Maigret at Picratt's

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Isn’t it pretty unusual for a morphine addict to be hooked on drink too?’

  ‘It happens.’

  His hands trembled slightly, like an alcoholic’s in the morning, and now and then a twitch dragged down one side of his mouth.

  ‘I suppose you tried to wean her off?’

  ‘In the beginning, yes. She was an all but hopeless case. I didn’t get anywhere. She wouldn’t speak to me for weeks.’

  ‘Didn’t she ever call you because she had run out of drugs and needed some no matter what?’

  Bloch glanced at his colleague. There was no point lying. The body and the apartment couldn’t have spelled it out more clearly.

  ‘I suppose I don’t need to give you a lecture. After a certain point, a drug addict absolutely cannot be deprived of the drug in question without running a serious risk. I don’t know where she procured hers. I didn’t ask. Twice, I think, when I got here, I found her pretty much out of her mind because a delivery she had been expecting hadn’t arrived, and I gave her an injection.’

  ‘She never said anything to you about her life or family or background?’

  ‘All I know is that she really was married to a Count von Farnheim, who I think was Austrian and much older than her. She lived with him on the Côte d’Azur on a large estate which she would sometimes mention.’

  ‘One more question, doctor: did she settle your bills by cheque?’

  ‘No. In cash.’

  ‘I suppose you don’t know anything about her friends or relations or suppliers?’

  ‘Nothing whatsoever.’

  Maigret didn’t insist.

  ‘Thank you. You can go.’

  Once again he didn’t want to be there when the public prosecutor arrived, let alone answer the reporters who would come running at any moment. He was impatient to get away from that suffocating, depressing atmosphere.

  He gave Janvier some instructions, then got a ride to Quai des Orfèvres where a message was waiting for him from Doctor Paul, the forensics doctor, asking him to call him.

  ‘I am writing up my report, which you’ll have tomorrow morning,’ said the handsomely bearded doctor, who would have another post mortem to perform that evening. ‘I wanted to bring a couple of things to your attention, as they may be important for your investigation. First, everything suggests the girl isn’t twenty-four, as it says on her card. Medically speaking she is barely twenty.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘It’s a near certainty. What’s more, she has had a child. That’s all I know. As for the murder, it was carried out by somebody very strong.’

  ‘Could a woman have done it?’

  ‘I don’t think so, unless she was physically as powerful as a man.’

  ‘Has anyone told you about the second crime yet? You’re most probably going to be called out to Rue Victor-Massé.’

  Doctor Paul muttered something about a dinner in town, and the two men hung up.

  The evening papers had published Arlette’s photograph and, as per normal, they had already received several telephone calls. Two or three people were in the waiting room. An inspector was dealing with it all, and Maigret went to have dinner at home, where his wife, who had read the newspaper, wasn’t expecting to see him. It was still raining. His clothes were damp, and he changed.

  ‘Are you going out?’

  ‘I’ll probably be gone for the better part of the night.’

  ‘Has the countess been found?’

  The newspapers hadn’t mentioned the dead woman in Rue Victor-Massé yet.

  ‘Yes. Strangled.’

  ‘Don’t catch cold. The radio’s saying there’s going to be a frost and that it’ll probably be icy tomorrow morning.’

  He drank a little brandy and walked to Place de la République to get some fresh air.

  His initial plan had been to let young Lapointe deal with Arlette, but, on reflection, entrusting him with this job seemed cruel, and he’d ended up giving it to Janvier.

  The latter should be at work now. Equipped with a photograph of the dancer, he would be going around Montmartre’s boarding houses, concentrating in particular on those little hotels that specialize in letting out rooms by the hour.

  Fred from Picratt’s had implied that, like the other dancers, Arlette would sometimes go off with a customer after the club closed. She didn’t take them home, according to the concierge of Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. She wouldn’t have gone very far. Maybe, if she had a regular lover, she would have met up with him in one of these hotels too.

