Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard (16 page)

“Yes. I swore to him that my intentions…”

“Were honorable. But of course. What happened then?”

“He promised he'd help us. He couldn't give us all the money at once, but he gave me some.”

“Where is this money?”

“Monique has it. She keeps it hidden in the desk in her office.”

“What about the rest of the money?”

“He promised he'd let me have it on Tuesday. He was expecting a large remittance.”

“Who from?”

“I don't know.”

“Didn't he tell you how he earned his money?”

“He couldn't, obviously.”

“Why not?”

“Because he hadn't a job. I was never able to find out how he got the money. There were two of them involved.”

“Did you ever see the other one?”

“Once, in the boulevard.”

“A tall, thin man, with the face of a clown?”

“Yes.”

“He was with me here until just a few minutes before you arrived. The brandy was for him.”

“In that case, you know it all.”

“What I want to know is whether you do.”

“I don't know anything. My guess is that they were blackmailing someone.”

“And you didn't see any reason why you shouldn't have a share of the loot?”

“We needed money, on account of the baby.”

Maigret lifted the receiver of the internal telephone.

“Lucas? I want you in here for a moment.”

As soon as Lucas arrived, Maigret introduced the young man:

“This is Albert Jorisse. He and Monique are expecting a baby.”

He spoke with great solemnity, and Lucas, who did not know what to think, nodded.

“The young lady may still be in her office, as she wasn't able to be there this morning. I want you to go and fetch her, and then take her to a doctor. Let her decide which one. If she has no preference, it might as well be the one at the Préfecture. I want to know how many months pregnant she is.”

“What if she refuses to be examined?”

“Tell her that, if she does refuse, I shall have no choice but to arrest her, as well as her boyfriend, who is here in my office. Take a car, and telephone and let me know what she says.”

When they were alone again, Jorisse asked:

“What was all that about?”

“It's my job to check up on everything.”

“Don't you believe me?”

“I believe
you,
yes.”

“But you don't believe her, is that it?”

The ringing of the telephone saved Maigret the embarrassment of replying. The call had nothing to do with the matter in hand. It was the reference to a lunatic who had been to see him some days earlier, and who had later been arrested in the street for riotous behavior. Instead of answering the query in a few words, as he could have done, Maigret spun out the conversation for as long as possible.

When he replaced the receiver, he asked, pretending that he had forgotten where they had got to:

“What do you intend to do now?”

“Do you accept my assurance that I didn't kill him?”

“I've always known that. You see, it's not as easy as is generally supposed to stab someone in the back. It's even more difficult to prevent the victim from crying out.”

“You mean I would be incapable of carrying it out?”

“Sure.”

He seemed almost offended. After all, he had had dreams of becoming a cowhand or a gold prospector in South America.

“Do you intend to go and see Madame Thouret?”

“I suppose I'll have to.”

Maigret was sorely tempted to burst out laughing at the thought of the lad going to the house in Juvisy, with his tail between his legs, in an attempt to butter up Monique's mother.

“Do you believe that, as things are, she'll be prepared to regard you as an acceptable son-in-law?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't deny, do you, that you didn't play altogether straight?”

“What do you mean?”

“It isn't only that you asked Monsieur Louis to give you the money to take Monique to South America, but that, knowing Monique spends every afternoon going from house to house collecting debts, you decided you might as well take advantage of the fact.

“She could always hurry through her rounds with an hour or two to spare, which she got into the habit of spending shut up with you in some hotel room or other.”

“We did meet like that sometimes.”

“In order to do so, you were forced to give up your afternoon stint in the bookshop. And hotel rooms cost money.”

“We did spend a little of…”

“You knew where Monsieur Louis kept his money didn't you?”

He was watching the young man closely. He answered without a moment's hesitation:

“On top of his glass-fronted wardrobe.”

“When he gave you the money, did he get it from there?”

“Yes. But Monique had already told me about it.”

“I take it you never went near the house in the Rue d'Angoulême on Monday?”

“No, I didn't. Ask the landlady, if you like. I had an appointment to go and see him on Tuesday at five.”

“When were you intending to leave for South America?”

“There's a ship sailing in three weeks' time. That would have given us time to get our visas. I have already applied for a passport.”

“I thought that, in the case of a minor, parental consent was obligatory.”

“I forged my father's signature.”

There was a pause. Then, for the first time, Jorisse asked for permission to smoke.

Maigret nodded. The absurd thing was that, having had his coffee, he really was longing now for a glass of liqueur brandy, but he had not the courage to take out the bottle, which was now back in the cupboard.

“You called me a ruffian.”

“Don't you think you deserved it?”

“I had no choice but to do what I did.”

“How would you like it, if your son were to behave as you did?”

“I intend to bring up my son differently. He won't have to…”

Once again they were interrupted by the telephone.

“Is that you, chief?”

Maigret frowned. It was Neveu. He had not sent him out on any assignment.

“I've got the money!”

“You must be joking!”

