My Friend Maigret (13 page)

“Very drunk?”

“Not very, but fairly. Wait. A detail. He insisted on asking Mrs. Wilcox to dance…”

“Marcellin?”

Was it deliberate that when his compatriot was mentioned Mr. Pyke suddenly looked blank?

“Did she accept?”

“They danced a few steps. Marcellin must have stumbled. He liked to act the clown when there were a lot of people present. It was she who stood the first round of drinks. Yes. There was a bottle of whisky on their table. She doesn't like being served by the glass. Marcellin drank some and asked for white wine.”

“And the major?”

“I was just thinking of him. He was in the opposite corner and I'm trying to remember who he had with him. I think it was Polyte.”

“Who's Polyte?”

“A Morin. The one with the green boat. In the summer he takes tourists right round the island. He wears a proper captain's cap.”

“Is he a captain?”

“He did his service in the navy and he must hold the rank of quartermaster. He often accompanies the major to Toulon. The dentist was drinking with them. Marcellin started going from one table to the other, with his glass, and, if I am not mistaken, he was mixing whisky with his white wine.”

“How was it he began talking about me? Who to? Was it at the major's table, or Mrs. Wilcox's?”

“I'm doing my best. You saw for yourself how it is, and yesterday was a quiet evening. The Dutch couple were near Mrs. Wilcox. I think it was at that table that the conversation began. Marcellin was standing up, in the middle of the room, when I heard him declare:

“‘
My friend Chief Inspector Maigret…Just so, my friend, and I know what I'm talking about…I can prove it…
'”

“He produced a letter?”

“Not to my knowledge. I was busy, with Jojo, serving.”

“Was your wife in the room?”

“I think she'd gone up. She normally does go up when she has finished the accounts. She's not very strong and needs plenty of sleep.”

“In short Marcellin might just as well have been addressing Major Bellam as Mrs. Wilcox or the Dutchman? And even Charlot, or someone else? The dentist, for example? Monsieur Émile?”

“I suppose so.”

He was called inside and, excusing himself, left them. The people coming out of the post office began to saunter across the sunny patch of the square where, in one corner, a woman was standing behind a table on which vegetables were for sale. The mayor, to one side of the Arche, was unpacking his crates.

“You're wanted on the telephone, Monsieur Maigret.”

He penetrated the semidarkness of the café, picked up the receiver.

“That you, chief? Lechat here. It's all over. I'm in a bar near the cemetery. The woman, you know who, is with me. She hasn't left me since the
Cormorant
. She has had time to tell me her life story.”

“How did it go off?”

“Very well. She bought some flowers. Other people from the island placed some on his grave. It was very hot in the cemetery. I don't know what to do. I think I shall have to ask her to lunch.”

“Can she hear you?”

“No. I'm in a telephone booth. I can see her through the window. She's powdering her nose and looking into a pocket mirror.”

“She hasn't met anyone? Or telephoned?”

“She hasn't left me for a second. I even had to go with her to the florist and, behind the hearse, as I was walking beside her, I looked as though I was part of the family.”

“Did you take the bus to get from Giens to Hyères?”

“The only thing I could do was to ask her to come with me in my car. Everything going all right, on the island?”

“Everything's all right.”

When he came back onto the terrace, Maigret found the dentist sitting beside Mr. Pyke and apparently waiting to share the bottle of white wine.

Philippe de Moricourt, a pile of newspapers under his arm, was hesitating whether to come into the Arche.

Monsieur Émile, with cautious steps, was heading toward his villa where old Justine would be waiting for him, and, as on any other day, the smell of bouillabaisse floated out from the kitchen.

It wasn't a nickname. The fat girl hadn't done it on purpose. She really had been called Aglaé at her christening. She was very fat, especially the bottom half, deformed like a woman of fifty or sixty who has become fat with age and, by contrast, her face only looked the more infantile, for Aglaé was twenty-six years old at most.

 

Maigret had discovered, that afternoon, a whole new section of Porquerolles when, still accompanied by Mr. Pyke, he had walked right across the square for the first time to pay a visit to the post office. Was there really a smell of incense coming from the church, where the services could not have been very frequent?

It was the same square as the one opposite the Arche, and yet one would have sworn that, at the top, the air was hotter and more dense. Some small gardens, in front of two or three houses, were a riot of flowers and bees. The noises from the harbor reached them muted. Two old men were playing boules,
pétanque
-style, that is without sending the jack more than a few yards from their feet, and it was strange to see the precautions they took in bending down.

