The Misty Harbour (16 page)

‘Grandmaison heard the noise,
thought someone was after him and got his revolver from the desk drawer.

‘What happened next … I
truly don't know, there was such confusion! Joris followed Grandmaison out to
the corridor, which was completely dark. A shot – and of all the bad luck, Joris was
hit!

‘I was beside myself with anguish.
I didn't want any scandal, especially for Hélène's sake. How could I
have told that whole story to the police!

‘Big Louis and I carried Joris
aboard the
Saint-Michel
. He needed medical attention, so we headed for
England and arrived there a few hours later. But we couldn't go ashore without
passports! There were police officers and watchmen on the quay.

‘I'd studied a little
medicine once upon a time and did my best for Joris on the ship, but it was nowhere
near
enough. We set out for Holland.
That's where the surgeons cleaned up the wound. The clinic could not keep him
there, however, without informing the authorities.

‘We sailed on, a ghastly voyage!
Can you imagine us all on the ship, and Joris at death's door? He needed weeks
of rest and care. I almost took him to Norway on the
Saint-Michel
, but then
we encountered a schooner bound for the Lofoten islands. I moved Joris with me to
that schooner; we were safer at sea than on land.

‘He stayed a week at home with me
in Tromsø. Again, though, people began to wonder who my mysterious guest was, and we
had to set out again. Copenhagen, Hamburg … Joris was getting better; the
wound had scarred over, but he'd lost his reason and was unable to speak.

‘What could I do with him, I ask
you? And wouldn't he stand a better chance of recovering his reason in his own
home, in familiar surroundings, instead of while running from pillar to post?

‘I wanted at least to secure his
material comfort. I sent three hundred thousand francs to his bank, signing his name
for deposit to his account.

‘I still had to get him home! It
was too risky for me to bring him here to Ouistreham myself. Releasing him in
Paris … Would that not bring him inevitably to the attention of the
police, who would identify him and send him home?

‘And that's what happened.
There was only one thing I couldn't have anticipated: that my cousin,
terrified that Joris might one day reveal who'd shot him, would do away with
the captain in that cowardly way.

‘Because he is the one who put the
strychnine in the
water carafe. He
simply went in the cottage through the back door when he was going off duck
hunting.'

‘And you got back to work,'
said Maigret slowly.

‘What else could I do! I wanted my
son! But now my cousin was on his guard. The boy was back at Stanislas, beyond my
reach.'

Maigret knew about that part. And now,
looking around at the setting he had come to know so well, he understood more
clearly what was at stake in the secret battle between the two men.

And not just between the two of them! A
struggle against
him
, Maigret!

The police had to be kept in the dark,
for neither one of the cousins could afford to tell the truth.

‘I came here on the
Saint-Michel
 …'

‘I know! And you sent Big Louis to
the mayor's house.'

Raymond couldn't help smiling as
the inspector went on.

‘A Big Louis primed for battle,
who took revenge on Grandmaison for all the powerful men who'd persecuted him!
He could pound him to his heart's content, knowing that his victim would never
let out a peep to the police. He must have forced him to write a letter authorizing
you to take the boy out of school.'

‘Yes. I was behind the villa with
your colleague on my heels. Big Louis left the letter in a pre-arranged spot, and I
shook off your man. I took a bicycle; I bought a car in Caen. I had to move fast.
While I was getting my son, Big Louis stayed with the mayor to keep him from
alerting the school. A waste of time, as it turned out, since he'd already
sent Hélène to pick up the boy ahead of me.

‘Then you
had me arrested.

‘It was all over … I
couldn't go after her while you were stubbornly digging up the truth.

‘Our only recourse was to escape.
If we stayed, you would inevitably work everything out.

‘And that explains last night. Bad
luck just wouldn't let us go … The schooner grounded on the shoal,
and we had a hard time of it, swimming ashore. To cap it all, I lost my wallet.

‘No money! The police on our
track … All I could do was call Hélène to ask her for a few thousand
francs, enough to get the four of us to the border … In Norway, I could
pay my companions what I owed them. And Hélène came at once.

‘But so did you! You, whom we
constantly found blocking our way. You, relentless, to whom we could say nothing,
whom I could hardly warn that you might provoke more harm through your
inquiry!'

His eyes now betrayed a sudden
misgiving, and in a faltering voice he asked:

‘Did my cousin
really
kill himself?'

Had Maigret lied to him, perhaps, to
induce him to speak?

‘Yes, he did kill himself, when he
realized that the truth would come out in the end. And he understood
that
when I arrested you. He guessed that I'd done that simply to give him time to
think things over.'

The two men had been walking as they
talked; now they stopped abruptly together on the jetty. The
Saint-Michel
was going slowly past, with an old fisherman proudly at the wheel.

Someone ran up, pushing his way roughly
through the
gawking crowd, the first man
to leap on to the schooner's deck.

