Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard (17 page)

With a little shrug, he went across and opened the door. Both of them had glistening drops of rain on their shoulders. Monique was no longer her old confident self, and when she caught sight of Albert, she stopped dead in her tracks, clutched her bag more tightly, and glared furiously at the chief superintendent.

“Did you take her to see a doctor?”

“At first, she flatly refused to go. I…”

“What did he find?”

Jorisse stood up, and seemed on the point of groveling at her feet to beg her forgiveness.

“Nothing.”

“You mean she's not pregnant?”

“She never has been.”

Jorisse, scarcely able to believe his ears, didn't know which way to turn. He made a sudden move as if to spring at Maigret, whom he seemed to regard as the cruelest man on earth.

Maigret, after shutting the door, indicated a chair to the young woman.

“Have you anything to say?”

“I did believe…”

“No.”

“What do you know about it? You're not a woman.”

Then, turning to the young man:

“I swear to you, Albert, that I truly believed I was going to have a child.”

Maigret, unmoved, but not wishing to be unfair, said:

“For how long?”

“For several days.”

“And then?”

“When I discovered it was a false alarm, I didn't want him to be disappointed.”

“Disappointed?”

Maigret exchanged glances with Lucas. The two of them went out together into the adjoining office. They shut the door, leaving the young lovers to themselves.

“As soon as I spoke of taking her to a doctor, I could see that there was something amiss. She protested violently. It wasn't until I threatened to arrest her and Albert…”

Maigret was not listening. Lucas was not telling him anything he didn't already know. Torrence was back at his desk.

“Did you do as I asked?”

“They're still working on the list. It's going to be a long one. For the last two years or more, Chief Superintendent Antoine and his squad have been plugging away at it. Apparently…”

Maigret went over to the communicating door, and put his ear to it.

“What are they up to?” asked Lucas.

“Nothing.”

“Are they talking?”

“They're not saying a word.”

He decided to look in on the chief commissioner, and put him in the picture. They talked for a while about this and that. Maigret spent the next hour or so dropping in on various colleagues for a chat.

When he returned to his office, Albert and Monique looked as if they had not stirred during his absence. They were still sitting upright on their chairs, ten feet or so apart. The girl's face was unrevealing, her jaw, so like her mother's and aunts', resolutely set.

Whenever her eyes chanced to meet the young man's, it was hard to tell whether there was more of contempt or loathing in her glance.

As for Jorisse, he was utterly crushed. His eyes were red, either with exhaustion or with weeping.

“You are both free to go,” Maigret said, without preamble, as he went towards his chair.

It was Monique who asked:

“Will there be anything in the papers?”

“There's no reason why there should be.”

“Will my mother have to be told?”

“I don't think that will be necessary.”

“And my employers?”

He shook his head, and she got swiftly to her feet and made for the door, without so much as sparing a glance for Jorisse. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned to the chief superintendent, and said:

“You knew all along, didn't you?”

“Yes,” he replied. Then, with a sigh, he said to Albert:

“You're free to go as well.”

And seeing that the youngster did not stir:

“You'd better hurry, if you want to catch up with her…”

She was already on the stairs.

“Should I, do you think?”

“What did she say to you?”

“She called me an idiot.”

“Is that all?”

“She added that on no account would she ever permit me to speak to her again.”

“And then?”

“Nothing. I don't know.”

“As I've already said, you're free to go.”

“What am I to say to my parents?”

“Whatever you like. They'll be only too delighted to have you back.”

“Do you really think so?”

In the end, he almost had to push him out. He still seemed to have something on his mind.

“Off you go, you young idiot!”

“I'm not a ruffian then?”

“No, only an idiot! She was quite right.”

He turned his head away, sniffed and murmured:

“Thanks.”

Presently, alone in his office at last, Maigret was able to pour himself another drop of liqueur brandy.

“Is that you, Maigret?”

“Yes, judge.”

He telephoned every day, and if one of Maigret's colleagues happened to be in the room at the time, Maigret would give him a wink. His voice sounded unusually bland when he was talking to the examining magistrate.

“How are things on the Thouret front?”

“Progressing! Progressing!”

“Don't you think it's been dragging on a bit too long?”

“You know how it is with a crime of this sort, it takes time to clear things up.”

“Are you sure it's a case of thieves falling out?”

“You've said so yourself, right from the start. Your words were:

“‘It's as plain as a pikestaff.'”

“Do you believe this Schrameck fellow's story?”

“I'm convinced he was telling the truth.”

