‘What did her companion look like?’
‘A short fat man, very well-dressed, foreign-looking. Between forty and fifty, I can’t say for certain. I didn’t get much of a look at him. He was turned towards her and speaking in a foreign language.’
‘What language?’
‘I don’t know. I’m from Pantin, I’ve never been able to tell one lingo from another.’
‘What address did she give you?’
‘She was nervous and impatient. She asked me to go first to Place d’Anvers and to slow down when we got there. She kept looking out of the window.
‘“Stop for a moment,” she said, “and then drive on as soon as I tell you.”
‘She was signalling to someone. An older lady came towards us with a little boy. The young woman opened the door, let the boy in, and ordered me to drive on.’
‘Did you think it was a kidnapping?’
‘No. Because she spoke to the lady. Not for long. Just a few words. And the lady seemed quite relieved.’
‘Where did you take the mother and the child?’
‘First to Porte de Neuilly. When we got there, she changed her mind and asked me to take her to Gare Saint-Lazare.’
‘Did she get out there?’
‘No. She stopped me on Place Saint-Augustin. Then I got caught in a traffic jam, and I saw her in my rear-view mirror, hailing another taxi, a municipal one, but I didn’t have time to get the number.’
‘Why did you want to?’
‘Out of habit. She was really worked up. And it isn’t normal, after taking me all the way to Porte de Neuilly, to stop me on Place Saint-Augustin and then get into another cab.’
‘Did she talk to the child during the ride?’
‘Two or three sentences, to keep him quiet. Is there a reward?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know yet.’
‘It’s just that I’ve lost a morning.’
Maigret handed over a banknote. A few minutes later, he walked into the office of the director of the Police Judiciaire, where the daily report had started. The heads of the various departments were there, sitting around the large mahogany desk, talking calmly about their current cases.
‘What about you, Maigret? This Steuvels of yours?’
From their smiles, it was clear they’d all read that morning’s article, and again, to please them, he put on a grouchy air.
It was 9.30. The telephone rang. The director answered, then held out the receiver to Maigret.
‘Torrence, for you.’
Torrence’s voice at the other end of the line sounded excited. ‘Is that you, chief? Have you found the woman in the white hat yet? The paper just arrived from Paris and I read the article. The description corresponds to someone who was here.’
‘Go on!’
‘As there was no way of getting anything out of that stupid postmistress, who claims she doesn’t have a good memory, I started looking in the hotels and rooming houses and questioning garage mechanics and railway staff.’
‘I know.’
‘It isn’t the season yet, and most people who come to Concarneau either live in the region or are the kinds of people you’d expect, travelling salesman or—’
‘Keep it short.’
Around him, all conversation had ceased.
‘I told myself that if anyone had come from Paris, or wherever, to send the telegram—’
‘Please, I’ve already understood.’
‘Well, a young woman in a blue tailored suit and a white hat arrived here the very same evening the telegram was sent. She got off the train at four o’clock, and the telegram was handed in at a quarter to five.’
‘Did she have any luggage with her?’
‘No. Wait. She didn’t check into a hotel. Do you know the Hôtel du Chien Jaune, at the end of the quay? She had dinner there, and then sat in a corner of the coffee shop until eleven. She got back on the train at 11.40.’
‘Did you check?’
‘I haven’t had time yet but I’m pretty sure, because she left the coffee shop just in time and she’d asked for the railway timetable immediately after dinner.’
‘Did she speak to anyone?’
‘Just the waitress. She was reading all the time, even while she was eating.’
‘Were you able to find out what kind of book she was reading?’
‘No. The waitress says she had an accent, but doesn’t know which one. What shall I do?’
‘See the postmistress again, obviously.’
‘And then?’
‘Phone me or phone Lucas if I’m not in the office, then come back here.’
‘OK, chief. Do you also think it’s her?’
As he hung up, there was a little gleam of joviality in Maigret’s eyes. ‘Madame Maigret may have given us a lead,’ he said. ‘Would you mind, chief? I have some things to check urgently.’
By chance, Lapointe was still in the inspectors’ office, looking distinctly worried.
‘Come with me!’
They took one of the taxis parked outside. Young Lapointe was still nervous: this was the first time Maigret had ever taken him with him like this.
‘The corner of Place Blanche and Rue Lepic.’
It was the time of day when, in Montmartre, and Rue Lepic in particular, the kerbs were packed with market stalls piled high with fruit and vegetables, all smelling nicely of the land and of spring.
