“Would this have been about two and a half years ago?”
“Something like that. I didn’t make a note of the date in my diary. We met every day on the same bench after that. He seemed glad to have someone to talk to.”
“Did he mention that he was out of work?”
“By degrees, he told me the whole story of his life. He said he’d been twenty-five years with the same firm, and that the boss had then decided, without a word of warning to anyone, to close down the business. He said he hadn’t dared tell his wife—just between ourselves, she sounds like a right cow—and she believed he was still working at the same job. I fancy it was the first chance he’d had of getting it all off his chest, and it was a great relief to him.”
“Did he know who you were?”
“All I told him was that I used to be a circus performer.”
“And then?”
“What exactly do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“I’d be obliged if you’d first take another look at my file and tot up the number of convictions. What I want to know is whether this new charge is likely to get me transported. I shouldn’t care for that.”
Maigret did as he asked.
“Unless the charge is murder, you’re still two short of the requisite number of convictions.”
“That’s what I thought. I wasn’t sure your total would tally with mine.”
“What was the racket? Stealing?”
“It wasn’t as simple as that.”
“Whose idea was it?”
“His, of course. I haven’t the wits to dream up a scheme like that. Don’t you think I’ve earned another little tot?”
“When I’ve heard all you have to tell me.”
“That’s going to take a long time. Well, you leave me with no choice but to cut it as short as possible.”
The chief superintendent yielded, and poured him another mouthful of brandy.
“As a matter of fact, it was the bench that first gave him the idea.”
“How do you mean?”
“As he spent most of his time sitting on a bench, usually the same bench, he began to take notice of his surroundings. Do you, by any chance, know the shop in the boulevard where they sell raincoats?”
“I know the one you mean.”
“The bench where Louis usually sat was just opposite. So, almost without realizing it, he became very familiar with the comings and goings in the shop and the habits of the employees. And that’s what put the idea into his head. When you have the whole day before you, and nothing to do, you get to thinking. You plan projects, even projects that haven’t a hope of being realized. One day, he began telling me about one of these projects of his, just to pass the time. That particular shop is always very crowded. It sells nothing but raincoats, of every shape and size, raincoats for men, women and children. The children’s raincoats are tucked away in a corner. And there are more on the first floor. On the left of the building, as with so many in that district, there is a little cul-de-sac leading on to a courtyard.
“Would you like me to draw you a plan?” he suggested.
“Not now. Go on.”
“Louis said to me:
“‘I’m surprised no one has ever robbed the till. It would be the easiest thing in the world!’”
“You couldn’t wait to hear more, I daresay.”
“Naturally, I was interested. He explained to me that at about twelve, or a quarter past at the latest, everyone was turned out of the shop, and the employees all went off to lunch. And that included the boss, a little old man with a wisp of a beard, who always lunched at the Chope du Nègre, not far from where we were sitting.
“‘Suppose one of the customers were to stay behind and get locked in?’
“Don’t say it couldn’t be done. My first reaction, too, was that it was impossible. But Louis had been studying the layout of the shop for weeks. The staff never bothered to look in all the dark corners and behind the racks of raincoats, to satisfy themselves that there was no one left in the shop. It never occurred to them that anyone might stay behind on purpose, see?
“Everything turned on that. The boss was always the last to leave, locking the door carefully behind him.”
“And you were the one to stay behind, I suppose? And after that, all you had to do was force the lock and slip away with the takings?”
“You’re quite mistaken. And that’s what made it such a lark. Even if I’d got caught, they wouldn’t have found a shred of evidence. Admittedly, I did empty the till. After that I went into the lavatories. Next to the urinals, there is a tiny skylight too small even for a child of three to squeeze through, but quite big enough for throwing out a parcel containing bank notes. It overlooks the courtyard. As if by sheer chance, Louis was passing by underneath, and he picked up the parcel. As for me, all I had to do was wait until the staff returned, and there were enough customers in the shop for me to slip out unnoticed, by the way I came in. Which is what I did.”
“How did you share out the money?”
“Fifty-fifty, like brothers. The hardest thing was to persuade Louis to make up his mind. The whole plan was just an imaginative exercise to him. He took a pride in it, the way a painter does in his work. When I first suggested that we should put it into practice, he was shocked. What finally tipped the scales was the thought of having to tell his wife that he was totally broke. You will have noticed that the plan had one further advantage. It’s true that, having admitted the offense, I shall be convicted of theft, but as there’s no question of breaking and entering, that will mean, if I’m not mistaken, two years lopped off my sentence.”
“I’ll have a look at the Criminal Code later.”
“Well, I’ve told you all there is to tell. Louis and I did very nicely out of it, and I have no regrets. The proceeds of that little venture kept us going for over three months. Well, to be perfectly frank, my share didn’t last quite that long, on account of all those broken-down hacks, but Louis used to slip me a banknote from time to time.
“When we realized we were coming to the end of our resources, we moved to a different bench.”
“With the intention of planning another job?”
