Maigret in Montmartre (10 page)

“Perhaps. Last time was about a fortnight ago. You know the Hôtel du Berry, in the Rue Blanche? It’s not far from Picratt’s or from the Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette. She went there often. The proprietress was very talkative, because she’s already had trouble with us about girls who were under age, and wants to put herself right. Arlette came there a few weeks ago with a short, broad-shouldered man whose hair was going grey at the temples.”

“Didn’t the proprietress know him?”

“She thought she’d seen him about, but she didn’t know who he was. She makes out he must be a Montmartre man. They stayed in their room until nine in the evening. That struck her particularly, because Arlette hardly ever used to come during the day or the evening, and usually went away again almost at once.”

“Get hold of a photo of Fred Alfonsi and show her that.”

Janvier, who had not met the proprietor of Picratt’s, frowned at this name.

“If it was him, Arlette met him somewhere else as well. Wait a minute while I look up my list. At the Hôtel Lepic, in the Rue Lepic. It was a man I saw there—a fellow who’s lost one leg and spends the night reading novels; says he can’t sleep because his leg hurts him. He recognized her. She went there several times—usually, he told me, with a man he often sees in the Lepic market, but doesn’t know by name. A small, thickset chap, who generally goes shopping late in the morning—without bothering to put on a collar, as though he’d just got up. Sounds rather the type, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe. You’ll have to make your round again, with a photo of Alfonsi. There’s one in his file, but it’s too old.”

“Will it do for me to ask him for one?”

“Ask him for his identity card, as though you were making a check-up, and get the photo copied upstairs.”

The office boy came in to say that a lady would like to speak to Maigret.

“Ask her to wait. I’ll see her presently.”

Janvier went on: “Marcoussis is going through the mail. He says there are a whole lot of letters about Arlette’s identity. And he’s had about twenty phone calls already this morning. Everything’s being checked, but I don’t think there’s anything reliable yet.”

“Did you ask everybody about Oscar?”

“Yes. None of ’em turned a hair. Sometimes they described some local Oscar, but it never sounded like our man.”

“Send Lapointe in.”

Lapointe arrived, looking worried. He knew his superiors must have been talking about Arlette, and wondered why he hadn’t been called to join in their discussion, as usual. He gave an almost imploring look of inquiry at the Inspector.

“Sit down, my boy. If there’d been anything fresh, I would have told you. We’ve not got much farther since yesterday.”

“Did you spend the night up there, sir?”

“Yes, at the table you had the evening before. By the way, did she never tell you anything about her family?”

“All I know is that she ran away from home.”

“She didn’t tell you why?”

“She told me she loathed humbug, and that she’d felt stifled all through her childhood.”

“Tell me frankly—did she treat you nicely?”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Did she treat you like a friend—talk to you quite sincerely?”

“At times, I think. It’s difficult to explain.”

“Did you begin making love to her right away?”

“I told her I loved her.”

“The first evening?”

“No. The first evening my friend was there, and I hardly opened my mouth. It was when I went back there by myself.”

“And what did she say?”

“She tried to make out I was only a kid, but I told her I was twenty-four—older than she was.”

“
It isn’t age that matters, my child
,” she retorted. “
I’m ever so much older than you!
”

“You see, she was very unhappy—in fact, desperate. I think that was why I fell in love with her. She’d laugh and joke, but she was bitter all the time. And sometimes…”

“Go on.”

“I know you think she was fooling me…She’d try to make me stop loving her—she’d talk in a vulgar way on purpose, and use coarse words.

“‘
Why can’t you just get into bed with me, like the rest of them’? Leave you cold, do I? I could teach you a lot more than other women. I bet there’s not one that has my experience and knows her stuff like I do
…’ ”

“Oh, I’ve just remembered, she added; ‘
I got my training in the right school
.’ ”

“Were you never tempted to try?”

“I wanted her. I could have screamed, sometimes. But I didn’t want her like that. It would have spoilt everything, you understand?”

“I understand. And what did she say when you urged her to drop that kind of life?”

