The Hotel Majestic (6 page)

As soon as he got upstairs, he paid his bill and rushed across the street to the bar opposite, a café frequented by employees from all the nightclubs in the district.

“The telephone, please . . .”

He got on to the exchange.

“Judicial Police, here. Someone from the Pélican will probably ask you for a Cannes number. Don't connect them too quickly . . . Wait till I get to you . . .”

He leapt into a taxi. Rushed to the telephone exchange and made himself known to the night supervisor.

“Give me some headphones . . . Have they asked for Cannes?”

“Yes, a minute ago . . . I found out whose number it was . . . It's the Brasserie des Artistes, which stays open all night . . . Shall I put them through?”

Maigret put on the headphones and waited. Some of the telephone girls, also wearing headphones, stared at him curiously.

“I'm putting you through to Cannes 18-43, Mademoiselle . . .”

“Thank you . . . Hello! The Brasserie des Artistes? . . . Who's speaking? . . . Is that you, Jean? . . . It's Charlotte here . . . Yes! . . . Charlotte from the Belle Étoile . . . Wait . . . I'll shut the door . . . I think there's someone . . .”

They heard her talking, probably to a customer. Then the sound of a door being shut.

“Listen, Jean dear . . . It's very important . . . I'll write and explain . . . No, I don't think I'd better! It's too risky . . . I'll come and see you later, when it's all over . . . Is Gigi still there? What? Still the same . . . You must be sure to tell her that if anyone questions her about Mimi . . . You remember? . . . Oh no, you weren't there then . . . Well, if she's asked anything at all about her . . . Yes! She knows nothing! . . . And she must be particularly careful not to say anything about Prosper . . .”

“Prosper who?” asked Jean on the other end of the line.

“Never you mind . . . She doesn't know anyone called Prosper, do you hear me? . . . Or Mimi . . . Hello! Are you there . . . Is there someone else on the line? . . .”

Maigret realized that she was scared, that it had perhaps occurred to her that someone was listening to the conversation.

“You understand, Jean dear? . . . I can rely on you? . . . I'm hanging up because there's someone . . .”

Maigret also took off his headphones, and relit his pipe, which had gone out.

“Did you learn what you wanted to know?” asked the supervisor.

“Indeed, yes . . . Get me the Gare de Lyon . . . I must find out what time there's a train for Cannes . . . Provided I've got . . .”

He looked at his dinner-jacket in irritation. Provided he had time to . . .

“Hello! . . . What did you say? . . . Seventeen minutes past four? . . . And I get there at two in the afternoon? . . . Thank you . . .”

Just time to hurry back to the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and to laugh at Madame Maigret's ill humour.

“Quick, my suit . . . A shirt . . . Socks . . .”

At seventeen minutes past four he was in the Riviera express, sitting opposite a woman who had a horrible pekinese on her lap and who kept looking sideways at Maigret, as though suspecting him of not liking dogs.

At about the same time, Charlotte was getting into a taxi, as she did each night. The driver dealt mostly with customers from the Pélican and took her home free.

At five, Prosper Donge heard a car door slamming, the sound of the engine, footsteps, the key in the door.

But he didn't hear the usual “Pfffttt” of the gas in the kitchen. Without pausing on the ground floor, Charlotte rushed upstairs and banged the door open, panting: “Prosper! . . . Listen! Don't pretend to be asleep . . . The superintendent . . .”

Before she could explain, she had to undo her bra and take off her girdle, so that her stockings were left dangling round her legs.

“Look, it's serious! Well get up then! . . . Do you think it's easy talking to a man who just lies there! . . .”

For the next three hours, Maigret had the unpleasant feeling that he was floundering in a sort of no man's land between dream and reality. Perhaps it was his fault? Until after Lyons, as far as about Montélimar, the train had rolled through a tunnel of mist. The woman with the little dog, opposite the superintendent, didn't budge from her seat, and there were no empty compartments.

