Maigret (3 page)

He returned to the
bar.

‘Can I have another
cocktail?' asked the woman, for whom he had already bought a drink.

‘What's your
name?'

‘Fernande.'

‘What were you doing last
night?'

‘I was with three young men, boys
from good families, who wanted to take ether. I went with them to a hotel in Rue
Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.'

Maigret did not smile, but he could have
continued the story for her.

‘First, we went into the pharmacy
in Rue Montmartre separately and bought a little bottle of ether each. I
wasn't entirely sure what was going to happen. We got undressed. But they
didn't even look at me. All four of us lay down on the bed. When they inhaled
the ether, one got up and said in this strange voice: “Oh! There are angels on
top of the wardrobe … Aren't they lovely … I'm going to catch them
…” He tried to get up and fell on to the rug. Me, the smell made me feel sick.
I asked them if that was all they wanted from me and I got dressed again. But I did
laugh. There was a bug on the pillow between two of their heads, and I can still
hear the voice of one of the boys saying, as if in a dream: “There's a
bug in front of my face!” “And mine!” sighed the other one. And
they didn't budge. They were both squinting.'

She downed her drink in one go, and
decreed:

‘Barmy!'

All the same, she was starting to grow
anxious.

‘You're keeping me for the
night, aren't you?'

‘Of course! Of
course!' replied Maigret.

There was a curtain dividing the bar
from the lobby where the cloakroom was. From his seat, Maigret could see through the
slit in the curtain. Suddenly he jumped down from his stool and took a few steps. A
man had just walked in, and said to the cloakroom attendant:

‘Nothing new?'

‘Good evening, Monsieur
Cageot!'

It was Maigret speaking, his hands in
his jacket pockets, his pipe in his mouth. The man he was addressing, who had his
back to him, slowly turned around, looked him up and down, and grunted:

‘So you're here!'

The red curtain and the music were
behind them, and in front of them the door opened on to the cold street where the
doorman was pacing up and down. Cageot was reluctant to take off his overcoat.

Fernande, feeling uneasy, poked her nose
out, but withdrew immediately.

‘Will you have a drink?'

Cageot had finally made up his mind and
handed his overcoat to the cloakroom attendant, watching Maigret all the while.

‘If you like,' he
agreed.

The head waiter hurried over to show
them to a free table. Without looking at the wine list, the newcomer muttered:

‘Mumm 26!'

He was not in evening dress, but was
wearing a dark-
grey suit as ill-fitting as Maigret's. He was
not even freshly shaven and a greyish stubble ate into his cheeks.

‘I thought you'd
retired?'

‘So did I!'

This seemed pretty innocuous, yet Cageot
frowned, and signalled to the girl selling cigars and cigarettes. Fernande sat at
the bar, wide-eyed. And young Albert, who was playing the part of the owner,
wondered whether or not he should go over to them.

‘Cigar?'

‘No thank you,' said
Maigret, emptying his pipe.

‘Are you in Paris for
long?'

‘Until Pepito's killer is
behind bars.'

They did not raise their voices. Next to
them, high-spirited men in dinner-jackets were pelting each other with cotton-wool
balls and throwing paper streamers. The saxophonist wandered solemnly from table to
table playing his instrument.

‘Have they called you back to
investigate this case?'

Germain Cageot had a long, lifeless face
and bushy eyebrows the colour of grey mould. He was the last man one would expect to
meet in a place where people go to have fun. He spoke slowly, frostily, gauging the
effect of each word.

‘I came of my own accord,'
Maigret replied.

‘Are you working for
yourself?'

‘One could say that.'

It seemed unimportant. Fernande herself
must have been thinking that it was pure chance that her companion knew Cageot.

‘How long ago
did you buy the place?'

‘The Floria? You're
mistaken. It belongs to Albert.'

‘As it did Pepito.'

Cageot did not deny it, but merely
smiled mirthlessly and stopped the waiter who was about to pour him some
champagne.

‘What else?' he asked in the
tone of someone casting around for a topic of conversation.

‘What's your
alibi?'

Cageot gave another smile, even more
neutral, and reeled off without batting an eyelid:

‘I went to bed at nine as I had a
touch of flu. The concierge brought me up a hot toddy and gave it to me in
bed.'

Neither of them paid any attention to
the hubbub that surrounded them like a wall. They were used to it. Maigret smoked
his pipe, and Cageot a cigar.

‘Still drinking Pougues mineral
water?' asked the former chief inspector as Cageot poured him a glass of
champagne.

‘Still.'

