Maigret and the Spinster (11 page)

How long would it take him to pinpoint the jarring element in the Bourg-la-Reine case? The sandwich was tasty. The beer was good. He ordered another glass.

Almost invariably, when he was engaged on a sensational inquiry, some newspaper or other would print a piece on “The Methods of Chief Superintendent Maigret.” It might almost be called a tradition.

Well! Journalists were welcome to their opinions, like anyone else! Maigret came out of the movies…He had a sandwich…He drank beer…Sitting beside the steamy window of La Coupole, he might have been a substantial property owner from the provinces, dazzled by the bustle of the streets of Paris.

To tell the truth, his mind was a blank…He was on Boulevard Montparnasse, and yet he was not, because wherever he happened to be, the wedge-shaped house was always right there with him. He was forever going in and out of it. Spying on Madame “Saving-Your-Presence” in her lair. Climbing the stairs and coming down again.

Fact number one: the old woman with dyed hair had been strangled…Fact number two: her money and her papers had disappeared…

Eight hundred thousand francs…

To be precise, eight hundred thousand francs in one-thousand-franc bills. He tried to picture the thickness of such a bundle of bills.

Cécile sitting down to wait in the “aquarium” at the Quai des Orfèvres at eight o’clock in the morning.

It was odd, but he was already having difficulty in recalling her face, distinctive and familiar though it had been. He could see the black coat, the green hat, and the bag on her lap, that enormous ridiculous bag that she was never without, and which looked like a small trunk.

Now Cécile too had been killed, and the bag had vanished.

Maigret sat there, holding up his glass, wholly unaware, needless to say, of what was in it. If anyone had spoken to him just then, he would have had to make a long journey back to the present.

What was it that did not ring true?

He must not go too fast, or the elusive truth might be frightened away before he had time to grasp it.

Cécile…the bag…the broom closet…

The strangled aunt…

Because the young woman with the squint had also been strangled, it had been assumed that the two murders…

He heaved a sigh of relief and took a deep draught of frothy beer.

Everybody, himself included, had been looking for a single murderer, and that was why they were going around in circles, like a sightless horse on a merry-go-round.

But why not two? He had had vague doubts from the start.

“
L’Intransigeant,
late extra!
L’Intransigeant,
late extra! Read all about it!”

He bought the paper. The picture on the front page caused him to frown. It was of himself, looking fatter than he believed himself to be, biting fiercely on his pipe, with his hand on the shoulder of a young man in a trench coat, who was none other than Gérard. He could not remember having put his hand on Cécile’s brother’s shoulder. Presumably it had been a reflex action.

The reporter had thought it significant. The caption read as follows:

Does this mean nothing, or can it be that Chief Superintendent Maigret is laying his heavy hand on a cringing murderer
?

“Idiot!…Waiter!…My bill!”

He was furious and yet, at the same time, pleased. He left La Coupole with a lighter tread than when he had gone in there from the movies. Taxi. What the hell! What if the accounts department did query it on the grounds that the métro was the fastest means of getting from one place to another!

Ten minutes later, he was back at headquarters, absorbing its atmosphere on his way to his office. The Pole was in there, perched awkwardly on the edge of a chair, while Lucas was occupying the Chief Superintendent’s own armchair. Maigret winked at Lucas, who, quick to take the hint, went with him into the inspectors’ room next door.

“Janvier and I between us have been at him for ten hours now. He’s stood up to it so far, but I have the feeling he’s beginning to crack.”

“My guess is that we won’t be through until early tomorrow morning.”

The Pole would not be the first to be driven to the wall slowly but surely!

“Now if you could look in yourself, around about two or three, and clinch it…”

“I can’t spare the time,” grumbled Maigret.

The offices were about to be vacated. One solitary light was kept burning in the vast dusty corridor, and one solitary man was on duty at the switchboard. But in Maigret’s office the Pole was still sitting opposite a determined Lucas, who would be relieved by Janvier at intervals, to enable him to slip out for a glass of beer and a bite to eat at the Brasserie Dauphine.

“Any phone calls for me?”

