Maigret (10 page)

His voice was quite neutral, as
colourless as his persona. With his face and a voice like that, he would have made a
tremendous criminal judge.

‘Fair enough!' decided
Maigret, rising and taking a few
steps. ‘What would you want
in exchange for getting my nephew off the hook?'

‘Me? What can I do?'

Maigret smiled pleasantly.

‘Come, don't be modest.
It's always possible to undo what one has done. How much?'

Cageot remained silent for a moment,
digesting this offer.

‘I'm not interested,'
he said at length.

‘Why not?'

‘Because I have no reason to help
this young man. He deserves to go to prison for what he did. I don't know
him.'

Maigret paused from time to time in
front of a portrait, or in front of the windows, looking down into the street, where
housewives jostled each other around little market barrows.

‘For example,' he muttered
softly, lighting his pipe yet again, ‘if my nephew were exonerated, I would no
longer have the slightest reason to involve myself in this case. You said so
yourself, I am no longer a member of the police force. To be honest with you, I
confess I'd jump on to the first train to Orléans and two hours later
I'd be in my little boat, fishing.'

‘You're not
drinking!'

Maigret poured himself a full glass of
white wine, which he drained in one gulp.

‘As for what you can do,' he
went on, sitting down and putting the matchbox back on the brim of his hat,
‘there are a number of options. When the witnesses are brought face to face
for the second time, Audiat could be less certain
of his
recollection and not formally identify Philippe. That happens all the
time.'

Cageot grew pensive and, seeing his
absent look, Maigret guessed that he was not listening, or barely paying attention.
But no! He must have been asking himself:

‘Why the devil has he come to see
me?'

And from then on, Maigret's chief
concern was to avoid looking in the direction of the hat and the telephone at all
costs. It was also vital that he appear to mean what he said. Whereas in fact, he
was wasting his breath. To loosen his tongue he filled another glass and drank
it.

‘Is it good?'

‘The wine? Not bad. I know what
you're going to say. If Philippe is exonerated, the investigation will be
re-opened all the more energetically, since there will no longer be a
culprit.'

Cageot looked up imperceptibly, curious
as to what was to come. Maigret suddenly turned red as a thought struck him.

What would happen if, at the same
moment, Eugène, or his friend from Marseille, or the owner of the Tabac Fontaine or
anyone were to try to reach Cageot on the telephone? It was possible, probable even.
The previous day, the entire gang had been hauled in to Quai des Orfèvres and they
must all be feeling somewhat anxious. Wasn't Cageot in the habit of giving
orders and receiving reports over the telephone?

But, for the time being, the telephone
was out of action, and it would remain so for a few long minutes more, perhaps for
an hour.

Maigret had put his hat down on the desk
in such a way
as to conceal the base of the telephone from
Cageot's view. And each time he picked up the box of matches, he slid the
little round of wood he had sawn off that morning under the receiver.

In other words, the call had begun.
Lucas was stationed at the telephone exchange with two shorthand typists who would
take everything down.

‘I understand that you're
lacking a culprit,' muttered Maigret staring at the rug.

What would happen if Eugène were to try
to telephone Cageot and fail to get through was that he would come running. Maigret
would be back to square one! Or rather it would be impossible to start again since
Cageot would be on his guard.

‘It's not difficult,'
he went on, trying to keep a steady voice. ‘You just need to find some boy who
is of roughly the same build as my nephew. There's no shortage in Montmartre.
And there must be one whom you wouldn't mind seeing locked up. Two or three
testimonies into the bargain and it's in the bag.'

Maigret was so warm that he removed his
overcoat and hung it over the back of a chair.

‘May I?'

‘We could open one of the
windows,' suggested Cageot.

Oh no! With the noise from the street,
the shorthand typists on the other end of the line wouldn't be able to hear
half of the things that were said.

‘Thank you, but it's my
influenza that's making me sweat. The cold air would do me more harm. I was
saying—'

He drained his glass and filled a fresh
pipe.

‘I hope the
smoke doesn't bother you?'

They could still hear Marthe bustling
around, but sometimes the noise stopped and she must have been eavesdropping.

‘Just give me a figure.
What's the price for an operation like that?'

‘Jail!' retorted Cageot,
bluntly.

Maigret smiled, but he was beginning to
doubt his strategy.

‘In that case, if you're
afraid, suggest another scheme.'

‘I don't need a scheme! The
police have arrested a man they allege killed Pepito. That's their business.
True, from time to time, I do a small favour for the Ministry of the Interior or for
the police. As it happens, I know nothing. I wish for your sake that I
did—'

He made as if to get up to put an end to
the conversation. Maigret needed to think fast.

‘Shall I tell you what's
going to happen?' he enunciated slowly.

