Maigret in New York (14 page)

‘Mrs MacGill died. Or else Jos ran away. I don't
know. Perhaps you do, but you didn't tell me. Only, last night, I pretended you were sure of
it.

‘They kept pouring me big glasses of whisky.

‘I was so ashamed of myself – you can believe me
if you like – that I preferred to go right to the bitter end.

‘At 169th Street there was an Italian tailor who
knew all about it, who'd maybe witnessed the crime.

‘And Jos MacGill wound up meeting him, I don't
know how, probably by accident. And that's when he learned the truth about Little John.'

Maigret had now reached the point of blissfully
smoking his pipe, like a man listening to a child tell some delightful story.

‘Continue.'

‘MacGill had fallen in with some unsavoury
characters, like the guys from last night. And together they decided to blackmail Little
John.

‘And Little John became frightened.

‘When they discovered that his son was coming
over from Europe, they wanted to put still more pressure on the father and they kidnapped Jean
Maura when the ship docked.

‘I wasn't able to tell them how Jean Maura ended
up back at the St Regis. Maybe Little John coughed up lots of money? Maybe, since he's pretty
sharp, he learned where they were hiding his son?

‘I assured them that you knew everything.'

‘And that they were going to be arrested?' asked Maigret, standing up.

‘I don't remember any more. I think so. And that
you also knew that it was them.'

‘Who, “them”?'

‘The ones who gave me the five hundred
dollars.'

‘And that they had done what?'

‘Killed old Angelino with the car. Because
MacGill had learned that you were going to find out everything. There. You can arrest me.'

Maigret had to turn away to hide his smile, while
the lieutenant still looked as solemn as a judge.

‘What did they say to that?'

‘They had me get in a car. I thought it was to go
and murder me somewhere in a deserted neighbourhood. That way they could take back the five
hundred dollars. They just let me out in front of City Hall and said …'

‘Said what?'

‘“Go get some sleep, idiot!” What are you going
to do?'

‘Tell you the same thing.'

‘What?'

‘I said to go get some sleep. That's all
…'

‘I assume I should never come back?'

‘On the contrary.'

‘You still need me?'

‘I might.'

‘Because, in that case …'

And with a longing glance at the five hundred
dollars, he sighed.

‘I didn't keep one cent. I won't even be able to
take the
subway home. Today I'm not asking for
five dollars like the other days, just one dollar. Now that I'm a lousy bum …'

‘What do you think of all this, lieutenant?'

Instead of laughing heartily, as Maigret felt
like doing, O'Brien's colleague gravely studied his notes.

‘It wasn't MacGill who had Jean Maura kidnapped,'
he replied.

‘I should say not!'

‘You know this?'

‘I'm convinced of it.'

‘Well, we're certain of it.'

And he seemed to be scoring a point with this
distinction between American certainty and a simple French conviction.

‘Young Maura was taken away by someone who gave
him a letter from his father.'

‘I know.'

‘But we – we also know where he took the young
man. To a cottage in Connecticut belonging to Maura, but in which he has not set foot for
several years.'

‘That's highly plausible.'

‘It's certain. We have proof.'

‘And it's his father who had him brought back to
him at the St Regis.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I can guess.'

‘We do not guess. The same person went back two
days later to pick up young Maura.'

‘Which means,' murmured Maigret, puffing on his
pipe,
‘that for two days there were reasons why
this young man should be out of circulation.'

The lieutenant looked at him with comical
astonishment.

‘Coincidentally,' Maigret pointed out, ‘the young
man reappeared only after the death of old Angelino.'

‘From which you deduce?'

‘Nothing. Your colleague O'Brien will tell you
that I never deduce. He will doubtless add with a touch of malice that I never think. And you,
do you think?'

Maigret asked himself if he hadn't gone too far,
but Lewis, after a moment's reflection, replied:

‘Sometimes. When I have sufficient factors in
hand.'

‘By then, there's no longer any point in
thinking.'

‘What is your opinion of the account Ronald
Dexter gave us? The name is Dexter, isn't it?'

‘I have no opinion. I quite enjoyed it.'

‘It is true that the dates coincide.'

‘I am convinced of it. They also coincide with
Maura's departure for Europe.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘That Jos MacGill was born one month before
Little John's return from Bayonne. That on the other hand, he was born eight and a half months
after his departure.'

‘So?'

