‘Yes. He called me in about three weeks ago, after Mazotti died, but I didn’t know much.’
He was gradually getting to the point, in his own way.
‘I told him that it definitely wasn’t my boss’s doing, and I was right there. Now I’ve got a tip-off about who did it. You’ve always been understanding with me, so I’m giving it to you, for what it’s worth, of course. This is not me talking to the police, understand; this is me talking to someone I’ve known a long time. We’re chatting, the conversation happens to get round to Mazotti – who, between you and me, didn’t measure up – so, naturally, I say what someone else has told me: don’t waste your time looking round Pigalle for the guy who did it. At Easter … When was Easter this year?’
‘End of March.’
‘Right. So, at Easter Mazotti, who was just a little thug trying to make out he was a big man, went to Toulon, and that’s where he met the beautiful Yolande. Do you know her? She’s Mattei’s woman, and Mattei is the head of the gang from Marseille who pulled off a score of hold-ups before they were busted … Are you with me?
‘So, Mattei is behind bars. Mazotti thinks it’s liberty hall and takes Yolande back to Paris … Well, I don’t need to spell the rest out to you. Mattei still has men in Marseille, so two or three of them go up to Paris to sort it out.’
It was plausible. It explained the Rue de Douai affair, how professional and flawless it had been.
‘I thought that would interest you and, not knowing your address, I went to see your colleague …’
Mickey wasn’t getting ready to go, which meant he either hadn’t said his piece or was expecting questions. On cue, Maigret asked innocently:
‘Have you heard the news?’
‘What news?’ Mickey replied, equally innocently.
Then he immediately broke into a roguish smile.
‘You mean Monsieur Émile? I heard he’d been found.’
‘Were you in Jo’s just now?’
‘We’re not great friends, Jo and me, but the word is out.’
‘I’m more interested in what happened to Émile Boulay than the Mazotti affair …’
‘Well, I’ve got to say I’m in the dark about that, detective chief inspector. That’s the honest truth …’
‘What did you think of him?’
‘Just like I told Monsieur Lucas: what everyone thought of him.’
‘What was that?’
‘He had his own ideas of how to run his business, but he was above board.’
‘Do you remember Tuesday evening?’
‘I’ve got a pretty good memory,’ he replied with a smile and one of his compulsive winks, as if everything he said was noteworthy.
‘Did anything special happen?’
‘Depends what you think’s special. Monsieur Émile came by with Mademoiselle Ada as we were setting up, around nine, same as every night. But you know that. Then he went to look in at the Train Bleu and passed by Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.’
‘What time did you see him again?’
‘Wait. The band had started. So it must have been after ten. We can play all we want to bring in the customers, but they hardly ever show up until the cinemas and theatres have shut.’
‘Did his secretary hang around?’
‘No. She headed off to the apartment.’
‘Did you see her go into their building?’
‘I think I watched her go in, because she’s a beautiful girl, and I always flirt with her a little, but I couldn’t swear to it.’
‘What about Boulay?’
‘He went back to the Lotus to make a telephone call.’
‘How do you know he made a telephone call?’
‘Germaine, the coat-check girl, told me. The telephone is just by the cloakroom. The booth has a glass door. He dialled a number that didn’t answer and when he came out, he looked annoyed.’
‘Why did the coat-check girl notice that?’
‘Because usually when he made a telephone call in the evening, he was ringing one of his clubs, or his brother-in-law, and they’d always answer. He tried again a quarter of an hour later.’
‘No luck that time either?’
‘No. I suppose he was calling someone who wasn’t home, and that seemed to irritate him. Between calls, he prowled round the club. He told off a dancer whose dress was the worse for wear and was short with the barman. After a third or fourth go, he came out on to the pavement to get some fresh air.’
‘Did he talk to you?’
‘He wasn’t the talkative sort, you know. He‘d just plant himself in front of the door, look at the sky, the cars on the street, then sometimes he’d say if we were going to have a full house or not.’