He took his time, speaking syllable by
syllable:

‘In the next two days, you will
have to kill your little friend Audiat.'

The message struck home, that was
certain. Cageot avoided looking at Maigret, who continued, for fear of losing his
advantage:

‘You know it as well as I do!
Audiat is a kid. Furthermore, I suspect him of taking drugs, which makes him
impressionable. Since he's been aware that I'm on to him, he has made
one blunder after another, panicked and, the other night, in my room, he actually
came clean. It was very clever of you to be waiting for us outside the Police
Judiciaire to stop him from repeating what he'd told me.
But you might not be so lucky another time. Last night, Audiat went on a bar crawl
and got drunk. He'll do the same tonight. There'll be someone tailing
him all the time.'

Cageot sat absolutely still, his eyes
fixed on the dark-red wall.

‘Go on,' he said in a
perfectly normal voice.

‘Do I have to? How will you go
about eliminating a man under police surveillance day and night? If you don't
kill him, Audiat will squeal, that's for certain! And if you kill him, then
you'll be caught, because it's difficult to commit a murder under those
conditions.'

The ray of sunshine filtering through
the grimy window slid over the desk and, in a few minutes, would reach the
telephone. Maigret smoked his pipe taking rapid little puffs.

‘What do you have to say to
that?'

Without raising his voice, Cageot
said:

‘Marthe! Shut the door.'

She did so, grumbling. Then he lowered
his voice, speaking so softly that Maigret wondered whether his words would carry
down the telephone.

‘And supposing Audiat were already
dead?'

He didn't bat an eyelid as he said
this. Maigret remembered his conversation with Lucas, in the Chope du Pont-Neuf.
Hadn't the sergeant stated that Audiat, followed by an inspector, had gone
back to his hotel in Rue Lepic, at around one o'clock in the morning? And the
inspector must have kept a watch on the hotel for the rest of the night.

His hand resting on
the worn leather desk top, a few centimetres from the revolver, Cageot went on:

‘You see that your offer
doesn't stand up. I thought you were better than that.'

And, as Maigret froze with dread, he
added:

‘If you want to know more, you can
telephone the police station of the 18th
arrondissement
.'

As he spoke these words, he could have
reached for the receiver and handed it to Maigret. But he didn't, and Maigret
breathed again, saying hastily:

‘I believe you. But I
haven't quite finished yet.'

He didn't know what he was going
to say. But he had to play for time. At all costs, he had to get Cageot to say
certain words which he seemed to be avoiding like the plague.

So far, he had not once denied the
murder. But nor had he said a single word that could be considered as a formal
confession.

Maigret imagined Lucas growing
impatient, the earpiece pressed to his ear, poor Lucas veering from hope to despair
and saying to the typists:

‘There's no need to type
that.'

What if Eugène or someone else
called?

‘Are you sure that what you have
to tell me is worth it?' persisted Cageot. ‘It's time for me to
get dressed.'

‘Please give me another six
minutes.'

Maigret poured himself a drink and rose
like a very nervous man about to launch into a speech.

Cageot did not smoke, did not move, had
no nervous twitches that could provide an outlet for his jumpiness.

Maigret had not yet realized that it was
precisely this stillness that bothered him, but it dawned on him when he saw Cageot
reach out towards a comfit box that was on the desk, and help himself to a sugared
almond.

It was a small detail, and yet
Maigret's eyes lit up as if he had discovered the chink in Cageot's
armour. The man was neither a smoker nor a drinker nor a womanizer, but he liked
sweets, sucking a sugared almond and passing it slowly from one side of his mouth to
the other!

‘I could say that we are among
professionals here,' said Maigret at length. ‘And it's as a fellow
professional that I'm going to tell you why, inevitably, you'll be
caught.'

The sugared almond in his mouth moved
faster.

‘Let's take the first
murder. I'm talking about the first murder in this series, because it is
possible that you have others to your name. Wasn't the solicitor to whom you
were chief clerk poisoned?'

‘It was never proved,' said
Cageot simply.

He was trying to work out what Maigret
was leading up to. At the same time, Maigret's mind was working overtime.

‘It doesn't matter!
It's now three weeks since you decided
to eliminate Barnabé.
As far as I can tell, Barnabé was the link between Paris and Marseille, in other
words, between you and the Turks who bring the drugs in by boat. I'm guessing
that Barnabé wanted to take too big a cut. He was invited to get into a car at
night. Suddenly, Barnabé feels a knife stabbing him in the back and a few moments
later his body is thrown out on to the pavement. You see the error?'

Maigret picked up his matches to ensure
that the round of wood was still in place. At the same time, he wanted to conceal a
faint smile that he was finding hard to suppress, for Cageot was thinking, earnestly
trying to spot the mistake like a diligent schoolboy.

