The Hotel Majestic (16 page)

The operation was carried out with such brutal effectiveness that even an ancient antique dealer, rotting away at the back of his dark little shop like a mole, came to the door, dragging his feet over the floorboards.

It was a few minutes to six. The dingy shops in the Rue des Saints-Pères were feebly lit, and outside in the street there lingered a bluish twilight.

The police car shot round the corner with enough blasts on the horn to unnerve all the antique dealers and little shopkeepers in the street.

Then, with a squeal of brakes, it drew into the kerb, as three men jumped out, looking purposeful, as if summoned by an emergency call.

Maigret walked up to the door, alone, just as the pale, terrified face of a shop assistant came and glued itself to the glass, like a transfer. An inspector went up the side alley-way to check that the shop had no other entrance, and the policeman who remained on the pavement outside looked more like a caricature than a real inspector, with his large drooping moustache and baleful, suspicious eyes, for which reason he had been purposely chosen by Maigret.

In the shop, whose walls were hung with Persian carpets, giving it an air of opulent tranquillity, the assistant tried to appear calm.

“Did you want to see Monsieur Atoum? . . . I'll see if he's in . . .”

But the superintendent had already brushed the poor creature aside. He had spotted a glow of reddish light, coming from an opening in the carpets at the back of the shop, and could hear the murmur of voices. He found himself on the threshold of a small room, no bigger than a tent made of four carpets and furnished with a sofa covered with bright leather cushions, and a table inlaid with mother-of-pearl on which were cups of Turkish coffee.

A man had stood up and was about to leave, and seemed as ill at ease as the clerk. Another man was lying on the sofa smoking a gold-tipped cigarette, and said a few words in a foreign tongue.

“Monsieur Atoum, I believe? . . . Superintendent Maigret of the Judicial Police . . .”

The visitor hurriedly departed and there was a slam as the door of the shop closed behind him. Maigret sat himself composedly on the edge of the sofa, examining the little Turkish coffee cups with interest.

“Don't you recognize me, Monsieur Atoum? . . . We spent a whole half day together once, let me see . . . my goodness, it must be nearly eight years ago now . . . A splendid journey! . . . The Vosges, Alsace! If I remember rightly, we parted company near a frontier-post . . .”

Atoum was fat, but had a young face and magnificent eyes. He was richly dressed, with rings on his fingers, and heavily scented, and reclined rather than sat on the sofa. The small room, lit by a mock alabaster lamp, seemed more like something in an Oriental bazaar than a Parisian street.

“Let me see—what was it you had done on that occasion? . . . Nothing much, as far as I can remember . . . But as your papers weren't in order, the French Government thought it would be a good idea to offer you a little trip to the border . . . You came back that evening, of course, but appearances were saved and I think you then found protection . . .”

Atoum seemed quite unperturbed by all this, and remained staring at Maigret with cat-like calm.

“After that you became a banker, because in France you don't necessarily have to have a clean slate to handle people's money . . . You've had various little difficulties since, Monsieur Atoum . . .”

“May I be allowed to ask, superintendent . . .”

“What I'm doing here, you mean? Well, frankly, I don't know. I've got a car and men outside. We may all go for a little ride . . .”

Atoum's hand remained perfectly steady, as he lit a cigarette, having offered one to Maigret, who refused.

“Or I could go peacefully off, leaving you here . . .”

“Depending on what?”

“The way you answer one small question . . . I know how discreet you are, so I've taken a few precautions to help you overcome this, as it were . . . When you were a banker, you had a clerk who was your right-hand man, your trusted confidant—you note I don't say accomplice— called Jean Ramuel . . . Well—I'd like to know why you parted with such a trusted helper, why, to be more precise, you booted him out? . . .”

There was a long silence while Atoum reflected.

“You're mistaken, superintendent . . . I didn't get rid of Ramuel; he left of his own accord, for reasons of health, I think it was . . .”

Maigret got up.