‘So Jos MacGill could just as well be the son of
either man. We have a choice, as you see. It's very useful.'

It was not Maigret's fault. The scene with the
hung-over clown had put him in a good humour, and the lieutenant's cold-fish attitude was just
the thing to keep him there.

‘I've ordered a search through all the death certificates of that period that might pertain to
Joseph Daumale and Jessie.'

And Maigret, cuttingly: ‘Provided that they're
dead.'

‘Where would they be?'

‘Where are the three hundred or so tenants who
lived at that same time in the building on 169th Street?'

‘If Joseph Daumale were alive …'

‘Well?'

‘He would probably have taken care of his
son.'

‘On condition that it was his son.'

‘We'd have found him somewhere in the wake of
Little John.'

‘Why? Just because two young people starting out
in life performed a duo cabaret act, this means they're tied together for life?'

‘And Jessie?'

‘Mind you, I'm not saying she isn't dead, or that
Daumale isn't, either. But the latter might well have kicked his bucket last year in Paris or
Carpentras, and the former could now be parked in an old ladies' home. This other case is just
as possible.'

‘I suppose, inspector, that you're joking?'

‘Barely.'

‘Follow my reasoning.'

‘Then you have been reasoning?'

‘All night long. We have, to start with, now
twenty-eight years ago exactly, three people.'

‘The three Js.'

‘Pardon?'

‘I said: the three Js. That's what we call them.'

‘Who besides you?'

‘The medium and the retired circus man.'

‘By the way, I'm having them watched, as you
requested. So far, nothing has happened.'

‘Or will happen, probably, now that the clown has
betrayed me, as he puts it. We were up to the three Js: Joachim, Joseph, Jessie. Twenty-eight
years ago, as you say, there were those three, and a fourth who in this life was called Angelino
Giacomi.'

‘Correct.'

He started taking notes again. It was a
mania.

‘And today—'

‘Today,' the American hastily interrupted, ‘we
find ourselves again looking at three individuals.'

‘But they are no longer the same ones. Joachim,
first, who with time has become Little John. MacGill. And another young man, who seems
incontestably to be Maura's son. The fourth individual, Angelino, existed as recently as two
days ago, but, doubtless to simplify the problem, he was eliminated.'

‘To simplify the problem?'

‘Let me rephrase that … Three people
twenty-eight years ago and three people today. In other words, the two gone missing from the
first team have been replaced.'

‘And Maura seems to live in terror of his
so-called secretary, MacGill.'

‘You think so?'

‘O'Brien told me that this was your impression as
well.'

‘I believe I told him that MacGill was extremely self-confident and often spoke for his
employer.'

‘It's the same thing.'

‘Not exactly.'

‘I had thought, coming to see you this morning,
that you would tell me frankly what you made of this business. Agent O'Brien shared with
me—'

‘He spoke again of my impressions?'

‘No, of his own. He told me that he was convinced
you had an idea that might well be the right one. So I was hoping that by comparing your ideas
and mine …'

‘That we would arrive at the solution? Well, you
heard my hired clown.'

‘You agree with everything he said?'

‘Not at all.'

‘You think he's mistaken?'

‘He concocted a pretty story, almost a love
story. Right now Little John, MacGill and perhaps a few others must be over the moon.'

‘I have proof of that.'

‘Can you reveal it?'

‘This morning MacGill reserved a first-class
cabin on the liner sailing at four for France. In the name of Jean Maura.'

‘That's only natural, don't you think? This young
man, in the middle of his university studies, suddenly leaves Paris to hurry to New York, where
his papa feels he has no reason to be. He is therefore sent back where he came from.'

‘That's one point of view.'

‘You see, my dear lieutenant, I understand your disappointment perfectly. You have been told, in
error, that I am an intelligent man who, in the course of his career, has solved a certain
number of criminal problems. My friend O'Brien, who is fond of irony, must have exaggerated a
little. Now, in the first place, I am not intelligent.'

It was funny to see the lieutenant as vexed as if
someone were making fun of him, when Maigret had never been more sincere.

‘In the second place, I try never to form an idea
about a case before it's closed. Are you married?'

‘Of course,' replied Lewis, disconcerted by such
a bizarre question.

‘For years now, no doubt. And I'm sure you're
convinced that your wife does not always understand you.'

