The Yellow Dog (9 page)

‘I felt a kind of thrill when I saw you sign the warrant for my arrest. And yet …' He looked at the walls around him, at the window with three iron bars that opened on the courtyard. ‘I'll have to move my bunk, push it
into that corner … How, yes, how in the world could someone tell me about a yellow dog five years ago, when this dog here was probably not even born? … I'm afraid, inspector! I admit that. I tell you I'm afraid! I don't care what people think when they
hear I'm in jail. The only thing I care about is not dying. And someone's after me, someone I don't know, and who's already killed Le Pommeret, who probably killed Goyard, who shot Mostaguen … Why? Tell me! Why? It must be some maniac. And they still
haven't managed to wipe him out! He may be lurking nearby right now! He knows I'm here … He'll come, with his awful dog that stares like a man!'

Maigret slowly stood up, knocked his pipe against his heel.

And the doctor repeated in a pitiful tone, ‘I know you
think I'm a coward. It's going to be hell for me tonight, with this kidney …'

Maigret stood there like the antithesis of the prisoner – of agitation, fever, sickness – the antithesis of that unwholesome and repellent terror. ‘Do you want me to send a doctor?'

‘No! If I knew someone was supposed to come here, I'd be even more frightened. I'd be worried that
he
might turn up – the man with the dog, the maniac, the murderer.'

Before long his teeth would start to chatter. ‘Do you think you'll arrest him? Or will you just kill him, like a mad dog? Because he is mad! Nobody kills the way he has for no reason!'

In another three minutes the doctor's frenzy would turn into a nervous breakdown. Maigret chose to leave, and the prisoner gazed after him, his head huddled between his shoulders, his eyelids red.

‘Is that perfectly clear, sergeant? No one is to enter his cell except you, and you yourself are to take him his food and whatever else he needs. Meanwhile, take away anything he could use to kill himself with – his shoelaces, his tie. See
that the courtyard is under surveillance day and night. And show consideration – the utmost consideration.'

‘Such a distinguished man!' sighed the sergeant. ‘You think he's the one who—'

‘Who might be the next victim, yes. So you'll answer to me for his life!'

Maigret went off down the narrow street, splashing through the puddles. The whole town knew him by now. Curtains parted as he passed. Children broke off their games to watch him with timid respect.

He was crossing the drawbridge between the Old Town and the new when he ran into Leroy, who was looking for him.

‘Anything new? I don't suppose they've laid hands on my bear, have they?'

‘What bear?'

‘The man with the big feet.'

‘No. The mayor gave orders to stop the search because it was upsetting the public. He placed a few policemen at strategic spots … But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. It's the newspaperman, Goyard, Jean
Servières. A travelling salesman who knows him just got into town, and he says he ran across him yesterday in Brest. Goyard pretended not to see him and walked off.'

Leroy was surprised at how calmly Maigret took the news. ‘The mayor is convinced that the salesman was mistaken. He says there are plenty of short, fat men in any city. And you know what I heard him tell his deputy – talking low but hoping, I
think, I'd overhear? Verbatim: “Watch the inspector take off on this false scent. He'll go to Brest and leave us to deal with the real murderer!”'

Maigret walked another twenty paces in silence. In the square, the market stalls were being dismantled.

‘I almost told him that …'

‘That what?'

Leroy blushed and turned his head away. ‘Exactly! I don't know … I, too, get the feeling that you don't think it's really important to catch the drifter.'

‘How's Mostaguen doing?'

‘Better. He can't think of any reason he was attacked … He asked his wife's pardon, pardon for staying so late at
the café. Pardon for being half drunk. He was in tears and swore
he'd never touch another drop of alcohol.'

Fifty metres from the Admiral Hotel, Maigret stopped to look at the harbour. Boats were coming in, dropping their brown sails as they rounded the breakwater, sculling slowly along.

At the base of the Old Town's walls, the ebb tide was uncovering banks of mud studded with old pots and other rubbish.

A faint suggestion of sun showed through the almost solid cloud cover.

‘Your impression, Leroy?'

The officer grew uneasy again. ‘I don't know … I think if we had that fellow … Remember that the yellow dog has disappeared again. What could the man have been up to in the doctor's house? There must have been
some poisons there. I deduce from that—'

‘Yes, of course. But I don't go in for deductions.'

‘Still, I'd be curious to see that drifter up close. From the footprints, he must be a giant—'

‘Exactly.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Nothing.'

Maigret lingered; he seemed delighted by the view of the little harbour: Cabélou Point to the left, with its pines and rocky headlands, the red-and-black tower, the scarlet buoys marking the channel out to the Glénan Islands, which were
indistinguishable in the grey light.

Leroy still had a good deal to say. ‘I telephoned Paris to get information on Goyard; he lived there for a long time.'

Maigret looked at him with affectionate irony, and, stung to the quick, Leroy recited briskly: ‘The information
is either very good or very bad. I got hold of a fellow who'd been a sergeant in
the Vice Squad back then and had known him personally. It seems he dabbled a bit in journalism, first as a gossip columnist. Then he was the manager of a small theatre. Next he ran a cabaret in Montmartre. Went broke twice. For two years he was editor in chief of a provincial newspaper – at
Nevers, I believe. Finally, he ran a nightclub. “A fellow who knows how to stay afloat” – that's what the sergeant said … True, he also said, “Not a bad guy. When he eventually saw that all he'd ever do was eat through his money or make trouble for
himself, he decided to reimmerse himself in small-town life.”'

‘So?'