One of them was Ferdinand Galli, the patriarch of all the Gallis on the island, who kept a café in this corner of the square, a café which the chief inspector had never seen anyone enter. It must only have been frequented by neighbors, or by the Gallis of the tribe. His partner was a retired man, natty, completely deaf, wearing a railwayman's cap, and another octogenarian, sitting on the post-office bench, was watching them sleepily.

For beside the open door of the post office there was a green painted bench on which Maigret was to spend a part of his afternoon.

“I wondered if you would come up here in the end!” Aglaé exclaimed, seeing him come in. “I expected you would need to use the telephone and wouldn't want to do it from the Arche, where so many people can hear what you are saying.”

“Will it take long to get Paris, mademoiselle?”

“With a priority call I can get you through in a few minutes.”

“In that case, get Police Headquarters for me.”

“I know the number. It was me that put your inspector through when he called you.”

He all but asked:

“And you listened in?”

But she would not be long in revealing this herself.

“Who do you wish to speak to at Police Headquarters?”

“Sergeant Lucas. If he's not there, Inspector Torrence.”

A few seconds later he had Lucas on the line.

“What's the weather like with you, old man? Still raining? Showers? Good! Listen, Lucas. Do your best to get me everything you can as soon as possible on someone called Philippe de Moricourt. Yes. Lechat has seen his papers and says it's his real name. His last address in Paris was a furnished house on the Left Bank, Rue Jacob, 17b…What do I want to know exactly? I've got no preconceived ideas. Everything you can find out. I don't think he's got a dossier in the Records, but you can always check. Do all you can by telephone and then call me back here. No number. Just Porquerolles. I would also like you to telephone the police at Ostend. Ask if they know a certain Bebelmans who, I think, is an important shipbuilder. Same thing. Everything you can find out. That's not all. Don't cut us off, mademoiselle. Have you any acquaintances in Montparnasse? See what they say about a certain Jef de Greef, who is a sort of painter and spent a certain amount of time on the Seine, in his boat moored near the Pont Marie. Have you made a note of that? That's all, yes. Don't wait for all the information before ringing me back. Put as many people on to it as you like. Everything all right, at the office?…
Who
's had a baby?…Janvier's wife?…Give him my congratulations.”

When he came out of the telephone box, he saw Aglaé, without a trace of embarrassment, taking the earphones off her head.

“You always listen in to conversations?”

“I stayed on the line in case it was cut off. I don't trust the Hyères operator; she's an old cat.”

“Do you do the same for everyone?”

“In the morning I haven't time because of the mail, but in the afternoon it's easier.”

“Do you take note of the calls made by the islanders?”

“I have to.”

“Could you make me out a list of all the calls you have put through in the last few days? Say the last eight days.”

“Right away. It'll take me a few minutes.”

“You're the person who receives the telegrams as well, aren't you?”

“There aren't many, except in the season. I had one this morning which is sure to interest you.”

“How do you know?”

“It's a telegram which someone sent from here, someone who appears to be interested in one of the people, at least, about whom you've been asking for information.”

“Have you a copy?”

“I'll find it for you.”

A moment later she was handing a form to the inspector, who read:

 

Fred Masson, c/o Angelo, Rue Blanche, Paris
.

Like complete information on Philippe de Moricourt address Rue Jacob Paris
stop
Please telegraph Porquerolles. Regards
.

Signed:
CHARLOT
.

 

Maigret gave it to Mr. Pyke to read, and the latter confined himself to a nod.

“Will you prepare a list of the calls for me, mademoiselle? I'll wait outside with my friend.”

So it was that, for the first time, they went and sat on the bench, in the shade of the eucalyptus trees round the square, and the wall at their backs was pink and hot. Somewhere there was an invisible fig tree, and they inhaled its sweet smell.

“In a few minutes,” said Mr. Pyke, looking at the church clock, “I shall ask your permission to leave you for a moment, if you don't mind.”

Was it from politeness that he pretended to believe that Maigret would grieve over it?

“The major has invited me for a drink at about five o'clock. I should have hurt his feelings by refusing.”

“That's perfectly all right.”

“I thought you would probably be busy.”

Hardly time for the chief inspector to smoke a pipe, as he watched the two old men playing boules, before Aglaé was calling out in her shrill voice, over the counter:

“Monsieur Maigret! It's ready!”

He went and took the piece of paper which she was holding out to him, and went and sat once more beside the man from the Yard.

She had done her work conscientiously, in the labored writing of a schoolgirl, with three or four spelling mistakes.