They sat facing each other, grave and
slightly sullen like two soothsayers. At a neighbouring table, some woman who
didn't know better was aiming cotton-wool balls at their noses.

‘You were quick to get the place
re-opened!' commented Maigret between two puffs of smoke.

‘I'm still pretty well
connected with the “boys”.'

‘Are you aware that there's
a kid who's stupidly compromised in this business?'

‘I read something along those
lines in the papers. A
young cop who was hiding in the toilet and
who panicked and killed Pepito.'

The jazz band struck up again. An
Englishman, all the more priggish for being drunk, brushed past Maigret
murmuring:

‘Excuse me.'

‘Go ahead.'

And Fernande, at the bar, was watching
him with a worried look. Maigret smiled at her.

‘Young police officers are
hot-headed,' sighed Cageot.

‘That's what I said to my
nephew.'

‘Is your nephew interested in
these matters?'

‘He was the kid hiding in the
toilet.'

Cageot could not turn pale, because his
face was always ashen. But he took a hasty sip of mineral water, then wiped his
mouth.

‘That's too bad, isn't
it?'

‘That's exactly what I said
to him.'

Fernande jerked her chin at the clock,
which showed 1.30. Maigret signalled that he was coming.

‘To your health,' said
Cageot.

‘To yours.'

‘Is it pleasant, where
you're living? I've heard you've moved out to the
country.'

‘It is pleasant, yes.'

‘Winter in Paris is
unhealthy.'

‘I thought the same thing when I
heard about Pepito's death.'

‘Be my guest, please,'
protested Cageot as Maigret opened his wallet.

Maigret still put fifty
francs down on the table and stood up, saying:

‘So long!'

He just walked past the bar and
whispered to Fernande:

‘Come on.'

‘Have you paid?'

In the street, she wasn't sure
whether to take his arm. He still had his hands in his pockets and walked with big,
slow strides.

‘D'you know Cageot?'
she asked shyly at length, slipping into informality

‘He's from my part of the
world.'

‘You know, you should be careful.
He's a bit of a dodgy character. I'm telling you this because you seem
like a good man.'

‘Have you slept with
him?'

Then Fernande, who had to take two steps
to Maigret's every stride, replied simply:

‘He doesn't sleep with
anyone!'

In Meung, Madame Maigret was fast
asleep in the house that smelled of wood smoke and goat's milk. In his hotel
room in Rue des Dames, Philippe had finally fallen asleep too, his glasses on the
bedside table.

Maigret perched on the edge of the bed
while Fernande, her legs crossed, gave a contented sigh as she slipped off her
shoes. With the same lack of inhibition she hitched up her green silk dress to undo
her garters.

‘Aren't you getting
undressed?'

Maigret shook his head, but she
didn't notice as she was pulling her dress over her head.

Fernande had a small apartment in Rue
Blanche. The red-carpeted staircase smelled of wax floor polish. There were empty
milk bottles standing outside every door on the way up. Once inside the apartment,
they had crossed a living room cluttered with knick-knacks and Maigret had a glimpse
of a spotless kitchen where all the items were arranged with meticulous care.

‘What are you thinking
about?' asked Fernande as she peeled off her stockings to reveal her long,
white legs and then examined her toes with interest.

‘Nothing. May I smoke?'

‘There are cigarettes on the
table.'

Maigret paced up and down, his pipe
between his teeth, and stopped in front of an enlarged portrait of a woman in her
fifties, then in front of a copper pot in which a plant stood. The floor was waxed
and near the door were two pieces of felt shaped like shoe soles,
which Fernande must have used to walk around so as not to mark the floor.

‘Are you from the North?' he
asked, without looking at her.

‘How can you tell?'

Finally he went over and stood in front
of her. Her hair was vaguely blonde, with an auburn tinge, her features irregular –
an elongated mouth, a pointed nose covered in freckles.

‘I'm from
Roubaix.'

You could tell from the way the
apartment was arranged and polished and from the spick-and-span kitchen in
particular. Maigret was sure that in the morning, Fernande sat there by the stove
and drank a big bowl of coffee while she read the paper.

Now she gazed at her companion with a
hint of anxiety.

‘Aren't you getting
undressed?' she repeated, rising and going over to the mirror.

Then, immediately suspicious:

‘Why did you come?'

She sensed something was not quite
right. Her mind was busy working it out.

‘You're right, I
didn't come for
that
,' admitted Maigret with a smile.

His grin broadened as she grabbed a
bathrobe, suddenly overcome with modesty.

‘So what
do
you
want?'

