Maigret in Montmartre (2 page)

She stared in astonishment at the newcomer, who had a black moustache. Then she glanced uneasily at the clock and leapt to her feet.

“I’ve got to go!” she exclaimed.

“Just a minute, please,” said Jacquart.

“What do you want now?”

“Perhaps the nap has refreshed your memory?”

She looked sulky now, and her face was shiny, especially along the line of her plucked eyebrows.

“I don’t know anything more. I’ve got to go home.”

“What did Oscar look like?”

“Oscar who?”

The policeman was glancing through the report Simon had made out while she was asleep.

“The one who meant to murder the Countess.”

“I never said his name was Oscar.”

“What was it, then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember what I said last night. I was tight.”

“So you made up the whole story?”

“I don’t say that. I did hear two men talking on the other side of the partition, but I could only catch a few words here and there. Perhaps I got it wrong.”

“Well then, why did you come here?”

“I tell you, I was tight. When you’re tight things seem different and you’re apt to get excited about nothing.”

“No one said anything about the Countess?”

“Oh, yes…I think so…”

“And about her jewels?”

“There was something about jewels.”

“And about finishing with her?”

“That’s what I thought at the time. I was already sozzled by then.”

“Who had you been drinking with?”

“With several clients.”

“And with this chap Albert?”

“Yes. I don’t know him either. I only know people by sight.”

“Such as Oscar?”

“Why are you always dragging in that name?”

“Would you know him again?”

“I’ve only seen his back.”

“Backs are quite easy to recognize.”

“I’m not sure. Perhaps.”

Struck by a sudden thought, she asked a question in her turn:

“Has anyone been killed?”

When he did not answer, she became very agitated. No doubt she had a terrific hangover. Her blue eyes were pale and washed-out, and her lipstick had spread, making her mouth look disproportionately large.

“Can’t I go home?”

“Not just yet.”

“I’ve not done anything wrong.”

By this time there were several policemen in the room, working or swapping stories. Jacquart rang up the emergency service, where there was still no news of the death of a Countess; and then, to be on the safe side, telephoned to police headquarters at the Quai des Orfèvres.

The telephone was answered by Lucas, who had just come on duty and was still half asleep.

“Send her over to me,” he replied on the spur of the moment.

After which he thought no more about it. Maigret arrived a few minutes later, and glanced through the night’s reports before taking off his hat and coat.

It was still raining. Clammy weather. Most people were bad-tempered that morning.

Just after nine o’clock, a policeman from the IXth
arrondissement
appeared at the Quai des Orfèvres with Arlette. He was a new man who did not know the building very well, and he knocked on several wrong doors, Arlette following him all the time.

Finally he happened on the Inspector’s room, where young Lapointe was sitting on the edge of a table, smoking a cigarette.

“Sergeant Lucas’s office, please?”

He did not notice that Lapointe and Arlette were staring hard at each other, and on being told that Lucas was in the next room, he shut the door again.

“Sit down,” said Lucas to the girl.

Maigret, as usual, was making a quick round of the offices before the new report came in, and happened to be there at the moment, standing by the fireplace and filling his pipe.

Lucas explained to him: ‘This girl says she heard two men plotting to murder a Countess.’

“I never said that,” she retorted, in a manner which had entirely altered—it was now assured, almost aggressive.

“You said you’d heard two men…”

“I was tight.”

“And you made up the whole thing?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I’d got the blues. I didn’t feel like going home and I just sort of drifted into the police station.”

Maigret threw her a fleeting, speculative glance and then went back to his papers.

“So there was no truth in all that Countess story?”

“No…”

“None at all?”

“I may perhaps have heard something about a Countess. You know how you sometimes catch a stray word and it sticks in your mind.”

“Last night?”

“Very likely.”

“And you built up your whole story on that?”

“Do
you
always remember what you said when you’d been drinking?”

Maigret smiled. Lucas looked annoyed.

“Do you realize that’s a legal offence?”

“What is?”

