Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard (2 page)

At this, she slid back the chain and unbolted the door. Then, opening it a crack through which only a narrow segment of her face could be seen, she looked searchingly at the two men waiting on the threshold.

“What is it you want?”

“I have something to tell you.”

“How do I know you're really from the police?”

By the merest chance, Maigret happened to have his badge in his pocket. As a rule, he left it at home. He held it out to her so that it was illuminated by the beam of light from inside the house.

“Very well! It
is
genuine, I suppose?”

She let them in. The entrance lobby was poky, the walls were white, and the doors and door frames were of varnished wood. The kitchen door had been left open, but she led them past it into the adjoining room. Having switched on the light, she ushered them in.

She was about the same age as her husband, but a good deal more heavily built, although she couldn't be called fat. It was her frame that was large, and covered in firm flesh. The gray dress she was wearing, covered with an apron which she now mechanically took off, did nothing to soften her appearance.

The room to which she had taken them was a dining room furnished in rustic style. Presumably, it was also used as a sitting room. There was an impersonal tidiness about everything which was reminiscent of a window display, or the interior of a furniture shop. Nothing had been left lying about, not even a pipe or a packet of cigarettes. There was not even a newspaper or a piece of needlework to be seen, nothing to suggest that people actually lived here. She did not ask them to sit down, but kept a wary eye on their feet, fearful lest they might dirty the linoleum.

“I'm listening.”

“Your husband's name is Louis Thouret, is it not?”

She nodded, frowning as she tried to guess the purpose of their visit.

“Is his place of work in Paris?”

“He's assistant manager with the firm of Kaplan et Zanin, in the Rue de Bondy.”

“Has he ever worked as a storekeeper?”

“That used to be his job.”

“How long ago?”

“Some years. Even then, he was the one who really kept the business going.”

“Have you, by any chance, a photograph of him?”

“What do you want it for?”

“I want to be sure…”

“Sure of what?”

She was becoming more and more suspicious.

“Has Louis met with an accident?”

Mechanically, she glanced at the kitchen clock, then frowned, as if trying to recall where her husband should be at this time of the day.

“I'd like to satisfy myself that he is the man in question.”

“On the sideboard,” she said.

There were five or six photographs in metal frames on the sideboard, one of a young girl standing beside the man who had been found stabbed in the cul-de-sac. He looked a good deal younger, and was dressed in black.

“Do you know if your husband had any enemies?”

“Why on earth should he have enemies?”

She went out for a moment, to turn down the gas under a saucepan that was bubbling on the stove.

“What time does he usually get back from work?”

“He always catches the same train, the 6:22 from the Gare de Lyon. Our daughter comes on the train after that, as she finishes work a little later than he does. She has a very responsible job…”

“I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to return with me to Paris.”

“Is Louis dead?”

She looked him up and down, defying him to lie to her.

“I want the truth.”

“He was murdered this afternoon.”

“Where did it happen?”

“In a little passage off the Boulevard Saint-Martin.”

“What was he doing there?”

“I've no idea.”

“What time was it?”

“As far as one can tell, round about half-past four.”

“At half-past four, he's still at work. Have you made inquiries at Kaplan's?”

“There hasn't been time. And, besides, we didn't know where he worked.”

“Who killed him?”

“That's what we are trying to find out.”

“Was he alone?”

Maigret was beginning to lose patience.

“Don't you think you'd better get ready? The sooner we leave, the better.”

“What have you done with him?”

“By this time, he will have been taken to the Forensic Laboratory.”

“The morgue, you mean?”

What could he say to that?

“My daughter will have to be told.”

“You could leave her a note.”

She considered this.

“No. We'd better call in at my sister's. I'll leave the key with her. She can come over and wait for Monique here. Will you be wanting to talk to her as well?”

“I would like to, yes.”

“Where should she meet us?”

“In my office in the Quai des Orfèvres. It would save a lot of time. How old is she?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Couldn't you give her a call, and break the news to her yourself?”

“Well, for one thing, we're not on the phone, and for another, she'll have left her office and will be on her way to the station by now. I won't keep you long.”

She went up the stairs, which creaked at every step, not because they were old but because they had been constructed of flimsy planks of wood. It was obvious that the house and everything in it was built on the cheap. Doubtless, it would not survive to be old.

The two men exchanged glances as they listened to the comings and goings overhead. She was changing into a black dress, they were sure, and probably brushing her hair. When she came downstairs, they once more exchanged glances. They had been right. She was already wearing mourning, and smelled of eau de cologne.

“Would you wait for me outside while I switch off the lights and the gas?”

She looked doubtfully at the little car, as if afraid that there wouldn't be room for her. Someone was watching them from the house next door.

“My sister lives just two streets away. Go right at the next turning, driver, and then it's the second on the left.”

The two little houses were identical, except that the panels of glass in the door were a different color here, apricot instead of blue.

