‘You’re crazy!’ Servières exclaimed with some effort.
It rang false. The pharmacist held the bottle in one hand, a glass in the other.
‘Strychnine,’ whispered the doctor.
He shoved the pharmacist out of the door and came back to the table, his head low, a yellow pallor to his complexion.
‘What makes you think—’ Maigret began.
‘I don’t know – just a hunch … I saw a grain of white powder in my glass, and the smell seemed odd to me.’
‘The power of suggestion!’ declared the journalist. ‘If I described this in my article tomorrow, it would close every bistro in Finistère.’
‘You always drink Pernod?’
‘Every evening before dinner. Emma’s so used to it that she brings the bottle as soon as she sees our beer mugs are empty. We have our little habits. Evenings, it’s calvados.’
Maigret went over to the liqueur shelf, reached for a bottle of calvados.
‘Not that one. The flask with the broad bottom.’
He picked it up, turned it in the light, saw a few specks of white powder. But he said nothing. It was unnecessary. The others had understood.
Leroy entered and announced offhandedly, ‘Well, the police haven’t seen anything suspicious – no drifters reported in the vicinity. They don’t understand it.’
The silence in the room suddenly registered, the dense throat-grabbing anguish. Tobacco smoke coiled around the electric lights. The green felt of the billiard table spread like a trimmed lawn. There were a few cigar butts on the floor in the sawdust, along with gobs of spittle.
‘Seven, carry one …’ Emma counted, wetting the tip of her pencil. Then, raising her head, she called into the wings, ‘Coming, madame!’
Maigret tamped his pipe. Dr Michoux stared stubbornly at the floor, and his nose looked more crooked than ever. Le Pommeret’s shoes gleamed as if they had never been used for walking. Servières shrugged his shoulders from time to time as he mumbled to himself.
All eyes turned towards the pharmacist when he came back with the bottle and the empty glass.
He had run and was breathless. At the door, he gave a kick, trying to drive something away, muttering, ‘Filthy mutt!’
He was no sooner inside the café than he asked: ‘It’s a joke, isn’t it? Nobody drank any?’
‘Well?’
‘It’s strychnine, yes! Someone must have put it into the bottle less than half an hour ago.’ He looked with horror at the full glasses, at the five silent men.
‘What’s all this about? It’s outrageous! I have every right to know! Last night, a man was shot right near my house, and today …’
Maigret took the bottle from his hand. Emma came back from the dining room, looking impassive, and from over the till turned towards them her long face with its sunken eyes and thin lips. Her Breton lace cap was slipping as usual to the left on her unkempt hair, which it did no matter how often she pushed it back in place.
Le Pommeret strode back and forth, his eyes on the gleam of his shoes. Servières, unmoving, stared at the glasses, then suddenly, his voice choked by a sob of terror, cried, ‘Good God!’
The doctor hunched his shoulders.
2. The Doctor in Slippers
Inspector Leroy, who was twenty-five years old, looked more like what’s called a well-bred young man than a police inspector.
He had just got out of college. This was his first case, and for the past few minutes he had been watching Maigret unhappily, trying to catch his attention. Finally, blushing, he whispered, ‘Excuse me, inspector … but … the fingerprints.’
He must have thought that his chief belonged to the old school and was unaware of the value of scientific procedures, because Maigret merely puffed on his pipe and said, ‘If you want …’
So off went Leroy, carefully carrying the bottle and glasses to his room, where he spent the evening constructing a packing kit – he carried the instructions in his pocket – specifically developed for transporting objects without losing the fingerprints on them.
Maigret took a seat in the corner of the café. The proprietor, in white smock and chef’s toque, looked round his establishment as if it had been devastated by a cyclone.
The pharmacist had talked. People could be heard whispering outside.
Jean Servières was the first to put his hat on. ‘Well, enough of this. I’m a married man, and Madame Servières is expecting me. I’ll see you later, inspector.’
Le Pommeret stopped his pacing. ‘Wait for me. I’m going home to dinner too … You staying, Michoux?’
The doctor only shrugged.
The pharmacist was determined to play an important part. Maigret heard him tell the proprietor: ‘… and, of course, it’s imperative to analyse the contents of all the bottles! … There’s someone here from the police; all he has to do is give me the order.’
There were over sixty bottles of various aperitifs and liqueurs on the shelves.
‘What do you think, inspector?’
‘It’s an idea … Well, yes, that might be wise.’
The pharmacist was short, thin and nervous. He fussed three times as much as necessary. Someone had to get him a bottle crate. Then he phoned a café in the Old Town to tell his assistant he needed him.
Bareheaded, he shuttled between the Admiral and his shop five or six times, but found the time to speak to the spectators gathered on the pavement.
‘What’s to become of me if they carry off all my liquor?’ whimpered the proprietor. ‘And no one’s even thinking about eating! You’re not having dinner, inspector? … And you, doctor? Are you going home?’
‘No. My mother’s gone to Paris, and the maid’s off.’
‘You’re sleeping here, then?’
It was raining. The streets were running with black mud. The wind was rattling the blinds on the second floor. Maigret had eaten in the dining room, not far from the table where the doctor sat, looking despondent.
