Read Friend of Madame Maigret Online
Authors: Georges Simenon
Friend of Madame Maigret (19 page)
“Four?”
“Moss, Levine, the woman and the child, and our best bet may be the child.”
“Unless they've got rid of him.”
“If Gloria went back for him when he was in my wife's charge, at the risk of getting herself arrested, she must be attached to him.”
“Do you think it's her son?”
“I'm sure of it. It's a mistake to think criminals aren't like other people, that they can't have children and love them.”
“Her son by Levine?”
“Probably.”
Rising to his feet, Dossin smiled a faint smile with a trace of mischief and of humility too.
“This would be the time for a âgrilling,' wouldn't it? Unfortunately that's not my strong point.”
“If you'll allow me, I can try talking to Liotard.”
“To get him to advise his client to talk?”
“As matters stand now, it's in the interest of both of them.”
“Shall I have them brought in right away?”
“In a moment.”
Maigret went out and said cordially to the man sitting to the right of the door, on the bench worn smooth by constant use:
“Good morning, Steuvels.”
Just at that moment Janvier was coming out into the corridor, together with a very distressed Fernande. The inspector was doubtful about letting the woman join her husband.
“You have time for a chat together,” Maigret said to them.
“The judge isn't quite ready.”
He made Liotard a sign to follow him, and they talked in undertones, pacing up and down the murky corridor where there were policemen outside most of the doors. It took barely five minutes.
“When you're ready, just knock.”
Maigret went alone into Monsieur Dossin's office, leaving Liotard, Steuvels, and Fernande in conversation.
“Satisfactory result?”
“We'll see. Liotard's willing, obviously. I'll cook you up a nice little report in which I'll manage to mention the suitcase without emphasizing it.”
“That's a bit irregular, isn't it?”
“Do you want to catch the murderers?”
“I understand you, Maigret. But my father and my grandfather were on the Bench, and I think I'll end my days there too.”
He was blushing, waiting for a knock on the door with a mixture of impatience and misgiving.
At last it opened.
“Shall I bring Madame Steuvels in too?” asked the lawyer.
Fernande had been crying and had her handkerchief in her hand. She immediately tried to catch Maigret's eye to give him a look of distress, as though she felt confident that he could still put everything right.
Steuvels, for his part, hadn't changed. He was still wearing an expression that was both mild and stubborn at the same time, and he went and sat down obediently on the chair he was motioned to.
As the clerk was about to take his place, Monsieur Dossin said to him:
“Wait. I'll call you when the interrogation becomes official. Are you agreeable, Maître Liotard?”
“Quite. Thank you.”
Maigret was the only one standing up now, facing the window, down which little raindrops were rolling. The Seine was gray like the sky; the barges, the roofs, the pavements reflected the wetness.
Then, after two or three little coughs, Judge Dossin's voice was heard, saying diffidently:
“I believe the chief inspector would like to put a few questions to you, Steuvels.”
Maigret, who had just lighted his pipe, had no alternative but to turn round, trying to suppress a smile of amusement.
“I suppose,” he began, still standing up, as if he were addressing a class, “your counsel has briefly given you the picture? We know what you and your brother have been up to. Possibly, so far as you personally are concerned, we may have nothing else to charge you with.
“It was not, in fact, your suit that showed traces of blood, but that of your brother, who left his suit with you and took yours away with him.”
“My brother didn't commit murder either.”
“Probably not. Do you want me to interrogate you, or would you rather tell us what you know?”
Not only was Maître Liotard on his side now, but Fernande, by the look in her eyes, was urging Frans to talk.
“Question me. I'll see if I can answer.”
He wiped the thick lenses of his glasses and waited, round-shouldered, head slightly bent forward as if it were too heavy.
“When did you learn that Countess Panetti had been killed?”
“In the course of Saturday night.”
“You mean the night when Moss, Levine, and a third person, who is probably Krynker, came to your house?”
“Yes.”
“Was it your idea to send a telegram to get your wife out of the way?”
“I wasn't even told about it.”
This was plausible. Alfred Moss was sufficiently familiar with the couple's domestic habits and way of life.
“So when someone knocked at your door about nine o'clock that evening you didn't know what it was about?”
“Yes. Anyhow, I didn't want to let them in. I was reading peacefully in the basement.”
“What did your brother tell you?”
“That one of his companions needed a passport that same evening and he'd brought everything along and I'd better get to work.”
“Was that the first time he'd brought strangers to your house?”
“He knew I didn't want to see anyone.”
“But you knew he had accomplices?”
“He'd told me he was working with a man named Schwartz.”
“The man who called himself Levine at the rue Lepic? A rather fat man, very dark?”
“Yes.”
“You all went down to the basement together?”
“Yes. I couldn't work in the workshop at that time of night, or the neighbors would have wondered what was up.”
“Tell me about the third man.”
“I don't know him.”
“Did he have a foreign accent?”
“Yes. He was a Hungarian. He seemed anxious to get away and he kept on asking if he wouldn't run into trouble with a false passport.”
“For what country?”
“The United States. They're the hardest to fake because of certain special signs known only to the consuls and the immigration department.”
“So you started work?”
“I didn't have time.”
“What happened?”
“Schwartz was inspecting the flat, as if he was making sure no one could take us by surprise. Suddenly, while I had my back turnedâI was bending over the suitcase, which was placed on a chairâI heard a shot and saw the Hungarian slumping to the floor.”
“Was it Schwartz who had fired?”
“Yes.”
