It is a hard-and-fast rule that agents of the Sûreté must devote all their time to their duties.
Any investigation or surveillance operation undertaken must, in principle, be conducted continually; leave cannot be guaranteed at fixed hours or even on fixed days.
He had left the police station at six in the morning, when the deputy secretary, Albert Luce, had come on duty. The air outside was chilly and the streets of Paris so filled with aromas that he had walked home and had been tempted to make a detour via Les Halles to relish the smell of spring vegetables and fruits.
At present, there were hundreds, thousands of people in Paris who had not had much more sleep than him. Although the foreign sovereign’s visit was to last only three days, the police were under a lot of pressure, and some squads, like those in charge of security, the railway stations, aliens and traffic duty had been on high alert for weeks.
Men were seconded from various departments and from local police stations. The king’s strictly scheduled comings and goings did not affect the Saint-Georges district, so all available men had been sent to the Opéra police station.
It wasn’t just the anarchists who were giving the police a headache. There were the madmen who invariably went berserk during this sort of grand occasion; there were the pickpockets and swindlers who were having a field day with the provincials flocking to the capital to watch the parades.
‘Is it Balthazar coffee?’ he asked.
‘Why do you ask? Don’t you like it?’
‘I wanted to know what made you buy this coffee rather than another one. Is it because it’s better?’
‘It’s not bad at any rate, and there are the picture cards.’
He had forgotten about the albums into which she carefully pasted the pictures of all the different species of flowers that came inside the packets of coffee.
‘When you have three complete sets, you win a walnut bedroom suite.’
Since they didn’t have a bathroom in the apartment yet, Maigret had a sponge bath, then he ate some soup for breakfast, as he had always done at home in the country.
‘I don’t suppose you know what time you’ll be back?’
And he repeated, smiling:
‘… leave cannot be guaranteed at fixed hours or even on fixed days.’
She knew it by heart. She already had her hat on. She liked walking with him to his office, as if taking a child to school, but she didn’t go all the way as he would have been embarrassed to run into a colleague.
On the dot of ten, the chief inspector’s gig drew up in Rue de La-Rochefoucauld, the horse pawing at the ground as the coachman took over the reins from his master. Maxime Le Bret was probably the only police inspector in Paris to have his own carriage and live in the Plaine-Monceau neighbourhood, in one of the new apartment buildings on Boulevard de Courcelles.
By the time he arrived in style at the police station, he had already dropped into the Hoche club for a bout of fencing, a swim in the pool and a relaxing massage.
Maigret’s report was on his desk, and Maigret thought about it with a gnawing anxiety. This was his first important report and he had painstakingly worked on it until dawn, trying not to leave out any of the hypotheses still fresh in his mind.
The flautist, Justin Minard, had walked back from Rue Chaptal to the police station with him. They paused outside the door.
‘Are you married?’ asked Maigret.
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you think your wife will be worried?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
And Justin had come in. Maigret had taken his statement, which the musician had signed. He still wouldn’t leave.
‘Don’t you think your wife will make a scene?’
And again Minard said softly:
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Why was Maigret remembering this now? He had almost had to show him the door at daybreak. And again the flautist had asked, with a mixture of shyness and assurance:
‘May I come and see you?’
He had filed a complaint against the man named Louis. He had insisted. All the paperwork was in order on the chief inspector’s desk, on top of less important daily reports.
Maigret never saw Maxime Le Bret come in because he went down the corridor straight into his office, but he could hear him, and this time his heart skipped a beat.
On the bench sat the usual motley assortment of regular customers, mainly sad souls and poor bedraggled wretches. He called out their names one by one, provided them with certificates of residence or of hardship, made a note of items that had been lost or found, and sent the vagrants and hawkers who had been picked up on the streets down to the lock-up.
Just below the black-rimmed clock there was an electric bell, and, when that bell rang …
He had calculated that it would take Le Bret about twelve minutes to read his report and Minard’s statement. Twenty minutes went by and Le Bret still hadn’t called him in, but a soft click told him that his boss was making a telephone call.
There was a baize door between Le Bret’s office and the main office. A murmur from the other side was faintly audible.
Was Le Bret already speaking to Richard Gendreau, who so frequently invited him to dine at his house?
No bell, but the door opened.
‘Maigret!’
A good sign or a bad sign?
‘Come in, my boy.’
The chief inspector paced up and down the room, smoking a cigarette before sitting down at his desk. Eventually, he placed his hand on the file and appeared to be casting around for the right words.
‘I’ve read that thing of yours,’ he sighed.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You did what you believed was right. Your report is very clear, very detailed.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘It even mentions me.’
He raised a hand to silence Maigret, who had opened his mouth to speak.
