The Yellow Dog
Page 6
‘This was the watchtower. Before beacon lights were invented, they used to burn a fire here on the terrace … Anyhow, this morning very early, we came up here, me and my partner. We moved on tiptoe. And downstairs, right where the halfwit used to sleep, we saw a man snoring away – a giant! You could hear him breathing fifteen metres away. We managed to slip the handcuffs on him before he woke up.’
They went back to the square room below, which was freezing cold from the wind.
‘Did he struggle?’
‘Not at all! My partner asked for his papers, and he didn’t answer … You never got a good look at him, did you? … He was stronger than the two of us together, so I never took my finger off the trigger of my revolver. What hands! Yours are big, but try to picture hands twice that big, with tattoos on them—’
‘Did you see what they were?’
‘All I could make out was an anchor, on the left hand, with the letters SS on both. There were some other complicated designs … maybe a snake … We didn’t touch the mess lying around him. Look!’
There were bottles of good wine and expensive liquor, empty tins and about twenty unopened ones. In the centre of the room were the ashes of a fire and, nearby, a stripped lamb bone, chunks of bread, a few fish spines, a big scallop shell and some lobster claws.
‘Some feast, eh?’ exclaimed the young policeman, who had probably never eaten such food. ‘This explains the complaints that have come in lately – a six-pound loaf stolen from the baker’s, a basket of whiting that disappeared from a fishing boat and the Prunier warehouse manager’s claim that someone was swiping his lobsters during the night. We didn’t pay much attention, because it was never very much.’
Maigret was trying to work out how many days it would take a man with a big appetite to consume the amount of food indicated by the debris. ‘A week …’ he murmured. ‘Yes – counting the lamb …’
Abruptly he asked, ‘What about the dog?’
‘Yes. He wasn’t here. There are plenty of pawprints on the ground, but we didn’t see the animal … You know, the mayor must be in a state over the doctor. I’d be surprised if he didn’t wire Paris.’
‘The man was armed?’
‘No. I was the one who searched him, while my partner, Piedbœuf, held on to the handcuffs and kept his gun on him. In one trouser pocket were roasted chestnuts, four or five of them. They must have come from the cart in front of the cinema on Friday and Saturday nights. Then there were a few coins, not even ten francs … A knife – but not a dangerous one; the kind sailors use to cut bread.’
‘He didn’t say anything?’
‘Not a word. We thought that he was simple-minded, like the old tenant … He stared at us like a bear would. He had a week’s growth of beard and two broken teeth, right in the middle.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘I didn’t notice … An old suit? I don’t even know now if he was wearing a shirt or a sweater. He came along quietly … We were proud of our catch. He could have got away ten times before we made it back to town … So our guard was down when he gave that big yank that broke the chain between the cuffs. I thought my right wrist was broken. It still hurts … About Dr Michoux …’
‘What about him?’
‘You know his mother’s supposed to get back today or tomorrow … She’s the widow of a deputy. They say she has a lot of influence. And she’s a friend of the mayor’s wife.’
Maigret was gazing at the grey ocean through the slits. Small boats were tacking between Cabélou Point and a line of rocks marked by breaking surf; they came about and began to lay their nets less than a mile out.
‘You really think it was the doctor who—’
‘Let’s go,’ said the inspector.
The tide was coming in. When they left the tower, the water was starting to lap at the base. A hundred metres away, a boy was jumping from rock to rock as he checked lobster pots set in crevices. The young policeman could not keep quiet.
‘The strange thing is that anyone would attack Monsieur Mostaguen. He’s the best man in Concarneau; they even wanted to make him a district councillor … It seems he’ll be all right, but they couldn’t remove the bullet. So, for the rest of his life he’ll be carrying a chunk of lead around in his belly! When you think that if he just hadn’t felt like lighting a cigar …’
Rather than go around the harbour again, they crossed part of it on a ferry that shuttled to the Old Town.
A short distance from where the boys had been throwing stones at the dog the day before, Maigret noticed a wall with an enormous entryway surmounted by a flag and the words ‘National Police Barracks’.
He went in and crossed the courtyard of a building dating from Colbert’s time. In an office there, Leroy was arguing with a police sergeant.
‘About the doctor?’ asked Maigret.
‘Right! The sergeant won’t hear of letting him get his meals sent in from outside.’
‘Unless you authorize it,’ the sergeant told Maigret. ‘And I’ll need a signed document releasing me …’
The courtyard was as tranquil as a cloister. A fountain flowed with a cheerful gurgle.
‘Where is he?’
‘Down there, to the right. Push open that door. Then it’s the second door along the corridor. Do you want me to go with you to open up? The mayor phoned to say we should treat the prisoner with the utmost consideration.’
Maigret scratched his chin. Leroy and the policeman, who were about the same age, watched him with the same bashful curiosity.
A few minutes later, the inspector stepped alone into a whitewashed cell that was no more dismal than any barracks room.