“Making a false statement. You may find yourself in the dock on a charge of…”

“I don’t care if I do. All I care about is getting home to bed.”

“Do you live alone?”

“You bet I do!”

Maigret smiled again.

“And you can’t remember the client with whom you drank a bottle of champagne and who held your hands—the fellow called Albert?”

“I can hardly remember anything. How many more times have I got to tell you that? Everyone at Picratt’s knows I was plastered.”

“How long had you been that way?”

“If you must know, it began yesterday evening.”

“Who were you with?”

“I was by myself.”

“Where?”

“All over the place. In different bars. You’ve never lived alone, or you’d understand.”

That sounded funny, addressed to young Lucas, who always tried so hard to look dignified.

The rain seemed to have set in; it would go on all day—a cold, steady drizzle from a lowering sky; the lights would be burning in all the offices, and there would be wet patches on the floors.

Lucas had another job on hand, a burglary in a warehouse on the Quai de Javel, and was in a hurry to get there. He looked at Maigret and raised his eyebrows, as though asking:

“What am I to do with her?”

Just at that moment the telephone rang. It was to summon Maigret for the report, and he turned away with a shrug which meant:

“That’s your affair.”

“Are you on the telephone?” the sergeant asked Arlette.

“The concierge is.”

“Do you live in a hotel?”

“No, I have a flat of my own.”

“Alone?”

“I’ve told you so already.”

“You’re not afraid of running into Oscar, if I let you go?”

“I want to go home.”

They couldn’t keep her indefinitely, simply because she had told some yarn to her local police.

“Ring me up if anything else happens,” said Lucas as he rose to his feet. “You won’t be leaving Paris, I suppose?”

“No. Why?”

He opened the door for her and watched her as she walked away down the long, broad corridor and paused uncertainly at the top of the stairs. People turned to look at her as she went by. She obviously belonged to a different world, the world of night, and it gave one a kind of shock to see her in this harsh winter daylight.

In his office, Lucas was conscious of the atmosphere she had left behind her: the place smelt of woman, almost of bed. He rang up the emergency service again:

“No Countess?”

“Nothing to report.”

Then he opened the door of the Inspectors’ office.

“Lapointe,” he called, without looking in.

Another man’s voice replied:

“He’s just gone out.”

“Didn’t he say where he was going?”

“He said he’d be back at once.”

“Tell him I want him. Not about Arlette or the Countess. I want him to come to Javel with me.”

Lapointe came back a quarter of an hour later. The two men put on their coats and hats and set out for the Châtelet Metro station.

When Maigret returned from the Chief’s office, where the daily report had been delivered, he lit his pipe and sat down to look through a pile of records, vowing that he would not let himself be interrupted before lunch-time.

It must have been about half past nine when Arlette left the Quai des Orfèvres. It never occurred to anyone to inquire whether she was going home by bus or by Metro. She may have stopped in a bar for a cup of coffee and a
croissant
.

Her concierge did not see her come in, but that was natural, because the house—just off the Place Saint-Georges—was a big place, humming with activity.

It was nearly eleven o’clock when the concierge started to sweep the staircase of Building B, and noticed with surprise that Arlette’s door was ajar.

Lapointe, at the Quai de Javel, seemed absent-minded and preoccupied. Lucas thought he looked off-colour and asked him if he felt all right.

“I think I’ve got a cold coming on,” replied Lapointe.

The two of them were still questioning the people who lived near the burgled warehouse, when the telephone rang in Maigret’s office.

“This is the Chief Inspector, Saint-Georges district.”

It was from the station in the Rue de La Rochefoucauld where Arlette had gone about half past four that morning, and where she had fallen asleep on a bench.

“My secretary tells me that Jeanne Leleu, alias Arlette—the girl who said she’d overheard some talk about murdering a Countess—was brought round to you this morning.”

“I know more or less what you mean,” said Maigret, frowning. “Is she dead?”

“Yes. She’s just been found strangled, in her room.”

“In bed?”

