Friend of Madame Maigret (11 page)

“I could see myself in the glass, because there are mirrors all round the shop, and my face was scarlet.

“‘Do you know Countess Panetti?' she asked, in a tone of surprise that wasn't very flattering.

“‘I've met her. I'd very much like to see her again, because I have some information for her that she asked me to get and I've mislaid her address.'

“‘I suppose she's still at . . .'

“She was on the point of stopping. She wasn't completely sure of me. But she couldn't very well not finish her sentence.

“‘I suppose she's still at Claridge's.'”

Madame Maigret was looking at him triumphantly and teasingly at the same time, with an anxious trembling of her lips in spite of everything. He kept up the game to the end, muttered:

“I hope you didn't go interrogating the hall porter at Claridge's.”

“I came straight back. Are you cross?”

“No.”

“I've caused you enough trouble with this business so the least I can do is try to help you. Now come and eat, since I hope you're going to take time for a bite before you go over there.”

This dinner reminded him of their first meals together, when she was discovering Paris and was delighted by all the little ready-to-eat dishes sold in the Italian shops. It was more like a picnic than a dinner.

“Do you think the information's reliable?”

“So long as you didn't get the wrong hat.”

“I'm absolutely sure about that. As far as the shoes go, I'm not so confident.”

“What's this about shoes now?”

“When you're sitting on a bench, in a square, your eyes naturally fall on the shoes of the person next to you. Once when I looked at them closely I could see that she was embarrassed and was trying to stick her feet under the bench.”

“Why?”

“I'll explain, Maigret. Don't make that face! It's not your fault if you don't know anything about feminine matters. Suppose someone accustomed to first-class couturiers wants to look like a little housewife and be inconspicuous? She buys a ready-made suit, which is easy. She may also buy a hat that isn't in the luxury class, although I'm not quite so sure about the hat.”

“What do you mean?”

“She may already have had it, but thought it looked enough like the other white hats being worn this season by shopgirls. She takes off her jewelery, of course! But there's one thing she would have a lot of trouble getting used to: ready-made shoes. Having your shoes made to measure by the best shoemakers makes your feet delicate. You've heard me groaning often enough to know that women have sensitive feet by nature. So the lady keeps her own shoes, thinking no one will notice them. That's where she's wrong, because as far as I'm concerned, that's the first thing I look at. Usually it happens the other way round: you see pretty, well-dressed women, with expensive frocks or fur coats, wearing cheap shoes.”

“Did she have expensive shoes?”

“Made to measure, I'm sure. I don't know enough about it to say what shoemaker they came from. No doubt some women could have told.”

He took time after dinner to pour himself a little glass of
prunelle
and to smoke almost a whole pipe.

“Are you going to Claridge's? You won't be too late?”

He took a cab, got out opposite the luxury hotel on the Champs-Élysées, and walked over to the hall porter's office. It was the night porter by this time, whom he had known for years, and this was a good thing because night porters invariably know more about the guests than those on the day shift.

His arrival in a place of this type always produced the same effect. He could see the clerks at the reception desk, the assistant manager, and even the lift boy raising their eyebrows and wondering what was up. Scandals are unpopular in a luxury hotel, and the presence of a chief inspector from Police Headquarters rarely bodes any good.

“How are you, Benoît?”

“Not too bad, Monsieur Maigret. The Americans are beginning to show up.”

“Is Countess Panetti still here?”

“It's at least a month since she left. Would you like me to check the exact date?”

“Did her family go with her?”

“What family?”

It was the slack time. Most of the guests were out, at the theater or at dinner. In the golden light the pages stood about, with their arms dangling, near the marble columns and observed the chief inspector, whom they all knew by sight, from a distance.

“I never knew she had any family. She's been stopping here for years now . . . and . . .”

“Tell me, have you ever seen the countess in a white hat?”

“Certainly. She received one a few days before her departure.”

“Did she also wear a blue suit?”

“No. You must have got them mixed up, Monsieur Maigret. The blue suit is her maid, or her companion if you prefer it, in any case the young lady who travels with her.”

“You've never seen Countess Panetti in a blue suit?”

“If you knew her you wouldn't ask me that.”

Just on the off chance, Maigret handed him the photographs of the women picked out by Moers.

“Anyone there who looks like her?”

Benoît looked at the chief inspector, flabbergasted.

“Are you sure you're not mistaken? You're showing me photographs of women under thirty, and the countess isn't much less than seventy. Look, you'd better find out what your colleagues in the Society Section have got on her, because they must know her.

“We get all kinds, don't we? Well, the countess is one of our most unusual guests.”

“In the first place, do you know who she is?”

“She's the widow of Count Panetti, the munitions and heavy industry man in Italy.

“She lives all over the place, Paris, Cannes, Egypt. I think she spends some time every year in Vichy, too.”

“Does she drink?”

“Shall we say she uses champagne instead of water? I wouldn't be surprised if she brushed her teeth with Pommery Brut! She dresses like a young girl, makes up like a doll, and spends most of every night in nightclubs.”

“Her maid?”

“I don't know much about her. She's always getting new ones. I hadn't seen this one until this year. Last year she had a big girl with red hair, a professional masseuse, because she used to take a massage every day.”

“Do you know the girl's name?”

“Gloria something. I haven't got her slip anymore, but they'll tell you in the office. I don't know if she's Italian or just from the South, maybe even from Toulouse?”

“Small and dark?”