Michoux was seated at a small pine table. He stood up when Maigret entered, hesitated, then, with his eyes averted, began to speak:
‘I assume, inspector, that you’re just staging this farce to head off another crime, to protect me from … from some attack …’
Maigret noticed that no one had relieved the doctor of his braces, his scarf or his shoelaces, as regulations required. With the tip of his shoe he drew a chair over, sat down, filled his pipe and said amiably: ‘Yes, indeed. But do sit down, doctor!’
6. A Coward
‘Are you superstitious, inspector?’
Straddling his chair, his elbows on its back, Maigret pursed his lips in a way that might mean anything at all. The doctor had not sat down.
‘I think we all are at certain times, or, if you like, when we’re under pressure …’ Michoux coughed into his handkerchief, looked at it worriedly, then went on.
‘A week ago, I would have said I didn’t believe in fortune-telling. And yet … It must be about five years ago now that I was having dinner with a few friends at the home of an actress in Paris. Over coffee, one of the guests suggested reading the cards … Well, do you know what he told me? Of course I laughed! I laughed all the more because it was so different from the usual line – blonde woman, old man who wishes you well, letter that comes from far away, and so on … To me, he said: “You’ll die a hideous death, a violent death. Beware of yellow dogs!”’
Michoux had not looked at the inspector so far, but he glanced at him now. Maigret was placid – huge on the little chair, but a monument of placidity.
‘That doesn’t strike you as odd? … Through all the years since, I never heard a word about a yellow dog. Then on Friday there’s a shooting. One of my friends is the victim. It could just as easily have been me who ducked into that doorway and got hit by the bullet. And suddenly a yellow dog turns up!
‘Another friend disappears under weird circumstances. And the yellow dog is still stalking around.
‘Yesterday, it was Le Pommeret’s turn … The yellow dog again! … And you don’t think I should be upset?’
He had never talked so much at once, and as he talked he became more confident. The only encouragement the
inspector offered was ‘Of course … of course.’
‘Isn’t it disturbing? I realize I must have looked like a coward to you … Well, yes, I was afraid! It was a vague kind of fear, but it grabbed me by the throat from the minute the first attack … And then when the yellow dog came into the picture …’
He paced the cell with small steps, his eyes on the floor. Then his face came alive. ‘I almost asked you for protection, but I was afraid you would laugh. I was even more afraid of your contempt … Because strong men do feel contempt for cowards …’
His voice grew shrill. ‘And I admit it, inspector: I am a coward! For the past four days I’ve been frightened – four days I’ve been sick with fright. It’s no fault of mine! I know enough medicine to understand my own case.
‘When I was born, they had to put me in an incubator. Growing up, I went through every single childhood disease.
‘And when the War broke out, doctors who were examining 500 men a day declared me fit for service and sent me to the front! Well, not only did I have weak lungs, scarred from old lesions, but two years earlier I’d had a kidney removed …
‘I was terrified. Crazy with terror! Some hospital attendants picked me up after a shell exploded and buried me … And finally they realized that I didn’t belong in the army.
‘What I’m telling you may not be pretty. But I’ve been watching you. You look like a man who can understand …
‘It’s easy enough for strong people to despise cowards. But they ought to take the trouble to learn where the cowardice comes from …
‘Look, I could see that you didn’t think much of our group at the Admiral café. People told you that I sold land … a deputy’s son, with a medical degree … and then all those evenings at a café table with those other failures.
‘But what was I supposed to do? My parents were big spenders even though they weren’t rich. That’s not so rare in Paris. I was raised in luxury – all the great spas, and so on. Then my father died, and my mother started to dabble in the market and dream up schemes – just as much the great lady as ever, just as arrogant, but with creditors hounding her.
‘So I helped her out. That was all I could do. This property development – nothing very impressive. And the life here … Prominent citizens, oh, yes – but with something not quite solid about them.
‘For three days now you’ve been watching me, and I’ve been wishing I could talk to you openly … I used to be married. My wife asked for a divorce because she wanted a husband with more ambition …
‘One kidney short – three or four days a week sick, exhausted, dragging myself from my bed to my chair …’
He sat down listlessly.
‘Emma must have told you we’ve been lovers – mindlessly, you know? Just because sometimes you need to have a woman … Not the sort of thing you tell everyone …
‘At the Admiral café, I might have wound up going mad. The yellow dog, Servières disappearing, the bloodstains in his car. And the worst was Le Pommeret’s miserable death …
‘Why him? Why not me? We were together two hours earlier, at the same table, with the same glasses in front of us … I had a premonition that if I left the hotel I’d be next. I felt the circle tightening around me, that even in the hotel, even locked in my room, danger was tracking me down …
‘I felt a kind of thrill when I saw you sign the warrant for my arrest. And yet …’ He looked at the walls around him, at the window with three iron bars that opened on the courtyard. ‘I’ll have to move my bunk, push it into that corner … How, yes, how in the world could someone tell me about a yellow dog five years ago, when this dog here was probably not even born? … I’m afraid, inspector! I admit that. I tell you I’m afraid! I don’t care what people think when they hear I’m in jail. The only thing I care about is not dying. And someone’s after me, someone I don’t know, and who’s already killed Le Pommeret, who probably killed Goyard, who shot Mostaguen … Why? Tell me! Why? It must be some maniac. And they still haven’t managed to wipe him out! He may be lurking nearby right now! He knows I’m here … He’ll come, with his awful dog that stares like a man!’
