Maigret Gets Angry (14 page)

The ship must have reached the Quarantine
Landing at about four in the morning, and most of the passengers were asleep. Some had
half-awakened at the loud rattling of the anchor, but in spite of their earlier intentions, very
few of them had ventured up on deck to gaze at the lights of New York.

The final hours of the crossing had been the
hardest. Even now, in the estuary, a few cable lengths from the Statue of Liberty, a strong
swell heaved under the ship … It was raining. Or rather, drizzling: a cold dampness that
fell all around, soaking everything, making the decks dark and slippery, glistening on the guard
rails and metal bulkheads.

As for Maigret, just as the engines fell silent
he had put his heavy overcoat on over his pyjamas and gone up on deck, where a few shadows
strode this way and that, zigzagging – now high overhead, now way lower down – as
the ship pitched at anchor.

Smoking his pipe, he had looked at the lights and
the other vessels awaiting the health and customs officials.

He had not seen Jean Maura. Passing his cabin and
noticing light under the door, he had almost knocked, but why bother? He had returned to his own
cabin to shave. He had swallowed – he would remember this, the way one remembers
unimportant details – a mouthful of brandy
straight from the bottle Madame Maigret had slipped into his
suitcase.

What had happened next? He was fifty-six; this
was his first crossing and he was amazed to find himself so lacking in curiosity, so unimpressed
by the magnificent view.

The ship was coming to life. Stewards noisily
dragged luggage along the corridors as one passenger after another rang for assistance.

When he was ready Maigret went back up on deck.
The misty drizzle was turning milky, and the lights were growing dim in that pyramid of concrete
Manhattan had set before him.

‘You're not angry with me, are you,
inspector?'

Maigret had not heard Maura come up to him. The
young man was pale, but everyone out on deck that morning looked bleary-eyed and a little
ashen.

‘Angry with you for what?'

‘You know … I was too nervous, on
edge … So when those people asked me to have a drink with them …'

All the passengers had drunk too much. It was the
final evening; the bar was about to close. The Americans in particular had wanted to enjoy their
last chance at the French liqueurs.

Jean Maura, however, was barely nineteen. He had
just been through a long period of intense emotional strain and had rapidly become intoxicated,
unpleasantly so, growing maudlin and threatening by turns.

Maigret had finally put him to bed towards two in
the morning. He'd had to drag him off by force to his cabin, where the boy rounded on him
in protest.

‘Just because you're the famous Detective Chief
Inspector Maigret doesn't mean you can treat me like a child!' he shouted furiously.
‘Only one man – you hear me? – only one man on earth has the right to order me
around, and that's my father …'

Now he was ashamed, feeling upset and queasy, and
it fell to Maigret to buck him up, to clap a hearty hand on his shoulder.

‘I went through the same thing well before
you did, young man.'

‘I behaved badly, I was unfair. You
understand, I kept thinking about my father …'

‘Of course.'

‘I'm so glad to be seeing him again
and to make sure that nothing has happened to him …'

Smoking his pipe in the fine drizzle, Maigret
watched a grey boat heaving up and down on the swell draw skilfully alongside the gangway
ladder. Officials seemed practically to leap aboard, then vanished into the captain's
quarters.

Men were opening the holds. The capstans were
already revolving. More and more passengers were appearing on deck, and in spite of the poor
light, a few of them insisted on taking photographs. Others were exchanging addresses, promising
to write, to see one another again. Still others were in the ship's lounges, filling out
their customs declarations.

The customs men left, the grey boat pulled away,
and two motor-boats arrived alongside with officials from the immigration, police and health
departments. Meanwhile, breakfast was served in the dining room.

At
what point did Maigret lose track of Jean Maura? That is what he had the most trouble
determining later on. He had gone to have a cup of coffee, had then handed out his tips. People
he barely knew had shaken his hand. Next he had queued up in the first-class lounge, where a
doctor had taken his pulse and checked his tongue while other officials examined his papers.

At one point, out on deck, there was a commotion.
Maigret was told that journalists had just come aboard and were taking pictures of a European
minister and a film star.

One little thing amused him. He heard a
journalist who was going over the passenger list with the purser exclaim (or so he thought, for
Maigret's knowledge of English dated back to his schoolboy days): ‘Huh! That's
the same name as the famous chief inspector of the Police Judiciaire.'

Where was Maura at that moment? Passengers
leaning on their elbows at the rail contemplated the Statue of Liberty as the ship moved on,
pulled by two tugs.

Small brown boats as crammed with people as
subway cars kept passing close to the ship: commuters from Jersey City or Hoboken on their way
to work.

‘Would you come this way please, Monsieur
Maigret?'

The steamer had tied up at the French Line pier,
and the passengers were disembarking in single file, anxious to reclaim their luggage in the
customs hall.

Where was Jean Maura? Maigret looked for him.
Then his name was called again, and he had to disembark. He told himself that he would find the
young man down on
the pier with all their
luggage, since they had the same initials.

There was no feeling of uneasiness in the air, no
tension. Maigret felt leaden, tired out by a difficult crossing and by the impression that he
had made a mistake in leaving his house in Meung-sur-Loire.

He felt so out of his element! In such moments,
he easily turned peevish, and, as he hated crowds and formalities and had a hard time
understanding English, his mood was souring rapidly.

Where was Maura? Now he had to search for his
keys, for which he inevitably fumbled endlessly through all his pockets until they turned up in
the place where they naturally had to be. Even with nothing to declare, he still had to unwrap
all the little packages carefully tied up by Madame Maigret, who had never personally had to go
through customs.

When it was all over, he caught sight of the
purser.

‘You haven't see young Maura, have
you?'

‘He's no longer on board, in any case
… He isn't here, either. You want me to find out?'

