Maigret Enjoys Himself
Page 9
‘Is it him?’
‘They still don’t know.’
‘Trust me, young people are rarely jealous enough to kill. It’s men of your age and mine who get the red mist.’
Maigret tried to suppress his smile. The card player had no inkling that he was talking to a man who had had to deal with every crime of passion in Paris for the last thirty years.
However, even if he had known, he probably would have been no less sure of his opinion. The less knowledge or experience some people have to back it up, the more certain they are that they know what they are talking about.
‘Same again, waiter.’
He squinted at the two billiard tables; he had an almost childlike desire to play. There was a little old man sitting opposite who looked like he might enjoy a game or two, but he was reading his paper and drinking a café crème, and Maigret didn’t have the nerve to disturb him.
Janvier was doing well. Maigret could make sense now of his comings and goings and could see where his investigation was heading. They were probably questioning Doctor Jave again, either at Quai des Orfèvres or at Boulevard Haussmann.
Maigret would have given anything to be conducting this interrogation himself. He would also have liked to have half an hour face to face with Mademoiselle Jusserand, the misanthropic nurse who, of her own free will, without being asked, had revealed the secret of the jewels.
Josépha didn’t pose a problem for him. He had known lots like her, hard-working widows who had paid obeisance to traditional morality their whole lives but who, when it came to their daughters, were suddenly completely indulgent.
Lassagne had written that in her eyes Jave was a demigod. That was understandable. He had saved her daughter’s life. In the beginning he must have taken care of her with an almost fatherly tenderness.
Nor was it surprising that Jave should have fallen in love with a woman who resembled his wife. That often happens. Most men are attracted to a particular type.
Perhaps that only went to prove that the doctor had not married for money, back in Concarneau, but for love.
He had found himself in the presence of a frail young woman, closed in on herself, leading a joyless life.
Did Éveline turn out to be different from what he expected? Was there a clue in this amassing of jewellery like provisions in an anthill?
By chance, three years later, he would encounter another young woman, weak and sickly too, living under threat of illness, like the first one.
Is it so strange that he should feel the same connection with her as he had felt the first time?
He had set off for Cannes with his family, leaving Antoinette in Paris. His wife announced that she was going to spend the day, perhaps even the following night, with a friend in Saint-Tropez.
Hadn’t he taken advantage of this to rush to the airport in order to spend a few hours with Antoinette?
It all made sense. There were some possible objections to this hypothesis, but they could all be answered.
If that was how it was, he had no reason to go to Boulevard Haussmann. Not as long as Négrel was there, at least. After six o’clock, the coast would be clear.
But what would he have gone there for?
On the other hand, why, since he had come by plane, did he not return by plane? This would have got him back to Nice that same evening, which would have meant Éveline would have been unaware of his escapade, assuming he believed she really was in Saint-Tropez.
Among the various questions he had asked, Lassagne had slipped in:
Did Éveline Jave know about her husband’s affair?
But he had forgotten to ask another, equally plausible question: did Doctor Jave know about the relationship between his wife and his locum?
For they did have a relationship on some level, since Madame Jave had telephoned the young doctor on Friday evening.
The concierge’s testimony was no longer in doubt. She had visited Rue des Saints-Pères on at least two occasions.
If Jave did know that his wife was in Paris and not in Saint-Tropez, then he hadn’t missed his flight, he had simply elected to take a different one.
What was Janvier going to do now? Maigret could imagine Coméliau frothing with impatience and insisting that they arrest Doctor Négrel.
It was still raining. There was still no one to play billiards with. Maigret paid for his drinks, nodded vaguely in the direction of the card players and left with his hands thrust into his pockets.
He thought that, in Janvier’s shoes ...
The rain wasn’t too heavy, and he walked as far as Place de la République without realizing it, went into his morning café, ordered a beer and a pen and paper and started writing in block capitals, as he had the previous time.
His message was as brief as the first one, and it too was addressed to Janvier:
IF I WERE YOU I’D GO TO CONCARNEAU
After all, management were so generous in paying for the flight to Nice!
6. The Trip to Concarneau
Maigret’s anonymous note didn’t even have time to reach Quai des Orfèvres before someone else decided to make the trip to Concarneau, and he did so in attention-grabbing fashion. Prior to this, there had been a major development, but Maigret would only learn of it at the same time as the general public.
In the end, he had returned home to Boulevard Richard-Lenoir in the rain. Just like in a holiday hotel in bad weather, he had asked:
‘What shall we do?’
‘Whatever you want.’
It was only five o’clock in the afternoon, and they had the rest of the day to fill.
‘Why don’t we go to the cinema?’
That would be the second time in one week, something they hadn’t done for years and years. This time, however, as a special treat, they eschewed their local cinema and headed up town on the Métro to one of the large cinemas on the Champs-Élysées.
It was there that, following the newsreel and the documentary, there was a long silence, after which they projected on to the screen a newsflash they must have hurriedly written on to a glass slide, as they did during elections or at times of great disasters.