Big Louis!

He had given his captors the slip,
snapped the chain between his handcuffs! Hustling the fisherman aside, he grabbed
the wheel.

‘Slow down, for God's
sake!' he yelled to the men aboard the tug. ‘You'll bash her
up!'

‘And the other two?' Maigret
asked Raymond.

‘This morning you passed within a
metre of them. They're hiding out in the village, in the old woman's
woodshed.'

Lucas was making his way through the
crowd towards Maigret, looking surprised.

‘Listen, we've got
them!'

‘Who?'

‘Lannec and
Célestin …'

‘They're here?'

‘The Dives police have just
brought them in.'

‘Well, tell them to let those two
go. And have them both come to the harbour.'

They stood facing Captain Joris'
cottage and his garden, its last roses stripped of their petals by the storm. Behind
a curtain, someone looking out: it was Julie, wondering if the man at the wheel on
the schooner was really her brother. Near Captain Delcourt, the lock workers and
harbour men stood together, watching.

‘Those fellows … The
trouble they caused me, with their half-truths and evasions!' sighed
Maigret.

Raymond smiled.

‘They're sailors!'

‘I know! And sailors don't
like a landlubber like me sticking my nose into their business.'

He filled his pipe with little taps of
his index finger. Puffing gently on the fresh pipe, he frowned.

‘What will we tell
them?'

Ernest Grandmaison was dead. Must they
reveal that he was a murderer?

‘Perhaps we could …'
Raymond began.

‘I don't
know … Claim that it was some old feud? A vengeful sailor, a foreigner,
who's gone back to his country …'

The crew of the tug was tramping off to
the Buvette de la Marine, beckoning the lock workers to join them.

And Big Louis was bustling about his
boat, patting and touching it as if he were checking a lost dog come home, making
sure she wasn't hurt.

‘Hey there!' Maigret called
to him.

Big Louis gave a start but hesitated to
step forwards – or more likely, to leave his schooner again. When he noticed Raymond
standing there too, he seemed as surprised as Lucas had been.

‘What the …?'

‘When can the
Saint-Michel
go back to sea?' asked Maigret.

‘Right away if need be! No damage
anywhere! She's a trim little ship, I promise you.'

Big Louis was looking questioningly at
Raymond, who announced, ‘In that case, take off on a sail-about with Lannec
and Célestin …'

‘They're here
too?'

‘They're
coming … Go on a sailing spree for a few
weeks. And far enough away that they forget about the
Saint-Michel
around here.'

‘Well, I might take my sister
along as ship's cook … She's fearless, you know, our
Julie.'

Still, he was a bit hangdog around
Maigret. He hadn't forgotten the ship's run for it the night before and
had no idea if he could treat it lightly.

‘You weren't too cold, at
least, were you?' he asked the inspector.

Big Louis was now standing at the edge
of the dock, off which Maigret sent him splashing with one push.

‘I believe I've got a train
at six o'clock,' he observed pleasantly.

Still, he made no move to leave. He
looked around him with a pang of nostalgia, as if he had already grown fond of the
little harbour town.

Didn't he know it in all its nooks
and crannies, in all its moods, in shivery morning sunshine and blustery tempest,
fogbound or streaming with rain?

‘Will you be going to Caen?'
he asked Raymond, who was sticking close to his side.

‘Not right away. I think it would
be better … to let …'

‘Some time
pass … Yes.'

When Lucas returned fifteen minutes
later and asked after Maigret, he was waved over to the Buvette de la Marine, which
had just lit its lamps.

He could see the inspector through the
misted-over windows. An inspector solidly straddling a cane-seated chair, pipe
clenched in his teeth, a glass of beer within reach,
listening to the stories being told around him by men in
rubber boots and sailor caps.

And on the ten o'clock train that
evening, that same inspector sighed, ‘They must be snug and warm in the cabin,
all three of them …'

‘What cabin?'

‘Aboard the
Saint-Michel
!
With the gimballed lamp, the nicked-up table, those thick glasses and that bottle of
Dutch gin … And the purring stove … Say, have you got a
match?'

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 streetlamps.

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 was 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 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 record-player, 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, changed his mind, 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 over
towards Nice, where the Promenade des Anglais was picked out as a thin white
line.

Then he stared at the mountains, whose
summits were still white with snow.

‘In other words, Nice to the left,
twenty-five kilometres, Cannes to the right, twelve kilometres … The
mountains behind and the sea in front.'

He was already constructing a world
centred on the villa of Brown and his women.

A world sticky with sunshine, the scent
of mimosas and sickly sweet flowers, drunken flies, cars gliding over softened
asphalt …

He didn't have the strength to
walk into the centre of
Antibes, just a
kilometre away. He went back inside his hotel, the Hôtel Bacon, and phoned the
prison and asked to speak to the governor.