The Night at the Crossroads (10 page)

Her face twitched a few times. Her chest heaved in spasms.

She was lying on the rug. Tears trickled from beneath her eyelids, and when her head fell to one side, she was shaken by a huge hiccup.

The contractions caused by the spoon were clearing her stomach: a yellowish liquid stained the rug; some drops glistened on her peignoir.

Taking the water pitcher from the dressing table, Maigret moistened her face.

He kept turning impatiently towards the window.

And Else was taking a long time to come around. She moaned weakly. Finally she raised her head.

‘What …?'

She got to her feet, disoriented and still shaky, and saw the spoon, the empty glass, the stained rug.

Then she began sobbing, her head in her hands.

‘You see, I was right to be afraid: they've tried to poison me! And you didn't want to believe me … You—'

She started at the same instant as Maigret. Both of them froze for a few moments, listening intently.

A shot had been fired near the house, probably in the garden, and been followed by a hoarse cry.

Now a long, shrill whistle was sounding over by the road. People were running. Someone was shaking the front gate. Through the window Maigret could see his inspectors' flashlights searching in the darkness. Not quite a hundred metres away,
in the villa's window, Madame Michonnet was settling a pillow behind her husband's head …

The inspector opened the bedroom door. He heard noise below.

Then Lucas yelled up the stairs: ‘Chief!'

‘Who was it?'

‘Carl Andersen … He isn't dead … Are you coming?'

Maigret turned and saw Else sitting hunched on the edge of the divan with her elbows on her knees, staring straight ahead, with her chin cupped in her hands and her jaws clenched. She was shivering uncontrollably.

Carl Andersen was carried up to his bedroom. An inspector followed, bringing the lamp from the drawing room. The wounded man neither moved nor groaned. Only after he had been laid on his bed did Maigret lean over him and see that his eyes were
half open.

Andersen recognized him, seemed somewhat comforted and reached for the inspector's hand, murmuring, ‘Else?'

She was standing in the doorway in an attitude of anxious waiting, looking bleakly into the bedroom.

It was a striking tableau. Carl had lost his black monocle, and next to the healthy but blood-shot, half-closed eye, the glass one still stared vacantly.

The glow of the oil lamp made everything seem mysterious. The police could be heard searching the grounds and raking the gravelled paths.

As for Else, when Maigret told her firmly to go over to her brother, she went rigid and hardly dared advance towards him at all.

‘I think he's badly wounded,' whispered Lucas.

She must have heard. She looked at him but hesitated to go any closer to her brother, who gazed at her intently, struggling to sit up in bed.

In a sudden storm of tears, she turned and ran to her
own room, where she threw herself, weeping, on to the divan.

Maigret motioned to the sergeant to keep an eye on her and attended to the wounded man, removing Andersen's jacket and waistcoat with the ease of someone familiar with this sort of incident.

‘Don't be afraid … We've sent for a doctor. Else is in her room.'

Andersen was silent, like someone crushed by some mysterious misgiving. He looked around him as if he were anxious to resolve an enigma or discover a solemn secret.

‘Later on I will question you, but—'

Examining the man's bare torso, the inspector frowned.

‘You've been shot twice … This wound in your back is far from fresh …'

And it was a terrible injury: ten square centimetres of skin had been torn away. The flesh was literally cut up, burned, swollen, encrusted with scabs of dried blood. This wound had stopped bleeding, which showed that it was a few hours old,
whereas the latest bullet had fractured the left shoulder blade. As Maigret was cleaning the wound, the deformed bullet spilled out of it.

He picked it up. The bullet was not from a revolver, but from a rifle, like the one that had killed Madame Goldberg.

‘Where is Else?' murmured the wounded man, who was bearing his pain without grimacing.

‘In her room. Don't move … Did you see who just shot you?'

‘No.'

‘And the other shooter? Where was that?'

Andersen frowned, opened his mouth to speak, but gave up, exhausted. With a faint motion of his left arm he tried to explain that he could not talk any more.

‘Well, doctor?'

It was irritating trying to function in the semi-darkness. There were only two oil lamps in the house, one currently in the wounded man's bedroom, the other in Else's.

Downstairs, one candle burned, without lighting even a quarter of the drawing room.

‘Unless there are unexpected complications, he'll pull through. The first wound is the more serious one. He must have received it early in the afternoon, if not late this morning. A bullet from a Browning fired point-blank into the
back. Absolutely point-blank! I even think it possible that the muzzle of the weapon was right against the flesh. The victim made a sudden movement, deflecting the shot, so the ribs are basically all that were hit. Bruises on the shoulder, the arms, some scratches on the hands and knees –
these must have occurred at the same time …'

‘And the other bullet?'

‘The shoulder blade is shattered. He must be seen to by a surgeon tomorrow. I can give you the address of a clinic in Paris … There is one in the area, but if the wounded man can afford it, I recommend Paris.'

‘Was he able to get about after the first incident?'

‘Probably … No vital organ was hit … It would have been a question of stamina, of will-power. Although I do fear that he'll have a stiff shoulder for the rest of his life.'

The police had found nothing out in the grounds, but they had taken up positions so as to be ready for a thorough search at first light.

Maigret then went to check on Andersen, who was relieved to see him.

‘Else?'

‘In her bedroom, I've already told you twice.'

‘Why …'

Always that morbid anxiety, betrayed by the man's twitching face and by his every glance.

‘Do you know of any enemies you might have?'

‘No.'