“No.”

“Dressed?”

“Yes.”

“With her coat on?”

“No. She was wearing a black silk dress. At least, so my men have just told me. I’ve not been round there yet. Thought I’d better ring you first. It looks as though she’d been talking sense.”

“She was undoubtedly talking sense.”

“Still no news of any Countess?”

“Nothing so far. It may take time.”

“Will you see about informing the finger-print people, and soon?”

“I’ll ring them up and then go straight to the house.”

“I think that’s the best thing. Strange business, isn’t it? The sergeant on night duty here didn’t take her too seriously, because she was drunk. See you in a few minutes.”

“Right you are.”

Maigret decided to take Lucas with him, but found his office empty and remembered about the Javel affair. Lapointe wasn’t there either. Janvier had come in that moment, and had not even had time to get out of his cold, wet raincoat.

“Come along with me!”

As usual, Maigret put a couple of pipes in his pocket.

J
anvier brought the little police car to a stop beside the pavement, and the two men, after craning their heads simultaneously to check the house number, looked at each other in surprise. There was no crowd outside, no one under the arched entrance or in the courtyard. A policeman had been sent from the station, as a matter of routine, to keep order; but he was merely strolling up and down at a little distance.

They soon discovered the reason for this unusual calm. Monsieur Beulant, the local Inspector, came out of the concierge’s quarters to greet them, bringing with him the concierge herself, a large, placid, intelligent-looking woman.

“This is Madame Boue,” he said. “ She’s the wife of one of our sergeants. When she found the body, she locked the door with her pass-key and came down here to telephone me. No one else in the building knows anything about it yet.”

Madame Boue bowed slightly, as though acknowledging a compliment.

“So there’s nobody up there?” asked Maigret.

“Inspector Lognon’s gone up with the police doctor. I myself have been having a long talk with Madame Boue—we’ve been trying to think what Countess the girl could have been speaking of.”

“I can’t think of any Countess around here,” put in Madame Boue.

It was obvious from her manner, her voice, and her way of speaking, that she was determined to be the perfect witness.

“The girl was harmless enough, poor thing. I didn’t see much of her, because she didn’t get home till the small hours and was asleep most of the day.”

“Had she been living here long?”

“Two years. She had a two-room flat in Building B, at the far end of the courtyard.”

“Did she have a great many visitors?”

“Hardly any.”

“Any men?”

“If any came I never saw them. Except at the very beginning. When she moved in, and her furniture was being delivered, I once or twice saw an elderly man. I thought at first he might be her father—short and very broad-shouldered, he was. He never spoke to me. So far as I know, he’s never been back since then. But a great many people come here, especially as Building A is full of offices, so one doesn’t notice them all.”

“I shall probably be back in a few minutes for another word with you,” said Maigret.

The house was old and shabby. Two dark staircases led off under the archway, one on either side, with imitation marble plates announcing a ladies’ hairdresser on the
entresol
, a masseuse on the first floor, an artificial flower workroom on the second, a solicitor, and even a fortune-teller. The cobbled paving of the courtyard was glistening with rain, and at the far side, straight ahead of them, Maigret and Janvier saw a door surmounted by a large B in black paint.

They went up three flights of stairs, leaving muddy footprints all the way, and only one door opened as they passed—to reveal a fat woman, her sparse locks twisted into curlers, who stared at them in astonishment, stepped back, and locked herself in.

They were met by Inspector Lognon, of the Saint-Georges district. He was as glum as usual, and the eye he turned upon Maigret said plainly:

“This would have to happen!”

The inevitability attached, not to the strangling of a young woman, but to the fact that, a crime having been committed in the district and Lognon sent to investigate, Maigret had immediately arrived in person, to take matters out of his hands.

“I haven’t disturbed anything,” he said in his most official tone. “ The doctor’s still in the bedroom.”

No rooms would have looked cheerful in weather like this. It was one of those gloomy days that make you wonder why you came into the world and why you take so much trouble to stay in it.