Monsieur Louis, too, must have been feeling weighed down with riches. He had presented a meerschaum pipe to the old bookkeeper, and repaid the two people who had been prepared to trust him. As a result, he had been able to go back from time to time and see them both, especially Mademoiselle Léone. And at the same time, he had felt free to call on the concierge in the Rue de Bondy.
Why had he never told any of them how he spent his time?
Quite by chance, the concierge had seen him one morning round about eleven sitting on a bench in the Boulevard Saint-Martin.
She had not spoken to him, but had gone back by a roundabout route, so that he should not see her. Maigret could understand that. It was the bench that had ruffled her. For a man like Monsieur Louis, who had worked ten hours a day for most of his life, to be caught idling on a park bench! Not on a Sunday! Not after working hours! At eleven in the morning, when there was always a bustle of activity in every shop and every office.
Monsieur Saimbron had also recently spotted his former colleague sitting on a bench. In his case, in the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, within easy walking distance of the Boulevard Saint-Martin and the Rue de Bondy.
This had been in the afternoon, and Monsieur Saimbron, showing less delicacy than the concierge, had spoken to him. Or perhaps Louis Thouret had seen him first?
Had the former storekeeper come there by appointment? Who was the man who had hovered near the bench, apparently waiting for an invitation to sit down?
Monsieur Saimbron had not described him. Probably, he had not paid much attention to him. All the same, his comment had been illuminating:
“He was the sort of man one often sees sitting on a bench in that area.”
In other words, one of those individuals without any visible means of support, who spend hours sitting on benches on the boulevards, absently watching the world go by. The occupants of the benches in the Saint-Martin district were different from those to be seen in many of the squares and public gardens of the city, such as the Parc Montsouris, which are mostly patronized by local residents with private means.
People of that sort are not to be found sitting in the Boulevard Saint-Martin, or if they are, it is on the terrace of a café.
There were the light brown shoes on the one hand, and the bench on the other. As far as the chief superintendent was concerned, they did not seem to fit together.
Finally, there was the overriding fact that, at about half-past four on a wet and gloomy afternoon, Monsieur Louis, for no apparent reason, had turned into a cul-de-sac, followed soundlessly by someone who had knifed him between the shoulder blades, barely ten yards from the milling throng of people on the boulevard.
His photograph had appeared in all the papers, and no one had telephoned. Maigret was still making notes on documents and signing official forms. Outside, the dusk was deepening, and would soon turn to darkness. He had to switch on the light, and when he saw that the hands of the mantel clock stood at three, he got up, and took his heavy winter overcoat down from its hook.
Before leaving, he put his head round the door of the Inspectors’ Duty Room.
“I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
There was no point in using a car. At the end of the Quai, he jumped on to the platform of a bus, from which he alighted a few minutes later at the junction of the Boulevard Sébastopol and the Grands Boulevards.
At this same hour on the previous day, Louis Thouret had still been alive. He too had roamed around the district, with plenty of time to spare, before having to change back into his black shoes, and make his way to the Gare de Lyon, to catch his train to Juvisy.
The pavements were jammed with people. On every corner they were bunched together like grapes, waiting to cross the road, and when the traffic lights changed, they all surged forward.
That must be the bench, he thought, noticing one on the pavement opposite, in the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle.
It was occupied, but even at that distance he could see a piece of crumpled, greasy paper which, he could have sworn, had recently contained ham or slices of pork sausage.
Prostitutes were to be seen loitering on the corner of the Rue Saint-Martin. There were more of them in one of the little bars, and, at a round, tripod table, four men could be seen playing cards.
A familiar figure was standing at the bar counter. It was Inspector Neveu. Maigret stopped to wait for him, and one of the women thought that he was interested in her. Absently, he shook his head.
If Neveu was there, it meant that he had already questioned them. This was home ground to him, and he knew them all.
“Everything all right?” Maigret asked him, when he came out of the bistro.
“So you’re here too?”
“Just looking around.”
“I’ve been wandering about here since eight this morning. If I’ve questioned one person I must have questioned five hundred.”
“Have you found out where he used to go for lunch?”
“How did you guess?”
“I felt sure he must have eaten his midday meal somewhere in this district, and his sort would be likely always to go back to the same place.”
“Over there,” said Neveu, pointing to what looked like a quiet little restaurant. “He even had his own napkin and ring.”
“What did they tell you?”
“He always sat at the same table, at the back near the bar. I got that from the waitress who always served him. She’s tall and dark, with a face like a horse and hairs on her chin. Do you know what she called him?”
How could the chief superintendent be expected to know!
“Her little man. She told me so herself:
“‘Well, little man, what do you fancy today?’
“She says he was always cheerful. Rain or shine, he never failed to mention the weather. He never attempted to get fresh with her.
“All the waitresses in the restaurant get two hours off between clearing away the lunch and laying the tables for dinner.
“Apparently, several times, on her way out at about three o’clock she saw Monsieur Louis sitting on a bench. Each time, he waved to her.
