‘It doesn’t matter, since you aren’t. You have the same walk at times, the same way of hunching your shoulders.’
‘Do you think that Mademoiselle Gendreau went off to meet a count?’
Paumelle didn’t reply as he had his eye on Louis, who had just reappeared at the corner of Rue Fontaine. Since setting off down Rue Blanche, he had walked around the block. He looked brighter than before. He really did appear to be out for a stroll, thinking of nothing other than enjoying the sunshine. He glanced up and down the empty street, then, like a man allowing himself a glass of well-earned white wine, he entered the tobacconist’s on the corner.
‘Does he sometimes come in here?’
A sharp, categorical ‘No.’
‘He’s an ugly-looking character.’
‘There are a lot of ugly-looking people, but they can’t do anything about it.’
Was he alluding to Maigret? He went on, as if talking to himself, while a clatter of crockery came from the kitchen:
‘And there are some people who are honest and others who aren’t.’
Maigret sensed that he was on the verge of an important revelation, but first he needed to win the trust of this heavy man drunk on calvados. Was it too late? He had probably not helped his cause by saying that he wasn’t a friend of the count’s. He had the distinct feeling that the entire morning had been fraught with misunderstandings.
‘I work for a private detective agency,’ he ventured on impulse.
‘Well, well, well!’
Hadn’t his boss told him not to bring the police into the case?
He was using deception to get to the truth. At that moment, he would have given a great deal to have been twenty years older and to have the owner’s bulk and build.
‘I knew something would happen.’
‘And so it has, you see!’
‘So you reckon she won’t be coming back?’
He kept missing the mark, as Paumelle merely shrugged, not without a trace of pity. Then he tried another tactic.
‘It’s my round,’ he announced, pointing to the earthenware flagons.
Would Paumelle refuse to drink with him? He shrugged again and muttered:
‘At this hour, we’d do better to drink a bottle of cider.’
He went down to the cellar to fetch one. While Maigret felt groggy after all the calvados he had drunk, Paumelle still walked with a sure step and was unfazed by the staircase with no handrail, which was more like a ladder.
‘You see, young man, you have to be an old dog in order to lie.’
‘Do you think that I …’
Paumelle filled the glasses.
‘Who would hire a private detective agency to deal with something like this? Not the count, right? Even less the Gendreau gentlemen, father or son. As for Monsieur Hubert …’
‘Who’s Hubert?’
‘You see! You don’t even know the family.’
‘Is there another son?’
‘How many houses are there in the street?’
‘I don’t know … Forty? … Fifty? …’
‘Well, count them … Then, go and knock on every door. Perhaps you’ll find someone who can tell you. In the meantime, excuse me, I’m not throwing you out. You can stay as long as you like, only it’s time for my nap, and that’s sacred.’
There was a straw-bottomed chair behind the bar, and Paumelle sat down in it, his back to the window, folded his hands over his belly, closed his eyes and appeared to fall asleep instantly.
Now that everything had gone quiet, his wife poked her head around the kitchen door, a tea-towel in one hand, a plate in the other, and, reassured, returned to her washing-up without a glance at Maigret, who sheepishly went over and sat by the window.
4.
The Old Gentleman in Avenue du Bois
Maigret and Minard had agreed that when the latter returned from Conflans he would leave a note at Maigret’s apartment on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir to let him know he was back.
‘But it’s out of your way!’ Maigret had protested.
Minard’s reply had been the usual:
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Maigret had asked him a question, tentatively, because he was loath to discourage the flautist.
‘How are you going to introduce yourself? What do you intend to tell them?’
It was only now, with hindsight, as Maigret was walking home amid the bright lights of the boulevards after an exhausting day, that the musician’s reply alarmed him somewhat.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.’
But after a moment of gloom during the afternoon, perhaps because of the formidable owner of the Vieux Calvados, perhaps because he was having trouble digesting all the little glasses of calvados he’d drunk, Maigret now felt more cheerful.
Something was happening inside him which he had never experienced before. He couldn’t have imagined that one day this sensation would become so familiar that it would become legendary at Quai des Orfèvres.
Up until that point it had only been a pleasant warmth pervading his body, a more confident stride and way of looking at people, shadows and lights, and at the cabs and trams all around him.
Earlier, in Rue Chaptal, he had resented his boss for allowing him to continue with this case and he half-suspected that Le Bret was deliberately playing a mean trick on him.
Can a man attack a fortress like the Balthazars’ residence single-handed? Is that how the ‘big boys’ in the chief’s squad worked? They had endless resources at their disposal − files, records, colleagues everywhere, informers. If they needed to have ten people followed, they put ten men on the job.
But now Maigret was suddenly happy to be working alone, snooping around as he pleased.