“In that case, who did kill Louis Thouret?”

“Someone who wanted his money.”

“At any rate, do the best you can to speed things up.”

“You have my word on that, judge.”

He did nothing about it, however, but instead turned his attention to two other cases, which kept him busy for most of the day. Three men, Janvier and young Lapointe among them, were taking it in turn to keep an eye on the house in the Rue d'Angoulême, twenty-four hours a day. The telephone was still being tapped.

He was no longer interested either in Madame Thouret or in her daughter. Jorisse, too, who was now once more working full time at the bookshop in the Boulevard Saint-Michel, had been eliminated from the case. It was as if he had never known them.

As to the theft, he had turned the file over to his colleague, Antoine, who was having Jef Schrameck, Fred the Clown, alias the Acrobat, brought up for questioning nearly every day. Maigret occasionally ran into Jef in the corridor.

“Everything OK?”

“Everything's fine, chief superintendent.”

The weather was cold, but dry. The proprietress of the house in the Rue d'Angoulême had not succeeded in finding other tenants, so that two of her rooms were still vacant. As for the three girls who were still living there, knowing that the house was being watched, they no longer dared ply their usual trade. They scarcely ever went out, except to have a meal in a nearby restaurant, or to buy something from the delicatessen, or when one of them went to a cinema.

“What do they do with themselves all day?” Maigret asked Janvier, when things had been going on in this way for some days.

“They sleep, or play cards or patience. One of them, the one they call Arlette, puts her tongue out at me every time she sees me from the window. Yesterday, she tried something different. She hitched up her dressing-gown and showed me her behind.”

The Mobile Squad in Marseilles had taken over the inquiries concerning the knife. They were searching not only in the town itself, but in the surrounding villages as well. They were also taking an interest in any shady local characters who had recently moved to Paris.

All these routine inquiries were being conducted unhurriedly and without fuss. And yet Maigret had not forgotten Monsieur Louis. Once, when he had to go to the Rue de Clignancourt on some other business, he had even gone so far as to look in on Mademoiselle Léone, not forgetting to buy a cream cake for the old lady on his way.

“Have you still not solved the mystery?”

“Sooner or later, the truth will come to light.”

He said nothing to the former shorthand typist of Monsieur Louis's activities.

“Do you know why he was killed?”

“For his money.”

“Surely he can't have had all that much!”

“He had a very large income.”

“Poor man! What a shame to have to die, just when all his troubles were over!”

He did not venture on the long climb up to Monsieur Saimbron's lodgings, but ran across him by chance one day in the flower market. They exchanged greetings.

Then one morning, at long last, he received a telephone call from Marseilles. It lasted a long time. Afterwards, he went up to the Registry, and was there for nearly an hour, looking through hundreds of registration forms. Then he went downstairs to Records, where he spent nearly as long again.

It was round about eleven when he went out into the courtyard, and got into one of the little Headquarters cars.

“The Rue d'Angoulême.”

It was young Lapointe who was on guard outside the house.

“Everybody at home?”

“Only one of them is out. She's doing her shopping locally.”

“Which one?”

“Olga. She's the dark one.”

He rang the bell. The curtains twitched. Mariette Gibon, the landlady, flip-flopped to the door in her bedroom slippers.

“Well, well! If it isn't the Big White Chief himself! Your men must be getting fed up with wearing down the paving stones outside my door.”

“Is Arlette at home?”

“Shall I call her down?”

“No, thanks. I'd rather go up to her room.”

She stayed out in the entrance lobby, looking very uneasy, and he went upstairs and knocked at the door on the first floor.

“Come in!”

As usual, she was in her dressing gown, lying on the unmade bed, reading a romantic novel.

“Oh! So it's you.”

“In person,” he said, putting his hat on the chest of drawers, and sitting down on a chair by the bed.

She seemed both surprised and amused.

“Don't tell me you're still on about that same old business?”

“The case will not be closed until the murderer is found.”

“You don't mean you still haven't found him? I thought you were such a cunning old fox. I hope it doesn't embarrass you, me being in my dressing gown like this?”

“Not in the least.”

“I daresay you must be used to it by now.”

Without stirring from the bed, she moved so that her dressing gown flew open. As Maigret did not seem to have noticed, she said provocatively:

“What do you say to this?”

“What?”

“Seeing all this.”

As he still remained impassive, she made a vulgar gesture, and said impatiently:

“How about it?”

“Thanks.”

