My Friend Maigret (3 page)

He drank a cupful of whisky. He didn't like it. Perhaps, equally, Mr. Pyke didn't like the calvados that Maigret had been making him take for the last three days.

He slept and was conscious of snoring. When he woke, he saw olive trees on the edge of the Rhône and knew they had passed Avignon.

The sun was shining, a light golden mist above the river. The Englishman, freshly shaved, immaculate from head to foot, was standing in the corridor, his face pressed to the window. The washing compartment was as clean as if he had never used it and there lurked a discreet smell of lavender.

Not yet sure if he was in a good temper or a bad one Maigret grumbled as he fumbled in his suitcase for his razor:

“Now we must be careful not to make a balls of this.”

Perhaps it was the impeccable correctness of Mr. Pyke that made him coarse…

And so the first round had been fairly successfully concluded. Which does not mean that there had been any competition between the two men, at least not on professional grounds. If Mr. Pyke was more or less participating in Maigret's activities as a policeman, it was purely in the role of spectator.

Yet Maigret was thinking in terms of “first round,” aware that it was not quite accurate. Hasn't one the right to use one's own private language, in one's own mind?

When he had joined the English detective in the Pullman corridor, for example, there was no doubt that the latter, taken by surprise, had not had time to efface the expression of wonder which quite transfigured him. Was it simply shame, because a Scotland Yard official is not supposed to give his attention to the sunrise on one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world? Or was the Englishman reluctant to show outward signs of admiration, considering it indecent in the presence of an alien witness?

Maigret had inwardly chalked up a point to himself, without a moment's hesitation.

In the restaurant car, he had to admit, Mr. Pyke had scored one in his turn. A mere nothing. A slight contraction of the nostrils on the arrival of the bacon and eggs, which were indisputably not so good as in his country.

“You don't know the Mediterranean, Mr. Pyke?”

“I usually spend my holidays in Sussex. I once went to Egypt though. The sea was gray and choppy, and it rained all the way.”

And Maigret, who in his heart of hearts didn't like the Midi very much, felt himself spurred by the desire to defend it.

A questionable point: the headwaiter, who had recognized the chief inspector, whom he must have served elsewhere, came up and asked, in an insinuating voice, immediately after his breakfast:

“Something to drink, as usual?”

Now the day before, or the day before that, the Yard inspector had commented, with the air of one who never touches it, that an English gentleman never had strong drinks before the end of the afternoon.

The arrival at Hyères was without question a round in Maigret's favor. The palm trees, round the station, were motionless, transfixed in a Sahara sun. It was very likely that there had been an important market that morning, a fair or a fête, for the carts, vans, and heavy trucks were mobile pyramids of early vegetables, fruits, and flowers.

Mr. Pyke, just like Maigret, found his breath coming a little more quickly. There was a real sense of entering another world, and it was uncomfortable to do so in the dark clothes which had suited the previous day in the rainy streets of Paris.

He ought, like Inspector Lechat, to have worn a light suit and a shirt with an open collar, and shown a red patch of sunburn on his forehead. Maigret had not immediately recognized him, for he remembered his name rather than his face. Lechat, who was threading his way through the porters, looked almost like a boy from the district, small and thin, hatless, with espadrilles on his feet.

“This way, chief!”

Was this a good mark? For though this devil Mr. Pyke noted everything down, it was impossible to tell what he classified in the good column and what he put into the bad one. Officially Lechat ought to have called Maigret “chief inspector,” for he was not in his department. But there were few detectives in France who could deny themselves the pleasure of calling him “chief” with affectionate familiarity.

“Mr. Pyke, you already know about Inspector Lechat. Lechat, let me introduce Mr. Pyke, from Scotland Yard.”

“Are they in on it too?”

Lechat was so taken up with his Marcellin case that it didn't surprise him at all that it should have become an international affair.

“Mr. Pyke is in France on a study tour.”

While they walked through the crowd Maigret wondered at the curious way Lechat was walking sideways, twisting his neck around.

“Let's hurry through,” he was saying. “I've got a car at the entrance.”

It was the small official car. Once inside the inspector heaved a sigh:

“I thought you'd better be careful. Everyone knows it's you
they've got it in for
.”

So just now, in the crowd, it was Maigret the tiny Lechat was trying to protect!

“Shall I take you straight to the island? You haven't anything to do in Hyères, have you?”

And off they went. The land was flat, deserted, the road lined with tamarisks, with a palm tree here and there, then white salt marshes on the right. The change of scene was as absolute as if they had been transported to Africa—with a blue porcelain sky, and the air perfectly still.

“And the mistral?” Maigret asked, with a touch of irony.

“It stopped quite suddenly yesterday evening. It was high time. It's blown for nine days and that's enough to drive everyone mad.”

Maigret was skeptical. The people from the north—and the north begins around Lyon—have never taken the mistral seriously. So Mr. Pyke was excused for displaying indifference as well.

“No one has left the island. You can question everyone who was there when Marcellin was murdered. The fishermen were not at sea that night because of the storm. But a torpedo boat from Toulon and several submarines were doing exercises in the lee of the island. I rang up the Admiralty. They are positive. No boat made the crossing.”

“Which means the murderer is still on the island?”

“You'll see.”

Lechat was playing the old boy, who knows his way around and the people. Maigret was the new boy, which is always rather a distasteful role. The car, after half an hour, was slowing to a halt at a rocky promontory on which there was nothing to be seen except a typical Provençal inn and several fishermen's cottages painted pink and pale blue.

One mark for France, for the mouth fell open. The sea was an incredible blue, such as one normally only sees on picture postcards, and over on the horizon an island stretched lazily in the middle of the rainbowlike surface, with bright green hills, and red and yellow rocks.

At the end of the wooden landing stage, a fishing boat was waiting, painted pale green picked out in white.

