The Night at the Crossroads (2 page)

‘I'm not expecting anything.'

A trace of an accent, more noticeable now that he was tired.

‘Do you wish me to read you the official record of your interrogation before I have you sign it?'

He gestured vaguely, like a gentleman declining a cup of tea.

‘I will summarize the main points. You arrived in France three years ago, accompanied by your sister, Else. You spent a month in Paris. Then you rented a country house on the main road from Paris to
Étampes, three kilometres from Arpajon, at the place called Three Widows Crossroads.'

Carl Andersen nodded slightly in agreement.

‘For the last three years, you have lived there in isolation so complete that the local people have seen your sister only a few times. No contact with your neighbours. You bought an old 5CV that you use to do your own shopping at the market
in Arpajon. Every month, in this same car, you come to Paris.'

‘To deliver my work to the firm of Dumas and Son, Rue du Quatre-Septembre, that's correct.'

‘You work designing patterns for upholstery fabrics. You are paid five hundred francs for each pattern. You produce on average four patterns a month, earning two thousand francs …'

Another nod.

‘You have no male friends. Your sister has no female friends. On Saturday evening, you both went to bed as usual at around ten o'clock. And, as usual, you also locked your sister in her bedroom, which is near yours. You claim this is
because she is nervous and easily frightened … We'll let that pass for the moment! At seven o'clock on Sunday morning, Monsieur Émile Michonnet, an insurance agent who lives in a house almost a hundred metres from your place, enters his garage to find that his car, a
new six-cylinder model of a well-known make, has vanished and been replaced by your rattletrap …'

Showing no reaction, Andersen reached automatically for the empty pocket in which he must ordinarily have kept his cigarettes.

‘Monsieur Michonnet, who has talked of nothing but his new car ever since he bought it, believes he is the victim of an unpleasant prank. He goes to your house, finds the gate closed and rings the bell in vain. Half an hour later he
describes his predicament to the local police, who go to your house, where they find neither you nor your sister. They do, however, discover Monsieur Michonnet's car in your garage and in the front seat, draped over the steering wheel, a dead man, shot point-blank in the chest. His
identity papers have not been stolen. His name is Isaac Goldberg, a diamond merchant from Antwerp.'

Still talking, Maigret put more fuel in the stove.

‘The police promptly question the employees of the station at Arpajon, who saw you and your sister take the first train for Paris … You are both picked up when you arrive at Gare d'Orsay … You deny
everything …'

‘I deny having killed anyone at all.'

‘You also deny knowing Isaac Goldberg …'

‘I saw him for the first time, dead, at the wheel of a car that does not belong to me, in my garage.'

‘And instead of phoning the police, you made a run for it with your sister.'

‘I was afraid …'

‘You have nothing to add?'

‘Nothing!'

‘And you insist that you never heard anything that Saturday night?'

‘I'm a heavy sleeper.'

It was the fiftieth time that he had given precisely the same answers and Maigret, exasperated, rang for Sergeant Lucas, who swiftly appeared.

‘I'll be back in a moment!'

The discussion between Maigret and Coméliau, the examining magistrate to whom the matter had been referred, lasted about fifteen minutes. The magistrate had essentially given up in advance.

‘You'll see, this will be one of those cases we get only once in ten years, luckily, and which are never completely solved! And it lands in my lap! Nothing about it makes any sense … Why this switching of cars? And why
didn't Andersen use the one in his garage to flee instead of walking to Arpajon to take the train? What was that diamond merchant doing at Three Widows Crossroads? Believe me, Maigret – this is the beginning of a whole string of headaches, for you as well as me … Let him go
if you want. Perhaps you're right to feel that if he can withstand seventeen hours of interrogation, we'll get nothing more out of him.'

The inspector's eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep.

‘Have you seen the sister?'

‘No. When they brought me Andersen, the young woman had already been taken back to her house by the local police, who wished to question her at the scene of the incident. She's still there. Under surveillance.'

They shook hands. Maigret returned to his office, where
Lucas was idly watching the prisoner, who stood with his forehead pressed against the windowpane, waiting patiently.

‘You're free to go!' announced Maigret from the doorway.

Calmly, Andersen gestured towards his bare neck and unlaced shoes.

‘Your personal effects will be returned to you at the clerk's office. You remain, of course, at the disposition of the authorities. At the slightest attempt to flee, I'll have you sent to La Santé Prison.'

‘My sister?'

‘You will find her at home.'

The Dane must have felt some emotion after all as he left the room, for he removed his monocle to pass his hand over what had once been his left eye.

‘Thank you, chief inspector.'

‘You're welcome.'

‘I give you my word of honour that I'm innocent …'

‘Don't mention it!'

Andersen bowed, then waited for Lucas to take him along to the clerk's office.

After witnessing this scene with astonished indignation, a man in the waiting room rushed over to Maigret.

‘What? So you're letting him go? That's not possible, chief inspector …'

It was Monsieur Michonnet, the insurance agent, the owner of the new six-cylinder car. He walked into Maigret's office as if he owned the place and set his hat down on a table.

‘I am here, above all, about the matter of my car.'

A small fellow going grey, carefully but unprepossessingly dressed, constantly turning up the ends of his waxed moustache.

He spoke with pursed lips, weighing his words and trying to appear imposing.

He was the plaintiff! He was the one whom the forces of justice had to protect! Was he not in some way a hero? No one was going to intimidate him, oh no! The entire Préfecture was at his personal service.

‘I had a long talk last night with Madame Michonnet, whose acquaintance you will soon make, I trust … She agrees with me … Mind you, her father was a teacher at the Lycée de Montpellier and her mother gave piano
lessons … I mention this so that … In short …'

That was his favourite expression, which he pronounced in a manner both cutting and condescending.

