Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (52 page)

“Are you going to stay
here all night?” she asked.

“At least until your
husband gets home.”

“Are you going to tell
him about Monsieur Lorilleux’s visits to my room?”

“If necessary.”

“You’re a cad! Jean knows
nothing about all this. He had no part in it.”

“Unfortunately he is your
husband.”

When Lucas came back, they
were staring at each other in silence.

“Janvier is taking care
of the letter, Chief. I met Torrence downstairs. He says the man is in that
little bar. two doors down from your house.”

She sprang up. “What man?”

Maigret didn’t move a
muscle. “The man who came here last night. You might have expected him to come
back, since he didn’t find what he was looking for. And he might be in a
different frame of mind this time.”

She cast a dismayed
glance at the clock. The train from Bergerac was due in twenty minutes. Her
husband could be home in forty. She asked: “You know who this man is?”

“I can guess. I could go
down and confirm my suspicion. I’d say it is Lorilleux and I’d say he is very
eager to get back his property.”

“It’s not his property!”

“Let’s say that, rightly
or wrongly, he considers it his property. He must be in desperate straits, this
man. He came to see you twice without getting what he wanted. He came back a
third time disguised as Father Christmas. And he’ll come back again. He’ll be
surprised to find you have company. I’m convinced that he’ll be more talkative
than you. Despite the general belief, men always speak more freely than women.
Do you think he is armed?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think he is. He is
tired of waiting. I don’t know what story you’ve been telling him, but I’m sure
he’s fed up with it. The gentleman has a vicious face. There’s nothing quite as
cruel as a weakling with his back up.”

“Shut up!”

“Would you like us to go
so that you can be alone with him?”

The back of Maigret’s
envelope contained the following note: “10:38
P.M.
—she decides to talk.

It was not a very
connected story at first. It came out in bits and pieces, fragments of
sentences interlarded with venomous asides, supplemented by Maigret’s own
guesses which she either confirmed or amended.

“What do you want to
know?”

“Was it money that you
left in the check room?”

“ Bank notes. Almost a
million.”

“Did the money belong to
Lorilleux?”

“No more to him than to
me.”

“To one of his customers?”

“Yes. A man named Julian
Boissy.”

“What became of him?”

“He died.”

“How?”

“He was killed.”

“By whom?”

“By Monsieur Lorilleux.”

“Why?”

“Because I gave him to
understand that if he could raise enough money —real money—I might run away
with him.”

“You were already
married?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not in love with
your husband?”

“I despise mediocrity.
All my life I’ve been poor. All my life I’ve been surrounded by people who have
had to scrimp and save, people who have had to sacrifice and count centimes. I’ve
had to scrimp and sacrifice and count centimes myself.” She turned savagely on
Maigret, as if he had been responsible for all her troubles. “I just didn’t
want to be poor any more.”

“Would you have gone away
with Lorilleux?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps
for a while.”

“Long enough to get your
hands on his money?”

“I hate you!”

“How was Boissy murdered?”

“Monsieur Boissy was a
regular customer of long standing.”

“Pornographic literature?”

“He was a lascivious old
goat, sure. So are all men. So is Lorilleux. So are you, probably. Boissy was a
widower. He lived alone in a hotel room. He was very rich and very stingy. All
rich people are stingy.”

“That doesn’t work both
ways, does it? You, for instance, are not rich.”

“I would have been rich.”

“
If Lorilleux had not come back. How
did Boissy die?”

“The devaluation of the
franc scared him out of his wits. Like everybody else at that time, he wanted
gold. Monsieur Lorilleux used to shuttle gold in from Switzerland pretty
regularly. And he always demanded payment in advance. One afternoon Monsieur
Boissy came to the shop with a fortune in currency. I wasn’t there. I had gone
out on an errand.”

“You planned it that way?”

“No.”

“You had no idea what was
going to happen?”

“No. Don’t try to put
words in my mouth. When I came back, Lorilleux was packing the body into a big
box.”

“And you blackmailed him?”

“No.”

“Then why did he
disappear after having given you the money?”

“
I frightened him.”

“You threatened to go to
the police?”

“No. I merely told him that
our neighbors in the Palais-Royal had been looking at me suspiciously and that
I thought he ought to put the money in a safe place for a while. I told him
about the loose floor board in my apartment. He thought it would only be for a
few days. Two days later he asked me to cross the Belgian frontier with him.”

