Maigret's Dead Man (6 page)

‘Most of them have sensitive feet, as you
would expect. You only have to look at their feet. They wear light, supple shoes, almost like
slippers. You'll never see a waiter in a bar or a head waiter in a restaurant wearing
outdoor shoes, with triple soles. And their profession requires them to wear white shirts.

‘I'm not saying that it's
compulsory, but there is also a fair percentage who walk like ducks.

‘I would also add that, for reasons which
escape me,
waiters who work in bars have a pronounced weakness for
horse-racing and that many of those who work early or late shifts, are keen
race-goers.'

‘So, to get to the point, you have come to
the conclusion that our man was a waiter in a café.'

‘No, actually.'

‘Then I don't understand.'

‘He was part of the lemonade club but not a
waiter. I've given it hours of thought as I lay here dozing.'

Each word, sculpted in ice, must have shaken
Coméliau.

‘Everything I've told you about
waiters also applies to bar-owners. Don't think I'm boasting but I always felt that
my dead man wasn't an employee but rather someone who worked for himself. That is why, at
eleven this morning, I phoned Moers. The shirt is still with Criminal Records. I couldn't
remember what state it was in. He had another look at it. Here, luck was on our side because it
could have been brand new. Everyone puts on a new shirt from time to time. Fortunately, this one
wasn't. It is quite worn round the collar.'

‘Are you going to tell me that the owners
of bars wear out their shirts at the collar?'

‘No, sir. Not more than anyone else.

‘But they don't wear them out at the
wrists. I'm talking about small cafés with a lower-class clientele, not the
American-style bars around the Opera House or on the Champs-Élysées. The owners of
small bars who have their hands continually in water or ice keep their sleeves rolled up all the
time. Now, Moers confirmed that the shirt, worn at the collar to the point where it
had been rubbed threadbare, shows no trace of wear on the cuffs.'

What was beginning to unsettle Madame Maigret was
the way he was now speaking with deep conviction.

‘And when you add the fish pie
…'

‘Is a taste for it also particular to the
owners of small bars?'

‘No, sir. But Paris is full of little bars
which serve food for a small number of customers. You know: no tablecloth, they eat directly off
the table. Often it's the owner's wife who does the cooking. The menu consists of
the dish of the day and nothing else. In such bars, where there are quiet periods, the
owner
is free for a good part of the afternoon. That's why this morning
I've got two inspectors trawling through every part of Paris, starting with the area round
the Hôtel de Ville and Bastille. As you know, our man never strayed very far from there.
Parisians are fiercely attached to their own neighbourhood because it's probably only
there that they feel really safe.'

‘Are you hoping for a result
soon?'

‘I hope there'll be a positive result
sooner or later. Now let me see … Have I told you everything? All I have left to report is
the spot of varnish.'

‘What varnish?'

‘On the seat of the trousers. It was Moers
– who else? – who spotted it, though it's visible enough. He reckons
it's fresh varnish. He also says the varnish was applied to some piece of furniture three
or four days ago. I've sent men out to the mainline stations, starting with Gare de
Lyon.'

‘Why Gare de
Lyon?'

‘Because it's a kind of extension of
the Bastille district.'

‘And why start in a station?'

Maigret sighed. Oh God! How long it took to
explain things! How could an examining magistrate be so deficient in even the most basic sense
of the common realities! How can people who have never set foot in a cheap bar, or a PMU
café or in the public enclosures of a race-course, how can such people, who don't
know the meaning of the expression
Limonade
, claim to be capable of understanding the
criminal mind?

‘I assume you have my report
there?'

‘I've read it several
times.'

‘When I got the first phone call on
Wednesday morning at eleven, the man had had someone tailing him for some time, since the
previous evening, at least. He didn't think of contacting the police immediately. He
clearly hoped he'd be able to sort his problem out himself. Yet he was already scared. He
knew they wanted to kill him. So he had to avoid places where there weren't any people.
The crowd was his shield. Nor did he dare go home, where they would have followed him and
finished him off. Now, even in Paris there are very few places that stay open all night. In
addition to the Montmartre nightclubs, there are the railway stations, which are lit and have
waiting rooms that are never empty. Well, it so happens that the benches in the third-class
waiting room at Gare de Lyon were revarnished on Monday. Moers confirms that the varnish used
there is identical to the one on the trousers.'

‘Have the station staff been
questioned?'

‘Yes, and they are
still being interviewed, sir.'

‘In short, then, you have managed despite
the difficulties to get some results.'

‘Despite the difficulties, yes. I also know
exactly when our man changed his mind.'

‘Changed his mind about what?'

Madame Maigret was pouring her husband a cup of
herbal tea and made signs telling him to drink it while it was hot.

‘First, as I've just explained, he
hoped to sort out his problem by himself. Then, on Wednesday morning he got the idea of
contacting me. He persisted with that idea until about four in the afternoon. What happened
then? I don't know. Perhaps, after sending out his last SOS from the post office in
Faubourg Saint-Denis, he decided he wasn't getting anywhere? Be that as it may, but about
an hour later, around five, he walked into a bar in Rue Saint-Antoine.'

‘So a witness has come forward at
last?'

‘No, sir. It was Janvier who came up with
it after showing the photo in all the bars and questioning waiters. Anyway, he ordered a Suze
– and this fact virtually rules out any chance that we've got the wrong man –
and asked for an envelope. Not writing paper, just an envelope. Then he stuffed it in his
pocket, asked at the counter for a token for the phone and hurried into the booth. He made a
call. The woman at the till heard the click of the receiver.'

‘And you did not get that call?'

‘No,' said Maigret with a touch of
resentment. ‘It wasn't
meant for us. It was intended for someone
else, obviously. As for the yellow car …'

‘Any news of it?'