Maigret couldn't get comfortable. It was too hot. If he opened the window, it was too cold. So he had gone along to the restaurant car and, to cheer himself up, had drunk some of everything—coffee, then brandy and then beer.

At about eleven, feeling sick, he told himself he'd feel better if he ate something and ordered some ham and eggs, which were no improvement on the rest.

He was suffering from his sleepless night, the long hours in the train; he was in a very bad temper in fact. After leaving Marseilles, he fell asleep in his corner, with his mouth open, and started awake, stupid with surprise, when he heard Cannes announced.

There was mimosa everywhere, under a brilliant July 14 sun, on the engines, on the carriages, on the station railings. And crowds of holidaymakers in light clothes, the men in white trousers . . .

Dozens of them were pouring out of a local train, wearing peaked caps, with brass instruments under their arms. He was hardly out of the station before he ran into another band, already rending the air with martial notes.

It was an orgy of light, sound, colour. With flags, banners and oriflammes flying on all sides, and everywhere, the golden yellow mimosa, filling the whole town with its all-pervading, sweetish scent.

“Excuse me, sergeant,” he asked a festive-looking policeman, “can you tell me what it's all about?”

The man looked at him as though he had landed from the moon.

“Not heard of the Battle of Flowers?”

Other brass bands were winding through the streets, making for the sea, which could be seen from time to time, lying, pastel blue, at the end of a street.

Later he remembered a little girl dressed as a pierrette, being dragged hurriedly along by her mother, probably in order to get a good place for the pageant. There would have been nothing unusual about it if the little girl hadn't worn a strange mask over her face, with a long nose, red cheeks and drooping Chinese moustache. Trotting along on her chubby little legs . . .

He had no need to ask the way. Going down a quiet street towards the Croisette he saw a sign: BRASSERIE DES ARTISTES. A door farther on: HOTEL. And he saw at a glance what kind of hotel it was.

He went in. Four men dressed in black, with rigid bow ties and white dickeys, were playing
belote
, while waiting to go and take up their positions as croupiers in the casino. By the window, there was a girl eating sauerkraut. The waiter was wiping the tables. A young man, who looked as though he was the proprietor, was reading a newspaper behind the bar. And from outside, from far and near, on all sides, came echoes of the brass bands, and a stale whiff of mimosa, dust kicked up by the feet of the crowd, shouts and the honking of hooters . . .

“A half!” grunted Maigret, at last able to take off his heavy overcoat.

He found it almost embarrassing to be as darkly clad as the croupiers.

He had exchanged glances with the proprietor as soon as he came in.

“Tell me, Monsieur Jean . . .”

And Monsieur Jean was clearly thinking . . .

“That one's probably a cop . . .”

“Have you had this bar a long time?”

“I took it over nearly three years ago . . . Why?”

“And before that?”

“If it's of any interest to you, I was barman at the Café de la Paix, in Monte Carlo . . .”

Barely a hundred metres away, along the Croisette, were the luxury hotels: the Carlton, the Miramar, the Martinez, and others . . .

It was clear that the Brasserie des Artistes was a back-stage prop, as it were, to the more fashionable scene. The whole street was the same in fact, with dry-cleaning shops, hairdressers, drivers' bistros, little businesses in the shadow of the grand hotels.

“The bar's open all night, is it?”

“All night, yes . . .”

Not for the winter visitors, but for the casino and hotel staff, dancers, hostesses, bellboys, hotel touts, go-betweens of all kinds, pimps, tipsters, or nightclub bouncers.

“Anything else you want to know?” Monsieur Jean asked curtly.

“I'd like you to tell me where I can find someone called Gigi . . .”

“Gigi? . . . Don't know her . . .”

The woman eating sauerkraut was watching them wearily. The croupiers got up: it was nearly three o'clock.

“Look, Monsieur Jean . . . Have you ever had any trouble over fruit machines or anything like that? . . .”

“What's that to do with you?”