‘Don't upset yourself. Simply tell me how you got shot that first time. Go slowly … Take it easy …'

‘I was on my way to Dumas and Son …'

‘You didn't get there.'

‘I tried! At the Porte d'Orléans, a man signalled to me to pull over.'

Andersen asked for some water and drained a large glass, then looked up at the ceiling and continued.

‘He told me he was a policeman. He even showed me a card, which I didn't really look at. He ordered me to drive across Paris and take the road to Compiègne, claiming that I was going to be brought face to face with a witness. He got
into the passenger seat beside me.'

‘What did he look like?'

‘Tall, wearing a grey fedora. Shortly before Compiègne, the main road goes through a forest. At a turning, I felt a violent impact on my back … A hand grabbed the steering wheel from me while I was pushed out of the car. I
lost consciousness. I came to in the roadside ditch. The car was gone.'

‘What time was it?'

‘Perhaps eleven in the morning … I'm not sure. The clock in my car doesn't work. I walked into the forest, to recover from the shock and have time to think. I was having dizzy spells … I heard trains going
by … Finally I came to a small station. By five o'clock I was in Paris, where I got a room. There I took care of myself, brushed off my clothes … And I came here.'

‘In secret …'

‘Yes.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Did you meet anyone?'

‘No! I avoided the main road and came in through the grounds … Just as I reached the front steps, the shot rang out … I'd like to see Else.'

‘Do you know that someone has tried to poison her?'

Maigret was completely unprepared for Andersen's reaction to his words. The wounded man sat up all by himself, stared eagerly at the inspector and stammered, ‘Really?'

He seemed overjoyed, released from a nightmare.

‘Oh! I want to see her!'

Maigret went out into the hall to fetch Else, who was in her room, lying on the divan with empty eyes. Lucas was watching her sullenly.

‘Would you come with me?'

‘What did he say?'

She was still frightened, uncertain. After taking a few
hesitant steps into the wounded man's room, she rushed over and hugged him, talking to him in Danish.

A gloomy Lucas was watching Maigret out of the corner of his eye.

‘Can you figure any of this out?'

Instead of replying, the inspector shrugged and began issuing orders.

‘Make sure that the garage owner has not left Paris … Telephone the Préfecture, have them send out a surgeon first thing in the morning … Even tonight, if possible.'

‘Where are you going?'

‘No idea … As for the surveillance around the grounds: keep it up, but don't expect anything.'

Maigret went downstairs, down the front steps, out to the main road, alone. The garage was closed, but the milky-white globes of the pumps were shining.

The light was on upstairs at the Michonnet villa. Behind the shade, the insurance agent's silhouette was still in the same place.

The night was cool. A thin mist was drifting up from the fields, forming into waves about a metre above the ground. From over towards Arpajon came the increasingly loud sounds of an engine and clanking metal; five minutes later, a lorry pulled up
at the garage, honking its horn.

A small door opened in the iron security shutter, revealing an electric light bulb burning inside the garage.

‘Twenty litres!'

The sleepy mechanic worked the pump; the driver stayed high up in his cab. The chief inspector walked over, his hands in his pockets, his pipe between his teeth.

‘Monsieur Oscar not back yet?'

‘What? You here? … Well, no! When he goes to Paris, he only comes back the next morning.'

A moment's hesitation, then: ‘Say, Arthur, you'd best pick up your spare: it's ready …'

And the mechanic fetched a wheel with its tyre from the garage, rolling it out and laboriously attaching it to the back of the lorry.

The vehicle drove off. Its red tail light dwindled into the distance. The mechanic yawned and sighed.

‘Still looking for the murderer? At this hour? … Well, me, if I could just snooze my fill, I swear I wouldn't care one way or the other!'

A bell tower struck two o'clock. A train trailed sparks along the horizon.

‘You coming in? … Or not?'

And the man stretched, impatient to get back to sleep.

Maigret went inside, looked at the whitewashed walls, where red inner tubes and tyres of every brand, most of them in bad shape, were hanging from nails.

‘Tell me! What's he going to do with the wheel you gave him?'

‘Huh? … Why, put it on his lorry, of course!'

‘You think so? … It'll drive lopsided, his lorry, because that wheel hasn't the same diameter as the others …'

The mechanic began to look worried.

‘Just a minute now … Maybe I mistook the wheel … Did I go and give him the one from old man Mathieu's van?'

There was a loud explosion: Maigret had just shot at
one of the inner tubes hanging on the wall. And along with the escaping air, small white paper packets came pouring out of the collapsing tube.

‘Don't move, you little rat!'

For the mechanic, bent over, was about to run at him head first.

‘Watch it, or I'll shoot.'

‘What do you want from me?'

‘Hands up! … Now!'

He stepped smartly over to Jojo, patted his pockets and confiscated a fully loaded revolver.

‘Go and lie down on your cot.'

Maigret pushed the door shut with his foot. One look at the mechanic's freckled face was enough to tell him that the fellow would not give up easily.

‘Lie down.'

Glancing around, he saw no rope but spotted a coil of electric wire.

‘Your hands!'

Realizing that Maigret would have to put down his revolver, the mechanic tensed for action, but got punched right in the face. His nose bled. His lip swelled up. The man growled in rage. Then his hands were tied and soon his feet as well.

‘How old are you?'

‘Twenty-one.'

‘Released from where?'

Silence.

All Maigret had to do was make a fist.

‘The reformatory at Montpellier.'

‘That's better! And do you know what's in those little packets?'

The reply was a snarl: ‘Drugs!'