Maigret Defends Himself, page 10
7.
At 11.30, Maigret walked into his office and flung his hat on an armchair. He didn’t have time to choose a fresh pipe before there was a knock at the door, and old Joseph came in.
‘The commissioner is asking to see you, sir. This is the third time he’s sent me.’
As it happened, poor Barnacle with his sore feet wasn’t the oldest in the Police Judiciaire, it was this clerk with his silver chain, who, thanks to spending most of his time in an antechamber where no daylight penetrated, had taken on the colour of ivory.
Maigret followed him and for the second time this morning entered the commissioner’s office, whose threshold he had crossed thousands of times.
‘Sit down, Maigret.’
He pointed to an armchair that was half in shade, half in sunlight. The three windows let all the noises from outside into the room, and the commissioner, as if to give this interview a more confidential character, stood up and closed them.
He appeared more than embarrassed. His name was Roland Blutet. Ever since his appointment, he had seemed ill at ease in his position, because there had still been several veterans like Maigret in charge of the different departments.
He had made an effort to take on the tone of the house, as the Police Judiciaire had once been called, a tone that was hard to define: gruff and familiar, dispensing with pointless courtesies, based on mutual trust.
Not so long ago, there hadn’t been many graduates, just people who had more or less seen it all as far as human beings were concerned. People who weren’t surprised by anything – or angered by anything either.
They had had the worst criminals sitting in front of them and had often seen them weep. They had also seen men risk their lives to arrest other criminals who would be released by the courts and then offend again.
‘I’ve sent for you three times this morning, Maigret.’
‘So I’ve just been told.’
‘You weren’t in your office.’
The commissioner didn’t know where to look, and his hand shook as he lit a cigarette.
‘I thought your men were giving priority to the jewel thieves and their latest exploit on Avenue Victor-Hugo.’
‘That’s right.’
‘It’s eleven thirty now.’
He was wearing a waistcoat with a pocket watch on a chain.
‘Allow me to ask you where you spent the morning.’
It was harder than in the prefect’s office. First of all, it was happening at Quai des Orfèvres and not in a place that, for Maigret, was almost anonymous. He had often been in this office in his shirtsleeves, chatting to commissioners who were old colleagues and friends.
Blutet, in addition, wasn’t playing his part well.
‘I went to see the dentist.’
‘I assume you chose one in your local area?’
‘Am I obliged to answer that, sir? Until now, apart from yesterday, I’ve conducted many interrogations, but never been subjected to one. I had no idea we had to provide the names and addresses of our dentists, our doctors, perhaps our tailors, too.’
‘I understand you.’
‘You do?’ he retorted ironically.
‘I can put myself in your shoes, believe me. At the moment it’s quite painful for me to be in my own shoes. I’m only acting on orders that have come to me from higher up. What would you answer if I asked for your whereabouts hour by hour since yesterday afternoon?’
‘I’d give you my resignation.’
‘Try to understand the position I’m in. You’re perfectly well aware of all the stir the press are making about these jewel raids that have been happening with almost arrogant regularity in the last two months.’
‘More than half took place on the Riviera and in Deauville, outside our jurisdiction.’
‘Carried out by the same gang! Or at any rate, using the same methods. The last raid took place yesterday morning. Did you visit the scene, as you usually do?’
‘No.’
‘Have you read your inspectors’ reports?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have any leads?’
‘I’ve been following the same lead since these raids started up again.’
‘Without any results?’
‘I don’t have any evidence yet, that’s true. I’m waiting for them to be careless, to make a mistake, to do something apparently trivial that’ll give me a chance to make a move.’
‘This morning, you went to see a dentist – not your own dentist, but one in Rue des Acacias – even though your teeth are perfectly healthy. Do you suspect this dentist of having something to do with the jewel raids?’
‘No.’
‘Your second visit was to the building opposite.’
‘Where one of my informers lives.’
‘Did you talk to him about the jewel raids?’
‘No.’
‘Listen to me, Maigret. You know that when I started here, I had the greatest admiration for you as a man and as a police officer. Nothing has changed. But today I’m obliged, as I said, to play a role I don’t like. Yesterday, you were summoned by the prefect of police. He spoke to you about an affair that’s none of my business. I know only the broad outlines, and that’s all I need to know. Before leaving you, he insisted that you take no part in this affair in any way whatsoever, not talk about it to anyone, even your colleagues and your inspectors. Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
The commissioner glanced at a sheet of paper on the desk in front of him.
‘After that interview yesterday, you shut yourself in your office until about three o’clock. You then went to a little bistro in Rue de Seine called Désiré’s. Soon afterwards, you were seen going into a hotel in Rue des Écoles, where you had a brief conversation with the manageress. Do these two places have any connection with the affair you were forbidden to have anything to do with?’
‘Yes.’
