Maigret Defends Himself, page 8
‘Mademoiselle Prieur is one of our most loyal members. She’s here at least two or three times a week.’
‘Alone?’
‘Alone or in a group.’
‘Does she stay until closing time?’
‘Quite often.’
‘What time do you close?’
‘It depends on the atmosphere. Members sometimes bring with them a film star, a theatre star, a singer, some celebrity or other. There are nights when we don’t turn the lights out until six in the morning, but mostly it’s two or three, when there’s nobody left.’
‘Has Mademoiselle Prieur ever come with her uncle?’
‘Once, at the beginning. For most of the younger girls, it’s almost a tradition. The first night, the relatives like to see things for themselves. Monsieur Prieur surprised all of us. We were expecting to see somebody solemn … Do you know him?’
‘No.’
‘He’s the Master of Requests at the Council of State, and they say he’s one of our most learned jurists. Well, just imagine a man of fifty or fifty-five with broad shoulders, a square-cut face like a peasant’s, a short thick beard covering his face, and bushy eyebrows. A good-natured boar. He ordered a double whisky, and less than a quarter of an hour later he was on the dance floor with his niece. He stayed for two hours and when he left he congratulated me, adding that if he wasn’t such an early riser, he’d have stayed even longer.’
‘It’s easy to get the wrong idea about people. Did he ever come back?’
‘No.’
‘Not even last night?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Who was Mademoiselle Prieur with last night?’
‘Last night? Wait, I have to picture the layout of tables in my mind … No, I didn’t see her last night.’
‘Or her friend?’
‘You mean Martine Bouet? … No. I can’t place her either.’
‘Many thanks.’
‘Do you still want to apply for membership? Have you found any possible sponsors on this list?’
‘Lots of them. I’ll think about it. I see your members are starting to arrive.’
‘Actually, yes, it’s time I went down.’
‘By the way, do you know Manuel?’
‘The actor?’
‘Manuel Palmari.’
‘What does he do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I don’t think so … No … Should I know him?’
‘It’s better you don’t. Thanks again, Monsieur Landry.’
‘Wouldn’t you like to take a look downstairs? Or you, madame? … In that case, if you’ll excuse me …’
Madame Maigret waited patiently until her husband had paid the bill and they were both outside before asking:
‘Did you find out what you wanted?’
‘I found out a lot of things, but I don’t know how important they are. While we’re in the area, let’s go by Rue des Acacias.’
On the way, he sighed:
‘As long as Nicole Prieur doesn’t think of going to the club this evening.’
‘Do you think he’ll talk?’
‘He’s bound to tell her that I asked him a lot of questions about her. If she then tells her uncle, we can start packing our bags tomorrow.’
He said this in such a light tone that she squeezed his arm more tightly and asked:
‘Are you sad? Are you trying to hide it from me?’
‘No. To be honest, at the point I am now, I’m wondering which I’d rather do: leave or carry on.’
‘I guess it was a big shock this morning?’
‘Fairly. For the first time in my life, I was on the wrong side of the desk. I wonder if I’ll still have the heart to go on with some of my interrogations.’
‘Why didn’t you defend yourself?’
‘Because there would have been no point, and I might have lost my temper.’
‘You think that girl—’
‘She doesn’t count. She’s just a pawn. Everything’s too well engineered, including the question of the times, the two possible testimonies … Martine Bouet, first of all. The telephone token. Just one … Then Désiré. She definitely wasn’t unsteady on her feet when he saw her and didn’t talk to him as if she was drunk. When she spoke to me, she lowered her voice, and he couldn’t hear her … The bars where I’m supposed to have got her drunk. The description she gave could apply to fifty bars and cellars in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and at least a dozen of those places are so crowded that nobody would have noticed us … And finally, the hotel. Well, I did go up to the second floor with her, and she was clever enough to keep me in her room for a good ten minutes …’
‘Do you have any ideas?’
‘Bits of ideas. Lots of bits. Unfortunately, only one of these bits is the right one. I just have to decide which it is.’
Rue des Acacias was almost deserted. There were still some lighted windows, including two of the windows in the dentist’s house. Maigret went up to the nameplate, which he had only seen from a distance during his visit to Manuel:
Dr François Mélan, specialist in oral medicine.
10 a.m. to midday, then by appointment.
‘Why does he put “specialist in oral medicine”?’
‘It sounds posher than “dentist”.’
He looked up at Manuel’s window and saw Aline leaning there, smoking a cigarette.
A few metres further on, a man standing on a corner murmured as Maigret and his wife passed:
‘Goodnight, sir.’
It was Jaquemain, one of his inspectors, who would be spending the night in the street.
‘Goodnight, old man.’
The couple took the Métro at Ternes. It had been a depressing day, but thanks to Madame Maigret it was drawing to a close in comparative serenity. On Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, a big rose-tinted moon looked down on them as they walked arm in arm towards their apartment.
A traffic accident delayed the bus in which he was travelling, and he didn’t get to Quai des Orfèvres until 9.10.
‘Has anyone asked for me?’
‘No, sir. Only Inspector Lourtie.’
