As he had expected, he was the centre of attention. They of all people knew what a tricky situation he was in and they had a discreet way of showing their sympathy.
As for the commissioner, he pretended to take it lightly, optimistically.
‘Nothing new, Maigret?’
‘The investigation is proceeding.’
‘Have you read the papers?’
‘I’ve just had a look at them now. They’ll only be satisfied when I arrest somebody.’
The press was going to hound him. This business, on top of the Englishwoman vanishing into thin air in the middle of Paris, was doing nothing for the Police Judiciaire’s prestige.
‘I’m doing my best,’ he sighed again.
‘Any leads?’
He shrugged. Could you call them leads?
Everyone then talked about their particular cases, and there was something like commiseration in the looks they gave Maigret when the meeting broke up.
The expert from the finance department was waiting for him in his office. Maigret listened with half an ear, still trying to recapture his dream.
Fumal’s business interests were far more extensive than the newspapers imagined. In a matter of years, he had built up a virtual monopoly of the meat trade.
‘There’s someone fiendishly intelligent behind these transactions,’ explained the expert, ‘someone who is very knowledgeable about the law. It will take months to unravel the web of companies and subsidiaries leading back to Fumal. The Inland Revenue will certainly be looking into all this from their end.’
Monsieur Joseph was probably the brains he was referring to, because, although Fumal had amassed an impressive fortune before they met, he had never done business on such a scale.
The finance department of the prosecutor’s office could investigate all they wanted, the Inland Revenue too, for all he cared.
What he was interested in was finding out who had shot Fumal at point-blank range in his office while Vacher was pacing up and down on the pavement.
He was wanted on the telephone; apparently someone insisted on talking to him personally. It turned out to be Madame Gaillardin, the real one, the wife in Neuilly, who was calling from Cannes, where she still was with her children. She was full of questions. A Côte d’Azur newspaper, she said, had reported that, after killing Fumal at Boulevard de Courcelles, Gaillardin had gone to Puteaux and committed suicide.
‘I rang my lawyer this morning. I’m getting the Mistral in a moment. I want you to know, as of now, that the woman at Rue François Premier has no rights, that there was never any question of my husband and I getting a divorce, and that we were married under the convention of common assets. Fumal swindled him, there’s absolutely no doubt about that. My lawyer will prove it and claim the amount from his estate that …’
Maigret sighed, holding the receiver to his ear, muttering from time to time:
‘Yes, madame … Fine, madame …’
Finally, he asked:
‘Tell me, did your husband have a Luger?’
‘A what?’
‘Nothing. Did he fight in the last war?’
‘He was exempted because of …’
‘The grounds are irrelevant. Was he a prisoner or deported to Germany?’
‘No. Why?’
‘No reason. Did you ever see a revolver in your apartment at Neuilly?’
‘There used to be one, but he took it to the apartment of that … that …’
‘Thank you.’
There was a woman who wasn’t going to let herself be pushed around. She’d fight like a lioness defending her cubs.
He went into the inspectors’ office and looked around for someone.
‘Isn’t Lapointe here?’
‘He must be in the lavatory.’
He waited.
‘Is Aillevard still off work?’
Lapointe finally reappeared and blushed when he found Maigret waiting for him.
‘Tell me, son … Yesterday morning, when you went into the office … Think carefully … Were the curtains open or closed?’
‘They were as you found them. I didn’t touch them and I didn’t see anyone touching them.’
‘So they were open?’
‘Definitely. I’d swear to it. Hang on … Yes, they were, because I noticed the old stables across the courtyard and …’
‘Come with me.’
He liked having someone with him on an investigation, whenever possible. On the way to the townhouse in the little black car he barely opened his mouth. At Boulevard de Courcelles he pressed the brass doorbell himself, and Victor came to open the door in the carriage gate.
Maigret noticed that he hadn’t shaved, which made him look far more like a poacher than a manservant or concierge.
‘Is the inspector upstairs?’
‘Yes. Coffee and croissants have been taken up to him.’
‘Who by?’
‘Noémi.’
‘Has Monsieur Joseph come down?’
‘I haven’t see him.’
‘Mademoiselle Louise?’
‘She was in the kitchen having her breakfast half an hour ago. I don’t know if she’s gone upstairs.’
‘Félix?’
‘In the garage.’
Taking a few steps forwards, Maigret saw the chauffeur, who was polishing one of the cars as if nothing had happened.
‘Isn’t the lawyer here?’
‘I didn’t even know he was coming.’
‘I’m expecting the examining magistrate too. Show him up to the office.’
‘Very well, detective chief inspector.’
Maigret had a question on the tip of his tongue, but it slipped his memory as he was about to ask it. Anyway, it can’t have been important.
On the first floor, they found Inspector Janin, who had been on guard for the second half of the night. He hadn’t shaved either and was asleep on his feet.
‘Anything happened?’
‘Nobody’s stirred. The young lady came just now and asked if I needed her. I told her I didn’t, and after a bit she left, saying she would be in her room and we could just call if we wanted her.’