“Yes, thanks, do you mean?”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, really, old man…You are the…”

“Do you get a kick out of being coarse?”

“You're surely not going to lecture me, on top of everything else?”

All the same, she gathered together the folds of her dressing gown, and sat up on the edge of the bed.

“What exactly is it you want of me?”

“Do your parents know that you are no longer working in the Avenue Matignon?”

“What are you on about now?”

“You worked for a year at Chez Hélène et Hélène in the Avenue Matignon.”

“What of it?”

“I was just wondering if your father knew you'd changed your occupation.”

“What business is it of yours?”

“Your father is a good man.”

“He's an old fool, and that's a fact.”

“If he should ever find out what you've been up to…”

“Are you thinking of telling him?”

“I might.”

This time, she was unable to conceal her agitation.

“You haven't been to Clermont-Ferrand to see my parents?”

“Not yet…”

She got up, made a dash for the door, and flung it open to reveal Mariette Gibon, who had no doubt been standing there for some time, with her ear glued to the door panel.

“My God! You've got a nerve!”

“May I come in?”

“No. Shove off. And if I ever catch you spying again…”

Maigret had not moved from his chair.

“Well?” he said.

“Well, what? I can't think what you want from me.”

“You know perfectly well.”

“No. I don't. You'll need to spell it out.”

“You've been living in this house for the past six months.”

“So what?”

“You hardly ever go out in the daytime, so you must be aware of most of what goes on.”

“Well?”

“There's one person who used to be a regular visitor, but who hasn't set foot in the house since Monsieur Louis's death.”

Her pupils seemed to contract.

Once again she went to the door, but there was no one behind it.

“Well, anyway, he didn't come here to see me.”

“Who then?”

“You must know the answer to that. I think I'd better get dressed.”

“Why?”

“Because, after this little talk of ours, I'd be safer out of this house.”

She let her dressing gown slip to the floor, but this time with no thought of being provocative. Then she snatched up a bra and a pair of briefs, and opened the wardrobe.

“I might have known that this was how it would end.”

She was talking to herself.

“You're a clever bastard, I'll say that for you.”

“Arresting criminals is my job.”

“Have you arrested him?”

She had taken a black dress from the wardrobe, and was now wearing it. She proceeded to daub her mouth with lipstick.

“Not yet.”

“But you do know who he is?”

“You are going to tell me.”

“You seem very sure of yourself.”

He took his wallet from his pocket, and extracted a photograph of a man. He was about thirty, and there was a scar on his left temple. She glanced at the photograph, but said nothing.

“Is that him?”

“You seem to think so.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Where can I go to be safe while he's still at large?”

“I'll arrange for one of my inspectors to look after you.”

“Which one?”

“Which one would you prefer?”

“The dark one with lots of hair.”

“That's Inspector Lapointe.”

Returning to the subject of the photograph, Maigret asked:

“What do you know about Marco?”

“That he was the landlady's lover. Must we talk here?”

“Where is he now?”

Without replying, she began bundling all her clothes and personal possessions into a large suitcase. She couldn't wait to be out of the house, it seemed.

“We can finish this conversation somewhere else.”

And, as he bent down to pick up her suitcase, she added:

“Well, well! So you can be chivalrous, when you want to!”

The door of the downstairs sitting room was open. Mariette Gibon was standing in the doorway, looking drawn and anxious.

“Where are you going?”

“Wherever the chief superintendent is taking me.”

“Is she under arrest?”

She dared not question them further. She watched them go out, then she went to the window and raised the curtain a little. Maigret pushed the suitcase into the back of the car, and said to Lapointe:

“I'll send someone along here to relieve you. As soon as he arrives, come and join us at the Brasserie de la République.”

“Right you are, chief.”

He gave instructions to the driver, but did not get into the car.

“Let's go.”

“To the Brasserie de la République?”

“For the time being, yes.”

It was only a few hundred yards away. They sat down at a table at the back of the room.

“I have to make a phone call. Take my word for it, it will be better for you if you don't try and give me the slip.”

“I understand.”

He telephoned the Quai, to give instructions to Torrence. When he got back to the table, he ordered two aperitifs.

“Where is Marco?”

“I don't know. After you came to the house that first time, the landlady told me to telephone him and tell him not to attempt to get in touch with her until he heard from her again.”

“When did you give him the message?”

“Half an hour after you left. I rang from a restaurant in the Boulevard Voltaire.”

“Did you actually speak to him?”

“No. I left a message with one of the waiters in a bar in the Rue de Douai.”