Maigret's Dead Man (11 page)

Had the murderers abducted her? She hadn't
been in the yellow car when the corpse had been dumped in Place de la Concorde.

‘I bet,' said Maigret, who had his
own thoughts on the matter, ‘that we'll find her one of these days in the
country.'

It would be hard to overestimate the number of
people who, when confronted by some unpleasant problem, suddenly feel an urge to breathe clean
country air, usually in a quiet inn where the cooking is good and the wine light-red.

‘Shall we take a
taxi?'

It would mean more trouble with the clerk in
accounts, who always showed a disagreeable tendency to trim expenses claims and was only too
ready to argue:

‘Do I go around in taxis?'

They hailed a cab rather than cross Pont-Neuf and
wait for a bus.

‘The Cadran, in Rue de Maubeuge.'

A first-rate brasserie, the sort that Maigret
liked best, yet to be modernized and with the classic frieze of mirrors round the walls, the
dark-red bench-seat covered with imitation leather, white marble-topped tables and, at
intervals, round nickel holders for the waiters' damp-cloths. It smelled gloriously of
beer and sauerkraut. There were just a few too many people, people in too much of a hurry, laden
with luggage, drinking or eating too quickly, shouting impatiently for waiters, and all with one
eye on the large luminous face of the station clock.

The owner of the Cadran, who stood by the till,
looking dignified, keeping a watchful eye on everything that was going on, was also cast in
traditional mould, being short, portly and bald and wearing a loose-fitting suit and spotless
fine leather shoes.

‘Two sauerkrauts, two beers and the
landlord, please.'

‘You wish to speak to Monsieur
Jean?'

‘Yes.'

An ex-café waiter or maybe a retired
restaurant head waiter who had managed finally to set up on his own?

‘Gentlemen …'

‘I would like some information, Monsieur
Jean. You
used to have working here a waiter called Albert Rochain. He was
known as Li'l Albert, I believe.'

‘I've heard the name,'

‘You never knew him?'

‘It was only three years ago that I bought
the business. The woman who was on the till at the time, she knew Albert.'

‘Are you saying that she doesn't work
here any more?'

‘She died last December. She'd spent
more than forty years behind that till.'

He gestured towards the polished wood cash-desk,
behind which a woman of about thirty, with blonde hair, was enthroned.

‘What about the waiters?'

‘There was one, also getting on a bit,
Ernest, but he has retired since then. Went back to his part of the world, which was somewhere
in the Dordogne, I believe.'

Monsieur Jean remained standing in front of the
two men, who went on eating their sauerkraut, but never missed anything that happened around
him.

‘Jules! … Table twenty-four
…'

From there he flashed a smile at a customer who
was on her way out.

‘François! Help Madame with her
luggage!'

‘Is the former proprietor still
alive?'

‘He's fitter than you and
me.'

‘Do you know where I could find
him?'

‘At his house, of course. He calls in here
to see me from time to time. He's bored. He talks about going back into
business.'

‘Can you let me have
his address?'

‘Police?' asked Monsieur Jean
directly.

‘Detective Chief Inspector
Maigret.'

‘Sorry! I don't know his number. But
I can help – he's asked me to lunch two or three times. Are you familiar with
Joinville? Do you know the Ile d'Amour, just beyond the bridge? He doesn't live on
the island itself but in a house directly opposite the tip. There's a boat-house in front
of it. You won't have any trouble finding it.'

It was half past eight when the taxi drew up
outside the house. A plaque of white marble with copperplate lettering read: ‘Le
Nid'. It showed an exotic bird, or something purporting to be an exotic bird, perched on a
nest.

‘He must have gone to no end of trouble to
think of that!' observed Maigret with a smile.

The former owner of the Cadran was actually
called Loiseau, Désiré Loiseau.

‘He'll be from the north,
you'll see, and he'll offer us a glass of very old gin.'

And so it proved. First they encountered a small,
dumpy woman, very blonde and very pink, who had to be seen close up before the fine lines under
the thick layer of powder became visible.

‘Monsieur Loiseau!' she called.
‘Someone to see you! …'

She was Madame Loiseau. She showed them into the
drawing room, which smelled of polish.

Loiseau was fat too, but also tall and broad,
taller and broader than Maigret, though that did not prevent him from being as light on his feet
as a dancer.

‘Do sit down. You too, monsieur
…?'

‘Inspector
Lucas.'

‘Really? I knew someone at school who was
also called Lucas. I don't suppose you're Belgian, inspector? I am. It hardly needs
saying! No, it's true! I don't mind admitting it. It's nothing to be ashamed
of. Sweetheart, why don't you get us a drink …'

The small glass of gin duly appeared.