“Too bad! In that case it'll have to be the first alternative . . . If you'd be good enough to come with me, Monsieur Atoum . . .”

“Where are you going to take me?”

“Back to the border . . .”

A smile hovered over the oriental's lips.

“But we'll try a different border this time . . . I think I'd like to make a little trip to Italy . . . I'm told that you left that country in undue haste and that you forgot to carry out a five-year sentence for forgery and passing counterfeit cheques . . . So . . .”

“Sit down, superintendent . . .”

“You think it won't be necessary for me to get up again in a hurry, then?”

“What do you want with Ramuel?”

“Perhaps to give him his deserts. What do you think?”

And changing his tone abruptly: “Come, Atoum! I've no time to waste today . . . I have no doubt Ramuel's got a hold over you . . .”

“I admit that if he were to talk inadvisedly, he could cause me a great deal of trouble. Banking affairs are complex. He would stick his nose into everything . . . I wonder if I wouldn't do better to choose Italy . . . Unless you can give me some assurance . . . That if, for example, he speaks of certain things, you won't pay any attention to them, since that's all in the past and I'm now an honest businessman . . .”

“It's within the realm of possibility . . .”

“In that case I can tell you that Ramuel and I parted company after a somewhat stormy exchange of words . . . I had discovered, in fact, that he was working in my bank on his own behalf, and that he had committed a number of forgeries . . .”

“I suppose you kept the documents?”

Atoum batted his eyelids, and confessed in a whisper: “But he has kept others, you see, so . . .”

“So you've got a mutual hold over each other . . . Well, Atoum, I want you to give me those documents immediately . . .”

He still hesitated. Italian or French prison? He finally got up, and lifted the hanging behind the sofa, revealing a little safe set in the wall, which he opened.

“Here are some bills of exchange on which Ramuel copied, not only my signature, but also that of two of my customers . . . If you find a little red book among his things, in which I noted various transactions, I would be grateful if you . . .”

And, as he crossed the shop after Maigret, he hesitated a moment and then, pointing to a magnificent Kerman carpet: “I wonder if Madame Maigret would like that design . . .”

It was half past eight when Maigret walked into the Coupole and made for the part of the vast room where dinner was being served. He was alone, his hands in his pockets, as usual, and his bowler on the back of his head. He seemed to have nothing on his mind except looking for a free table.

Then he suddenly saw a small man already installed with a grill and a half of beer in front of him.

“Hello, Lucas! . . . Is this place free?”

He sat down at Lucas's table, smiling in anticipation at the thought of his dinner and then got up to give his coat to a waiter. An aggressive and common-looking woman sitting at the table next to him, with a half lobster of impressive dimensions, shouted in a disagreeable voice: “Waiter! . . . Bring some fresh mayonnaise . . . This smells of soap . . .”

Maigret turned towards her, and then to the man at her side, and said with a show of genuine astonishment: “Why—Monsieur Ramuel! . . . What a coincidence meeting you here! . . . Would you do me the honour of introducing? . . .”

“My wife . . . Superintendent Maigret, of the Judicial Police . . .”

“Delighted to meet you, superintendent . . .”

“Steak and chips, and a large beer, please, waiter!”

He glanced at Ramuel's plate, and saw that he was eating some noodles, without butter or cheese.

“Do you know what I think?” he said suddenly, in a friendly tone of voice. “It seems to me, Monsieur Ramuel, that you've always been unlucky . . . It struck me the first time I saw you . . . There are some people for whom nothing will go right, and I've noticed that it is just those same people who on top of all that fall prey to the most disagreeable illnesses and accidents . . .”

“He'll use what you say as an excuse for his horrible nature!” interrupted Marie Deligeard, sniffing the new mayonnaise she had just been brought.

“You're intelligent, well educated and hard-working,” continued the superintendent, “and you should have made your fortune ten times over . . . And the strange thing is, that you nearly succeeded several times in gaining a marvellous position for yourself . . . In Cairo, for instance . . . Then in Ecuador . . . Each time, you had a rapid success, and then had to go right back to the beginning again . . . What happens when you get an excellent job in a bank? . . . You are unlucky enough to land up with a crooked banker—Atoum—and are obliged to leave . . .”

