Maigret (9 page)

In the little bar, the dozy girl was at
the till, the owner
behind the bar, while the waiter was wiping the tables. But
there was no sign of Audiat, or Eugène or his friend from Marseille.

‘I bet they're furious at
being deprived of their game of
belote
this evening!'

A few moments later, the taxi drew up
opposite the
Floria. Maigret asked the driver to wait, and pushed
the half-open door.

It was cleaning time. A single lamp was
on, casting a wan light over the wall hangings and the red and green paintwork. The
tablecloths had not yet been put on the unvarnished tables, and the musicians'
instruments lay scattered around the stage still in their cases.

The overall effect was shabby and
dismal. The office door, at the back, was open and Maigret had a fleeting glimpse of
a woman's shape. He walked past a waiter sweeping the floor and suddenly
emerged into the bright light.

‘It's you!' exclaimed
his sister-in-law.

Her face was flushed and she became
flummoxed.

‘I wanted to see the—'

A young man was leaning against the
wall, smoking a cigarette. It was Monsieur Henry, the Floria's new owner, or
rather Cageot's new front man.

‘This gentleman has been very
kind—' stammered Madame Lauer.

‘I wish I could have done
more,' apologized the young man. ‘Madame has told me that she's
the mother of the police officer who killed … I mean who's accused of shooting
Pepito. I know nothing about it. I took over the place the following day.'

‘Thank you again, monsieur. I can
see that you understand what it's like to be a mother.'

She was expecting Maigret to read her
the riot act. Once they were in the waiting taxi, she talked for the sake of
talking.

‘You came by
car? There's a very good bus … I don't mind if you smoke your pipe …
I'm used to it …'

Maigret gave the address of the hotel,
then, on the way, he murmured in a strange voice:

‘This is what we're going to
do. We've got a long night ahead of us. Tomorrow morning, we must be fresh,
our nerves steady and our minds alert. We can go to the theatre, how about
that?'

‘To the theatre, while poor
Philippe's in prison?'

‘Bah! This will be his last
night.'

‘Have you found out
something?'

‘Not yet. Let me do as I see fit.
The hotel is depressing. There's nothing for us to do there.'

‘And I was wanting to take this
opportunity to go and tidy Philippe's room!'

‘He would be furious. A young man
doesn't want his mother going through his things.'

‘Do you think that Philippe has a
young lady?'

All her provincialism was distilled in
these words. Maigret kissed her on the cheek.

‘Of course not, silly goose! Sadly
he hasn't. Philippe is a real chip off the old block.'

‘I'm not certain that before
Émile married me he—'

It was like bathing in clear water. When
they arrived at the hotel, Maigret booked seats at the Palais-Royal theatre, then,
before dinner, he wrote a letter to his wife. He appeared to have forgotten all
about Pepito's murder and his nephew's arrest.

‘You and I are going to paint the
town red!' he told his
sister-in-law. ‘If you're
a good girl, I'll even show you the Floria in full swing.'

‘I'm not dressed for
that!'

He kept his word. After an elegant
dinner in a restaurant on one of the Grands Boulevards – because he didn't
want to eat at the hotel – he took his sister-in-law to the theatre and enjoyed
watching her laugh at the bedroom farce despite herself.

‘I feel bad at what you're
making me do,' she sighed during the interval. ‘If Philippe were to know
where his mother was right now!'

‘And what about Émile! I hope
he's not whispering sweet nothings to the maid.'

‘She's fifty, poor
thing.'

It was harder to get her to agree to set
foot in the Floria. She was already overwhelmed by the neon lights in the entrance
to the nightclub. Maigret steered her towards a table by the bar, brushing against
Fernande, who was there with Eugène and his sidekick from Marseille.

As one might expect, there were smiles
at the sight of the good woman being piloted by the former detective inspector.

And Maigret was thrilled! It was as if
that was what he had been hoping for! Like a decent provincial fellow out for a good
time, he ordered champagne.

‘I'll be tipsy!'
simpered Madame Lauer.

‘Good!'

‘Do you realize this is the first
time I've set foot in a place like this?'

She really was a babe
in the woods! She was a paragon of moral and physical virtue!

‘Who's that woman who keeps
staring at you?'

‘That's Fernande, a friend
of mine.'