‘Did he get through eventually?’
‘At about eleven.’
‘Then did he leave?’
‘Not immediately. He came back out on to the pavement. He often did that. I saw him take his watch out of his pocket a few times. Finally, after twenty minutes or so, he started off down Rue Pigalle.’
‘He was meeting somebody, in other words.’
‘I see we have the same idea.’
‘Apparently he almost never took taxis.’
‘That’s true. After his accident, he didn’t like cars. He preferred the Métro.’
‘Are you sure he set off down Rue Pigalle? Not up?’
‘Certain.’
‘If he’d had to take the Métro, he would have gone up the street.’
‘He did that when he was going to look in at Rue de Berri.’
‘So in all probability his appointment was in the neighbourhood.’
‘My first thought was that he was going to the Saint-Trop’ in Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, but no one saw him there.’
‘Do you think he had a mistress?’
‘Definitely not.’
With another wink, the wizened urchin added:
‘I’ve got some experience in these matters, you know … I’m in the business, in a way, aren’t I?’
‘Where does Monsieur Raison live?’
The question surprised Mickey.
‘The book-keeper? He’s lived in the same building for at least thirty years, on Boulevard Rochechouart.’
‘Alone?’
‘Of course. He’s another one who doesn’t have a mistress, believe you me. It isn’t as if he turns his nose up at women but he wants what he can’t afford, so he just bothers the girls when they come into the office to ask him for an advance.’
‘Do you know what he does in the evenings?’
‘He plays billiards in a café, always the same one, on the corner of Square d’Anvers. There aren’t that many billiard rooms left round here. He’s practically a champion.’
Another avenue of inquiry that seemed closed. Maigret kept asking questions all the same, not wanting to leave anything up in the air.
‘What’s his background, this Monsieur Raison?’
‘The bank. He was a cashier for I don’t know how many years at the branch where the boss had his account, on Rue Blanche. I suppose he gave him a few tips. Monsieur Émile needed someone reliable to do his books, because you can easily get people skimming off in this business. I don’t know how much he pays him, but it must be a fair amount because Monsieur Raison left his job at the bank.’
Maigret kept coming back to that Tuesday night. It was becoming an obsession. In his mind’s eye, he could see the skinny Monsieur Émile standing under the neon sign of the Lotus, looking at his watch occasionally, then finally striding off down Rue Pigalle.
He hadn’t had far to go, otherwise he would have taken the Métro, which was only a hundred metres away. If he had needed a taxi, despite his aversion to cars, there were always plenty driving past his club.
A sort of map was forming in Maigret’s mind, the map of a small corner of Paris to which everything kept leading him back. The former cruise-ship waiter’s three clubs were close to each other, the only exception being the Paris-Strip run by Antonio.
Boulay and his three Italian women lived on Rue Victor-Massé. Jo the Wrestler’s bar, outside which Mazotti had been shot, was almost visible from the door of the Lotus.
Émile’s bank wasn’t much further off, and, as a final touch, the book-keeper was a local too.
It was a bit like a village, which Émile Boulay left only reluctantly, if at all.
‘Don’t you have any idea who he could have been meeting?’
‘I swear …’
After a silence Mickey admitted:
‘I’ve asked around too, out of curiosity. I like to know what’s going on. In my job, you’ve got to know what’s going on, don’t you reckon?’
Maigret stood up with a sigh. He couldn’t think of any other questions to ask. The doorman had told him various things he didn’t know, and might not have known for a long time, but they still didn’t explain Boulay’s death, let alone the virtually unbelievable fact that someone had kept his body for three nights and two days before dumping it by Père-Lachaise.
‘Thank you, Boubée.’
As he was leaving, the little man said:
‘Have you come around to boxing?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve got a tip for a fight tomorrow if you felt like it.’
‘That’s all right.’