“I won't keep you a moment.”

But she was gone about a quarter of an hour. When she returned to the car, she had another woman with her, who was also dressed in black, and was so like her in every way that they might have been twins.

“My sister is coming with us. I daresay we'll manage to squeeze in somehow. My brother-in-law will go to my house and wait for my daughter. It's his day off. He's an inspector on the railways.”

Maigret sat next to the driver. Santoni and the two women squeezed uncomfortably into the back. The sisters could be heard whispering to one another from time to time, as if in the confessional.

When they got to the Forensic Laboratory, near the Pont d'Austerlitz, they found the body of Louis Thouret still fully clothed, in accordance with Maigret's instructions. He was laid out temporarily on the marble slab. It was Maigret, his eyes on the two women, who uncovered the face. It was the first time he had seen them together in a good light. Just now, in the darkened street, he had mistaken them for twins. Now he could see that the sister was three or four years younger, her figure having retained a measure of suppleness, though probably not for much longer.

“Do you recognize him?”

Madame Thouret, with a handkerchief crumpled in her hand, did not weep. Her sister took her by the arm, desirous of offering comfort and support.

“Yes, that's Louis. That's my poor Louis. I'm sure he never dreamed, when he left the house this morning…”

She broke off abruptly to say:

“Why are his eyes still open?”

“You may close them now, if you wish.”

She and her sister exchanged glances, as though uncertain which of them should undertake the task. In the end, it was the widow who did it, with ritual solemnity, murmuring:

“Poor Louis.”

Then, all of a sudden, she caught sight of the shoes projecting beyond the sheet covering the body. She frowned.

“What's this?”

Maigret couldn't imagine what she was talking about.

“Who put those shoes on him?”

“He was wearing them when we found him.”

“It's not possible. Louis never wore brown shoes. At any rate, never during the twenty-six years that we were married. As he very well knew, I wouldn't have permitted it. Do you see, Jeanne?”

Jeanne nodded.

“I think, perhaps, you'd better make sure the clothes he is wearing are his own. I take it you are in no doubt as to his identity?”

“None whatever. But those are not his shoes. I should know, I polish them every day. When he left this morning, he was wearing black shoes, the pair with the reinforced soles that he always wore to work.”

Maigret removed the sheet.

“Is this his overcoat?”

“Yes.”

“And his suit?”

“Yes, that's his. But that isn't his tie. He would never have worn anything so garish. Why, you could almost call it red!”

“Was your husband a man of regular habits?”

“He certainly was. Ask my sister. Every morning he caught the bus at the corner, which got him to Juvisy station in time to catch the 8:17 train. He always traveled with our neighbor Monsieur Beaudoin, who works in the Inland Revenue. From the Gare de Lyon, they went on to Saint-Martin by Métro.”

The employee of the Forensic Laboratory made a sign to Maigret. Realizing what was required of him, he led the two women towards a table on which the contents of the dead man's pockets had been laid out.

“I take it you recognize these things?”

There was a silver watch and chain, a plain handkerchief without initials, an open packet of Gauloise cigarettes, a lighter, a key, and, lying beside the man's wallet, a couple of bluish ticket stubs.

The first things that caught her eye were the ticket stubs:

“Those are cinema tickets,” she said.

Maigret examined them, and said:

“A newsreel cinema in the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. The figures are a bit rubbed but, as far as I can see, they were issued today.”

“That's not possible. Did you hear that, Jeanne?”

“It does seem odd,” said her sister, without emotion.

“Would you please take a look at the contents of the wallet.”

She did so, and frowned.

“Louis didn't have as much money as this on him when he left this morning.”

“Are you sure?”

“I always see to it myself that he has money in his wallet. At most he had a thousand-franc note, and two or three hundred-franc notes.”

“Couldn't he, perhaps, have collected his pay?”

“He didn't get paid till the end of the month.”

“How much did he usually have left at the end of the day?”

“All of it, less the price of his Métro ticket and his cigarettes. He had a season ticket for the train.”

She seemed about to put the wallet in her bag, but thought better of it.

“I daresay you'll want to keep this for a while?”

“For the time being, yes.”

“What puzzles me is why they should have changed his shoes and tie. And what he was doing away from the shop at the time it happened.”

Maigret, not wishing to harass her, asked no further questions, but merely handed her the necessary forms to sign.

“Are you going straight home?”

“When can we have the body?”

“In a day or two, I should think.”

“Will there have to be a post mortem?”

“That's up to the magistrate. He may not think it necessary.”

She glanced at her watch.

“There's a train in twenty minutes,” she said to her sister.

And to Maigret:

“Would you mind taking us to the station?”

“Don't you want to wait for Monique?”

“She can make her own way.”

The Gare de Lyon was a good deal out of their way. They watched the two almost identical figures going up the stone steps.

Gruffly, Santoni said: “She's as hard as nails! The poor fellow can't have had much of a life.”