It was Hubert who spoke first, in a conciliatory tone.
‘Don’t take any notice. He’s a hothead, but he’s not a bad man.’
‘Did Willems know about his relationship with his daughter?’
‘On board a boat, it isn’t easy to hide.’
‘Do you think he liked the idea of their getting married?’
‘I wasn’t there.’
‘And do you think he fell in the water, crossing the gangplank one night when he was drunk?’
‘It often happens, you know. A lot of bargees die that way.’
Below, there was an argument going on, Anneke’s voice imploring while her husband’s betrayed anger. Was he again threatening not to go with Maigret?
It was she who won, because Jef finally came back on deck, his hair neatly combed and still wet. He was wearing a white shirt that brought out the colour of his complexion, an almost new blue suit, a striped tie and black shoes, as if on his way to Sunday Mass.
He exchanged a few more words in his language with his brother, without looking at Maigret, then got off the barge and headed for the black car, beside which the inspector was waiting.
Maigret opened the door. Neveu watched both of them in surprise.
‘Where to, chief?’
‘Quai des Orfèvres.’
It was dark by the end of the ride. The headlights lit up now the trees, now the houses of a village, finally the grey streets of the outer suburbs.
Maigret smoked his pipe in a corner, not saying a word. Jef Van Houtte didn’t open his mouth either. Impressed by this uncommon silence, Neveu wondered what could have happened.
He ventured to ask:
‘Did you get what you wanted, chief?’
Receiving no answer, he now contented himself with driving the car.
It was eight in the evening by the time they entered the courtyard of the Police Judiciaire. Only a few windows were still lighted, but old Joseph was still at his post.
In the inspectors’ office, there were only three or four men, including Lapointe, who was typing.
‘Send for some sandwiches and beer.’
‘For how many people?’
‘Two. No, three, because I’m going to need you. Are you free?’
‘Yes, chief.’
Standing there in the middle of Maigret’s office, the bargee seemed taller and thinner, his features more defined.
‘You can sit down, Monsieur Van Houtte.’
The ‘monsieur’ made Jef frown, as if he saw it as a threat.
‘We’ll bring you some sandwiches.’
‘And when can I see the consul?’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
Sitting at his desk, Maigret called his wife on the telephone.
‘I won’t be back for dinner … No … It’s possible I’ll be here part of the night.’
She must have wanted to ask him lots of questions, but knowing the interest her husband took in the tramp, she contented herself with just one.
‘Is he dead?’
‘No.’
She didn’t ask him if he had arrested someone. Given that he was phoning from his office and foresaw staying there part of the night, it meant that an interrogation was under way or soon would be.
‘Good night.’
He looked at Jef irritably.
‘I asked you to sit down.’
It bothered him to see that big body motionless in the middle of the office.
‘What if I don’t want to sit down? I’m allowed to stand, right?’
Maigret merely sighed and waited patiently for the waiter from the Brasserie Dauphine to arrive with the beer and sandwiches.
7.
These nights, which eight times out of ten ended with confessions, had finished up acquiring their own rules, their own traditions even, like stage plays that are performed hundreds of times.
The inspectors on duty in the various departments had immediately grasped what was happening, as had the waiter from the Brasserie Dauphine who had brought up the sandwiches and beer.
Jef Van Houtte’s bad mood, his more or less contained anger, hadn’t stopped him from eating with gusto, or from drinking his first beer in one go, all the while watching Maigret out of the corner of his eye.
Whether out of defiance or protest, he deliberately ate messily, chewing loudly with his mouth open, spitting a little hard piece of ham on the floor, just as he would have spat it in the water.
Calm and benign in appearance, Maigret pretended not to notice these provocations and let him prowl around the office like a caged animal.
Had he done the right thing or not? The most difficult thing in an investigation is often to know when exactly to go for broke. Not that there are any hard and fast rules. It doesn’t depend on this or that element. It’s only a matter of intuition.
He had sometimes gone on the offensive without having any genuine clue and succeeded in a few hours. At other times, on the contrary, holding all the aces and with a dozen witnesses, it had taken the whole night.
It was important, too, to find the right tone, which was different with every suspect, and it was this tone he was looking for as he finished eating, observing the bargee.
‘Would you like some more sandwiches?’
‘What I’d like is to get back to my boat and my wife, that’s what I’d like!’
He would eventually get tired of walking around in circles and sit down. He was the kind of a man there was no point in rushing, and the method to adopt with him was doubtless that of the ‘singing session’: start gently, without accusing him; let him get away with a first, unimportant contradiction, then another, some small mistake, and gradually entangle him until he was trapped.
The two men were alone, Maigret having entrusted Lapointe with an errand.
‘Listen, Van Houtte—’
‘I’ve been listening to you for hours, right?’
‘The reason it’s lasted so long may be because you’re not being honest in your answers.’
‘You’re going to call me a liar, maybe?’
‘I’m not accusing you of lying, just of not telling me everything.’
‘What would you do if I started asking you questions about your wife and children?’