‘I'll tell you later,'
promised Maigret, interrupting his train of thought. ‘For the time being,
I'll go on. The police, through some coincidence, are on to Pepito. Since the
stuff is at the Floria and the Floria is being watched, the situation is dangerous.
Pepito knows he's going to get caught. He threatens to squeal if you
don't save him. You shoot him with a revolver at a time when he thinks
he's alone in the empty club. Here, no mistakes.'

Cageot looked up and the sugared almond
remained poised on his tongue.

‘No mistakes so far. Are you
beginning to follow me? But you realize there is a police officer inside the club.
You exit. You can't resist the urge to get the police officer arrested. At
first, it seems like a stroke of genius. And yet, that was the mistake, your
second.'

Maigret was on the right track. All he
needed to do was go on, without rushing things. Cageot listened and mulled
things over while anxiety was beginning to gnaw away at his
composure.

‘Third murder, that of Audiat.
Audiat too was about to talk. The police are watching him. The knife and the gun are
out. I bet Audiat was in the habit of having a drink of water during the night. This
time, he'll drink even more because he is drunk, and he won't wake up
because the water in the jug has been poisoned. Third mistake.'

Maigret staked his all, but he was sure
of himself! Things couldn't have happened any other way.

‘I'm waiting to hear what
the three mistakes were!' said Cageot after a moment, reaching for the box of
sugared almonds.

And Maigret imagined the hotel in Rue
Lepic, whose residents were mainly musicians, gigolos and prostitutes.

‘In the Audiat case, the mistake
is that someone put the poison in the jug!'

Cageot was baffled, sucked another
sugared almond, and there was a faintly sweet smell in the air, a hint of
vanilla.

‘With Barnabé,' continued
Maigret pouring himself a drink, ‘you took at least two people with you:
Pepito and the driver, probably Eugène. And it was Pepito who subsequently
threatened to squeal.

‘Are you with me? Result: the need
to eliminate Pepito. You were only dealing with the shooting. But you added the
extra touch of going to fetch Audiat, whose job was to bump into the inspector. What
automatically happens? Eugène, Louis, the owner of the Tabac Fontaine, a
belote
player called Colin and Audiat are now in the know. It is
Audiat who loses his nerve. And so you have to get rid of
him!

‘But, yesterday afternoon, you
didn't go to Rue Lepic yourself. You must have used a resident at the hotel
whom you contacted by telephone. Another accomplice! A man who might talk! Are you
with me now?'

Cageot was still ruminating. The sun
reached the nickel-plated telephone receiver. It was late. A crowd was swelling
around the little barrows and the clamour from the street could be heard in the
apartment despite the closed windows.

‘You're good, that's
clear. But then, why do you keep lumbering yourself with useless accomplices who are
likely to give you away? You could have easily bumped off Barnabé at any time, he
wasn't suspicious of you. You didn't need Audiat in the Pepito business.
And yesterday, when you weren't under surveillance, you could have gone to Rue
Lepic yourself. In these hotels, where there's no doorman, anyone can just
walk straight in.'

Occasionally footsteps could be heard on
the stairs, and Maigret had to force himself to appear calm and carry on talking as
if nothing were amiss.

‘Right now, there are five people
at least who can have you put away. Now, five people have never managed to keep a
secret like that for long.'

‘I didn't stab
Barnabé,' said Cageot slowly. He was gloomier than ever.

Maigret jumped at the opportunity and
stated confidently:

‘I know!'

Cageot looked at him
in surprise and narrowed his eyes.

‘A stabbing is more up the street
of an Italian, like Pepito.'

He needed to make one more tiny effort,
but just then the cleaning woman opened the door and Maigret thought his edifice was
going to collapse.

‘I'm off to the
market,' she announced. ‘What vegetables shall I get?'

‘Whatever you like.'

‘Can you give me some
money?'

Cageot took two ten-franc coins from a
sturdy, well-worn purse with a metal clasp, a real miser's purse. The wine
bottle on the table was empty and he held it out to Marthe.

‘Here! You can get the deposit
back on this. You have the receipt.'

His mind was elsewhere, however. Marthe
left without shutting the door, but she did close the kitchen door behind her and
water could be heard boiling on the stove.

Maigret had been watching Cageot's
every move, and forgotten about the telephone and the typists lying in wait on the
other end of the line. He had a sudden intuition, he couldn't have said
exactly when. He had talked a lot, without thinking too hard about what he was
saying, and now he was within a hair's breadth of the truth.

Added to which were the sugared almonds
in the comfit box, the purse and even the word ‘vegetable'.

‘I bet you're on a
diet.'

‘It's been twenty
years.'

Cageot was no longer talking about
throwing his visitor out. It even seemed as if he needed him. Seeing Maigret's
empty glass, he said:

‘Marthe will
bring some more wine. There's never more than one bottle in the
house.'

