Félicie (14 page)

‘A general's place isn't in the
middle of the battle!'

Point taken! But does he really have to stay so
far away that he has had to devise a system of couriers and relays, mobilize the woman on the
switchboard and make poor Lucas traipse from Orgeval to Jeanneville and from Jeanneville to
Orgeval, as if he were some country postman?

‘The man who is after the money may well
work it out for himself that the furniture could have been switched round. He might also be
thinking of coming back and who knows if this time he'll settle for stopping Félicie
with just a punch?'

All that is perfectly reasonable, of course, but,
say what you will, it is not the whole story. The truth is that Maigret
finds a certain satisfaction in staying put here, in the peaceful, almost unreal
surroundings of a make-believe village, while at the same time he pulls the strings of another
world that is all too real and brutal.

‘Why have you moved your knife and fork in
here?'

‘Because I insist on eating with you. I
said so when I invited myself. This is the first and probably the last time we shall have dinner
together. Unless …'

He smiles. She says insistently:

‘Unless what?'

‘Forget it. We'll talk about it in
the morning and if we have time we'll add up all the lies you've told … Take
this claw … Oh, go on!'

And suddenly, as they eat under the kitchen
light, he surprises himself thinking:

‘But someone murdered Pegleg!'

Poor old Pegleg! His was a strange fate indeed!
He hates adventure so much that he says no to the commonest form of adventure: marriage. But
that doesn't save him from losing a leg at Cape Horn on the other side of the world, on a
three-masted sailing ship!

His craving for a quiet life leads him to
Jeanneville, where human passions are not allowed in, where the houses are toys, where the trees
look like trees made of painted wood in children's nurseries.

But it is to this place that adventure comes
looking for him once more, and it arrives breathing menace from a place where he has never set
foot, a place full of horrors which he never dreamed existed, from Place Pigalle, which is
inhabited by a race apart and is a kind of Parisian jungle
where the tigers
have slicked-down hair and carry Smith & Wessons in their pockets.

And one morning that is no different from any
other morning, a morning washed with bright watercolours, he is gardening, his straw hat on his
head, pricking out innocent seedlings which would yield tomatoes which he can perhaps already
see in his mind, heavy and red, juicy, their thin skins bursting in the sun, and then, only
minutes later, he is lying dead in his bedroom, which smells of polish and the countryside.

Just as she used to, before all this happened,
Félicie sits down to eat at a corner of the table and is constantly getting up to see to a
pan on the gas stove or to pour boiling water into the coffee-pot. The window is open, and in
the blue of the night, which turns into velvet spangled with stars, invisible crickets call to
each other, frogs take their place in the chorus, a train chugs along the valley, men play cards
in the Anneau d'Or and the ever-faithful Lucas eats chops instead of lobster.

‘What are you doing?'

‘I'm washing up.'

‘Not tonight, Félicie. You're
exhausted. I would be very glad if you just went to bed … I insist! You must lock your
door …'

‘I'm not sleepy.'

‘Really? In that case I've got
something to help you to sleep. Give me half a glass of water. Two of these pills … There.
Drink up, now. Nothing to be afraid of. I've no intention of poisoning you
…'

She drinks, to show him that she's not
afraid. As a
reaction to Maigret's paternal manner, she once more
feels to the need to say:

‘I still hate you. One day you'll be
sorry for all the harm you've done. Anyway, tomorrow I shall be going away.'

‘Where?'

‘Anywhere. I don't want to see you
ever again. I don't want to stay in this house, where you'll be able to do what you
want.'

‘Understood. Tomorrow …'

‘Where are you going?'

‘Upstairs, with you. I just want to make
sure everything's all right in your room … Good. The shutters are closed …
Goodnight, Félicie.'

When he comes back down to the kitchen, the
carcass of the lobster is still in an earthenware dish, and there it will stay, where he can see
it, all through the night.

