Félicie (15 page)

The beam of an electric torch lights up barrels,
racks of bottles and cases of aperitifs. Nothing stirs. Or rather, when they became absolutely
still, as the inspector orders his men to do, they hear a sound of short breathing, almost like
the palpitations of a terrified heart.

‘Stand up, Adèle.'

She leaps out in a fury from behind a pile of
packing-cases and puts up a desperate struggle as if against all the odds she still hopes she
can escape from the three
policemen who have the devil's own job
trying to get the handcuffs on her.

‘Where's your boyfriend?'

‘Don't know.'

‘What were you doing in the
street?'

‘No idea.'

She sneers: ‘Oh, it's a lot easier
going after a defenceless woman than hunting for the Musician, isn't it?'

They grab her handbag. Back in the bar they open
it and find only her battered registration card, a little loose change and some letters written
in pencil, probably the letters which the Musician smuggled out of his cell to be sent to his
mistress, for they were addressed to her at Béziers.

A first police van, with a full load, is driven
to the cells in the Préfecture de Police, which is going to be crowded tonight. A fair
number of gentlemen in dinner-jackets and ladies in evening dresses and even waiters and porters
have been rounded up.

‘At least we got his girlfriend, sir
…'

Detective Chief Inspector Piaulet asks, though
without great hopes:

‘Are you sure you don't want to come
clean? Where is he?'

‘You won't find him.'

‘Take her away. Not in a van. Send her to
Rondonnet.'

All through the apartment blocks and furnished
hotel rooms doors are being knocked on, papers are being checked, men in shirtsleeves are
mortified to have been found not only where they are but found there when they are not
alone.

‘All I ask is that you
make sure that my wife …'

Of course! Of course!

‘Hello! Is that you, Lucas? … Will
you tell Maigret that Adèle is here … Yes … She's not talking, of course
… No, nothing on the Musician … We're continuing to question her, yes …
We're still keeping the whole district under wraps …'

Now that the most of the goats have been
separated from the sheep, calm has more or less returned to the area around Place Pigalle, a
flat calm after the storm. The streets are quieter than usual, and the night-owls who drift up
from the centre of town are very disconcerted to find the taverns so dead or to be approached by
singularly unpersistent cabaret touts.

Four o'clock. It's the third time
Lucas has walked into Cape Horn. Maigret has removed his collar and tie.

‘You wouldn't have any tobacco on you
by any chance? I smoked my last pipe an hour ago …'

‘Adèle's behind bars.'

‘What about him?'

He is afraid he might be wrong, and yet …
The Musician is flat broke, that much is certain. Just before he was released from prison,
Adèle left Béziers with hardly any money. He comes out to Poissy. That was on Sunday.
Maybe he even ventured up as far as Jeanneville? He follows Félicie to the café-bar.
Wouldn't the simplest plan be to seduce the maid in the cockatoo get-up? That way he could
get into the house without any bother …

But she slaps his face!

Then the next day, which was Monday, old Lapie is
killed
in his bedroom. The Musician has to get away without the wad of
cash.

‘What time was Adèle
arrested?'

‘Half an hour ago. They phoned as soon as
they had her.'

‘Right, off you go. Get the
taxi.'

‘Do you think he'll
…'

‘Get a move on. Go on.'

Maigret carefully shuts the door behind him, then
sits down again in the kitchen, by the window, after turning out the light and catching yet
another glimpse of the red shell of the lobster on the table.

Her eyes are wide open. She does not know what
time it is. Last night she forgot to wind up her alarm-clock as she usually does. The room is
filled with almost complete darkness, for all that is visible of the approaching dawn are silver
streaks through the slats of the shutters.

Félicie listens. Her mind is blank. Mind and
body are still sluggish, as if she has been worn down by sleeping too deeply, and for the moment
she cannot tell what is real from what she has dreamed. She has been quarrelling, arguing
vehemently, she has even come to blows with the placid man she hates so much who is bent on
destroying her. Ah! how she loathes him!

Who opened the door? Because someone did during
the night. She was lying there, waiting, worrying. It was pitch-dark. Yellowish light came in
from the landing, but the door closed, and a car engine started up … The sound of car
engines has flitted in and out of her entire night's sleep.

She does not move, she dares not move, she feels
a threat of danger hanging over her. Her stomach feels heavy … The lobster … She
remembers. She ate too much lobster. She took some drug. The man forced her to take a drug
…

She strains her ears. What's that?
There's someone in the kitchen. She recognizes the familiar sound of the
coffee grinder. Her thoughts wander. It's not possible that anyone could be actually
grinding coffee beans …

She stares at the ceiling, all her senses now
fully alert. Boiling water is being poured. The aroma floats up the stairs and reaches her. The
rattle of crockery. Another sound she knows so well: the sugar-tin being opened, the cupboard
door …

Someone is coming upstairs. And last night she
did not lock herself in, she remembers that clearly. Why didn't she just turn the key? It
was pride! Yes, so that she wouldn't show the man that she was afraid. She had promised
herself that she would get up quietly and do it, later, after he'd gone back down, but she
had gone straight to sleep.

