Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard (15 page)

“You mean you'd rather take the rap yourself?”

“That would be a miscarriage of justice.”

“Who else knew?”

“The young madam's boyfriend. Now there's a one for you. I wouldn't stake a fortune on his innocence. I don't know whether he was acting on orders from his lady love, but he took to following Louis in the afternoon for days at a time. He went to see him twice, to extort money from him. Louis was scared stiff the kid would blow the gaff to his wife, or write her an anonymous letter.”

“Do you know him?”

“No. I know he's very young, and that he works in a bookshop in the mornings. Latterly, Louis was haunted by a sense of impending catastrophe. He said things couldn't go on as they were, and that his wife was bound to learn the truth in the end.”

“Did he ever mention his brothers-in-law?”

“Often. They were always being held up to him as an example. They were made use of to show him up as a failure, a good-for-nothing, a namby-pamby, a nobody. He was told that, if he was content with his miserable lot, he ought never to have married. It was a shock to me, I can tell you.”

“What was?”

“Reading in the papers that he was dead. Especially as I wasn't very far away when it happened. Fernand will confirm that I was in his bar having a drink at the time.”

“Did Louis carry much money on him?”

“I don't know about that, but I do know that, two days earlier, we pulled off quite a lucrative job.”

“Was he in the habit of carrying the money about with him?”

“Either that, or he'd leave it in his room. The joke was that, every evening, he had to go back to his room to change his shoes and tie before catching his train. On one occasion, he forgot his tie. He told me all this himself. It was only when he got to the Gare de Lyon that he realized. He couldn't go and buy just any other tie. It had to be the same as the one he'd been wearing when he left home in the morning. He had to go all the way back to the Rue d'Angoulême, and when he got home he made up a story about having been kept late at work, to attend to some rush job or other.”

“Why have you been hiding in Françoise's room since Tuesday?”

“What would you have done in my place? When I read the paper on Tuesday morning, I realized that someone must have seen Louis and me together at some time, and that they'd be sure to tell the police. They always pick on people of my sort anyway.”

“Did you never consider leaving Paris?”

“No, I just lay low, in the hope that they wouldn't get on to me. This morning, when I heard your inspector calling out to me, I knew I was done for.”

“Does Françoise know what you've been up to?”

“No.”

“How does she suppose you managed to get hold of all that money?”

“To begin with, she hasn't seen much of it, only what I had left after my racing losses. And then she believes I'm still picking pockets in the Métro.”

“Is that what you used to do?”

“Surely you don't expect me to answer that? By the way, don't you ever get thirsty?”

Maigret poured him another tot.

“Are you quite sure there's nothing you haven't told me?”

“As sure as I'm sitting here!”

Maigret opened the door to the Inspectors' Duty Room, and called out to Lucas:

“Take him down to the cells.”

Then, looking towards Jef Schrameck, who stood up with a sigh, he added:

“He'd better be handcuffed, just to be on the safe side.”

As he was going out, the Acrobat turned back with an odd little smile on his mobile face, and Maigret said:

“Tell them not to be too hard on him.”

“Thank you, chief superintendent. Oh! and there's one other thing. Please don't tell Françoise that I gambled away all that money. She's quite capable of punishing me by not sending me any little extras in prison.”

Maigret put on his coat, took his hat down from the hook, and decided to go to the Brasserie Dauphine for a bite to eat. He was going down the main staircase, which was, as usual, gray with dust, when he heard sounds of a scuffle coming from the ground floor. He looked over the banister.

A young man, with his hair all over the place, was struggling in the grip of a giant of a constable with a bleeding scratch on his cheek. He was growling:

“Cool it, kiddo, if you don't want a smack in the chops!”

The chief superintendent was sorely tempted to laugh. It was Albert Jorisse on his unwilling way to see him. He was still struggling and shouting:

“Let go of me! I told you, I won't run away…”

At this point, the two of them came face to face with Maigret on the stairs.

“I arrested him a couple of minutes ago on the Pont Saint-Michel. I knew him at once. When I apprehended him, he tried to get away.”

“That's not true! He's lying!”

The young man was red in the face and panting, and his eyes were feverishly bright. The policeman had hold of his coat collar, which he had pulled up high, as if he were manipulating a puppet.

“Tell him to let go of me.”

He kicked out with his foot, but missed.

“I told you I wanted to see Chief Superintendent Maigret. I came here, didn't I? I came here of my own free will.”

His clothes were crumpled, his trousers still streaked with mud after last night's downpour. He had huge black circles under his eyes.

“I am Chief Superintendent Maigret.”

“Well, then, order him to let go of me.”

“It's all right, son, you can go now.”

“Whatever you say, sir, but…”

The constable was convinced that the young man was as slippery as an eel.

“He's a beastly bully,” panted Albert Jorisse. “He treated me as if…as if…”

He was stammering with rage.