On the left, Maigret recognized the little fixed-price restaurant where the taxi-driver had had lunch and, opposite, the Hôtel Beauséjour, the only part of it visible being a narrow door between two shops, a pork butcher’s and a grocer’s.
Rooms by the month, week and day.
Running water. Central heating. Reasonable prices.
There was a glass door at the end of the corridor, then a staircase with a sign on the wall saying Office and a hand painted in black pointing to the top of the stairs.
The office was on the mezzanine, a narrow room looking out on the street, with keys hanging from a board.
‘Is there anyone here?’ he called.
The smell reminded him of the time when, round about the same age as Lapointe was now, he had worked in the hotels squad and spent his days going from rooming house to rooming house. They always smelled of laundry and sweat, unmade beds, pails of dirty water, and food cooked over a spirit lamp.
A dishevelled-looking red-haired woman leaned over the banister. ‘What is it?’ Then, immediately, realizing it was the police, she announced sullenly, ‘I’m coming!’
For a while longer, she walked about upstairs, moving buckets and brushes. At last she appeared, buttoning up her blouse over her protuberant breasts. From up close, it was clear that her hair was almost white at the roots.
‘What is it? They checked me yesterday. I only have quiet people here. You’re from the hotels squad, are you?’
He didn’t answer that question, but described, in as much detail as the driver’s testimony allowed, the companion of the woman in the white hat.
‘Do you know him?’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure. What’s his name?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’
‘Do you want to see my register?’
‘I want you to tell me first of all if you have a guest who looks like him.’
‘The only one I can think of is Monsieur Levine.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘I don’t know. Someone dec
ent, anyway. He paid a week in advance.’
‘Is he still here?’
‘No. He left yesterday.’
‘Alone?’
‘With the boy, of course.’
‘And the woman?’
‘You mean the nurse?’
‘Hold on. Why don’t we start from the beginning, we’ll save time that way.’
‘That’s fine by me, I don’t have time to spare. What has Monsieur Levine done?’
‘Would you just answer my questions, please? When did he arrive?’
‘Four days ago. You can check in the register. I told him I didn’t have any rooms and it was true. He insisted. I asked him how long it was for and he told me he’d pay a week in advance.’
‘How were you able to put him up, if you didn’t have any rooms?’
Maigret knew the answer, but he wanted to make her say it. In that kind of establishment, they usually kept the rooms on the first floor for passing trade: couples who only needed them for an hour or less.
‘There are always the “casual” rooms,’ she replied, using the established term.
‘Was the boy with him?’
‘Not at that time. He went to fetch him and came back with him an hour later. I asked him how he was going to manage with such a young child and he told me that a nurse he knew would look after him for most of the day.’
‘Did he show you his passport and his identity card?’
According to regulations, she should have asked for these documents, but she obviously didn’t do things by the book.
‘He filled out his form himself. I could see straight away he was a respectable man. You’re not going to give me any trouble, are you?’
‘Not necessarily. How was the nurse dressed?’
‘In a blue tailored suit.’
‘With a white hat?’
‘Yes. She’d come in the morning to give the boy his bath then go out with him.’
‘What about Monsieur Levine?’
‘He’d stay in his room until eleven or twelve. I think he’d go back to bed. Then he’d go out and I wouldn’t see him again during the day.’
‘What about the boy?’
‘I wouldn’t see him either. Not until about seven in the evening. She was the one who brought him back and put him to bed. She’d lie down fully dressed on the bed and wait for Monsieur Levine to get back.’
‘What time did he usually get back?’
‘Not until one in the morning.’
‘And then she’d leave?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know where she lived?’
‘No. All I know, because I saw it, is that she took a taxi when she left.’
‘Was she intimate with your tenant?’
‘You mean did they sleep together? I’m not sure. I got the impression they might have done. They’re entitled, aren’t they?’
‘What nationality did Monsieur Levine put on his card?’
‘French. He told me he’d been in France for a long time and was naturalized.’
‘Where was he from?’
‘I can’t remember. Your colleague from the hotels squad took the forms away yesterday, like every Tuesday. From Bordeaux, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘What happened yesterday at midday?’
‘At midday, I don’t know.’
‘And in the morning?’
‘Someone came to ask for him about ten o’clock. The woman and the boy had been gone for a while.’
‘Who was the person who came?’
‘I didn’t ask his name. He wasn’t well dressed, looked a bit seedy to me.’
