do we do?’
All Maigret could do was shrug and say:
‘We wait!’
3.
The maid who is unused to the telephone and the old lady in Rue de Clichy
Somewhat glum and disappointed, Maigret had stayed at headquarters until seven in the evening and then had taken the bus home to Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. There was a newspaper, unfolded, on the pedestal table, with the photograph of the dead girl on the front page, and the accompanying article probably said that Detective Chief Inspector Maigret was in charge of the case.
But his wife didn’t ask him any questions. Nor did she try to distract him. After a while, as they were eating together and had almost got to the dessert, he happened to look at her and was surprised to find her as anxious as he was.
He didn’t wonder if she was thinking about the same thing. Later, he went and sat down in his armchair, lit his pipe and looked through the paper while Madame Maigret cleared the table and washed up. It was only when she sat down facing him, the basket of socks and stockings on her knees, that he looked at her two or three times, surreptitiously, and finally murmured, as if it was something of no great importance:
‘I wonder what would make a girl feel the urgent need to wear an evening gown.’
Why was he sure she had been thinking about this the whole time? He could even have sworn, from her little sigh of satisfaction, that she had been waiting for him to ask her about it.
‘It may not be necessary to look too far,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, a man would probably never think of putting on a dinner jacket or tails without a specific reason. But it’s different for a girl. When I was thirteen, I worked for hours and hours, on the sly, fixing up an old evening gown my mother had thrown away.’
He looked at her in surprise, as if suddenly discovering an unknown side of his wife’s character.
‘Sometimes, at night, when they thought I was asleep, I’d get up and put on that gown and look at myself in the mirror. And once, when my parents had gone out, I put it on, along with my mother’s shoes, which were too big for me, and walked as far as the corner of the street.’
He was silent for more than a minute, not even noticing that she was blushing at the secret she had told him.
‘You were thirteen,’ he said at last.
‘One of my aunts, Aunt Cécile, who you never met, though I’ve often talked about her, the one who was rich for a few years and whose husband was ruined overnight, often shut herself up in her room and spent hours doing her hair and getting dressed as if she was going to the opera. If you knocked at her door, she’d reply that she had a migraine. One day, I looked through the keyhole and discovered the truth. She was looking at herself in the mirror, fanning herself and smiling.’
‘That was a long time ago.’
‘Do you think women have changed?’
‘You’d need a more serious reason than that to knock on Mademoiselle Irène’s door at nine o’clock in the evening and ask for an evening gown when you only have two or three hundred francs in your pocket, then put it on right away and walk off in the rain.’
‘What I mean is that it isn’t nec
essarily a reason a man would find serious.’
He understood what she meant but wasn’t convinced.
‘Are you tired?’
He nodded. They went to bed early. In the morning, it was windy, and the sky threatened rain. Madame Maigret made him take his umbrella. At Quai des Orfèvres, he almost missed the call, because he was already at the door, just about to leave the office to attend the daily briefing, when the telephone rang. He retraced his steps.
‘Hello. Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’
‘Someone who won’t give her name is asking to speak to you personally,’ the switchboard operator said.
‘Put her through.’
As soon as the connection was made, he heard a piercing voice, so shrill that it made the receiver vibrate, the voice of someone who wasn’t used to the telephone.
‘Is that Detective Chief Inspector Maigret?’
‘Yes, it is. Who is this?’
There was a silence.
‘Hello? I’m listening.’
‘I can tell you something about the girl who was killed.’
‘The one who was found on Place Vintimille?’
Another silence. He wondered if the person calling was a child.
‘Go on. Do you know her?’
‘Yes. I know where she lived.’
He was convinced that it wasn’t because she was hesitating that she left these long pauses between her sentences, but because the telephone overawed her. She shouted instead of speaking, holding her mouth too close to the receiver. A radio somewhere was playing music. He could make out the crying of a baby.
‘Where’s that?’
‘113A Rue de Clichy.’
‘Who are you?’
‘If you want information, just ask the old lady on the second floor. Madame Crêmieux, her name is.’
He heard a second voice crying:
‘Rose! Rose! What are you—’
Then, almost immediately, the person hung up.
He only spent a few minutes in the commissioner’s office and, as Janvier had just arrived, he took him with him.
Janvier had scoured Paris in vain the previous evening. As for Lognon, who had been dealing with the nightclubs and the taxi-drivers, he hadn’t yet been in touch.
‘She sounds like a young maid who’s just arrived from the country,’ Maigret said to Janvier. ‘She has an accent, but I can’t place it.’
113A Rue de Clichy was a well-to-do apartment building, like most buildings in the neighbourhood. The two men first stopped to see the concierge, a woman in her forties, who watched them suspiciously as they walked in.
‘Police Judiciaire,’ Maigret announced, showing his badge.
‘What do you want?’
‘Do you have a tenant named Madame Crêmieux?’
‘Second floor on the left.’
‘Is she in?’
‘Unless she’s gone shopping. I didn’t see her go past.’
‘Does she live alone?’
The concierge didn’t seem to have an entirely easy conscience. ‘Alone and not alone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Every now and again, she has someone with her.’
‘A family member?’
‘No. Well, I don’t see why I should make a big mystery out of it. She can look after herself. She sometimes takes a lodger.’
‘Just for short periods?’
‘She’d prefer to have someone who’d stay, of course, but, with her character, she soon drives them away. I think the last one was the fifth or sixth.’