‘In short, a decision must be made with all possible speed. Like everyone, even the richest among us, including the Comte d'Avrainville, I bought my new car on the instalment plan. I must make eighteen payments. Mind you, I could have
paid cash, but there is no point in tying up one's capital. The Comte d'Avrainville, of whom I just spoke, purchased his Hispano-Suiza in the same fashion. In short …'

Breathing heavily, Maigret did not move.

‘I cannot do without a car, which is absolutely necessary for me in the exercise of my profession. When you consider that my territory covers everywhere within a thirty-kilometre radius of Arpajon … Now, Madame
Michonnet agrees with me on this: we wish to have nothing further to do with a vehicle in which a man has been killed. It is up to the authorities to take the necessary steps and to procure a new car for us, the same model as the other one, and I would like it to
be of a burgundy colour, which would not affect the price … Mind you, my car was already broken in and running smoothly, and I shall be obliged to—'

‘Is that all you have to tell me?'

‘I beg your pardon!'

That was another expression he often used.

‘I beg your pardon, chief inspector! It's understood that I am prepared to draw upon all my accumulated knowledge and experience of this locality to assist you, but regarding the urgent matter of this car …'

Maigret brushed his hand over his forehead.

‘Well! I will come to see you soon at your house …'

‘What about the car?'

‘Yours will be returned to you when the investigation has been concluded.'

‘But I just finished telling you that Madame Michonnet and I …'

‘Then do give my regards to Madame Michonnet! Good day, monsieur.'

It was over so quickly that the insurance man had no time to protest. He found himself back on the landing holding his hat, which had been shoved into his hands, and the office boy was calling to him.

‘This way, please! First staircase on the left … Exit's straight ahead …'

As for Maigret, he locked his door and set water to boil on the stove for some good strong coffee.

His colleagues thought he was working, but he had to be woken up an hour later when a telegram arrived from Antwerp.

Isaac Goldberg, 45, diamond broker, rather well known in the trade. Medium-sized business. Good bank references. Travelled weekly by train or plane to Amsterdam, London and Paris to solicit orders.

Luxurious house Rue de Campine, Borgerhout. Married. Two children, 8 and 12.

Madame Goldberg informed, has taken Paris train.

At eleven in the morning the telephone rang: it was Lucas.

‘Hello! I'm at Three Widows Crossroads. I'm calling you from the garage a little more than a hundred metres from the Andersens' house. The Danish fellow has gone home. The gate's locked again. Nothing much to
report …'

‘The sister?'

‘Must be inside, but I haven't seen her.'

‘Goldberg's body?'

‘At the hospital morgue in Arpajon …'

Maigret went home to his apartment in Boulevard Richard-Lenoir.

‘You look tired!' was all his wife said in welcome.

‘Pack a bag with a suit and a spare pair of shoes.'

‘Will you be away long?'

There was a ragout in the oven. The bedroom window was open and the bed unmade, to air out the sheets. Madame Maigret hadn't had time yet to comb out her hair, still set in lumpy little pin
curls.

‘Goodbye …'

He kissed her. As he left, she remarked, ‘You're opening the door with your right hand …'

That was unlike him; he always opened it with his left hand. And Madame Maigret wasn't shy about being superstitious.

‘What is it? A gang?'

‘I've no idea.'

‘Are you going far?'

‘I don't know yet.'

‘You'll be careful, won't you?'

But he was already going downstairs and hardly turned around at all to wave to her. Out on the boulevard, he hailed a taxi.

‘Gare d'Orsay … Wait … How much to drive to Arpajon? … Three hundred francs, with the return trip? … Let's go!'

He almost never did this. But he was exhausted. He could barely fight off the drowsiness stinging his eyelids.

And wasn't he – just perhaps – a little perplexed, even uneasy? Not so much because of that door he'd opened with his right hand, nor because of that bizarre business of Michonnet's stolen car turning up in Andersen's
garage with a dead man at the wheel.

It was rather the Danish fellow's personality that was bothering him.

‘Seventeen hours of grilling!'

Hardened criminals, crooks who'd traipsed through all the police stations in Europe hadn't stood up to that ordeal.

Maybe that was even why Maigret had let Andersen go.

That didn't prevent him from falling asleep in the back of the taxi after they'd gone through Bourg-la-Reine. The driver woke him up at Arpajon, in front of the old market with its thatched roof.

‘What hotel do you want?'

‘Take me to Three Widows Crossroads.'

It was uphill along the oil-slicked paving stones of the main road, lined on both sides by billboards advertising Vichy, Deauville, fancy hotels, brands of automotive fuel.

A crossroads. A garage with its five fuel pumps, painted red. To the left, the road to Avrainville, marked with a signpost.

All around, fields as far as the eye could see.

‘This is it!' announced the driver.

There were only three houses. First, the garage owner's, a stuccoed affair hastily erected when business was booming. A big sports car with aluminium coachwork was filling up at the pump. Mechanics were working on a butcher's van.

Across the way, a small villa of millstone grit with a narrow garden, surrounded by a six-foot-high fence. A brass plate:
Émile Michonnet, Insurance.

The last house was a good hundred metres away. The wall around the grounds hid all but the second storey, a slate roof and a few handsome trees. This building was at least a century old. It was a fine country residence of times
gone by, with a cottage for the gardener, outbuildings, poultry houses, a stable and a flight of front steps flanked by bronze
torchères
.

A small concrete pond had dried up. A wisp of smoke rose straight into the air from a carved chimney cap.

That was all. Beyond the fields, a belfry … farmhouse roofs … a plough abandoned at the edge of some tilled land.

And along the smooth road cars streamed by in both directions, passing one another and honking their horns.

Maigret got out of the taxi with his suitcase and paid the driver, who filled up at the garage before heading back to Paris.