‘French?’
‘Definitely. I told him the number of the room.’
‘Had he ever been before?’
‘Nobody had ever been, except the nurse.’
‘Did he have a southern accent?’
‘More of a Parisian accent. You know, one of those people who stop you on the boulevards to sell you dirty postcards or take you God knows where.’
‘Did he stay for a long time?’
‘He stayed on his own and Monsieur Levine left.’
‘With his luggage?’
‘How do you know that? I was surprised to see him take his luggage with him.’
‘Did he have a lot?’
‘Four suitcases.’
‘Brown?’
‘Almost all suitcases are brown, aren’t they? They were good quality, though. At least two of them were genuine leather.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘That he had to leave in a hurry, that he was leaving Paris the same day, but that he’d be back in a while to take the boy’s things.’
‘How soon after that did he come back?’
‘About an hour. The woman was with him.’
‘Didn’t it surprise you not to see the boy?’
‘You know that too?’
She was becoming cagier, starting to suspect that this was something important, and that the police knew more than Maigret was prepared to tell her.
‘The three of them stayed in the room for a while, talking quite loudly.’
‘As if they were arguing?’
‘As if they were discussing something, anyway.’
‘In French?’
‘No.’
‘Did the Parisian take part in the conversation?’
‘Not much. In fact, he came out first, and I didn’t see him again. Then Monsieur Levine and the woman left. As I was in their way, he thanked me and told me he was planning to come back in a few days.’
‘Didn’t that strike you as strange?’
‘If you’d been running a hotel like this one for eighteen years, nothing would ever strike you as strange.’
‘Was it you who tidied their room after they left?’
‘I went there with the maid.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Cigarette ends everywhere. He smoked more than fifty a day. American ones. And newspapers. He bought almost all the papers that come out in Paris.’
‘No foreign papers?’
‘No. I thought of that.’
‘So you were intrigued?’
‘It’s always nice to know.’
‘What else did you find?’
‘Rubbish, as usual, a broken comb, torn underwear …’
‘Initialled?’
‘No. It was a child’s.’
‘Good underwear?’
‘Quite good, yes. Better than I usually see here.’
‘I’ll be back to talk to you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m sure there are things you’ve forgotten that’ll come back to you when you think about it. You’ve always been on good terms with the police, have you? Never had any bother from the hotels squad?’
‘I get the picture. But I don’t know anything else.’
‘Goodbye for now.’
He and Lapointe found themselves back outside on the sunlit pavement, surrounded by the commotion of the market.
‘How about an aperitif?’ Maigret suggested.
‘I don’t drink.’
‘Good for you. Have you thought things over since before?’
Lapointe realized Maigret wasn’t talking about what they had just found out at the hotel. ‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘I’ll talk to her this evening.’
‘Do you know wh
o it was?’
‘I have a friend who’s a reporter on the very same paper that carried that item. But I didn’t see him yesterday. And I never talk to him about what happens at the Quai. He likes to tease me about that.’
‘Does your sister know him?’
‘Yes. I didn’t think they were going out together. If I tell my father, he’ll make her go back to Meulan.’
‘What’s the reporter’s name?’
‘Bizard, Antoine Bizard. He’s alone in Paris too. His family live in Corrèze. He’s two years younger than me, and already has his name on some of the things he writes.’
‘Do you see your sister at lunchtime?’
‘It depends. When I’m free and I’m not too far from Rue du Bac, I have lunch with her in a dairy near her office.’
‘Go there today. Tell her what we found out this morning.’
‘Do I have to?’
‘Yes.’
‘What if she passes it on again?’
‘She will.’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘Go. And be nice to her. Don’t act as if you suspect her.’
‘But I can’t let her go out with a young man. My father made it quite clear that—’
‘Go.’
For the pleasure of it, Maigret walked down Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and only took the taxi when he reached Faubourg Montmartre, having first dropped into a brasserie for a beer.
‘Quai des Orfèvres.’
Then he changed his mind and knocked on the glass.
‘Go via Rue de Turenne.’
He saw Steuvels’ shop. The door was closed: Fernande must, as every morning, be on her way to the Santé, with her stacked pans.
‘Stop for a moment.’
Janvier was at the bar of the Grand Turenne, and winked when he saw him. What had Lucas asked him to check this time? He was deep in conversation with the cobbler and two plasterers in white overalls. From a distance, you could recognize the milky colour of Pernods.
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