Maigret (8 page)

While Cageot was left stunned by the
brutality of the attack, Louis jumped up and grabbed Maigret's arm.

‘Are you mad?'

Were they about to fight in the
corridors of the Police Judiciaire?

‘What's going on
here?'

It was Amadieu, who had just opened his
door. On seeing the three breathless men, no one could fail to grasp the situation,
but the detective chief inspector said calmly, as if he had no idea:

‘Would you step this way,
Cageot?'

Once again, the other witnesses had been
taken into the neighbouring office.

‘Have a seat.'

Maigret followed them in and stood
against the door.

‘I asked you to come in because I
need you to identify certain individuals.'

Amadieu pressed a bell and Audiat was
shown in.

‘Do you know this man?'

Then Maigret stomped out, slamming the
door and swearing loudly. He could have cried. This charade appalled him.

Audiat did not know Cageot. Cageot did
not know Audiat! Neither of them knew Eugène! And so it would go on ad nauseam! As
for Louis, he knew no one!

Amadieu, who was questioning them,
scored a point with each new denial. Huh! So Maigret dared to disrupt his little
habits! Huh! He was trying to teach him his job!
He would remain
polite to the end, because he was well brought-up, unlike some! But time would
tell!

Maigret descended the drab stairs,
crossed the courtyard and walked past Eugène's powerful car.

The sun was shining on Paris, on the
Seine, on the sparkling Pont-Neuf. The warm air abruptly turned chilly as soon as
you stepped into a patch of shade.

In a quarter of an hour, or in an hour,
the interrogations would be over. Eugène would slide behind the wheel, next to his
friend from Marseille. Cageot would flag down a taxi. They would go their separate
ways after exchanging winks.

‘That damned fool
Philippe.'

Maigret was talking to himself. His feet
pounded the cobblestones. He didn't know where he was going. At one point, he
had the impression that a woman he passed quickly looked away to avoid being
recognized. He stopped and glimpsed Fernande, who hastened her step. A few metres
further on, he caught up with her and grabbed her arm with unintended violence.

‘Where are you off to?'

She looked alarmed, and did not
answer.

‘When did they release
you?'

‘Last night.'

He realized that the trust that had
existed between them was ruined. Fernande was afraid of him. All she wanted was to
be on her way again as soon as possible.

‘Were you summoned?' he
asked, glancing towards the buildings of the Police Judiciaire.

‘No.'

This morning she was wearing a blue suit
that made her
look like a respectable woman. Maigret was all the
more impatient since he had no further reason to detain her.

‘Why are you going
there?'

He followed Fernande's gaze,
lighting on Eugène's blue car.

He understood. He felt offended, a pang
of jealousy.

‘Do you know he tried to kill me
last night?'

‘Who?'

‘Eugène.'

She almost said something, but bit her
lip.

‘What were you about to
say?'

‘Nothing.'

The sentry was watching them. Upstairs,
behind the eighth window, Amadieu was still taking the witness statements cooked up
by the five men. The car was parked outside, lithe and light as its owner, and
Fernande, her face set, was waiting for the chance to make her escape.

‘Do you think it was me who had
you locked up?' Maigret pressed her.

She said nothing and looked away.

‘Who told you that Eugène was
here?' he persisted in vain.

She was in love! In love with Eugène,
with whom she had slept to please Maigret!

‘Too bad,' he grunted
finally. ‘Off you go, dear!'

He hoped that she would retrace her
steps, but she hurried towards the car and stood by the door.

The only person left on the pavement was
Maigret. He filled his pipe, but was unable to light it, having tamped down the
tobacco too hard.

As he crossed the lobby of his hotel,
Maigret tensed when a woman rose from a wicker armchair and started walking towards
him. She kissed him on both cheeks with a sad smile and clasped his hand, keeping it
in hers.

‘This is terrible,' she
moaned. ‘I got here this morning and I've been running around so much
that I don't know whether I'm coming or going.'

Maigret looked at his sister-in-law, who
had turned up from Alsace. He needed to adjust to the sight of her, such a contrast
was she from the images of the last few days and the morning, from the unsavoury
world in which he was immersed.

Philippe's mother looked like
Madame Maigret, but there was something more provincial about her. She wasn't
plump but cuddly; she had a rosy complexion and carefully smoothed hair, and
everything about her exuded cleanliness – her black and white outfit, her eyes, her
smile.

It was the atmosphere of the countryside
that she brought with her and Maigret thought he caught a whiff of her house, with
its cupboards filled with home-made jam, the aroma of the little delicacies and
desserts which she loved cooking.

‘Do you think he'll be able
to find a job after all this?'

Maigret picked up his
sister-in-law's luggage, which was even more provincial than she was.

‘Are you staying
here?' he asked.

‘If it's not too expensive
…'

He showed her into the dining room,
where he never set foot when he was alone, for it had an austere atmosphere and
people only spoke in whispers.