Neither did he foresee that one day he would be famous for this method, and that when he became head of the Crime Squad, with a small army of officers under his command, he would sometimes stake out a suspect in person, tail him in the street and sit in a café waiting for hours on end.
Before leaving the Vieux Calvados, where Paumelle was now showing him only the utmost indifference, he had made two more telephone calls. First of all to the Urbaine cab company, because Lise Gendreau’s cab had borne its emblem. He was kept waiting for a long time.
‘Number 48 belongs to the depot at La Villette. The cab driver’s name is Eugène Cornille. He went on duty at midday today. It’s unlikely he’ll be back at the depot before midnight.’
‘You don’t happen to know where I might find him in the meantime?’
‘He usually waits at Place Saint-Augustin, but that of course depends on whether or not he picks up any customers. There’s a little restaurant nearby called Au Rendez-vous du Massif Central. I believe he goes there for a bite to eat when he can.’
The other telephone call was to the vehicle registration department at the Préfecture. It took even longer to find the car registration number in the files. Since Maigret was supposedly calling from the police station, the clerk offered to call him back.
‘I’d rather hold on.’
At long last he was given a name and an address: the Marquis de Bazancourt, 3, Avenue Gabriel.
Another affluent neighbourhood, probably a mansion overlooking the Champs-Élysées.
A haughty voice answered.
‘Is it personal?’
And when he replied yes:
‘Monsieur le marquis passed away three months ago.’
Then he asked a rather naive
question:
‘Does he have an heir?’
‘I’m sorry? I don’t understand. All his possessions have been sold, and only the house is still waiting for a buyer.’
‘You don’t know who purchased the De Dion-Bouton?’
‘A mechanic from Rue des Acacias, off Avenue de la Grande-Armée. I don’t recall his name, but I think it’s the only garage in the street.’
At five o’clock Maigret took the Métro to Étoile and found the garage in Rue des Acacias, but it was closed and there was a notice on the door saying:
Please inquire next door.
There was a shoe-mender on one side and a bar on the other. The notice meant people to inquire at the bar. Unfortunately, the wine merchant knew nothing.
‘Dédé hasn’t been in today. He does a bit of this and a bit of that, you know. Sometimes he goes on trips for his customers.’
‘You wouldn’t have his home address?’
‘He lives in lodgings near Place des Ternes, but I don’t know the exact address.’
‘Is he married?’
Maigret couldn’t be sure, because he didn’t dare appear too inquisitive, but he had the sense that Dédé was a rather particular kind of gentleman and that, if he did have a companion, then he would be most likely to run into her in the street between Étoile and Place des Ternes.
He spent the rest of the afternoon trying to track down the cab driver, Cornille. He found Au Rendez-vous du Massif Central.
‘It’s rare for him not to drop in for a bite to eat.’
Annoyingly, today was one of those rare days. Not one of his fares had happened to finish up in the vicinity of Cornille’s haunt in Place Saint-Augustin.
Maigret finally went home and walked under the archway. The concierge slid back the hatch in the glazed door.
‘Monsieur Maigret! … Monsieur Maigret! … I have something important for you …’
It was a note which he was advised to read before going up to his apartment.
Don’t go upstairs right away. I have to speak to you first. I waited as long as I could. Come and find me at the Brasserie Clichy. The young lady is upstairs, with your wife.
Your devoted servant,
Justin Minard.
By that time it was completely dark. Standing on the pavement, Maigret looked up, saw the curtains drawn in their apartment and pictured the two women in the little dining room that doubled as a sitting room. What on earth could they be talking about? Madame Maigret would most likely have laid the table, perhaps even served dinner.
He took the Métro to Place Blanche, and entered the vast brasserie where the air was thick with the smell of beer and sauerkraut. The little band of five musicians was playing. Justin wasn’t playing the flute but the double bass. Dwarfed by the huge instrument, he looked even scrawnier.
Maigret sat down at one of the marble tables, couldn’t make up his mind, and eventually ordered sauerkraut and a beer. When the piece was over, Minard joined him.
‘I’m sorry to drag you all the way here, but I absolutely had to speak to you before you saw her.’
He was very agitated, perhaps a little worried, and that made Maigret anxious too.
‘It hadn’t occurred to me that her sister, being married, would have a different name from her. That made me lose time in my search for her. Her husband works for the railway, on the freight trains, and is often away for two or three days. They live in a house in the country, on a hillside, with a white goat tethered to a stake and a vegetable garden surrounded by a fence.’
‘Was Germaine there?’
‘When I arrived, the two of them were sitting at the table in front of a huge dish of black pudding and there was a strong smell of onions.’
‘The sister hasn’t given birth?’
‘Not yet. They’re waiting. Apparently it could still be a few more days. I told them I was an insurance salesman, that I’d heard that the young lady was about to have a baby and that it was the perfect time to take out a policy.’
