Maigret's Dead Man (20 page)

‘My wife says she'd rather shut up
shop straight away,' said Chevrier.

‘Close up then.'

After that there were streets, a meter which
showed an astronomical figure, Madame Maigret, who seemed to him a trifle less sweet-tempered
after that brief time spent with Nine and, as he snuggled down between the sheets, put her foot
firmly down:

‘This time, I'm taking the phone off
the hook and I'm not opening the door to anyone.'

He heard the beginning of the sentence but never
found out how it ended.

The room was divided in two by a black railing. In
the section reserved for the public, there was only one bench, also painted black, against the
whitewashed wall plastered with official notices. On the other side were desks, inkstands and
pigeonholes bulging with fat black files, so that everything was black and white. Standing on a
metal base was a cast-iron stove of the kind now only found in provincial railway stations, with
a flue that rose up to the ceiling and then formed an elbow to cross the entire room before
disappearing into the wall.

A chubby-faced officer called Lecœur had
unbuttoned his uniform and was trying to sleep.

The hands on the black-rimmed clock showed one
twenty-five. Every now and then, the single gas lamp would sputter. Every now and then too, the
stove, for no apparent reason, would begin to hum.

Outside, the quiet of the night was disturbed
occasionally by the sound of firecrackers at growing intervals, the singing of a drunkard or a
cab clattering down the sloping street.

Sitting at the desk on the left, the secretary of
the Saint-Georges district police station, his lips moving silently like a schoolboy, was poring
over a newly published little manual:
Guide to Official Reports (Verbal Descriptions) for
the Use of Police Officers and Inspectors.

On the flyleaf, handwritten in capital letters in
purple ink was the name: J. Maigret.

Three times already that night the young police
secretary had got up to go over and poke the stove, and for the rest of his life he would feel
nostalgic for that particular stove. It was identical, or almost, to the one he would find one
day at Quai des Orfèvres and later on, when central heating was installed at the
headquarters of the Police Judiciaire, Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, head of the Crime
Squad, would manage to keep that stove in his office.

This was 15 April 1913. In those days, the Police
Judiciaire was still called the Sûreté. That morning, a foreign head of state had
arrived at Longchamp station amid great pomp, and the President had been there to welcome him.
The official carriages, flanked by the Republican Guard in full dress uniform, had marched down
Avenue du Bois and along the Champs-Élysées lined with flags and people.

There had been a gala performance at the
Opéra, fireworks and parades, and only now was the noise of the boisterous crowds beginning
to die down.

The police were overwhelmed. Despite all the
precautions taken, the preventive arrests, the deals made with certain reputedly dangerous
individuals, there had been fears of an anarchist bomb up until the last minute.

Maigret and Lecœur were alone, at one thirty
in the morning, at the Saint-Georges district police station in the quiet Rue
La-Rochefoucauld.

They both looked up on hearing hurried footsteps
outside. The door opened. A breathless young man stood glancing about him, dazzled by the gas
light.

‘The chief inspector?' he panted.

‘I'm his secretary,' said
Maigret without getting up.

He didn't yet know that this was the start
of his first case.

The man was fair-haired and slight, with blue
eyes and a pink complexion. He wore a beige coat over his black suit and was holding a bowler
hat, while his other hand kept gingerly touching his swollen nose.

‘Were you attacked by some
ruffian?'

‘No. I was trying to go to the assistance
of a woman who was shouting for help.'

‘In the street?'

‘No, in a big house in Rue Chaptal. I think
you'd better come right away. They threw me out.'

‘Who?'

‘A sort of butler or concierge.'

‘Don't you think you'd better
begin at the beginning? What were you doing in Rue Chaptal?'

‘I was on my way home from work. My name is
Justin Minard. I am second flautist at the Concerts Lamoureux, but at night I play at the
Brasserie Clichy, Boulevard de Clichy. I live in Rue d'Enghien, just opposite the Petit
Parisien. As usual, I walked down Rue Ballu, then Rue Chaptal.'

Ever the conscientious secretary, Maigret took
notes.