She could not guess. Even though she was
adept at categorizing men. She took in her visitor's shoes, tie and eyes.

‘But you're not from the
police, are you?'

‘Sit down.
We're going to have a nice friendly chat. You're not entirely mistaken,
because I was a detective chief inspector with the Police Judiciaire for many
years.'

She frowned.

‘Don't be afraid. I'm
not there any more! I've retired to the countryside and the reason I'm
in Paris now is because Cageot's up to his old tricks.'

‘So that's why!' she
said under her breath as she recalled the two men sitting at the table and behaving
oddly.

‘I need proof, and there are
people whom I can't question.'

She no longer treated him like a punter
– now she addressed him formally.

‘You require my help? Is that
it?'

‘You've guessed it. You know
as well as I do, don't you, that the Floria is full of crooks and
scum?'

She sighed to signal her assent.

‘The real boss is Cageot, who also
owns the Pélican and the Boule Verte.'

‘People say he's opened a
place in Nice too.'

Now they were sitting at the table
facing each other, and Fernande asked:

‘Would you like a hot
drink?'

‘Not now. You've heard about
the business in Place Blanche, a couple of weeks ago. A car drove past, with three
or four men inside, at around three in the morning. Between Place Blanche and Place
Clichy, the door opened and one of the men was thrown out on to the road. Dead.
He'd just been stabbed.'

‘Barnabé!' said
Fernande.

‘Did you know
him?'

‘He used to come to the
Floria.'

‘Well, that was Cageot's
doing. I don't know if he was in the car himself, but Pepito was with them.
And last night, he copped it.'

She said nothing. She was thinking and
her brow was furrowed, making her resemble an ordinary housewife.

‘What's it to you?'
she protested at length.

‘If I don't catch Cageot, my
nephew will be convicted in his place.'

‘The tall redhead who looks like a
tax clerk?'

Now it was Maigret's turn to be
surprised.

‘How do you know him?'

‘He's been hanging around
the bar at the Floria for the last couple of days or so. I clocked him because he
didn't dance and he spoke to no one. Last night, he bought me a drink. I tried
to worm some information out of him and he more or less admitted it, stammering that
he couldn't tell me anything, but that he was on an important
mission.'

‘The fool!'

Maigret rose and got straight to the
point.

‘So, are we agreed? There'll
be two thousand francs for you if you help me nail Cageot.'

She couldn't help smiling. She
found this entertaining.

‘What do I have to do?'

‘First of all, I need to know
whether or not Cageot showed his face in the Tabac Fontaine last night.'

‘Shall I go there
tonight?'

‘Right away if you
like.'

She shrugged off her
bathrobe and, dress in hand, looked at Maigret for a moment.

‘Do you really want me to put my
clothes back on?'

‘Yes,' he sighed, putting a
hundred francs on the mantelpiece.

They walked up Rue Blanche together. On
the corner of Rue de Douai, they shook hands and parted company, and Maigret headed
down Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. When he arrived at his hotel, he was surprised to
catch himself whistling.

By ten in the morning, he was ensconced
at the Chope du Pont-Neuf, where he had chosen a table that was intermittently in
the sun, as the passers-by kept casting shadows. Spring was already in the air.
Street life was more cheerful, the sounds sharper.

At Quai des Orfèvres, it was time for
the morning briefing. At the end of the long corridor of offices, the head of the
Police Judiciaire was meeting his colleagues, who had all brought their case files.
Detective Chief Inspector Amadieu was in his element. Maigret could imagine the
scenario.

‘Well, Amadieu, what's new
in the Palestrino case?'

Amadieu leaning forwards, twiddling his
moustache, saying with an amiable smile:

‘Here are the reports,
chief.'

‘Is it true that Maigret is in
Paris?'

‘So rumour has it.'

‘So why the hell hasn't he
come to see me?'

Maigret smiled. He was certain that this
was how the
conversation would go. He could picture Amadieu's
long face growing even longer. He could hear him insinuating:

‘Perhaps he has his
reasons.'

‘Do you really think young
Philippe fired that shot?'

‘I'm not making any
accusations, chief. All I know is that his fingerprints are on the gun. We found a
second bullet in the wall.'

‘Why would he have done
that?'

‘Panic … We're given young
inspectors who haven't been trained to—'

Just then, Philippe walked into the
Chope du Pont-Neuf and made a beeline for his uncle, who asked:

‘What are you drinking?'

‘A
café crème
. I've
managed to get everything you asked for, but it wasn't easy. Amadieu has got
his eye on me! The others are wary of me.'