‘I’ll see him after the briefing.’
He took the files that were on his desk and hurried to the commissioner’s office, where the other department heads were already gathered.
‘My apologies, commissioner.’
‘You were saying, Bernard?’
The head of the Gambling Squad went on with his report, in a monotonous voice.
‘Good … And what about you, Maigret? Another jewel raid yesterday …’
Maigret had expected a difficult session, furtive or reproving glances, but nothing of what had happened the previous day in the prefect’s office seemed to have filtered through.
The usual morning routine. The open windows. Birds singing. A tramp on the banks of the Seine, carefully washing his linen.
A quarter of an hour later, Barnacle, still dressed in black, slipped into Maigret’s office.
‘I have three,’ he announced, holding out some enlarged photographs, ‘but I don’t know which is the right one.’
He meant the right girl, in other words, Nicole Prieur. The first, a round-faced young woman with innocent eyes, looked nothing like her. The second was barely sixteen, which rather suggested that poor Barnacle’s knowledge of girls had remained rudimentary.
The third was indeed Nicole, wearing a light-coloured dress and carrying a white handbag under her arm.
‘I have another one of her, a full-length one.’
Like a conjurer, Barnacle produced it from a pocket of his loose-fitting jacket. The picture had been taken in front of the gates of the Parc Monceau. Nicole was holding on to a dog lead, at the other end of which a dachshund was busy doing its business.
‘Is this what you wanted?’
‘Perfect, Barnacle.’
‘Would you like more copies?’
‘If possible, yes. Three or four.’
It didn’t matter so much now. Without Oscar, Lucas’ – or rather, Madame Lucas’ – distant relative, these photographs would have played a greater role. They might still play one, although Maigret already thought he had a lead.
‘Do you want me to print them right away?’
Maigret had rather forgotten that Barnacle had risked his job to take these photographs on the sly.
‘Was it difficult?’
‘Not as difficult as all that. Out in the street, you know, I’m not conspicuous, I blend into the background. In parks, you almost always find one or two men like me, and nobody pays attention to them any more.’
He spoke of himself without bitterness or irony.
‘She didn’t notice a thing. She was busy with her dog. It wouldn’t cross the road, and she had to pick it up and carry it. I have a picture of her holding the dog, but it’s out of focus, and I didn’t print it.’
‘Thanks, Barnacle. You’re a good man.’
‘Well, you’ve always been good to me.’
Once Barnacle had left, it was Janvier’s turn.
‘Is this the girl?’
‘Yes. I’d like you to go to Rue Fontaine.’
‘The Clou Doré?’
‘Yes. Show the picture to the waiters. Try and find out if they’ve ever seen her there. Then try the surrounding area.’
‘Aren’t you going out, chief?’
‘Yes. I’m going to Rue des Acacias.’
‘Don’t you need me to drive you?’
‘I’d prefer you to go to Montmartre before the rush starts. Tell Lucas to wait for me downstairs with a car.’
There was already a heat haze in the air, the kind you see over the sea, and the Champs-Élysées shimmered in a golden light.
‘Thanks for the cousin, Lucas.’
‘You’re welcome, chief. Because of me, he has quite a hangover. He was so proud of meeting you and having a drink with you that he couldn’t stop with the anisettes. From now on, he’s going to talk about his friend Maigret as if he’s known you since your schooldays. Where should I drop you? At Manuel’s?’
It had already become a habit.
‘If you like. I’m going to the house opposite.’
‘Shall I wait for you?’
‘Yes. I may not be long.’
He rang the doorbell. A woman with a long face, Spanish in appearance, looked at him in an unfriendly fashion and asked:
‘What do you want?’
‘I’d like to see Dr Mélan.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go up then. The door on the right.’
She watched him as he climbed the stairs. They were of oak and partly covered in a stained green carpet. The woman’s apron was stained, too. Madame Maigret would have found the place poorly maintained.
6.
He took his time, just for the pleasure of making the maid hang about in the ground-floor corridor. And as he climbed the stairs, he tried to define the smell that pervaded the house, a smell he knew, one not without its charm, which went back as far as his childhood: the smell of old houses, damp woodwork, with a whiff of compost.
The little mansion probably still had a garden at the back, the kind you still found in Paris, with a tree which, again because of the smell, Maigret would have sworn was a lime tree.
He had never been in quite such a difficult position: he had no right to be here, and, if the dentist made even the smallest complaint, there would be an official disclaimer and Maigret would have to account for his actions.
It was as if he were deliberately doing all the things the prefect accused him of. No sooner had there been mention of his liking for informers than he had rushed to see Manuel, who was one.
He had been forbidden to talk to Nicole and he had gone and questioned an employee of the Sorbonne about her in a bar.
The slightest mention of this case at the Police Judiciaire was forbidden, and he had informed first Janvier, then Lucas, and sent poor Barnacle to secretly photograph the girl.
Finally, on a pretext so transparent that Marcel Landry hadn’t been taken in for a moment, he had asked to see the register of a private club of which Monsieur Prieur’s niece was a member.