‘About halfway down the street, which is
nearly always empty, I noticed a parked motor-car, a De Dion-Bouton, with its engine running. At
the wheel there was a man wearing a grey goatskin jacket, his face almost entirely hidden behind
enormous goggles. As I drew level with him, a second-floor window opened.'

‘Did you take note of the house
number?'

‘17A. It's a private mansion with a
carriage entrance. There were no lights in any other windows. Only the second from the left, the
one that opened. I looked up and saw the shape of a woman trying to lean out, and she shouted:
“Help!”'

‘What did you do?'

‘Wait. Someone in the room must have
dragged her away from the window. At the same time, a shot rang out. I turned round to look at
the car I'd just passed, and it sped off.'

‘Are you certain it wasn't the sound
of the engine backfiring that you heard?'

‘Absolutely positive. I went up to the door
and rang the bell.'

‘Were you alone?'

‘Yes.'

‘Armed?'

‘No.'

‘What did you intend to do?'

‘Well …'

The flautist was so thrown by the question that
he was stumped for a reply. Had it not been for his blond moustache and a few wisps on his chin,
he would have looked barely more than sixteen.

‘Didn't the neighbours hear
anything?'

‘Apparently not.'

‘Did they open up the door to
you?'

‘Not right away. I rang at least three
times. Then I started kicking the door. Eventually I heard footsteps, then a chain being removed
and a bolt pulled back. There was no light in the porch, but there's a gas lamp just
outside the house.'

One forty-seven. From time to time the flautist
glanced anxiously at the clock.

‘A tall fellow in a butler's black
suit asked what I wanted.'

‘Was he fully dressed?'

‘Of course.'

‘With his trousers and tie?'

‘Yes.'

‘And yet there were no lights on in the
house?'

‘Except in the second-floor
bedroom.'

‘What did you say?'

‘I don't know. I tried to get
inside.'

‘Why?'

‘To go and see for myself. He barred my
path. I told him about the woman who'd shouted from the window.'

‘Did he seem flustered?'

‘He glared at me and pushed me away with
all his weight.'

‘Then what?'

‘He muttered that I'd been imagining
things, that I was drunk and things like that. Then there was a voice in the darkness. It
sounded as if it was coming from the first-floor landing.'

‘What did the voice say?'

‘“Hurry up, Louis!”'

‘Then what?'

‘He gave me a violent shove and when I
resisted, he punched me in the face. I ended up sprawled on the ground in front of the closed
door.'

‘Was the second-floor light still
on?'

‘No.'

‘Did the car come back?'

‘No. Hadn't we better go there right
away?'

‘We? Are you planning to come with
me?'

It was both comic and touching, the contrast
between the flautist's almost feminine delicateness and his determined air.

‘I'm the one who was punched in the
face, aren't I? At any rate, I'm going to make a complaint.'

‘As you have every right to do.'

‘But it would be better if we left that
till later, don't you think?'

‘Did you tell me the number of the
house?'

‘17A.'

Maigret frowned, as that address vaguely rang a
bell. He pulled one of the files from its pigeonhole, leafed through it and read a name that
made him frown even harder.

He was wearing a tailcoat that night, his first
ever tailcoat. A memo had been sent round a few days earlier instructing all police auxiliaries
to wear ceremonial dress for the duration of the royal visit, since any one of them could be
summoned to join the dignitaries at any moment.

His beige overcoat, bought off the peg, was
identical to Justin Minard's.

‘Come on! Lecœur, if anyone asks for
me, tell them I'll be back soon.'

He was slightly intimidated. The name he had just
read in the register did not exactly put him at ease.

He was twenty-six and had been married just five
months. Since he had joined the police, four years earlier, he had worked in the lowliest
departments – street duty, railway stations, department stores – and he had been
secretary at the Saint-Georges district police station for less than a year.

Now the most distinguished name in the entire
neighbourhood was that of the inhabitants of 17A Rue Chaptal.

Gendreau-Balthazar. Balthazar Coffee. That name
ran in big brown letters along the corridors of the Métro, while in the streets the
Balthazar vans, drawn by four magnificent horses, were part of the Paris landscape.