Latest:
The Boulevard Haussmann affair
Doctor Gilbert Négrel arrested today at his home
It was quite dramatic, in that huge cinema, which was only about a third full, after the moving images and their musical soundtrack, to see nothing but that static message which seemed to emanate from some old-fashioned magic lantern. The audience shuffled nervously in their seats. Some people coughed here and there and began whispering.
The screen then went to white, though still illuminated, and the message was replaced by a photo of the young doctor. He wasn’t on his own. He was part of a group of doctors in white gowns standing in the courtyard of a hospital. A cross marked under one of the figures in the group indicated the man whom Coméliau had just dispatched to the cells on an indictment of murder.
Then the image disappeared, to be replaced by another, the photo that the papers had already published of Éveline Jave in her austere swimming-costume on the beach in Brittany. Someone shouted from the darkness of the auditorium:
‘That’s enough!’
An elderly gentleman sitting behind Maigret muttered:
‘I knew it was him.’
The screen went dark again, and it was a relief to hear the musical prelude to the main feature and see the opening titles appear.
Maigret was not as relieved as everyone else, because, even though he tried to concentrate on the film playing out before him, his thoughts were elsewhere, at Quai des Orfèvres, where he could picture Négrel in his office – since it was in his office that Janvier had installed himself.
At points in the film Madame Maigret slid her hand into his, as if she understood, and when the audience filtered out of the cinema she didn’t ask any questions or make any comments.
The streetlights were on, and the Champs-Élysées was swinging into evening mode. Like hun
dreds, perhaps thousands of others they stood there wondering what restaurant they should go to for dinner. In the end, to avoid walking too far, they chose a vast establishment that specialized in fish and seafood and were seated at a tiny table where Maigret didn’t have enough room for his legs.
It wasn’t until the next morning that he discovered the rest, when he opened his morning papers in Place de la République. The rain had given way to wind.
MAÎTRE CHAPUIS AT CONCARNEAU
As was announced on the radio yesterday, Examining Magistrate Coméliau decided early yesterday afternoon to place Doctor Négrel under arrest, and Inspector Janvier, accompanied by his colleague Lapointe, duly went to Rue des Saints-Pères around three o’clock.
They found the young doctor in the company of his fiancée, Martine Chapuis, and his future father-in-law, the lawyer Noël Chapuis.
All three seemed calm and appeared to be expecting this latest development.
As they crossed the pavement to the waiting police car, Doctor Négrel paused for a moment to allow the photographers to take pictures and, as is evident on our photo here, he had a smile on his face that was at once bitter and yet confident.
Maître Chapuis accompanied him in the car. As for Martine Chapuis, left alone at the mercy of the journalists, she simply stated:
‘I have nothing to worry about. Gilbert is innocent.’
The interrogation at the Police Judiciaire lasted a mere forty minutes, after which, without handcuffs, still looking self-possessed, almost serene, Négrel was led away by two inspectors to the cells at the Palais de Justice.
To the gaggle of journalists in the corridor of the Police Judiciaire, Maître Chapuis announced:
‘I am more confident than ever. In order to defend my client I need to uncover the truth, and I know that I will. This evening I will be taking the train to Concarneau.’
‘So you think the truth lies in Concarneau, Maître Chapuis?’
The lawyer merely gave a non-committal shrug, but he didn’t deny this.
So that is why, at 7.35 in the evening, half a dozen reporters were at Gare Montparnasse to take the same train as Doctor Négrel’s defence lawyer.
The lawyer and the journalists travelled together in the one compartment and arrived at the Breton port this morning.
Maybe it was just a coincidence, but Yves Le Guérec, the victim’s brother, was travelling in a different carriage of the same train. He had no contact with the first group.
For his part, Doctor Jave has not emerged from his apartment in Boulevard Haussmann, where Josépha is looking after him. The telephone is still dead. Around six o’clock, Inspector Lapointe, the youngest officer in the Police Judiciaire, paid him a visit and spent nearly two hours with him. On leaving, he made no comment.
According to unverified reports, Antoinette Chauvet is said to be staying in a hotel, the location of which is known only to the police and probably her mother and Doctor Jave.
In his impatience Maigret almost rang Quai des Orfèvres. He was finding it increasingly difficult being a simple member of the public. He could sense that the investigation was picking up momentum, that the truth was close to being discovered, and he chafed at having to wait for the news to filter through.
It had disturbed him the previous evening at the cinema to see that almost indecent display of the two photographs.
They had lunch in the neighbourhood, he and Madame Maigret, in a restaurant near the Bastille whose regulars were mostly away on holiday and which the tourists didn’t know about, so consequently the place was three-quarters empty.
The owner came to shake his hand.
‘I thought you were on holiday, inspector.’
‘I am.’
‘In Paris?’
‘Shush!’
‘Have you come back for the Boulevard Haussmann affair?’