The people dining at the neighbouring tables had no idea what they were talking about. Maigret spoke in a cheerful, friendly tone of voice and attacked his steak with relish, while Lucas kept his nose buried in his plate and Ramuel appeared to be preoccupied with his noodles.

“In fact, I wasn't expecting to meet you here, in the Boulevard Montparnasse, as I thought you'd already be on the train to Brussels . . .”

Ramuel said nothing, but his face became even more yellow, and his fingers tightened on his fork. His companion shouted at him: “What? Hey—you were going to Brussels and hadn't said anything to me about it? What's up, Jean? . . . Another woman, eh?”

And Maigret said blandly: “I assure you, Madame, that it's got nothing to do with a woman . . . Don't worry . . . But your husband . . . I mean your friend . . .”

“You can call him my husband . . . I don't know what he's told you on that score, but we're well and truly married . . . I can prove . . .”

She fumbled frantically in her bag and pulled out a tightly folded, torn and faded bit of paper.

“There you are! . . . It's our marriage certificate . . .”

The text was in Spanish, and it was covered in Ecuadorian stamps and seals.

“Answer me, Jean! . . . What were you going to Brussels for?”

“But . . . I had no intention . . .”

“Come, Monsieur Ramuel . . . Forgive me—I had no intention of causing a family row . . . When I learnt that you had taken nearly all your money out of the bank and had asked for a cheque for two hundred and eighty thousand francs, to be drawn on Brussels . . .”

Maigret hurriedly bit into a mouthful of deliciously crisp chips, because he was having difficulty not to smile. A foot had been placed on his, and he realised it was Ramuel's—silently begging him to be quiet.

It was too late. Forgetting her lobster, forgetting the dozens of people dining round them, Marie Deligeard, or Madame Ramuel rather, if the bit of paper could be believed, shrieked: “Did you say two hundred and eighty thousand francs? . . . Do you mean he had two hundred and eighty thousand francs in the bank and kept me short? . . .”

Maigret looked pointedly at the lobster and half-bottle of twenty-five-franc Riesling . . .

“Answer me, Jean! . . . Is it true? . . .”

“I've no idea what the superintendent's talking about . . .”

“You've got a bank account?”

“I repeat, I haven't got a bank account, and if I did have two hundred and eighty thousand francs . . .”

“What do you mean by saying that, then, superintendent?”

“I'm so sorry, madame, to upset you like this. I thought you knew about it, that your husband hid nothing from you . . .”

“Now I understand!”

“What do you understand?”

“His attitude, recently . . . He was too kind . . . Fawning on me . . . But I thought it didn't seem natural . . . It was all part of the plan, wasn't it?”

People were turning to stare at them in amusement, because all this could be heard at least three tables away.

“Marie! . . .” Ramuel begged.

“You were making your pile in secret, were you, and letting me go without, while you got ready to leave . . . One fine day you'd have left, just like that! . . . I'd find myself all alone in a flat with the rent not even paid! . . . None of that, my little lad! . . . You've tried to sneak away twice already, but you know perfectly well it didn't work . . . You're sure there's no woman tucked away somewhere, superintendent? . . .”

“Look, superintendent, don't you think it would be better if we continued this conversation somewhere else? . . .”

“No, no. Not a bit!” Maigret sighed. “Besides . . . I'd like . . . Waiter! . . .”

He pointed to the silver dish with a domed cover, which was being wheeled on a trolley between the tables.

“What have you got in your machine there?”

“A side of beef . . .”

“Good! Give me a slice, will you? A little beef, Lucas? . . . And some chips, please, waiter . . .”

“Take away my lobster—it's not fresh!” Ramuel's companion interrupted. “Give me the same as the superintendent . . . So the dirty beast had money tucked away all the time, and . . .”