The Hotel Majestic (9 page)

“You would have kidnapped the child?”

He gave a pathetic, almost half-witted smile.

“Do you think that would be possible?”

“Would you have told her husband everything?”

Prosper Donge's eyes opened wide in horror.

“No! . . . I swear to you! . . . I think . . . Yes I think that if it had come to the worst, I would have killed her rather than do that, in a moment of anger . . . But that morning, I had a puncture when I got to the Avenue Foch . . . I got to the Majestic nearly quarter of an hour late . . . I didn't see Mimi . . . I thought that she had come and that, as she couldn't find me, she had gone back to her suite . . . If I had known her husband had left, I would have gone up by the back stairs . . . But there again, we in the basement know nothing about what's going on above our heads . . . I was worried . . . That morning, I can't have seemed myself . . .”

Maigret suddenly interrupted him.

“What made you go and open locker 89?”

“I can tell you why . . . And it proves I'm not lying, at any rate to anyone from the police, because if I'd known she was dead, I wouldn't have acted as I did . . . It was about a quarter to nine when the waiter on the second floor sent down the order for no. 203 . . . On the slip there was—you can check it, because the management keep them—there was: one hot chocolate, one egg and bacon and one tea.”

“Which meant?”

“I'll explain. I knew that the chocolate was for the boy, the egg and bacon for the nurse . . . So there were only two of them there . . . Every other day at that time there was an order for black coffee and toast for Mimi . . . So, I put the black coffee and toast on the tray too . . . I sent the lift up . . . A few minutes later the coffee and toast were sent back . . . It may seem odd to you to attach so much importance to these details . . . But don't forget that in the basement that's about all we see of what people are doing . . .

“I went to the telephone.

“‘Hello! Didn't Mrs. Clark want her breakfast?'

“‘Mrs. Clark isn't in her room . . .'

“Please believe me, superintendent . . . The magistrate didn't believe me . . . I was certain that something had happened.”

“What did you think had happened?”

“Oh well! . . . I thought of the husband . . . I thought that if he had followed her . . .”

“Who took the letter up for you?”

“A bellboy . . . He assured me he had given it to the right person . . . But those boys lie all the time . . . It comes from being with such an odd lot of people . . . And then Clark could have found the letter . . .

“So—I don't know if anyone saw me, but I opened nearly all the doors in the basement . . . Of course no one takes much notice of anyone else, so perhaps no one noticed me . . . I went into the cloakroom . . .”

“Was the door of locker 89 really open?”

“No. I opened all the empty lockers . . . Do you believe me? . . . Will anyone believe me? . . . No, they won't, will they? . . . And that's why I didn't tell the truth . . . I was waiting . . . I hoped no one would pay any attention to me . . . It was only when I saw that I was the only one you weren't questioning . . . I've never felt so awful as I did that day, while you walked up and down in the basement without saying a single word to me, without seeming to see me! . . . I didn't know what I was doing . . . I forgot the instalment I had to go and pay . . . I came back again . . . Then you joined me in the Bois de Boulogne and I knew you were on my track . . .

“The next morning, Charlotte said when she woke me up: ‘Why didn't you tell me you had killed her? . . .'

“So you see, if even Charlotte . . .”

It was broad daylight, and Maigret hadn't noticed. A stream of buses, taxis and delivery vans was going across the bridge. Paris had come to life again.

Then, after a long silence, and in an even more miserable voice, Prosper Donge mumbled: “The boy doesn't even speak French! . . . I asked . . . You couldn't go and see him, superintendent? . . .”

And suddenly frantic: “No! You're not going to let him go away again? . . .”

“Hello! . . . Superintendent Maigret? . . . The boss's asking for you . . .”

Maigret sighed, and went out of his office. It was time to make his report. He was in the head of the Judicial Police's office for twenty minutes.

When he got back, Donge was sitting there unmoving, leaning forwards with his arms crossed on the table and his head on his arms.