‘Did she go into the office?’
‘Yes. She was only in there for a few seconds.’
‘Did she open any drawers?’
‘I don’t think so. She came out holding a piece of clothing, some red knitted thing, which she hadn’t had when she went in.’
Maigret remembered she was wearing a red cardigan the day before. She had probably forgotten it in one of the rooms on the first floor.
‘Madame Fumal?’
‘They took up her breakfast on a tray.’
‘Hasn’t she come down?’
‘I haven’t seen her.’
‘Go to bed. There’ll be time to write your report this evening.’
The office’s red curtains still weren’t drawn. Maigret told Lapointe to go and ask the maids if they usually were, then looked out of one of the windows. Directly opposite, slightly higher up, a window was open, and he could see a young blonde woman bustling about, moving her lips as if she were singing as she did some housework. It was Louise Bourges.
Struck by an idea, he looked around at the safe by the wall opposite the windows. Could it be seen from across the courtyard?
If it could …
The idea excited him and he went downstairs, out into the courtyard, and climbed the narrower staircase that led to the secretary’s bedroom. He knocked. She called:
‘Come in.’
She didn’t seem surprised to see him, merely muttering:
‘It’s you.’
He was already familiar with the room, which was spacious and elegantly furnished, with a radio and record player console and a bedside light with an orange shade. It was the window that interested him. He leaned out of it, peering at the dim outline of the office opposite. It hadn’t occurred to him to switch on the lights when he left.
‘Will you go and turn on some ligh
ts over there?’
‘Where?’
‘In the office.’
No hint of her being frightened or surprised.
‘One moment … Do you know what’s in your employer’s safe?’
She hesitated, but only briefly.
‘Yes. I’d rather tell the truth …’
‘What?’
‘Some important files, for one thing; Madame Fumal’s jewellery; some letters, I don’t know what about, and some money.’
‘A lot of money?’
‘Yes. I’m sure you realize why he had to have large amounts in cash. In his kind of deals, some of the balance always has to be paid under the table, some amount he couldn’t pay by cheque.’
‘How much, would you say?’
‘I often saw him pay two or three million in cash. He had cash in his bank safe too.’
‘So there would be several million in cash in the safe?’
‘Unless he took it out.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Go and turn on the lights.’
‘Shall I come back here afterwards?’
‘Wait for me over there.’
Louise Bourges’ bedroom had been searched without anything being found. No Luger, no compromising papers, no money, apart from three thousand-franc notes and a few hundred-franc coins.
The young woman walked across the courtyard. Maigret had the sense it was taking her a long time to get to the office on the first floor, but maybe she’d met somebody on the way.
Eventually the lights came on, and immediately every smallest detail of the room opposite became visible through the muslin drapes, including the left half of the safe.
He tried to work out where Fumal had been standing when he was killed, but it was difficult to tell exactly, because the body could have rolled.
Had the killing been visible from Louise Bourges’ window? You couldn’t say for sure one way or another. What was certain was that you could clearly see whoever came in or out of the office.
He crossed the courtyard in his turn, started up the stairs without seeing anyone. Louise was waiting for him on the landing.
‘Did you find out what you wanted to?’
He nodded. She followed him into the office.
‘You’ll have noticed that you can see almost all my bedroom from here too.’
He pricked up his ears.
‘Monsieur Fumal may not have always drawn his office curtains, but Félix and I had the best reason to shut our shutters – those are shutters we’ve got over there. We’re not exhibitionists, us two.’
‘So sometimes he drew his curtains and sometimes he didn’t?’
‘That’s right. For instance, when he was working late with Monsieur Joseph, he always drew them. I used to wonder why. I suppose it was because those evenings he had to open the safe.’
‘Do you think Monsieur Joseph knew the combination?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘What about you?’
‘I know I don’t.’
‘Lapointe! Go up to Monsieur Joseph … Ask him if he knows the combination of the safe …’
The key to the safe had been found in the dead man’s pocket. Madame Fumal, who had been questioned the day before, knew nothing about it; the lawyer claimed not to know the combination either. So they were not only expecting the examining magistrate this morning, but also an expert from the safemakers.
‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Why do you ask me that? No. I’m not.’
They heard footsteps on the stairs. It was the man from the safe company, a tall, thin individual with a moustache, who immediately looked at the safe like a surgeon studying his next patient.
‘We have to wait for the examining magistrate and the lawyer.’
‘I know. I’ve done this before.’
Once they arrived, the lawyer requested that Madame Fumal, the heiress presumptive, be present. Lapointe, who had come down from Monsieur Joseph’s apartment, went to find her.
She wasn’t as drunk as the day before, just a little dazed. She must have had a shot before coming down, though, to pluck up her courage, because her breath stank.
The court clerk had installed himself behind the desk.
‘I don’t think there’s any reason for you to be here, Mademoiselle Bourges,’ said Maigret, noticing the secretary.