Beyond the little green windowpanes, inquisitive faces moved, sometimes pressing up to the glass. The waitress was gone for half an hour, long enough to have her own dinner. Then she took up her customary place, to the right of the till, one elbow resting on it, a towel in her hand.
‘Give me a bottle of beer,’ Maigret said.
He was well aware that the doctor was watching him as he drank, and then afterwards, as if waiting for signs of poisoning.
Jean Servières did not return, as he had said he would. Nor did Le Pommeret. Apparently no one cared to enter the café, still less to have a drink. Word had spread that all the bottles were poisoned. ‘Enough to kill off the whole town!’
From his house out near White Sands beach, the mayor telephoned to find out what was happening. After that, all was gloomy silence. In a corner, Michoux leafed through newspapers without reading them. The waitress did not move. Maigret smoked placidly, and from time to time the proprietor looked in, as though to make sure there had been no new calamity.
The clock in the Old Town sounded the hours and the half-hours. On the pavement, the shuffling footsteps and talking died away. Then there was nothing but the monotonous moan of the wind and the sound of the rain beating on the windows.
‘You’re spending the night here?’ Maigret asked the doctor.
In the silence, the mere act of speaking aloud was disquieting.
‘Yes … I do that sometimes … I live with my mother, about a mile outside town – in a huge house … My mother’s gone to Paris for a few days, as I said, and the maid asked for time off to go to her brother’s wedding.’
He rose, hesitated, then said abruptly, ‘Good night.’ And he disappeared up the stairs. He could soon be heard taking off his shoes, just over Maigret’s head. No one was left in the café but the waitress and the inspector.
‘Come here!’ he said to her, leaning bac
k in his chair. And as she stood stiffly before him, he added, ‘Sit down … How old are you?’
‘Twenty-four.’
There was an exaggerated humility about her. Her cowed eyes, her way of gliding noiselessly about without bumping into things, of quivering nervously at the slightest word, were the very image of a scullery maid accustomed to hardship. And yet he sensed, beneath that image, glints of pride held firmly in check.
She was anaemic. Her flat chest was not formed to rouse desire. Nevertheless, she was strangely appealing, perhaps because she seemed troubled, despondent, sickly.
‘What did you do before you came to work here?’
‘I’m an orphan. My father and brother were lost at sea, on the ketch Three Kings. My mother’d died long before … I used to be a salesgirl at the stationery shop near the post office …’
What was she watching for, with her restless glance?
‘Do you have a lover?’
She turned away without answering. Maigret watched her face steadily, puffed on his pipe slowly and took a swallow of beer. ‘There must be customers who make a play for you! … Those men who were here earlier – they’re regulars, they come every evening, and they like good-looking girls … Come! Which one?’
Her pale face twisted wearily as she said, ‘The doctor, mainly …’
‘You’re his mistress?’
She looked at him with half a mind to trust him.
‘He has others too … Sometimes me, when he feels like it. He’ll stay here for the night and tell me to come to his room.’
Maigret had rarely heard a confession so flat in tone.
‘Does he give you anything?’
‘Yes … not always. Two or three times, on my day off, he’s had me go to his house. Like the day before yesterday … while his mother’s away … But he has other girls.’
‘And Monsieur Le Pommeret?’
‘The same thing – except I only went to his house once, a long time ago. A woman from the sardine-packing plant was there, and … I didn’t want that! They get new girls every week.’
‘Monsieur Servières too?’
‘Not the same. He’s married. They say he goes into Brest to play around. Here, he doesn’t do more than flirt a little, or he’ll give me a pinch.’
It was still raining. From the distance came the sound of a foghorn, probably from a ship trying to find its way into port.
‘And that’s the way it goes all year round?’
‘Not all year … In the winter, they’re all alone here. They’ll drink once in a while with some travelling salesman … But in the summer there are people around. The hotel is full. At night, ten or fifteen of them get together to drink champagne or throw a party at somebody’s house. There are lots of cars, pretty women … And we’re really busy here … In summer, I don’t do the serving – there are waiters. I’m downstairs then, washing dishes.’
What could she be looking around for? She was fidgeting on the edge of her chair and seemed ready to snap to attention.
A shrill bell sounded. She looked at Maigret, then at the electric panel behind the till. ‘Will you excuse me?’
She went upstairs. The inspector heard footsteps, an indistinct murmur of voices in the doctor’s room.
The pharmacist came in, a little drunk.
‘All done, inspector! Forty-eight bottles analysed, and carefully. I promise you that! Not a trace of poison except in the Pernod and the calvados. The proprietor can take back all his stock … So, now, what do you think, just between you and me? Anarchists – right?’
Emma returned, stepped outside to close the shutters and then waited by the door to lock up.
‘Well?’ said Maigret, when they were alone again.
She turned her head away without answering, unexpectedly embarrassed, and the inspector felt that if he pressed her, even a little, she would burst into tears.
‘Good night, child!’ he said.