He glanced at Jorisse, and said to the inspector:

“Just a second. I'll go on to the other line.”

He went into the adjoining room, and told the first inspector he saw to go and keep an eye on the young man.

“That's better. Now you can talk freely. Where are you?”

“In a bistro on the Quai de Valmy.”

“What are you doing there?”

“You're not angry with me?”

“Carry on.”

“I meant it for the best. It's ten years now since Jef moved in with Françoise. From all I hear, he's fonder of her than he likes to make out. I suddenly had a yen to take a look round her place.”

“What for?”

“I thought it odd that he should have left her without money. I was lucky enough to find her at home. There are only two rooms, plus a kind of cupboard they use as a kitchen. In the bedroom there is an iron bedstead with brass knobs. The walls are whitewashed, country style, but it's all very clean.”

Feeling a little cross, Maigret waited for Neveu to finish his story. He didn't care for over-zealousness, especially in the case of someone like Neveu, who belonged to a different branch of the service.

“Did you tell her Jef had been arrested?”

“Shouldn't I have done?”

“Go on.”

“To begin with, judging by her reactions, I was convinced she didn't know what he'd been up to. Her first thought was that I must have caught him picking pockets in the Métro or on a bus. Presumably, that's his usual racket.”

It was one of the many talents cultivated by Schrameck when he was still working in fairgrounds. One of his convictions had been for purse-stealing.

“Ignoring her protests, I set about searching the place. It wasn't until right at the end that it occurred to me to unscrew the brass bed-knobs. They're hollow inside, and two of them were stuffed full of tightly rolled notes. They add up to a fortune! Françoise couldn't believe her eyes.

“‘To think that he let me go out charing, when he had all that money hidden away! He'll never get to heaven! Just let him come back here, and he'll see what…'

“She's still in the most fearful rage, calling him every name under the sun. She didn't even calm down when I suggested that he had put the money aside to provide for her, in case anything happened to him.

“‘What amazes me,' she snarled, ‘is how he managed to avoid gambling it all away.'

“Do you see what I'm getting at now, chief? They must have had a big share-out last Saturday. I've got more than two hundred thousand francs here. Jef wouldn't have dared to gamble all that lot away, especially at Fernand's place. He only lost a fraction of the money. If they split it down the middle, Monsieur Louis must have had a packet salted away as well.”

“I'm very grateful to you.”

“What shall I do with the money?”

“Have you got it with you?”

“I should say I have! I couldn't very well leave it there…”

“Go and have a word with your chief superintendent, and ask him to get things sorted out according to the rule book.”

“Must I?”

“Heavens above! I don't want the defense lawyers accusing us of having planted the notes!”

“Have I put my foot in it?”

“You have, rather.”

“I'm sorry. I only wanted…”

Maigret hung up. He turned to Torrence, who was working at his desk:

“Are you very busy?”

“It's nothing that can't wait.”

“I want you to go and see Chief Superintendent Antoine. Ask him to arrange for one of his men to get out a list of all the thefts committed in shops in the Grands Boulevards during the last two and a half years or so, especially those that took place while they were shut for lunch.”

Such cases were not the concern of his department, but of Antoine's, whose office was at the end of the passage.

He went back to Albert Jorisse, who had just lit another cigarette, and released the inspector who had been keeping an eye on him.

“I had no intention of running away, you know.”

“I daresay. But you might have been tempted to take a peep at the files on my desk. Go on, you may as well admit it.”

“Perhaps.”

“That makes all the difference.”

“What does?”

“Never mind. I know what I'm talking about.”

“What do you intend to do with me?”

“For the time being, you're staying here with me.”

Maigret glanced at his watch, and calculated that Lucas and Monique must have arrived at the doctor's by now. No doubt they were in the waiting-room, reading the magazines.

“You despise me, don't you?”

He shrugged.

“I've never had a chance.”

“A chance to do what?”

“To escape.”

“To escape from what?”

Maigret sounded almost aggressive.

“You don't understand, I can see that. If you'd heard nothing but money, money, money ever since you were a child, and if you'd seen your mother shaking with anxiety at the end of every month…”

“I had no mother.”

The boy was silenced. For nearly ten minutes, not a word was spoken. For a while, Maigret stood by the window with his back to the room, watching the rain trickling down the window panes. Then he began pacing up and down, and finally, almost defiantly, he made up his mind to open the cupboard. He had washed the glass in the enamel drinking fountain some time before. He rinsed it again, and poured a tot of brandy into it.

“Would you care for a drop of this?”

“No, thanks.”

Albert Jorisse was finding it hard to keep awake. His cheeks were flushed, and Maigret was sure his eyes were smarting. From time to time, he swayed in his chair.

“In time, I daresay, you'll prove yourself to be a man.”

He could hear footsteps in the passage, those of a man and a woman, and he knew that it was Monique, accompanied by Lucas. He had a decision to make. That was what he had been brooding over for the last quarter of an hour. Should he have the girl brought into his office, or should he interview her next door?