Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard (11 page)

“She lets furnished rooms in the Rue d'Angoulême. She's not registered with the Licensed Premises people. Most of her tenants are girls, but I don't think they ply their trade on the premises.”

“That makes sense.”

“I'd like a watch kept on the house, and as much information as possible about the inmates.”

“That shouldn't be difficult.”

“I'd prefer to have someone from the Vice Squad on the job. My men couldn't be sure of identifying the people involved.”

“I'll see to it.”

At last Maigret was able to sit down, or rather collapse into the armchair in his office. No sooner was he comfortably settled than Lucas put his head round the door.

“Any news?”

“Nothing on the telephone front. There have been no outgoing calls. But there was one rather odd incident this morning. A woman by the name of Madame Thévenard, who lives with her nephew in the Rue Gay-Lussac, went out to attend a funeral.”

“Really?”

“Not the same funeral. This took place in a local cemetery. The flat was empty while she was out. When she got home, having done her household shopping on the way back, she went into her larder to put her provisions away, and discovered that a sausage which had been there two hours previously had disappeared.”

“Is she quite sure…?”

“Absolutely sure. And besides, when she had a good look round the flat…”

“Wasn't she frightened?”

“She had an old service revolver in her hand. Her husband had kept it from the First World War. Apparently, she's an odd sort of woman, very tiny and plump, and she never stops laughing. She says she found a handkerchief that doesn't belong to him under her nephew's bed, and a few crumbs.”

“What does the nephew do?”

“He's a student, and his christian name is Hubert. As the Thévenards aren't all that well off, he works in the daytime as an assistant in the bookshop in the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Do you see what I'm driving at?”

“Yes. Did the aunt notify the police?”

“Yes. She telephoned the local station from the lodge. The inspector who took the call got in touch with me straight away. I sent Leroy off to the bookshop, to see what he could get out of Hubert. The lad was shaking all over, and then he burst into tears.”

“Is he a friend of Albert Jorisse?”

“Yes, and Jorisse pleaded with him, until he agreed to hide him in his room for a few days.”

“What did Jorisse say was the matter?”

“He said he'd quarreled with his parents, and that his father had such a fearful temper, he was quite capable of doing him a serious mischief.”

“And so Hubert agreed to let him spend two days and nights hidden under his bed?”

“No. He was only there twenty-four hours. He spent the first night wandering about the streets, or so he told his friend. I've notified all police stations. The kid must be out and about somewhere in the town.”

“Has he any money?”

“Hubert Thévenard couldn't say.”

“Have you alerted all the railway stations?”

“I think we've provided for everything, chief. I'd be surprised if he wasn't brought in sometime between now and tomorrow morning.”

 

He wondered what the family was doing in Juvisy. No doubt the widow's sisters, along with their husbands and daughters, had rallied round. They had probably all dined there, in the house of mourning. A substantial meal, without a doubt, as was only fitting after a funeral. They must have discussed Madame Thouret's future, and Monique's as well.

Maigret could just see them, the two men lounging in the best armchairs, with drinks and good cigars.

“Do have a drop of something, Emilie. It will do you good.”

Had they talked of the dead man? Probably someone had remarked that, in spite of the shocking weather, the funeral had been well attended.

Maigret was almost tempted to go and see for himself. He was particularly anxious to have a serious talk with Monique. But not at her home. At the same time, he was reluctant to summon her officially.

Almost without thinking, he asked the operator to put him through to her place of work.

“Are you Geber et Bachelier?”

“Georges Bachelier speaking.”

“I wonder if you are expecting Mademoiselle Thouret to be back at work tomorrow morning?”

“Certainly. She had today off to attend to family matters, but I can't see any reason why she shouldn't…Who is that speaking?”

Maigret hung up.

“Isn't Santoni back yet?”

“He hasn't been in since early this morning.”

“Leave him a note, will you, telling him that I want a watch kept, from first thing tomorrow morning, on the entrance to Geber et Bachelier. As soon as Mademoiselle Thouret arrives, I want her brought here. Tell him to treat her gently.”

“You want her brought here?”

“Yes, to my office.”

“Anything else?”

“No, nothing. I shall be working in here for a time. I don't want to be disturbed.”

He had had enough for one day of Louis Thouret, his family, and his mistress. If it hadn't been for his sense of duty, he would have walked straight out and gone to a cinema.

He stayed until seven, plowing through a mass of paperwork as if the fate of the world depended on it. Not only did he polish off everything in his pending tray, he also dealt with several files that had been kicking around for weeks or even months, and which were of no importance whatsoever.

When finally he left, his vision blurred from having spent so long poring over print and typescript, he was aware of a change. At first, he couldn't think what it was. Then he held out his hand, and realized that it was no longer raining. He felt an odd sense of deprivation.

“What's she doing?”

“Nothing. She's sitting bolt upright, with her head held high, staring into space.”