He wiped the lenses of his glasses and
fished some papers out of his pocket.

‘First of all, Cageot. I looked
him up in the files and copied his details. He was born in Pontoise and he's
fifty-nine years old. He started out as a solicitor's clerk in Lyon and he was
sentenced to a year for forgery and falsification of records. Three years later, he
was given six months for attempted insurance fraud. That was in Marseille.

‘There's no trace of him for
several years, but then he turned up again in Monte-Carlo, where he worked as a
croupier. From that point he was a police informant, which didn't prevent him
from being mixed up in a gambling case that was never solved.

‘Finally, five years ago, in
Paris, he was manager of a
low-down dive called the Cercle de
l'Est. The place was soon closed down, but Cageot wasn't bothered.
That's the lot! Since then, he's lived in an apartment in Rue des
Batignolles where there's just a cleaning woman. He's still a regular
visitor to the Ministry of the Interior in Rue des Saussaies and at Quai des
Orfèvres. He owns at least three nightclubs which are managed by front
men.'

‘Pepito?' asked Maigret, who
had taken notes.

‘Age twenty-nine. Born in Naples.
Deported from France twice for drug trafficking. No other offences.'

‘Barnabé?'

‘Born in Marseille. Age
thirty-two. Three convictions, including one for armed robbery.'

‘Has the stuff been found at the
Floria?'

‘Nothing. No drugs, no documents.
Pepito's killer took the lot.'

‘What's the name of the
fellow who bumped into you and then called the police?'

‘Joseph Audiat. A former waiter
who's mixed up in horse-racing. I think his job is to collect the bets. He is
of no fixed address and has his post delivered to the Tabac Fontaine.'

‘By the way,' said Maigret,
‘I met your lady friend.'

‘My lady friend?' echoed
Philippe, turning beetroot.

‘A tall girl in a green silk
dress. You bought her a drink at the Floria. We almost slept together.'

‘Well I didn't!' said
Philippe. ‘If she told you otherwise—'

Lucas had just come in and stood
dithering in the doorway. Maigret beckoned him over.

‘Are you
handling the case?'

‘Not exactly, chief. I just wanted
to let you know that Cageot is at headquarters again. He arrived a quarter of an
hour ago and shut himself up with Detective Chief Inspector Amadieu.'

‘Do you want a beer?'

Lucas filled his pipe from
Maigret's tobacco pouch. It was the hour when the waiters were setting up,
polishing the mirrors with whiting and scattering sawdust between the tables. The
owner, already in a black jacket, was inspecting the hors-d'œuvres lined up on
a serving table.

‘Do you think it's
Cageot?' asked Lucas, dropping his voice and reaching for his beer.

‘I'm convinced of
it.'

‘That's no joke!'

Philippe kept quiet, awed by his
companions, who had worked together for nearly twenty years. From time to time,
between puffs on their pipes, the two veterans would utter a few syllables.

‘Did he see you, chief?'

‘I went there and told him
I'd get him. Waiter! Two more beers!'

‘He'll never
confess.'

La Samaritaine delivery lorries rumbled
past the windows, bright yellow in the sunshine. Long trams followed them, clanging
their bells.

‘What do you plan to
do?'

Maigret shrugged. He had no idea. His
beady eyes were staring beyond the bustle of the street at the Palais de Justice on
the other side of the Seine. Philippe toyed with his pencil.

‘I have to
run!' sighed Sergeant Lucas. ‘I've got to investigate a kid from
Rue Saint-Antoine, some Pole who's been up to some funny business. Will you be
here this afternoon?'

‘Most likely.'

Maigret rose too. Philippe grew
anxious:

‘Shall I come with you?'

‘I'd rather you
didn't. Go back to Quai des Orfèvres. We'll meet back here for
lunch.'

Maigret boarded the omnibus and half an
hour later he was climbing the stairs to Fernande's apartment. It took her a
few minutes to open the door, because she was still in bed. Sunlight was streaming
into the room. The sheets on the unmade bed were bright white.

‘Already!' exclaimed
Fernande, clutching her pyjama top over her chest. ‘I was asleep! Wait a
moment.'

She went into the kitchen, lit the gas
ring and filled a saucepan with water, talking all the while.

‘I went to the Tabac Fontaine,
like you asked me to. Naturally they aren't wary of me. Did you know that the
owner also has a hotel in Avignon?'

‘Go on.'

‘There was a table where some men
were playing cards. Me, I acted like I'd been out all night and was
tired.'

‘Did you happen to notice a small,
dark man called Joseph Audiat?'