The Two-Penny Bar (10 page)

‘Sure. Let's go.'

And James leaped to his feet with a sigh of relief.

‘Could you wait a moment while I get my shoes?'

He was wearing slippers. He squeezed between the bath and the wall. The bathroom door was still open, but his wife didn't bother lowering her voice:

‘Don't pay any attention. He's not like other people.' And she started counting her stitches: ‘Seven … eight … nine … Do you think he knows something about the business at Morsang?'

‘Where is the shoehorn?' James muttered as he rummaged noisily through a cupboard.

She looked at Maigret as if to say ‘You see what I mean?'

James finally emerged from the bathroom, once more looking too large for the room, and said to his wife:

‘I'll be back soon.'

‘I've heard that before.'

He motioned to the inspector to get a move on, no doubt fearing his wife might change her mind. Even in the stairwell he seemed too big, as if he didn't match the décor.

The first building on the left was a bar frequented by taxi drivers.

‘It's the only one around here.'

The dim lighting glinted off the zinc counter. There were four men playing cards at the back of the bar.

‘Ah, Monsieur James, the usual?' said the landlord, rising from his seat. He already had a bottle of brandy in his hand.

‘And what would you like, sir?'

‘The same.'

James rested his elbows on the bar and asked:

‘Did you go to the Taverne Royale? I thought so. I couldn't get there today …'

‘Because of the 300,000 francs.'

James's face displayed neither surprise nor embarrassment.

‘What would you have done in my place? Basso is a friend. We've drunk together hundreds of times. Cheers!'

‘I'll leave you the bottle,' said the landlord. He was obviously used to James and was anxious to get back to his card game. James didn't seem to hear but continued:

‘Basically he didn't have a chance. A woman like Mado. Talking of whom, have you seen her recently? She came by my office earlier to ask if I'd seen Marcel. Can you believe that? It's like that guy with his car. He's
supposed to be a friend, but now he rings me to say that he's going to have to ask me to pay for the repairs and the charge for releasing his car from police custody. Your good health! What do you think of my wife? She's nice, isn't she?'

And James poured himself another glass of brandy.

There was something about James that Maigret found very interesting. As he drank, instead of becoming glassy-eyed, like most people, his gaze became more and more acute, until it acquired a sharpness that was almost penetrating.

He never removed his hand from his glass, except to refill it. His voice was slurred, faltering, lacking in conviction. He looked at no one in particular. He seemed to be melting into the background.

The card players at the back of the bar hardly spoke. The lights reflected dully off the zinc counter.

And James's voice was also dull when he sighed:

‘It's weird. A man like you – strong, intelligent – and others too. Uniformed cops, judges, loads of people. How many are there involved in this? A hundred, maybe, if you include the clerks typing up the case notes, the telephonists
passing on the orders … Let's call it a hundred people working day and night all because Feinstein got plugged by one tiny little bullet.'

He looked at Maigret, and the inspector was unable to tell whether he was being sincere or ironic.

‘Cheers! It's all worth it, isn't it? And all this time poor old Basso is being hunted like an animal. Last week, he was rich. He had his business, his car, his wife and son. Now he can't stick his head out of his
hole.'

James shrugged his shoulders. His voice slurred even more. He looked round the room with an expression of weariness or disgust.

‘And what's it all about, eh? A woman like Mado with an appetite for men. Basso lets himself get snared – let's face it, you don't knock back opportunities like that when they come along. She's a good-looking girl.
Spirited. You tell yourself it's just a bit of fun. You get together and spend an hour or two in a furnished apartment …'

James took a large swig then spat on the floor.

‘Stupid, isn't it? One man ends up dead. A family is ruined. And the whole machinery of the law swings into action. Even the papers come along for the ride.'

The strangest thing was that there was no vehemence in his voice. He seemed to be talking aimlessly, gazing round the room at nothing in particular.

‘And that's trumps,' the landlord said triumphantly from the back of the room.

‘And Feinstein, who has spent his whole life chasing after money, trying to sort out his finances. Because that's what his life has been – one long nightmare of unpaid bills and invoices. To the point where he has to put the squeeze
on his wife's lovers. And that's obviously worked well, now that he's dead …'

‘Now that he's been killed,' Maigret corrected him dreamily.

‘Do we really know which of the two actually killed the other?'

There was a heavy, morbid quality to James's words that fitted in with the growing gloom inside the bar.

‘It's stupid! It's so obvious what happened. Feinstein needs money. He has been watching Basso since the previous evening, waiting for his chance. Even during the mock wedding, when he is dressed up as an old
woman, he is still thinking about his debts! He watches Basso dancing with his wife. You see what I'm saying? So the next day he makes a move. Basso's been tapped for money before. He doesn't play ball. Feinstein won't give up that easily, pulls out his sob story:
ruin, shame, he'd rather end it all now … the full works. I'd lay money on it being something like that. Just what you want on a fine Sunday afternoon by the river!

‘Of course, it's all for effect. Feinstein is making it very clear that he is not as blind to his wife's peccadilloes as he likes to make out.

‘Anyway, there they are behind the lean-to. Basso's thinking about his nice villa, his wife and kid across the river. He has to hush this whole thing up. He tries to stop him pulling the trigger, it's all getting out of hand, he
makes a grab for the gun … then bang! That's it. One bullet from a tiny little revolver …'

James finally looked at Maigret.

‘So I ask you. What the hell does any of this matter?'

He laughed. A laugh of contempt.