“I ask because if you've ever been convicted, the case will be much more serious . . . Charlotte's a good sort . . . She telephones her friends to ask their help, but forgets to tell them what it's about . . . So if one has a business like yours, if one's already been in a spot of trouble once or twice, one generally doesn't want to become incriminated . . . Well—I'll telephone the vice squad and I'm sure they won't have any difficulty telling me where I can find Gigi . . . Have you got a token?”

He had got up, begun walking towards the telephone booth.

“Excuse me! You spoke of becoming incriminated . . . Is it serious?”

“Well, a murder's involved . . . if a superintendent from the special squad comes down from Paris, you can take it . . .”

“Just a minute, superintendent . . . Do you really want to see Gigi?”

“I've come more than a thousand kilometres to do so . . .”

“Come with me then! But I must warn you that she won't be able to tell you very much . . . Do you know her? . . . She's useless for two days out of three . . . When she's found some dope, I mean, if you get me? . . . Well, yesterday . . .”

“Yesterday, it so happened that, after Charlotte's telephone call, she found some, didn't she? Where is she?”

“This way . . . She's got a room somewhere in town, but last night she was incapable of walking . . .”

A door led to the staircase of the hotel. The proprietor pointed to a room on the landing.

“Someone for you, Gigi!” he shouted.

And he waited at the top of the stairs until Maigret had shut the door. Then went back to his counter, shrugged, and picked up his newspaper, looking a little worried despite himself.

 

 

The closed curtains let in only a luminous glow. The room was in a mess. A woman lay on the iron bed, with her clothes on, her hair awry, her face buried in the pillow. She began asking in a thick voice: “. . . d'you want?”

Then a very bleary eye appeared.

“. . . been here before?”

Pinched nostrils. A wax-like complexion. Gigi was thin, angular, brown as a prune.

“. . . time is it? . . . Aren't you going to get undressed? . . .” She propped herself up on one elbow to drink some water, and stared at Maigret, making a visible effort to pull herself together, and, seeing him sitting gravely on a chair by her bed, asked: “You the doctor? . . .”

“What did Monsieur Jean tell you, last night?”

“Jean? . . . Jean's all right . . . He gave me . . . But what business is it of yours?”

“Yes, I know. He gave you some snow . . . Lie down again . . . And he spoke to you about Mimi and Prosper.”

The bands still blaring outside, coming closer and then dying away, and still the stale scent of mimosa, with its own indefinable smell.

“Good old Prosper! . . .”

She spoke as if she were half asleep. Her voice occasionally took on a childish note. Then she suddenly screwed up her eyes and her brow became furrowed as if she were in violent pain. Her mouth was slack.

“You got some, then?”

She wanted some more of the drug. And Maigret had the unpleasant feeling that he was extracting secrets from someone who was sick and delirious.

“You were fond of Prosper, weren't you?”

“. . . He's not like other people . . . He's too good . . . He shouldn't have fallen for a woman like Mimi, but that's always the way . . . Do you know him?”

Come on now! Make an effort. Wasn't that what he, Maigret, was there for?

“It was when he was at the Miramar, wasn't it? . . . There were three of you dancing at the Belle Étoile . . . Mimi, Charlotte and you . . .”

She stuttered solemnly: “You mustn't say unkind things about Charlotte . . . She's a good girl . . . And she was in love with Prosper . . . If he'd listened to me . . .”

“I suppose you met at the café, after work . . . Prosper was Mimi's lover . . .”

“He was besotted, he was so much in love with her . . . Poor Prosper! . . . And afterwards, when she . . .”

She sat up suddenly, suspicious: “Is it true that you're a friend of Prosper's?”

“When she had a baby, you mean? . . .”

“Who told you that? I was the only person she wrote to about it . . . But it didn't start like that . . .”

She was listening to the music, which was drawing nearer once more.

“What's that?”

“Nothing . . .”

The flower-decked wagons filing along the Croisette as guns were fired to announce the start. The blazing sun, calm sea, motorboats cutting circles through the water and small yachts gracefully swooping . . .

“Are you sure you haven't got any? . . . You won't go and ask Jean for some? . . .”