My Friend Maigret (18 page)

“Your Montparnasse friends, de Greef, will emphasize that you are talented. You will be represented as a fantastic, misunderstood being.

“People will also talk about the two slim volumes of verse which Moricourt has had published.”

It may be imagined how delighted the latter was to see a good point awarded him at last!

“The reporters will go and interview the judge at Groningen, and Madame de Moricourt at Saumur. The gutter press will laugh at Mrs. Wilcox and no doubt her embassy will make representations for her name to be mentioned as seldom as possible.”

He drank half a glass of beer at a gulp and went and sat on the window sill, his back turned to the sunny square.

“De Greef will remain silent, because it's in his temperament, because he's not afraid.”

“And I'll talk?” sneered Philippe.

“You'll talk. Because you're a drip through and through, because in the eyes of the world, you'll be the nasty piece of work, because you'll try to worm your way out of it, because you're a coward and you'll convince yourself that by talking you'll save your precious skin.”

De Greef turned to his companion, an indefinable smile on his lips.

“You'll talk, tomorrow probably, when you find several hefty chaps, in a real police station, questioning you with their fists. You don't like being hit, Phillippe.”

“They haven't the right.”

“Nor have you the right to swindle a poor woman who no longer knows what she's doing.”

“Or who knows only too well! It's because she's got money that you go to her defense.”

Maigret didn't even have to advance toward him for him to lift up his hands again.

“You'll talk all the more when you see that de Greef has a better chance of getting off than you have.”

“He was on the island.”

“He had an alibi, as well. If you were with the old woman, he was with Anna…”

“Anna will say…”

“Will say what?”

“Nothing.”

Lunch had begun at the Arche. Jojo cannot have remained altogether silent, or else people could smell something in the air, for silhouettes could be seen from time to time roving round the town hall.

Presently there would be a whole crowd.

“I've a good mind to leave the two of you alone. What do you think, Mr. Pyke? With someone to watch them, of course, or otherwise we'd risk finding them in small pieces. Will you stay, Lechat?”

The latter went and settled himself, his elbows on the table, and, for want of an apéritif or a white wine, poured himself a glass of beer.

Maigret and his British colleague found themselves outside once more in the sun, which was at its hottest, and strolled a few yards in silence.

“Are you disappointed, Mr. Pyke?” asked the chief inspector finally, watching him from the corner of his eye.

“Why?”

“I don't know. You came to France to find out our methods and you discover there are none. Moricourt will talk. I could have made him talk straightaway.”

“By employing the method you spoke of?”

“That one or another. Whether he talks or not, it's of no real importance. He'll retract. He'll confess again, then retract again. You'll see doubt being insinuated into the minds of the jury. The two lawyers will argue like cat and dog, each whitening his own client, each placing the entire responsibility on his colleague's client.”

They didn't need to raise themselves on tiptoe to see the two young men, through the town-hall window, sitting on their chairs. On the terrace of the Arche, Charlot was eating his lunch, with his girlfriend on his right, and on his left Ginette, who seemed to be explaining from afar to the chief inspector that she hadn't been able to refuse the invitation.

“It's more pleasant to deal with professionals.”

Perhaps he was thinking of Charlot.

“But those are seldom the ones who kill. Real crimes occur partly by accident. These lads started by playing, without attempting to find out where it was leading them. It was almost like a good joke. To unload pictures signed with famous names on a dotty old woman, worth thousands! And then one fine morning some odd character called Marcellin climbs onto the deck of the boat at an inopportune moment…”

“Do you feel sorry for them?”

Maigret shrugged, without replying.

“You'll see how the psychiatrists will discuss their respective degrees of responsibility.”

Mr. Pyke, screwing up his eyes on account of the sun, gazed at length at his colleague, as though he were trying to plumb his thoughts, then said simply:

“Ah!”

The chief inspector didn't ask whether he had just arrived at a conclusion. He spoke of something else, asking:

“Do you like the Mediterranean, Mr. Pyke?”

And as Mr. Pyke, hesitating, was preparing his answer, he went on:

“I wonder whether the air isn't too strong for me. We shall probably be able to get off this evening.”

The white church tower had become set against the sky, at once hard and transparent. The mayor, intrigued, was looking in from outside through the window of his hall. What was Charlot doing? He could be seen rising from his table and setting off hurriedly for the harbor.

Maigret watched him for a moment, frowning, then grunted:

“As long as…”

He rushed off in the same direction, followed by Mr. Pyke, who didn't understand.

When they arrived within sight of the jetty, Charlot was already on the deck of the small yacht, ironically christened:

Flower of Love
.

He paused for a moment, leaning on the rail, examining the interior, disappeared, then returned to the deck carrying someone in his arms.

When the two men arrived in their turn, Anna was stretched out on the deck, and Charlot, without any shame, took off her sunsuit, laying bare in the sun a full and heavy bosom.

“Didn't it occur to you?” he said, bitterly.

“Veronal?”

“There's an empty tube on the cabin floor.”

There were five, then ten, then a whole crowd round the body of Mademoiselle Bebelmans. The island doctor came up slowly, and said in a broken voice:

“I've brought an emetic, in case there's a chance.”

Mrs. Wilcox was on the deck of her yacht, accompanied by one of her sailors, and they were handing a pair of binoculars to one another.

“So you see, Mr. Pyke, I make mistakes as well. She realized that de Greef had nothing to fear except her evidence and she was afraid of talking.”

 

He pushed through the crowd that had gathered in front of the town hall. Lechat had closed the window. The two young men were still in their places, the bottles of beer on the table.

Maigret started to prowl up and down the room like a bear, stopped in front of Philippe de Moricourt, and, suddenly, without any warning whatever, this time without the young man having time to protect himself, he struck him full in the face with his hand.

It relieved him. In an almost calm voice, he murmured:

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Pyke.”

Then to de Greef, who was watching him and trying to understand:

“Anna is dead.”

He didn't bother to question them that day. He tried not to see the coffin which was still in its corner, the famous coffin of old Benoît, which had already been used for Marcellin and which was to be used for the young girl from Ostend.

Ironically, Benoît's hirsute head, well in evidence, was distinguishable among the crowd.

Lechat and the two men, handcuffed by their wrists, set off for Giens Point in a fishing boat.

Maigret and Mr. Pyke took the
Cormorant
at five o'clock, and Ginette was there, likewise Charlot and his dancing girl, and all the trippers who had spent the day on the beaches of the island.

The
North Star
was riding at anchor at the harbor entrance. Maigret, scowling, was smoking his pipe and as his lips moved, Mr. Pyke leaned toward him to ask:

“I beg your pardon? You were saying?”

“I said: dirty wretches!”

With which he quickly turned away his head and gazed into the depths of the water.