The Two-Penny Bar (6 page)

On Monday morning Maigret had to go to the Two-Penny Bar with magistrates from the prosecutor's office and got caught up in endless discussions.

By Monday evening, nothing! It was almost certain that Basso had slipped through the cordon and taken refuge in Paris or one of the surrounding towns, like Melun, Corbeil or Fontainebleau.

On Tuesday morning came the forensic report: a bullet fired from a distance of about thirty centimetres. It was
impossible to determine whether the shot had been fired by Feinstein himself or by Basso.

Madame Feinstein identified the weapon as belonging to her. She was unaware that her husband had been carrying it in his pocket. Normally the revolver was kept – loaded – in the young woman's bedroom.

She was questioned at her flat in Boulevard des Batignolles. Unremarkable décor, few luxuries, very plain. And none too clean either – one maid to do everything.

And Madame Feinstein wept! She wept and wept! It was more or less her only response, apart from the odd ‘If only I'd known!'

She had been Basso's mistress for a few months. She loved him!

‘Had you had other lovers before him?'

‘Monsieur!'

Of course she'd had other lovers. Feinstein couldn't have kept a live wire like her satisfied.

‘How long have you been married?'

‘Eight years.'

‘Did your husband know about your affair?'

‘Oh, no!'

‘Didn't he suspect a little?'

‘Not at all.'

‘Do you think he would have been capable of threatening Basso with the gun if he had found out something?'

‘I don't know … He was a strange man, very closed in on himself.'

Obviously theirs was not a marriage based on great
intimacy. Feinstein occupied with running his business, Mado left to her shopping and her secret liaisons.

And Maigret glumly pursued his investigation, proceeding by the book, questioning the concierge, the suppliers and the manager at Feinstein's shop in Boulevard des Capucines.

The case was depressing in its banality, though there was something about it that didn't feel quite right.

Feinstein had started off with a small haberdasher's on Avenue de Clichy. Then, one year after he got married, he took over a larger concern on the Boulevards, with the help of a bank loan.

From then on it was the age-old story of a small business overstretching itself: unpaid bills, bounced cheques, loans and beating the wolf from the door at the end of the month.

Nothing shady, nothing improper, but nothing solid either.

At home too they owed money to all the local tradesmen.

In the dead man's office behind his shop Maigret spent a good two hours going through his books. He found nothing unusual around the time of the crime Jean Lenoir had talked about the day before his execution.

No large receipts, no out-of-the-ordinary expenses.

Absolutely nothing, a complete blank. The investigation was grinding to a halt.

The most annoying part of it was questioning Madame Basso at Morsang. The inspector was surprised by her attitude. Although clearly sad, she was hardly in despair.
She showed a dignity of which Maigret would not have thought her
capable.

‘My husband must have had a good reason to run away.'

‘You don't think he's guilty?'

‘No.'

‘But he still ran away … Have you heard any word from him at all?'

‘No.'

‘How much money did he have on him?'

‘Not more than ten francs!'

The coal merchant's affairs were the exact opposite of the haberdasher's. The business never made less than 500,000 francs, even in a bad year. The offices and the yard were well organized. There were three barges moored at the
quayside. Marcel Basso had inherited the business from his father and had expanded it.

Nor did the weather do much for Maigret's mood. Like all large people he suffered from the heat, and Paris wilted under the hot sun every day until three in the afternoon.

That's when the sky clouded over, the air crackled with electricity and the wind began to gust, suddenly raising swirling plumes of dust from the streets.

By late afternoon it broke: rumbles of thunder, then a deluge of rain pounding the asphalt, seeping through the awnings of the café terraces, forcing people to seek shelter in doorways.

It was on Wednesday that Maigret, caught in a sudden shower, sought shelter in the Taverne Royale. A man stood up and offered him his hand. It was James, who had been sitting alone at a table, nursing a Pernod.