“She’d laugh, call me her little shrimp, and begin to drink harder than ever, and I’m sure it was because she was desperate. You haven’t found the man?”

“What man?”

“The one she called Oscar.”

“We haven’t found anything at all so far. Now tell me what you did last night.”

Lapointe had brought in a thick file. It contained the papers found in the Countess’s flat, which he had carefully sorted out; and he had written several pages of notes.

“I’ve managed to trace practically the whole story of the Countess,” he said. “I had a telephone report from the Nice police first thing this morning.”

“Tell me about it.”

“To begin with, I know her real name—Madeleine Lalande.”

“I saw that yesterday on her marriage certificate.”

“Oh yes—I’m sorry. She was born at La Roche-sur-Yon, where her mother was a charwoman. Father unknown. She came to Paris to go into service, but within a few months she’d found a man to keep her. She changed lovers several times, doing a bit better with each one, and fifteen years ago she was one of the most beautiful women on the Riviera.”

“Was she already taking drugs?”

“I don’t know, but there’s nothing to suggest it. She was gambling, always in the casinos. Then she met Count von Farnheim, who came of an old Austrian family and was sixty-five years old at the time. Here are the letters he wrote her; I’ve arranged them according to date.”

“Have you read them all?”

“Yes. He was passionately in love with her.”

Lapointe blushed, as though they were the kind of letters he himself might have written.

“They’re very touching letters. He never forgot he was an old man, and almost infirm. At first they’re full of respect. He calls her
Madame
, and later on
dear friend
, and finally
my dearest little girl;
he implores her to stay near him, never to leave him alone: he keeps on saying she’s all he has in the world and he can’t bear the thought of living his last years without her.”

“Did she become his mistress at once?”

“No. It took months. He fell ill, in a furnished house where he lived before buying The Oasis, and persuaded her to come there as a guest and spend a few hours with him everyday. You can feel in every line that he’s sincere, that he’s clinging desperately to her, ready to do anything rather than lose her. He writes bitterly about the difference in their ages, and says he realizes he can’t offer her a very pleasant life.

“
But it won’t last long
, he writes in one letter.
I’m old and sick. In a few years you’ll be free, little girl; you’ll still be beautiful, and if you wish you’ll be rich
.

“He wrote to her everyday—sometimes just short notes, like a schoolboy in love: “
I love you! I love you! I love you!
”

“And then, all of a sudden, he bursts into a kind of Song of Songs, in an entirely different tone—speaking of her body, with a mixture of passion and a kind of reverence:

“
I can hardly believe that your body has lain in my arms
—
that those breasts, those thighs
…”

Maigret gazed thoughtfully at Lapointe, without a smile.

“From that moment, he’s haunted by the fear of losing her. And tortured by jealousy. He implores her to tell him everything, even if it gives him pain. He asks what she was doing the day before, what men she met. There’s a lot about one of the musicians at the Casino, whom he thinks handsome and is terribly afraid of. He wants to know about her past life, too:

“
I have to have you “all complete
”…

“And he ends by begging her to marry him.

“I’ve no letters from her. It looks as though she never wrote to him—just came to see him, or telephoned. In one of his last letters, writing again about his age, he says:

“
I ought to have understood that that beautiful body of yours has cravings that I cannot satisfy. The thought is agony to me; whenever it comes into my mind, I feel as if I should die of torment. But I would rather share you than do without you altogether. I swear I will never blame you, or make scenes. You shall be as free as you are now, and your old husband will sit quietly in his corner, waiting for you to bring him a little happiness
.”

Lapointe blew his nose.

“They went to Capri to get married, I don’t know why. There was no marriage settlement, but they had a joint bank account. For a few months they travelled about, visiting Constantinople and Cairo; then they spent some weeks at a big hotel in the Champs-Elysées—I came across the hotel bills.”

“When did he die?”