The alarm-clock standing on the black doily on
the mantelpiece is registering half past nine when he takes off his shoes, climbs the stairs
noiselessly, listens and checks that Félicie, knocked out by the gardenal, is sleeping
peacefully.

A quarter to ten. Maigret is sitting in
Pegleg's basket chair. He is smoking his pipe. His eyes are half closed. The sound of an
engine through the darkness of the fields. A car door slams. Then Lucas, who has walked into the
bamboo coat stand in the dark hallway, lets rip with a choice oath.

‘There was a phone call, sir
…'

‘Sh! Keep it down. She's
sleeping.'

Lucas eyes the lobster with just a hint of
resentment.

‘The Musician was living with a woman known
as Adèle.
They found her file. Her real name is Jeanne Grosbois. She
was born near Moulins …'

‘Go on.'

‘At the time the Chamois was done over, she
was working at the Tivoli brasserie in Rouen. She left the day after Pedro was
murdered.'

‘She must have gone to Le Havre with the
Musician. Any more?'

‘She spent a few months in Toulon, at Les
Floralies, then Béziers. She made no secret of the fact that her man was in the Santé
prison.'

‘Has she been seen in Paris?'

‘Sunday. One of her old friends spotted her
in Place Clichy. She said she would be taking off for Brazil at any time soon.'

‘Is that all?'

‘No. The Musician was released last
Friday.'

All that was what Maigret called ‘in-house
detective work'. Now, at precisely this moment, police vans are taking up positions in
deserted sidestreets in the area around Place Pigalle. At Quai des Orfèvres, the
questioning of villains, who are getting impatient and beginning to think that something serious
is going on, continues.

‘Phone in and tell them to send you a photo
of the Musician as quick as they can. There must be one in Court Records. On second thoughts, no
… Phone first and send the taxi to collect it.'

‘Anything else, sir?'

‘Yes. When the driver gets back with the
photo, I want you to go to Poissy. There's a café-bar just next to the
bridge. It will be closed. Wake the owner. He's an old lag. Stick the
photo under his nose and ask him if it is the same man who almost got physical with Félicie
at his place on Sunday evening.'

The car drives off. Once again there is silence
and unbroken night. In his hand, Maigret warms the small glass of brandy which he poured
himself, sips it and from time to time looks up at the ceiling.

Félicie turns over in her sleep, and the bed
springs creak. What is she dreaming of? Does she have as much imagination at night as she does
during the day?

Eleven o'clock. Under the eaves of the
Palais de Justice, a clerk in a grey overall opens a folder and from it takes two photos with
unnaturally sharp lines, one showing the full face, the other the profile. He hands them to the
driver, who will deliver them to Lucas.

In the area around Place Pigalle, crowds spill
out of the cinemas of Montmartre, the luminous sails of the Moulin Rouge turn above the throng,
through which the buses nose their way with difficulty. Hotel porters in blue, red and green
braided uniforms, bouncers and black doormen take their places outside night clubs while
Detective Chief Inspector Piaulet stands in the middle of the square, keeping an eye on the
unseen operation.

Janvier has stationed himself in the bar of the
Pelican, an excessively dimly lit room where the band are removing the covers from their
instruments. It does not escape his notice that a waiter hurries back from outside, looking
scared, and hustles the owner into the cloakroom.

Side by side with the law-abiding citizens who
have had
an enjoyable evening and are drinking a last beer on the terraces
of the brasseries before going home to bed, the other Montmartre, the one which is just waking
up, is alive with various rumours and whispers. There is a tension in the air. The owner emerges
from the cloakroom, smiles at Janvier and mutters something to one of the girls who are sitting
in a corner.

‘I don't think I'll be staying
late tonight,' she says. ‘I'm tired.'

There are many like her who, ever since news of
the presence of police vans has gone the rounds, do not feel any desire to hang around in this
dangerous part of town. But on Boulevard Rochechouart, Rue de Douai, Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette
and all the main routes out of the area, the men and women in uniform suddenly start seeing
unobtrusive figures coming out of the dark.

