The Hotel Majestic (18 page)

“Possibly . . . Yes . . . I think I probably was . . .”

“And your letter stayed on your table, just opposite Ramuel's booth . . . Unlucky Ramuel's booth . . . Ramuel who, all his life long, has committed forgeries without ever winning a fortune . . . Who did you give your letters to to take them to the post?”

“The lift-boy . . . He took them up to the hall, where there was a postbox . . .”

“So Ramuel could easily have intercepted them . . . And Mimi . . . Forgive me, Monsieur Clark . . . She is still Mimi to us . . . After Mrs. Clark, I should say, had received some letters from her ex-lover, in Detroit, in which he wrote mainly about his son, she then received other, more menacing letters, in the same handwriting and still signed Donge . . . But these letters demanded money . . . The new Donge wanted to be paid to keep silent . . .”

“Oh sir! . . .” cried Prosper.

“Be quiet, man! . . . and for the love of God try to understand! . . . Because it's all very complex, I assure you . . . And it's proof yet again that Ramuel never had any luck . . . First he had to write to Mimi that you had changed your address, which was easy, because you hadn't said much in your letters about your new way of life . . . Then he rented the office in the Rue Réaumur in the name of Prosper Donge . . .”

“But . . .”

“There is no need of any proof of identity to rent an office and you are given any mail which arrives addressed to you . . . Unfortunately the cheque Mimi sent was made out to Prosper Donge, and banks do ask for your papers to be in order . . .

“I repeat that Ramuel is an artist in that line . . . But first of all he had to know that you would be having half to three-quarters of an hour off, in the still-room, opposite his glass booth, under his very eyes, so to speak, and that you would spend the break writing your letters . . .

“He suddenly sees you writing a letter to your bank to close your account and asking them to send the balance to Saint-Cloud . . .

“But it wasn't this letter which reached the Crédit Lyonnais. It was another letter, written by Ramuel, still in your handwriting, merely giving a change of address . . . In future, any letters to Donge were to be addressed to 117b Rue Réaumur . . .

“Then the cheque is sent in . . . To be paid into the account . . . As for the eight-hundred-odd francs that you got in Saint-Cloud, it was Ramuel who sent them to you in the bank's name . . .

“A cleverly worked out bit of dirty business, as you can see! . . .

“So clever in fact that Ramuel, distrusting the address in the Rue Réaumur, took the additional precaution of having his post sent to a box number . . .

“Who would be able to get on his tracks now?

“Then suddenly, the unexpected happened . . . Mimi comes to France . . . Mimi is staying at the Majestic . . . Any minute now, Donge, the real Donge, may meet her and tell her that he has never tried to blackmail her, and . . .”

Charlotte couldn't take any more. She was crying, without quite knowing why, as she might have done when reading a sad story or seeing a sentimental film. Gigi whispered in her ear: “Don't! . . . Don't! . . .”

And no doubt Clark was still mumbling to his solicitor: “What's he saying?”

“As for Mrs. Clark's death,” Maigret continued, “it was accidental . . . Ramuel, who had access to the hotel register, knew she was at the Majestic . . . Donge didn't know this . . . He learnt of it by chance on overhearing a conversation in the guests' servants' hall . . .

“He wrote to her . . . He fixed a rendezvous for six in the morning and probably wanted to demand that he should be given his son, beg her on his knees, beseech her . . . I'm sure that if they had met, Mimi would have run rings round him again . . .

“He didn't know that, thinking she was about to meet a blackmailer, she had bought a gun . . .

“Ramuel was worried. He didn't leave the Majestic basement. The little note Donge had sent via a bellboy had escaped his notice . . .

“And there it was! . . . A punctured tyre . . . Donge is a quarter of an hour late . . . Ramuel sees the young woman wandering along the corridor in the basement and guesses what has happened, and is afraid that everything will come out . . .

“He strangles her . . . Pushes her in a locker . . .

“He soon realizes that everything will point to Donge, and that there is nothing, in fact, which could possibly incriminate him . . .

“To make doubly certain of this, he writes an anonymous letter, in Charlotte's handwriting . . . Because there are several notes from Charlotte in the drawer in the still-room . . .

“I repeat, he's a consummate artist! Meticulous! . . . He takes care of every detail! . . . And when he realizes that poor Justin Colleboeuf has seen him . . . When Colleboeuf comes to tell him that he feels duty bound to denounce him to the police, he commits another crime, with no trouble at all, and one which can easily be attributed to Donge . . .

“That is all . . . Torrence! . . . Use a damp towel on that scum—his nose is beginning to bleed again . . . He slipped just now and banged his face on the corner of the table . . .

“Have you anything to say, Ramuel?”

Silence. Only the American was still asking: “What's he saying?”

“As for you, madame . . . What shall I call you? . . . Marie Deligeard? . . . Madame Ramuel? . . .”

“I prefer Marie Deligeard . . .”

“That's what I thought . . . You weren't mistaken in thinking he hoped to leave you soon . . . No doubt he was waiting until there was a nice round sum in the bank . . . Then he could go and look after his liver abroad, alone, a long way from your ranting and raving . . .”

“No!”

“With all due respect, madame! . . . with all due respect! . . .”

And suddenly: “Constables . . . Take the prisoner to the cells . . . I hope that tomorrow examining magistrate Bonneau will be good enough to sign a warrant and that . . .”

Gigi was standing in a corner, perched on her stilt-like legs, and all the emotion had given her such a craving for drugs that she felt dizzy, and her nostrils fluttered like a wounded bird's wings.

“Excuse me, superintendent . . .”

It was the solicitor. Clark stood behind him.

“My client would like there to be a meeting between you, Monsieur Donge and himself, in my office, as soon as possible, to discuss . . . discuss the child who . . .”

“D'you hear that, Prosper?” cried Gigi triumphantly, from her corner.

“Would tomorrow morning suit you? . . . Are you free tomorrow morning, Monsieur Donge? . . .”

But Donge couldn't speak. He had suddenly cracked. He had thrown himself on Charlotte's ample bosom and was crying, crying his heart out, as the saying goes, while, a little embarrassed, she soothed him like a child.

“Pull yourself together, Prosper! . . . We'll bring him up together! . . . We'll teach him French . . . We'll . . .”

Maigret—God knows why—was rummaging through the drawers of his desk. He remembered that he had put some little sachets he had taken during a recent raid in one of them. He took a sachet out, hesitated a moment, and then shrugged.

Then, as Gigi was almost fainting, he brushed past her. His hand touched hers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it's one o'clock . . . If you'll be so good . . .”

“
What's he saying
,” Clark seemed still to be asking, at the end of his first encounter with the French police.

 

 

They learnt the following morning that the cheque for two hundred and eighty thousand francs had been presented at the Société Générale in Brussels, by a man called Jaminet, who was a bookmaker by trade.

Jaminet had received it by airmail from Ramuel, under whose command he had been when he was doing his military service, as a corporal.

Which didn't prevent Ramuel denying everything to the last.

Or from being lucky for the first time in his life, because owing to his poor state of health—he fainted three times during the final hearing—his death sentence was commuted to transportation with hard labour for life.