Maigret slowly stood up, knocked his pipe against his heel.
And the doctor repeated in a pitiful tone, ‘I know you think I’m a coward. It’s going to be hell for me tonight, with this kidney …’
Maigret stood there like the antithesis of the prisoner – of agitation, fever, sickness – the antithesis of that unwholesome and repellent terror. ‘Do you want me to send a doctor?’
‘No! If I knew someone was supposed to come here, I’d be even more frightened. I’d be worried that he might turn up – the man with the dog, the maniac, the murderer.’
Before long his teeth would start to chatter. ‘Do you think you’ll arrest him? Or will you just kill him, like a mad dog? Because he is mad! Nobody kills the way he has for no reason!’
In another three minutes the doctor’s frenzy would turn into a nervous breakdown. Maigret chose to leave, and the prisoner gazed after him, his head huddled between his shoulders, his eyelids red.
‘Is that perfectly clear, sergeant? No one is to enter his cell except you, and you yourself are to take him his food and whatever else he needs. Meanwhile, take away anything he could use to kill himself with – his shoelaces, his tie. See that the courtyard is under surveillance day and night. And show consideration – the utmost consideration.’
‘Such a distinguished man!’ sighed the sergeant. ‘You think he’s the one who—’
‘Who might be the next victim, yes. So you’ll answer to me for his life!’
Maigret went off down the narrow street, splashing through the puddles. The whole town knew him by now. Curtains parted as he passed. Children broke off their games to watch him with timid respect.
He was crossing the drawbridge between the Old Town and the new when he ran into Leroy, who was looking for him.
‘Anything new? I don’t suppose they’ve laid hands on my bear, have they?’
‘What bear?’
‘The man with the big feet.’
‘No. The mayor gave orders to stop the search because it was upsetting the public. He placed a few policemen at strategic spots … But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s the newspaperman, Goyard, Jean Servières. A travelling salesman who knows him just got into town, and he says he ran across him yesterday in Brest. Goyard pretended not to see him and walked off.’
Leroy was surprised at how calmly Maigret took the news. ‘The mayor is convinced that the salesman was mistaken. He says there are plenty of short, fat men in any city. And you know what I heard him tell his deputy – talking low but hoping, I think, I’d overhear? Verbatim: “Watch the inspector take off on this false scent. He’ll go to Brest and leave us to deal with the real murderer!”’
Maigret walked another twenty paces in silence. In the square, the market stalls were being dismantled.
‘I almost told him that …’
‘That what?’
Leroy blushed and turned his head away. ‘Exactly! I don’t know … I, too, get the feeling that you don’t think it’s really important to catch the drifter.’
‘How’s Mostaguen doing?’
‘Better. He can’t think of any reason he was attacked … He asked his wife’s pardon, pardon for staying so late at the café. Pardon for being half drunk. He was in tears and swore he’d never touch another drop of alcohol.’
Fifty metres from the Admiral Hotel, Maigret stopped to look at the harbour. Boats were coming in, dropping their brown sails as they rounded the breakwater, sculling slowly along.
At the base of the Old Town’s walls, the ebb tide was uncovering banks of mud studded with old pots and other rubbish.
A faint suggestion of sun showed through the almost solid cloud cover.
‘Your impression, Leroy?’
‘Yes, of course. But I don’t go in for deductions.’
‘Still, I’d be curious to see that drifter up close. From the footprints, he must be a giant—’
‘Exactly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing.’
Maigret lingered; he seemed delighted by the view of the little harbour: Cabélou Point to the left, with its pines and rocky headlands, the red-and-black tower, the scarlet buoys marking the channel out to the Glénan Islands, which were indistinguishable in the grey light.
Leroy still had a good deal to say. ‘I telephoned Paris to get information on Goyard; he lived there for a long time.’
Maigret looked at him with affectionate irony, and, stung to the quick, Leroy recited briskly: ‘The information is either very good or very bad. I got hold of a fellow who’d been a sergeant in the Vice Squad back then and had known him personally. It seems he dabbled a bit in journalism, first as a gossip columnist. Then he was the manager of a small theatre. Next he ran a cabaret in Montmartre. Went broke twice. For two years he was editor in chief of a provincial newspaper – at Nevers, I believe. Finally, he ran a nightclub. “A fellow who knows how to stay afloat” – that’s what the sergeant said … True, he also said, “Not a bad guy. When he eventually saw that all he’d ever do was eat through his money or make trouble for himself, he decided to reimmerse himself in small-town life.”’
‘So?’
‘So I wonder why he would fake that attack. I went back to look at the car. There are bloodstains, and they’re real. If he was actually attacked, why wouldn’t he have sent some message, since now he’s walking around Brest?’
‘Very good!’