“Well, why not? The scheme was an excellent one, and there was no point in trying anything new. Now that you know the trick, you only have to look at the files to spot all the jobs I brought off by getting myself locked into a shop. The next time, it was a shop that sold electrical goods, in the same boulevard, but a bit higher up. There was no cul-de-sac, but the back of the shop overlooked the courtyard of the building opposite, which was just as good. In that district, the lavatories nearly always have a small window or vent overlooking a courtyard or passageway.
“I was only caught once, by a salesgirl opening a cupboard in which I was hiding. I pretended to be drunk and incapable. She called the manager, and the two of them hustled me out, threatening to call the police if I didn’t clear off.
“Now will you be so good as to explain what possible motive I could have had for killing Louis? We were buddies. I even introduced him to Françoise, to reassure her, because she was beginning to wonder what I was up to. He brought her a box of chocolates, and she thought him most distinguished.”
“Did you pull off a job last week?”
“It was in all the papers. A dress shop in the Boulevard Montmartre.”
“I take it that, when Louis was killed, he was in the cul-de-sac to check that there was a suitable window at the back of the jeweler’s overlooking the courtyard?”
“Very likely. He was always the one to case the joint, because of his respectable appearance. People tend to be more suspicious of a man like me. Even when I’m dressed up to the nines, they look sideways at me.”
“Who killed him?”
“Why ask me?”
“Who could have had a motive for killing him?”
“I don’t know. His wife, maybe.”
“Why should his wife have wanted to
kill him?”
“I told you she was a right cow. Supposing she found out that he’d been cocking a snook at her for over two years, and that he had a lady friend…”
“Do you know her?”
“He never introduced me to her, but he often talked about her, and I saw her once or twice from a distance. He was very fond of her. He was a man who needed affection. Well, come to think of it, don’t we all? I’ve got my Françoise. I daresay you’ve got someone of your own too. They got on very well. They used to go to the cinema, or else they’d go into a café and chat.”
“Did she know what was going on?”
“I’m sure she didn’t.”
“Who did know?”
“I did for a start.”
“That’s obvious.”
“His daughter, possibly. He worried a lot about his daughter. He said that the older she got, the more like her mother she was. She was always badgering him for money.”
“Did you ever go and see him in the Rue d’Angoulême?”
“Never.”
“But you knew the house?”
“He pointed it out to me.”
“Why did you never go in?”
“Because I didn’t want to spoil things for him. His landlady thought him a very respectable man. If she’d seen me…”
“What if I were to tell you that we’ve found your fingerprints in his room?”
“I would reply that fingerprints are a load of tripe.”
He talked as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He believed he was on a winning streak. Every now and then, he would take a quick look at the bottle.
“Who else knew?”
“See here, chief superintendent, I am what I am, but I’ve never grassed in all my life.”
“You mean you’d rather take the rap yourself?”
“That would be a miscarriage of justice.”
“Who else knew?”
“The young madam’s boyfriend. Now there’s a one for you. I wouldn’t stake a fortune on his innocence. I don’t know whether he was acting on orders from his lady love, but he took to following Louis in the afternoon for days at a time. He went to see him twice, to extort money from him. Louis was scared stiff the kid would blow the gaff to his wife, or write her an anonymous letter.”
“Do you know him?”
“No. I know he’s very young, and that he works in a bookshop in the mornings. Latterly, Louis was haunted by a sense of impending catastrophe. He said things couldn’t go on as they were, and that his wife was bound to learn the truth in the end.”
“Did he ever mention his brothers-in-law?”
“Often. They were always being held up to him as an example. They were made use of to show him up as a failure, a good-for-nothing, a namby-pamby, a nobody. He was told that, if he was content with his miserable lot, he ought never to have married. It was a shock to me, I can tell you.”
“What was?”
“Reading in the papers that he was dead. Especially as I wasn’t very far away when it happened. Fernand will confirm that I was in his bar having a drink at the time.”
“Did Louis carry much money on him?”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know that, two days earlier, we pulled off quite a lucrative job.”
“Was he in the habit of carrying the money about with him?”
“Either that, or he’d leave it in his room. The joke was that, every evening, he had to go back to his room to change his shoes and tie before catching his train. On one occasion, he forgot his tie. He told me all this himself. It was only when he got to the Gare de Lyon that he realized. He couldn’t go and buy just any other tie. It had to be the same as the one he’d been wearing when he left home in the morning. He had to go all the way back to the Rue d’Angoulême, and when he got home he made up a story about having been kept late at work, to attend to some rush job or other.”
“Why have you been hiding in Françoise’s room since Tuesday?”
“What would you have done in my place? When I read the paper on Tuesday morning, I realized that someone must have seen Louis and me together at some time, and that they’d be sure to tell the police. They always pick on people of my sort anyway.”
“Did you never consider leaving Paris?”
“No, I just lay low, in the hope that they wouldn’t get on to me. This morning, when I heard your inspector calling out to me, I knew I was done for.”
“Does Françoise know what you’ve been up to?”