  While he was at it, Janvier was primed to ask everyone about an Oscar, who they knew nothing about and whose name had only been uttered once by the young woman. Why had she seemed to regret it instantly and become much vaguer?

  Short on manpower, Maigret had left Inspector Lognon at Rue Victor-Massé, where Criminal Records should have finished its work by now and where the public prosecutor would probably have put in an appearance while he was having dinner.

  When he got to Quai des Orfèvres, most of the offices were dark and he found Lapointe in the big inspectors’ room, bent over the papers from the countess’s drawer. He had been given the job of sorting through them.

  ‘Have you found anything, son?’

  ‘I’m not finished. All of this is a mess, and it’s not easy getting your bearings. Plus I’m checking things as I go along. I’ve already made some calls. I’m waiting to hear from the Flying Squad in Nice, apart from anything else.’

  He produced a postcard of a sprawling, luxurious estate overlooking the Baie des Anges. The house, a bad Orientalist pastiche complete with minaret, was surrounded by palm trees and its name was printed in the corner: The Oasis.

  ‘According to the papers,’ he explained, ‘this is where she lived with her husband fifteen years ago.’

  ‘So she was under thirty-five then.’

  ‘Here’s a photograph of her and the count at the time.’

  It was a snapshot. They were both standing in front of the door of the villa, and the woman was holding two huge borzois on leads.

  Count von Farnheim was a trim little man with a white goatee, dressed with studied elegance and sporting a monocle. His wife was a beautiful, voluptuous creature who must have turned heads in the street.

  ‘Do you know where they got married?’

  ‘In Capri, three years before that photograph was taken.’

  ‘How old was the count?’

  ‘Sixty-five when they got married. The marriage only lasted three years. He bought The Oasis as soon as they got back from Italy.’

  The papers contained a bit of everything: yellowing bills, passports with multiple visas, cards from Nice’s and Cannes’ casinos, even a bundle of letters which Lapointe hadn’t yet had time to decipher. They were in an angular hand, with some letters in Gothic script, and signed Hans.

  ‘Do you know her maiden name?’

  ‘Madeleine Lalande. She was born in La Roche-sur-Yon, in the Vendée, and for a while was one of the extras at the Casino de Paris.’

  Lapointe regarded his job more or less as a form of punishment.

  ‘Haven’t we found anything?’ he asked after a silence.

  He was obviously thinking about Arlette.

  ‘Janvier’s taking care of it. I will as well.’

  ‘Are you going to Picratt’s?’

  Maigret nodded. In his office next door, he found the inspector who was dealing with the telephone calls and visits concerning the dancer’s identity.

  ‘Nothing serious yet. I took an old woman, who seemed very self-assured, to the Forensic Institute. Even when she was standing in front of the body, she swore it was her daughter, but the clerk there identified her. She’s mad. She’s been recognizing every woman’s body that’s turned up for the last ten years.’

  The meteorological office must have got it right for once, because when Maigret was back outside, it was colder, a wintry cold, and he turned up the collar of his overcoat. He got to Montmartre to
o early. It was just after eleven, and the nightlife hadn’t started. People were still crammed shoulder to shoulder in the theatres and cinemas; the cabarets were only just switching on their neon signs, and the liveried doormen weren’t at their stations yet.

  First he went into the café-tabac on the corner of Rue de Douai. He had been there countless times, and they knew him. The owner had only just started work because he was another nighthawk . His wife ran the bar in the day with a team of waiters until he relieved her in the evening, so they only saw each other in passing.

  ‘What can I get you, inspector?’

  Maigret immediately noticed a character whom the owner seemed to be indicating out of the corner of his eye. It was obviously the Grasshopper. He was standing at the bar, his head barely reaching over the counter, drinking a peppermint cordial. He had recognized Maigret too but was pretending to be immersed in a racing paper, which he was marking up in pencil.

  He could have been taken for a jockey because he must have been the weight for it. When you looked at him closely, it was disorientating to discover on that childlike body a grey, wrinkled face with intensely animated, darting eyes that seemed to register everything, like an animal always on the alert.