‘Sometimes, in fact …'

‘And your wife, for her part, has the same
conviction about you. Yet you live together, you spend evenings together, you sleep in the same
bed, you have children … Two weeks ago, I had never heard of Jean Maura or Little John.
Four days ago, I did not even know that Jos MacGill existed, and it was only yesterday, in the
home of a helpless old gentleman, that a medium spoke to me about a certain Jessie.

‘And you would like me to have a definite idea
about each of them?

‘I'm at sea, lieutenant … We probably both
are. Except that you, you fight the waves, you mean to go in a definite direction, whereas I let
myself drift with the current, clutching here and there on a passing branch.

‘I'm waiting for some cables from France. O'Brien must have mentioned them to you. I also await,
like you, the results of the research your men have undertaken in such records as death
certificates, marriage licences, etc.

‘Meanwhile, I know nothing.

‘By the way, what time was it again that the ship
leaves for France?'

‘You want to sail on it?'

‘Not at all, although that would be the wisest
course. But the weather is lovely. This is my first sunny day in New York. It would be a
pleasant walk to go and see Jean Maura off, and I wouldn't mind shaking hands with the boy, with
whom I had the pleasure of making a most enjoyable crossing.'

He stood up and looked around for his hat and
overcoat, while Lewis, disappointed, closed his notebook with regret and slipped it in his
pocket.

‘Shall we go and have a drink?' the inspector
suggested.

‘No offence, but I never drink spirits.'

A tiny twinkle in Maigret's wide eyes. He almost
remarked, but caught himself in time:
I would have bet on it!

They left the hotel together.

‘Look! My Sicilian is no longer at his post. They
must think, now Dexter has turned informer, that they don't need to keep an eye on my doings any
more.'

‘I have my car, inspector. Shall I drop you
somewhere?'

‘No, thank you.'

He felt like walking. He reached Broadway with no
trouble, then the street where he hoped to find the Donkey
Bar again. After some confusion, he finally recognized the façade
and entered to find the place almost deserted at that hour.

At one end of the bar, however, the journalist
with the yellow teeth with whom MacGill and the boxer-detective had talked that first day was
busy writing an article while nursing a double whisky.

Looking up, he recognized Maigret, made an
unpleasant face but in the end nodded in greeting.

‘A beer!' ordered the inspector, because the air
smelled already of spring, and that made him thirsty.

He savoured it peacefully, like a man who has
before him long hours of strolling around the city.

At Quai des Orfèvres, as recently as a year
earlier, at such moments everyone said, ‘Here we go … The chief is in a trance.'

And cheeky Inspector Torrence, who in fact
worshipped Maigret, used to say bluntly, ‘The chief has jumped in the deep end …'

‘In a trance' or ‘in the deep end' was in any
case a development the chief inspector's men welcomed with relief. They had learned to intuit
its approach through small tell-tale signs and to foresee before Maigret himself when the
critical moment would arrive.

What would someone like Lieutenant Lewis have
thought of his French colleague during the hours that followed? He would never have understood,
that's for sure, and would doubtless have pitied him, in a way. Could Agent O'Brien himself,
with his fine sense of irony behind that stolid façade, have followed the inspector that
far?

The change would come in a rather peculiar
manner, which Maigret had never cared enough to analyse yet had learned to recognize, having
heard his colleagues at the Police Judiciaire discuss it in great detail.

For days, sometimes weeks, he would flounder
along in a case, doing what there was to do, no more, giving orders, gathering information about
this or that person,
apparently with only an
average interest in the investigation and sometimes none at all.

The reason was that throughout this period he was
still seeing the problem only in a theoretical way. Some man was killed in such and such a
circumstance. Whosis and So-and-so are suspects.

Those people, deep down, did not interest him.
Did not interest him yet.

Then suddenly, when least expected, when he
seemed discouraged by the complexity of his task, things would click.

Who was it who claimed that at that moment he
actually became heavier? Wasn't it a former commissioner of the Police Judiciaire who had
watched him work for years? The remark was only a joke, but it was the truth. Maigret, suddenly,
would appear weightier, more compact. He'd have a different way of gripping his pipe between his
teeth, of smoking it in short, widely spaced puffs, of looking around him almost furtively, when
in reality he was completely absorbed in his thinking.

It meant, in short, that the characters in the
drama had just ceased to be things, pawns, puppets and had become human beings.

And Maigret put himself in their place. He
struggled to get inside their skin.