‘And now we have hundreds of people scuttling around like ants who've just had their ant-hill set alight. The Bassos are being hunted like animals. And to cap it all, Mado still can't give up on her lover. Landlord!'

The landlord reluctantly put down his cards.

‘What do I owe you?'

‘But now Basso has 300,000 francs at his disposal.'

James merely shrugged his shoulders as if to reiterate his earlier question: ‘What the hell does any of this matter?'

Then suddenly, he exclaimed:

‘Wait! I remember how all this started. It was a Sunday. Some people were dancing in the garden of the villa. Basso was dancing with Madame Feinstein, and someone bumped into them, knocking them to the ground. They were lying there in each
other's arms. Everyone laughed, including Feinstein.'

James picked up his change, but didn't seem to want to leave. Finally, he sighed:

‘Another glass, landlord.'

He had downed six glasses, but he wasn't drunk. He must have had a bit of a sore head. He frowned and wiped his brow with his hand.

‘Well, you've got to get back to the chase.'

He sounded like he felt sorry for Maigret.

‘Three poor devils; a man, a woman and a child, all being hounded simply because the man slept with Mado.'

Was it his voice, his physical presence, the atmosphere of the bar? Whatever it was, he wove a fascinating spell, and Maigret was struggling to regain his objective view of the events that had taken place.

‘Cheers, drink up. I'd better be getting back. I wouldn't put it past my wife to stick a bullet in me. It's stupid, stupid …'

He opened the door with a tired movement. Outside, in the badly lit street, he looked Maigret in the eyes and said:

‘A strange occupation.'

‘What? The police?'

‘Just being a man … When I get home my wife will count the change in my pocket to see how much I've been drinking. Goodnight. See you in the Taverne Royale tomorrow?'

James went off, leaving Maigret with a sense of unease, which it took him a long time to shake off. It was as if all his thoughts had been unravelled and all his values had been turned on their head. Even the street looked distorted, the
passers-by were a blur, and the long, thin trams were like brightly glowing worms.

It was like the ant-hill James had talked about. An ant-hill in a turmoil because one ant had been killed!

In his mind's eye, Maigret saw the haberdasher lying in the long grass behind the Two-Penny Bar. Then he saw all the police out manning the roadblocks. The ant-hill all stirred up!

‘Drunken fool!' he murmured as he thought of James with a bitterness not altogether devoid of affection.

He made a fresh effort to look at the case objectively. He had forgotten what he had come to James's apartment to do – to find out where James had taken the 300,000 francs. But then he thought of the Basso family – the father, the mother
and the child – skulking in their hideaway, jumping at the slightest noise from outside.

‘That damn fellow gets me drinking every time we meet!'

He wasn't drunk, but he did feel out of sorts and went to bed in a bad mood, dreading the next day, when he would wake up with a thumping headache.

‘You have to have a little bolt-hole to call your own,' James had said, talking of the Taverne Royale.

He didn't just have a bolt-hole, he inhabited a whole world of his own, totally self-contained, created in a haze of Pernod or brandy, in which he wandered around totally indifferent to the real world. It was a formless world, a teeming
ant-hill of flitting shadows where nothing mattered, nothing had any purpose, where it was possible to wander aimlessly, effortlessly, feeling neither joy nor sadness, cocooned in a thick mist.

A world into which James, with his clownish manner and his apathetic way of talking, had sucked Maigret without seeming to do so.

So much so that the inspector found himself thinking about the Bassos – the father, the mother and the son – cowering in the cellar where they had sought refuge, listening anxiously to the footsteps coming and going over their heads.

When he got up he was even more conscious of the absence of his wife, from whom the postman delivered a postcard.

We are starting to make the apricot jam. When will you be coming to taste it?

He sat down heavily at his desk, causing the pile of letters in his in-tray to topple over. He called out, ‘Come in!' to the clerk who was knocking at the door.

‘What is it, Jean?'

‘Sergeant Lucas has phoned asking for you to come to Rue des Blancs-Manteaux.'

‘Which number?'

‘He didn't say. He just said Rue des Blancs-Manteaux.'

Maigret checked that there wasn't anything in his mail that required urgent attention, then went on foot to the Jewish quarter, of which Rue des Blancs-Manteaux was the main shopping street, with a number of second-hand dealers huddled in
the shadow of the large pawnshop.

It was 8.30 in the morning. It was quite quiet. At the corner of the street Maigret spotted Lucas, who was walking up and down with his hands in his pockets.

‘Where's our man?' asked Maigret anxiously, for Lucas had been given the task of following Victor Gaillard after the latter's release the previous night.

With a movement of the head the officer pointed out the figure of a man standing in front of a shop window.

‘What's he doing there?'

‘I've no idea. Last night he wandered round Les Halles. He ended up dossing on a bench. At five o'clock this morning a policeman moved him on, and he made his way straight here. Ever since then he's been strolling round
this house – occasionally wandering off then coming back again – pressing his nose against the window, all obviously for my benefit.'

Victor noticed Maigret and wandered off, his hands in his pockets, whistling ironically. He found a doorway and sat down in it, as if he had nothing better to do. The sign on the shop window read:

Hans Goldberg. Articles Bought and Sold. All Types of Bargains.

In the semi-darkness inside the shop sat a small man with a little goatee beard, who looked perturbed at the unusual activity outside his window.

‘Wait here,' said Maigret.

He crossed the road and went inside the shop, which was stuffed with old clothes and a variety of other junk that gave off a musty odour.