Maigret 51 Maigret Travels

by Georges Simenon

  Opposite, Rue François-Ier was brightly lit, and the English pharmacy on the corner of the street and Avenue George-V was still open. Was it the duty pharmacy? Was it open every evening? Given the pampered clientele of the George-V and its neighbouring hotel, the Prince de Galles, who lived life the wrong way round, coming alive at night rather than during the day, it probably did excellent business.

  On the left, the quieter Rue Christophe-Colomb was lit only by the red neon sign of a restaurant or nightclub, and large, shiny cars dozed alongside both kerbs.

  Behind, in Rue Magellan, was a bar, the kind of drivers’ bistro you saw in wealthy neighbourhoods. A man in a white jacket crossed the street and went in, doubtless a waiter.

  Maigret was thinking in slow motion, and it took him a while to retrace the route that had led him to the roof. Later, losing his way, he came across the head waiter eating scraps from a tray.

  By the time he got back to the hotel bar, it was eleven o’clock, and there were fewer customers. The three Americans he had seen earlier were still in their places and along with a fourth man, also an American, very tall and thin, were playing poker.

  The fourth man’s high-heeled shoes intrigued Maigret for a moment until he realized that in fact they were cowboy boots, with ankles of multi-coloured leather hidden by his trousers. A man from Texas or Arizona. He was more demonstrative than the others, spoke in a loud voice, and you fully expected him to draw a gun from his belt.

  Maigret finally sat down on a stool and the barman asked him:

  ‘The same?’

  He nodded and asked in his turn:

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘I don’t know his name, but he owns an oil well. Apparently, the pumps work by themselves. The man doesn’t have to do a thing and still makes a million a day.’

  ‘Was he here the night before last?’

  ‘No. He arrived this morning. He’s leaving again tomorrow for Cairo and Arabia, where he has interests.’

  ‘Were the other three here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With Arnold?’

  ‘Wait … The night before last … Yes. One of your inspectors already asked me that.’

  ‘I know. Who’s the third man, the fair-haired one?’

  ‘I don’t know his name. He isn’t staying at this hotel. I think he’s at the Crillon and I’m told he owns a chain of restaurants.’

  ‘Does he speak French?’

  ‘None of them do, apart from Monsieur Levinson, who lived in Paris when he wasn’t yet a film star’s agent.’

  ‘Do you know what he did before?’

  The barman shrugged.

  ‘Could you go and ask the man who’s staying at the Crillon a question from me?’

  The barman grimaced but didn’t dare say no.

  ‘What question?’ he asked unenthusiastically.

  ‘I’d like to know where he and Monsieur Arnold parted when he left here the night before last.’

  The barman walked over to the poker players’ table, preparing his smile as he did so. He leaned over the third man, who looked curiously in Maigret’s direction, after which the other three did the same, having just learned who he was. The answer was longer than might have been expected.

  At last, the barman returned, while the game resumed in the corner.

  ‘He asked me why you needed to know that. He pointed out that this isn’t the way things are done in his country. He didn’t remember immediately. He drank a lot the night before last. It’ll be the same tonight by the time we close. They continued their game in the Empire drawing room.’

  ‘That, I know.’

  ‘He lost ten thousand dollars, but he’s making up for it tonight.’

  ‘Did Arnold win?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. He thinks he remembers saying goodbye to him at the door of the Empire drawing room. He told me he’d assumed Arnold was staying at the George-V, but he’s only known him for a few days.’

  Maigret didn’t react. He spent a good quarter of an hour over his drink, vaguely watching the poker players. The girl he had recognized was no longer there, but there was another one, on her own, who so far could only afford fake diamonds and seemed as interested in the game as he was.

  Maigret pointed her out to the barman.

  ‘I didn’t think you allowed these women …’

  ‘In principle. We make an exception for two or three we know who behave themselves. It’s almost a necessity. Otherwise, the guests will pick up God knows what outside. You wouldn’t imagine the creatures they sometimes bring back.’

  For a moment, Maigret thought … No! First of all, the colonel hadn’t been robbed. Plus, it would have been out of character …

  ‘Are you leaving?’

  ‘I may be back later.’

  He intended to wait until three in the morning, which meant he still had time to kill. Not sure where to put himself, he prowled again, sometimes on the guest side, sometimes on the staff side. There was less coming and going as the night wore on. He saw two or three couples come back from the theatre, heard bells ring, passed a waiter with bottles of beer on a tray, and another on his way to serve a complete meal.

  At one point, turning a corner in a corridor, he almost crashed into the head receptionist.

  ‘Do you need me for anything, inspector?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  The man was pretending to be there to help him, but Maigret was convinced he had come to check up on what he was doing.

  ‘Most guests don’t get back until three in the morning.’

  ‘I know. Thank you.’

  ‘If you need anything …’

  ‘I’ll ask you.’

  The man moved away, then retraced his steps.

  ‘I did give you the keys, didn’t I?’

  Maigret’s presence in the hotel clearly made him uncomfortable. But the inspector continued with his wandering. He found himself in the basement area, as vast as the crypt of a cathedral, and glimpsed men in blue overalls working in a boiler room that could have been that of a ship.