She had chosen to sit not in one of the armchairs in the waiting-room but on a hard upright chair.

Maigret had intentionally left her to stew, as he put it. When Santoni had looked in at about twenty past nine to tell him that Monique was in the waiting room, Maigret had growled:

“Leave her in the cage for a while.”

This was his name for the glass-walled waiting room, with its velvet armchairs, where so many before Monique Thouret had sat for hours, until their nerve gave way.

“How does she look?”

“She's wearing mourning.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I almost had the feeling that she'd been expecting to find me there. I waited a few yards from the door of the offices in the Rue de Rivoli. As soon as she arrived, I came forward to meet her, saying:

“‘Excuse me Mademoiselle…'

“She screwed up her eyes and peered at me. I think she must be short-sighted. Then she said:

“‘Oh! It's you.'

“‘The chief superintendent would like a word with you.'

“She didn't protest. I hailed a taxi. She never opened her mouth all the way here.”

Not only was it not raining, but the sun was actually shining.

The light seemed even more diffused than usual, because of the humidity in the air.

Maigret, on his way to the daily briefing, had seen her in the distance, sitting in a corner of the waiting-room. Half an hour later, when he passed by on his way back to his office, she was still there, exactly as before. Some time after that, he had sent Lucas to see what she was doing.

“Is she reading?”

“No. She's not doing anything.”

From where she sat, her view of Police Headquarters was similar to the view of a restaurant as seen from the kitchen area. She could see the long corridor with its many doors, and the inspectors coming and going, with files under their arms, visiting one another in their different rooms, and then returning to their own offices. Occasionally, they would stop in their tracks to discuss some current problem with a colleague, and from time to time one would arrive escorting a handcuffed prisoner or a weeping woman.

Other people, who had arrived long after she had, had already been interviewed by those whom they had come to see, yet she still showed no signs of impatience.

The telephone in the Rue d'Angoulême remained silent. Did Mariette Gibon suspect that it was being tapped?

Maybe the ruse of pretending he had forgotten his pipe had put the wind up her?

Neveu, who had by now been relieved by a local colleague, reported that he had observed nothing unusual while keeping watch on the house.

As for Albert Jorisse, it was now practically certain that he had still been in Paris at six o'clock the previous night. Police Constable Dambois, who, like everyone else, had been issued with a description of him, had spotted him round about that time at the junction of the Place Clichy and the Boulevard des Batignolles. The young man had been coming out of a bar. Had the constable perhaps been too eager in his attempt to apprehend him? At any rate, Jorisse had made a run for it, and was soon lost in the crowd, which was particularly dense at that time of the evening. The constable had blown his whistle to summon help.

But, inevitably, it had been to no avail. They had combed the area, in vain. They had questioned the proprietor of the café, who had told them that the young man had not used the telephone, but that he had wolfed down five hard-boiled eggs with buttered rolls, and drunk three cups of coffee.

“He looked famished to me.”

Judge Coméliau had been on to Maigret.

“Any fresh news?”

“I'm hoping to be in a position to arrest the murderer within the next couple of days.”

“Was it a mugging, as we thought?”

He had said yes.

There was still the business of the knife to be settled. A letter had arrived by the morning post from the firm who manufactured them. As a first step in his inquiries, Janvier had personally gone to see one of the high-ups in the firm, only to be told that there was no way of finding out which hardware shop had been supplied with that particular knife. With considerable pride, he had quoted to Janvier the astronomic figure representing the number of such knives made in their factories.

Now someone with the words
Joint Managing Director
typed beneath his signature had written to the chief commissioner to inform him that, according to the serial number on the handle, the murder weapon had formed part of a consignment of knives delivered about four months ago to a wholesaler in Marseilles.

So five inspectors had wasted three days combing the hardware shops of Paris. Janvier was hopping mad.

“What should I do next, chief?”

“Pass the word to Marseilles. Next, get hold of Moers or someone else from the Forensic Lab, go with him to the Rue d'Angoulême, and get him to fingerprint Louis Thouret's room. Tell him not to forget to give the top of the glass-fronted wardrobe a thorough going-over.”

During all this time, Monique was still waiting. Every now and then, Maigret sent someone to have another look at her.

“What's she doing?”

“Nothing.”

He had seen people much tougher than she was reduced to nervous wrecks after an hour of waiting in the glass-walled cage.

By a quarter to eleven, he could stand no more of it.

“Send her in,” he said, with a sigh.

He stood up as she came in, and apologized for keeping her waiting.

“As I am anxious that we should have a long talk, I thought it best to get my paperwork out of the way first.”

“I quite understand.”

“Do please sit down.”

She did so, smoothing down her hair on either side of her face, and rested her handbag flat on her lap. He sat down opposite her, raised a pipe to his lips and, before striking a match, said:

“Do you mind?”

“My father smoked. So do both my uncles.”