“No.”
“How does she suppose you managed to get hold of all that money?”
“To begin with, she hasn’t seen much of it, only what I had left after my racing losses. And then she believes I’m still picking pockets in the Métro.”
“Is that what you used to do?”
“Surely you don’t expect me to answer that? By the way, don’t you ever get thirsty?”
Maigret poured him another tot.
“Are you quite sure there’s nothing you haven’t told me?”
“As sure as I’m sitting here!”
Maigret opened the door to the Inspectors’ Duty Room, and called out to Lucas:
“Take him down to the cells.”
Then, looking towards Jef Schrameck, who stood up with a sigh, he added:
“He’d better be handcuffed, just to be on the safe side.”
As he was going out, the Acrobat turned back with an odd little smile on his mobile face, and Maigret said:
“Tell them not to be too hard on him.”
“Thank you, chief superintendent. Oh! and there’s one other thing. Please don’t tell Françoise that I gambled away all that money. She’s quite capable of punishing me by not sending me any little extras in prison.”
Maigret put on his coat, took his hat down from the hook, and decided to go to the Brasserie Dauphine for a bite to eat. He was going down the main staircase, which was, as usual, gray with dust, when he heard sounds of a scuffle coming from the ground floor. He looked over the banister.
A young man, with his hair all over the place, was struggling in the grip of a giant of a constable with a bleeding scratch on his cheek. He was growling:
“Cool it, kiddo, if you don’t want a smack in the chops!”
The chief superintendent was sorely tempted to laugh. It was Albert Jorisse on his unwilling way to see him. He was still struggling and shouting:
“Let go of me! I told you, I won’t run away…”
At this point, the two of them came face to face with Maigret on the stairs.
“I arrested him a couple of minutes ago on the Pont Saint-Michel. I knew him at once. When I apprehended him, he tried to get away.”
“That’s not true! He’s lying!”
The young man was red in the face and panting, and his eyes were feverishly bright. The policeman had hold of his coat collar, which he had pulled up high, as if he were manipulating a puppet.
“Tell him to let go of me.”
He kicked out with his foot, but missed.
“I told you I wanted to see Chief Superintendent Maigret. I came here, didn’t I? I came here of my own free will.”
His clothes were crumpled, his trousers still streaked with mud after last night’s downpour. He had huge black circles under his eyes.
“I am Chief Superintendent Maigret.”
“Well, then, order him to let go of me.”
“It’s all right, son, you can go now.”
“Whatever you say, sir, but…”
The constable was convinced that the young man was as slippery as an eel.
“He’s a beastly bully,” panted Albert Jorisse. “He treated me as if…as if…”
He was stammering with rage.
Smiling in spite of himself, the chief superintendent pointed to the constable’s bleeding cheek.
“It looks to me rather as if he was the one who…”
Jorisse, who had not noticed the gash until now, looked at him, with flashing eyes, and shouted:
“Serve him right!”
8
MONIQUE’S SECRET
“Sit down, you young ruffian.”
“I’m not a young ruffian,” protested Jorisse.
He had still not quite got his breath back, and was wheezing a little, but he had calmed down a lot.
“I wouldn’t have expected it of you, Chief Superintendent Maigret, using insulting language like that before even giving me time to explain.”
Maigret, somewhat taken aback, looked at him, frowning.
“Have you had any lunch?”
“I’m not hungry.”
He spoke like a sulky kid.
“Hello!” Maigret said into the phone. “Get me the Brasserie Dauphine…Hello! Is that you, Joseph?…Maigret here…I’d be obliged if you’d bring over some sandwiches. Six…Ham for me…Just a minute…”
And to Jorisse:
“Ham or cheese?”
“I don’t really mind. Ham.”
“Beer or red wine?”
“Water, if you don’t mind. I’m thirsty.”
“Joseph? Six ham sandwiches, cut nice and thick, and four halves of beer…Hang on a second…You may as well bring us two cups of black coffee while you’re about it…And be as quick as you can, won’t you?”
He replaced the receiver, and then immediately lifted it again and dialed an internal number, never taking his eyes off the young man, whose appearance interested him. Jorisse was thin and frail-looking, jumpy to the point of neurosis, suggesting that his staple diet was black coffee rather than nourishing steaks. Otherwise he wasn’t bad looking, with his long brown hair, which he had to shake out of his eyes by tossing his head every now and again.
Perhaps because he was still very worked up, his nostrils twitched from time to time. He was still looking reproachfully at the chief superintendent, with his head on one side.
“Hello! You can call off the search for Jorisse. Pass the message on to all police and railway stations.”
The youth opened his mouth, but Maigret didn’t give him time to speak.
“Later!”
The sky was once more overcast. There was more rain in the offing. No doubt it would come down in buckets, as it had done on the day of the funeral. Maigret went over to the window and shut it, then, still without a word, he returned to his desk and rearranged his pipes, as a typist, before getting down to work, rearranges her machine, her shorthand pad, and her carbons.
Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard Page 13