The Two-Penny Bar (11 page)

‘Are you looking for any item in particular?' the little Jew asked, not sounding terribly convinced that Maigret was a customer.

At the back of the shop there was a glass door leading into a room where a very fat woman was washing the face of a child of about two or three. The washbasin was placed on the kitchen table next to the cups and the butter dish.

‘Police,' said Maigret.

‘I suspected as much.'

‘Do you know that person who's been hanging around in front of your shop all morning?'

‘The tall thin chap with the cough? I've never seen him before. But his presence has been bothering me, and I asked my wife just earlier, but she didn't recognize him either. He's not an Israelite.'

‘And do you recognize this man?'

Maigret held out a photo of Marcel Basso, which the man scrutinized intently.

‘He's not an Israelite either!' he said.

‘And this one?'

This time it was a picture of Feinstein.

‘Yes!'

‘You know him?'

‘No, but he is one of us.'

‘You've never seen him before?'

‘Never. We don't go out much.'

His wife kept glancing at them through the door. She lifted another child out of a cradle, which began to howl when she started washing it.

The shopkeeper seemed quite sure of himself. He slowly rubbed his hands together as he awaited the inspector's next question and he looked round his shop with the satisfied expression of an honest tradesman with nothing to hide.

‘How long have you owned this shop?'

‘A little over five years. In that time I've established a reputation for fair dealing.'

‘Who was here before you?' Maigret asked.

‘You don't know? It was old Ulrich, the one who disappeared.'

The inspector gave a sigh of satisfaction. Finally he was on to something.

‘Was Ulrich a second-hand dealer?'

‘You should know better than I. Don't the police have records? I can't tell you anything definite. But I have heard people say that he didn't just buy and sell, he was also in the moneylending business.'

‘He was a loan shark?'

‘I don't know what his rate of interest was. He lived alone. He didn't have an assistant. He opened and closed up his shop himself. One day he disappeared, and the shop stayed closed for six months. I took it over. And I gave it
a much better reputation altogether.'

‘So you didn't know old Ulrich?'

‘I didn't live in Paris at that time. I moved here from Alsace when I took over the shop.'

The baby was still crying in the other room; his brother had opened the door and was looking at Maigret and gravely sucking his finger.

‘That's all I can tell you. Believe me, if I knew any more …'

‘All right. That's fine.'

And Maigret went out after one last look around. He found Victor sitting in the doorway.

‘Is this where you wanted to lead me?'

Victor feigned innocence:

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean this business with old Ulrich?'

‘Old Ulrich?'

‘Stop messing about.'

‘Don't know what you're talking about, honest.'

‘Is he the one who took the plunge into the Canal Saint-Martin?'

‘Dunno.'

Maigret shrugged his shoulders and walked away. As he passed Lucas, he said:

‘Carry on keeping an eye on him, just in case.'

Half an hour later, he was searching through the old files. Finally he found what he was looking for. He summarized the details on a piece of paper:

Jacob Ephraïm Lévy, known as Ulrich, sixty-two years old, originally from Haute-Silésie, second-hand dealer in Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, suspected of usury.

Disappeared 20 March, though his neighbours did not alert the police until the 22nd.

No clues found at his house. Nothing was missing. A sum of 14,000 francs was discovered under his mattress.

As far as can be ascertained, he left home on the evening of the 19th. Nothing unusual in that.

No information on his private life. Inquiries in Paris and the provinces unsuccessful. The authorities in Haute-Silésie are informed, and one month later the sister of the missing man turns up in Paris to claim ownership of the property.
She has to wait six months before he is officially declared missing presumed dead.

At midday Maigret, his head now aching, finally found some information in the heavy old registers of the police station at La Villette, the third he had visited that morning.

He transcribed the relevant passage:

On 1 July a body was pulled out of the Canal Saint-Martin, near the lock, by some bargees. The corpse was in an advanced state of decomposition.

The body was taken to the Forensic Institute, but it was not possible to make an identification.

Height: 1.55 m. Probable age: sixty to sixty-five.

Most of the clothing had been torn away on the canal bed and by boat propellers. Nothing found in the pockets.

Maigret heaved a sigh. He was finally emerging from the clouds of obfuscation that James seemed able to summon up at will to obscure the case.

Now he had something solid to work on. It was old Ulrich who was murdered six years ago and thrown into the Canal Saint-Martin.

Why? And by whom?

That was what he was going to find out. He filled his pipe and lit it slowly, with pleasure. He took his leave of his colleagues at La Villette and stepped out into the street, smiling, sure of himself, feeling solid on his sturdy legs.

The chartered accountant came into Maigret's office rubbing his hands and looking pleased with himself.

‘Got it!'

‘What's that?'

‘I've quickly gone through the haberdasher's books for the last seven years. It was easy. Feinstein didn't keep the books himself, but had a bank clerk come round two or three times a week to do them. Nothing out of the
ordinary: just the usual tricks to minimize tax. But it's as plain as the nose on your face what was going on: the business would have been no worse than any other but for the lack of underlying capital. Suppliers paid on the 4th and 10th of every month, debts rescheduled two or three
times, frequent sales to get some money in the tills at whatever cost. Finally, Ulrich!'

Maigret didn't react. He knew it would be better to let the voluble little man carry on talking, as he paced up and down the room.