‘You had a tough childhood. Did your mother care much about you?’
‘So now it’s my mother’s turn? Let me tell you this. My mother died when I was only five years old. She was an honest woman, a saint, who if she’s looking at me right now from up in Heaven …’
Maigret stopped himself from reacting and retained his grave expression.
‘Did your father marry again?’
‘My father was another story. He drank too much.’
‘How old were you when you started earning your own living?’
‘I started out at thirteen, I told you.’
‘Do you have any other brothers apart from Hubert? What about sisters?’
‘I have one sister. What of it?’
‘Nothing. We’re getting acquainted.’
‘Well, if we’re getting acquainted, I should ask you questions, too.’
‘I don’t see any harm in that.’
‘You say that because you’re in your office and you think you’re all-powerful.’
Maigret had known from the start that this was going to be long and difficult, because Van Houtte was not an intelligent man. Invariably, it was the idiots they had most trouble with because they dug their heels in, refused to answer, unhesitatingly denied what they had stated an hour earlier and didn’t get flustered when it was pointed out that they had contradicted themselves.
With an intelligent suspect, it was often enough to discover the flaw in his argument, his system, and everything quickly collapsed.
‘I don’t think I’m wrong in thinking that you’re a hard worker.’
A sidelong glance, heavy with mistrust.
‘Sure, I’ve always worked hard.’
‘Some of your bosses must have taken adva
ntage of your goodwill and your youth. Then one day, you met Louis Willems, who drank like your father …’
Motionless in the middle of the room, Jef was looking at him with the air of an animal sensing danger but not yet sure how it is going to be attacked.
‘I’m convinced that if it hadn’t been for Anneke, you wouldn’t have stayed on board the Zwarte Zwaan and would have found another boat.’
‘Madame Willems was a good woman, too.’
‘And she wasn’t proud and domineering like her husband.’
‘Who told you he was proud?’
‘Wasn’t he?’
‘He was the boss, the skipper, and he made sure everyone knew it.’
‘I’d wager that Madame Willems, if she’d lived, wouldn’t have objected to your marrying her daughter.’
He might have been an idiot, but he had the instincts of a wild animal, and this time Maigret had gone too fast.
‘That’s your story, is it? Well, I can also make up stories!’
‘It’s your story, as I imagine it, at the risk of getting it wrong.’
‘And too bad for me if, because you’re wrong, you throw me in prison.’
‘Hear me out. You had a difficult childhood. When you were still young, you worked as hard as a grown man. Then you meet Anneke and she looks at you in a different way from how you’ve been looked at before. She considers you, not as someone who’s on board to take care of all the chores and get yelled at, but as a human being. It’s only natural you should fall in love with her. Her mother, if she’d lived, would probably have supported your relationship.’
At last! The man sat down, not yet on a chair, but on the arm of an armchair, which was already progress.
‘What of it? It’s a nice story, you know.’
‘Unfortunately, Madame Willems had died. You were alone on board with her husband and Anneke, in contact with her all day long, and I’d swear that Willems kept his eye on you.’
‘If you say so.’
‘He was the owner of a fine boat, and he didn’t want his daughter to marry a penniless young man. When he drank in the evening he turned unpleasant, violent.’
Maigret was regaining his caution and wouldn’t take his eyes off Jef’s.
‘Do you think I’d let a man raise his hand to me?’
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t. Only, it wasn’t you he raised his hand to. It was his daughter. I wonder if he didn’t catch the two of you.’
It was better to let a few seconds go by. The silence weighed heavily, while Maigret’s pipe smoked gently.
‘You told me something interesting earlier. It was particularly in Paris that Willems went out in the evening, because he’d meet up with a lady friend and get drunk with her. In other places, he’d drink on board or in a tavern near where he was moored. Like all bargees who, as you told me, get up before dawn, he must have gone to bed early. In Paris, you had the opportunity to be alone, Anneke and you.’
There was the sound of footsteps and voices in the next office. Lapointe half opened the door.
‘It’s done, chief.’
‘Later.’
And the ‘singing session’ continued, the office now full of smoke.
‘It’s possible that one night he came back earlier than usual and found you in each other’s arms. If that’s what happened, he definitely would have lost his temper. And his tempers must have been terrible. Maybe he threw you out and beat his daughter.’
‘That’s your story,’ Jef repeated in an ironic tone.
‘It’s the story I’d choose if I were in your shoes. Because, in that case, Willems’s death would be almost an accident.’
‘It was an accident.’
‘I said almost. I’m not even saying that you helped him to fall in the water. He was drunk. He was staggering. Was it raining that night?’
‘Yes.’
‘You see! So the gangplank was slippery. The only thing you did wrong was not to help him immediately. Unless it was more serious than that, and you pushed him. It all happened two years ago, and the police report refers to it as an accident, not a murder.’
‘Then why are you so determined to pin it on me?’