The inspector hadn't seen him before in his weekday clothes. He looked more like a bank clerk now than when he was all dressed up at Morsang, but he still somehow had the air of a circus performer.

‘Care for a drink?'

Maigret was exhausted. There would be a couple of hours of rain to sit out. Then he would have to go back to the Quai des Orfèvres to catch up with any news.

‘A Pernod?'

Normally he only drank beer. But he didn't raise any protest. He drank mechanically. James wasn't a bad companion, and he had one salient quality: he didn't talk much!

He sat there in his cane armchair with his legs crossed, smoking cigarettes and watching the people scuttling past in the rain.

When a paper boy came by, he bought an evening paper, flicked through it vaguely, then handed it to Maigret, indicating a paragraph with his finger.

Marcel Basso, the murderer of the haberdasher from Boulevard des Capucines, is still at large, despite an extensive search by the police.

‘What's your opinion?' Maigret asked.

James shrugged his shoulders, made a gesture of indifference.

‘Do you think he's gone abroad?'

‘I don't think he'll have gone far … He's probably lying low in Paris.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘I don't know. I think … he must have had a reason for running away … Waiter, two more Pernods!'

Maigret had three glasses and slipped gently into a state he wasn't familiar with. He wasn't drunk, but he wasn't totally clear in the head either.

He felt agreeably mellow, sitting there on the terrace. He was able to think about the case in a more relaxed manner, almost with a degree of pleasure.

James talked about this and that, without any hint of urgency. At eight o'clock on the dot he stood up and announced:

‘Time to go! My wife will be expecting me …'

Maigret was a little annoyed with himself for the time he'd wasted and for allowing himself to drink too much. He had dinner, then went back to his office. Neither the local police nor the Paris force had anything to report.

The next day – Thursday – he plodded on with the inquiry with the same lack of enthusiasm.

He waded through files dating back ten years but found nothing relating to the information Jean Lenoir had given.

He looked through the legal registers. He rang around the hospitals and sanatoriums in the vague hope of finding Victor, Lenoir's friend with tuberculosis.

There were lots of Victors, but not the right one!

By midday, Maigret had a splitting head but no appetite. He had lunch in Place Dauphin, in a little restaurant popular with police officers. Then he phoned Morsang, where policemen had been posted outside the Bassos' villa.

No sign. Madame Basso was carrying on with life as
normal with her son. She read all the papers. The villa didn't have a telephone.

At five o'clock, Maigret came out of the apartment block on the Avenue Niel. He had come on the off chance of digging something up, but hadn't found anything.

Then mechanically, as if he'd already been doing it for years, he headed off to the Taverne Royale, where he was greeted by James, and sat down beside him.

‘What's new?' James asked him, then before he could answer called out: ‘Two Pernods!'

The storm was behind schedule today. The streets remained bathed in sunlight. Coachloads of tourists drove past.

‘The most straightforward hypothesis,' Maigret murmured, as if to himself, ‘the one the newspapers seem to favour, is that Basso was attacked by his companion for some reason or another, grabbed hold of the gun that was pointed
at him and shot the haberdasher …'

‘Which is rubbish.'

Maigret looked at James, who also seemed to be talking to himself.

‘Why do you say it's rubbish?'

‘Because if Feinstein had wanted to kill Basso, he'd have been a bit more calculating than that. He was a cool customer, a skilful bridge player.'

The inspector couldn't help smiling at the serious tone in which James said this.

‘So what's your theory?'

‘I don't exactly have a theory. Just that Basso should never have got involved with Mado. You can tell just by
looking at her that she's not the sort of woman who lets a man go easily, once she's got her
claws into him.'

‘Had her husband shown any signs of being jealous?'

‘What, him?'

And James gave Maigret a curious look. There was an ironic twinkle in his eye.

‘Don't you know?'

James shrugged his shoulders and murmured:

‘It's none of my business. Besides, if he was the jealous type, then most of the Morsang gang would be dead by now.'