‘The classic story! Ulrich's name first appears in the books seven years ago. A loan of 2,000 francs to pay bills that had become due. Repaid a week later. The next billing date, a further loan of 5,000 francs. You see? He had found a
way to get hold of cash when he needed it. He got into the habit. From that initial loan of 2,000, within six months
he was borrowing 18,000. And this 18,000 cost him 25,000 to repay – old Ulrich liked to exact a price! I should say that Feinstein always honoured his debts,
he always paid up on time. But he was paying off his debts by getting further into debt. For example, he repaid 15,000 francs on the 15th and borrowed another 17,000 on the 20th. He repaid this the following month, only to borrow 25,000 straight afterwards. By March, Feinstein owed Ulrich
32,000 francs.'

‘Did he repay it?'

‘I beg your pardon? From that date on Ulrich is never mentioned in the books again.'

And there was a very good reason for that: the old Jew from Rue des Blancs-Manteaux was dead, a death that left Feinstein the richer by 32,000 francs.

‘Who took over from Ulrich?'

‘No one, for a time. A year later, Feinstein was in trouble again and asked a small bank for credit, which he received. But the bank soon lost patience with him.'

‘And Basso?'

‘His name crops up in the later books – not under loans this time, but bills of exchange.'

‘What was his situation like at the time of his death?'

‘No better or worse than usual. He needed twenty grand to bale him out – at least until the next payment date! There are thousands of small traders in Paris in exactly the same situation – constantly chasing the exact sum they need to stop
themselves tipping over the brink into bankruptcy.'

Maigret stood up and reached for his hat.

‘Thank you, Monsieur Fleuret.'

‘Do you want me to do a more in-depth analysis?'

‘Not just yet.'

It was all going well. The inquiry was now running like clockwork. Paradoxically, Maigret was feeling down, as if he thought it was all falling into place rather too easily.

‘Any news from Lucas?' he asked the clerk.

‘He's just phoned. He said your man had gone to a Salvation Army hostel to ask for a bed. He's now sleeping.'

Of course Victor didn't have a single sou on him. Was he still hoping to receive 30,000 francs in return for the name of old Ulrich's murderer?

Maigret walked along the river. He hesitated in front of a post office, then went in and wrote a telegram:

Will probably arrive Thursday, stop. Love.

It was Monday. He hadn't been able to go and join his wife since the start of the holiday. He stuffed his pipe as he re-emerged on the street. He seemed to hesitate again, then he hailed a taxi and told the driver to take him to Boulevard
des Batignolles.

He had handled hundreds of cases in his time, and he knew that they nearly always fell into two distinct phases. Firstly, coming into contact with a new environment, with people he had never even heard of the day before, with a little world which
some event had shaken up.

He would enter this world as a stranger, an enemy; the people he encountered would be hostile, cunning or would give nothing away.

This, for Maigret, was the most exciting part. He would sniff around for clues, feel his way in the dark with nothing to go on. He would observe people's reactions – any one of them could be guilty, or complicit in the
crime.

Suddenly he would get a lead, and then the second period would begin. The inquiry would be underway. The gears would start to turn. Each step in the inquiry would bring a fresh revelation, and nearly always the pace would quicken, so the final
revelation, when it came, would feel sudden.

The inspector didn't work alone. The events worked for him, almost independently of him. He had to keep up, not be overtaken by them.

This was how it had been since the Ulrich discovery. Only this morning, Maigret had no clue as to the identity of the body in the Canal Saint-Martin.

Now he knew he was a second-hand dealer who doubled as a loan shark, to whom the haberdasher owed money.

Now he had to follow this thread. A quarter of an hour later, he was ringing the bell at the Feinsteins' apartment on the fifth floor of a building in Boulevard des Batignolles. A rather dim-looking maid with unkempt hair came to answer the
door and seemed unsure whether she should let him in or not. But at that same moment Maigret spotted James's hat hanging in the hallway.

Was this the wheels of the case turning relentlessly onwards, or was it a spanner in the works?

‘Is your mistress at home?'

The maid looked as if she was fresh up from the country, and he took advantage of her uncertainty to enter. He went to a door behind which he could hear voices, knocked and entered immediately.

He already knew the apartment. It was indistinguishable from most of the other lower-middle-class apartments in the area – a narrow sofa and rickety-looking armchairs with gilt feet. The first person he saw was James, who was standing in front of
the window, staring out at the street.

Madame Feinstein was dressed to go out – all in black with a fetching little crêpe hat. She seemed extremely animated.

Despite this, she displayed no sign of annoyance when she saw Maigret, unlike James, who seemed put out, even embarrassed.

‘Come in, inspector. You're not disturbing anything. I was just about to tell James how stupid he is.'

‘Ah.'

It had all the appearance of a domestic tiff. James pleaded, with no great hope:

‘Please, Mado …'

‘No! Be quiet! I'm talking to the inspector.'

Resigned, James turned back to look at the street, where he could have seen little more than the heads of the passers-by.

‘If you were an ordinary policeman, inspector, I wouldn't be talking to you like this. But as you were our guest at Morsang, and as you are clearly a man who is capable of understanding these things …'

And she was a woman who was capable of talking non-stop for hours, capable of calling the whole world as her witness, capable of reducing even the most talkative person to complete silence!

She wasn't especially beautiful. But she had a seductive quality, particularly in her mourning dress which, rather than giving her a sad appearance, made her look even more alluring. She was curvy, vivacious; she would have made an
excellent mistress.