‘All we saw was the gunfire – it happened so fast … Somehow my boat was tied up to the pier, and we got shoved into a van. An hour later, we were each locked up in a separate cell, at Sing Sing …
‘We were ill. Nobody spoke any French. The other prisoners made jokes and yelled insults at us …
‘Things move fast over there. The next day, we went before some kind of tribunal, and the lawyer who was supposed to be defending us never said a word to us! …
‘Afterwards, he told me that I was sentenced to two years of hard labour and a 100,000-dollar fine, that my boat was confiscated … and a lot I didn’t understand. A hundred thousand dollars! I swore I didn’t have any money. That meant I don’t know how many extra years in prison …
‘I stayed at Sing Sing. My men must have been put in another prison, because I never saw them again … They shaved my head … They put me in a road gang, smashing rocks … There was a chaplain who tried to give me Bible lessons …
‘You can’t imagine what it was like. There were rich prisoners who went off into town almost every night … and they used the rest of us as their servants! …
‘It doesn’t matter. After a whole year of that, one day I ran into the American from Brest. He was visiting another prisoner. I recognized him and called to him. It took him a while to remember. Then he burst out laughing and had me brought to the visiting room.
‘He was very cordial … treated me like an old friend. He told me he’d been a Prohibition agent. He worked abroad mostly, in England, in France, in Germany; he’d send the American police information on shipments leaving from there.
‘But at the same time he occasionally did some trafficking for himself. That was the case with that cocaine shipment, which was supposed to bring in millions, because there were ten tons aboard at who knows what price per ounce … So he’d got together with some Frenchmen, who were to supply the boat and part of the investment – that was my three men – and naturally they would split the profits among the four of them …
‘But listen! The best part is coming … The very day we were loading at Quimper, the American got word from back home: there was a new Prohibition chief, and surveillance was going to be stepped up. Buyers in the United States were holding off, and for that reason the merchandise might not find a taker …
‘At the same time, a new order said anyone who informed on prohibited cargo would get a bounty, as much as a third of its value …
‘There I was in prison hearing this! … He told me that, at the moment I was casting off – worried sick about whether we would even reach the other side of the Atlantic alive – he was in the car, and my three men were arguing with him, there on the quay.
‘Should they gamble on getting through, for the whole stake? … I know now that it was the doctor who held out for informing on me. At least that way they’d be sure of getting a third of the money, with no complications.
‘Not counting that the American had made a deal with a colleague to skim off part of the impounded cocaine. An unbelievable racket, I know! …
‘The Pretty Emma sailed out into the dark water of the harbour … I took one last look at my fiancée, telling myself I’d be back to marry her in a few months …
‘And they knew – those men watching us leave – they knew we’d be picked up when we got there! They’d even figured that we’d put up a fight, that we’d probably be killed in the struggle. It was happening every day in American waters at the time …
‘They knew that my boat would be confiscated, that it was not entirely paid for, and that I had nothing else in the world. They knew my one dream was to marry Emma. And they watched us go!
‘That’s what the American told me at Sing Sing, where I’d turned into an animal, among those other animals … He proved it to me. He laughed and slapped his thigh, and said, “Some bastards, those friends of yours!”’
Suddenly, there was absolute silence. And in that silence could be heard the startling sound of Michoux’s pencil sliding over a fresh page.
Maigret looked at the initials SS tattooed on the giant’s hand and understood: ‘Sing Sing.’
‘I probably had ten years more to go … In that country, you never know. You break the smallest rule, and the sentence gets longer, and meanwhile they go on hitting you with their clubs … I got hundreds of those beatings – from the other prisoners, too … Then my American took steps to help me. I think he was disgusted by the behaviour of those men he kept calling my “friends”… The only company I had was a dog. I raised him on board, and he’d saved me from drowning once. In spite of all their rules over there, they let him stay in the prison – they have different ideas from us about that kind of thing … Oh, it was hell! They’ll play music for you on Sundays, and then beat you to a pulp afterwards … Finally, I didn’t even know if I was still a man. I broke down in tears a hundred times, a thousand times …
‘And then, one morning, they suddenly opened the door, rammed a rifle butt in to my back to send me off into the civilized world, and I passed out on the pavement like an idiot … I didn’t know how to live any more; I had nothing left …
‘No! I did have one thing left!’