  He was wearing a suit rather than a uniform, which on him looked like something a teenager would wear to his first communion.

  ‘Were you working about four this morning?’ Maigret asked the owner after ordering a calvados.

  ‘Same as every night. I know what you’re driving at. I’ve read the paper.’

  People like him made Maigret’s job easy. A few musicians were drinking a café-crème before going to work. There were also a couple of young thugs whom he knew, who were trying to look innocent.

  ‘What sort of state was she in?’

  ‘Same as she always was at that time of the morning.’

  ‘Did she come every night?’

  ‘No. Every now and then. When she thought she hadn’t had her fill. She’d have one or two drinks, stiff ones, then head home. She wouldn’t hang around.’

  ‘Last night was the same?’

  ‘She seemed pretty worked up, but she didn’t say anything to me. I don’t think she talked to anyone apart from to order her drink.’

  ‘Was there a middle-aged man, short and burly, with grey hair, in the bar?’

  Maigret had avoided talking about Oscar to the reporters, so there hadn’t been any mention of him in the newspapers. But he had asked Fred about him; Fred might have repeated his questions to the Grasshopper, and he …

  ‘No, no sign of anyone like that,’ replied the bar owner, perhaps a shade too emphatically.

  ‘You don’t know anyone called Oscar?’

  ‘There are loads of Oscars around here, but I can’t think of one that fits that description.’

  Maigret was at the Grasshopper’s side in a couple of steps.

  ‘Nothing to tell me?’

  ‘Nothing special, inspector.’

  ‘You spent all last night on the door at Picratt’s?’

  ‘Pretty much. I just went a little way up Rue Pigalle once or twice, handing out cards. I came in here too, to get some cigarettes for an American.’

  ‘Do you know Oscar?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  He wasn’t the sort of guy to be intimidated by the police, or anyone, for that matter. His broad working-class accent and street-kid mannerisms were clearly intentional, part of a whole act that went down well with the customers.

  ‘You didn’t know Arlette’s boyfriend either?’

  ‘She had a boyfriend? First I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘You never saw anyone waiting for her afterwards?’

  ‘Sometimes. Customers.’

  ‘Would she go off with them?’

  ‘Not always. Occasionally she had a hard time getting rid of them and had to come in here to shake them off.’

  The owner, who was shamelessly listening in, nodded in agreement.

  ‘You never ran into her in the day?’

  ‘Mornings I’m asleep and afternoons I’m at the track.’

  ‘She didn’t have any girlfriends?’

  ‘She got on with Betty and Tania. Not all that well. I think Tania and her weren’t too fond of each other.’

  ‘She never asked you to get her drugs?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For her.’

  ‘Not a chance. She liked having a drink, or even a couple, but I don’t think she ever took drugs.’

  ‘In a word, you don’t know anything.’

  ‘Except that she was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’

  Maigret hesitated, involuntarily looking the runt up and down from head to toe.

  ‘Did you go to bed with her?’

  ‘Why not? I’ve had my way with others, and not just kids either. High-class customers too.’

  ‘It’s perfectly true,’ put in the proprietor. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with them, but they’re all crazy about him. I’ve seen some women – not old or ugly by any stretch of the imagination – come in here at the end of the night and wait for him for at least an hour.’

  The gnome’s big, rubbery mouth stretched into a sardonic, delighted smile.

  ‘Maybe there’s a good reason for it,’ he said, making an obscene gesture.

  ‘You slept with Arlette?’

  ‘I already said I did.’

  ‘Often?’

  ‘Once, at least.’

  ‘Was it her idea?’

  ‘She knew I wanted it.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’

  ‘Not at Picratt’s, obviously. Do you know the Moderne on Rue Blanche?’

  It was a hotel used by prostitutes that the police knew well.

  ‘Well, it was there.’

  ‘Was she passionate?’

  ‘She knew all the tricks.’