He should never have come to such a familiar place.
‘My wife and I are just passing through. We’ll be setting off again very soon.’
‘What’s your opinion? Was it the younger one?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
It depended on a whole number of things about which he didn’t have the foggiest clue! Did Janvier have information which he hadn’t passed on to the press? It was possible, and that annoyed Maigret. He couldn’t resist trying to solve the problem, but he didn’t have all the cards in his hand.
When, a little later, they sat down at a terrace on Place de la Bastille, not having gone to the effort to venture further afield, Madame Maigret remarked:
‘I wonder how they manage in London and New York.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Apparently they don’t have terraces.’
It was true that they had spent a large portion of their week sitting on café terraces. Maigret was keeping an eye out for the papers. Two prostitutes, still quite young, were walking the street outside a furnished lodging-house.
‘You see, there are still some about.’
And she didn’t react when her husband replied:
‘I should hope so!’
A boy appeared with a clutch of newspapers under his arm. Maigret already had the change in his hand.
In his now habitual fashion, he passed one of the papers to his wife and unfolded the other, the one Lassagne wrote for.
CONTROVERSY IN CONCARNEAU
IN DEFENCE OF ÉVELINE JAVE
THE DENTIST’S DIVORCE
Firstly, Lassagne recounted the arrest of Gilbert Négrel in similar terms to the morning papers, adding only a single new detail: the doctor was carrying what seemed to be a pre-packed suitcase when he left. Martine Chapuis had insisted on carrying the case downstairs.
It appeared that Maître Chapuis had deliberately announced his trip to Concarneau in such a public way with the ulterior motive of dragging the press along for the ride.
Was it to create a diversion, or did he really have a plan in mind? Something suggested by his future son-in-law?
In any case, the small army had invaded the Hôtel de l’Amiral on Quai Carnot, which Maigret was familiar with from a case he had worked on some time back, one that had created a bit of a stir.
In his usual style, Lassagne started by painting a picture of the town, the port and the ramparts of the old town.
The sun has been shining for the last two days, apparently, but we were greeted by a north-westerly gale. The sky is low and dark. The clouds are almost clipping the rooftops, and the sea is rough, even inside the port, where the tuna trawlers are being shunted against one another.
And when it comes to the Boulevard Haussmann case too, the climate here is very different compared with Paris. You can sense the smouldering passions, that the people here have already taken sides, for or against.
And we don’t mean for or against Doctor Jave or Doctor Négrel. No, people are coming out for or against Éveline Jave, and indeed, the entire Le Guérec family.
There was a significant incident at the railway station. As we were getting off the train with Maître Chapuis, Yves Le Guérec stepped down from another carriage and looked as if he was waiting for our group. He was waiting for us, in fact, and this wasn’t at all the same man we had met at the Hôtel Scribe in Paris.
His tone was harder, more clipped. He addressed us in the middle of the flow of passengers:
‘Gentlemen, I have no idea what you have come here to find, but I give due warning that I will sue for defamation any one of you who makes slanderous remarks about my sister or my family.’
Hand on heart, we can say that no one has given us such a warning before in the course of our career, and it will not prevent us from carrying out our professional duty.
Having wandered around the town for a couple of hours, we have come to understand Yves Le Guérec’s aggressive attitude.
The Le Guérecs are part of an upper-middle-class clan of factory-owners and ship-owners who form a small clique which has little contact with the rest of the town’s inhabitants.
This was where the future Madame Jave spent her childhood and adolescence. In fact, the Le Guérecs lived in the house until their father’s death, when Yves built himself a modern villa next to the beach at Les Sables Blancs.
We have seen the factory too. You can smell it 200 metres away, and in high season some 300 women aged fourteen to eighty-two work there.
Why is the contrast between the owners and the common people so much more marked in this small town than anywhere else? Is it the weather, the overcast sky, the wind and the rain that gave us this impression?
We spoke to fishermen on the quayside, we went into shops and bars. We listened. We asked questions.
Of course, everyone is sorry for Éveline Jave, and no one rejoices in her death, but nevertheless we heard people say:
‘It was bound to happen one day.’
It wasn’t easy to get anyone to expand on this. The people here are suspicious of outsiders, especially journalists. Moreover, most of them depend on the Le Guérecs for their living, or at least on other factory- and ship-owners who are part of their set.
However, one little old woman, whom we met in a grocer’s, with a black shawl wrapped tightly round her chest, did open up to us, despite the glances directed at her by the shopkeeper to try to shut her up.
‘That poor doctor could have had no idea what he was letting himself in for. He came here from Paris, he was on holiday. He believed everything he was told. If only he had looked into it a bit harder, he would have heard a thing or two about this young lady. First of all, he would have found out about Monsieur Lemaire, the dentist, who was such a nice young man.’
In spite of the threats from Yves Le Guérec, we feel duty bound to tell this story, which was confirmed by a person who is in a position to know, whose name we cannot divulge.