‘Albert? Of course I remember him. He was a
northerner. Actually I seem to think his mother was Belgian too. I was sorry to see him go. You
understand, what matters most in our business is keeping cheerful. People who go to a café
prefer to see smiling faces. I recall one waiter, for example, a very willing sort, who had I
don't know how many kids. He used to lean over customers who'd ordered soda water or
a glass of Vichy or anything non-alcoholic and say in a confidential whisper: “Have you
got an ulcer too?” He lived and breathed his ulcer. He talked of nothing else. I had to
give him his marching orders because people used to get up and sit somewhere else when they saw
him coming towards their table.

‘Albert was the very opposite. Always ready
for a laugh. He used to hum to himself. The way he wore his cap made him look like a juggler, as
if he was always enjoying himself, and he had this way of singing out: “The
weather's good today!”'

‘And he left you to set up on his own
account?'

‘Somewhere out towards Charenton,
yes.'

‘Had he been left money?'

‘I don't think so. He talked to me
about it. I think it's just that he got married.'

‘Was that about the
time he left you?'

‘Yes. Shortly before.'

‘Were you invited to the
wedding?'

‘I would have been if it had been held in
Paris, because when I was in business all my employees were like family. But they went off and
tied the knot somewhere far out in the sticks, I've forgotten where exactly.'

‘Do you think you could
remember?'

‘No chance. I don't mind telling you,
as far as I'm concerned, anywhere south of the Loire is the Midi.'

‘Did you meet his wife?'

‘He came one day and introduced her. Dark
hair, not very good-looking.'

‘Did she have a squint?'

‘Her eyes weren't quite together,
yes. But it wasn't unpleasant. In some people it's off-putting, but in others it
doesn't matter that much.'

‘Did you know her maiden name?'

‘No. I think I remember that she was
related to him, a cousin, or something of the sort. They'd always known each other. Albert
used to say: “Since you've got to come to it some time or other, better the devil
you know.” He used to joke about everything. Seems he had no equal when it came to
singing. There were customers who told me seriously that he was good enough to go on the
halls.

‘Can I offer you another glass? As you see,
down here it's quiet, maybe too quiet, and one of these fine days I might well go back
into the business. Unfortunately good staff like Albert don't grow on trees. Do you know
him? Is he making a go of his bar?'

Maigret chose not to tell
them that Albert was dead, because he anticipated an hour of sighs and lamentations.

‘Do you know if he had any close
friends?'

‘He was friends with everybody.'

‘Did anyone come to meet him after work,
for example?'

‘No. He used to go to the races a lot. He
managed things so that he'd often be free in the afternoon. But he wasn't reckless.
He never tried to borrow money from me. He used to bet within his means. If you see him, tell
him from me that …'

Madame Loiseau, who hadn't opened her mouth
once since her husband had appeared, was still smiling the kind of smile that belongs on a wax
head in the window of a hairdressing salon.

Another small one? Yes. Especially as the gin was
good. Then off they went to join the raid on a street where nobody would be smiling at them.

Two busloads of police had stopped in Rue de
Rivoli on the corner of Rue Vieille-du-Temple, and for a moment the silver buttons of the
uniformed men had caught the light of the streetlamps. These men had gone to take up their
positions, cordoning off a certain number of streets where plainclothed inspectors of the Police
Judiciaire were already stationed.

Then, behind the buses, the prison vans formed up
in an orderly line. At the corner of Rue du Roi-de-Sicile, a senior police officer was staring
at his watch.

In Rue Saint-Antoine, pedestrians, alarmed,
turned and hurried away. Inside the area which had been surrounded, a few lighted windows could
still be seen. Lights still burned over the doors of cheap hotels, as did the lamp outside the
brothel in Rue des Rosiers.

The senior officer, his eyes still fixed on his
watch, was counting down the final seconds. At his side, Maigret, in detached mood or perhaps
feeling he was in the way, thrust his hands into his pockets and looked elsewhere.

Forty … Fifty … Sixty … Two
loud blasts of a whistle, to which other whistles immediately responded. The men in uniform
advanced through the streets like skirmishers while the inspectors marched into the disreputable
hotels.

As always happens on these
occasions, windows opened on all sides; white figures appeared in the gloom, looking alarmed or
irritated. Already raised voices could be heard. Already, a policeman could be observed pushing
a prostitute he had dug out of a hole in a corner. She was directing foul-mouthed abuse at
him.

There was also the sound of the running footsteps
of men trying to make a bolt for it as they ducked into dark alleyways, but in vain, for they
merely ran into different police cordons.