When Maigret went downstairs the next morning, the sky was so dark with clouds he thought he must be the first one up. From his window he had seen a solitary crane at work, unloading a sand barge in the deserted port, and, in the streets, a few umbrellas and raincoats hurrying along close to the buildings.
Halfway down the stairs, he had passed a travelling salesman, who had just arrived; a porter was carrying his bags up.
Emma was sweeping the café. On a marble table stood a cup with some coffee stagnating in the bottom.
‘Was that my officer’s?’ Maigret asked.
‘A while ago he asked the way to the station. He was carrying a big package.’
‘And the doctor?’
‘I took him his breakfast upstairs. He’s sick. He doesn’t want to go out.’
And the broom went on stirring the mixture of debris and sawdust. ‘What will you have?’
‘Black coffee.’
She had to pass close to him to reach the kitchen. When she did, he gripped her shoulders with his heavy paws and looked her in the eyes. His manner both gruff and kindly, he said: ‘Tell me, Emma …’
She made only a timid effort to get free, then stood motionless, trembling and making herself as small as possible.
‘Just between us, now, what do you know about all this? … Quiet! You’re about to lie! You’re a sad little girl, and I don’t mean to make trouble for you … Look at me! The bottle, eh? Tell me, now …’
‘I swear—’
‘Don’t bother swearing.’
‘It wasn’t me!’
‘For heaven’s sake, I know it wasn’t you! But who was it?’
Her eyelids puffed up suddenly. Tears poured out. Her lower lip trembled. The waitress looked so touching that Maigret loosened his grip. ‘The doctor … last night?’
‘No! … It wasn’t for what you think.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He asked me the same thing you did. He threatened me. He wanted me to tell him who’d been handling the bottles. He nearly hit me … And I don’t know! On my mother’s head, I swear—’
‘Bring me my coffee.’
It was eight o’clock. Maigret went out to buy some tobacco and took a walk around the town. When he came back, about ten, the doctor was downstairs in the café, in his slippers and with a foulard around his neck in place of a collar. His features were drawn, his red hair tousled.
‘You’re not looking in very good shape.’
‘I’m sick … I should have expected it. Kidney trouble. The slightest upset or excitement, and it shows up. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.’ He kept watching the door.
‘You’re not going back to your house?’
‘There’s no one there. I’m in better hands here.’
He had sent out for all the morning papers, and they lay on his table. ‘You haven’t seen my friends? Servières? Le Pommeret? … It’s odd they haven’t turned up to see if anything’s happened.’
‘Oh, they’re probably still asleep,’ Maigret mumbled. ‘Incidentally, I haven’t seen that awful yellow dog … Emma, have you seen any more of that dog? … No? Here comes Leroy. He may have run across him in the street … What’s new, Leroy?’
‘The bottles and the glasses are on their way to the laboratory. I stopped by the police station and the town hall … You were asking about the dog, I think? Apparently some peasant saw him this morning in Dr Michoux’s garden.’
‘In my garden?’ The doctor jumped. His pale hands shook. ‘What was he doing in my garden?’
‘From what I was told, he was lying on the doorstep. When the peasant approached, he growled so viciously that the man decided to give him a wide berth.’
Maigret was watching their faces from the corner of his eye. ‘Now, doctor, why don’t we take a walk over to your house together?’
A strained smile. ‘In this rain? In my condition? That would pu
t me in bed for a week … What does that dog matter? Just an ordinary stray, probably.’
Maigret put on his hat and coat.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I don’t know. Get a breath of air. You coming with me, Leroy?’
When they were outside, they could still see the doctor’s long head, distorted by the windowpanes, which made it even longer and gave it a greenish tinge.
‘Where are we going?’ asked the young man.
Maigret shrugged his shoulders. He wandered for a quarter of an hour around the harbour, as if he were interested in boats. At the jetty, he turned right, on to a road whose signpost indicated it was the way to White Sands.
Leroy cleared his throat. ‘I wish we’d had a chance to analyse the cigarette ashes they found in the hallway of the empty house—’
‘What do you think of Emma?’ Maigret interrupted.
‘I … I think … The problem, as I see it – especially in a place like this, where everyone knows everyone else – the problem must have been getting hold of such an amount of strychnine.’
‘That’s not what I’m asking you … Would you, for instance, be interested in making love to her?’
The poor officer could find nothing to say.
Maigret made him stop and open his coat so that he could light his pipe away from the wind.
The beach at White Sands, rimmed by a few houses – one, grand enough to rate the term ‘chateau’, belonged to the mayor – stretches between two rocky headlands, about a mile from the centre of town.
Maigret and his companion scuffed through seaweed-strewn sand, scarcely looking at the empty, shuttered houses.
Beyond the beach, the land rises. Steep rocks crowned with firs plunge into the sea.
A large sign read: White Sands Property Company. A map indicated with one colour the plots already sold, and with another those still available. A wooden booth was labelled Sales Office. Beneath were the words: Address inquiries to Monsieur Ernest Michoux, Director.
In the summertime, the whole place was probably bright and cheerful, freshly painted. But in the rain and the mud, with the din of the surf, it was sinister.
The Yellow Dog Page 2