Whatever a fellow human being had thought, lived,
suffered, was he not capable of thinking, reliving, suffering it as well?

An individual, at a certain moment in his life,
in particular circumstances, had reacted … Now the inspector had
essentially to put himself in the other's place and thereby
experience the same reaction.

Only, it was not a conscious effort. Maigret was
not always aware of it. For example, he thought he was still Maigret and thoroughly Maigret
while he ate lunch alone at a counter.

Yet had he looked in the mirror, he would have
noticed some of Little John's expressions. Among others, the one on the former violinist's face
in the St Regis when, having come unseen from the far end of his apartment, from that austere
room he had arranged as a kind of refuge, he had first caught sight of the inspector through
that half-open door.

Was it fear? Or in a way, an acceptance of his
fate?

That same Little John, walking to the window in
difficult moments, drawing aside the curtain with a nervous hand and gazing outside, while
MacGill automatically took charge of the situation …

It was not enough to decide, ‘Little John is this
or that …'

One had to feel it, to become Little John. And
that is why, as he walked through the streets, as he hailed a taxi for the passenger ship
terminal, the outside world did not exist.

There was the Little John of long ago, who had
arrived from France on the
Acquitaine
with his violin under his arm, along with Joseph
the clarinettist.

The Little John who, during his miserable
theatrical tour of the American South, shared his dinner with a thin, sickly girl, this Jessie
nourished on bits of the two men's meals.

Maigret barely noticed the two policemen he recognized on the
boarding dock. He smiled vaguely. Clearly Lieutenant Lewis had sent them just in case; he was
doing his job properly, so he could not be faulted for that.

Only fifteen minutes before departure time, a
long limousine pulled up in front of the customs buildings. MacGill jumped out first, then Jean
Maura, in a light-coloured tweed suit he must have purchased in New York, and lastly Little
John, who appeared to have definitively restricted his clothing to black or navy blue.

Maigret did not hide. The three men had to pass
close to him. Their reactions differed. MacGill, walking ahead with Jean's light travel bag,
frowned and then, perhaps out of bravado, put on a bit of a sneer.

Jean Maura hesitated, looked at his father,
stepped over to the inspector and shook his hand.

‘You're not sailing for France? … Once
again, I apologize … You should have taken the boat with me. It was all nothing, you know
… I behaved like a fool.'

‘It's all right.'

‘Thank you, inspector.'

As for Little John, he kept walking and waited a
little farther on, then nodded slightly, discreetly, to Maigret.

The inspector had seen him only in his apartment.
Outdoors, rather to his surprise, Maigret found him even shorter than he had thought. And older,
more careworn. Was that a recent development? A pall seemed to hang over the man, yet one could
still feel his extraordinary energy.

None of those things mattered. They were not even
thoughts. The last passengers were embarking.
Relatives and friends remained lined up along the pier, looking upwards. A few of them, English,
threw their customary coloured paper streamers up at the rails, where passengers caught and held
the ends with solemn faces.

The inspector spotted Jean Maura on the
first-class gangway. He viewed him from below and for an instant thought he saw, not the son,
but the father; he felt that he was watching not that day's sailing, but the one so long ago,
when Joachim Maura had returned to France, where he would remain for almost ten months.

And Joachim Maura had not travelled first class,
but third. Had he come alone to the ship? Had there not been, for him as well, two people on the
pier?

Maigret looked reflexively around for them,
imagining the clarinettist and Jessie, who must have waited as he did, gazing upwards, to see
the moving wall of the ship pull away from the pier.

Then … Then the both of them left …
Did Joseph take Jessie's arm? Was it Jessie who automatically clung to Joseph's arm? … Was
she crying? Did Joseph tell her, ‘He'll be back soon'?

In any case, there were only the two of them then
in New York, while Joachim, standing on the deck, watched America shrink and finally vanish in
the evening fog.

This time as well two people remained, Little
John and MacGill. They left side by side, walking evenly to their waiting car. MacGill opened
the rear door, then moved aside.

One should not try to go too fast, like
Lieutenant Lewis,
chasing after the truths one is
hunting. It's best to let the pure and simple truth arrive on its own.

And that is why Maigret headed, hands in his
pockets, for an unfamiliar neighbourhood. What did it matter … In his mind, he was
following Jessie and Joseph into the subway. Did the subway exist back then? Probably. They must
have gone straight home to the building on 169th Street. And there, had they separated on the
landing? Hadn't Joseph consoled his companion?