The place was like a train station, but more
hectic, with porters banging suitcases into people's legs. The two men looked everywhere
for Maura.

‘He must have left, Monsieur Maigret.
Someone probably came to get him, don't you think?'

Whoever would have come to get him, since no one
had been informed of his arrival?

Maigret was obliged to follow the porter who had
carried off his luggage. He had no idea what the barman had
handed him in the way of small change or what he should give as a
tip. He was literally pushed into a yellow cab.

‘Hotel St Regis,' he said four or
five times before he could make himself understood.

It was perfectly idiotic. He should not have let
himself be so affected by that boy. Because he was, after all, only a boy. As for Monsieur
d'Hoquélus, Maigret was beginning to wonder if he was any more reliable than the
young man.

It was raining. They were driving through a grimy
neighbourhood with nauseatingly ugly buildings. Was this New York?

Ten days … No, it was precisely nine days
earlier that Maigret had still been ensconced in his usual spot at the Café du Cheval
Blanc, in Meung, where it was also raining, as it happens. It rains on the banks of the Loire
just as well as in America. Maigret was playing cards. It was five in the afternoon.

Wasn't he a retired civil servant? Was he
not fully enjoying his retirement and the house he had lovingly set up? A house of the kind he
had longed for all his life, one of those country houses with the wonderful smell of ripening
fruit, new-mown hay, beeswax, not to mention a simmering ragout, and God knows Madame Maigret
knew her way around simmering a ragout!

Now and then, with an infuriating little smile,
fools would ask him, ‘You don't miss it too much, then, Maigret?'

Miss what? The echoing chilly corridors of the
Police Judiciaire, the endless investigations, the days and nights spent chasing after some
lowlife or other?

So
there! He was happy. He did not even read the crime reports or more sensational local news items
in the newspapers. And whenever Lucas came to see him – Lucas who for fifteen years had
been his favourite inspector – it was understood that there would be absolutely no shop
talk.

Maigret is playing belote. He bids high-tierce in
trump. Just then the waiter comes to tell him he is wanted on the telephone, and off he goes,
cards in hand.

‘Maigret, is that you?'

His wife. For his wife has never been able to
call him by anything but his family name.

‘There's someone up from Paris here
to see you …'

He goes home, of course. In front of his house is
parked a well-polished vintage car with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel. Glancing inside,
Maigret thinks he sees an old man with a plaid blanket around him.

He enters his house. As always in such
circumstances, Madame Maigret awaits him by the door.

‘It's a young man,' she
whispers. ‘I put him in the sitting room. There's an elderly gentleman in the car,
his father, perhaps. I wanted him to ask the man inside, but he said I shouldn't bother
…'

And that is how, stupidly, while cosily playing
cards, one lets oneself be shipped off to America!

Always the same song and dance to begin with, the
same nervousness, the clenched fists, the darting sidelong glances …

‘I'm familiar with most of your cases
… I know you're the only man who … and that …' and blah blah
blah.

People always think their predicament is the most extraordinary
drama in the world.

‘I'm just a young man …
You'll probably laugh at me …'

Convinced they will be laughed at, they all find
their situation so singular that no one else will ever understand it.

‘My name is Jean Maura. I'm a law
student. My father is John Maura.'

So what? You'd swear he thinks the whole
universe should recognize that name.

‘John Maura, of New York.'

Puffing on his pipe, Maigret grunts.

‘His name is often in the papers.
He's a very wealthy man, well known in America. Forgive me for telling you this, but
it's necessary, so that you'll understand …'

And he starts telling a complicated story. To a
yawning Maigret, who couldn't care less, who is still thinking about his card game and who
automatically pours himself a glass of brandy. Madame Maigret can be heard moving around in the
kitchen. The cat rubs against the inspector's legs. Glimpsed through the curtains, the old
man seems to be dozing in the back of the car.

‘My father and I, you see, we're not
like other fathers and sons. I'm all he has in the world. I'm all that counts. Busy
though he is, he writes me a long letter every week. And every year, during the holidays, we
spend two or three months together in Italy, Greece, Egypt, India … I've brought you
his latest letters so that you'll understand. They're typewritten, but don't
assume from this that they
were dictated. As a
rule my father composes his personal letters on a small portable typewriter.'

‘“
My dear
…
”'

One might almost use such a tone with a beloved
woman. The American papa worries about everything, about his son's health, his sleep, his
outings, his moods, indeed even his dreams. He is delighted about the coming holidays: where
shall the two of them go this year?

The tone is quite affectionate, both maternal and
wheedling.

‘I'd like to convince you that
I'm not a high-strung boy who imagines things. For about six months, something serious has
been going on, I'm sure of this, although I don't know what it is. I get the feeling
that my father is afraid, that he's no longer the same, that he's aware of some
danger.

‘I should add that the way he lives has
suddenly changed. For months now he has travelled constantly, from Mexico to California and on
to Canada at such a hectic pace that I feel this is some sort of nightmare.

‘I was sure you wouldn't believe me
… I've underlined each passage in his letters where he writes of the future with a
kind of implicit terror.

‘You'll see that certain words crop
up again and again, words he never used before.

‘“
If you should find yourself on
your own
…”

‘“
If I were to be lost to you
…”

‘“
When you will be alone
…”

‘“
When I am no longer there
…
”

‘These words recur more and more
frequently, as if they
haunt him, yet I know my
father has an iron constitution. I cabled his doctor for reassurance; I have his reply. He makes
fun of me and assures me that, barring some accident, my father has a good thirty years ahead of
him.

‘Do you understand?'

It's what they all say:
Do you
understand?

‘I went to see my legal adviser, Monsieur
d'Hoquélus, whom you doubtless know by reputation. He's an old man, as you
know, a man of experience. I showed him these latest letters … I saw that he was almost as
worried as I was.