“One from someone called Dandurand.”

“Did he leave a message?”

“He said he had something of interest to tell you…and that you could reach him at his apartment.”

“Any callers?”

“Not that I know of…You’d better ask the guard…”

“A young man in a raincoat, wearing a black armband. He seemed very agitated. He asked me what time you would be back. I told him I couldn’t say. He wanted me to give him your home address, but I refused.”

“Gérard Pardon?”

“Could be…He refused to fill in a form.”

“What time was this?”

“About half an hour ago.”

“Did he by any chance have a newspaper with him?” asked the Chief Superintendent, much to the astonishment of the messenger.

“Yes, he did…
L’Intransigeant.
He was holding it all crumpled up in his hand.”

Maigret went back to the inspectors’ room.

“Anyone free in here?…Torrence?”

“I’m due at Bourg-la-Reine, Chief.”

“Don’t bother about that. I want you to go to Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule. Number Twenty-two. Do you know the boy?”

“Cécile’s brother, do you mean? Yes…I saw him at Bourg-la…”

“Good! I want you to call at his lodgings. I hope he’s back there by now. If he’s in, don’t let him out of your sight…I don’t want him doing anything foolish, do you understand?…Be nice to him…I don’t want him scared off, quite the reverse.”

“What if he isn’t there?”

Maigret’s brow darkened. He shrugged helplessly.

“If he’s not back that would be a disaster. There’ll be nothing left but to wait for a phone call from the river police…Unless, by any chance, he’s managed to get hold of a gun…Just a minute…You’d better call me in any event at…let me think…who in the building would be likely to have a telephone?…Of course! Dandurand! Call me at Charles Dandurand’s apartment. You’ll find the number in the directory. Good night, my boy.”

He went back into his office for a moment and lingeringly examined the Pole from head to foot, as if to assess his stamina. Then, with another wink to Lucas, this time signifying “He’s falling apart!,” he left.

He took a taxi to the now familiar building at Bourg-la-Reine. He looked around. Where was the detective who was supposed to be watching the house? A figure loomed out of the shadows.

“Here I am, Chief.”

It was Verduret, a new recruit, a pleasant youth, tremendously overawed by the Chief. He could scarcely address him without stammering.

“Any developments?”

“Monsieur Charles, the fourth-floor tenant, came home by streetcar at six o’clock. There was someone waiting for him in the hall…A little fat man in a belted gray overcoat, carrying a briefcase.”

It did not take Maigret long to identify this visitor as Monfils’s lawyer, Maître Leloup.

“Did he stay long?”

“Half an hour. The Hungarian went out about five, and I haven’t seen him since. As for his daughter…”

The young inspector waved toward a couple of shadowy figures pressed up against the fence on the patch of waste ground.

“They’ve been there for the last three quarters of an hour,” he said with a sigh. “And they haven’t moved in all that time…”

Unseen by the inspector, Maigret blushed, and went into the building. In passing, he waved to Madame Benoit, who was sitting with a plate of soup in front of her, and climbed the four flights of stairs with a heavy tread. Monsieur Charles must have recognized his step, because he opened the door before the Chief Superintendent had time to ring the bell.

“I was expecting you. Do please come in. After your meeting with my friends this morning…”

The Chief Superintendent was finding it uncommonly hard to get used to the rancid smell of the old bachelor’s flat. He found the atmosphere physically as well as morally repugnant, and he puffed furiously at his pipe, emitting dense clouds of smoke.

“What was the object of Maître Leloup’s visit?”

“So you’ve already heard?…He’s threatening me with a lawsuit over the estate. He’s convinced that Juliette made a will. Apparently, she said as much more than once in letters she wrote to her cousin Monfils, wishing him a happy New Year…I think you ought to make him show them to you. It seems she referred to her nephew and nieces as degenerates and parasites, and complained that, after all she had done for them out of respect for her sister’s memory, all they cared about was her money…”

“‘
They’ll get the shock of their lives,
’ she wrote in conclusion, ‘
and so will the Boynets and the Machepieds, when they find out that I have made you my sole heir
.’ ”

“Did Maître Leloup go no further than to threaten you?”