‘Why didn’t you say that from the start?’
‘Because, the first time she had someone, a girl who was an assistant at the Galeries, she asked me to say she was her niece.’
‘And she gave you a cut?’
She shrugged. ‘First of all, the owner doesn’t allow his tenants to sub-let. Then, when you let a furnished room, you have to declare it to the police and fill out forms. And finally, I don’t think she declares that income to the tax people.’
‘Is that why you didn’t get in touch with us?’
She knew what he was referring to. There was even a newspaper from the day before lying on a chair, with the photograph of the unknown girl clearly visible.
‘Do you know her?’
‘She was the last one.’
‘The last what?’
‘The last lodger. The last niece, to use the old lady’s word.’
‘When did you see her last?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t pay any attention.’
‘Do you know her name?’
‘Madame Crêmieux called her Louise. As no mail came for her while she lived here, I don’t know her surname. I told you, I wasn’t supposed to know she was a lodger. People are allowed to have relatives staying with them. And now, because of that, I might lose my job. I suppose it’ll be in the newspapers?’
‘It’s possible. What kind of person was she?’
‘The girl? Nothing special. She’d nod when she passed the lodge if she thought of it, but she never troubled herself to say a word to me.’
‘Had she been here long?’
Janvier was taking notes, which had an effect on the concierge, making her think carefully before answering each question.
‘If I remember rightly, she arrived just before the New Year.’
‘Did she have any luggage?’
‘Just a little blue suitcase.’
‘How did she come to know Madame Crêmieux?’
‘I should have suspected it would end badly. This is the first time anybody’s ever got round me like that, but I swear to you that, whatever happens, it’s the last. Madame Crêmieux was already living in the building when her husband was alive. He was assistant manager in a bank. Actually, they were here before I arrived.’
‘When did he die?’
‘Five or six years ago. They didn’t have any children. She started complaining, saying how awful it was to live alone in a big apartment. Then she talked about money, how her pension stayed the same even though the cost of living kept going up.’
‘Is she rich?’
‘She must have means. One day, she told me she owned two buildings somewhere in the tenth arrondissement. The first time she had a lodger, she told me it was a relative from the provinces, but I soon guessed the truth and went to see her. That was when she offered to give me a quarter of the rent she received, and I was stupid enough to accept. It’s true that her apartment’s too big for just one person.’
‘Did she put ads in the newspapers?’
‘Yes. With no address, though, just the telephone number.’
‘What kind of background did her lodgers have?’
‘Hard to say. Good backgrounds, almost always. They were young girls who worked and who were pleased to have a larger room than they’d find in a small hotel, and for the same price, or even for less. Just once, she had a girl who seemed as respectable as the others but would get up at night and let men in. That didn’t last more than a couple of days.’
‘Tell me about the last one.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything.’
The concierge looked mechanically at the photograph in the newspaper. ‘I told you, I only ever saw her pass by. She’d leave in the morning about nine o’clock or half past.’
‘Do you know where she worked?’
‘No.’
‘Did she come back for lunch?’
‘Madame Crêmieux didn’t allow them to cook in the apartment.’
‘What time would she get back?’
‘In the evening. Sometimes at seven, sometimes ten or eleven.’
‘Did she go out a lot? Did friends come asking for her?’
‘Nobody ever came asking for her.’
‘Did you ever see her in evening dress?’
She shook her head. ‘You know, she was a girl like so many others, and I hardly paid any attention to her. Especially as I didn’t think she’d
last.’
‘Why not?’
‘I told you. The old woman’s happy enough to let the room, but she doesn’t like being disturbed. She’s in the habit of going to bed at half past ten, and if her lodger has the misfortune to come back later, she makes a scene. When it comes down to it, it’s not so much a lodger she’s looking for as someone to keep her company and play cards with her.’
She didn’t know why Maigret smiled at this. He had just thought of the dress merchant in Rue de Douai. Élisabeth Coumar picked up girls who were drifting, perhaps out of the goodness of her heart, but perhaps also not to be alone, and since they owed her everything, for a shorter or longer period of time they became slaves of a kind.
Madame Crêmieux took in lodgers. Basically, that boiled down to the same thing. How many old ladies, or old maids, were there in Paris who tried in this way to make sure they had company, preferably the company of someone young and carefree?
‘If only I could give back the small amount of money it brought me and avoid losing my job …’
‘To sum up, you don’t know who she was, where she came from, what she did, or who she saw?’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t like her?’
‘I don’t like people who don’t have any more money than I have but think they’re superior.’
‘So you think she was poor?’
‘I always saw her in the same dress and coat.’
‘Are there any maids in the building?’
‘Why do you ask me that? There are three of them. The tenants on the first floor have one, so does the tenant on the second floor on the right. Then there’s—’
‘Is one of them young and not long arrived from the country?’
‘You must mean Rose.’
‘Which one is that?’
‘The one on the second floor. The Larchers already had two children. Madame Larcher gave birth again two months ago, and as she couldn’t manage she had a maid fetched from Normandy.’
‘Do the Larchers have a telephone?’
‘Yes. The husband has a good position in an insurance company. They recently bought a car.’
‘Thank you.’
‘If only there was a way to stop the landlord finding out …’
‘One more question. Yesterday, when the photograph of the girl appeared in the newspaper, did you recognize her?’
Maigret and the Dead Girl Page 4