“That's for us. I asked Gabriel to bring me over and wait for you. The boat which does the regular service, the
Cormorant
, only comes at eight in the morning and five in the evening. Gabriel is a Galli. Let me explain. There are Gallis and Morins. Almost everyone on the island belongs to one of the two families.”

Lechat was carrying the luggage, which seemed to grow larger at the end of his arms. The engine was already turning over. It was all a little unreal and it was hard to believe that they were there solely to concern themselves with a dead man.

“I didn't suggest showing you the body. It's at Hyères. The postmortem took place yesterday morning.”

There were about three miles between Giens Point and Porquerolles. As they advanced over the silky water the contours of the island became more distinct, with its peaks, its bays, its ancient fortresses in the greenery and, right in the middle, a small group of light-colored houses and the white church tower which might have come from a child's building set.

“Do you think I might be able to get hold of a bathing costume?” the Englishman asked Lechat.

Maigret hadn't thought of that and, leaning over the rail, he suddenly discovered, with a sense of vertigo, the bottom of the sea, which was slipping away under the boat. It was a good thirty feet below, but the water was so clear that the minutest details of the underwater landscape were visible. And it really was a landscape, with its plains covered in greenery, its rocky hills, its gorges and precipices, among which shoals of fish trooped like sheep.

A little put out, as though he had been surprised playing a child's game, Maigret looked at Mr. Pyke, but only to score another point: the Scotland Yard inspector, almost as moved as himself, was also gazing at the bottom of the water.

 

It is only after a while that one begins to take in the atmosphere of a place. At first everything seemed strange. The harbor was tiny, with a jetty on the left, a rocky promontory, covered with sea pines, on the right. In the background some red roofs, white and pink houses among the palm trees, the mimosas and the tamarisks.

Had Maigret ever seen mimosas before outside the flower girls' baskets in Paris? He couldn't remember whether the mimosas had been in flower at the time of the case he had conducted in Antibes and Cannes, a few years before.

On the jetty a handful of people were waiting. There were also some fishermen in boats painted like Christmas decorations.

They were watched as they disembarked. Perhaps the people on the island consisted of various groups? Maigret needn't bother about these details until later. For example, a man dressed in white, with a white cap on his head, greeted him with a hand to his forelock, and he didn't recognize him at first.

“That's Charlot!” Lechat whispered in his ear.

The name, for the moment, conveyed nothing to him. A sort of colossus with bare feet piled the luggage onto a barrow without uttering a word, and pushed it in the direction of the village square.

Maigret, Pyke, and Lechat followed. And behind them the locals followed in turn; all this in an odd silence.

The square was vast and deserted, enclosed by eucalyptus trees and colored houses, with, to crown it, the little yellow church and its white tower. They could see several cafés with shaded terraces.

“I could have booked you rooms at the Grand Hôtel. It has been open for a fortnight.”

It was a fair-sized block overlooking the harbor, and a man dressed like a cook stood in the doorway.

“I thought it better to put you into the Arche de Noé. Let me explain.”

There were already a lot of things for the inspector to explain. The terrace of the Arche, on the square, was wider than the others and was bounded by a small wall and green plants. Inside it was cool, a little dark, which was in no way disagreeable, and one was at once struck by the pronounced smell of cooking and of white wine.

Yet another man dressed as a cook, but without the chef's cap. He advanced with outstretched hand, a radiant smile on his face.

“Delighted to welcome you, Monsieur Maigret. I have given you the best room. Of course you will have a glass of our local white wine?”

Lechat whispered:

“That's Paul, the proprietor.”

There were red tiles on the floor. The bar was a proper bistro bar, made of metal. The white wine was cool, a little young, but a good strong one.

“Your health, Monsieur Maigret. I never dared to hope that I should one day have the honor of having you to stay.”

It didn't occur to him that it was to a crime that he owed the honor. No one seemed to bother about Marcellin's death. The groups they had just seen near the jetty were now in the square and imperceptibly approaching the Arche de Noé. Some of them were even sitting down on the terrace.

In short, what really mattered was Maigret's arrival, in flesh and blood, just as if he had been a film star.

Was he cutting a good figure? Did the Scotland Yard people have more self-assurance at the beginning of an investigation? Mr. Pyke looked at everything and said nothing.

“I should like to go and clean up a bit,” Maigret sighed after a while, having drunk two glasses of white wine.

“Jojo! Will you show Monsieur Maigret up to his room? Will your friend be going up too, inspector?”

Jojo was a small dark servant girl, dressed in black, with a broad smile and small pointed breasts.

The whole house smelt of bouillabaisse and saffron oil. Upstairs, where there was red flooring as in the bar, there were only three or four rooms and they had in fact reserved the best for the chief inspector, the one with one window looking on to the square and the other on to the sea. Ought he to offer it to Mr. Pyke? It was too late. They had already indicated another door for the latter.

“Is there anything you want, Monsieur Maigret? The bathroom is at the end of the corridor. I think there's some hot water.”

Lechat had followed him up. It was natural. It was normal. But he didn't ask him in. It seemed to him that it would be a sort of discourtesy toward his English colleague. The latter might imagine they were hiding something from him, that they weren't letting him in on the
whole
case.

“I'll be down in a few minutes, Lechat.”

He would have liked to find a kindly word for the inspector, who was looking after him with such care. He seemed to recall that at Luçon his wife had come into the picture a lot. Standing in the doorway, he asked, in a friendly and familiar manner:

“How is your charming Madame Lechat?”

And the poor fellow could only stammer:

“Didn't you know? She left me. It's eight years ago now since she left.”

What a gaffe! It all came back to him suddenly. If people talked so much about Madame Lechat at Luçon, it was because she deceived her husband for all she was worth.