His wounded lip still bled, but he forgot to wipe it. Madame Michoux was hiding her face in her lace handkerchief, with its sickening scent. And Maigret smoked placidly, never taking his eyes off the doctor, who went on writing.
‘One thing – the determination to put them through the same hell, those men who had brought the whole catastrophe down on me. Not to kill them – no! Dying is nothing. At Sing Sing, I tried it a dozen times, but I couldn’t do it. I’d stop eating, and they’d force-feed me … No, no! I wanted to make them live in prison! I wanted it to be an American jail, but that’s not possible …
‘I dragged around Brooklyn, doing any kind of job, to pay my way home … I even bought passage for my dog …
‘I’d had no news of Emma … I didn’t set foot in Quimper; people might have recognized me, even if I am a wreck.
‘Here, I heard that she was a waitress, and Michoux’s mistress now and then … Other people too, maybe? A waitress, after all …
‘It wouldn’t be easy to send those three bastards to prison, but I was determined! That was the only thing I still wanted … I lived with my dog on an abandoned boat, and later in the old watchtower at Cabélou Point …
‘I began to let Michoux see me around – just see me. See my hideous face, my brutish body! You understand? I wanted to scare him. I wanted to stir up such fear in him that he’d be driven to shoot at me. I might wind up dead, but he’d go to prison. He’d get it all; he’d be kicked and beaten, with clubs and gun butts! And the terrible people in there with you – so strong they can make you do anything they want … I prowled around Michoux’s house. I put myself in his path. Three days. Four days. He finally recognized me. Then he went out less … But still, life here hadn’t changed in all that time. They still had their daily aperitif together, the three of them; people tipped hats to them in the streets … And I was stealing food from stalls! … I wanted things to happen fast.’
A curt voice spoke: ‘I beg your pardon, inspector. This hearing, without an examining magistrate present – I don’t suppose it has any legal standing?’
It was Michoux – white as a sheet, his features drawn, nostrils pinched, lips drained of colour, but he was speaking with a curtness that was almost threatening.
A glance from Maigret sent another policeman to take up a position between the doctor and the vagrant. Just in time! Drawn by that voice, Léon Le Glérec rose slowly, his fists clenched and as heavy as clubs.
‘Down! Sit down, Léon!’
And the creature obeyed, breathing hoarsely as the inspector shook out his pipe and said, ‘Now it’s my turn to talk.’
11. Fear
His quiet voice and his rapid, even delivery we
re a sharp contrast to the impassioned speech of the sailor, who watched him suspiciously.
‘First, a word about Emma, gentlemen: she learns that her fiancé has been arrested; she hears nothing more from him … One day, for some trivial reason, she loses her job and becomes a waitress at the Admiral Hotel. She’s a poor girl, with no family. Men flirt with her, the way rich customers do with servant girls. Two years, three years go by. She has no idea Michoux had a hand in Léon’s fate. One night she goes to his room. Time goes by, life rolls on. Michoux has other mistresses. From time to time, he decides to sleep at the hotel. Or sometimes, when his mother is away, he has Emma come to his house … Dreary love-making, with no love to it. And Emma’s life is dreary. She’s no heroine. She has a shell-covered box, where she keeps a letter, a snapshot, but that’s just an old dream that fades a little more each day …
‘She doesn’t know that Léon has come back.
‘She doesn’t recognize the yellow dog that prowls around her – it was four months old when the boat left.
‘One night, Michoux dictates a letter to her, without saying who it’s for. It’s about an appointment with someone in an empty house at eleven o’clock at night.