“Did your brother seem surprised?”
A moment's hesitation.
“Yes.”
“What happened next?”
“Schwartz maintained that this was the only possible way out and that he couldn't help it. According to him, Krynker had lost his nerve and would inevitably have been caught. If he'd been caught, he would have talked.
“âI was wrong to treat him like a man,' he added.
“Then he asked me where the furnace was.”
“He knew there was one?”
“I think so.”
Through Moss, obviously, as it was obvious also that Frans did not want to lay it to his brother's charge.
“He ordered Alfred to start a fire and asked me to bring some very sharp tools.
“âWe're all in the same boat, boys. If I hadn't shot down this idiot we'd have been arrested within a week. Nobody saw him with us. Nobody knows he's here. He has no family to start making inquiries. Get him out of the way and we'll be all right.'”
This wasn't the moment to ask the bookbinder if they had all helped with the dismemberment.
“Did he tell you about the old lady's death?”
“Yes.”
“Was this the first you heard of it?”
“I hadn't seen anybody since the point where they left in the car.”
“He was becoming more reticent, while Fernande's glance was traveling from her husband's face to Maigret's.
“Speak out, Frans. They got you into it and then cleared out. What good would it do you to keep quiet?”
Maître Liotard was adding:
“In my capacity as your counsel, I can tell you that it's not only your duty to speak out, but in your own interest too. I think the court will take your frankness into consideration.”
Frans looked at him with big worried eyes and shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“They spent part of the night at my place,” he finally brought out. “It took a very long time.”
A sudden heave of her stomach made Fernande put her handkerchief to her mouth.
“Schwartz, or Levine, never mind his name, had a bottle of brandy in his overcoat pocket, and my brother drank a lot.
“At one point Schwartz said to him, looking furious:
“âThat's the second time you've played this trick on me.'
“And that was when Alfred told me the story of the old lady.”
“Just a minute,” interrupted Maigret. “What exactly do you know about Schwartz?”
“He was the man my brother was working for. He had talked to me about him several times. He thought he was a fine fellow, but dangerous. He has a child by a pretty girl, an Italian, whom he lives with most of the time.”
“Gloria?”
“Yes. Schwartz worked mainly in the big hotels. He'd got on to a very rich, eccentric woman, whom he expected to get a lot out of, and he'd made Gloria take a job as her maid.”
“And Krynker?”
“I really only saw him dead, because the shot was fired when he'd only been in my house a few minutes. There are some things I didn't understand until later, when I thought about it.”
“For instance?”
“That Schwartz had prepared the whole thing in minute detail. He wanted to get Krynker out of the way and he'd hit upon this method of getting rid of him without running any risk. When he came to my house he knew what was going to happen. He'd made Gloria go to Concarneau to send off the telegram to Fernande.”
“And the old lady?”
“I wasn't mixed up in that business. I only know that since his divorce Krynker, who was on the Riviera, had tried to get in touch with her. Recently he succeeded, and she would sometimes give him small amounts of money. This would immediately melt away, because he liked to lead a grand life. What he wanted was enough money to get to the United States.”
“Was he still in love with his wife?”
“I don't know. He met Schwartz, or rather Schwartz, tipped off by Gloria, managed to meet him in a bar, and they became more or less friendly.”
“Was it on the night of Krynker's death and the furnace that they told you all this?”
“We had to wait hours while . . .”
“We know.”
“I wasn't told whether it was Krynker's idea or whether Schwartz suggested it to him. Apparently the old lady was in the habit of traveling with a case containing jewelery worth a fortune.
“It was about the time of year when she regularly went to the Riviera. It was just a matter of inducing her to go in Krynker's car.
“On the way, at a prearranged point, the car would be attacked and the jewel case stolen.
“In Krynker's mind, this was to be managed without bloodshed. He was convinced that he wasn't running any risk, since he would be in the car with his ex-mother-in-law.
“For some reason or other, Schwartz fired, and I think he did it on purpose because this put the other two at his mercy.”
“Your brother too?”
“Yes.
“The attack took place on the Fontainebleau road, and afterward they drove as far as Lagny to get rid of the car. Schwartz had a cottage somewhere near there at one time and was familiar with the district. What else do you want to know?”
“Where are the jewels?”
“They found the case all right, but the jewelery wasn't in it. No doubt the countess had her suspicions after all? Gloria, who was with her, knew nothing about it either. Maybe she left them in a bank?”
“That's when Krynker lost his head?”
“He wanted to try to get across the frontier right away, on his own papers, but Schwartz insisted he'd be caught. He couldn't sleep, was drinking a lot. He was bordering on panic, and Schwartz decided that the only way to get any peace at all was to get rid of him. He brought him to my house on the pretext of obtaining a false passport for him.”
“How was it that your brother's suit . . .”
“I understand. At one point Alfred stumbled, exactly where . . .”
“So you gave him your blue suit and kept his, which you cleaned the next day?”
Fernande's head must have been full of bloody pictures. She was looking at her husband as though seeing him for the first time, no doubt trying to imagine him during the days and nights he had then spent alone in the basement and in the workshop.
Maigret saw her shudder, but the next moment she held out a hesitant hand, which finally came to rest on the bookbinder's big paw.
“Perhaps they have a binder's shop at the Big House,” she said, making an effort to smile.
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Levine, whose name was neither Schwartz nor Levine, but Sarkistian, and who was wanted by the authorities of three countries, was arrested a month later in a little village near Orléans, where he was spending his time fishing.
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