  Here, too, people turned to look at him. An employee in a glass cage was checking off the bottles coming from the wine cellar. In the kitchens, women were busy washing down the tiled floor.

  Another staircase, lit by a lamp enclosed in wire netting, a swing door, another glass cage, this one with nobody in it. The air was cooler here, and when Maigret opened a second door he was surprised to find himself out in the street. On the opposite pavement, a man in shirt-sleeves was lowering the shutter of the small bar he had seen from the roof.

  He was in Rue Magellan. The Champs-Élysées was to his right, at the end of Rue Bassano. In the next doorway, a couple stood clasped in each other’s arms. Could the man be the hotel employee who should have been in the glass cage?

  Was this exit guarded day and night? Did the staff have to clock in and out? Hadn’t Maigret seen a waiter in a white jacket earlier, crossing the street and going into the bar opposite?

  He registered all these details mechanically. By the time he got back to the hotel bar, the lights were off, the poker players were no longer there, and the waiters were busy clearing the tables.

  He didn’t find his four Americans in the Empire drawing room either. It was empty and looked like a silent chapel.

  When he saw the barman again, the man was in a lounge suit, and Maigret almost didn’t recognize him.

  ‘Have the poker players gone?’

  ‘I think they went up to Mark Jones’s suite. They’ll probably play all night. Are you staying? … Goodnight, then.’

  It was still only 1.15 when Maigret walked into the late David Ward’s suite. Everything was still in its place, including the scattered clothes and the water in the bath.

  He didn’t conduct a search, merely settled in an armchair, lit a pipe and stayed there, dozing.

  Perhaps he had been wrong to rush to Orly, to Nice, to Monte Carlo, to Lausanne. Talking of which, the little countess must be asleep in h
er sleeper car by now. Was she going to stay at the George-V as usual? Was she still hoping that Marco would take her back?

  She was nothing now, neither Ward’s wife, nor his widow, nor Marco’s wife. She had admitted that she had no money. How long would she be able to live off her furs and jewellery?

  Had the colonel foreseen that he might die before his divorce from Muriel Halligan had become final and he’d married the countess?

  It was unlikely.

  She wouldn’t even have the means to join the single women’s club in Lausanne, those women who, when they ate out, ordered dishes without salt or butter, but still drank four or five cocktails before every meal.

  Didn’t she answer the criteria listed by Van Meulen?

  He wasn’t trying to reach a conclusion, to solve a problem. He wasn’t thinking, he was letting his mind roam at will.

  Everything might depend on a little experiment. And even then, the experiment wouldn’t necessarily be conclusive. It was a good thing the reporters who praised his methods didn’t know how he sometimes operated: his reputation would be bound to suffer.

  Twice, he almost fell asleep, waking with a start just in time to look at his watch. The second time, it was 2.30, and to stay awake he decided to change scenery. He went to suite 332, where all that had been done, as a precaution, was to take away the countess’s jewels and store them in the hotel’s safe.

  Nobody, it seemed, had touched the bottle of whisky and, after about ten minutes, Maigret went to the bathroom, rinsed a glass and poured himself a drink.

  At last, at three o’clock, he went back through the door into the backstage area, passing a fairly tipsy couple as he did so. The woman was singing and carrying on her arm, like a baby, a huge white teddy bear she must have been sold in a nightclub.

  He ran into just one waiter, a grim-faced man who looked as if he should have retired. Finding his bearings, he went downstairs, too far down at first, then back up to the first level of the basement, at last discovering the glass cage, in which there was still nobody, then the brisk air of Rue Magellan.

  The bar opposite had long since closed. He had seen the shutter being lowered. The red neon light in the next street was off, and, although the cars were still there, he didn’t see anyone on the pavement. It wasn’t until he got to Rue Bassano that he saw a pedestrian, who sped away as if afraid of him.

  Fouquet’s, on the corner of the Champs-Élysées, was also closed, as was the brasserie opposite. A girl standing against the wall of the travel agency said something to him in a low voice that he didn’t understand.

  On the other side of the avenue, where only a few cars were passing, two large windows were still alight, not far from the Lido.

  Maigret hesitated at the kerb. He must have looked like a sleepwalker, because he was trying to put himself in the skin of another person, a person who had killed a man a few minutes earlier by holding his head under water in his bath and had then followed the same route from suite 347 as he had.

  An empty taxi was coming down the avenue and slowed as it passed him. Had the murderer hailed a taxi? Or had he told himself that it was dangerous, that the police almost always tracked down the driver who took such and such a route?

  He let it pass and almost continued along the same side of the street in the direction of the Concorde.

  Then he looked again at the lighted bar on the other side of the street, with its long brass counter. From a distance, he saw the waiter serving beer, the cashier and four or five motionless customers, two of them women.

  He crossed, hesitated again and at last went in.

  The two women looked at him, started to smile, then, even though they didn’t recognize him, seemed to realize that he wasn’t a likely client.

  Had something similar happened the night before last? The man behind the counter was also looking at him questioningly, waiting for his order.