Smiling in spite of himself, the chief superintendent pointed to the constable's bleeding cheek.

“It looks to me rather as if he was the one who…”

Jorisse, who had not noticed the gash until now, looked at him, with flashing eyes, and shouted:

“Serve him right!”

“Sit down, you young ruffian.”

“I'm not a young ruffian,” protested Jorisse.

He had still not quite got his breath back, and was wheezing a little, but he had calmed down a lot.

“I wouldn't have expected it of you, Chief Superintendent Maigret, using insulting language like that before even giving me time to explain.”

Maigret, somewhat taken aback, looked at him, frowning.

“Have you had any lunch?”

“I'm not hungry.”

He spoke like a sulky kid.

“Hello!” Maigret said into the phone. “Get me the Brasserie Dauphine…Hello! Is that you, Joseph?…Maigret here…I'd be obliged if you'd bring over some sandwiches. Six…Ham for me…Just a minute…”

And to Jorisse:

“Ham or cheese?”

“I don't really mind. Ham.”

“Beer or red wine?”

“Water, if you don't mind. I'm thirsty.”

“Joseph? Six ham sandwiches, cut nice and thick, and four halves of beer…Hang on a second…You may as well bring us two cups of black coffee while you're about it…And be as quick as you can, won't you?”

He replaced the receiver, and then immediately lifted it again and dialed an internal number, never taking his eyes off the young man, whose appearance interested him. Jorisse was thin and frail-looking, jumpy to the point of neurosis, suggesting that his staple diet was black coffee rather than nourishing steaks. Otherwise he wasn't bad looking, with his long brown hair, which he had to shake out of his eyes by tossing his head every now and again.

Perhaps because he was still very worked up, his nostrils twitched from time to time. He was still looking reproachfully at the chief superintendent, with his head on one side.

“Hello! You can call off the search for Jorisse. Pass the message on to all police and railway stations.”

The youth opened his mouth, but Maigret didn't give him time to speak.

“Later!”

The sky was once more overcast. There was more rain in the offing. No doubt it would come down in buckets, as it had done on the day of the funeral. Maigret went over to the window and shut it, then, still without a word, he returned to his desk and rearranged his pipes, as a typist, before getting down to work, rearranges her machine, her shorthand pad, and her carbons.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said, testily.

It was Inspector Neveu…He just put his head round the door, assuming that the chief was right in the middle of an interrogation.

“Excuse me. I just wanted to ask what…”

“You can go off now. And thanks!”

When he had gone, the chief superintendent began pacing up and down, to fill in time until the waiter arrived from the Brasserie Dauphine. He also made another call, this time to his wife:

“I shan't be in for lunch.”

“I was beginning to wonder. Do you know what time it is?”

“No. Does it matter?”

She burst out laughing. He couldn't imagine why.

“I came here to tell you…”

“It'll keep.”

It was his third interrogation that day. He was thirsty. Then he noticed, all of a sudden, that the young man was staring at the bottle of brandy and the used tumbler that had been left standing on his desk.

Maigret blushed like a child, and only just stopped himself from blurting out that it wasn't he who had been drinking brandy out of a tall glass, but Jef Schrameck, who had left the office just before Albert arrived.

Had the boy's reproachful words struck home? Was Chief Superintendent Maigret regretting that he had forfeited his good opinion?

“Come in, Joseph. Put the tray down on the desk. Everything's there, I take it?”

And when at last they were alone with the tray of food:

“Let's eat.”

Jorisse ate heartily, in spite of having said that he wasn't hungry. Right through the meal, he kept darting inquiring glances at the chief superintendent, but by the time he had finished his first glass of beer, he seemed to have regained a little self-confidence.

“Feeling better?”

“Yes, thanks. All the same, you did call me a ruffian.”

“We'll discuss that later.”

“It really is true that I was on my way to see you.”

“What for?”

“Because I was sick of running away.”

“Why did you run away?”

“So as not to get myself arrested.”

“Why should anyone have wanted to arrest you?”

“You know very well why.”

“No, I don't.”

“Because I am Monique's friend.”

“Why were you so sure we'd find out?”

“You were bound to.”

“And you think that because you and Monique were friends, we would have arrested you?”

“You wanted to make me talk.”

“I did, to be sure!”

“You've made up your mind that I'm going to lie to you, and you won't be happy until you've tripped me up.”

“I'm afraid you've been reading too many detective stories.”

“No. But I read the papers. I know how you people go about things.”

“In that case, what exactly are you doing here?”

“I've come to tell you that I didn't kill Monsieur Louis Thouret.”

Maigret, puffing at his pipe, slowly sipped his second glass of beer. He was seated at his desk. The green-shaded light was switched on, and the first few drops of rain were spreading on the window panes.

“Do you understand the implications of what you have just said?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“You assumed that you were under threat of arrest. Which means that there were good reasons why we should arrest you.”