The superintendent was worried in spite of himself. But when he touched the prisoner's arm, he slowly looked up, with no attempt to hide his pockmarked face, which was wet with tears.

“The magistrate wants to question you again in his office . . . I advise you to repeat exactly what you have told me . . .”

An inspector was waiting at the door.

“Forgive me if . . .”

Maigret took some handcuffs out of his pocket and there was a double click.

“It's the regulation!” he sighed.

Then, alone in his office once more, he went to open the window and breathed in the damp air. It was a good ten minutes before he went into the inspectors' office.

He appeared fresh and rested again, and asked in his usual way: “All right, children?”

There were two policemen sitting on the bench, leaning against the wall, their arms crossed on their chests, and their booted legs stretched out as far as possible, barring the way down the corridor.

A low murmur of voices came through the door beside them. And all along the corridor were other doors flanked by benches, on most of which sat policemen, some with a handcuffed prisoner between them.

It was midday. Maigret was smoking his pipe, waiting to go into examining magistrate Bonneau's office.

“What's that?” he asked one of the policemen, pointing to the door.

The reply was as laconic, and as eloquent, as the question: “Jeweller's in the Rue Saint-Martin . . .”

A girl, sitting slumped on the bench, was staring despairingly at the door of another magistrate. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and twisted her hands, tugging at her fingers in a paroxysm of anxiety.

The grim tones of Monsieur Bonneau's voice grew more distinct. The door opened. Maigret automatically stuffed his pipe, which was still warm, into his pocket. The boy who came out, who was at once seized on by the policemen again, had the insolent air of an inveterate ne'er-do-well. He turned back to say to the magistrate with heavy sarcasm: “I'll be happy to come and see you any time, sir!”

He saw Maigret, and frowned; then, as if reassured, winked at the superintendent. The latter's face, at that moment, had the abstracted look of someone who vaguely remembers something without quite knowing what it is.

He heard, from behind the door, which had been left open: “Ask the superintendent to come in . . . You can go now, Monsieur Benoit . . . I won't need you any more this morning . . .”

Maigret went in, still clearly searching his memory. What was it that had struck him about the prisoner who had just left the magistrate's office?

“Good morning, superintendent . . . Not too tired, I hope? . . . Please sit down . . . I don't see your pipe . . . You may smoke . . . Well, how was your trip to Cannes?”

Monsieur Bonneau wasn't a spiteful man, but was obviously delighted to have succeeded where the police had failed. He tried unsuccessfully to hide the gleam of satisfaction which glinted in his eye.

“It's funny that we both learnt the same things, I in Paris, without leaving my office, and you on the Côte d'Azur . . . Don't you think?”

“Very funny, yes . . .”

Maigret had the polite smile of a guest who is forced by his hostess to have a second helping of a dish he detests.

“Well, what are your conclusions on the affair, superintendent? . . . This Prosper Donge? . . . I have his statement here . . . It seems he merely repeated to me what he'd already told you this morning . . . He admits everything, in fact . . .”

“Except the two crimes,” Maigret said quietly.

“Except the two crimes, naturally! That would be too good to be true! He admits that he threatened his ex-mistress; he admits that he asked her to meet him at six in the morning in the basement of the hotel, and his letter can't have been very reassuring because the poor woman went straight out to buy a gun . . . Then he tells us this story of his punctured tyre which made him late . . .”

“It isn't a story . . .”

“How do you know? . . . He could have made a puncture in his tyre when he got to the hotel . . .”

“But he didn't . . . I've found the policeman who called out to him about his tyre that morning, at the corner of the Avenue Foch . . .”

“It's only a detail,” said the magistrate hurriedly, not wanting to have his beautiful reconstruction undermined. “Tell me, superintendent, have you looked into Donge's past history?”

The glint of satisfaction was now clearly visible in Monsieur Bonneau's eye, and he couldn't help stroking his beard in anticipation.

“I dare say you haven't had time. I made it a point of interest to consult the records . . . I was given his dossier and I discovered that our man, so docile in appearance, is not a first offender . . .”

