Point looked up, surprised.
‘Do you think it might have been a forgery?’
‘I don’t think anything. I am exploring every theory. By presenting you with a Calame Report, genuine or fake, and then making it disappear, someone has automatically discredited you and the entire government, because you’ll be accused of having suppressed it.’
‘In that case, it will be in the news tomorrow.’
‘Not necessarily so fast. I’d like to know where, and in what circumstances, the report was discovered.’
‘Do you think you can find out without attracting attention?’
‘I’ll try. I assume that you have told me everything, minister? I am taking the liberty of pressing you because, under the circumstances, it is important that—’
‘I know. One small detail that I haven’t mentioned so far. At the beginning, I named Arthur Nicoud. When I met him at some dinner or other, I was an ordinary deputy and it didn’t occur to me that one day I’d be in charge of public works. I knew he belonged to the firm Nicoud & Sauvegrain, the contractors based in Avenue de la République.
‘Arthur Nicoud didn’t behave like a business tycoon but like a man of the world. Contrary to what people might think, he’s not the nouveau riche type, nor even a speculator. He is cultured. He has a good life. In Paris, he frequents the best restaurants, always in the company of pretty women, particularly actresses and film stars.
‘I think that anyone who’s anyone in the world of literature, the arts and politics has been invited at least once to his Sunday lunches in Samois.
‘I’ve met a good number of my fellow politicians there, newspaper editors and scientists, people whose integrity I’m prepared to vouch for.
‘Nicoud himself, in his country house, gives the impression of a man for whom nothing matters as much as serving his guests the finest and most exquisite foods in sophisticated surroundings.
‘My wife has never liked him.
‘We have been there about half a dozen times, perhaps, never on our own, never on an intimate footing. Some Sundays, there were as many as thirty people for lunch, seated at small tables and then gathering in the library or around the swimming pool.
‘What I didn’t tell you is that one time, two years ago I believe, yes, two years ago at Christmas, my daughter received a tiny gold fountain pen engraved with her initials, with Arthur Nicoud’s business card.
‘I nearly made her send the gift back. I don’t recall who I mentioned it to – one of my colleagues – and I was pretty annoyed. He told me that Nicoud’s gesture meant nothing, that it was his habit, every Christmas, to send a memento to his guests’ wives or daughters. That year it was fountain pens, of which he must have ordered dozens. Another year it had been powder compacts, gold again, because apparently he loves gold.
‘My daughter kept the pen. I think she still uses it.
‘And tomorrow, when the Calame Report story hits the headlines, they’ll say that Auguste Point’s daughter received and accepted …’
Maigret nodded. He did not underestimate the importance of a detail like that.
‘Nothing else? He hasn’t lent you any money?’
Point blushed to the roots of his hair. Maigret understood why. It wasn’t because he had anything to reproach himself for, but because now everyone would be entitled to ask him that question.
‘Never! I swear—’
‘I believe you. You don’t have any shares in Nicoud & Sauvegrain?’
Point said no, with a rueful smile.
‘Starting in the morning, I’m going to do my utmost,’ promised Maigret. ‘You realize that I know less than you about this and that I am utterly unfamiliar with political circles. As I have said, I very much doubt we’ll be able to find the report before the person who has it in their hands makes use of it.
‘Might you yourself have got rid of the report to protect your colleagues who are compromised by it?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Even if your party leader had asked you to?’
‘Even if the president of the Council had suggested it.’
‘I thought as much. Forgive me for having asked the question. Now, minister, I shall leave you.’
The two men rose and Point held out his large, hairy hand.
‘I am so sorry to drag you into all this. I was so dispirited, bewildered …’
Entrusting his fate to another had made him feel relieved. He spoke in his normal voice, switched on the ceiling light and opened the door.
‘You can’t come and see me at the ministry without arousing curiosity, because you’re too well known. Nor can you telephone me, in case the phone is being tapped. As I said, everyone knows about this apartment. How can we communicate?’
‘I’ll find a way of contacting you when I need to. You can always telephone me at home in the evenings from a public booth, as you did today, and, if I’m not there, leave a message with my wife.’
The same idea had occurred to both men at the same time, and they couldn’t help smiling. Standing there by the door, they were like a pair of conspirators.
‘Good night, minister.’
‘Thank you, Maigret. Good night.’
Maigret did not bother to call the lift. He walked down the four flights of stairs, asked the concierge to open the door and found himself outside in the fog, which had become denser and colder. To have some chance of finding a taxi, he had to walk to Boulevard Montparnasse, pipe between his teeth and his hands in his pockets. After he had gone around twenty metres, two large headlamps lit up in front of him as a car engine started up.
The fog made it hard to judge distances. For a moment, Maigret had the impression that the car, which had started moving, was driving straight at him, but it simply cruised past him after enveloping him for a few seconds in a hazy light.
He hadn’t had time to raise his hand to hide his face. He also had the notion that it would have been pointless.
It was highly likely that someone wanted to know who, that night, had paid a lengthy visit to the minister’s apartment, whose fourth-floor windows were lit.
