Liberty Bar (11 page)

That was enough! Maigret had all the
information he needed. Brown, who had known nothing but his country estate, his sheep,
his neighbours and church ministers, became a wild hedonist, indulging in pleasures he
hadn't even known existed until then …

He kept putting back his return to
Australia … He made sure that the trial dragged on even longer … And once
the trial was concluded, he found new excuses to stay here …

He had bought a yacht … He was one
of only a few
dozen people who could buy anything, who could have
anything they desired …

‘Your mother and uncle finally
placed him under legal guardianship?'

Back home, they were defending their
interests! They had legal rulings! And one day, in Nice or Monte Carlo, William Brown
woke up to find that his entire fortune consisted of a subsistence pension!

‘He continued to run up debts for a
while, and we paid them off …' said Harry.

‘Then you stopped paying?'

‘Excuse me! I continued to pay an
allowance of five thousand francs a month …'

Maigret sensed that he hadn't got to
the bottom of things yet. He felt a vague unease that he expressed in a forthright
question:

‘What did you come to discuss with
your father, a few days before he died?'

Maigret scrutinized Brown carefully, but
in vain. He was unperturbed and replied in his usual straightforward fashion:

‘Despite everything, he still had
rights, didn't he? … He fought the ruling for fifteen years … It was a
big trial back home … Five lawyers who worked on this case exclusively … And
while it went on we were in a state of limbo that prevented us from carrying out certain
large undertakings …'

‘One moment … On one side,
your father, living all alone in France and represented by lawyers in Australia who
defended his interests.'

‘Lawyers of
dubious reputation …'

‘Quite! … In the other camp,
your mother, your uncle, your two brothers and you.'

‘Yes!' He spoke in
English.

‘And what were you offering your
father to drop out of circulation completely?'

‘A million!'

‘In other words, he would be better
off, since the pension you paid him was worth less than the interest on that lump sum,
properly invested … Why would he say no?'

‘To get under our skin!'

Harry said this in a soft voice. He
probably didn't know that the words sounded somewhat incongruous in his mouth.

‘He was obsessed … He
wouldn't leave us in peace …'

‘So he said no …'

‘Yes! And he told me that he had
made arrangements so that, even after his death, our problems would continue
…'

‘What sort of problems?'

‘The trial! Back home, it was
causing a lot of damage …'

Was there any need for further
explanation? He only needed to imagine the Liberty Bar, Jaja, a half-naked Sylvie,
William bringing provisions … Or the villa and the two Martini women, the young
one and the old one, and the old car in which he drove them to the market …

Then to look at Harry Brown, who
represented the opposing principles, order, virtue, justice, with his slicked-back hair,
his smart suit, his calm composure, his somewhat distant politeness, his secretaries
…

‘To get under our skin!'

William became more alive to him now! For
so long
of the same mould as his son, as all the others
back
home
, he had made a break with order, virtue and good breeding …

He had become the enemy and had purely and
simply been dismissed from the family …

He dug in, of course. He knew that he
would not win the case! He knew that he would henceforth always be the outcast!

But he would get under their skin!

He would be capable of anything to do that
– get under the skin of his wife, his brother-in-law, his children, who had disowned
him, who continued to work to make money, always more money …

‘With his death,' Harry calmly
explained, ‘the trial would fizzle out, and all the problems and all the
scandalous stories that the nasty people back home fed upon …'

‘Obviously!'

‘So he drew up a will … He
couldn't disinherit his wife and children … But he could dispose of part of
his fortune … And do you know to whom he bequeathed it? … Four women
…'

Maigret almost burst out laughing. In any
case, he couldn't prevent himself smiling at the thought of the two Martinis,
mother and daughter, and Jaja and Sylvie arriving in Australia to defend their rights
…

‘Is that the will that you have in
your hand?'

It was a full document, properly drawn up
in the presence of a notary.

‘That's what my father was
referring to when he said that, even after his death, this story would not go away
…'

‘Do you know the
terms of the will?'

‘As late as this morning I knew
nothing at all … When I returned to the Provençal, after the funeral, there was a
man waiting for me …'

‘Was his name Joseph?'

‘Some sort of waiter … He
showed me a copy … He told me that, if I wanted to buy the original, I only had to
go to a hotel in Cannes and bring twenty thousand francs … This type of person is
not in the habit of lying …'

Maigret had adopted a stern demeanour.

‘In other words, you were prepared
to destroy a will! There was even an attempt …'

Brown looked just as unperturbed as
before.

‘I know what I'm doing!'
he said calmly. ‘And I know that these women are …'

He stood up, glanced at Maigret's
full glass.

‘You're not
drinking?'

‘No, thank you.'

‘I'm sure any court would
recognize …'

‘That the gang back home must come
out on top …'

What had impelled Maigret to say that? The
desire to blunder onwards and be damned?

Harry Brown didn't turn a hair.
Walking to the door of the bedroom, where the tapping of the typewriter continued
unabated, he said:

‘The document is intact … I
leave it with you … I'll stay here until …'

The door opened and the secretary
announced:

‘It's London on the line
…'

He had the phone in his
hand. Brown grabbed it and started talking volubly in English.

Maigret took the opportunity to leave,
with the will. He pressed the lift button, but to no effect, so he ended up taking the
stairs, repeating to himself as he descended:

‘No dramas!'