Maigret was forced to look contrite.

“It's strange,” went on the magistrate, “we have these records right above us, on the top floor of the Palais de Justice, and we so often forget to consult them! . . . Well, at the age of sixteen, we find Prosper Donge, who has a job as a washer-up in a café in Vitry-le-François, stealing fifty francs from the till, making off and being caught in a train on his way to Lyons . . . He promises to be good, of course . . . He narrowly escapes being sent to a remand home and is put on probation for two years . . .”

The odd thing was that, while the magistrate was saying all this, Maigret kept thinking: “Where the devil did I see that . . . ?”

And he wasn't thinking of Donge, but of the boy who had come out as he went in.

“Fifteen years later, in Cannes, three months' suspended sentence for criminal assault, and insulting behaviour to a policeman . . . And now, superintendent, perhaps it's time I showed you something . . .”

At which he held out a bit of squared paper like that sold in small shops or used as bill chits in small cafés. The text was written in violet ink, with a spluttery pen, and the writing was that of an ill-educated woman.

It was the famous anonymous letter which had been sent to the magistrate, informing him about Prosper and Mimi's affair.

“Here is the envelope . . . As you see, it was posted between midnight and six in the morning in the postbox in the Place Clichy . . . Place Clichy, you note . . . Now, take a look at this exercise book . . .”

A rather grubby school exercise book, covered with grease marks. It contained cooking recipes—some cut from newspapers and stuck in, others copied out.

This time, Maigret frowned, and the magistrate couldn't disguise a triumphant smile.

“You would agree that it's the same writing? . . . I felt sure you would . . . Well, superintendent, this exercise book was taken from the dresser in a kitchen which you already know, in Saint-Cloud—at Prosper Donge's house, in fact—and these recipes were copied out by a certain Charlotte . . .”

He was so pleased with himself that he made a show of apologizing.

“I know the police and ourselves don't always see things in quite the same light . . . At the Quai des Orfèvres, you have a certain sympathy for a particular kind of person, for certain irregular situations, which we as magistrates have difficulty in sharing . . . Admit, superintendent, it is not always we who are wrong . . . And tell me why, if this Prosper is the upright man he appears, his own mistress, this Charlotte who also pretends to be such a good sort, should send me an anonymous letter to destroy him?”

“I don't know . . .”

Maigret seemed completely bowled over.

“This case can be tidied up quite quickly now. I've sent Donge to the Santé prison. When you've interrogated the woman, Charlotte . . . As for the second crime, it can easily be explained . . . The poor night porter . . . Colleboeuf, I believe? . . . must have been party to the first crime . . . At any rate he knew who the murderer of Mrs. Clark was . . . He couldn't rest all day . . . And finally no doubt, tortured by indecision, he came back to the Majestic to warn the murderer that he was going to denounce him . . .”

The telephone rang.

“Hello! Yes . . . I'll come at once . . .”

And to Maigret: “It's my wife, to remind me that we have some friends coming to luncheon . . . I will leave you to your inquiry, superintendent . . . I think you now have enough leads to go on . . .”

Maigret was almost at the door, when he came back, with the look of someone who has at last pinned down what he had been trying to remember for some time.

“About Fred, sir . . . It
was
Fred-the-Marseillais you were interrogating when I arrived, wasn't it?”

“It's the sixth time I've interrogated him without discovering the names of his accomplices . . .”

“I met Fred about three weeks ago, at Angelino's in the Place d'Italie . . .”

The magistrate stared at him, clearly unable to see the relevance of this remark.

“Angelino, who has a ‘club' frequented by rather dubious types, has been going with the sister of Harry-the-Squint for a year . . .”

The magistrate still didn't understand. And Maigret said modestly, effacing himself as much as his massive frame would allow: “Harry-the-Squint has had three sentences for house-breaking . . . He's an ex-bricklayer whose speciality is tunnelling through walls . . .”