Friend of Madame Maigret (16 page)

“Get me the Chope!”

It was the cashier who answered. She sent someone to fetch the lawyer.

“Is that you, chief inspector? I expect you must be swamped with work. Have you found him?”

“Who?”

“Moss. I went to the pictures this afternoon and I caught on. Don't you think an informal tête-à-tête might be useful to us both?”

It happened quite by chance. A little earlier, in the car, Maigret had been thinking about the suitcase. And then, while Liotard was talking to him, little Lapointe was entering the office.

“Are you with friends?” the chief inspector asked Liotard.

“It doesn't matter. When you get here, I'll leave them.”

“Your lady friend?”

“Yes.”

“No one else?”

“Somebody you're not very fond of, I don't know why, which upsets him a good deal.”

That was Alfonsi. They must have made up a foursome again, the two men and their girls.

“Will you have the patience to wait for me if I'm a bit late?”

“I'll wait as long as you like. It's Sunday.”

“Tell Alfonsi I'd like to see him too.”

“He'll be delighted.”

“See you soon.”

He went and closed the two doors of his office, telling Lapointe, who was tactfully about to leave, to stay.

“Come here. Sit down. You want to get ahead in the police, don't you?”

“More than anything else.”

“You made the stupid mistake of talking too much the first day, and this has had consequences that you don't even suspect yet.”

“I'm sorry. I felt so sure of my sister.”

“Do you want to try something difficult? Just a moment. Don't be in too much of a hurry to answer. It's not a matter of a glorious stunt that will get you your name in the papers. Quite the contrary. If you succeed, nobody but we two will ever know about it. If you mess it up, I shall be obliged to disclaim all responsibility for you and maintain that you were acting under your own steam outside my orders.”

“I understand.”

“You don't understand one little bit, but that doesn't matter. If I were to take the job on myself and fail, the whole of the police force would be involved. You're new enough in the building to get away with it.”

Lapointe could not contain his impatience.

“Maître Liotard and Alfonsi are at the Chope du Nègre at the moment, where they're waiting for me.”

“Are you going to join them?”

“Not straight away. First I want to make a call in the boulevard Pasteur, and I'm sure you won't budge from the restaurant before I get there. Suppose I go and join them in an hour at the earliest. It's nine o'clock. You know where the lawyer lives, on the rue Bergère? It's on the third floor, to the left. As a number of young ladies live in the house, the concierge probably doesn't pay too much attention to who comes and goes.”

“You want me to . . .”

“Yes. You've been taught how to open a door. It won't matter if you leave marks. Quite the contrary. No sense in going through drawers and papers. You're to make sure of just one thing: that the suitcase isn't there.”

“I never thought of that.”

“All right. It's possible and even probable that it isn't there, because Liotard is a cautious chap. That's why you mustn't waste any time. From the rue Bergère, you're to go straight over to the rue de Douai, where Alfonsi has Room 33 in the Hôtel du Massif Central.”

“I know.”

“Do the same thing there. The suitcase. Nothing else. Ring me as soon as you've finished.”

“Can I leave now?”

“Go out into the corridor first. I'm going to lock my door and you try to open it. Ask Lucas for the tools.”

Lapointe didn't do too badly and a few minutes later he was hurrying out, utterly overjoyed.

Maigret went in to the inspectors.

“Are you free, Janvier?”

The telephones were still ringing, but, because of the time of night, with less virulence.

“I was giving Lucas a hand, but . . .”

They went downstairs together, and it was Janvier who took the wheel of the little Headquarters car. A quarter of an hour later they reached the quietest, least brightly lit stretch of the boulevard Pasteur, which, in the peace of a beautiful Sunday evening, seemed like the main avenue of some small town.

“Come up with me.”

They asked for the sculptor, whose name was Grossot, and were directed to the sixth floor. The building was old but very well kept, probably inhabited by civil servants. When they knocked at the door of the sixth-floor flat, the sound of an argument suddenly ceased, and a young girl with full cheeks opened the door, stepped back.

“Was it you who came to my office earlier?”

“That was my sister. Chief inspector Maigret? Come in. Pay no attention to the mess. We're only just finishing dinner.”

She led them into a huge studio, with sloping ceiling, partly glass, through which the stars could be seen. There were the remains of some cold meat on a long deal table, with an open liter of wine; another girl, who looked like the twin of the one who had opened the door, was tidying her hair with a furtive movement, while a man in a velvet jacket approached the visitors with an exaggerated solemnity.

“Welcome to my modest abode, Monsieur Maigret. I hope you will do me the honor of taking a drink with me.”

Since leaving Headquarters the old sculptor must have managed to get something to drink besides the wine at his meal, because his pronunciation was slurred, his gait unsteady.

“Don't pay any attention,” interposed one of the girls. “He's got himself in a state again.”

She said this without rancor, and the look she gave her father was affectionate, almost motherly.

In the darkest corners of the great room, pieces of sculpture could be vaguely made out, and it was clear that they had been there for a long time.

More recent, part of their present life, were the carved wooden toys lying around on the furniture and filling the room with a good smell of fresh wood.

“When art no longer offers a living to a man and his family,” Grossot was declaiming, “there's nothing to be ashamed of, is there, in looking to commerce for one's daily bread?”

Madame Grossot appeared; she must have gone to tidy up when she heard the bell. She was a thin woman, sad, with constantly watchful eyes, who must always be fore-seeing misfortunes.

“Won't you give the chief inspector and this gentleman a chair, Hélène?”