‘What there is is vague though consistent.
Are you familiar with Quai Henri-IV?'

‘Near the Bastille?'

‘That's right. As you see, everything
happens within the same area, so much so that you get the feeling that you're going round
and round in circles. Now, Quai Henri-IV is one of the quietest and least frequented parts of
Paris. There's not a single shop, not one bar, just well-heeled, residential streets. A
telegram delivery boy spotted the yellow car at eight exactly. He noticed it because it had
broken down outside number 63, where he happened to have a telegram to deliver. Two men had
their heads under the raised bonnet.'

‘Was he able to give you a
description?'

‘No, it was too dark.'

‘Did he get the number?'

‘No again. It is rare, sir, that it crosses
anyone's mind to make a note of the registration numbers of cars they happen to notice.
But what is important is that the car was facing towards Pont d'Austerlitz. Also it was
then ten past eight, which is significant given that we know from the autopsy that the murder
was committed between eight and ten.'

‘Do you think your health will allow you to
get out and about again soon?'

The tone of the examining magistrate had softened
slightly, but he was in no mood to make concessions.

‘I don't
know.'

‘In what direction are you now pursuing
your inquiries?'

‘No particular direction. I'm
waiting. That's all I can do, wouldn't you agree? We've come to a standstill.
We've done, or rather my men have done, all we could. All we can do now is
wait.'

‘Wait for what?'

‘Anything. Whatever turns up. Maybe a
witness? A new fact?'

‘Do you think that will happen?'

‘We have to hope so.'

‘Well, thank you for all this. I shall
forward a report of our conversation to the public prosecutor.'

‘Please convey my best wishes to
him.'

‘I hope your health picks up.'

‘Thank you.'

As he replaced the receiver, he looked as grave
as an owl. Out of the corner of his eye, he observed Madame Maigret, who had taken up her
knitting again and, he sensed, was feeling vaguely concerned.

‘Don't you think you went a little
too far?'

‘Too far in what direction?'

‘Admit it: you were having him
on.'

‘Not at all.'

‘But you kept making fun of him.'

‘Do you think so?'

He seemed genuinely surprised. Indeed, the truth
was that, for all his banter, he had been deadly serious. Everything he had said was true,
including the doubts he had about his state of health. This happened to him from
time to time, out of the blue, when an investigation was not moving forwards the way he
would like: he would take to his bed or stay in his room. He would then be pampered, and
everyone would walk by on tiptoe. This way he escaped from the bustle and hubbub of the Police
Judiciaire, from the questions fired at him from left and right, the countless daily
irritations. But now colleagues came to visit him or phoned him up. Everyone was patient with
him. They kept asking him how he was. And in exchange for a few cups of herbal tea, which he
drank with sulky bad grace, he managed to extract a few grogs from the ever solicitous Madame
Maigret.

It was true that he had various things in common
with his dead man. Fundamentally – the thought suddenly crossed his mind – it was
not so much the business of moving house that alarmed him but the fact that he would moving to
fresh pastures, the prospect of not seeing the words ‘Lhoste & Pépin' when
he woke and of not following the same route every morning, normally on foot. The dead man and he
were both solidly rooted in their settings. It was a thought that pleased him. He emptied his
pipe and filled another.

‘Do you really think he's the
proprietor of a bar?'

‘I may have exaggerated slightly by being
so definite, but I said it and would like it to be true. It all holds together, don't you
see?'

‘What holds together?'

‘Everything I told him. At the start, I
didn't think I'd tell him as much as I did. I was thinking out loud. But then I felt
that it was all coming together. So I carried on.'

‘And what if he was a cobbler or a
tailor?'

‘Dr Paul would have
told me. Moers too.'

‘How would they have known?'

‘Dr Paul would have known by studying the
hands, the calluses and any tell-tale signs; Moers by analysing the particles found in his
clothes.'

‘And what if it turns out that he was
anything but a man who ran a bar?'

‘It would be just too bad. Pass me my
book.'

That was another of his habits when he was not
feeling well: to lose himself in a novel by Alexandre Dumas
père.
He owned a set
of his complete works in an old, cheap edition with yellowing pages and romantic engravings. The
mere smell of those volumes brought back memories of all the times when he had been briefly laid
up.

There was the muted purr of the stove as it drew
and the click of knitting needles. Whenever he looked up he saw the brass pendulum swinging in
its dark oak case.

‘You should take some more
aspirins.'

‘As you wish.'

‘Why do you think he phoned someone
else?'

Loyal Madame Maigret! She would so much have
liked to help him. Usually, she consciously refrained from asking questions about his work, even
about the time he would be home and when he wanted his meals. But when he was ill and she saw
him working, she could not help worrying. Basically, deep down, she probably thought he was not
taking it seriously.

On the other hand, when he was at the Police
Judiciaire, he probably behaved differently and acted and spoke like a real detective chief
inspector.

This discussion he had just
had with Coméliau – especially because of who he was – had been torture for
her, and it was obvious that even as she counted her stitches she was still thinking about
it.

‘Listen, Maigret …'

He looked up reluctantly, for he was deep in his
book.

‘There's something I don't
understand. You said when you were talking about Gare de Lyon that he didn't dare go home
because the man would have followed him.'

‘Yes, I probably said that.'

‘Yesterday, you told me he'd changed
his jacket.'

‘True. What about it?'

‘And you've just told Monsieur
Coméliau about the fish pie, implying that he'd eaten it in his own restaurant. So he
did go back. Therefore he wasn't afraid of being followed home.'

Had Maigret really had this thought already? Or
on the contrary, was he improvising when he replied?

‘There's no contradiction.'

‘Oh.'

‘The station episode was Tuesday evening.
It was before he had contacted me. He was still hoping he'd be able to escape from the man
who was following him.'