  Maigret had a bad taste in his mouth from the whisky. His gaze fell on the beer pump.

  ‘I’ll have a beer.’

  Outside, two or three women emerged from the darkness and peered at him through the window.

  One of them ventured into the bar then went straight back out, where she presumably told the others that he was a dead loss.

  ‘Are you open all night?’

  ‘Yes, all night.’

  ‘Are there any other bars open between here and the Madeleine?’

  ‘Only strip clubs.’

  ‘Were you here two nights ago at the same time?’

  ‘I’m here every night except Monday.’

  ‘What about you?’ he asked the cashier, who had a blue woollen shawl over her shoulders.

  ‘My day off is Wednesday.’

  The night before last had been a Tuesday. So they had both been here.

  He pointed to the two girls and said in a low voice:

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Except when they take a client to Rue Washington or Rue de Berri …’

  The waiter was frowning, wondering who this strange customer, whose face reminded him of something, could possibly be. It was one of the girls who recognized him in the end and moved her lips to warn the waiter.

  She didn’t think that Maigret could see her in the mirror, and kept saying the same word, moving her mouth like a fish. The waiter didn’t understand, looked at her, then looked at the inspector and looked at her again questioningly.

  In the end, Maigret had to interpret:

  ‘Watch out, cops about!’

  And as the waiter still didn’t seem to know what was going on, he explained:

  ‘She’s telling you I’m a policeman.’

  ‘And are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He must have been funny talking like this, because the girl, after a moment of embarrassment, couldn’t stop herself from bursting into loud laughter.

  8.

  Those who saw and those who didn’t, or the art of combining witnesses

  ‘No chief, I don’t mind at all. I was expecting it. I even told my wife when we went to bed.’

  Lucas had woken up as soon as the telephone had rung, but probably didn’t have a clock within sight, and might not even have switched the light on in his bedroom.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Half past three. Do you have a paper and a pencil?’

  ‘Hold on …’

  Through the window of the phone booth, Maigret could see the lavatory attendant asleep on her chair, her knitting in her lap, and he knew that upstairs, at the counter, they were talking about him.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I don’t have time to explain. Just follow my instructions to the letter.’

  He gave them slowly, repeating each sentence so that there should be no mistake.

  ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Not too tired, chief?’

  ‘No, not too tired.’

  He hung up and called Lapointe, who took longer to wake up, perhaps because he was younger.

  ‘Go and have a glass of cold water first. Then listen …’

  He gave him specific instructions, too. He thought about calling Janvier, but Janvier lived in the suburbs and probably wouldn’t find a taxi immediately.

  He went back upstairs. The girl who had offered to go and wait for Olga at the door of the rooming house in Rue Washington and bring her back hadn’t yet returned, and Maigret had a second glass of beer. It might be making him a little heavier, but for what he had to do, that was probably for the best.

  ‘Do I really have to go, too?’ the waiter asked. ‘Won’t the two girls be enough? Even if he doesn’t remember Malou, because he didn’t speak to her, I’m sure he won’t have forgotten Olga, and we’re getting her for you. Not only did he buy her a drink and chat to her, but from what I understood he clearly wanted her to go with him. With her red hair and those breasts of hers, Olga isn’t easy to forget.’

  ‘I insist I want you there.’

  ‘I’m not saying this for me, but fo
r my workmate. I’m going to have to drag him out of bed, and he won’t like it.’

  The girl who had gone returned with the famous Olga, a flaming redhead, who did indeed display a voluminous chest.

  ‘This is him,’ her friend said to her. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret. Don’t be afraid.’

  Olga was still a little suspicious. Maigret bought her a drink and gave her instructions, as he had the others.

  Alone at last, he left the bar and walked unhurriedly down the Champs-Élysées, puffing at his pipe, his hands in his pockets.

  He passed the doorman outside Claridge’s and almost stopped and recruited him, too. The only reason he didn’t was that a little further on he saw an old woman sitting on the ground, her back to the wall, in front of a basket of flowers.

  ‘Were you here the night before last?’

  She looked up at him suspiciously, and he had to negotiate with her. He eventually got what he wanted, went over his instructions two or three times and handed her some money.

  He could walk a little faster now. His cast was all assembled. Lucas and Lapointe would do the rest. He almost took a taxi, but he would have got there too late.

  He reached Avenue Matignon, hesitated, then told himself that the man, accustomed to this route, must have taken a short cut via Faubourg Saint-Honoré. He passed the British Embassy and the hotel where Monsieur Philps was resting from the previous days’ comings and goings.

  The Madeleine, Boulevard des Capucines … Another man in uniform, at the door of the Scribe, a revolving door, a lobby less well lit than that of the George-V, rather more old-fashioned decor …

  He showed his badge to the receptionist.

  ‘Is Monsieur John T. Arnold in?’

  A glance at the key rack. A nod.

  ‘Has he been in bed long?’

  ‘He got back about ten thirty.’

  ‘Does he often do that?’

  ‘Not usually, but with all that’s happening, he had a very busy day.’

  ‘What time did you see him come in last night?’