Maigret shrugged and continued on his way, meeting only a couple walking slowly, arm in arm, lips glued together, who almost bumped into him.
Eventually he found a taxi. The light was still on in his apartment on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. He took out his key, as always. And, as always, his wife opened the door before he had found the lock. She was in her nightdress, barefoot, her eyes puffy with sleep, and she immediately went back to the hollow she had made in the bed.
‘What time is it?’ she asked in a faraway voice.
‘Ten past one.’
He smiled at the thought that in another apartment, more luxurious but anonymous, another couple was experiencing almost the same thing.
Point and his wife were not at home. It was not their bedroom or their bed. They were strangers in their vast official residence, which must have felt as if it were full of traps.
‘What did he want from you?’
‘To be honest, I’m not entirely sure.’
She was still half-asleep and she forced herself to wake up fully while he undressed.
‘You don’t know why he wanted to see you?’
‘Just to ask for my advice.’
He didn’t want to say for reassurance, which would have been more accurate. It was funny. He had the feeling that if he had uttered the words ‘Calame Report’ in the familiar, almost tangible intimacy of his apartment, he would have burst out laughing.
In Point’s apartment on Boulevard Pasteur, half an hour earlier, those words had had a dramatic ring. A desperate minister had spoken them with a sort of terror. A president of the National Assembly was moved to speak as if it were an affair of state of the utmost importance.
The entire drama was about some thirty sheets of paper that had been gathering dust for years in an attic or elsewhere without anyone being concerned about the report’s whereabouts and which a school supe
rvisor had unearthed, perhaps by chance.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘Someone called Piquemal.’
‘Who is he?’
‘I don’t know exactly.’
It was true he was thinking about Piquemal, or rather that he was repeating the three syllables of his name, finding them amusing.
‘Sleep well.’
‘You too. By the way, wake me up at seven tomorrow.’
‘Why so early?’
‘I have to make a telephone call.’
Madame Maigret had already reached out to turn off the light, the switch being on her side of the bed.
3. The Stranger in the Little Bar
A hand tapped him on the shoulder and a voice whispered in his ear:
‘Maigret! It’s seven o’clock.’
The smell of coffee from the cup his wife was holding tickled his nostrils. His senses and his brain started up rather like an orchestra when the musicians in the pit start tuning their instruments. There was no coordination yet. Seven o’clock – so today was different because he usually woke at eight. Without opening his eyes, he was aware that the sun was shining, whereas the previous day had been misty. Before the thought of fog reminded him of Boulevard Pasteur, he had an unpleasant taste in his mouth which he had not experienced on waking for a long time. He wondered if he was going to have a hangover as he recalled the little tumblers and the minister’s home-made brandy.
Irritably, he opened his eyes and sat up in bed, relieved to note that he didn’t have a headache. He hadn’t realized the night before that they had both emptied their glasses several times.
‘Tired?’ asked his wife.
‘No. I’m fine.’
Puffy-eyed, he sipped his coffee, looking about him and muttering sleepily:
‘It’s a nice day.’
‘Yes. There’s a frost.’
The sun had the sharpness and coolness of a local white wine. Paris street life was stirring on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, with all the familiar sounds.
‘Do you have to go out so early?’
‘No. I just have to telephone Chabot and am unlikely to find him at home after eight o’clock. If it’s market day in Fontenay-le-Comte, he will even have left by seven thirty.’
Julien Chabot, now an investigating magistrate in Fontenay-le-Comte, where he lived with his mother in the large house where he was born, was a friend from his student days in Nantes. Maigret had dropped in to see him two years earlier on his way back from a congress in Bordeaux. The elderly Madame Chabot attended the first mass, at six o’clock in the morning, and by seven the household was already bustling; at eight o’clock, Julien left, not to go to the law courts, where he was hardly overburdened with work, but to stroll through the town’s streets or along the banks of the Vendée.
‘Give me another cup, would you?’
He drew the telephone towards him and asked for a connection. When the operator repeated the number, it suddenly dawned on him that if one of his theories of the previous night was true, his phone was already being tapped. That made him grumpy. He suddenly experienced the nausea he had felt when, against his will, he himself had been embroiled in a political intrigue. This made him resentful of Auguste Point, whom he’d never come across until the the previous night, and who’d had the bright idea of calling on him to get him out of a predicament …
‘Madame Chabot? … Hello! … Is that Madame Chabot speaking? … Maigret here … No! Maigret …’
She was hard of hearing. He had to repeat his name five or six times and add:
‘Jules Maigret, who’s in the police …’
Then she exclaimed:
‘Are you in Fontenay?’
‘No. I’m calling from Paris. Is your son there?’
She shouted too loud, too close to the mouthpiece. He couldn’t decipher what she was saying. A minute went by before he heard the voice of his friend Chabot.
‘Julien?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you hear me?’
‘As clearly as if you were phoning from the station. How are you?’