Monsieur Charles’s lips twitched in a chilly smile.

“He made me what he called a fair and generous offer.”

“Share and share alike?”

“More or less. If there really were a will, it would be worth considering.”

Monsieur Dandurand cracked his finger joints.

“However, that lot didn’t know Juliette as I did. To tell the truth, I was the only one who knew her as she really was. She was so terrified of dying, of having one day to leave all her money behind, that she almost persuaded herself that she would never die, at least not in the foreseeable future. She often used to say to me:
When I grow old
…”

Much as he disliked the man, Maigret could tell that he was speaking the truth. He himself had never seen Juliette, except as a corpse with crudely dyed hair, yet the impression he had formed of her corresponded exactly with Monsieur Charles’s account.

“So?”

“I showed Maître Leloup the door. But it wasn’t about that that I called you. I’m well aware that my position is delicate, and I realize that, as far as I’m concerned, the best thing that could happen would be for you to find the killer.”

“Or the killers,” mumbled Maigret, apparently immersed in contemplation of a water color hanging on the wall.

“Or the…? Well, have it your own way…Come to think of it, for all we know, there might be several killers.”

“At any rate, there are two corpses, and, therefore, two murders.”

And Maigret placidly relit his pipe.

“It’s just a theory…As I was saying, soon after you left, I remembered…”

He picked up a clothbound notebook from his desk.

“When you’ve been in the legal profession as long as I was, you can’t easily shed the habits of a lifetime…Every time I paid Juliette the interest on her investments, I was careful to record the numbers of the bills. Perhaps it was foolish of me, but as things have turned out you might find the information useful.”

The notebook was filled with figures.

“Remember, I had nothing else to occupy my time.”

Maigret could just imagine him in his evil-smelling study, transcribing columns of figures with chill satisfaction. True, the bills hadn’t belonged to him. All the same, he had derived a sensuous satisfaction from handling them, recording the numbers, clipping them together into so many bundles, then sorting them into larger bundles, secured with elastic bands.

“I’m sure you won’t forget,” he concluded, handing the notebook to the Chief Superintendent, “if you collect the reward that my friends have offered to put up, that I gave you every assistance.”

They could hear Nouchi bounding up the stairs, three at a time. She paused for a moment on the landing outside. Had she been behaving as improperly as the plump girl in the cinema?

What business was it of the Chief Superintendent’s, anyway? In what way could the behavior of this urchin…?

“Well! That’s it…Not wishing to be out when you called, I didn’t dine at my usual restaurant, but made do with a cold chop at home. Did you have dinner? Can I give you a small glass of something?”

“No, really, thanks…”

“Sooner or later, you’ll realize that I’ve done all I could and…Oh well!…as you please…”

Maigret, without so much as a parting word, opened the door and let in a gust of piano music. This was no doubt old Mademoiselle Paucot’s way of compensating for the scales she had to listen to all day long from her pupils.

O
ne day Madame Maigret, who had for some time been contemplating her husband with a very thoughtful look, suddenly gave a sigh and remarked with almost comical candor:

“What surprises me is that more people haven’t been goaded into slapping you in your time…”

It was a heartfelt sentiment. For there were times when, even with her, Maigret could be intolerably superior, and his wife was probably the only person to know that he meant nothing by it. It was not that he gave an impression of irony, or twinkled with mischief. It was nothing like that at all. He presented a smooth, impermeable surface, impossible to dent, and whatever anyone else might do, say, or feel had no effect on him whatsoever. Did the Chief Superintendent even hear what you were saying? Did he know that you were there, or could he see nothing but the wall above your head? He was apt to interrupt you in the middle of a sentence with some remark entirely unconnected with what you had been saying.

So now, while Charles Dandurand was still speaking above the piano chords which could be heard through the open door, Maigret stood still, as if listening to the music. How long had he been deaf to what was being said? How far had his mind wandered during those few brief moments? Suddenly, he said:

“You do have a telephone, don’t you?”

“Yes…of course…”