Liberty Bar

It all began with a holiday feeling.
When Maigret stepped off the train, half of the railway station at Antibes was
bathed in sunlight so intense that the people coming and going were reduced to
shadows. Shadows in straw hats and white trousers, carrying tennis racquets. The air
was humming. There were palm trees and cactuses along the quayside, a strip of blue
sea beyond the street-lamps.

Someone was running to meet him.

‘Detective Chief Inspector
Maigret, I believe? I recognized you from a photo that was in the papers …
Inspector Boutigues …'

Boutigues! Even the name was comical!
Boutigues had already picked up Maigret's suitcases and was dragging them
towards the subway. He was wearing a pearl-grey suit with a red carnation in his
buttonhole and shoes with fabric uppers.

‘Is this your first visit to
Antibes?'

Maigret mopped his brow and tried to
keep up with his cicerone as he threaded his way between the groups of people,
overtaking everyone. Eventually, he found himself standing before a horse-drawn
carriage with a cream-coloured canvas roof, its small tassels bobbing about. Another
forgotten sensation: the bounce of the
springs, the coachman's
crack of the whip, the muffled sound of hoofs on softened bitumen.

‘We'll go and have a drink
first … No, no, I insist … The Café Glacier, coachman …'

It was nearby. Boutigues explained:

‘Place Macé … In the centre
of Antibes …'

A pretty square with a garden, and
cream or orange canopies on all the houses. They simply had to sit out on a terrace
and drink a Pernod. Opposite was a shop window full of sports outfits,
swimming-costumes, beach robes … To the left, a photographer's studio
… A few smart cars parked along the pavement … That holiday feeling
again!

‘Would you like to see the
prisoners first or visit the scene of the crime?'

And Maigret replied without really
knowing what he was saying, as if someone had asked him what he was drinking:

‘The crime scene.'

The holiday continued. Maigret smoked
a cigar that his colleague had offered him. The horse trotted along the promenade.
To the right, villas hidden away among the pines; to the left, a few rocks, then the
blue of the sea dotted here and there with white sails.

‘Have you got your bearings yet?
Behind us is Antibes … Where we are is the start of Cap d'Antibes, which
is nothing but villas, some very expensive villas at that …'

Maigret nodded, blissfully. His head
was befuddled by all this sunshine, and he squinted at Boutigues' red
flower.

‘Boutigues, wasn't
it?'

‘Yes, I'm
a Niçois. Or rather, I'm Nicene …'

In other words, pure Niçois, Niçois
squared, cubed!

‘Over here. Can you see that
white villa? That one there.'

It wasn't intentional, but
Maigret observed all this in disbelief. He just couldn't get into work mode,
couldn't convince himself that he was here to investigate a crime.

He had, however, received some very
particular instructions:

‘A man called Brown has been
killed in Cap d'Antibes. It's all over the papers. Best if you avoid any
dramas.'

‘Understood.'

‘During the war, Brown worked for
military intelligence.'

‘Ditto.'

And here they were. The carriage drew
to a halt. Boutigues took a small key from his pocket and opened the gate, then
crunched along the gravel of the path.

‘It's one of the least
attractive villas on the cape!'

However, it wasn't that bad
either. The mimosas filled the air with a sickly scent. There were still a few
golden oranges hanging on the miniature trees. Then there were some odd-looking
flowers that Maigret didn't even know.

‘The property opposite belongs to
a maharajah … He's probably in residence right now … Five hundred
metres further along, on the left, there is a member of the Academy … Then
there is that famous dancer who lives with an English lord …'

Yes! And so what? Maigret wanted to
settle down on the bench next to the house and sleep for an hour. He had, after all,
been travelling all night.

‘I'll fill
you in on the bare bones of the situation.'

Boutigues had opened the door, and they
found themselves in a cool hallway whose picture windows looked out over the
sea.

‘Brown lived here for about ten
years …'

‘Did he work?'

‘No … he must have had a
private income … People used to call them Brown and his two women
…'

‘Two?'

‘Only one of them was actually
his mistress: the daughter … Her name is Gina Martini.'

‘She's in
prison?'

‘Her mother too … The three
of them lived together without a maid …'

That much was evident from the state of
the house, which was far from clean. There were maybe one or two beautiful things,
some valuable items of furniture, some objects that had seen better days.

Everything was dirty and in a mess.
There were too many rugs, hangings and throws spread out over the armchairs, too
many things impregnated with dust …

‘These are the facts: Brown had a
garage just next to the villa … He kept an old-fashioned car which he drove
himself … He used it mainly to get to the market in Antibes …'

‘Yes,' sighed Maigret, as
he watched a man fishing for sea-urchins, probing the bed of the clear sea with his
split reed.

‘Someone noticed that the car had
been left by the roadside for three days and nights … The people around here
don't poke their noses into each other's business
… No one was unduly worried … On Monday …'

‘Really? And today's
Thursday? … OK.'

‘On Monday evening, the butcher
was driving back from his rounds when he saw the car pull away … You'll
see his statement later … He saw it from behind … At first he thought
Brown must be drunk, as he was swerving around so much … Then the car drove in
a straight line … So straight a line, in fact, that it crashed into a rock
about three hundred metres down the road … Before the butcher could intervene,
two women got out and, hearing the sound of his engine, started running towards the
town …'

‘Were they carrying
baggage?'