‘She writes it down, signing it “E” – for Ernest, she thinks. A waitress! You understand? … Léon Le Glérec was right: Michoux is frightened; he’s afraid for his life … He wants to do away with the enemy who’s haunting him.
‘But he’s a coward. He couldn’t help telling me that himself. He sends his victim the letter by tying it around the dog’s neck. He figures he’ll hide behind the door in the empty house the next night.
‘Will Léon be suspicious? Well, there’s a chance the sailor might want to meet with his old fiancée again, no matter what’s happened. When he knocks at the door, Michoux will just shoot through the letterbox and slip away through the back alley.
‘But Léon does suspect something. Maybe he was lurking around the square, watching. Maybe he was even thinking of going to the appointment. By chance, Monsieur Mostaguen comes out of the café just then, with a few drinks in him, and stops in that doorway to light his cigar. He’s a little unsteady; he stumbles against the door. That’s the signal, and a bullet hits him right in the belly.
‘That’s the first incident … Michoux bungled his attempt. He goes home. Goyard and Le Pommeret are terrified. They know what’s going on and they have the same interest in getting rid of the man – he’s a threat to all three of them.
‘Emma understands the trick she was made to play. She may have caught sight of Léon … or perhaps she put two and two together and finally identified the yellow dog.
‘The next day, I arrive on the scene. I see the three men, I sense their terror. They’re expecting some trouble! And I want to find out where they think it will come from. I want to be sure I’m not wrong.
‘So I’m the one who put the poison in the aperitif bottle, in my clumsy way … I’m ready to step in if someone should start to drink. But there’s no need! Michoux is on guard. Michoux is suspicious of everything – of the people going by, of what he drinks … By now he doesn’t even dare leave the hotel.’
Emma was frozen, the very picture of stupefaction. Michoux had lifted his head for a moment, to look squarely at Maigret. Now he was writing feverishly again.
‘That was the second incident, Monsieur le Maire. And our trio lives on, still in fear … Goyard is the most excitable of the three, and probably also the least bad. This business of the poisoning throws him into a panic. He’s convinced something will happen to him one day or another. He sees I’m on the trail – and he decides to run off. Without a trace – run off in such a way that no one will be able to accuse him of running away. He’ll fake an attack, let people think he’s been killed and that his body was thrown into the harbour.
‘But before that, something leads him to take a look around Michoux’s house, maybe out of curiosity, maybe to look for Léon and offer to make peace. He finds signs that the big man has been there. He knows it won’t take me long to discover the same signs myself.
‘Remember, he’s a newspaperman! He knows very well how easy it is to stir up a mob. He knows he won’t be safe anywhere as long as Léon is alive. So he thinks up a really brilliant move: he writes an article, in a disguised hand, and sends it to the Brest Beacon.
‘The piece talks about the yellow dog, the drifter. Every sentence is calculated to spread terror in Concarneau. In those circumstances, if people spot the man with the big feet, there’s a good chance he’ll get a shot of lead in his chest.
‘And that’s nearly what happened! They started by shooting the dog; they would just as easily have shot the man. A panicky crowd is capable of anything.
‘On Sunday, terror does take over the town. Michoux sticks to the hotel, sick with fright. But he’s still determined to defend himself to the end – by any means.
‘I leave him alone with Le Pommeret. I don’t know what goes on between the two of them then. Goyard’s gone. Le Pommeret, who belongs to a respectable local family, is probably tempted to turn to the police, to tell the whole story rather than go on living through this nightmare … After all, what’s the risk for him? A fine, a little stint in prison. If that! The major crime, the only one he had any part in, had been committed abroad, in America.
‘And Michoux, who sees him weakening, who has the Mostaguen attack on his conscience, wants to save his own skin at any cost. He doesn’t hesitate to poison him …
‘Emma is there in the café. Maybe they’ll suspect her instead …
‘I’d like to talk to you a little more about fear, because that’s what underlies this whole business. Michoux is afraid. Michoux is more obsessed with conquering his fear than with conquering his enemy.