The word “butcher” recurred several times on the list. Apparently he telephoned every day to Hyères to order his meat for the next day. Then there was the Cooperative, with calls as frequent but more varied.

Maigret made a mark a little more than halfway down the list, thus separating the calls made before Marcellin's death from those made afterwards.

“Are you taking notes?” Mr. Pyke asked, seeing his companion opening a large notebook.

Didn't this imply that for the first time he was seeing Maigret behaving like a real chief inspector?

The name which occurred most often on the list was Justine's. She called Nice, Marseilles, Béziers, Avignon, and in one week there were four calls to Paris.

“We'll see about that presently,” said Maigret. “I suppose the postmistress took care to listen in. Is that done in England too?”

“I don't think it's legal, but it's possible that it sometimes happens.”

The day before, Charlot had telephoned Marseilles. Maigret knew that already. It was to summon his girlfriend, whom they had seen landing from the
Cormorant
and with whom he was now playing cards on the terrace of the Arche.

For the Arche could be seen in the distance, with human forms bustling around it. From where they were, where all was so calm, it looked as active as a hive of bees.

The most interesting thing was that Marcellin's name occurred on the list. He had called a number in Nice, just two days before his death.

Suddenly Maigret rose and went into the post office, and Mr. Pyke followed him in.

“Do you know what this number is, mademoiselle?”

“Certainly. It's the house where the lady works. Justine calls it every day; you can see it on the list.”

“Have you listened in to Justine's conversations?”

“Often. I no longer bother, because it's always the same.”

“Does she do the talking, or her son?”

“She talks and Monsieur Émile listens.”

“I don't understand.”

“She's deaf. So Monsieur Émile holds the receiver to his ear, and repeats what is being said to her. Then she shouts so loud into the mouthpiece that it's difficult to distinguish her syllables. The first thing she says is always:

“‘How much?'

“They give her the figure for the takings. Monsieur Émile, standing by her, notes it down. She calls up her houses one after the other.”

“I suppose it's Ginette who answers in Nice?”

“Yes, seeing that she's the manageress.”

“And the Paris calls?”

“There are fewer of them. Always to the same person, a certain Monsieur Louis. And always to ask for girls. He gives the age and the price. She answers yes or no. Sometimes she does her business as though she were at the village market.”

“You haven't ever noticed anything odd about her conversations recently? Monsieur Émile hasn't telephoned privately?”

“I don't think he'd dare.”

“Doesn't his mother allow him?”

“She hardly allows him to do anything.”

“And Marcellin?”

“I was just going to tell you about him. It was unusual for him to come to the post office, and then it was only to cash money orders. I should say that in a year he would only telephone three times.”

“To whom?”

“Once, it was to Toulon to order a part of a motor, which he needed for his boat. Another time it was to Nice…”

“To Ginette?”

“It was to say that he hadn't been able to cash the order. He received one almost every month, did you know? She had made a mistake. The sum in words wasn't the same as the sum in figures, and I couldn't pay him. She sent another by the next post.”

“How long ago was this?”

“About three months. The door was closed, which means it was cold, so it was winter.”

“And the last call?”

“I started to listen, as usual, then Madame Galli came in to buy some stamps.”

“Was it a long conversation?”

“Longer than usual. It's easy to check up.”

She turned over the pages of her book.

“Two three-minute periods.”

“You heard the start. What did Marcellin say?”

“Something like this:

“‘Is that you?…It's me…yes. No, it's not money…Money, I could have as much of that as I wanted…
'”

“Did she say anything?”

“She murmured:

“‘You've been drinking again, Marcellin.'

“He swore he was practically sober. He went on:

“‘I want you to do something for me…Is there a big
Larousse
in the house?
'

“That's all I know. At that moment Madame Galli came in and she's not easy to please. She says it's she who pays for civil servants with her taxes and she's always talking of complaining.”

“As the call only lasted six minutes, it's unlikely that Ginette had time to look up the
Larousse
encyclopedia, come back to the telephone, and give Marcellin a reply.”

“She sent the reply by telegram. Look! I have it here for you.”

She gave him a yellow form on which he read:

Died in 1890.

It was signed:
Ginette
.

“It would have been too bad for you if you hadn't come up to see me, wouldn't it? I shouldn't have come down, and you would have found out nothing.”

“Did you notice Marcellin's face when he read this telegram?”

“He reread it two or three times, to make sure he had got it right, then he went off whistling.”

“As though he had received some good news?”

“Exactly. And also, I think, as if he had suddenly been struck with admiration for somebody.”

“Did you listen to Charlot's conversation yesterday?”