‘So I wonder why he would fake that attack. I went back to look at the car. There are bloodstains, and they're real. If he was actually attacked, why wouldn't he have sent some message, since now he's walking around
Brest?'

‘Very good!'

Leroy looked sharply at Maigret to see if he was teasing. No. The inspector was gazing seriously at a gleam of sunlight far out at sea.

‘As for Le Pommeret—'

‘You have a line on him?'

‘His brother came to the hotel to speak to you. He couldn't stay. He had nothing but bad things to say about the dead man. As far as he was concerned, his brother was an absolute good-for-nothing. Interested only in women and hunting.
And he had a mania for running up bills and for playing the lord of the manor … One detail out of the hundreds: the brother is probably the biggest manufacturer in the district, and he told me: “I'm happy to buy my clothes in Brest. Nothing fancy – just substantial,
comfortable
clothes. But Yves would go to Paris to order his clothes. And he had to have hand-made shoes signed by a famous bootmaker! Even my wife doesn't wear custom-made shoes.”'

‘That's a joke!' said Maigret, to his companion's great bewilderment, if not indignation.

‘Why?'

‘All right, then, it's magnificent. To use your own expression, we're immersing ourselves in small-town life. And it's just like it's always been! Knowing whether Le Pommeret wore ready-made or custom-made shoes – that
may not seem like much. But, believe it or not, that's the key to the story, right there … Let's go and get an aperitif, Leroy – like those fellows did every day at the Admiral café!'

Again Leroy looked at his chief to determine whether the man was making fun of him. He had been hoping for congratulations on his morning's work and for all his enterprise.

Instead, Maigret was behaving as though the whole thing were a joke!

The effect was the same as when the teacher enters a classroom where the students are chattering. Conversation stopped. The reporters rushed up to the inspector.

‘Can we report the doctor's arrest? Has he confessed?'

‘Nothing at all!'

Maigret waved them aside and called to Emma, ‘Two Pernods, my dear.'

‘But look, if you've arrested Michoux—'

‘You want to know the truth?'

They already had their notebooks in hand. They waited, pens at the ready.

‘Well then, there is no truth yet. Maybe there will be some day. Maybe not.'

‘We hear that Jean Goyard—'

‘Is alive. So much the better for him.'

‘But still, there's a man in hiding, and they can't find him.'

‘Which goes to prove the hunter's not as smart as the prey.'

Taking Emma by the sleeve, Maigret said gently, ‘I'll have my lunch in my room.'

He drank his aperitif down straight and got to his feet.

‘A piece of advice, gentlemen! No jumping to conclusions. And no deductions, above all.'

‘What about the criminal?'

He shrugged his broad shoulders and murmured: ‘Who knows?'

He was already at the foot of the stairs. Leroy threw him a questioning look.

‘No, my friend. You eat down here. I need a rest.'

He climbed the stairs with heavy tread. Ten minutes later, Emma went up after him with a plate of hors d'œuvres.

Then she carried up a
coquille St Jacques
and roast veal with spinach.

In the dining room, conversation languished. One of the reporters was called to the phone.

‘Around four o'clock, yes,' he declared. ‘I hope to have something sensational for you … Not yet! We've got to wait …'

All alone at a table, Leroy ate with the manners of a well-bred boy, regularly wiping his lips with the corner of his napkin.

People outside kept an eye on the Admiral café, hoping vaguely for something to happen.

A policeman leaned against the building at the end of the alleyway where the vagrant had disappeared.

‘The mayor is on the phone, asking for Chief Inspector Maigret,' Emma announced.

Leroy jumped. ‘Go up and tell him,' he said to her.

The waitress left, but came right back and said, ‘He's not there!'

Leroy bounded up the stairs four at a time, returned very pale and snatched the receiver.

‘Hello! … Yes,
Monsieur le Maire
 … I don't know. I … I'm worried. The inspector is gone … No, that's all I can tell you. He had lunch in his room. I didn't see him come
down … I … I'll phone you back.'

Leroy, who had not put his napkin down, used it now to wipe his brow.

Half an hour later, Leroy went up to his own room. On his table, he found a note in Morse code.

Go up to the roof tonight at eleven. Let no one see you. I'll be there. No noise. Bring gun. Say that I left for Brest and phoned you from there. Don't leave hotel. Maigret.

A little before eleven, Leroy took off his shoes and put on some felt slippers he had bought that afternoon expressly for this expedition. He was somewhat apprehensive.

At the third floor, the staircase ended, but a fixed ladder led to a trapdoor in the ceiling. In the icy, draughty attic above, Leroy took the risk of lighting a match.

A few moments later, he climbed out through a skylight, but he didn't dare move down towards the eaves immediately. It was bitterly cold. His fingers froze on contact with the zinc shingles. And he had decided, unfortunately, not to saddle
himself with an overcoat.

When his eyes adapted to the darkness, he seemed to make out a darker, stocky mass, like a huge animal lying in wait. He smelled pipe smoke and whistled softly.

A moment later he was crouched on the ledge next to Maigret. Neither the sea nor the town was visible; they were on the slope of the roof facing away from the quay and over a dark chasm that was the very alleyway through which the big-footed man
had escaped.

The view was made up of irregular planes: there were
some very low roofs and others at eye level. Some windows were lighted here and there. A few had blinds drawn, and a kind of Chinese shadow play moved
across them. In a distant room, a woman was washing a baby in an enamel basin.

The inspector moved, or, rather, shuffled, his large bulk over until his mouth was pressed to his companion's ear.

‘Be careful! No sudden movements. The ledge isn't too solid, and right below us there's a gutter pipe that could fall off at any moment and make a racket. What about the reporters?'