“You've been to the Rue d'Angoulême, haven't you?”

“How do you know that?”

“You found out by the merest chance that he had a room in town. It was because of the light brown shoes, wasn't it?”

The chief superintendent looked at him with an amused little smile.

“So what?”

“The woman there must surely have told you that I'd been to see him.”

“Is that a reason for arresting you?”

“You've interrogated Monique.”

“Do you really believe she would give you away?”

“It wouldn't surprise me to learn that you'd managed to make her talk.”

“In that case what was the point of hiding under a friend's bed?”

“So you know that too?”

“Please answer my question.”

“I wasn't thinking. I got into a panic. I was afraid I might be browbeaten into saying things that weren't true.”

“Did you get that from the newspapers as well?”

After all, had not René Lecœur's lawyers referred in open court to the brutality of the police, and had not the words been quoted in every newspaper in the land? In fact, there had been a letter from Lecœur in the morning post. In despair, being under sentence of death, he had written to beg the chief superintendent to visit him in prison.

Maigret was tempted to show the letter to the youngster. He would do so later, if it should prove necessary.

“Why didn't you remain in hiding in the Rue Gay-Lussac?”

“Because I couldn't stand spending the whole day hiding under a bed. It was ghastly. I ached all over. I kept thinking all the time that I was going to sneeze. It's a small flat, and the doors are left open. I could hear my friend's aunt moving about the whole time. If I'd so much as moved, she would have been bound to hear me.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“I was hungry.”

“What did you do?”

“I wandered about the streets. At night, I managed to get a couple of hours' sleep by lying on a sack of vegetables in Les Halles. Twice I got myself as far as the Pont Saint-Michel. I saw Monique come out of this building. I walked to the Rue d'Angoulême, and there was a man there who looked as if he was watching the house. I assumed he must be from the police.”

“What reason would you have had for killing Monsieur Louis?”

“Don't you know that I borrowed money from him?”

“Borrowed?”

“All right, I asked him for money, if you like.”

“Asked?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“There are different ways of asking. Among others, there is a way which makes it almost impossible for the person concerned to refuse. In plain terms, blackmail.”

He was silent, gazing fixedly at the floor.

“What have you to say to that?”

“In actual fact, I would never have told Madame Thouret.”

“All the same, you threatened to do so?”

“That wasn't necessary.”

“Because a hint that you might talk was enough?”

“I don't know. You're confusing me.”

He added, in a weary voice:

“I'm dropping with sleep.”

“Drink your coffee.”

He obeyed meekly, never taking his eyes off Maigret.

“How often did you go and see him?”

“Only twice.”

“Did Monique know?”

“What did she say about it?”

“Never you mind what she said. I want to get at the truth.”

“She did know.”

“What did you say to him?”

“To whom?”

“To Louis Thouret, of course.”

“That we were in need of money.”

“Who's ‘we'?”

“Monique and I.”

“What did you say you wanted it for?”

“To go to South America.”

“So you told him you intended to run away together?”

“Yes.”

“How did he react?”

“In the end, he agreed that he had no choice in the matter.”

There was something wrong, somewhere. It was beginning to dawn on him that the youngster thought Maigret knew more than he actually did. He would have to proceed with caution.

“Did you ask his permission to marry her?”

“Yes. But he knew very well it was out of the question. Firstly, I am under age, and would have to get my parents' consent. Secondly, even if they were to agree, Madame Thouret would never have put up with a son-in-law who still had his way to make in the world. Monsieur Thouret himself was the first to discourage me from introducing myself to his wife.”

“Did you tell him that you and Monique had been making love in heaven knows how many different hotel rooms?”

“I didn't go into details.”

For the second time he blushed.

“I simply told him that she was pregnant.”

Maigret didn't start or show any other sign of surprise. All the same, it was a shock. He blamed his own lack of insight.

Because it was, he had to admit, the one possibility that had never occurred to him.

“How far gone is she?”

“Just over two months.”

“You've seen a doctor, I presume?”

“She wouldn't let me go in with her.”

“But she has seen someone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you wait for her outside?”

“No.”

Maigret changed his position slightly, and began mechanically to fill another pipe.

“What had you in mind to do, when you got to South America?”

“Anything at all. I'm not afraid of work. I could have become a cowhand.”

He said this with great seriousness, even a touch of pride, and Maigret had a mental image of the many six-foot roughnecks that he had encountered on ranches in Texas and Arizona.

“A cowhand,” he echoed.

“Or I could have prospected for gold.”

“Of course!”

“I would have managed somehow.”

“And you and Monique would have got married?”

“Yes. I imagine it would be easier there than here.”

“Do you love Monique?”

“She's my wife, or as good as, isn't she? Just because we haven't been through the formalities…”

“How did Monsieur Louis react to this news?”

“He couldn't believe his daughter could have done such a thing. He cried.”

“In your presence?”