‘Fine. Listen. I’m calling to ask you for some information. Were you in the middle of breakfast?’
‘Yes. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Have you come across Auguste Point?’
‘The minister?’
‘Yes.’
‘I often used to meet him when he was a lawyer in La Roche-sur-Yon.’
‘What do you think of him?’
‘He’s a remarkable man.’
‘Give me details. Everything that comes to mind.’
‘His father, Évariste Point, runs a hotel in Sainte-Hermine, in the town of Clemenceau, which is famous not for its rooms but for its excellent cuisine. Food lovers come from far and wide to eat there. He must be in his eighties. A few years ago, he handed the business over to his son-in-law and his daughter, but he is still involved. Auguste Point, his only son, was a student at about the same time as us, but in Poitiers, then Paris. Are you still there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shall I go on? He was a bookworm, a swot. He opened a law firm on Place de la Préfecture, in La Roche-sur-Yon. You know the town. He stayed there for years, dealing chiefly with disputes between farmers and landowners. He married the daughter of a lawyer, Arthur Belion, who died two or three years ago and whose widow still lives in La Roche-sur-Yon.
‘I imagine that had it not been for the war, Auguste Point would have carried on quietly handling cases in Vendée and Poitiers.
‘During the Occupation, he kept a low profile, carrying on his day-to-day life as usual. Everyone was surprised when, a few weeks before the Germans retreated, they arrested him and took him to Niort, then somewhere in Alsace. They rounded up three or four others at the same time, including a surgeon from Bressuire, and that was how we learned that throughout the war, on a farm he owns near La Roche-sur-Yon, Point had sheltered British agents and aviators who’d escaped from the German camps.
‘We saw him come back, thin and in bad shape, a few days after the Liberation. He didn’t seek glory, didn’t get himself on to any committees or take part in any parades.
‘You remember the chaos there was at the time. Politics was confusing. No one knew who was good and who was bad.
‘People ended up turning to him when they weren’t sure of anything any more.
‘He did a good job, always quietly, without allowing his head to be turned, and we sent him to Paris as an elected deputy.
‘That’s pretty much his entire story. The Points have kept their house in Place de la Préfecture. They live in Paris when the Chamber is in session and come back immediately afterwards, and Point still has some of his clients.
‘I think his wife helps him a great deal. They have a daughter.’
‘I know.’
‘Then you know as much as I do.’
‘Are you acquainted with his secretary?’
‘Mademoiselle Blanche? I’ve often seen her in his office. We call her “the dragon”, because of the way she fiercely protects her boss.’
‘Nothing else to say about her?’
‘I suppose she’s in love with him, like the typical spinster.’
‘She worked for him before ending up a spinster.’
‘I know. But that’s another matter, and I can’t comment on that. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing yet. Have you come across a certain Jacques Fleury?’
‘A couple of times, at least twenty years ago. He must live in Paris. I have no idea what he does.’
‘Thank you, and I apologize again for disturbing your breakfast.’
‘My mother’s keeping it warm.’
At a loss for anything else to say, Maigret added:
‘Is it a nice day in Fontenay?’
‘It’s sunny, but the roofs are white with frost.’
‘It’s cold here too. Speak soon, old friend. Give my regards to your mother.’
‘Goodbye, Jules.’
For Julien Chabot, this telephone call was an event and he would mull it over as he strolled through the town’s streets, puzzled as to why Maigret was concerning himself with the doings of the minister of public works.
Maigret had breakfast too, still with an aftertaste of alcohol in his mouth, and when he went out he decided to go on foot, stopping at a café on Place de la République to settle his stomach with a glass of white wine.
Contrary to his habit, he bought all the morning papers, arriving at Quai des Orfèvres just in time for the briefing.
While his colleagues were gathered in the chief’s office, he said nothing. He was barely listening but gazing vaguely out at the Seine and the pedestrians on the Pont Saint-Michel. He stayed behind. The chief knew what that meant.
‘What is it, Maigret?’
‘A headache!’ he replied at first.
‘In the department?’
‘No. Paris has never been as calm as during the past five days. Only, last night, I received a personal telephone call from a minister who asked me to handle a case that I don’t like. I had no option but to accept. I told him I’d speak to you about it, but without giving you the details.’
The head of the Police Judiciaire frowned.
‘A very bothersome case?’
‘Very.’
‘In connection with the Clairfond fiasco?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is a minister asking you to carry out an investigation for him personally?’
‘The president of the Council is aware of it.’
‘I don’t want to know any more. Go ahead, my friend, seeing as you have no option. Be careful.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Do you need men?’
‘Three or four, probably. They won’t be told what it’s about exactly.’
‘Why didn’t they call in the Sûreté Nationale?’
‘Don’t you understand?’
‘Of course I do. That’s why I’m worried for you. Anyway …’
On the way back to his office Maigret opened the door to the inspectors’ office.
‘Could you come here for a moment, Janvier?’
Then, seeing Lapointe about to go out:
‘Are you doing something important?’
Maigret and the Minister Page 4