All these offences in just one day! Having ventured this far, he saw no reason to stop. Either he would succeed or he would fail, and as far as everyone was concerned his career would come to a pitiful end.
Had he even discovered anything? Yes. He wasn’t yet sure how valuable the information was, but he had found a connection between two women as different, living such diametrically opposed lives, as Nicole Prieur and Manuel’s mistress, Aline. Nicole had had Dr Mélan as her sponsor for the Hundred Keys. At least once, the previous day, Aline had gone to the same dentist for treatment.
All this went through his head in a few seconds. When he got to the first floor, he turned, not to the door on the right, as the Spanish woman had told him, but the one on the left. He quite liked to see the private surroundings of the people he was dealing with, especially rooms he hadn’t been invited into.
The door was locked or bolted. A voice from below said:
‘Don’t you know your right from your left?’
The maid had walked up a few steps. Her big dark eyes had not much more expression than those of a cow in a meadow, but she was a fine figure of a woman all the same.
An enamel plaque bore the words: Knock and come in.
He knocked, turned the handle and found himself in a waiting room that looked like a sitting room in the provinces, empty apart from one other person, a still fairly young woman, clearly anxious and in poor health.
Ignoring the pile of magazines on a gilded pedestal table, she sat there motionless, staring down at the flowered carpet. She cast him a brief, indifferent glance, then went back to her melancholy contemplation.
A door opposite him opened, and the long-nosed secretary or nurse Manuel had told him about addressed him in an unfriendly manner. Her voice was curt, her gaze harsh. She was the kind of exceptionally ugly woman who has never had a childhood or an adolescence and blames the whole world for it.
‘What is it you want?’
‘I’d like to see Dr Mélan.’
‘For a consultation?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘No.’
‘The doctor only sees patients by appointment.’
‘The nameplate by the door says that he sees patients from ten to midday, and by appointment only after midday.’
‘It’s an old nameplate.’
‘I’ve had a bad toothache since last night, and aspirin doesn’t help. I’d like the doctor to—’
‘Have you been here before?’
‘No.’
‘Do you live locally?’
‘No.’
‘What made you choose Dr Mélan?’
‘I was passing in the street and saw his nameplate.’
‘Follow me.’
She admitted him to a small office with white walls, although the white was as faded as in the rest of the building. She sat down at the desk.
‘Take a seat. I can’t guarantee the doctor will be able to fit you in between patients, but I’ll fill in a file card for you just in case. What’s your name?’
‘Maigret. Jules Maigret.’
‘Profession?’
‘Civil servant.’
‘Age?’
‘Fifty-two.’
‘Address?’
‘Boulevard Richard-Lenoir.’
She didn’t react. Admittedly, her head was bent over the form, and he couldn’t see her eyes.
‘Which is the tooth that hurts?’
‘A molar on the right, I’m not sure which, the second one, I think …’
‘Wait in the next room. I can’t guarantee anything. If you’re in a hurry, I advise you to find another dentist.’
‘I’ll wait.’
The window of the waiting room did indeed look out on a garden, and there, in the middle of a lawn that was wilting in the heat, he saw the lime tree he had imagined.
He also saw a dilapidated greenhouse up against quite a high wall, gardening tools, badly tended flowerbeds.
Beyond that was a building of six or seven floors. From this angle, it was the back of the building he saw. At several of the windows, clothes were drying on washing lines.
He sat down and fingered his pipe in his pocket. He might have lit it if that sad-looking young woman hadn’t been sitting opposite him. There was a ticking. It came from a black marble clock just like those in the offices at Quai des Orfèvres. It showed the time to be 10.20. He wondered if he would still be here waiting when it showed twelve.
He made an effort not to think, to avoid constructing hypotheses, to keep his mind open, and to pass the time he registered small details: the mirror above the fireplace, where flies had left little brown marks over the years, the Second Empire andirons, the mismatched armchairs. Nothing was ugly in itself. Nor was the house, built in around 1870 or 1880, well before the apartment buildings in the street.
It would soon disappear. Its end was clearly near, which might have been why nobody could bother with the expense of a new coat of paint.
It was also obvious there was no wife here, no children.
The third door in the room was padded, the kind still found in old notaries’ offices or in some government buildings. Nothing could be heard of whatever was happening beyond it.
In fact, there was silence throughout the building, and with the windows closed you could only just make out the singing of birds in the lime tree.
Outside, it was hot. Here, the coolness was striking.
‘The doctor asks you to excuse him, mademoiselle. He’ll see you in a few minutes.’
It was the nurse, to whom the young patient responded with a look of resignation.
‘Please follow me, Monsieur Maigret.’
She opened the padded door, then the grey-painted door behind it, passing abruptly from shade to sunlight. A man in white was sitting at a Louis-Philippe desk, holding the file card recently filled out for Maigret.
The nurse had disappeared. François Mélan was taking his time, reading the card to the end. Maigret took two or three steps forwards.
‘Take a seat.’
He was quite different from what might have been imagined from the conversation with Marcel Landry, and it was even harder to see him than Nicole’s uncle in the music-filled basement of the Hundred Keys Club.