‘If I were in my sister's
shoes, I'd be worried. She looks lovesick.'

It was true and yet it wasn't.
Fernande had been making eyes at Maigret, as if she rued losing the intimacy that
had been disrupted. But she immediately clutched Eugène's arm and made an
exaggerated show of flirting with him.

‘She's with a very handsome
young man!'

‘The sad thing is that tomorrow
the handsome young man will be in prison.'

‘What did he do?'

‘He's one of the gangsters
who got Philippe arrested.'

‘Him?'

She couldn't believe it. And it
was worse when Cageot poked his head through the curtain to see how things were
going, as he did every night.

‘You see that gentleman who looks
like a lawyer?'

‘With the grey hair?'

‘Yes! Well, be careful. Try not to
scream. He's the murderer.'

Maigret's eyes were laughing as if
he already had Cageot and the others at his mercy. Then he was laughing out loud so
hard that Fernande turned round in surprise and frowned, anxious and wistful all of
a sudden.

A little later, she made her way to the
toilets, glancing at Maigret as she walked past. He stood up to go and talk to
her.

‘Have you got
any news?' she asked, almost spitefully.

‘What about you?'

‘Nothing. As you can see,
we're having a night out.'

She watched Maigret closely and said
after a silence:

‘Is he going to be
arrested?'

‘Not straight away.'

She stamped her high-heeled foot on the
floor.

‘The love of your life?'

But she was already marching off.

‘Don't know yet,' she
retorted.

Madame Lauer was ashamed to be going to
bed at two in the morning, while Maigret fell into a deep sleep as soon as his head
touched his pillow, snoring as he had not done for a few days.

At 7.50, Maigret dropped in to the hotel
office just as the owner, who had just arrived, was reviewing the guest list with
the night watchman. A bucket of dirty water stood in the middle of the corridor;
there was a broom leaning up against the wall and Maigret, with the utmost
seriousness, grabbed the broom and examined the handle.

‘May I use this?' he asked
the owner, who stammered:

‘Feel free …'

Then he had second thoughts and asked
anxiously:

‘Is your room not clean
enough?'

Maigret was smoking his first pipe of
the day with unmitigated pleasure.

‘My room is fine!' he
replied, unperturbed. ‘It's not the broom I'm interested in.
I'd just like a little piece of the handle.'

The cleaning woman, who had appeared and
was wiping her hands on her blue apron, must have thought he had gone mad.

‘You wouldn't have a little
saw, would you?' Maigret asked the night watchman.

‘Go on, Joseph,' the owner
said, ‘go and fetch a saw for Monsieur Maigret.'

Thus the fateful day began on a comic
note. It was another sunny morning. A chambermaid entered with a breakfast tray. The
floor of the corridor had just been
washed down. The postman came
in and rummaged in his leather satchel.

Maigret, broom in hand, was waiting for
a saw.

‘There is a telephone in the
lounge, I believe?' he asked the owner.

‘Yes, there is, Monsieur Maigret.
On the table to your left. I'll connect you right away.'

‘There's no need.'

‘Don't you want to make a
call?'

‘No thank you. It's not
necessary.'

He entered the lounge with his broom,
while the cleaning woman declared:

‘I'd just like to say that
it's not my fault I'm standing here twiddling my thumbs. You'd
better not yell at me for not finishing the lobby!'

The night watchman returned with a rusty
saw, which he had found in the basement. Meanwhile, Maigret reappeared with the
broom, took the saw from him and began sawing off the end of the handle. He rested
the broom on the desk. Sawdust fell on to the newly washed floor. The other end of
the handle rubbed against the register while the owner looked on in dismay.

‘There! Thank you very
much,' said Maigret at length picking up the small round of wood which he had
just sawn off and handing back the broom minus a few centimetres to the cleaning
woman.

‘Is that what you needed?'
asked the hotel owner, keeping a straight face.

‘Exactly.'

At the Chope du Pont-Neuf, where he met
up with
Lucas in the back room, cleaners and their buckets were
everywhere, as at the hotel.

‘You know that the squad worked
all night, chief. When Amadieu left you, he got it into his head to beat you to it,
and put everyone on the case. I even know that you went to the Palais-Royal theatre
with a lady.'