‘You then went, in the company of Inspector Janvier, to Rue des Acacias, where you spent quite a long time with a suspicious character named Manuel Palmari, whom you’ve sometimes used as an informer.’
‘I assume I was followed by what the newspapers call the secret police, sir?’
He didn’t say ‘chief’ as he usually did. He felt sick. To make it worse, the sun was full on him, and his face was covered in sweat.
Roland Blutet pretended not to have heard.
‘When you got back to headquarters, you summoned an old inspector named Barnacle to your office and gave him an assignment. He was to photograph a particular young lady without her knowledge, a young lady whom the prefect of police …’
‘… had forbidden me to have anything to do with.’
‘Some time later, you’re in a little bar in Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, in the company of Inspector Lucas and a porter from the Sorbonne. Did you talk about the jewel raids?’
‘No.’
‘Or about the young lady I mentioned?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it pure coincidence that you took Madame Maigret to dinner in a restaurant on Avenue de la Grande-Armée?’
‘No.’
‘Or that in questioning a man named Landry you managed to get him to show you the register of a club?’
‘This is all true, sir. I admit it never occurred to me to make sure that I wasn’t being followed. Until now, I’ve always been on the other side of the fence.’
‘If you’re interested, I can assure you I wasn’t responsible for this surveillance and that what little I know of the case I only found out this morning. The higher-ups seem to attach a great deal of importance to it. I’m a civil servant. When I’m ordered to do something, I have to see it through to the end.’
‘Would you like me to make a written confession?’
‘Don’t make my task more difficult, Maigret. I’m not proud of it, believe me.’
‘I’m quite prepared to believe you.’
‘The fact remains that for twenty-four hours you assigned at least three inspectors in your department to tasks they shouldn’t have been involved with. In other words, you used them for your personal convenience. I don’t think any disciplinary action will be taken against these men, since they knew nothing of your interview with the prefect of police. It still remains for me to …’
The commissioner was feeling hot, too, and kept mopping his brow.
‘It still remains for me to tell you the solution that’s been suggested. You need rest. You’ve been working very hard lately, without taking any leave. You’re to request a period of sick leave which will last until the disciplinary investigation into your actions has been completed.’
He had got to the end only with difficulty. He no longer dared look at the man sitting in front of him. He felt embarrassed, the way you feel with an animal you have tried to kill and have merely succeeded in wounding.
‘It probably won’t take more than a few days. According to regulations, you’ll have every opportunity to defend yourself. I believe you’ve already presented your version of events.’
Maigret got heavily to his feet.
‘Thank you, sir.’
Then, much to the commissioner’s surprise, he walked over to the nearest window.
‘I assume we can open them again?’
He opened them one by one, taking the time to breathe in the warm air from outside, to see human beings moving about in the familiar setting of Paris.
‘Your leave begins as of now, is that clear?’
He nodded and left the room. The commissioner didn’t hold out his hand, but held it slightly in front of his body, ready to take Maigret’s if the latter made a move.
Maigret didn’t make that move. Nor did he collapse into an armchair in his office, as he had the day before, but went straight to the inspectors’ room.
‘Lucas! Janvier!’
He didn’t see Barnacle.
‘Come in, boys. You’re going to be working without me for a while.’
Janvier understood immediately and turned pale, his jaws clenched so tightly that he could not have uttered a word.
‘I’m tired, perhaps sick. The administration, like the good mother it is, is concerned about my health and is allowing me some rest.’
He walked up and down in order not to let his closest colleagues see that his eyes were moist.
‘You’ll continue dealing with the jewel raids. You both know what I think of that case. And you know how stubborn I am.’
His pipe had gone out, and he put it in the big glass ashtray and filled another.
‘The higher-ups know all your actions since yesterday. Mine, too, of course. Make sure to warn Barnacle as soon as he gets back. It’s likely you’ll both be followed as I was and as I’ll continue to be. It wouldn’t do me any good, quite the contrary, if any disciplinary action were taken against you. So forget everything you know about this business.’
He smiled at them.
‘There, I’ve finished. It wasn’t as hard for me as it was for the commissioner just now.’
He walked over to the armchair, where he had left his hat.
‘See you later, boys.’
Janvier was the first to get his voice back.
‘You know, chief …’
‘Yes?’
‘I went to the Clou Doré. I showed the photograph. Nobody there knows her.’
‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
‘Are you giving up?’
He looked at them in turn.
‘Is that how well you know me?’
‘You mean you’re going to continue on your own, without any back-up, even though you’re under surveillance?’
‘I’m going to try.’
They were both smiling now with emotion, no longer knowing what to do, how to express what they felt.
‘Come on. Don’t get all sentimental on me … I’ll see you soon.’
He cut short the handshakes and headed for the door. A few moments later, he was descending the grand staircase of the Police Judiciaire.