‘Papers …'

What follows depends on the mood they're
in.

‘On your way.'

Or more frequently:

‘Get in.'

In, that is, to the prison vans, whose headlamps
cast a feeble light along the pavement.

Are the Musician and Adèle still inside the
trap set by the police? Will they manage to slip out through the net? But in any case,
they'll know the score. And even if they have gone to ground in an attic, some helpful
soul will have put them in the picture.

A quarter to midnight. Lucas, killing time
playing dominoes with the landlord of the Anneau d'Or – just one light
has been left on in the deserted bar – gets to his feet when he hears
the taxi pull up outside.

‘I'll be gone about half an
hour,' he says.

Time enough to drive down to Poissy and then go
back up for a few words with the chief.

The café-bar is in darkness. Lucas's
knocking is loud in the still of the night. Then a woman in curlers puts her head out of a
window

‘Fernand! It's for you
…'

A light goes on, footsteps, grunts, the door
opens a crack.

‘Eh? … What? … I just knew that
business would land me in it … I'm licensed. I got bills to pay. I don't want
to get involved …'

Standing by the counter in the greyish room, his
braces dangling down his thighs and his hair rumpled, he stares at the two photos.

‘Right … Well, what do you want to
know?'

‘Is this the man who was put in his place
by Félicie?'

‘And?'

‘And nothing. That's it. Did you know
him before Sunday?'

‘Never set eyes on him until then …
What's he done?'

Midnight. Lucas gets out of the car, and Maigret
jumps in his chair like a sleeping man who is woken up. He hardly seems to be taking any
interest in what the sergeant is telling him.

‘I thought so.'

Dealing with villains is as easy as pie, tough as
they are or think they are. They are known for it. You can say in advance exactly what they will
do. But it's not the same as
coping with a phenomenon like
Félicie, who has given him so many headaches.

‘What do I do next, sir?'

‘Go back to Orgeval. Just carry on playing
dominoes while you're waiting for the phone to ring.'

‘How did you know I was playing
dominoes?'

‘Because there are only two of you, the
landlord and you, and because you can't play cards.'

‘Do you think anything is going to happen
here?'

Maigret shrugs. He doesn't know. It
doesn't matter.

‘Goodnight.'

One in the morning. Félicie has started
talking in her sleep. Standing outside her door, Maigret has tried to make out what she was
saying, but couldn't. Without thinking, he tried the handle and the door opened
slightly.

He smiles. How very sweet of her! She trusts him
in spite of everything, as she hasn't locked herself in. He listens for a moment to her
breathing, to the jumbled syllables which she murmurs like a child, he sees the milky patch
which is the bed and the dark stain of her hair on the pillow. He shuts the door again and goes
back downstairs in tiptoe.

A loud blast of a whistle in Place Pigalle.
It's the signal. All exits are now covered. Uniformed men march in line, rounding up men
and women who spring out of nowhere and try to get past the checkpoint. A policeman is badly
bitten on the thumb by a large woman with red hair in evening dress. The police vans start
filling up.

The owner of the Pelican, standing in his doorway
drawing anxiously on his cigarette, tries to complain:

‘I assure you, officer, there's
nothing to see inside. Just a few Americans on the town.'

Someone tugs at the jacket of the young Inspector
Dunan, who had waited for Maigret that afternoon at the Hôtel Beauséjour
.
Ah!
It's the hotel waiter. He's probably come out to see the fun.

‘Quick … It's her!'

He points to the glazed door of a bar. The sole
occupant, the owner, stands behind his bar counter. At the back, a door is just closing, but not
before the inspector has had time to see the figure of a woman.

‘The one who came in with the man
…'

Adèle … The inspector calls up two
uniformed men … They rush towards the door, tear through the deserted cloakroom and down a
set of narrow steps, which smell of damp, stale wine and urine.

‘Open up!'

They have reached the cellar. The door is locked.
One of the officers breaks it down with a shoulder charge.

‘Hands up whoever's in there
…'