The Night at the Crossroads (16 page)

‘They have to finish the job. No one feels up to it. Monsieur Oscar doesn't like to get his hands dirty …

‘Isn't this the moment to use up Michonnet? The man who has sacrificed everything to his love for Else and can be set up to take the last fall?

‘The plan is carefully crafted. Monsieur Oscar and his wife go off to Paris, very publicly, describing their intentions in detail.

‘Monsieur Michonnet sends for me and shows that he is immobilized in his armchair by gout.

‘He has probably read some crime novels. He uses tricks now, just as he does in his insurance dealings. I've hardly left the house when a broomstick and ball of rags have replaced him in the chair – and this stage setting works. From
outside, the illusion is flawless … And Madame Michonnet, terrorized, agrees to play along by pretending, behind the shade, to take care of the invalid.

‘She knows there is a woman involved, and she is jealous, too. But she wants to save her husband in spite of everything because she still hopes he'll come back to her.

‘She's not mistaken: Michonnet has sensed that he's
been played for a fool. He no longer knows if he loves or hates Else, but he does know that he wants her dead.

‘He knows the house, the grounds, all the ways in or out … Perhaps he knows that Else usually drinks some beer in the evening.

‘He leaves a poisoned bottle open in the kitchen. He lies in wait outdoors for Carl's return.

‘He fires at him … He is near collapse. There are policemen everywhere. He winds up hiding in the well, which dried up long ago.

‘All that was only a few hours ago. And meanwhile, Madame Michonnet has had to play her part, follow certain instructions … If something fishy happens around the garage, she must telephone the Chope Saint-Martin in Paris.

‘Well, I turn up. She sees me go inside the garage. I fire off some shots … and she turns off the light, warning the drivers in the gang not to stop.

‘The telephone call works. Monsieur Oscar, his wife and Guido, who goes along with them, jump into a car with their revolvers and drive by here at top speed, trying to shoot me dead since I might well be the only person who knows
something.

‘They take the road to Étampes and Orléans. Why? When they could flee via another route, in a different direction?

‘Because along that road travels a lorry carrying a spare tyre collected from the mechanic … 
and that tyre contains the diamonds!

‘They must catch up with the lorry and only then, their pockets full, make for the border …

‘So far so good? … Be quiet: I'm not asking
you
anything! … Michonnet is down his well. Else, who knows the grounds, suspects that he's hiding there. She
knows he's the one who tried to poison her. She harbours no illusions about the fellow. Arrested, he will spill everything. So she decides to get rid of him.

‘Did she accidentally fall in? In any case, she ends up in the well with him, holding a revolver. But he grabs her throat with one hand … and gets the other around the wrist of her gun hand. They struggle in the darkness. A shot
is fired … Else cries out in spite of herself, because she's afraid of dying.'

He struck a safety match to relight his pipe.

‘What do you say to that, Monsieur Oscar?'

‘I'll defend myself,' he said glumly. ‘I'm not saying anything … except that I'm just a fence.'

‘He's lying!' yelped his neighbour, Guido Ferrari.

‘Ah! … You, I was waiting for you, pal. Because you're the shooter! All three times! First you shot Goldberg, then his wife, and finally, in the car, Carl Andersen. Oh, yes! You're a hired gun if ever I saw
one.'

‘Not true!'

‘Calm down …'

‘It's not true! Not true! … I don't want …'

‘You're fighting for your life, but Carl Andersen will soon identify you … and the others will abandon you. They're not looking at anything but jail time.'

Then Guido drew himself up, pointed at the garage owner and exclaimed viciously, ‘He's the one who gave the orders!'

‘Goddamn you!'

And before Maigret could step in, Monsieur Oscar had slammed his handcuffed fists down on the Italian's skull, yelling, ‘You scum! You'll pay for that …'

They must have lost their balance because they wound up on the floor, still thrashing around grimly, but the handcuffs made them clumsy.

That was the moment the surgeon chose to come downstairs.

He was wearing a light-grey hat and gloves to match.

‘I beg your pardon … I was told that the chief inspector was here.'

‘That's me.'

‘It's about the wounded man … I believe he'll pull through. But he must have absolute quiet. I suggested my clinic, but it would seem that it's not possible. In half an hour at the most he will be coming to, and
I would recommend—'

A shriek. The Italian was biting the nose of the garage owner, whose wife rushed to Maigret.

‘Quick! See what …'

The two men were kicked apart while the surgeon, aloof, lips pursed in disgust, walked out to his car and started the engine.

Michonnet was crying quietly in his corner, refusing to look around him.

Grandjean arrived.

‘The police van's here.'

The culprits were bundled outside, one after the other. Gone were the sneers and any effort at bravado. At the
back of the van there was almost a fresh scuffle between the Italian and the man next to
him, a mechanic from the garage.

‘Thieves! Thugs!' shouted the Italian, crazed with fear. ‘I never even got the money you promised me!'

Else was the last to go. At the moment when, reluctantly, she was about to step through the French windows on to the sunlit steps, Maigret stopped her with a single word.

‘Well?'

She turned towards him, then looked up at the ceiling. Towards the room where Carl was lying.

It was impossible to say whether she would start crying again or muttering curses.

A rather long silence. Maigret was looking her in the eye.

‘In the end … No! I don't want to say anything bad about him.'

‘Say it!'