‘How did you get hold of my
address?'

‘I went to the Palais de Justice
and I saw the examining magistrate. He wasn't aware that you were handling the
case.'

Maigret said nothing but pulled a face.
He could hear his sister-in-law's voice imploring:
You understand, sir. My
son's uncle, Divisional Chief Inspector Maigret
—

‘Then what?' he asked
irritably.

‘He gave me the address of the
lawyer in Rue de Grenelle. I went there too.'

‘You did all that carrying your
suitcases?'

‘I put them in
left-luggage.'

It was astounding. She must have told
the whole world her story.

‘I tell you, when the photograph
appeared in the newspaper, Émile didn't dare go to his office!'

Émile was her husband. Philippe had
inherited his myopic squint.

‘In our part of the world,
it's not like Paris. Prison is prison. People say that there's no smoke
without fire. Does he at least have a proper bed with blankets?'

They ate sardines and rounds of
beetroot, and drank a carafe of table wine. From time to time Maigret made an effort
to steer the conversation away from the obsessive topic of Philippe.

‘You know
Émile. He's very angry with you. He blames you. He says it's your fault
that Philippe joined the police instead of looking for a good job in a bank. I told
him that whatever will be, will be. By the way, how's my sister? Not finding
the animals too much work?'

Luncheon lasted a good hour, for
afterwards they had to have a coffee and Philippe's mother wanted to know
exactly how a prison is built and how the prisoners are treated. They were in the
lounge when the doorman came to inform them that a gentleman wished to speak to
Maigret.

‘Show him in!'

He wondered who it could be and was more
than astonished to see Inspector Amadieu, who greeted Madame Lauer awkwardly.

‘Philippe's mother,'
said Maigret.

And, to the detective chief
inspector:

‘Shall we go up to my
room?'

They went upstairs in silence. Once
inside the room, the inspector cleared his throat and put down his hat and the
umbrella which never left his side.

‘I thought I'd see you after
the interrogation this morning,' he began. ‘But you left without saying
a word.'

Maigret watched him without speaking. He
knew that Amadieu had come to make peace, but was not gallant enough to make things
easier for him.

‘Those boys are very good, you
know! I realized it when they were brought face to face with each other.'

He sat down to give an impression of
composure, and crossed his legs.

‘Look, Maigret,
I've come to tell you that I'm beginning to share your opinion. You see
that I'm being honest with you and that I bear no ill will.'

But his voice did not sound entirely
natural and Maigret sensed that this was a lesson learned and that Amadieu had not
taken this step of his own accord. After that morning's interrogations, there
had been a meeting between the chief of the Police Judiciaire and Amadieu, and it
was the chief who had been in favour of Maigret's theory.

‘Now, I'm asking you: what
should we do?' said Amadieu solemnly.

‘I have no idea!'

‘Don't you need my
men?'

Then, suddenly garrulous:

‘I'll tell you what I
believe. Because I thought long and hard while I was questioning those rogues. You
know that when Pepito was killed, he'd been issued with a summons. We knew
that there was a rather large drugs cache at the Floria. And it was to stop them
from moving the drugs that I had posted an inspector there until the arrest, which
was planned for dawn. Well, the stuff has vanished.'

Maigret appeared not to be
listening.

‘From that, I deduce that when we
lay our hands on it we'll have the murderer too. I've a good mind to ask
the magistrate for a search warrant and to pay a visit to our friend
Cageot.'

‘There's no point,'
sighed Maigret. ‘The man who masterminded this morning's face-to-face
confrontation wouldn't have kept such a compromising package in his home. The
stuff isn't at Cageot's, or Eugène's, nor at the
homes of any of the others. By the way, what did Louis have to say about his
customers?'

‘He swears he's never seen
Eugène, even less played cards with him. He thinks Audiat might have come in a few
times to buy cigarettes, but he has never spoken to him. As for Cageot, while the
name rings a bell, like everyone in Montmartre, he didn't know him
personally.'

‘And they didn't slip up,
naturally?'

‘Not once. They even exchanged
amused looks as if the interrogation was a farce. The chief was furious.'

Maigret found it hard to repress a
little smile, for Amadieu had admitted that his hunch was correct and that his own
change of heart was thanks to the head of the Police Judiciaire.

‘We could always have an inspector
tail Cageot,' continued Amadieu, who found silences awkward. ‘But
he'll have no trouble shaking him off. Not to mention that he has protection
and that he's capable of filing a complaint against us.'

Maigret pulled out his watch, which he
gazed at insistently.

‘Do you have an
appointment?'

‘Shortly, yes. If you don't
mind, we'll go downstairs together.'

As they passed the doorman, Maigret
inquired after his sister-in-law.

‘The lady left a few minutes ago.
She asked me which bus she should take to get to Rue Fontaine.'