A knock at the door. She props herself up on one
elbow. She stares at the door fearfully, her nerves are raw. The knock comes again.

‘What is it?'

‘Breakfast.'

Frowning hard, she looks around for her dressing
gown, does not find it and quickly slips down under the bedclothes just as the door opens, and
the first thing she sees is a tray covered with a serviette and a cup with blue spots …

‘Sleep well?'

It's Maigret, more placid than ever. He
doesn't seem to realize that he is in a young woman's bedroom and that she is still
in bed.

‘What do you want with me?'

He puts the tray down on the small table. He is
wide awake and in fine fettle. Where did he wash and shave?
Downstairs,
obviously. In the kitchen, or maybe the lip of the well. His hair is still damp.

‘I assume it's café au lait that
you like in the morning? Unfortunately, I wasn't able to leave the house and go round to
Madame Chochoi's for fresh bread … Eat up, girl … Do you want me to turn round
so you can put this dressing gown on?'

She obeys unwillingly and drinks a mouthful of
very hot coffee, then becomes still, the action of her hands temporarily suspended.

‘Who's downstairs?'

Someone moved, she is sure of it.

‘Who is downstairs? Answer me.'

‘The murderer.'

‘What did you say?'

She has flung off the bedclothes.

‘What scheming trickery are you up to now?
You vowed you'd drive me mad. And I have no one to defend me, no one to …'

He sits on the edge of the bed. He watches while
she rants on wildly, shakes his head and sighs:

‘Listen, I'm telling you that the man
downstairs is the murderer. I knew he'd come back. Given the fix he was in, he had to risk
everything. Besides which, he very likely thought I'd be in Paris, directing operations
there. It didn't occur to him that I was determined to keep a close watch on the
house.'

‘You mean he came?'

She pulls herself together. She is all at sea.
Seizing Maigret by the wrists, she cries:

‘Who … Who is
he? How is it possible that …'

She is so eager to know the answer that she
rushes out on to the stairs, intending go down and see for – and by – herself, slim
and uneasy in her vivid blue dressing gown, but stops, overcome by fear.

‘Who is he?'

‘Do you still hate me?'

‘Yes … I don't know
…'

‘Why did you lie to me?'

‘Because!'

‘Listen to me, Félicie
…'

‘I won't listen to you any more
… I'm going to open the window and scream for help.'

‘Why did you never tell me that when you
got back here on Monday morning you saw Jacques Pétillon actually coming out of the garden?
Because you did see him. He was walking away behind the hedge. It was for him that old Lapie
fetched the decanter and two glasses from the sideboard. He thought his nephew had come to make
peace, ask to be forgiven, something along those lines.'

She stares at him, stony-faced, without moving,
unprotesting.

‘And you thought it was Jacques who killed
his uncle. You found the gun in the bedroom and you kept it on you for three days before getting
rid of it by slipping it into the pockets of a man on the Métro. You imagined you were a
heroine risking all to save the man you loved – though the poor devil never suspected a
thing. So it was because of you and your lies that he was almost arrested for a murder he did
not commit …'

‘How do you know all
this?'

‘Because the actual murderer is
downstairs.'

‘Who is he?'

‘You don't know him.'

‘You're still trying to make me say
things. I'm not going to answer any more of your questions, do you hear? I won't
tell you anything else. For a start, you can get out of here and let me get dressed … No
… Stay … Why did Jacques come back on Monday morning?'

‘Because Mr Music had asked him
to.'

‘Mr Music?'

‘A friend of his. In Paris people make
acquaintances of all sorts, you know, some good, some bad … Especially if you play the
saxophone in a night club … You'd better drink your coffee while it is still
lukewarm …'

He opens the shutters and looks out of the
window.

‘Ah! There's your friend
Léontine, she's going for the bread … She's looking this way … What
a lot of tales you'll have to tell her now!'

‘I shan't be telling her
anything!'

‘Want to bet?'

‘I wouldn't bet with you.'

‘Do you still hate me as much?'

‘Is Jacques innocent?'

‘If he is, you'll stop hating me. If
he isn't, then it will be the opposite … Oh really, Félicie! … Actually
Jacques is guilty because one evening, just over a year ago, when he was living here in this
house, under his uncle's roof, guilty, I say, of letting a certain person stay here for
one or more nights, someone he'd met in Montmartre … A man
named Albert Babeau, known as the Musician and also called Shorty, who ran girls
…'

‘Ran girls?'