‘And then that I went to the
Floria? Poor Amadieu! What about the others?'

‘Eugène was at the Floria too. I
expect you saw him. At 2.45 he left with a tart.'

‘Fernande, I know. I bet he slept
at her place in Rue Blanche.'

‘You're right. He even left
his car parked outside all night. It's still there.'

Maigret had raised an eyebrow, even
though he wasn't in love. The other morning, it was he who had been in her
sun-drenched apartment. Fernande had sat there half naked drinking her
café au
lait
and there had been an intimate sense of trust between them.

It wasn't jealousy, but he was not
very fond of men like Eugène, whom he could picture now, still in bed, while
Fernande fussed around making coffee and bringing it to him. What a condescending
smile he must have on his lips!

‘He'll get her to do
anything he wants,' he sighed. ‘Go on, Lucas.'

‘The Marseille sidekick hung
around a couple of clubs and then went back to the Hôtel Alsina. He'll be
asleep at this hour because he never rises before eleven or midday.'

‘What about the little deaf
man?'

‘His name is Colin. He lives with
his wife – turns out he
is lawfully married – in an apartment in
Rue Caulaincourt. She makes a scene when he comes home late. She used to be the
madam in his brothel.'

‘What's he doing right
now?'

‘He's at the market.
He's the one who always does the shopping, wearing a long scarf around his
neck and carpet slippers on his feet.'

‘Audiat?'

‘He went on a bar crawl and got
drunk as a lord. He returned to his hotel in Rue Lepic at around one in the morning
and the night watchman had to help him up the stairs.'

‘And Cageot's at home, I
imagine?'

On coming out of the Chope du Pont-Neuf,
Maigret had the impression he could see his characters dotted around the Sacré-Cœur,
whose white dome emerged from the Paris mist.

For ten minutes he issued instructions
to Lucas in an undertone, murmuring as he shook his hand:

‘Is everything clear? Are you sure
you don't need more than half an hour?'

‘Are you armed, chief?'

Maigret patted his trouser pocket and
hailed a passing taxi.

‘Rue des Batignolles!'

The door of the concierge's lodge
was open and the gasman was standing in the doorway.

‘Can I help you?' asked a
voice with a northern accent as Maigret walked past.

‘Monsieur Cageot,
please.'

‘On the
mezzanine, to the left.'

Maigret paused on the threadbare doormat
to get his breath back. He yanked the heavy silk cord, which set off a soft tinkling
inside the apartment, sounding like a child's toy.

Here too a broom was sweeping the floor,
occasionally hitting a piece of furniture. A woman's voice said:

‘Are you going to open the
door?'

Then there was the sound of muffled
footsteps. A chain was taken off. A key turned in the lock and the door opened, but
barely ten centimetres.

It was Cageot who had opened the door.
He was in his dressing gown, his hair tousled, his eyebrows bushier than ever. He
was not surprised. He looked Maigret in the eye and snarled:

‘What do you want?'

‘First of all, to come
in.'

‘Are you here officially, with a
proper warrant?'

‘No.'

Cageot wanted to shut the door again,
but Maigret had wedged his foot in the gap so it wouldn't close.

‘Do you not think it would be
better if we talked?' he said.

Cageot realized that he wouldn't
be able to close his door and his expression darkened.

‘I could call the
police—'

‘Of course! Except that I think
that it wouldn't do you any good and that a conversation between just the two
of us would be preferable.'

Behind Cageot, a cleaning woman dressed
in black had stopped work to listen. All the doors were open for her to clean the
whole apartment. Leading off the corridor to
the left Maigret had
the impression there was a light-filled room overlooking the street.

‘Come in.'

Cageot locked the door again, put the
chain on and said to his visitor:

‘To the right … in my office
…'

It was a typical lower-middle-class
Montmartre apartment, with a kitchen barely one metre wide looking on to the
courtyard, a bamboo coat-stand in the hall, a gloomy dining room with gloomy
curtains and wallpaper with a faded leaf pattern.

Cageot's ‘office' had
been designed to be the sitting room and was the only room in the apartment to have
two windows letting in the light.

A polished wooden floor. In the centre
were a worn rug and three upholstered armchairs that had taken on the same
indefinable hue as the rug.