“The chief inspector knows perfectly well that he can make himself at home here, Mother. Don't you, Monsieur Maigret?”

“Didn't you offer him anything?”

“Would you like a glass of wine? There's nothing else in the house on account of Papa.”

She seemed to be the one who controlled the family, at all events the one who was taking control of the conversation.

“We went to the pictures yesterday, near here, and we recognized the man you're looking for. He was using the name Peeters, not Moss. The reason we didn't come to see you earlier was that Papa hesitated to betray him, protesting that he has been our guest and eaten at our table many times.”

“Had he been living here long?”

“About a year. The flat takes up the whole floor. My parents have lived here more than thirty years, and I was born here and so was my sister. There are three rooms besides the studio and the kitchen. Last year the toys didn't bring in much, because of the crisis, and we decided to take a lodger. We put an advertisement in the paper.

“That's how we got to know Monsieur Peeters.”

“What did he say his profession was?”

“He told us that he represented a big English manufacturing firm, that he had his own clients, so there was no need for him to go out much. Sometimes he'd spend the whole day at home and come and give us a hand, in his shirtsleeves. You see, we all work on the toys, for which my father makes the models. Last Christmas we got an order from the Printemps and we worked night and day.”

Grossot was eyeing the half-empty wine bottle so pathetically that Maigret said to him:

“Very well, pour me half a glass, just to have a drink with you.”

He received in return a look of gratitude, while the girl continued, without taking her eye off her father to be sure he didn't help himself too freely:

“He usually went out toward the end of the afternoon and he would sometimes come home quite late. Occasionally he would take his sample case with him.”

“Did he leave his luggage here?”

“He left his big trunk.”

“Not his suitcase?”

“No. By the way, Olga, did he leave his suitcase when he left?”

“No. He didn't bring it back last time he took it out with him.”

“What kind of man was he?”

“He was quiet, very gentle, perhaps rather sad. Sometimes he would stay shut up in his room for hours at a time, and in the end we'd go and ask if he was ill. Other times he'd have breakfast with us and help us all day.

“Occasionally he would disappear for several days and he'd told us beforehand not to worry about him.”

“What did you call him?”

“Monsieur Jean. He called us by our Christian names, except my mother, of course. He would sometimes bring us chocolates, little presents.”

“Never expensive presents?”

“We wouldn't have accepted them.”

“He never had visitors?”

“Nobody ever came. He never got any letters either. I was surprised that a business representative shouldn't receive any letters, and he explained to me that he had a partner in town, with an office, and his correspondence was addressed there.”

“He never seemed odd to you?”

At this she glanced around, murmured casually:

“Well, here, you know!”

“Your health, Monsieur Maigret. To your investigation! As you can see, I no longer count for anything, not only in the domain of art but even in my own house. I don't protest. I say nothing. They're very nice, but for a man who . . .”

“Let the chief inspector talk, Papa.”

“You see?”

“You don't know when your lodger went out with his suitcase for the last time?”

It was Olga, the older girl, who answered:

“The last Saturday before . . .”

She debated whether she ought to continue.

“Before what?”

The younger child reassumed control of the interview.

“Don't blush, Olga. We're always teasing my sister because she had a crush on Monsieur Jean. He wasn't the right age for her and he wasn't handsome, but . . .”

“What about yourself?”

“Never mind that, Olga. One Saturday, about six o'clock, he went out with his suitcase, which was surprising in itself because it was usually on Mondays that he took it with him.”

“Monday afternoons?”

“Yes. We weren't expecting him back, thinking he was going away for the weekend somewhere, and we were making fun of Olga who was moping.”

“That's not true.”

“We haven't the slightest idea what time he came home. Usually we'd hear him open the door. On the Sunday morning we thought his room was empty, and we were just talking about him when he came out, looking ill, and asked my father if he would mind getting him a bottle of brandy. He said he'd caught a cold. He stayed in bed part of the day. Olga, who did his room, noticed that the suitcase wasn't there. She noticed something else, at least she claims she did.”

“I'm sure of it.”

“You may be right. You used to look at him more closely than we did.”

“I'm sure his suit wasn't the same one. It was a blue suit too, but not his, and when he had it on I noticed that it was a bit too big on the shoulders.”

“He didn't say anything about it?”

“No. We didn't mention it either. After that he complained he had got flu and stayed at home for a whole week without going out.”

“Did he read the papers?”

“The morning and evening paper, just as we do.”

“You didn't notice anything out of the ordinary?”

“No. Except that he'd go and shut himself up in his room the minute anybody knocked at the door.”

“When did he start going out again?”

“About a week later. The last time he slept here was the night of March 11. That's easy to be sure of because on the calendar in his room the leaves haven't been torn off since then.”

“What ought we to do, chief inspector?” asked the mother anxiously. “Do you think he's really committed a crime?”

“I don't know, madame.”

“If the police are looking for him . . .”

“May we have a look at his room?”

It was at the end of a passage. Spacious, not luxurious, but clean, with old polished furniture and reproductions of Michelangelo on the walls. An enormous black trunk, of the most common kind, was in the right-hand corner, tied up with cord.

“Open it, please, Janvier.”

“Shall I go out?” asked the girl.

He didn't see any necessity. Janvier had more trouble with the cord than with the lock, which was simple. A strong smell of mothballs pervaded the room, and suits, shoes, underwear began to pile up on the bed.

It might have been an actor's wardrobe, judging by the range of quality and origin in the clothing. A set of tails and a dinner jacket bore the label of a big London tailor, and another dress suit had been made in Milan.