He didn’t give him any money. Mickey didn’t sell his favours for money, just the occasional blind eye.
‘If I hear anything, I’ll call you.’
Three-quarters of an hour later, in his office at the Police Judiciaire, Maigret scribbled something on a sheet of paper, rang the inspectors’ office and asked for Lapointe to be sent in.
Lapointe didn’t need to look at his chief twice to know where he had got to. Precisely nowhere. He had the heavy, stubborn look he wore in the doldrums of an investigation, when he didn’t know how to proceed and was half-heartedly trying every angle.
‘Get over to Boulevard Rochechouart and check up on someone called Raison. He’s the book-keeper at the Lotus and Émile Boulay’s other clubs. Apparently he plays billiards every night at a café on Square d’Anvers. I don’t know which one; you’ll find it, though. Try to find out as much about him and his habits as you can. I’d especially like to know if he was at the café on Tuesday night and, if so, when he left and when he got home.’
‘I’m on my way, chief.’
Lucas was looking into Ada and Antonio in the meantime. To soothe his impatience, Maigret buried himself in his administrative files. By about four thirty he had had enough and, putting on his jacket, went to drink a glass of beer at the Brasserie Dauphine. He nearly ordered a second, not because he was thirsty, but to defy his friend Pardon and his counsels of abstinence.
He hated not understanding. It was beginning to feel like a personal affront. He kept coming back to the same images: Émile Boulay in a blue suit standing outside the Lotus, then going back inside and telephoning without any luck, then kicking his heels, then trying the same number again and again under the coat-check girl’s indifferent gaze.
Ada had gone home by this point. Antonio was attending to the first customers of the night in Rue de Berri. The bartenders in all four clubs were straightening their glasses and bottles, the musicians were tuning up, the girls were kitting themselves out in their sordid dressing rooms before they went and took their places in front of the tables.
Boulay had finally got through to the person he wanted to talk to, but he hadn’t left immediately. The appointment wasn’t immediate, in other words. He had been given a specific time.
He had stood outside the club again, taking his watch out of his pocket several times, then all of a sudden headed off down Rue Pigalle.
He had eaten at eight o’clock. According to the pathologist, he had died four or five hours later, in other words, between midnight and one in the morning.
When he left the Lotus, it was eleven thirty.
He had between half an hour and an hour and a half left to live.
They had established that he hadn’t been involved in Mazotti’s death. What was left of the Corsican gang knew that as well and had no reason to do away with him.
Similarly, nobody in the underworld would have done the job like Émile’s murderer, strangling him, keeping his body for two days and then running the risk of leaving it in Rue Rondeaux.
Ada wasn’t aware of her employer meeting anyone. Nor was Monsieur Raison. Antonio said he didn’t know anything. Even Mickey, who had good reasons for being up to speed with everything that went on, was in the dark on that score.
Maigret was glumly pacing up and down his office, pipe stem clamped between his teeth, when Lucas knocked on the door. He was not wearing the triumphant expression of someone who had just made a discovery.
Maigret looked at him in silence.
‘I’m hardly any the wiser than I was this morning, chief. Apart from the fact that Antonio didn’t leave his club on Tuesday evening, or at any time that night.’
Naturally! That would have been too easy.
‘I saw his wife, an Italian woman who is expecting a baby. They live in a pretty apartment on Rue de Ponthieu.’
Maigret’s blank stare was making Lucas uneasy.
‘I can’t help it. Everybody likes them. I spoke to the concierge, the tradesmen, the club’s neighbours. Then I went back to Rue Victor-Massé. I found the book-keeper in his office and asked him for addresses of the performers who work at the Lotus and the other clubs. Two of them were still asleep in a boarding house.’
Lucas felt as if he were talking to a brick wall. At times Maigret turned his back on him to watch the Seine flow by.
‘Another girl, who lives on Rue Lepic, has a baby and …’
Lucas was thrown by how exasperated Maigret seemed.