How he would regret saying that!
He went and chatted with Judge Planche by the window while the expert got to work. It took half an hour, after which there was a click, and they saw the heavy door swing open.
The lawyer went over and looked inside first. Maigret and the examining magistrate followed.
A few yellow, bulging envelopes of receipts and correspondence, a large proportion of which were IOUs signed by a host of different names.
A shelf full of files concerning Fumal’s different businesses.
But no money, not even a solitary banknote.
Sensing someone behind him, Maigret turned around. Monsieur Joseph was standing in the doorway.
‘Is it there?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘The fifteen million. There should be fifteen million in cash in the safe. It was there three days ago, and I’m sure Monsieur Fumal didn’t take it out.’
‘Do you have a key?’
‘I’ve just told your inspector I don’t.’
‘Does anyone have a second key to the safe?’
‘Not that I know of.’
Pacing up and down, Maigret found himself facing the window; he caught sight of Louise Bourges in her bedroom opposite. She had started singing again, as though indifferent to what was going on in the house.
8. The Window, the Safe, the Lock and the Thief
They say the longest dreams only really last a few seconds. Maigret experienced something at that moment which reminded him not of the previous night’s dream, which he still hadn’t remembered, but of the sense of discovery that had accompanied it, that feeling of suddenly grasping a truth after you’ve been puzzling over it for ages.
Later he would be capable, such was the fullness of those few moments of life, to reconstruct his every slightest thought, his every slightest sensation, and if he had been a painter he could have rendered the scene with the meticulous detail of the minor Flemish masters.
The combined electric light and sunlight gave the room an artificial appearance like a stage set, which may have been why everyone seemed to be playing a role.
Maigret remained standing by one of the two tall windows. Opposite, on the other side of the courtyard, Louise Bourges was bustling about in her room, singing to herself, her blonde hair picked out by the sun. Below, in the courtyard, Félix, in blue overalls, was aiming a rubber hose at the limousine, which he had brought out of the garage.
The court clerk was sitting in the late Ferdinand Fumal’s chair, looking up expectantly, poised to take dictation. Over by the safe the lawyer, Audoin, and the examining magistrate, Planche, were looking from the steel strongbox to Maigret and back again, and the lawyer still had a file in his hand.
The safe expert had discreetly withdrawn to a corner, while Monsieur Joseph had only taken a couple of steps into the room. The door was open, and young Lapointe could be seen on the landing, lighting a cigarette.
Time seemed to be suspended for a few moments, with everyone holding their pose as if they were at the photographer’s.
Maigret’s gaze travelled from the window opposite to the safe, then from the safe to the door, and finally he realized his mistake. The old oak door had an enormous lock to fit a large key.
‘Lapointe!’ he called.
‘Yes, chief.’
‘Go downstairs and find Victor.’
To the surprise of the others, he added:
‘Be careful!’
Lapointe didn’t understand the warning either. Maigret turned to the safe man to ask him a question.
‘If someo
ne had been spying on Fumal through the lock, and they’d often seen him open the safe and studied his movements, could they have worked out the combination?’
The man looked at the door in turn, seemingly assessing the angle, measuring the distance.
‘It’d be child’s play for me,’ he said after a while.
‘And for someone who’s not in the trade?’
‘If they were patient … Follow the hand movements, count how many turns he gives each disc …’
They heard running downstairs, then in the courtyard, and Lapointe asking Félix:
‘Have you seen Victor?’
Maigret was equally sure that he had just worked out the truth and that it was all too late. Across the courtyard Louise Bourges was leaning out of her window, and he thought he saw a thin smile on her lips.
Lapointe came back upstairs, looking stunned.
‘I can’t find him anywhere, chief. He’s not in the lodge, or anywhere else on the ground floor. He hasn’t gone upstairs either. Félix claims he heard the street door open and close a few moments ago.’
‘Ring headquarters. Give them his description. Tell them to alert all the railway stations and gendarmeries and get a move on. Call the neighbouring police stations yourself …’
The manhunt was starting, and that was a well-worn routine. The radio cars would patrol the surrounding area in ever tighter circles. Uniformed police and plainclothes inspectors would scour the streets, go into all the bistros, question the customers.
‘Do you know how he’s dressed?’
Maigret and his inspectors had only ever seen him in a striped waistcoat. Monsieur Joseph reluctantly stepped in, saying:
‘A navy-blue suit is the extent of his wardrobe, as far as I know.’
‘What sort of hat?’
‘He never wore a hat.’
When Maigret had asked Lapointe to go down and look for Victor he hadn’t yet been certain by any means. Was it intuition? Or was it the conclusion of countless hypotheses he had unwittingly been testing, of an infinite number of observations that in themselves had seemed unimportant?
He had been convinced from the outset that Fumal had been killed out of hatred, as an act of revenge.
Victor’s going on the run didn’t contradict this, nor, however far-fetched initially, did the fact that fifteen million had disappeared from the safe. Quite the opposite, he was inclined to think.
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