‘Papers!'

Pocket torches were snapped on and lit suspect
faces, greasy passports and identity cards. At the windows were some who had seen it all before
and knew that they wouldn't be getting back to sleep for a long time, and who watched the
raid with interest, as if it were some kind of show.

Most of the prey were already under lock and key
at the Préfecture. They hadn't waited for the raid to happen. From the moment a man
had been gunned down in their streets late that afternoon, they had sensed it was coming. And as
soon as it was dark, shadows had flitted along walls, men carrying battered suitcases or oddly
shaped bundles had run straight into the arms of Maigret's men.

Among them were all sorts: an ex-con who had been
banned from the area, pimps, forged identity cards, the unavoidable Poles, Italians whose papers
were not in order …

All of them, trying to look unconcerned, were
questioned roughly:

‘Where do you think
you're going?'

‘Moving house.'

‘Why?'

Those eyes, anxious or fierce, in the
darkness.

‘I found a job.'

‘Where?'

Some said they were going to their sister's
in the north or somewhere near Toulouse.

‘Just get in!'

Prison van. A night in the cells, for an identity
check. They were mostly sad cases, though few of them had clear consciences.

‘Not one Czech so far, sir!' Maigret
had been told.

He had remained at his post, smoking his pipe,
grim-faced, watching the moving shadows and hearing shouts, hurried footsteps and occasionally
the moist thud of a fist on a face.

It was in the cheap hotels that there was most
resistance. Their owners and managers hastily got into trousers and skulked scowling in their
offices, where almost all of them slept on camp beds. A few tried to offer drinks to the
uniformed officers who stood guard in the hall outside while inspectors stamped up the stairs to
the floors above.

There, the reeking hotel cells sprang into
teeming life. Knuckles sounded on a door:

‘Police!'

People in night clothes, men and women still half
asleep, whey-faced, and all with that same anxious, sometimes haggard, look.

‘Papers!'

Barefooted they fetched them
from under pillows or from drawers, sometimes having to rummage through ancient, old-fashioned
trunks which had originated on the other side of Europe.

In the Hôtel du Lion d'Or
,
a
naked man remained seated on his bed, swinging his legs, while the woman with him showed her
prostitute's registration card.

‘What about you?'

He looked at the inspector uncomprehendingly.

‘Passport!'

He still did not move. His body looked all the
paler for being covered with very dark, very long hair. People from neighbouring rooms looked in
and laughed.

‘Who is this man?' the inspector
asked the woman.

‘Don't know.'

‘Didn't he say anything to
you?'

‘He doesn't speak a word of
French.'

‘Where did you pick him up?'

‘In the street.'

One for the Préfecture lock-up! His clothes
were thrust into his hand and hand gestures were used to order him to put them on. It look him
some time to understand what was expected of him. He kept protesting and turning to the woman,
apparently asking her for something. His money back, possibly? Perhaps he had arrived in Paris
no later than that same evening and now he would end his first night in the cells in Quai de
l'Horloge.

‘Papers!'

Doors opened on to decaying rooms each exuding,
in addition to the general fetid smell of the establishment,
the particular
odour of the transients who paid by the week or the night. Fifteen, maybe a score of people
formed a group at the head of the line of prison vans. They were bundled inside them one by one,
and some of the women, who knew the drill, joked with the policemen. One, for a laugh, made
obscene gestures in their direction.

Some were in tears while some of the men clenched
their fists, among them being a very blond adolescent with a shaved head who had no papers at
all and had been found in possession of a revolver.

Both inside the hotels and out in the streets
there was a preliminary triage. The screening proper would be done at the Préfecture,
either during the night or the next morning.

‘Papers.'

The hotel-keepers were the most apprehensive
because they might lose their licences, as none of them was fully compliant with the law. Under
their roofs were clients who were not signed in.

‘As you know, inspector, my
paperwork's always been in order, but when someone turns up at midnight and you're
half asleep …'

An upstairs window of the Hôtel du Lion
d'Or opened. The milky globe over its door was the one closest to Maigret. There was a
blast of a police whistle. He stepped forwards and tilted his head back.

‘What is it?'

As it happened, the inspector on duty who looked
down at him was very young. He stammered:

‘Detective Chief Inspector, I think you
should come up.'

Closely followed by Lucas,
Maigret started up the narrow staircase where they brushed against the wall and banister at the
same time. The stairs creaked. All these buildings ought to have been knocked down decades, if
not centuries ago, or rather burned down along with their colonies of fleas and lice from every
country on earth.