‘I can only tell you what I know … They’re all jealous of Ada, naturally, although some more than others. They think she would have become the boss’s mistress sooner or later, but that it wasn’t a done deal yet … Antonio wouldn’t have approved either, apparently.’
‘Is that it?’
Lucas spread his hands disconsolately.
‘What shall I do now?’
‘Whatever you like.’
Maigret went home early after morosely spending a little longer on the tedious business of the reorganization of police services, which he was sure wouldn’t take the form he was recommending anyway.
Reports, always reports! They asked for his advice. They requested he draw up detailed plans. Then it all ground to a halt somewhere in the administrative hierarchy, and nothing more would be heard about it. Unless they decided on the direct opposite of what he suggested.
‘I’m going out tonight,’ he told his wife in a gruff voice.
She knew it was better not to ask him any questions. He sat down at the table and watched television, grumbling occasionally:
‘So stupid!’
Then he went into the bedroom to change his shirt and tie.
‘I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’m off to Montmartre to have a look round a few nightclubs.’
It was as if he was trying to make her jealous. He seemed put out when she said with a smile:
‘You should take your umbrella. They’re saying on the radio that there’s going to be thunderstorms.’
The real reason he was in such a bad mood was that he sensed it was his fault he was confused. He was sure that at some point in the day he had almost been on the right track, he couldn’t say exactly when.
Someone had told him something significant. Who, though? He had seen so many people!
It was nine o’clock when he got a taxi, 9.20 when he pulled up outside the Lotus. Mickey greeted him with a knowing wink and held the red velvet door of the club open for him.
The musicians in white dinner-jackets hadn’t taken up their positions and were chatting in a corner. The bartender was wiping glasses on the shelves behind the bar. A beautiful red-haired girl in a very low-cut dress was filing her nails in a corne
r.
Nobody asked him what he was doing there, as if they already knew; instead they just kept darting inquisitive glances in his direction.
The waiters were putting champagne buckets on the tables. Ada, in a dark suit, came out of the back room holding a notebook and a pencil. She saw Maigret, hesitated for a moment, then walked over.
‘My brother advised me to open the clubs,’ she explained, slightly embarrassed. ‘The truth is, none of us knows exactly what we should be doing. Apparently it’s not usual to close if there’s been a death in the family.’
Looking at the notebook and the pencil, he asked:
‘What were you up to?’
‘What my brother-in-law always did at this stage of the evening. Checking the stocks of champagne and whisky with the bartenders and maître d’s. Then organizing the performers’ rota for the clubs. Someone’s always missing. You have to make last-minute changes every night. I also looked in at the Train Bleu …’
‘How’s your sister?’
‘She’s in a terrible way. Luckily Antonio spent the afternoon with us. The undertakers came by; they’re going to bring the body home tomorrow morning. The telephone didn’t stop ringing. We had to see to the death notices too.’
She was coping, keeping an eye on preparations as they were talking, as Boulay would have done. She even broke off to say to a young maître d’:
‘No, Germain. No ice in the buckets yet.’
A new employee, no doubt.
On the off chance, Maigret asked:
‘Did he leave a will?’
‘We have no idea, and that makes things complicated for us because we don’t know what to do exactly.’
‘Did he have a notary?’
‘Not as far as I know. I’m sure he didn’t, actually. I telephoned his lawyer, Maître Jean-Charles Gaillard, but he’s not at home. He left early this morning for Poitiers, where he’s due in court, and he won’t be back until late this evening.’
Who had already mentioned a lawyer? Maigret thought back and lighted on the unappetizing image of Monsieur Raison in his little office on the mezzanine. What had they been talking about? Maigret had asked if any payments were cash in hand to avoid tax.
He remembered the book-keeper replying that Monsieur Émile wasn’t the sort of man to cheat and risk getting into trouble, that he insisted on everything being by the book, and that his lawyer dealt with his tax returns.
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