‘He knows Léon Le Glérec. He knows that the man won’t be stopped without a struggle. He’s counting on a bullet fired by the police or by some terrified townsman to take care of that problem.
‘He stays put … I bring the wounded dog, barely alive, into the hotel. I want to see if the vagrant will come to get him, and he does. We’ve never seen the dog since, and that probably means he’s dead.’
There was a small catch in Léon’s throat. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you bury him?’
‘On Cabélou. There’s a little cross, made of two fir branches.’
‘The police find Léon Le Glérec. He breaks away, because his one goal is to incite Michoux to attack him. He’s said it: he wants to see him in prison … My job is to prevent any further harm, and that’s why I arrest Michoux, even though I tell him that my purpose is to protect him. It’s not a lie. But, by the same move, I keep Michoux from committing other crimes. He’s reached the point of being capable of anything. He feels threatened from all sides.
‘Nonetheless, he’s still capable of doing his little act, talking to me about his poor health, blaming his panic on some mystical idea about a fortune-teller years back – a story he invented out of whole cloth.
‘What he needs desperately is for the public to decide to slaughter his enemy.
‘He knows that he could quite logically be suspected of everything that’s happened up till then. Alone in his cell, he racks his brain. Isn’t there some way of turning those suspicions around once and for all? For instance, if some new crime were to occur while he’s under lock and key, that would provide him with the most wonderful alibi for everything, by implication.
‘His mother comes to see him. She knows the whole story. She’s got to stay clear of suspicion, of investigation. But she’s got to save him! …
‘She dines at the mayor’s. She gets herself driven home after dinner and leaves her light burning for the next few hours. Meanwhile, she returns to town on foot. Is everyone asleep? Everyone except those in the Admiral café. All she has to do is wait, at some street corner, for someone to leave the café. Then aim at hi
s leg, to be sure he doesn’t chase her.
‘That crime, that completely gratuitous crime, would be the worst of the charges against Michoux, if we didn’t already have others. The next morning, when I get here, he’s feverish. He doesn’t know that Goyard is under arrest in Paris. Most important, he doesn’t know that at the very moment the shot hit the customs guard, I had the vagrant under my very eyes.
‘For, with the police after him, Léon had stayed right in the same neighbourhood where they’d lost him. He was anxious to finish his business, so he didn’t want to get too far from Michoux.
‘He goes to sleep in a room in the vacant building. From her window, Emma sees him. And she goes over to join him. She swears that she’s not guilty, that she never meant to help Michoux. She throws herself down, clings to his knees …
‘This is the first time he’s seen her face to face, heard the sound of her voice again … She’s been with another man, a few others.
‘But there isn’t much he hasn’t been through, himself. His heart melts. He seizes her in a brutal grip, as if to crush her, but then, instead, his lips crush hers.
‘He is no longer all alone, the man with nothing to live for but a single goal, a single idea. Through her tears, she speaks to him – about a chance for happiness, a life they might begin again …
‘And they leave together, without a sou, into the night. They’ll go anywhere; it doesn’t matter! … They leave Michoux to his terrors.
‘They’ll try to be happy somewhere …’
Maigret fills his pipe, slowly, looking at each person in the room, one after the other.
‘You’ll excuse me, Monsieur le Maire, for not letting you know what I was up to. But when I arrived here, I felt sure the drama had just begun … To figure out its pattern, I had to let it develop, heading off further damage as best I could … Le Pommeret is dead, murdered by his accomplice. But from what I know of him, I’m convinced he would have killed himself the moment he was arrested. A customs guard was shot in the leg; in a week, it won’t even show. On the other hand, I can now sign a new arrest warrant for Ernest Michoux, for attempted murder and assault on the person of Monsieur Mostaguen, and for the wilful poisoning of his friend Le Pommeret. Here’s another warrant, against Madame Michoux, for last night’s assault … As to Jean Goyard, called Servières, I don’t believe he can be cited for anything more than obstruction of justice with that hoax he set up.’
The Yellow Dog Page 11