“Yes, a smart, decent, pretty girl. I didn't see much of her. She lived in the suite, not in a servant's room, and she had her meals with her employer.”

“No man?”

“Only the son-in-law, who came to see them from time to time.”

“When?”

“Not long before they left. Ask at the desk for the dates. He didn't live in the hotel.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Krynker, I think. He's a Czech or a Hungarian.”

“Dark, rather heavy, around forty?”

“No. On the contrary, very fair and much younger. I doubt that he's more than thirty.”

They were interrupted by a group of American women in evening dress depositing their keys and asking for a taxi.

“As for swearing that he was really a son-in-law . . .”

“Did she have affairs?”

“I don't know. I can't say yes or no.”

“Did the son-in-law ever spend the night here?”

“No. But they went out together several times.”

“With the companion?”

“She never went out at night with the countess. I've never even seen her in evening dress.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“To London, if I remember right. But just a minute. Something's coming back to me. Ernest! Come here. There's nothing to be afraid of. Didn't Countess Panetti leave her heavy luggage behind?”

“Yes, sir.”

The porter explained:

“It often happens that our guests who are going away for a fairly long time leave some of their luggage here. We have a special baggage room for it. The countess left her trunks there.”

“She didn't say when she would be back?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Did she leave alone?”

“With her maid.”

“In a taxi?”

“You'd have to ask my opposite number on the day shift about that. You'll find him here tomorrow morning from eight o'clock on.”

Maigret took out of his pocket the photograph of Moss. The hall porter merely glanced at it, pulled a face.

“You won't find him here.”

“Do you know him?”

“Paterson. I did know him, under the name of Mosselaer, when I was working in Milan at least fifteen years ago. He's barred from all the luxury hotels and he wouldn't dare show his face in them. He knows they wouldn't give him a room, wouldn't even allow him to walk through the hall.”

“You haven't seen him recently?”

“No. If I did run into him, I'd start by asking him for the hundred lire he borrowed from me years ago and never returned.”

“Is the day porter on the telephone?”

“You can always try to ring him at his villa at Saint-Cloud, but he hardly ever answers. He doesn't like to be disturbed in the evening and he usually takes the phone off the hook.”

Nevertheless he did answer, and the music from the radio was audible over the telephone too.

“The head baggage-porter could give you more accurate information, I'm sure. I don't remember having a cab called for her. Generally, when she leaves the hotel, she gets me to look after her Pullman or air tickets.”

“You didn't do so this time?”

“No. It's only just struck me. Maybe she left in a private car.”

“You don't know whether the son-in-law, Krynker, owned a car?”

“Certainly he did! A big chocolate-colored American one.”

“Thank you. I'll probably see you tomorrow morning.”

He went over to the desk, where the assistant manager in his black coat and striped trousers insisted on finding the registration slips himself.

“She left the hotel on February 16, during the evening. I have her bill right here.”

“Was she alone?”

“I see two luncheons down for that day. So she must have eaten with her companion.”

“Would you please lend me this bill?”

It showed the daily expenditures of the countess at the hotel, and Maigret wanted to study them at leisure.

“On condition you give it back to me! Otherwise we'll be in trouble with the income-tax boys. By the way, how do the police come to be interested in a personality like Countess Panetti?”

Maigret, his mind on something else, almost replied: “All because of my wife!”

He caught himself in time, and muttered:

“I don't know yet. Something about a hat.”

Maigret was pushing the revolving door, catching sight of the garlands of lights on the Champs-Élysées, which, in the rain, always made him think of moist eyes; he was about to start walking down to the Rond-Point when he raised his eyebrows. Leaning against a tree trunk, not far from a flower girl who was sheltering from the rain, Janvier was watching him, pathetic, comical, looking as if he were trying to get something across to him.

He walked up to him.

“What in the world are you doing here?”

The inspector indicated a silhouette outlined against one of the few illuminated shop-windows. It was Alfonsi, who seemed intensely interested in a display of luggage.

“He's following you. So that I have to be following you too.”

“Did he see Liotard, after his visit to the rue de Turenne?”

“No. He phoned him.”

“Call it a day. Do you want me to drop you at home?”

Janvier lived not far out of his way, and in the rue Réaumur.

Alfonsi watched them walk off together, seemed surprised, taken aback, then, as Maigret was hailing a cab, decided to turn back and went off in the direction of the Étoile.

“Anything new?”

“Any amount. Too much, almost.”

“Do you want me to take care of Alfonsi again tomorrow morning?”

“No. Drop in at the office. There'll probably be plenty of work for everybody.”

When the inspector had got out, Maigret said to the driver:

“Drive through the rue de Turenne.”

It wasn't late. He vaguely hoped he would see a light at the bookbinder's. This would have been the ideal time for the long chat with Fernande that he had been hankering after for quite a while.

Because of a gleam of light on the glass door he got out of the cab, but realized that the interior was in darkness, hesitated to knock, set off again in the direction of the Quai des Orfèvres, where Torrence was on duty, and gave him some instructions.

Madame Maigret had just gone to bed when he tiptoed in. As he was undressing in the dark so as not to wake her, she asked:

“The hat?”

“It was bought by Countess Panetti all right.”

“Did you see her?”

“No. But she's about seventy-five.”

He went to bed in a bad temper, or preoccupied, and it was still raining when he awoke; then he cut himself shaving.

“Are you going on with your investigation?” he asked his wife who, in curlers, was serving his breakfast.