Downstairs, Inspector Boutigues was
drinking port with the manager. Two large cut-crystal tasting glasses. And the bottle
close to hand!

Boutigues skipped along at
Maigret's side, and they had barely gone twenty metres when he announced:

‘I've just made a discovery!
… I've known the manager here for ages, and he oversees the Hôtel du Cap, in
Cap Ferrat, which is part of the same chain …'

They had just left the Provençal. Before
them, in the dark, the sea was nothing but a pool of black ink with barely a ripple on
it.

To the right, the lights of Cannes. To the
left, those of Nice. And Boutigues pointed with his hand to the darkness beyond these
swarms of fireflies.

‘Do you know Cap Ferrat? …
Between Nice and Monte Carlo …'

Maigret did. He had now more or less
worked out the Côte d'Azur: one long boulevard starting in Cannes and ending in
Menton, a boulevard sixty kilometres long, with villas and the occasional casino, a
handful of luxury hotels …

The famous blue sea … The mountains
… And all the attractions promised by the tourist guides: orange trees, mimosas,
sun, palm trees, stone pines, tennis, golf, tea rooms and American bars …

‘And what did you
discover?'

‘Yes, well. Harry Brown has a
mistress on the Côte! The manager has spotted her numerous times in Cap Ferrat,
where he visits her … A woman around thirty, widowed or
divorced, very proper, by all accounts, whom he has set up in a villa …'

Was Maigret listening? He was looking at
the impressive night-time panorama with a grumpy expression. Boutigues continued:

‘He goes to see her about once a
month … And it's a running joke at the Hôtel du Cap because he goes through
a whole rigmarole to attempt to hide his affair … To the extent that, whenever he
spends the night with her, he comes back in via the service stairs and then makes out
that he's not been out at all …'

‘Very amusing!' said Maigret,
so half-heartedly that Boutigues felt quite discouraged.

‘Do you want him put under
surveillance?'

‘No … yes …'

‘Are you going to pay a visit to the
lady in Cap Ferrat?'

Maigret didn't know! He
couldn't think of three dozen things at the same time, and at the moment he
wasn't thinking about Harry Brown, but about William. In Place Macé he lightly
squeezed his companion's hand and hopped into a taxi.

‘Follow the Cap d'Antibes
road. I'll tell you where to stop.'

And he repeated to himself, all alone in
the back of the taxi:

‘William Brown was
murdered!'

The small gate, the gravel path, then the
bell, an electric light coming on above the door, footsteps in the hall, the door
opening …

‘It's
you,' Gina Martini sighed when she recognized the inspector and then stepped back
to allow him to enter.

A man's voice could be heard in the
living room.

‘Come in … Allow me to explain
…'

The man was standing up, with a notebook
in his hand, and half the old woman's body had disappeared inside a cupboard.

‘Monsieur Petitfils … We asked
him to come in order to …'

Monsieur Petitfils was a thin man with a
long, drooping moustache and tired-looking eyes.

‘He is the manager of one of the
principal letting agencies for villas … We called him for some advice and
…'

Still that same smell of musk. The two
women had taken off their mourning clothes and were wearing dressing gowns and
slippers.

The place was a mess. Was the light even
dimmer than usual? Everything looked a dull grey. The old woman emerged from her
cupboard, greeted Maigret and explained:

‘Since I saw those two women at the
funeral, I haven't felt at ease … So I approached Monsieur Petitfils to ask
his advice … He agrees with me that it would be best to draw up an inventory
…'

‘An inventory of what?'

‘Of the objects that belonged to us
and those that belonged to William … We have been at it since two o'clock
this afternoon …'

That much was clear!
There were piles of linen on the tables, disparate objects scattered on the ground,
stacks of books, more linen in baskets …

And Monsieur Petitfils took some notes and
put crosses next to certain objects on his list.

What had Maigret come here for? It
wasn't Brown's villa any more, so there was no point in looking for his
memory here. They were clearing out the cupboards, the drawers, piling everything up,
sorting, logging.

‘As for the stove, that has always
belonged to me,' said the old woman. ‘I had it twenty years ago, in my
lodgings in Toulouse.'

‘Can I offer you anything,
inspector?' asked Gina.

There was one dirty glass: that of the
businessman. As he wrote his notes, he was smoking one of Brown's cigars.

‘No, thank you … I just came
by to say …'

To say what?

‘… that I hope to arrest the
murderer tomorrow …'

‘Already?'

They weren't that interested.
Instead, the old woman asked him:

‘You must have been to see the son,
is that right? … What did he say? … What is he planning to do? … Does
he intend to come and take everything away from us?'

‘I don't know … I
don't think so …'

‘It would be a disgrace! People as
rich as they are! But then they are usually the ones who …'

The old woman was in a genuine state. The
worry was eating away at her. She looked at all the old stuff lying
about the room and felt a terrible anguish at the thought of losing it.

And Maigret had his hand on his wallet.
All he had to do was open it, take out a little slip of paper and show it to the two
women …

Would they dance for joy? Would the joy be
too much for the old woman and be the end of her?

Millions and millions! Millions they
couldn't yet get their hands on, of course, and that they would have to go to
Australia to acquire by means of legal action!

But they would go! He could picture them
sailing off, disembarking from the steamship over there with their noses in the air.