It was on the second floor. A door was open. A
low-watt light bulb with no shade and yellow filaments burned at the end of its flex. The room
was empty. It contained two iron bedsteads, of which only one had been slept in. There was also
a mattress on the floor, blankets made of coarse grey wool, a jacket on a chair, a primus stove
and various foodstuffs and empty litre bottles on a table.

‘Through here, sir …'

The door communicating with the next room was
open, and Maigret saw a woman lying on a bed, a face on a pillow and two brown, burning,
magnificent eyes which glared at him fiercely.

‘What's the problem?' he
asked.

Rarely had he seen such an expressive face. And
never one so wild.

‘Take a closer look at her,'
stuttered the young officer. ‘I tried to make her get up. I talked to her but she
couldn't be bothered to answer. So I went closer to the bed and tried to shake her by the
shoulders. Look at my hand. She bit me and drew blood.'

The woman did not smile when she saw the officer
show his painful thumb. On the contrary, she screwed up her face as if she had suddenly been
struck by a terrible pain.

Maigret, who was looking at
the bed, frowned and growled:

‘She's having a baby!'

He turned to Lucas.

‘Phone for an ambulance. Tell them to take
her to the maternity ward. Then tell the owner to come up at once.'

The young officer was now all blushes and did not
dare look at the bed. The search continued on the other storeys of the building. The floorboards
shook.

‘Don't want to say anything?'
Maigret asked the woman. ‘Don't you understand French?'

She was still glaring at him. It was quite
impossible to guess what she was thinking. The only emotion on her face was intense hatred.

She was young. She was probably not yet
twenty-five, and her full cheeks were framed by long, glossy, black hair. The stairs became
congested. The hotel-keeper came to an uncertain stop in the doorway.

‘Who's this?'

‘She's called Maria.'

‘Maria who?'

‘I don't think she's got
another name.'

Suddenly Maigret felt very angry and immediately
regretted it. He picked up a man's shoe from under the foot of the bed.

‘What's this?' he cried
throwing it at the hotel-keeper's feet. ‘Doesn't that have a name either?
… Or this? … Or this? …'

He fished a jacket and a dirty shirt from the
back of a cupboard, together with another shoe and a cap.

‘Or these?'

He went back into the room next door and pointed
to two suitcases in a corner.

‘And that?'

A piece of cheese on greaseproof paper, glasses
– four of them – plates on which there were still a few slices of salami.

‘Did everyone who lived here sign your
register? Well? Speak up? And start by telling me how many of them there were.'

‘I don't know.'

‘Does this woman speak French?'

‘I don't know … No … She
just understands a few words.'

‘How long has she been here?'

‘I don't know.'

He had a nasty bluish boil on his neck, a sickly
look and thinning hair. He had not fastened his braces, so that his trousers kept slipping down
his thighs, and he was obliged to hold them up with both hands.

‘When did all this start?'

Maigret pointed to the woman.

‘No one told me …'

‘You're lying … And what about
the others? Where are they?'

‘They're probably gone.'

‘When?'

Maigret walked towards him, fists bunched. At
that moment he'd got to the point where he could have hit the man …

‘They ran away
immediately after that man was shot in the street, didn't they? They were a lot smarter
than all the others! They didn't hang around waiting for the police cordon to be set
up.'

No answer.

‘Take a look at this. You recognize him,
don't you?'

He thrust the photo of Victor Poliensky under his
nose.'

‘Do you recognize him?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did he live in this room?'

‘Next door.'

‘With the others? … And which of them
slept with the woman?'

‘I swear I don't know. Maybe more
than one of them …'

Lucas was back. Almost simultaneously there was
the sound outside of an ambulance siren. The woman screamed with pain but bit her lip and glared
defiantly at the men.

‘Listen, Lucas, I'm going to have to
stay here for some time yet. I want you to go with her. Don't leave her side, by which I
mean that you're not to stray from her ward in the hospital. As soon as I can I'll
try to dig out a Czech interpreter for you.'

Other tenants who were being led away and were
walking glumly down the stairs bumped into the ambulance men, who were on their way up with a
stretcher. In the dim light, there was something unearthly about the whole scene. It looked like
a nightmare, a nightmare which was filled with the reek of dirt and sweat.

Maigret preferred to move
into the other room while the ambulance men were taking care of the young woman.

‘Where will you take her?' he asked
Lucas.

‘Laennec. I had to phone round three
hospitals before I found a bed for her.'

The hotel-keeper did not dare move but stared
lugubriously at the floor.

‘Stay here! And close the door!'
Maigret barked at him when the field was clear. ‘Now, tell me everything.'