‘I am not criticizing you at all. On the contrary.’
‘I did my best to transcribe faithfully everything that was said.’
‘In short, you were able to look around the entire house at your leisure.’
‘They showed me every room.’
‘You were able to ascertain that there was nothing untoward.’
‘In the bedroom mentioned by Justin Minard, the net curtain was caught in the window as if it had been closed hastily.’
‘That can happen at any time, can’t it? Nothing proves that the curtain hadn’t been like that for several days.’
‘The father, Monsieur Félicien Gendreau-Balthazar, seemed very perturbed by my presence in the house.’
‘You wrote frightened.’
‘That was the feeling I had.’
‘I know Gendreau personally. I meet him several times a week at my club.’
‘I know, sir.’
The chief inspector was a handsome man with a patrician manner. He was to be found at all the society gatherings, having married a wealthy Parisian heiress. That was probably why, despite his lifestyle, he insisted on having a regular job. His eyelids had fine creases and there were deep crow’s feet around his eyes. He had probably had no more sleep than Maigret the previous night, or any other night.
‘Call Besson in, would you.’
Besson was an inspector, the only one who had remained at the station during the royal visit.
‘I have a little job for you, Besson, my man.’
He copied out the name and address of Justin Minard, the flautist, on to a loose sheet of paper.
‘I want you to make some discreet inquiries about this gentleman. The sooner the better.’
Besson looked at the address, was pleased to see that it was in Paris and promised:
‘Right away, sir.’
And, when Le Bret was alone again with Maigret, he smiled very faintly and said:
‘Right. I think that’s all there is to be done for the time being.’
Sitting at his black desk, Maigret spent the most furious hours of his life examining grubby documents, listening to concierges’ complaints and street hawkers’ excuses.
He thought of various extreme options, such as handing in his notice immediately.
So according to the chief inspector, all that needed to be done was to make inquiries about the flautist! Why not arrest him and give him a going over?
Maigret could also have telephoned the big chief, Xavier Guichard, or gone to see him, since he knew the head of the Sûreté personally. The latter had often spent his holidays near their home in the Allier, and he had once been a friend of his father’s.
He hadn’t exactly taken Maigret under his wing, but he kept an avuncular eye on him from a distance, or rather from on high, and it was probably thanks to him that over the past four years Maigret had constantly been transferred between departments so that he could become acquainted with all the workings of the police within a short space of time.
‘Minard isn’t mad. He wasn’t drunk. He saw a window open. He heard a shot. And I saw those patches of oil on the road for myself.’
That’s what he would say, outraged. He would insist …
That gave him an idea and he left the room, going down three steps into the duty office where uniformed officers were playing cards.
‘Tell me, sergeant, have all the men who were on duty last night already made their reports?’
‘Not all.’
‘Would you ask them something? I’d like to know whether any of them noticed a De Dion-Bouton in the neighbourhood between midnight and two in the morning. The driver was wearing a grey goatskin jacket and huge goggles. I don’t know if there were any passengers.’
Too bad for the chief inspector! Any investigation or surveillance undertaken …
He knew his theory. Ordinarily, this would be his case, Balthazar or no Balthazar.
At around midday he began to feel sleepy, but it wasn’t his turn to go for lunch yet. His eyelids were pricking. He caught himself repeating the same question twice while interrogating his customers.
Besson came back, the smell of absinthe clinging to his moustache, and that made Maigret hanker for the coolness of a café or the subdued light of a terrace on the boulevards.
‘Is the chief still here?’
He had left, and Besson sat down to write his report.
‘Poor fellow!’ he sighed.
‘Who?’
‘The musician.’
And Besson, who exuded health with his soft, glowing skin, went on:
‘To start with, he’s consumptive, which is no fun. They’ve been trying to send him to the mountains for two years, but he won’t hear of it.’
Horses clattered across Place Saint-Georges. That morning there had been a military parade at Les Invalides and the troops from the various barracks were on their way back to their quarters. The city was still in ferment, with flags, uniforms, music and parades, dignitaries in colourful outfits hastening to the Élysée where there was a big state banquet.
‘They live in a two-room apartment overlooking the courtyard, on the fifth floor with no lift.’
‘Did you go up?’
‘I talked to the coal merchant who lives in the building, then to the concierge, who’s from my part of the world. Every month she gets complaints from the residents, because he plays the flute all day long with the windows wide open. The concierge is fond of him. So is the coal merchant, even though Minard owes him for two or three months’ worth of coal. As for his missus—’
‘Did you see her?’