  ‘Did she like it?’

  The Grasshopper shrugged.

  ‘Even when women don’t like it, they pretend to, and the less pleasure they get, the more of a show they think they have to put on.’

  ‘Was she drunk that night?’

  ‘Same as always.’

  ‘Was she like that with the owner too?’

  ‘With Fred? He’s talked to you about it?’

  He thought for a minute, then gravely drained his drink.

  ‘That’s none of my business.’

  ‘Do you think the boss fell for her?’

  ‘Everyone fell for her.’

  ‘You too?’

  ‘I’ve said what I had to say. Now, I can always do you a drawing, if you’d like,’ he joked. ‘Are you going to Picratt’s?’

  Maigret headed off there without waiting for the Grasshopper, who wasted no time taking up his post. The red sign was on. The photographs of Arlette hadn’t been removed from the display yet. A curtain was drawn across the window and the glass panes of the door. There was no music to be heard.

  He went in and the first thing he saw was Fred in a dinner-jacket, shelving some bottles behind the bar.

  ‘I thought you’d show up,’ he said. ‘Is it true that a countess has been found strangled?’

  It wasn’t surprising he knew. It had happened in the neighbourhood, after all. It might have been on the radio as well.

  Two musicians, one very young with slicked-back hair, another in his forties with a sad, sickly air, were sitting on stage, tuning up. A waiter was finishing the tables. There was no sign of Rose, who must have been in the kitchen or had not come down yet.

  The walls were painted red, the lighting was deep pink, and the combination made everything – objects as well as people – seem a little less real. You felt – or at least Maigret felt – as if you were in a photographer’s dark room. He needed a moment to adjust. People’s eyes appeared darker, more sparkling, while the outline of their lips disappeared, swallowed up by the light.

  ‘If you’re staying, give your coat and hat to my wife. You’ll find her at the back.’r />
  He called:

  ‘Rose!’

  She came out of the kitchen, wearing a black satin dress and, on top of it, a little embroidered apron. She took his overcoat and hat.

  ‘I suppose you don’t want to sit down straight away?’

  ‘Have the women got here?’

  ‘They’ll be down. They’re changing. We don’t have artists’ dressing rooms here, so they use our bedroom and bathroom. I’ve been having a good think about the questions you asked me this morning, you know. We talked it over, Rose and me. We’re both sure that Arlette can’t have found out from overhearing customers. Come here, Désiré.’

  The latter was bald, apart from a ring of hair around his head, and looked like the waiter in a poster for a big drinks company. He must have known it and cultivated the resemblance; he had even let his sideburns grow.

  ‘You can speak openly to the inspector. Did you serve any customers on four last night?’

  ‘No, monsieur.’

  ‘Did you see two men together – they would have been here a while – one of them a short, middle-aged guy?’

  After a glance at Maigret, Fred added, ‘Who looked a bit like me?’

  ‘No, monsieur.’

  ‘Who did Arlette talk to?’

  ‘She was with her young man for quite a long time. Then she took a few glasses to the Americans’ table. That’s it. At the end she was sitting with Betty, and they ordered brandy from me. It went on her tab. You can check. She drank a couple of glasses.’

  A dark-haired woman came out of the kitchen and after a professional scan of the room, in which the only strange face was Maigret’s, headed towards the stage, sat down at the piano and spoke quietly to the musicians. All three looked in Maigret’s direction. Then she gave her companions a chord. The younger man produced a few notes from his saxophone, the other sat down at the drums, and, moments later, a jazz tune struck up.

  ‘People passing by have got to hear music,’ Fred explained. ‘There probably won’t be anyone for a good half-hour but a customer mustn’t find the club silent or us frozen like waxworks. What can I give you? If you’re sitting down, I’d rather it was a bottle of champagne.’

  ‘I’d prefer a brandy.’

  ‘I’ll give you a glass of brandy and put the bottle of champagne next to it. As a rule, especially at the start of the night, we only serve champagne, you understand?’