‘You wouldn't understand. He was
being hunted by the police for his part in the Chamois shooting. He remembered his pal
Pétillon, who was then living with an elderly uncle in the country … A good place to
hide up for a villain who was being sought by the police.'

‘I remember …' she says
suddenly.

‘Remember what?'

‘The only time Jacques … The only
times he was ever rude to me … I'd gone into his room without knocking. I just had
time to hear sounds, as if something was being hidden.'

‘Actually it was the sound of someone being
hidden or maybe taking cover, someone who shouldn't have been there. And before moving on,
that someone thought it would be a good idea to hide his loot in the room and loosened a board
for it on top of the wardrobe. Later he was caught. He served a year in prison … Why are
you looking at me like that?'

‘No reason … Go on.'

She blushes, then looks away. Although she did
not know it, she had been gazing at the inspector in admiration.

‘When he got out he was broke and he
naturally thought about his money. His first idea was to cosy up to you, which would have been a
very convenient way of getting inside the house …'

‘Me? You can't think for one moment
that I'd …'

‘But you slapped his face for him. So he
went looking
for Pétillon, he told him some yarn or other, that
he'd left something important here, that he needed his help to come and get it …
While Jacques was talking to old man Lapie in the garden …'

‘I understand …'

‘And none too soon.'

‘Thanks a lot!'

‘Think nothing of it … Pegleg must
have heard a noise. He must have had pretty good hearing.'

‘Too good!'

‘He went up to his room, and the Musician,
disturbed just as he was climbing on to a chair, panicked and put a bullet in him …
Alarmed by the noise of the gun, Pétillon fled in one direction, and the murderer made off
in the other … You saw Jacques, your own, your very own Jacques but you didn't see
the Musician, who left by another way …

‘And that was it. Obviously Jacques
didn't say anything. When he felt that suspicion was falling on him he panicked, like the
kid he is …'

‘That's not true!'

‘You don't want him to be a kid? All
right, then, he's a fool. Instead of coming to me and telling what he knew, he decided to
go looking for the Musician to get what was owing to him. He looked in all the shady places
where he knew he could usually be found. He even went to Rouen as a last resort, to ask his
mistress …'

‘How did he know that woman?' asks
Félicie, green with jealousy.

‘That, Félicie, I do not know …
In Paris, these
things … Anyway, he starts feeling desperate …
He can't go on … Then that evening he can't stand it any longer and is about
to tell what he knows when the Musician, who has been warned, takes a pot shot at him to teach
him to keep his trap shut.'

‘Don't talk like that
…'

‘That night, the Musician comes back here,
hoping at last to get his hands on his money … You have no idea how difficult it is to
keep one step ahead of the police when your pockets are empty … He finds nothing on top of
the wardrobe. But he leaves you with something to remember him by … If the money
isn't here, maybe Pétillon found it, and that's why Adèle was sent to
search his room in Rue Lepic.

‘It's not there either. That night,
Montmartre is besieged. The Musician is cornered, like a stag at bay. Adèle is arrested
…

‘Somehow, the Musician manages to get past
the police checkpoints and, more determined than ever, just as men of that type can be, he finds
a taxi to take him to Poissy. He is so broke that he pays the driver with a swift blow on the
back of the neck with a cosh.'

Félicie shudders. She is looking at
Maigret's face as if it were a cinema screen and she was watching an exciting film.

‘Did he come?'

‘He came … Quietly, without making
any noise … He came in through the garden without stepping on a single twig, then walked
past the kitchen window, which was open …'

In her eyes, Maigret is
already a hero. She is thrilled.

‘Did you fight?'

‘No. Just when he was least expecting it,
he felt the unpleasant sensation of the barrel of a revolver against the side of his
head.'

‘What did he do?'

‘He didn't do anything. He just said:
“Oh hell! … I give up!”'

She feels let down. Surely it couldn't have
happened that simply! Her suspicions return, and her face becomes sceptical once more.

‘You didn't get hurt?'

‘I told you …'

Because he is afraid of scaring her! So she
remains convinced that he's been in a fight, that he's a hero, that …

Her eye catches the tray on the table.

‘And then you ground fresh coffee! You had
the … You thought you would make me coffee and bring me my breakfast …'

She knows she is going to cry … She cries
with tenderness, with admiration …

‘And you did that for me! Why? Tell me
why.'

‘Simple! I did it because I hate you! I
hate you so much that when Lucas gets here with the taxi, I shall leave and take my turkey with
me. Did I mention that the Musician is trussed up like a turkey? I had to borrow the rope from
poor old Lapie.'

‘And what about me?'

He has great difficulty in not smiling at this
‘what-about-me?' into which she has unconsciously put her entire soul.