“One day she said, to tease him:
“‘You take things easy, little man, I must say!’
“He replied that he worked at night.”
“Did she believe him?”
“Yes. She seemed quite besotted with him.”
“Has she seen the papers?”
“No. The first she’d heard of his death was from me. She didn’t want to believe it.
“It’s not an expensive restaurant, but it isn’t one of those fixed-price places either. Every lunchtime Monsieur Louis would treat himself to a half-bottle of good wine.”
“Did you find anyone else who had seen him around?”
“About ten people so far. One of the girls whose beat is over there on the corner saw him almost every day. She accosted him the first time, but he said no, very kindly. No getting on his high horse for him, and after that she got into the way of calling out every time she saw him:
“‘Well, is it to be today, then?’
“It was just a little game they played. Whenever she hooked a client, he would give her a broad wink.”
“Did he never go with any of them?”
“No.”
“Did none of them ever see him with a woman?”
“Not them. One of the salesmen in the jeweler’s did, though.”
“The one next to the place where he was killed?”
“Yes. I showed the photograph to all the staff, but he was the only one who recognized him.
“‘That’s the man who came in and bought a ring last week!’ he exclaimed.”
“Did Monsieur Louis have a young woman with him?”
“She wasn’t particularly young. The salesman hardly noticed her. He thought they were husband and wife. What he did notice, though, was that she was wearing a silver fox fur draped round her shoulders, and a chain with a pendant in the shape of a four-l
eaf clover.
“‘We sell pendants just like it!’”
“Was the ring valuable?”
“A paste diamond in a gold-plated setting.”
“Did they say anything of interest in his presence?”
“They talked like any other married couple. He can’t remember their exact words. Nothing that mattered, anyway.”
“Had he ever seen her before?”
“He wasn’t sure. She was dressed in black, and wearing gloves. She nearly left them behind on the counter, having taken them off to try on the ring. It was Monsieur Louis who came back for them. She waited outside. She was taller than he was. When he went out, he took her arm, and they went off in the direction of the Place de la République.”
“Nothing else?”
“These things take time. I began my inquiries higher up the boulevard, near where it joins the Rue Montmartre, but I drew a blank there. Oh! I nearly forgot: you know those waffle stalls in the Rue de la Lune?”
They toasted the waffles in open-fronted booths, almost completely exposed to the elements, as at a fair, and the sweetish smell of the cooking dough hit one as soon as one turned into the street.
“They remember him. He often bought waffles there, always three at a time. He didn’t eat them there and then, but took them away with him.”
The waffles were enormous. They were advertised as the largest in Paris. It was unlikely that little Monsieur Louis, having eaten a substantial lunch, could have managed to put away three of them all by himself.
Nor was he the sort of man who would sit munching on a bench. Had he shared them with the woman for whom he had bought the ring? In that case, she must have lived somewhere close at hand.
On the other hand, the waffles could have been intended for the man seen by Monsieur Saimbron.
“Am I to carry on?”
“Of course.”
Maigret felt a pang. He wished he could do the job himself, as he used to when he was only an inspector.
“Where are you going, chief?”
“I’m going over there, to have another look.”
He didn’t suppose it would do any good. It was just that, as the cul-de-sac where Monsieur Louis had been killed was barely a hundred yards away, he had an itch to return to the spot. It was practically the same time of day. Today there was no fog, but all the same it was pitch dark in the little passage, and being dazzled by the harsh lights in the jeweler’s window didn’t help.
The waffles had reminded Maigret of fairs he had been to in the past, and, because of this, he had had the idea that Thouret might have gone into the cul-de-sac to relieve himself. But this notion was soon dispelled by the sight of a urinal just across the street.
“If only I could find that woman!” sighed Neveu, whose feet must have been aching after all the walking he had had to do.
Maigret, for his part, was more anxious to find the man who, in response to a silent signal, had come and sat beside Monsieur Louis and the old bookkeeper while they were still in conversation. Which was why his searching glance rested on every bench they passed. On one of them sat an old man, a vagrant, with a half-empty liter bottle of red wine next to him. But he was not the one. If he had been a tramp, Monsieur Saimbron would have said so.
A little further along, a fat woman from the provinces was sitting waiting for her husband to come out of the urinal, no doubt glad of the chance to rest her swollen feet.
“If I were you, I’d concentrate less on the shops and more on the people on the benches.”
At the start of his career, he had spent long enough pounding the beat to know that every bench has its regulars, who are always to be found there at certain times of the day.
They were ignored by the passers-by, who seldom so much as glanced at them. But the occupants of the various benches were known to one another. Had it not, after all, been due to Madame Maigret’s getting into conversation with the mother of a little boy, while sitting on a bench in the square gardens of the Place d’Anvers, awaiting her dental appointment, that a murderer had been tracked down?
“You mean you want them rounded up?”
“Anything but! I just want you to sit down beside them and get into conversation.”
