The Yellow Dog (15 page)

‘I stayed at Sing Sing. My men must have been put in another prison, because I never saw them again … They shaved my head … They put me in a road gang, smashing rocks … There was a chaplain who tried to give me
Bible lessons …

‘You can't imagine what it was like. There were rich prisoners who went off into town almost every night … and they used the rest of us as their servants! …

‘It doesn't matter. After a whole year of that, one day I ran into the American from Brest. He was visiting another prisoner. I recognized him and called to him. It took him a while to remember. Then he burst out laughing and had me
brought to the visiting room.

‘He was very cordial … treated me like an old friend. He told me he'd been a Prohibition agent. He worked abroad mostly, in England, in France, in Germany; he'd send the American police information on shipments leaving
from there.

‘But at the same time he occasionally did some trafficking for himself. That was the case with that cocaine shipment, which was supposed to bring in millions, because there were ten tons aboard at who knows what price per ounce … So
he'd got together with some Frenchmen, who were to supply the boat and part of the investment – that was my three men – and naturally they
would split the profits among the four of them …

‘But listen! The best part is coming … The very day we were loading at Quimper, the American got word from back home: there was a new Prohibition chief, and surveillance was going to be stepped up. Buyers in the United States were
holding off, and for that reason the merchandise might not find a taker …

‘At the same time, a new order said anyone who informed on prohibited cargo would get a bounty, as much as a third of its value …

‘There I was in prison hearing this! … He told me that, at the moment I was casting off – worried sick about whether we would even reach the other side of the Atlantic alive – he was in the car, and my three men were arguing with
him, there on the quay.

‘Should they gamble on getting through, for the whole stake? … I know now that it was the doctor who held out for informing on me. At least that way they'd be sure of getting a third of the money, with no complications.

‘Not counting that the American had made a deal with a colleague to skim off part of the impounded cocaine. An unbelievable racket, I know! …

‘The
Pretty Emma
sailed out into the dark water of the harbour … I took one last look at my fiancée, telling myself I'd be back to marry her in a few months …

‘And they knew – those men watching us leave – they knew we'd be picked up when we got there! They'd even figured that we'd put up a fight, that we'd probably be killed in the struggle. It was happening every day in
American waters at the time …

‘They knew that my boat would be confiscated, that it was not entirely paid for, and that I had nothing else in the
world. They knew my one dream was to marry Emma. And they watched us go!

‘That's what the American told me at Sing Sing, where I'd turned into an animal, among those other animals … He proved it to me. He laughed and slapped his thigh, and said, “Some bastards, those friends of
yours!”'

Suddenly, there was absolute silence. And in that silence could be heard the startling sound of Michoux's pencil sliding over a fresh page.

Maigret looked at the initials
SS
tattooed on the giant's hand and understood: ‘Sing Sing.'

‘I probably had ten years more to go … In that country, you never know. You break the smallest rule, and the sentence gets longer, and meanwhile they go on hitting you with their clubs … I got hundreds of those beatings –
from the other prisoners, too … Then my American took steps to help me. I think he was disgusted by the behaviour of those men he kept calling my “friends”… The only company I had was a dog. I raised him on board, and he'd saved me from drowning once. In spite
of all their rules over there, they let him stay in the prison – they have different ideas from us about that kind of thing … Oh, it was hell! They'll play music for you on Sundays, and then beat you to a pulp afterwards … Finally, I didn't even know if I was
still a man. I broke down in tears a hundred times, a thousand times …

‘And then, one morning, they suddenly opened the door, rammed a rifle butt in to my back to send me off into the civilized world, and I passed out on the pavement like an idiot … I didn't know how to live any more; I had
nothing left …

‘No! I did have one thing left!'

His wounded lip still bled, but he forgot to wipe it. Madame Michoux was hiding her face in her lace handkerchief, with its sickening scent. And Maigret smoked placidly, never taking his eyes off the
doctor, who went on writing.

‘One thing – the determination to put them through the same hell, those men who had brought the whole catastrophe down on me. Not to kill them – no! Dying is nothing. At Sing Sing, I tried it a dozen times, but I couldn't do it.
I'd stop eating, and they'd force-feed me … No, no! I wanted to make them live in prison! I wanted it to be an American jail, but that's not possible …

‘I dragged around Brooklyn, doing any kind of job, to pay my way home … I even bought passage for my dog …

‘I'd had no news of Emma … I didn't set foot in Quimper; people might have recognized me, even if I am a wreck.

‘Here, I heard that she was a waitress, and Michoux's mistress now and then … Other people too, maybe? A waitress, after all …

‘It wouldn't be easy to send those three bastards to prison, but I was determined! That was the only thing I still wanted … I lived with my dog on an abandoned boat, and later in the old watchtower at Cabélou Point …

‘I began to let Michoux see me around – just see me. See my hideous face, my brutish body! You understand? I wanted to scare him. I wanted to stir up such fear in him that he'd be driven to shoot at me. I might wind up dead, but
he'd go to prison. He'd get it all; he'd be kicked and beaten, with clubs and gun butts! And the terrible people in there with you – so strong they can make you do
anything they want … I prowled around Michoux's
house. I put myself in his path. Three days. Four days. He finally recognized me. Then he went out less … But still, life here hadn't changed in all that time. They still had their daily aperitif together, the three of them; people tipped hats to them in the
streets … And I was stealing food from stalls! … I wanted things to happen fast.'