Maigret drank Balthazar coffee. And whenever he
walked along Avenue de l'Opéra, on reaching a certain point next to a
gunsmith's, he never failed to stop to inhale the delicious smell of coffee being roasted
in the window of the Balthazar shop.

The night was cold and clear. There wasn't
a soul in the steep street, not a cab in the vicinity. In those days, Maigret was almost as thin
as the flautist, so skinny that as they walked up the road they looked like two raw-boned
adolescents.

‘I presume you haven't been
drinking?'

‘I never drink. Doctor's
orders.'

‘Are you certain you saw a window
opening?'

‘I'm absolutely positive.'

This was the first time that Maigret was standing
on his own two feet. Until now he had merely accompanied his boss, Monsieur Le Bret, the most
urbane detective chief inspector in Paris, on various raids, four of them to establish proof of
adultery.

Rue Chaptal was as deserted as Rue
La-Rochefoucauld. There were no lights on in the Gendreau-Balthazar residence, one of the finest
mansions in the neighbourhood.

‘You said that there was a parked
motor-car?'

‘Yes, right here.'

Not quite outside the door. A little higher up
the street. Maigret, whose head was buzzing with fresh theories about Minard's testimony,
lit a candle-match and bent over to examine the wood-block paving.

‘You see!' exclaimed the musician,
triumphantly pointing to a large puddle of blackish oil.

‘Come on. I think it's highly
irregular for you to be with me.'

‘But I'm the one who got punched in
the face!'

The situation was actually rather alarming. As he
raised his hand to ring the bell, Maigret felt his chest tighten, and he wondered which
regulation he could invoke. He had no warrant. Besides, it was the middle of the night. Could he
really claim a crime had been committed when his only evidence was the flautist's swollen
nose?

Like the musician, he had to ring three times,
but he did not have to kick the door. At length a voice called out:

‘What is it?'

‘Police!' he said in a slightly
tremulous voice.

‘One moment, please. I'll get the
key.'

There was a click inside the porch. The house
already had electricity. Then they had to wait for ages.

‘It's him,' said the musician,
who had recognized the voice.

At last, the chain was removed and the bolt drawn
back to reveal a sleepy face with eyes that slid over Maigret and stared at Justin Minard.

‘Ah! You've caught him!' said
the man. ‘I suppose he tried his little prank on you?'

‘May we come in?'

‘If you must. Please keep quiet so as not
to wake the entire household. Come this way.'

To the left, up three marble steps, was a glazed
double door that led to a colonnaded hall. It was the first time that Maigret had ever been
inside such an opulent residence, whose proportions reminded him of the splendour of a
ministerial building.

‘Is your name Louis?'

‘How do you know?'

All the same, Louis opened a door that led not
into the drawing room, but into a sort of butler's pantry. He looked as if he had just got
out of bed as he wasn't wearing his livery but a white nightshirt with a red-embroidered
collar and a hastily pulled-on pair of trousers.

‘Is Monsieur Gendreau-Balthazar at
home?'

‘Which one, the father or the
son?'

‘The father.'

‘Monsieur Félicien has not come home
yet, and Monsieur Richard, the son, probably retired hours ago. Now, about half an hour ago,
this drunkard …'

Louis was tall and burly. He must have been
around forty-five, his shaved chin had a five o'clock shadow, his eyes were very dark, his
eyebrows black and unusually bushy.

With the feeling that he was jumping in at the
deep end, Maigret took a big breath and said:

‘I should like to speak to Monsieur
Richard.'

‘Do you want me to wake him up?'

‘Yes please.'

‘Would you show me your police
ID?'

Maigret held out his Préfecture card.

‘Have you been in this neighbourhood
long?'

‘Ten months.'

‘And you are based at
Saint-Georges?'

‘That's right.'

‘Then you must know Monsieur Le
Bret?'

‘He's my boss.'

Then Louis said, with a casual air that barely
concealed a threat:

‘I know him too. I have the honour of
waiting on him each time he comes here to lunch or dinner.'

He let a few seconds tick by, his gaze
elsewhere.