‘Three suitcases … It was
dusk … The butcher didn't know what to do … He came to Place Macé,
where, as you can see, there is a police officer on duty … The officer set off
to look for the two women, and in the end he found them not heading for the station
at Antibes, but rather the one at Golfe-Juan, three kilometres away
…'

‘Still carrying the three
cases?'

‘They'd left one behind
along the way. It was discovered yesterday in a tamarisk wood … They were a
bit flustered … They said they were on their way to see a sick relative in
Lyon … The officer was smart enough to open the cases and inside he found a
batch of bearer bonds, a few hundred-pound notes and a number of other objects
… A crowd had gathered by now … It was aperitif time … Everyone
was out and about, and they escorted the two women to the police station and then on
to the prison …'

‘Did you search
the villa?'

‘First thing the next morning. We
didn't find anything at first. The two women claimed to know nothing about
what had happened to Brown. Finally, around midday, a gardener noticed some earth
that had been disturbed. Buried under a layer of soil less than five centimetres
deep we discovered Brown's body, still fully dressed.'

‘And the two women?'

‘They changed their tune. They
claimed that they had seen the car pull up three days earlier and that they were
surprised that Brown hadn't parked it in the garage … He staggered
across the garden … Gina swore at him through the window, thinking he was
drunk … He fell on the front steps …'

‘Dead, of course!'

‘As dead as can be! He had been
stabbed from behind, right between the shoulder-blades.'

‘And they kept him in the house
for three days?'

‘Yes! And they couldn't
provide a plausible explanation! They claimed that Brown had a horror of the police
and the like …

‘They buried him and made off
with the money and the most valuable objects! … I can understand the car being
parked on the road for three days … Gina was not a good driver, and she was
nervous about backing it into the garage … But here's a thing – do you
think there was blood inside the car?

‘Not a drop! They swear that they
cleaned it all up …'

‘Is that all?'

‘That's all! They were
furious! They asked us to let them go …'

The horse whinnied
outside. Maigret couldn't smoke his cigar to the end but didn't dare
throw it away.

‘A whisky?' suggested
Boutigues, spotting a drinks cabinet.

It all seemed terribly undramatic.
Maigret was trying in vain to take it all seriously. Was it because of the sun, the
mimosas, the oranges, the fisherman looking for sea-urchins in three metres of
limpid water?

‘Could you give me the keys to
the house?'

‘Of course! Once you take on the
case officially …'

Maigret drained the glass of whisky
that was offered to him, looked at the record on the gramophone, fiddled with the
buttons on a wireless. A voice emerged:

‘… fully grown wheat
… November …'

At that moment he noticed a portrait
hanging behind the radio set, which he took down to inspect more closely.

‘Is that him?'

‘Yes! I've never seen him
alive, but I recognize him …'

Maigret switched the wireless off with
a hint of nervous excitation. Something had been sparked inside him. Interest? More
than that!

A confused feeling, and not a pleasant
one. Up to that point, Brown had just been Brown, a stranger, almost certainly a
foreigner, who had died in somewhat mysterious circumstances. No one had taken an
interest in his thoughts and emotions when he was alive, or wondered what he had
suffered … And now, looking at the portrait, Maigret was troubled, because he
felt as if he knew this man … Although not in the sense of having seen him
before …

No! He wasn't concerned about his
features … The
broad face of a man in good, indeed robust,
health, with thinning red hair, a pencil moustache, large, clear eyes …

But there was something about his
general bearing, his expression, that reminded Maigret of himself. That way of
holding the shoulders slightly pulled in … That exaggeratedly calm gaze
… That good-natured but ironic curl of the lips … This wasn't
Brown the corpse … He was someone that the inspector wanted to know and who
intrigued him.

‘Another whisky? It's not
bad …'

Boutigues was enjoying himself! He was
astonished when Maigret didn't respond to his quips but continued to look
around him with an absent air.

‘Shall we offer the coachman
one?'

‘No! Let's go
…'

‘You're not going to
inspect the house?'

‘Another time!'

Oh, to be alone! Not to have his head
buzzing with the sunshine. As they returned to town, he didn't speak, and only
acknowledged Boutigues' remarks with a nod of the head. The latter wondered
what he had done to deserve this treatment from his companion.

‘You'll see the old town
… The prison is right next to the market … Morning's the best time
…'

‘Which hotel?' the coachman
asked, turning round.

‘Do you want one right in the
centre?' Boutigues asked.

‘Drop me here! I'll sort it
out …'

There was a small family-run
pension-style hotel halfway between the Cap and the town.

‘Are you not coming to the prison
this evening?'

‘Tomorrow,
I'll see …'

‘Want me to come and pick you up?
By the way, if you fancy going to the casino at Juan-les-Pins after dinner,
I'll …'

‘No, thank you. I'm
tired.'

He wasn't tired. But he
wasn't in good form. He felt hot. He was sweaty. In his room, which looked out
to sea, he poured some water into the bath, then changed his mind and went outside,
with his pipe between his teeth and his hands in his pockets. He caught a glimpse of
the small white tables in the dining room, the napkins displayed like fans in the
glasses, the bottles of wine and mineral water, the maid sweeping up …

‘Brown was killed by a knife in
the back, and his two women tried to escape with the money …'

But this was all rather vague. And, in
spite of himself, he looked at the sun, which was slowly sinking into the sea,
picking out the thin white line of the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.