‘I know.'

‘How do you know?'

Because it fitted in with all the rest,
of course! Because now, for Maigret, Cageot had stopped being an adversary and had
become a man. And he knew this man better with each second. He felt him live,
breathe, think, fear and hope. He could hear the irritating rattle of the sugared
almond against his teeth.

The decor came to life too – the desk,
the furniture, the paintings, as cloying as jam.

‘Do you know what I think,
Cageot?'

These were not just hollow words, but
the culmination of a long chain of thought.

‘I'm asking myself if you
really did kill Pepito. Right now, I'm almost certain you
didn't.'

His tone had changed. Maigret was fired
up, leaning forwards to get a closer look at Cageot.

‘I'm going to tell you
straight away why I think that. If you had been capable of shooting Pepito yourself,
you wouldn't have needed anyone to kill Barnabé and Audiat. The truth is that
you're afraid.'

Cageot's lips were dry. Even so he
attempted an ironic smile.

‘Just you dare to tell me that you
have slaughtered a chicken or a rabbit! Dare to tell me that you are capable of
seeing blood flow from a wound!'

Maigret no longer had any doubts. He had
understood. He charged ahead.

‘Let's
get this straight. You are afraid to kill with your own hands, but you have no
compunction about doing away with a person! On the contrary! You are afraid of
killing, afraid of dying. But that makes you all the more determined to order
murders. Isn't that true, Cageot?'

Maigret's voice was devoid of
hatred, devoid of pity. He studied Cageot with the fascination with which he studied
human beings in general. And this man was terribly human in his eyes. Nothing had
been left to chance, not even his first job as a solicitor's clerk.

Cageot was and always had been
completely withdrawn. All alone, his eyes closed, he must dream up brilliant
schemes, schemes of all kinds, financial, criminal and erotic.

Had he ever been seen with women? Of
course not! Women were not capable of enacting his wild fantasies!

Cageot retreated into himself, into a
lair filled with his thoughts, his dreams, his smell.

And when he looked out of his windows at
the street below bathed in sunlight, where people teemed around the market stalls
and packed buses rumbled past, what he was inclined to do was not to mingle with the
living mass of humanity outside, but to use it as inspiration for his cunning
schemes.

‘You are a coward, Cageot!'
thundered Maigret. ‘A coward like all those who live only by their brains. You
sell women, cocaine, and God only knows what else – for I believe you are capable of
anything. But at the same time you are a police informer!'

Cageot did not take his grey eyes off
Maigret, who was unstoppable.

‘You had
Barnabé killed by Pepito. And I'm going to tell you who you had kill Pepito.
In your gang, there is a good-looking young man, who has everything going for him –
women, money and success. He's happy-go-lucky and completely devoid of a
conscience.

‘Just you dare to tell me that the
night of Pepito's murder you weren't at the Tabac Fontaine! There was
the owner, then that brothel-owner Colin, who is even more of a coward than you,
then Audiat, the fellow from Marseille and lastly Eugène.

‘It was Eugène whom you sent to
the Floria. Then, when he came back, having done the job, and told you there had
been someone inside the club, you brought Audiat in.'

‘And then what?' said
Cageot. ‘What use is all this to you?'

He gripped the arms of his chair with
both hands as if he wanted to get up. He thrust his head slightly forwards, in a
movement of defiance.

‘What use is it to me? To prove to
you that I'll get you, precisely because you are a coward and you have
surrounded yourself with too many people.'

‘I swear you won't ever get
me.'

He had a mirthless smile. His pupils had
contracted. He added slowly:

‘The police have never been very
clever! Earlier you mentioned poisoning. Seeing as you were once in the police, you
can probably tell me how many poisonings they expose every year in Paris?'

Maigret did not have time to reply.

‘Every year!
You hear me? You can't be naive enough to believe that out of a population of
four million, there aren't a few who succumb to an overdose of arsenic or
strychnine?'

He got to his feet at last. Maigret had
been expecting him to do this for some time. It was the release after too long an
effort, and the release inevitably expressed itself in words.

‘I could have killed you today. I
thought about it. All I needed to do was poison your wine. You'll note that
the bottle is already gone from the house. All I'd need to do is rinse your
glass. You'd leave here and you'd go and die somewhere—'

Maigret had a doubt, but it lasted only
a fraction of a second.

‘You are right. I didn't
kill Barnabé. I didn't kill Pepito. I didn't even kill that idiot
Audiat!'

Cageot, comfit box in hand, spoke softly
and continuously. He was a ridiculous sight with his dressing gown that was too
short and his unkempt hair giving him a strange halo. Had it not been for the
telephone, Maigret would have opened a window to escape this oppressive atmosphere
of a reclusive existence.