That was typical! She wanted to see for
herself the place where her son was accused of having killed Pepito. And she would
go inside! She'd tell her story to the waiters!

‘Shall we have
a drink at the Chope on the way?' suggested Maigret.

They sat down in a corner and ordered a
vintage Armagnac.

‘You have to admit,'
ventured Amadieu, tugging at his moustache, ‘that your method is impossible to
apply in a case like this one. The chief and I were arguing about it
earlier.'

Well, well, the chief really was taking
a close interest in the case!

‘What do you mean by my
method?'

‘You know better than I do.
Usually, you get involved in people's lives; you try to understand their
thinking and you take as much interest in things that happened to them twenty years
earlier as you do in concrete clues. Here, we're faced with a bunch about whom
we know pretty much everything. They don't even try to put us off the scent.
And I'm not even sure that, in private, Cageot would even bother to deny
having killed.'

‘He hasn't denied
it.'

‘So what do you plan to
do?'

‘What about you?'

‘I'll start by spreading a
net around them, that's the best thing. From this evening, I'll have
each one of them followed. They'll have to go somewhere, talk to people.
We'll question those people and—'

‘And in six months' time
Philippe will still be in prison.'

‘His lawyer intends to request his
interim release. As he is only accused of manslaughter, he's bound to obtain
it.'

Maigret could no longer feel his
tiredness.

‘Another?' suggested Amadieu, pointing to the glasses.

‘With pleasure.'

Poor Amadieu! How uncomfortable he must
have felt when he walked into the hotel lounge! By now, he'd had the time to
regain his composure and adopt a deceptive air of confidence, and even to speak of
the case with a certain casualness.

‘As a matter of fact,' he
added, taking a sip of Armagnac, ‘I wonder whether Cageot is actually the
killer. I've been mulling over your hypothesis. Why wouldn't he have
given Audiat the job of shooting? He himself could have been hiding in the
street—'

‘Audiat would never have retraced
his steps to bump into my nephew and raise the alarm. He'd be likely to lose
his bottle. He's a nasty little thug but small fry.'

‘What about Eugène?'

Maigret shrugged, not because he
believed Eugène to be innocent, but because he would have found it awkward to
implicate him. It was very vague. Fernande had something to do with it.

Besides, Maigret was barely in the
conversation. His pencil in his hand, he was doodling aimlessly on the marble table
top. The room was hot. The Armagnac produced a mellow feeling of well-being, as if
all his accumulated fatigue were gradually dissipating.

Lucas came in with a young inspector and
gave a start on seeing Maigret and Amadieu sitting side by side. Maigret winked at
him across the room.

‘Why don't you come over to
HQ?' suggested Amadieu. ‘I'll show you the transcript of the
interrogations.'

‘What's
the use?'

‘What do you intend to
do?'

He was on edge. What could be brewing
behind Maigret's stubborn brow? Already he was being slightly less
cordial.

‘We mustn't let our efforts
undermine each other. The chief is of the same opinion as me and it's he who
advised me to reach an agreement with you.'

‘Well, aren't we
agreed?'

‘About what?'

‘About the fact that Cageot killed
Pepito and that it was probably he who killed Barnabé a fortnight
earlier.'

‘Being agreed about it isn't
sufficient grounds to arrest him.'

‘Of course not.'

‘So?'

‘So nothing. Or rather, I will
only ask one thing of you. I imagine it will be easy for you to get a summons
against Cageot from Gastambide?'

‘And then what?'

‘Then I'd like there to be
an inspector on duty at Quai des Orfèvres with that summons in his pocket. As soon
as I telephone him, he should come and meet me.'

‘Meet you where?'

‘Wherever I am! It would be better
if instead of one summons, he has several. You never know.'

Amadieu's glum face had grown
longer.

‘Fine,' he snapped.
‘I'll talk to the chief.'

He called the waiter and paid for one
round. Then he spent ages buttoning and unbuttoning his overcoat in the hope that
Maigret would finally say something.

‘Well! I wish
you every success.'

‘That's very kind. Thank
you.'

‘When do you think it will
be?'

‘Perhaps later today. Perhaps not
until tomorrow morning. Actually, I think it would be better if it were to happen
tomorrow morning.'

Just as his companion was heading off,
Maigret had an afterthought.

‘And thank you for
coming!'

‘You're welcome.'

Left on his own, Maigret paid for the
second round, then paused at the table where Lucas and his colleague were
sitting.

‘Any news, chief?' asked
Lucas.

‘Soon. Where will I be able to get
hold of you at around eight tomorrow morning?'

‘I'll be at Quai des
Orfèvres. Unless you'd rather I came here.'

‘See you tomorrow here!'

Outside, Maigret stopped a taxi and
asked to be dropped off in Rue Fontaine. Night was falling. Lights went on in the
windows. As they drove past the Tabac Fontaine, he asked the driver to slow
down.