A curt voice spoke: ‘I beg your pardon, inspector. This hearing, without an examining magistrate present – I don't suppose it has any legal standing?'

It was Michoux – white as a sheet, his features drawn, nostrils pinched, lips drained of colour, but he was speaking with a curtness that was almost threatening.

A glance from Maigret sent another policeman to take up a position between the doctor and the vagrant. Just in time! Drawn by that voice, Léon Le Glérec rose slowly, his fists clenched and as heavy as clubs.

‘Down! Sit down, Léon!'

And the creature obeyed, breathing hoarsely as the inspector shook out his pipe and said, ‘Now it's my turn to talk.'

His quiet voice and his rapid, even delivery were a sharp contrast to the impassioned speech of the sailor, who watched him suspiciously.

‘First, a word about Emma, gentlemen: she learns that her fiancé has been arrested; she hears nothing more from him … One day, for some trivial reason, she loses her job and becomes a waitress at the Admiral Hotel. She's a
poor girl, with no family. Men flirt with her, the way rich customers do with servant girls. Two years, three years go by. She has no idea Michoux had a hand in Léon's fate. One night she goes to his room. Time goes by, life rolls on. Michoux has other mistresses. From time to time, he
decides to sleep at the hotel. Or sometimes, when his mother is away, he has Emma come to his house … Dreary love-making, with no love to it. And Emma's life is dreary. She's no heroine. She has a shell-covered box, where she keeps a letter, a snapshot, but that's
just an old dream that fades a little more each day …

‘She doesn't know that Léon has come back.

‘She doesn't recognize the yellow dog that prowls around her – it was four months old when the boat left.

‘One night, Michoux dictates a letter to her, without saying who it's for. It's about an appointment with someone in an empty house at eleven o'clock at night.

‘She writes it down, signing it “E” – for Ernest, she
thinks. A waitress! You understand? … Léon Le Glérec was right: Michoux is frightened; he's afraid for his
life … He wants to do away with the enemy who's haunting him.

‘But he's a coward. He couldn't help telling me that himself. He sends his victim the letter by tying it around the dog's neck. He figures he'll hide behind the door in the empty house the next night.

‘Will Léon be suspicious? Well, there's a chance the sailor might want to meet with his old fiancée again, no matter what's happened. When he knocks at the door, Michoux will just shoot through the letterbox and slip away through
the back alley.

‘But Léon does suspect something. Maybe he was lurking around the square, watching. Maybe he was even thinking of going to the appointment. By chance, Monsieur Mostaguen comes out of the café just then, with a few drinks in him, and stops in
that doorway to light his cigar. He's a little unsteady; he stumbles against the door. That's the signal, and a bullet hits him right in the belly.

‘That's the first incident … Michoux bungled his attempt. He goes home. Goyard and Le Pommeret are terrified. They know what's going on and they have the same interest in getting rid of the man – he's a threat to
all three of them.

‘Emma understands the trick she was made to play. She may have caught sight of Léon … or perhaps she put two and two together and finally identified the yellow dog.

‘The next day, I arrive on the scene. I see the three men, I sense their terror.
They're expecting some trouble!
And I want to find out where they think it will come from. I want to be sure I'm not wrong.

‘So I'm the one who put the poison in the aperitif bottle,
in my clumsy way … I'm ready to step in if someone should start to drink. But there's no need! Michoux is on
guard. Michoux is suspicious of everything – of the people going by, of what he drinks … By now he doesn't even dare leave the hotel.'

Emma was frozen, the very picture of stupefaction. Michoux had lifted his head for a moment, to look squarely at Maigret. Now he was writing feverishly again.

‘That was the second incident,
Monsieur le Maire
. And our trio lives on, still in fear … Goyard is the most excitable of the three, and probably also the least bad. This business of the poisoning throws him into a panic.
He's convinced something will happen to him one day or another. He sees I'm on the trail – and he decides to run off. Without a trace – run off in such a way that no one will be able to accuse him of running away. He'll fake an attack, let people think he's been killed
and that his body was thrown into the harbour.

‘But before that, something leads him to take a look around Michoux's house, maybe out of curiosity, maybe to look for Léon and offer to make peace. He finds signs that the big man has been there. He knows it won't take me long to
discover the same signs myself.

‘Remember, he's a newspaperman! He knows very well how easy it is to stir up a mob. He knows he won't be safe anywhere as long as Léon is alive. So he thinks up a really brilliant move: he writes an article, in a disguised hand,
and sends it to the
Brest Beacon
.

‘The piece talks about the yellow dog, the drifter. Every sentence is calculated to spread terror in Concarneau. In those circumstances, if people spot the man with the big feet, there's a good chance he'll get a shot of lead in
his chest.

‘And that's nearly what happened! They started by shooting the dog; they would just as easily have shot the man. A panicky crowd is capable of anything.

‘On Sunday, terror
does
take over the town. Michoux sticks to the hotel, sick with fright. But he's still determined to defend himself to the end –
by any means
.

‘I leave him alone with Le Pommeret. I don't know what goes on between the two of them then. Goyard's gone. Le Pommeret, who belongs to a respectable local family, is probably tempted to turn to the police, to tell the whole story
rather than go on living through this nightmare … After all, what's the risk for him? A fine, a little stint in prison. If that! The major crime, the only one he had any part in, had been committed abroad, in America.

‘And Michoux, who sees him weakening, who has the Mostaguen attack on his conscience, wants to save his own skin at any cost. He doesn't hesitate to poison him …