As he passed through the arch, the two sentries saluted him, and he returned their salute with a touch of irony. It was odd to suddenly see the world through new eyes, the eyes of a free man.
He had nothing to do, no reason to turn right rather than left.
Maybe it would be one of the anglers on the banks of the river who would abandon his line and follow him. Or the driver of a grey car parked a hundred metres away.
He chose to turn right. He seemed no different from any other day as he entered the Brasserie Dauphine, where the owner came up to him as usual and shook his hand.
‘Everything all right, Monsieur Maigret?’
‘Oh, yes!’
‘What’ll you have?’
‘I wonder …’
He felt like a different drink, not an ordinary aperitif. He remembered something from his early days in Paris. They had launched a new drink at the time, one that had been his favourite aperitif for a year or two.
‘Is it still possible to get mandarin-curaçao?’
‘Oh, yes. I don’t get asked for it often, and young people don’t know what it is, but we always keep a bottle on our shelves … A twist of lemon?’
He drank two, but it didn’t taste quite as it used to. Then he walked slowly to the Châtelet and waited for his bus. He was in no hurry.
‘Are you very sad?’ Madame Maigret asked, laying the table. She had been surprised to see her husband come home so early.
‘No. It was a hard blow at the time, harder than with the prefect, I’m not too sure why, maybe because it was happening in the house. Right now, I feel as if my hands have been untied, and that’s rather a relief.’
‘Aren’t you afraid?’
‘All I risk is disciplinary action, and the worst that could happen is that I’ll be made to take early retirement.’
‘I’m not talking about that. The people you’re trying to unmask …’
‘They can’t do anything else where I’m concerned without proving me right. The chief said more than he should this morning. He told me: “Your teeth are perfectly healthy.” If it wasn’t for that, I’d have thought he’d got his information from the men tasked with following me. But they didn’t see the inside of my mouth. Even our dentist, Ajoupa, couldn’t state categorically that my teeth were healthy this morning, because he hasn’t seen me for more than a year. That means that as soon as I left his surgery, Dr Mélan made a phone call, probably to Nicole Prieur. She then complained again to her uncle. The same merry-go-round as yesterday morning: the minister of the interior, the prefect of police and finally the commissioner. If you look at these things with a bit of detachment, it’s all quite amusing.’
‘What are you going to do with yourself?’
‘Carry on.’
‘Alone?’
‘You’re never completely alone. To start with, I’m going to call good old Pardon. He must be back from his house calls.’
Soon afterwards, he heard Dr Pardon say:
‘I’ve just got home and was about to eat.’
‘The thing is, Pardon, I need you again.’
He had, in fact, often called Pardon for medical information, or to find out about one of his colleagues.
Even when they don’t know each other personally, it is quite easy for doctors to find out about each other. Graduating from the same schools, they always have a friend who was so-and-so’s fellow student, professor, former hospital colleague.
It’s a relatively closed circle, and in addition, they meet each other at conferences.
‘This time, it’s a dentist, or rather, as his brass nameplate says, a “specialist in oral medicine”.’
‘Personally, I don’t know many.’
‘His name is François Mélan, he’s thirty-eight years old, and he lives and practises in a mansion in Rue des Acacias.’
There was a silence at the other end.
‘Do you know him?’
‘No, I was calculating … The question of age again … Thirty-eight is already another generation. It won’t be easy for me to find someone among the professors who knows him.’
‘Could it be done quickly?’
‘With any luck, I can make a few phone calls. The first one could just as easily turn out to be the right one as the last. I also have to consult my yearbooks. Is this an important case?’
‘For me personally, very important. Do you have any plans for this evening?’
He heard Pardon ask his wife:
‘Do you have any plans for this evening?’
He even heard Madame Pardon reply in the background:
‘You said yesterday you might take me to the cinema …’
‘No, no plans,’ Pardon said into the phone.
‘What about the cinema?’
‘You heard, did you? I’m not bothered about the cinema.’
‘Would you both like to come over for dinner? The three of you, if your daughter’s still with you.’
‘No, her husband’s back.’
‘See you this evening, then?’
‘See you this evening. If I get the information earlier, should I phone you at your office?’
‘I don’t have an office any more.’
‘What? Are you serious?’
‘Let’s just say that until further orders, I’m a private citizen again, without any privileges or responsibilities.’
It was like a Sunday afternoon, except that around him Paris was living its weekday life, and the noises and the smells and the light were not those of a Sunday.
After lunch, he dozed off in his armchair without realizing it. On opening his eyes, he was surprised to see that it was 3.30.
‘I was fast asleep,’ he observed in a thick voice.
‘You even snored. Would you like a cup of coffee?’
‘I’d love one.’
He needed to get his thoughts back in order, but he refused to think about the case, preferring to let it settle inside him.
What could he try to do? Almost nothing. In all likelihood, someone was keeping an eye on him outside on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, ready to follow him wherever he went.