‘You know … It's his own fault! He's half mad. He was intrigued when he learned that my father was a thief, that I was part of a gang. That's the only reason he loved me … And if I'd become the
well-behaved young woman he tried to make of me, he would quickly have lost interest and ditched me …'

She turned her face away to add in a soft voice, almost bashfully, ‘Still, I wouldn't like anything bad to happen to him … He's … How can I put it … He's a nice guy … And slightly
cracked!'

And she smiled.

‘I suppose I'll be seeing you …'

‘It was Guido who did the killing, right?'

He'd gone too far. Her expression hardened again.

‘I'm no squealer.'

Maigret followed her with his eyes until she climbed into the police van. He saw her look back at the Three Widows house, shrug and toss a joke at the gendarme hustling her along.

‘We could call this the case of the three mistakes!' he told Lucas, who was standing at his side.

‘Whose mistakes?'

‘Else's, first of all, when she straightened the snowy landscape, smoked downstairs, brought the phonograph up to her bedroom,
where she was supposedly locked in
– and when she felt she was in danger, she accused Carl while
pretending to defend him.

‘The insurance agent's mistake, when he sent for me to show that he would be spending the night at his window.

‘Jojo the mechanic's mistake, when he saw me suddenly turn up and, fearing I might discover everything, sent a driver away with a spare wheel full of diamonds that was
too small for the lorry
.

‘Otherwise …'

‘Otherwise? …'

‘Well, when a woman like Else lies with such perfection that she winds up believing her own story …'

‘I told you so!'

‘Yes … She could have become something extraordinary. If that fire inside her hadn't flared back up at
times, as though that criminal underworld were calling to
her …'

Carl Andersen hung for almost a month between life and death. Learning of his condition, his family seized their chance to bring him back to Denmark, where they placed him in a convalescent home that bore a strong resemblance to a lunatic
asylum. He did not, therefore, appear in Paris as a witness at the trial.

To everyone's surprise, the request for Else's extradition was refused; she had first to spend three years in the women's prison of Saint-Lazare in Paris.

It was in the visiting room there that Maigret found Andersen arguing with the prison warden three months later, presenting his marriage licence and demanding permission to see the prisoner.

He had hardly changed at all. He still wore his black monocle, but his right shoulder was now a little stiffer.

Catching sight of the inspector, he became flustered and turned his face away.

‘Your parents let you leave again?'

‘My mother died. I received an inheritance.'

It was his, that limousine parked fifty metres from the prison, with a chauffeur in a fancy uniform behind the wheel.

‘And you're still trying, in spite of everything?'

‘I'm moving to Paris.'

‘To come and visit her?'

‘She is my wife …'

And his single eye searched Maigret's face in dread of finding irony or pity there …

The inspector simply shook his hand.

At the prison in Melun, two women would arrive together for their visits like inseparable friends.

‘He's not a bad fellow,' Oscar's wife would say. ‘He's even too kind, too generous. He gives twenty-franc tips to café waiters! That's what did him in. That and women!'

‘Before he met that woman, Monsieur Michonnet would never have filched a single sou from a client. But he swore to me last week that he never even thinks of her now …'

On Death Row, Guido Ferrari spent his time waiting for his lawyer to arrive, bearing his pardon. But one morning, five men appeared instead to carry him away, struggling and screaming.

He refused the cigarette and the glass of rum, then spat at the chaplain.

 

•  •  •

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When Detective Chief Inspector Maigret arrived in Delfzijl, one afternoon in May, he had only the sketchiest notions about the case taking him to this small town located in the northernmost corner of Holland.

A certain Jean Duclos, professor at the University of Nancy in eastern France, was on a lecture tour of the northern countries. At Delfzijl, he was the guest of a teacher at the Naval College, Conrad Popinga. But Popinga had been murdered, and while no one was formally charging the French professor, he was being requested not to leave the town and to remain answerable to the Dutch authorities.

And that was all, or almost. Jean Duclos had contacted the University of Nancy, which had asked Police Headquarters in Paris to send someone to Delfzijl to investigate.

The task had fallen to Maigret. It was more unofficial than official, and he had made it less official still by omitting to alert his Dutch colleagues on his arrival.

On the initiative of Jean Duclos, he had received a rather confused report, followed by a list of people more or less closely involved in the case.

This was the list which he consulted, shortly before arriving at Delfzijl station:

Conrad Popinga
(the victim), aged 42, former long-haul captain, latterly a lecturer at the Delfzijl Naval College. Married. No children. Had spoken English and German fluently and French quite well.

Liesbeth Popinga
, his wife, daughter of a high school headmaster in Amsterdam. A very cultured woman. Excellent knowledge of French.

Any Van Elst
, Liesbeth Popinga's younger sister, visiting Delfzijl for a few weeks. Recently completed her doctorate in law. Aged 25. Understands French a little but speaks it badly.

The Wienands family
: they live in the villa next door to the Popingas. Carl Wienands teaches mathematics at the Naval College. Wife and two children. No knowledge of French.

Beetje Liewens
, aged 18, daughter of a farmer specializing in breeding pedigree cattle for export. Has stayed twice in Paris. Speaks perfect French.

Not very eloquent. Names that suggested nothing, at least to Maigret as he arrived from Paris, after spending a night and a half the following day on the train.

Delfzijl disconcerted him as soon as he reached it. At first light, he had travelled through the traditional Holland of tulips, and then through Amsterdam, which he already knew. The Drenthe, a heath-covered wasteland crisscrossed with canals, its horizons, stretching thirty kilometres into the distance, had surprised him.