The violinist, who was also the band leader, hung a card with a number on it from a rail, struck his rostrum with the tip of his bow, and Justin excused himself and went up on to the podium. When he came back, he said hurriedly:
‘Don’t worry. I’m sure everything will turn out fine. I’m quite well up on the subject because my wife has a bee in her bonnet about insurance. She claims I’ve only got about three years to live and that … but it doesn’t matter! Germaine is good-looking. She’s plump, with a heavy chignon which she’s always having to pin up again, and a penetrating gaze. You’ll see! She stared at me continuously. She asked me point blank which company I worked for. I gave her a name off the top of my head, and then she wanted to know who my boss was. She fired a whole lot of questions at me and then she said: “I had a friend who worked in the same company for three months.” Then, suddenly changing the subject, she asked, “Did Louis send you?”’
Justin Minard had to go back on stage. As the band struck up a Viennese waltz, he darted little glances at Maigret, as if to reassure him. He seemed to be saying: ‘Don’t worry, just wait for what’s coming next!’
Next came:
‘I told her that it wasn’t Louis who’d sent me. “It’s not the count, either!” she retorted. “No.” “As for Monsieur Richard … Tell me, you wouldn’t be one of Monsieur Richard’s men, would you?” You see the type of girl? I had to make a decision. Her sister is younger than her and has been married for just a year. She was a housemaid in the Saint-Lazare neighbourhood, where she met her husband. Germaine rather enjoyed shocking her. If you want my opinion, she enjoys shocking people. She needs to be the centre of attention at any price, if you see what I mean.
‘She probably dreamed of being an actress. After eating, she lit a cigarette, but she has no idea how to smoke.
‘The house only has one room, with a big bed and an enlarged print of the wedding photo in an oval frame.
‘“Are you sure you’re not one of Monsieur Richard’s men?” she asked me again.
‘She has bulging eyes, and sometimes, when she’s talking to you, she stares fixedly. It makes you squirm. It’s as if all of a sudden she’s no longer herself, but that’s only an impression, because she’s certainly got her head screwed on. “You see how complicated life is in that world, Olga?” she said to her sister indignantly. “I told you it would end badly.” I asked her when she planned to return to work. “I don’t think I’ll ever set foot in that place again.” And she still wanted to know … So …’
Music! The flautist’s eyes entreated Maigret to be patient, not to worry.
‘So there you are! Too bad if I did the wrong thing. I told her the truth.’
‘What truth?’
‘That the young lady had called for help, that Louis had hit me, that you had come and they’d shown you a girl in a nightdress passing herself off as Germaine. That infuriated her. I made it clear that there was no official investigation, that you were handling the case in a private capacity, that you’d be pleased to meet her and, before I’d finished talking, she started to get dressed. I can still see her in her lace-trimmed drawers and camisole, rummaging in her suitcase, apologizing to her sister. “You do understand,” she said to her, “a baby always comes sooner or later, whereas for me this is a matter of life or death.” I felt awkward, but I thought it would be useful for you to hear it. I didn’t know what to do with her. So I took her to your place. I managed to have a word with your wife, on the landing. My
goodness! What a kind wife you have! I told her not to let Germaine escape.
‘Are you angry with me?’
How could he be angry? Maigret wasn’t exactly reassured, but all the same he sighed:
‘Perhaps it’s a good thing.’
‘When will I see you?’
He remembered that he had to meet Cornille the cab driver at midnight.
‘Maybe tonight.’
‘If I don’t see you, I’ll take the liberty of dropping into your place tomorrow morning, now that I know where it is. Oh! One more thing …’
Embarrassed, he faltered:
‘She asked me who would pay her expenses, and I told her … I didn’t know what to say … I told her not to worry … But, you know, if it’s a problem I …’
Maigret left while the band was playing and hurried towards the Métro. He felt a certain emotion on seeing the light under his door. He had no need to take his key out of his pocket because Madame Maigret always recognized his footsteps.
She gave him a knowing look, saying cheerfully:
‘There’s a charming young lady waiting for you.’
Dear Madame Maigret! She wasn’t being sarcastic. She wanted to be hospitable. The creature was there, a dirty plate before her, elbows on the table, a cigarette in her mouth. Her huge eyes bored into Maigret as if she wanted to devour him. And yet there was still something hesitant about her.
‘Are you really a policeman?’
He showed her his ID, and from then on she did not take her eyes off him. In front of her was a small glass: Madame Maigret had brought out the kirsch she kept for special occasions.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve eaten?’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘In that case, I’ll leave you. I must do the washing-up.’
She cleared the table and went into the kitchen, not sure whether she should close the door.
‘Is your friend a policeman too?’
‘No. Not exactly. It was by chance …’
‘Is he married?’
Maigret's First Case Page 6