Why did a quite recent memory now occur to the
inspector? At the time, he had not paid attention …

At noon, he had nursed his beer for a long while
at the Donkey Bar. He had ordered another, because it was good. Just as he was leaving, Parson,
the journalist with the rotten teeth, had looked up and exclaimed, ‘Good day to you then,
Monsieur Maigret!'

But he had said it in French, with a strong
accent, and had pronounced his name as ‘Maygrette'. He had an unpleasant voice, too sharp and
shrill, with crude, even nasty inflections.

Definitely a bitter man, a resentful
troublemaker. Maigret had looked at him, a touch surprised. He'd muttered a vague ‘Good day' and
left, thinking no more of it.

He remembered suddenly that the first time he had
gone to the Donkey Bar with MacGill and the gum-chewing detective, his name had not been
mentioned. Nor had Parson said that he knew French.

It probably wasn't important. Maigret left it at
that. Yet this detail filed itself away in the mass of his unconscious preoccupations.

When he found himself at Times Square, he naturally looked up at
the Times Square Building, which dominated the horizon. And he recalled that Little John had his
business offices in this skyscraper.

He went inside. He wasn't looking for anything in
particular. But all he knew about the Little John of the present was his private residence at
the St Regis. Why not take a look at this setting?

He found the Automatic Record Company in the
building directory, and an express elevator whisked him to the forty-third floor.

It was without interest. There was nothing to
see. All those jukeboxes, those dream-boxes found in most bars and restaurants, they led here,
in the end. It was here, in any case, that those hundreds of thousands of nickels disgorged by
the machines were transformed into bank accounts, share certificates, book-keeping entries.

A title on a glass door:

Other glass doors, numbered, bearing the names
of an entire management staff and, finally, a vast room with metal desks and bluish lighting,
where a good hundred men and women were busy working.

When asked what he wanted, he replied calmly,
turning on his heel after knocking his pipe against it, ‘Nothing.'

To take a look, quite simply. Wouldn't Lieutenant
Lewis understand that?

And he walked on down the street, stopped in
front of
a bar, hesitated, shrugged. Why not? It
never hurt him, at such times, and he was not a weeper like Ronald Dexter. All alone at a corner
of the bar, he downed two drinks in quick succession, paid and left as he had arrived.

Joseph and Jessie were on their own from then on,
alone for ten months in the building at 169th Street, across from the tailor's shop.

What possessed him suddenly to say aloud,
startling a passer-by, ‘No …'

He was thinking of old Angelino, of the ignoble
death of old Angelino, and he'd said no because he was sure, without knowing exactly why, that
it had not happened the way Lewis had imagined.

There was something that didn't fit. He watched
again as Little John and MacGill walked to the black limousine awaiting them and he repeated to
himself: ‘No …'

It had to be less complicated. Events can afford
to be complicated or just seem that way. As for people, they are always simpler than one
thinks.

Even a Little John … Even a MacGill
…

Except that, to understand this simplicity
required getting to the bottom of things, not merely skimming the surface.

‘Taxi!'

Forgetting he was in New York, he began speaking
French to the dumbfounded cabbie. Apologizing, he gave him Lucile's address in English.

He needed to ask her a question, only one. Like
Germain, she lived in Greenwich Village, but Maigret had not expected to see such a handsome,
middle-class apartment
house of four storeys,
with a clean, carpeted staircase and sisal mats in front of the doors.

He rang, and the bell sounded muffled on the
other side of the door, the way it does where elderly people live. Then there were quiet
footsteps, a pause and, finally, the very soft sound of a bolt cautiously withdrawn.

The door opened only a sliver; an eye peeked out
at him through the gap.

Unable to keep from smiling, the inspector
announced, ‘It's me!'

‘Oh! I'm so sorry. I hadn't recognized you. As I
had no appointment scheduled, I was wondering who it could be … Come in … Forgive me
for answering the door myself, but the maid is on an errand.'

There was no maid, of course, but it hardly
mattered.

It was almost dark, and no lamp had been lit.
Behind an armchair set before an English parlour stove, the inspector could glimpse the
flickering of a coal fire.

The atmosphere was cosily warm, a touch stale.
Madame Lucile was going from switch to switch, and lamps came on, their shades always of blue or
pink.

‘Sit down … Have you had any news of your
brother?'