“And you refused?”

“I told him I’d been
stopped and questioned by a man who looked like a police inspector. He was
terrified. I gave him some of the money and promised to join him in Brussels as
soon as it was safe.”

“What did he do with the
corpse?”

“He put the box in a taxi
and drove to a little country house he owned on the banks of the Marne. I
suppose he either buried it there or threw it into the river. Nobody ever
missed Monsieur Boissy.”

“So you sent Lorilleux to
Belgium without you. How did you keep him away for five years?”

“I used to write him,
general delivery. I told him the police were after him, and that he would
probably read nothing about it in the papers because they were setting a trap
for him. I told him the police were always coming back to question me. I even
sent him to South America.”

“He came back two months
ago?”

“About. He was at the end
of his rope.”

“Didn’t you send him any
money?”

“Not much.”

“Why not?”

She did not reply. She
looked at the clock.

“Are you going to arrest
me? What will be the charge? I didn’t kill Boissy. I wasn’t there when he was
killed. I had nothing to do with disposing of his body.”

“Stop worrying about
yourself. You kept the money because all your life you wanted money—not to
spend, but to keep, to feel secure, to feel rich and free from want.”

“That’s my business.”

“When Lorilleux came back
to ask for money, or to ask you to keep your promise and run away with him, you
used Colette as a pretext. You tried to scare him into leaving the country
again, didn’t you?”

“He stayed in Paris,
hiding.” Her upper lip curled slightly. “What an idiot! He could have shouted
his name from the housetops and nobody would have noticed.”

“The business of Father Christmas
wasn’t idiotic.”

“No? The money wasn’t
under the floorboard any longer. It was right here under his nose, in my sewing
basket.”

“Your husband will be
here in ten or fifteen minutes. Lorilleux across the street probably knows it.
He’s been in touch with Bergerac by phone, and he can read a timetable. He’s
surely armed. Do you want to wait here for your two men?”

“Take me away! I’ll slip
on a dress....”

“The check-room stub?”

“General delivery,
Boulevard Beaumarchais.”

She did not close the
bedroom door after her. Brazenly she dropped the négligée from her shoulders
and sat on the edge of the bed to pull on her stockings. She selected a woolen
dress from the closet, tossed toilet articles and lingerie into an overnight
bag.

“Let’s hurry!”

“Your husband?”

“That fool? Leave him for
the birds.”

“Colette?”

She shrugged.

Mlle. Doncoeur’s door
opened a crack as they passed.

Downstairs on the
sidewalk she clung fearfully to the two men, peering into the fog.

“Take her to the Quai des
Orfèvres, Lucas. I’m staying here.”

She held back. There was
no car in sight, and she was obviously frightened by the prospect of walking
into the night with only Lucas to protect her. Lucas was not very big.

“Don’t be afraid.
Lorilleux is not in this vicinity.”

“You lied to me! You—you—”

Maigret went back into
the house.

The conference with Jean
Martin lasted two hours.

When Maigret left the
house at one-thirty, the two brothers were in serious conversation. There was a
crack of light under Mlle. Doncoeur’s door, but she did not open the door as he
passed.

When he got home, his
wife was asleep in a chair in the dining room. His place at table was still
set. Mme. Maigret awoke with a start.

“You’re alone?” When he
looked at her with amused surprise, she added, “Didn’t you bring the little
girl home?”

“Not tonight. She’s
asleep. You can go for her tomorrow morning.”

“Why, then we’re going
to..”

“No, not permanently.
Jean Martin may console himself with some decent girl. Or perhaps his brother
will get back on his feet and find a new wife....”

“In other words, she won’t
be ours?”

“Not in fee simple, no.
Only on loan. I thought that would be better than nothing. I thought it would
make you happy.”

“Why, yes, of course. It
will make me very happy. But... but...”

She sniffled once and
fumbled for her handkerchief. When she couldn’t find it, she buried her face in
her apron.

ITEM

The members of the
"Silver Slipper" Club continued their revels into Christmas
morning.... No regard to season is paid in police procedure. Christmas morning
in the police is the same as any other morning. Therefore arrangements were
made for inspecting the "Silver Slipper" on Christmas morning. The
police were satisfied to take the names and addresses of those present together
with bottled samples.

A London
Newspaper, Dec. 27, 1927