She was less strung up, less uneasy than when she had first been to see him in this same office. The weather had been so mild that day that the chief superintendent had left his window open, and the street noises, though muted, had floated up to them.

“Needless to say, it's your father I want to talk about.”

She nodded.

“And about you, too, and one or two other people.”

She gave him no help, nor did she look away from him. She just waited, as if she knew what he was going to say.

“Are you very attached to your mother, Mademoiselle Monique?”

It had been his intention to adopt a bantering, affable approach, leading her on by degrees until, in the end, she would be left with no choice but to tell him the truth. But he was disconcerted with her blunt reply.

With complete composure, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she said:

“No.”

“You mean you and she don't see eye to eye?”

“I hate her.”

“May I ask why?”

She gave a little shrug.

“You've been to the house. You've seen her.”

“Could you elaborate on that?”

“My mother thinks only of herself, and her own social position, and providing for her old age. She never stops fretting at having married less advantageously than her sisters, though she tries hard to pretend that she is every bit as well off as they are.”

He had difficulty in suppressing a smile, though she had spoken with great intensity of feeling.

“Were you fond of your father?”

She was silent for a moment. He repeated the question.

“I'm trying to think. I'm not sure. I hate having to admit it, now that he's dead.”

“You mean you didn't think much of him?”

“He was pretty spineless.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“He would never take a stand over things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Everything.”

Then, with a sudden burst of feeling:

“You can't imagine the sort of life we led. If you can call it living. I got fed up with it long ago. Now I have only one thought in my head, to get away.”

“To get married, you mean?”

“Not necessarily. I just want to get out.”

“In the near future?”

“Perhaps not, but one day.”

“Did you ever talk it over with your parents?”

“What good would it have done?”

“Did you intend to leave without saying a word?”

“Why not? What difference would it have made to them?”

He was watching her with growing interest, so much so that from time to time he let his pipe go out. He had to relight it several times.

“When did you discover that your father was no longer working in the Rue de Bondy?” he asked bluntly.

He had thought that she would at least start in surprise, but she didn't. She must have anticipated his line of questioning, and had her answers ready. It was the only possible explanation of her attitude.

“Nearly three years ago. I can't remember the exact date. It was sometime in January, I think. January or February. It was freezing cold.”

The firm of Kaplan had closed down at the end of October. In January and February, Monsieur Louis had still been looking for another job. It was at that period that, having exhausted his reserves, he had reluctantly borrowed money from Mademoiselle Léone and the old bookkeeper.

“Did your father tell you himself?”

“No. It was simpler than that. One afternoon, when I was out on my rounds…”

“Were you already working in the Rue de Rivoli at that time?”

“I began working for the firm when I was eighteen. It so happened that one of the people I had to see was a ladies' hairdresser with premises in the building where my father worked. I looked out into the courtyard. It was past four o'clock. It was pitch dark. There were no lights on in the building opposite. I couldn't understand it, so I inquired of the concierge, who informed me that Kaplan's had gone out of business.”

“Did you say nothing to your mother when you got home?”

“No.”

“Nor to your father?”

“He wouldn't have told me the truth.”

“Was he a habitual liar?”

“It's hard to explain. He hated domestic strife, so, in order to avoid it, he would say nothing and do anything to keep my mother happy.”

“Was he afraid of her?”

“He just wanted to keep the peace.”

She spoke with some contempt.

“Did you follow him?”

“Yes. Not the next day, because the opportunity didn't arise. It was two or three days later. I caught an earlier train than usual, saying that there was an urgent job waiting for me in the office, and I hung about near the station.”

“What did he do that day?”

“He went into several offices. I got the impression that he was looking for a job. At lunchtime he went into a little bar and ate a couple of croissants, and then he rushed into a newspaper office to read the Situations Vacant columns. I realized what it all meant.”

“How did you feel about it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn't it surprise you that he had not mentioned it to either your mother or yourself?”

“No. He wouldn't have dared. It would only have led to a scene. My uncles and aunts would have taken advantage of the occasion to overwhelm him with advice, and reproach him for his lack of initiative. I've had that word ‘initiative' dinned into me ever since I was born.”

“And yet, at the end of each month, your father brought home his salary as usual, didn't he?”

“That really did puzzle me. As the months went by, I became more and more certain that, before very long, he would have no choice but to return home empty handed. But instead of that, he announced one day that he had ‘demanded' a raise and got it.”

“When was this?”

“A good while after. In the summer. Sometime in August.”

“I presume you thought your father had managed to get another job?”

“Yes. I wanted to find out more, so I followed him again. But he still had no work. He wandered around, and every now and then he sat down on a bench. I thought, perhaps, it was his day off, so I waited a couple of weeks and then, deliberately picking a different day, I followed him yet again. On that occasion, he spotted me. He had just sat down on a bench on one of the Grands Boulevards. He turned very pale, hesitated, and then got up and came toward me.”