‘She walked past when I was in the concierge’s lodge. A big brunette on the heavy side with flashing eyes. A sort of Carmen. Always in her dressing gown and slippers, hanging around in the local shops. She has her cards read. She yells at him. The concierge claims she even beats him. Poor fellow!’
Besson laboriously penned a few lines − writing reports wasn’t his strong point.
‘I took the Métro and I went to see Minard’s boss at the Brasserie Clichy. Nothing to report. He doesn’t drink. He always arrives five minutes early. He’s nice to everybody and the girl on the till adores him.’
‘Where was he this morning?’
‘I don’t know. Not at home. The concierge would have told me if he had been.’
Maigret left the office to go and eat two hard-boiled eggs and drink a beer in a little café on Place Saint-Georges. When he came back, he found a note from the sergeant on his desk.
Officer Jullian noticed the presence of a De Dion-Bouton motor-car at 1.30 a.m. It was parked in Rue Mansart, outside number 28. The only occupant was the driver who matches the description given. The vehicle remained in Rue Mansart for approximately ten minutes and drove off in the direction of Rue Blanche.
The bell under the clock rang, and Maigret leaped up to open the baize door. Le Bret was already back, and Maigret could see the pages of his report spread over the desk, with annotations in red pencil.
‘Come in, dear boy. Have a seat.’
This was a rare favour, as the chief inspector usually left his men standing.
‘I imagine you have spent all morning cursing me?’
He too was in a tailcoat, but his came from the best tailor on Place Vendôme and his waistcoats were always in the softest colours.
‘I’ve re-read your report thoroughly. A very good report, by the way, as I think I already told you. I also had a conversation with Besson about your friend the flautist.’
Maigret felt emboldened.
‘Have the Gendreau-Balthazars telephoned you?’
‘They have indeed, but not to complain, if that’s what you think. Richard Gendreau was perfectly amicable. Actually, he was rather amused by you and your zeal! No doubt you were expecting recriminations from him? It was quite the opposite. I don’t suppose you’ll be surprised that he considers you to be young and impetuous. That is precisely why he took a perverse pleasure in opening every door of his house to you.’
Maigret was frowning, and his boss watched him with a slight smile, the blasé smile that was the hallmark of the ‘fast set’, as they were called.
‘Now tell me, my boy, if you were in my shoes, what would you have done this morning?’
And, since Maigret said nothing, he went on:
‘Apply for a search warrant? First of all, on what grounds? Has a complaint been filed? Not against the Gendreaus, in any case. Has a crime been committed? None. Has anyone been injured, is there a body? Not as far as we know. And you visited the house last night and went over it with a fine-tooth comb, you saw everyone who lives there, some of them in their night clothes.
‘Don’t get me wrong. I am perfectly aware of what must have been going through your mind all day. I am a friend of the Gendreaus. I am a regular guest at their home. I belong to the same social circle as they do. Admit that you’ve been cursing me.’
‘There is Minard’s statement and complaint.’
‘The flautist
. I’m coming to him. At around one thirty this morning, he tried to force his way into a private residence claiming that he had heard a woman cry for help.’
‘He saw—’
‘Don’t forget that he is the only person to have seen anything, that no neighbours were disturbed. Put yourself in the place of the butler who was woken up by someone trying to kick the door down.’
‘Excuse me! The butler, Louis, was fully dressed, tie and all, at one thirty this morning even though at the hour Minard rang the bell the house was in total darkness.’
‘Be that as it may. Note that it’s your flautist again who stated that the butler was fully dressed. But is that a crime? Minard was thrown out fairly violently. But what would you do if a dubious individual were to burst in on you in the middle of the night claiming that you were murdering your wife?’
He proffered a gold cigarette case and Maigret had to remind him for the umpteenth time that he didn’t smoke cigarettes. It was a mannerism of Le Bret’s, a gesture of aristocratic condescension.
‘Let us look at the matter from a strictly administrative point of view. You have written a report, which must go through the usual channels, i.e. it will be passed on to the commissioner, who will decide whether to pass it on to the prosecutor. The flautist’s complaint against the butler will also be processed in the usual way.’
Maigret glared at him steadily and once again considered handing in his notice. He guessed what was coming next.
‘The Gendreau-Balthazars are one of the most prominent Paris families. If the slightest indiscretion were committed, every sordid blackmailing scandal sheet would jump at the opportunity.’
Maigret snapped:
‘I understand.’
‘And you hate me, isn’t that so? You think I’m protecting these people because they’re powerful or because they’re my friends.’
Maigret made to gather the papers on the desk and tear them up as was expected of him. Then he would go back to the main office and write his letter of resignation, in a handwriting that was as firm as possible.
‘Now, young Maigret, I have some news for you.’
Maigret's First Case Page 3