‘You mean they were all …?'

‘Well, not all. Let's not exaggerate. Let's just say that Mado danced with everyone, and when you danced with Mado, you could end up disappearing into the bushes.'

‘Including you?'

‘I don't dance,' James replied.

‘If what you say is true, then Feinstein must have known.'

The Englishman sighed.

‘I don't know! But he did owe all of them money.'

At first sight, James came across as a drunken oaf. But there was a lot more to him than met the eye.

Maigret whistled.

‘Well, well.'

‘Two Pernods! Two!

‘Yes. Mado didn't even have to know. It was all very discreet. Feinstein tapped his wife's lovers for money, without letting on that he knew, but leaving the implication hanging in the air …'

They didn't talk much after that. The storm still hadn't
broken. Maigret drank his Pernods, his eyes fixed on the crowds flowing past in the street outside. He was comfortably ensconced in his chair, turning over in
his mind this new complexion on the case.

‘Eight o'clock! …'

James shook his hand and set off, just at the moment the storm was beginning to break.

By Friday it had become a daily habit. Maigret headed for the Taverne Royale almost without realizing it. At one point, he couldn't resist asking:

‘Don't you ever go home after work? Between five and eight you seem to …'

‘You have to have a little bolt-hole to call your own,' James sighed.

And James's bolt-hole was a café terrace, a marble-topped table, a cloudy aperitif; his view was the columns of the Madeleine, the waiters' white aprons and the crowds and traffic in the street.

‘How long have you been married?'

‘Eight years.'

Maigret didn't dare ask him whether he loved his wife. In any case, James would probably say yes. Only after eight o'clock! After the bolt-hole!

Maigret wondered whether they were starting to become friends.

Today they didn't discuss the case. Maigret drank his three Pernods. He needed to blot out the hard day he'd had. His life was clogged up with trivial problems.

It was the holidays, and he was having to fill in for several absent colleagues. And the examining magistrate in
the Two-Penny Bar case never gave him a moment's peace. He had sent him to interrogate Mado Feinstein for a
second time, told him to examine the haberdasher's books and to question Basso's employees.

The police were already short-handed, and a number of officers were pinned down watching the places where the fugitive was likely to show up. This all put the chief in a bad mood.

‘Haven't you got this one sorted out yet?' he had asked that morning.

Maigret agreed with James. He sensed that Basso was in Paris. But how had he been able to get hold of money? And if he hadn't, how was he living? What was he hoping for? What was he expecting to happen? What was he doing with himself?

His guilt had not been proven. If he had stayed in custody and hired a good lawyer he could have hoped, if not for acquittal, then at least a light sentence. After which he could return to his business, his wife and his son. Instead of that, he
was running away, in hiding, and thus giving up all his former life.

‘He must have his reasons,' James had said in his usual philosophical way.

Don't let us down. Will be at station. Love.

It was Saturday. Madame Maigret had sent an affectionate ultimatum. Her husband wasn't yet sure how to reply. But at five o'clock he was at the Taverne Royale, shaking James's hand. James ordered as usual:

‘Pernod!'

As on the previous Saturday, there was a rush to the stations – a continuous stream of taxis piled high with luggage, the bustle of people getting away on holiday.

‘Are you going to Morsang?'

‘Yes, as usual.'

‘It'll be a strange atmosphere.'

The inspector wanted to go to Morsang himself. On the other hand, he wanted to see his wife, to go trout fishing in the rivers of Alsace, to breathe in the lovely smells of his sister-in-law's house.

He couldn't make his mind up. He vaguely observed James get up and head to the back of the bar.

There was nothing unusual in this. He thought nothing of it and barely registered the fact that his companion returned after a few moments and sat down again.

Five, ten minutes went past. A waiter approached.

‘Is one of you two gentlemen Monsieur Maigret?'

‘That's me. What is it?'

‘A phone call for you …'