‘I’m only trying to explain. Suppose now that someone saw you push Willems in the water. Someone you didn’t know was there, who was on the riverbank. He’d have been able to tell the police that you stayed on the deck of the barge for quite a long time before jumping into the lifeboat, in order to give your boss time to die.’
‘And Anneke? Maybe she also saw it all and didn’t say anything?’
‘At two o’clock in the morning, it’s quite likely she was asleep. In any case, the man who saw you, and who was living under Pont de Bercy at the time, didn’t say anything to the police. Tramps don’t much like getting involved in other people’s business. They don’t see the world like everyone else and they have their own idea of justice. You were able to marry Anneke and, as you needed someone with you to steer the boat, you got your brother to join you from Belgium. At last you were happy. You’d become the boss now, the skipper. Since then, you’ve been through Paris several times and I suspect you avoided mooring anywhere near Pont de Bercy.’
‘No, monsieur! I’ve moored there at least three times.’
‘Because the tramp wasn’t there any more. Tramps also move house, and yours settled under Pont Marie. On Monday, he recognized the Zwarte Zwaan. He recognized you. What I wonder is …’
He pretended to be pursuing a new idea.
‘What do you wonder?’
‘I wonder if you noticed him on Quai de la Rapée when Willems was pulled out of the water. Yes, you would definitely have had to see him. He approached, but didn’t say anything. On Monday, when he started prowling around your boat, you realized he might talk. It’s not unlikely that he threatened to do so.’
Maigret didn’t believe that. It wasn’t Doc’s style. For the moment, it was necessary for his story.
‘You were afraid. It occurred to you that what had happened to Willems might well happen to someone else, almost in the same way.’
‘And I threw him in the water, is that it?’
‘Let’s say you pushed him.’
Once again, Jef was standing, calmer than before, harder.
‘No, monsieur! You’ll never make me admit such a thing. It isn’t the truth.’
‘Well, if I got some of the details wrong, then tell me.’
‘I’ve already said it.’
‘What?’
‘It was written down in black and white by the little man who was with the magistrate.’
‘You stated that you heard a noise about midnight.’
‘If I said it, it’s true.’
‘You also said that two men, one of them wearing a light-coloured raincoat, emerged from under Pont Marie at that moment and ran to a red car.’
‘It was red.’
‘So they walked past your barge.’
Van Houtte didn’t react. Maigret went to the door and opened it.
‘Come in, gentlemen.’
Lapointe had gone to fetch the insurance agent and his friend with the stammer from their homes. He had found them playing belote with Madame Guillot, and they had followed him without protest. Guillot was wearing the same yellowish raincoat as on Monday evening.
‘Are these the two men who left in the red car?’
‘It’s not the same thing, seeing people at night on a badly lit riverbank and seeing them in an office.’
‘They match the description you gave us.’
Jef shook his head, still refusing to express an opinion.
‘They were definitely on Quai des Célestins that night. Can you tell us what you were doing there, Monsieur Guillot?’
‘We drove the car down the ramp.’
‘How far is this ramp from the bridge?’
‘More than a hundred metres.’
‘You stopped the car right at the foot of the ramp?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then?’
‘We went to get the dog from the boot.’
‘Was he heavy?’
‘Nestor weighed more than I do. Seventy kilos two months ago, the last time we weighed him at the butcher’s.’
‘Was there a barge at the quayside?’
‘Yes.’
‘You both went with your load to Pont Marie?’
Hardoin opened his mouth to object, but luckily his friend intervened before him.
‘Why should we have gone all the way to Pont Marie?’
‘Because this gentleman here says you did.’
‘He saw us go to Pont Marie?’
‘Not exactly. He saw you come back from there.’
The two men looked at each other.
‘He can’t have seen us walking past his barge, because we threw the dog in the river behind the barge. I was even afraid the sack would get caught in the tiller. I waited for a moment to make sure the current would take it downstream.’
‘Do you hear that, Jef?’
To which Jef replied, unfazed:
‘That’s his story, right? You told your story. And maybe there’ll be other stories. It isn’t my fault if—’
‘What time was it, Monsieur Guillot?’
Unable to resign himself to a silent role, Hardoin blurted out:
‘Elev-v-ven th-th—’
‘Eleven thirty,’ his friend cut in. ‘The proof of that is that we were in the bar in Rue de Turenne by eleven forty.’
‘Is your car red?’
‘It’s a red 403, yes.’
‘With two nines in the licence number?’
‘7949 LF 75. If you want to see the registration …’
‘Would you like to go down to the courtyard and identify the car, Monsieur Van Houtte?’
‘The only thing I’d like to do is go back to my wife.’
‘How do you explain these contradictions?’
‘It’s up to you to explain them. It’s not my job.’
‘You know the mistake you made?’
‘Yes. Pulling that man out of the water.’
‘First, yes. But you didn’t do that deliberately.’
‘What do you mean, I didn’t do it deliberately? Do you think I was sleepwalking when I untied the lifeboat, took the pole and tried to—’
Maigret and the Tramp Page 10