“The police at Nice were able to give me all the particulars. It was barely three years after the marriage. They had been living at The Oasis for several months. They used to be seen driving in a big closed car with a chauffeur, going to the Casinos of Monte Carlo, Cannes, and Juan-les-Pins. She was magnificently dressed and covered with jewels. They caused a sensation wherever they went, for she could hardly fail to attract attention and she always had her husband in tow—a small, shrivelled man with a little white beard and a monocle. People used to call him “the rat”.

“She gambled heavily, flirted openly, and was thought to have several love-affairs.

“He would wait, like her shadow, till the early hours of the morning, with a resigned smile.”

“How did he die?”

“Nice is sending you the report by post, for there was an inquest. The Oasis stands on the Corniche, and has a terrace, fringed with palms, below which there’s a sheer drop of about three hundred feet. Most of the places round there are like that.

“The Count’s body was found one morning, lying at the foot of the precipice.”

“Had he been drinking?”

“He was on a diet. His doctor said he was apt to get fits of dizziness, because of some medicines he had to take.”

“Did he and his wife share a room?”

“No, they had separate suites. The previous evening they’d been to the Casino, as usual, getting back about three in the morning, which was unusually early for them. The Countess was tired. She explained frankly to the police that it was the bad time of the month for her, and she used to have a lot of pain. She went to bed at once. The Count, according to the chauffeur, went first of all to the library, which had a french window opening on to the terrace. He used to do that when he couldn’t sleep—he was a bad sleeper. The theory was that he’d gone outside for air, and sat down on the stone balustrade of the terrace. It was his favourite place, because there’s a view from there of the Baie des Anges, the lights of Nice, and a long stretch of coast.

“There were no signs of violence on the body when it was found, and no trace of poison was discovered at the autopsy.”

“What happened to her after that?”

“She had to cope with a young nephew who turned up from Austria to dispute the will, and it was nearly two years before she won the case. She went on living at Nice, at The Oasis. She entertained a great deal—the house was very gay, and drinking went on till all hours. Very often the guests slept there, and the fun began again as soon as they woke up.

“The local police say she had several gigolos, one after another, and they got away with a good deal of her money. I asked if that was when she began taking drugs, but there was no information about that. The police will try to find out, but it’s a long time ago. The only report they’ve found so far is very scrappy, and they aren’t sure they can lay their hands on the file.

“What they do know is that she drank and gambled. When she was well under way, she’d collect a bunch of people and take them home with her. So you can see there must be plenty of her crazy kind in that part of the world. She must have lost a lot of money at roulette; sometimes she’d stick obstinately to the same number for hours on end.

“Four years after her husband’s death she sold The Oasis. That was in the middle of the slump, so she got very little for it. I think it’s a sanatorium now, or a nursing-home. Anyway, it’s no longer a private house.

“That’s all that’s known at Nice. After the house was sold the Countess disappeared, and she’s never been seen again on the Riviera.”

“You’d better go and look in on the gambling-licence office,” advised Maigret. “And the narcotics squad might have some news for you too.”

“Aren’t I to deal with Arlette?”

“Not for the moment. I’d like you to ring through to Nice again, as well. They may be able to give you a list of the people who were living at The Oasis when the Count died. Don’t forget the servants. I know it’s fifteen years ago, but we may be able to trace some of them.”

It was still snowing, fairly hard; but the flakes were so light and feathery that they melted as soon as they touched a wall or the ground.

“Is that all, sir?”

“That’s all for now. Leave the file with me.”

“You don’t want me to write up my report?”

“Not till it’s all finished. Off you go.”

Maigret got up: the heat of the office made him feel drowsy, and he still had a nasty taste in his mouth and a dull ache at the back of his head. He remembered there was a lady waiting for him in the anteroom, and decided to fetch her himself for the sake of walking a few yards. If there had been time he would have gone to the Brasserie Dauphine for a glass of beer to freshen him up.

There were several people in the glass-partitioned waiting-room, where the green of the armchairs looked harsher than usual, and an umbrella was standing in a corner, surrounded by a pool of melted snow. Looking round for his visitor, Maigret saw an elderly woman in black sitting bolt upright on a chair. She got up as he came in—she had probably seen his photo in the papers.