The walls were dark red, cluttered with
a large number of paintings and photographs in gilt frames. And in the corners
pedestal tables and shelves were laden with worthless knick-knacks.

A mahogany desk with an old morocco top
stood near one of the windows. Cageot chose to seat himself behind it, tidying away
some papers that had been lying carelessly on the right-hand side.

‘Marthe! Bring me my hot chocolate
in here.'

He did not look at Maigret. He waited,
preferring to let his visitor launch the offensive.

Meanwhile, Maigret, sitting on a chair
that was too spindly for his burly frame, had unbuttoned his overcoat and
filled a pipe, tamping the tobacco down with his thumb, staring
about him as he did so. A window was open, probably to air the place, and when the
cleaning woman arrived with the hot chocolate Maigret asked Cageot:

‘Do you mind if we shut the
window? I caught a chill yesterday and I don't want to make my cold
worse.'

‘Close the window,
Marthe.'

Marthe had taken a dislike to the
visitor. It was clear from the way she busied herself around him, banging into his
leg in passing and making no apology.

The room was filled with the smell of
chocolate. Cageot cupped the bowl in his hands as if to warm them. Outside in the
street, delivery lorries drove past, their roofs reaching almost to the windows, as
did the omnibuses' metallic tops.

Marthe went out, leaving the door ajar,
and continued cleaning the hall.

‘I won't offer you a hot
chocolate,' said Cageot, ‘as I imagine that you have had your
breakfast.'

‘I have, yes. But if you had a
glass of white wine—'

Everything mattered, every single word,
and Cageot frowned, wondering why his visitor was asking for a drink.

Maigret understood, and smiled.

‘I'm used to working
outdoors. In winter, it's cold. In summer, it's hot. In both cases, a
man needs a drink—'

‘Marthe, bring some white wine and
a glass.'

‘Everyday wine?'

‘That's right. I prefer
everyday wine,' replied Maigret.

His bowler hat sat on the desk, next to
the telephone. Cageot sipped his chocolate without taking his eyes off Maigret.

He was paler in the
morning than in the evening, or rather his skin was drained of colour, his eyes the
same dull grey as his hair and eyebrows. He had an elongated, bony face. Cageot was
one of those men who it is impossible to imagine anything other than middle-aged. It
was hard to believe that he had ever been a baby, or a schoolboy, or even a young
man in love. He could never have held a woman in his arms and whispered loving words
to her.

On the other hand, his hairy hands,
which were nicely manicured, had always wielded a pen. The desk drawers must have
been full of papers of all kinds – accounts, calculations, bills and memoranda.

‘You're up relatively
early,' commented Maigret after glancing at his watch.

‘I don't sleep more than
three hours a night.'

He was speaking the truth. It was hard
to say how you could tell, but you could.

‘So, do you read?'

‘I read, or I work.'

They granted each other a moment's
respite. There seemed to be a tacit understanding that the real conversation would
begin once Marthe had brought in the white wine.

Maigret couldn't see a book case,
but on a small table by the desk were some bound books: the penal code, Dalloz law
manuals, legal tomes.

‘Leave us, Marthe,' said
Cageot as soon as the wine was on the table.

As she reached the kitchen, he nearly
called her back to tell her to close the door, but changed his mind.

‘I'll
leave you to pour it yourself.'

Meanwhile, as if it were the most
natural thing in the world, he opened a desk drawer and took out an automatic
revolver, which he placed within reach. It did not even feel like a provocation. He
was acting as though this were completely normal behaviour. Then he pushed away the
empty bowl and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair.

‘I'm ready to hear your
proposal,' he said, with the air of a businessman meeting a client.

‘What makes you think that I have
a proposal to put to you?'

‘Why else would you be here? You
are no longer a member of the police, so you haven't come to arrest me. You
can't be here to question me since you are no longer a sworn officer, and
anything you say afterwards will be of no consequence.'

Maigret assented with a smile as he
relit his pipe, which he had allowed to go out.

‘On the other hand, your nephew is
up to his neck in trouble and you can't see any way of getting him
off.'

Maigret had put his box of matches on
the brim of his hat and had to reach for it three times in quick succession, because
the tobacco, which was probably packed too tightly, kept going out.

‘So,' concluded Cageot,
‘you need me but I don't need you. Well, I'm all ears.'