“Very well, chief,” said Neveu with a sigh, not overjoyed at the prospect. Even walking the streets seemed preferable.
He never dreamed that the chief superintendent would have leaped at the chance of taking his place.
4
A FUNERAL IN THE RAIN
The next day, Wednesday, Maigret had to attend the Assizes to give evidence, and wasted most of the afternoon kicking his heels in the dingy room reserved for witnesses. No one had thought to turn up the central heating, and everyone was shivering. When, at last, someone did turn it up, the room became stiflingly hot within ten minutes, and there was a pervasive smell of unwashed bodies and clothes that had never been properly aired.
The name of the man on trial was René Lecœur. Seven months earlier, he had battered his aunt to death with a bottle. He was only twenty-two, broad-shouldered as a coal heaver, with the face of a naughty schoolboy.
Why on earth couldn’t they use stronger lighting in the Palais de Justice, considering how the dark gray paint, the dust and the shadows soaked up all the natural light?
Maigret left the witnesses’ waiting room feeling depressed. A young lawyer, who was just beginning to get himself talked about, chiefly on account of his aggressive manner, was fiercely hectoring the witnesses, as they followed one another into the box.
The line he took with Maigret was that the accused would never have confessed but for the rough treatment to which he had been subjected at the Quai des Orfèvres. Which was an out-and-out lie. And not only was it a lie, but the lawyer perfectly well knew that it was.
“Will the witness kindly tell the court how long my client was subjected to interrogation on the first occasion?”
The chief superintendent had been expecting this.
“Seventeen hours.”
“And during all that time, he had nothing to eat?”
“Lecœur was offered sandwiches, but he refused.”
The lawyer turned an eloquent glance upon the jury, as if to say: You see, gentlemen! Seventeen hours without a morsel of food!
And what of Maigret himself? Throughout the whole of that time he had eaten nothing but a couple of sandwiches. And he hadn’t killed anyone!
“Does the witness deny that, on the seventh of March, at three o’clock in the morning, he struck the accused without provocation, in spite of the fact that the poor young man was handcuffed?”
“I do deny it.”
“Is the witness denying that he ever struck the accused?”
“I did slap his face at one point, but lightly, as I might have slapped my own daughter.”
The lawyer was going the wrong away about it. But all he cared about was to impress those present in court, and get himself written up in the papers.
This time, contrary to accepted practice, he addressed himself directly to Maigret, adopting a tone of voice that was at once honeyed and biting.
“Have you a daughter, chief superintendent?”
“No.”
“Have you ever had children…? Speak up, please…I can’t hear you.”
The chief superintendent was obliged to repeat audibly that he had had a little girl who had died at birth.
And that was the end of it. He left the witness box, went to have a drink in the Palais de Justice bar, and then returned to his office. Lucas, who had been working solidly on another case for the past fortnight, was now free to turn his attention to the Thouret murder.
“Any news of young Jorisse?”
“Nothing so far.”
Monique Thouret’s boyfriend had not returned home the previous night, nor had he put in an appearance at the bookshop in the morning, and he had not turned up for lunch at the fixed-price restaurant in the Boulevard Sébastopol, where he had been in the habit of meetin
g the girl.
It was Lucas who was in charge of the search. He was in close touch with all the railway stations, police stations and frontier posts.
As for Janvier, he and four of his colleagues were still combing the hardware shops, hoping to track down the man who had sold the knife to the murderer.
“Any word from Neveu?”
Maigret had been expected back in his office long before this.
“He rang through half an hour ago. He said he’d try again at six.”
Maigret was feeling a little weary. He was haunted by the memory of René Lecœur sitting in the dock. And also by the voice of the lawyer, the judges still as statues, the crowds of people in the dimly lit courtroom, with its dark oak paneling. It was no longer any concern of his. Once a suspect left Police Headquarters to be handed over to the examining magistrate, the chief superintendent’s responsibility was ended. He was not always happy at the way things were done from then on. He could never be quite sure of what would happen next. And if it had been left to him…
“Nothing from Lapointe?”
By now, each one of his men had been assigned to a specific task. Young Lapointe’s was to go from one lodging house to another, outward in ever widening circles from the Boulevard Saint-Martin. Monsieur Louis must have taken a room somewhere, if only so as to be able to change his shoes. He had rented the room either in his own name or in the name of someone else, such as the woman with the fox fur, toward whom he behaved as if she were his wife, and for whom he had bought a ring. As for Santoni, he was still on Monique’s tail, in the hope that Albert Jorisse would try and get in touch with her, either in person or by way of a message.
The family had claimed Thouret’s body the previous day. An undertaker’s van had collected it. The funeral was to take place next day.
There were more documents to be signed; the paperwork never seemed to end. A number of telephone calls were put through to him, none of them of any interest. It was odd that not a single person had telephoned, written or called in person on the subject of Monsieur Louis. It was almost as if he had vanished, leaving no trace behind.
Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard Page 6