The Shadow Puppet (4 page)

Of course, she was not up yet. The hotel
receptionist recognized Maigret and expressed concern.

‘She's not mixed up in any
trouble, I hope? Such a quiet girl!'

‘Does she have many
visitors?'

‘Only her friend.'

‘The old
one or the young one?'

‘She only has one. He's
neither young nor old.'

It was a comfortable hotel with a
telephone in each room and a lift. Maigret was deposited on the third floor. He
rapped on the door of room 27, heard someone thrashing around in bed, and then a
voice stammer, ‘What is it?'

‘Open the door, Nine!'

A hand must have emerged from under the
blankets and unbolted the door. Maigret entered the damp gloom, glimpsed the young
woman's tired face, and went to draw the curtains.

‘What time is it?'

‘Not yet nine. Don't get
up.'

She half-closed her eyes, because of the
harsh light. In that state, she wasn't pretty and looked more like a country
girl than a coquette. She ran her hand over her face a couple of times, eventually
sat up in bed and placed a pillow behind her. Finally she picked up the
telephone.

‘Bring my breakfast!'

And, to Maigret, ‘What a business!
You're not too mad at me for scrounging off you last night? It's stupid!
I'll have to sell my jewellery.'

‘Have you got a lot?'

She gestured towards the dressing table,
where a few rings, a bracelet and a watch lay in a promotional ashtray. Their
combined value was around five thousand francs.

There was a knock at the door of the
next room and Nine pricked up her ears, gave a vague smile as the knocking began
again, more insistent this time.

‘Who is
that?' asked Maigret.

‘My neighbours? I don't
know! But if anyone manages to wake them up at this hour—'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Nothing! They're never up
before four o'clock in the afternoon. That's when they wake
up!'

‘Do they take drugs?'

Her eyelashes fluttered a yes, but she
hastened to add, ‘You're not going to use what I tell you, are
you?'

The door eventually opened. As did
Nine's, and a chamber-maid brought in the tray with the coffee and
croissants.

‘May I?'

There were dark circles under her eyes
and her nightdress revealed scrawny shoulders and small, not very firm breasts like
those of a stunted child. As she dunked pieces of croissant in her
café au
lait
, she continued to listen out, as if despite everything she did take an
interest in what was going on next door.

‘Will I be mixed up in all
this?' she asked nevertheless. ‘It would be awkward if they wrote about
me in the newspapers! Especially for Madame Couchet.'

And, as someone was knocking on her door
with urgent little taps, she shouted, ‘Come in!'

A woman in her early thirties, who had
slipped a fur coat over her nightdress and was barefoot, entered. She almost
retreated on catching sight of Maigret's broad back, then she plucked up her
courage and stammered, ‘I didn't know you had company!'

Maigret shuddered at the sound of the
languid voice that seemed to be struggling out of a furred mouth. He
looked at the woman who was closing the door behind her
and saw a face drained of colour, with puffy eyelids. A glance at Nine confirmed his
guess. She was the drug addict from next door.

‘What's happened?'

‘Nothing! Roger has a visitor, so
I took the liberty—'

She sat down on the end of the bed,
dazed, and sighed as Nine had done, ‘What time is it?'

‘Nine o'clock!' said
Maigret. ‘Hmm, someone's been at the cocaine!'

‘It's not cocaine,
it's ether. Roger says it's better and that—'

She was cold. She got up to go and
huddle by the radiator, gazing out of the window.

‘It's going to rain
again.'

The whole scene was gloomy, depressing.
The comb on the dressing table was full of broken hairs. Nine's stockings lay
on the floor.

‘I'm in the way,
aren't I? But apparently it's important. It's about Roger's
father, who's just died.'

Maigret watched Nine and saw her
suddenly knit her brow like someone who has just had an idea. At the same time, the
woman who had just spoken raised her hand to her chin, thought for a moment and
muttered, ‘Oh my goodness!'

And the inspector asked, ‘Do you
know Roger's father?'

‘I've never seen him.
But … Hold on! Nine, nothing happened to your friend, did it?'

Nine and the inspector exchanged a
glance.

‘Why?'

‘I don't know. It's
all a bit muddled. I've just remembered
that Roger once told me that his father was a visitor
here. It amused him, but he preferred not to bump into him and one time, when he
heard someone coming up the stairs he rushed back into the room. I seem to recall
that the person in question came in here.'

Nine stopped eating. The tray on her
knees hindered her and her face betrayed her anxiety.

‘His son?' she said slowly,
staring at the dull glass rectangle of the window.

‘Oh my goodness!' exclaimed
the other woman. ‘Then it's your friend who's dead! They say he
was murdered.'

‘Is Roger's surname
Couchet?' asked Maigret.

‘He's Roger Couchet,
yes!'

Disconcerted, all three fell silent.

‘What does he do?' continued
the inspector after a long pause, during which a murmur of voices in the next room
could be heard.

‘Pardon?'

‘What is his
profession?'

The young woman snapped,
‘You're from the police, aren't you?'

She was flustered. She might hold it
against Nine for having lured her into a trap.

‘The inspector's very
kind!' said Nine, poking one leg out of the bed and leaning forward to pick up
her stockings.

‘I should have guessed! So then
you already knew, before I came in.'

‘I hadn't heard anything
about Roger!' said Maigret. ‘Now, I'll need you to give me some
information about him.'

‘I
don't know anything. We've been together for barely three
weeks.'

‘What about before?'

‘He was with a tall redhead who
claimed to be a manicurist.'

‘Does he work?'

The word ‘work' created
further discomfiture.

‘I don't know.'

‘In other words, he does nothing.
Is he wealthy? Does he live extravagantly?'

‘No! We nearly always have a
six-franc set menu.'

‘Does he often talk about his
father?'

‘I told you, he only mentioned him
once.'

‘Could you describe his visitor?
Have you met him before?'

‘No! He's a
man … how can I say? To start with I thought he was a bailiff, that
he'd come because Roger was in debt.'

‘Is he well-dressed?'

‘Hold on. I saw a bowler hat, a
beige overcoat, gloves—'

Between the two rooms there was a
communicating door concealed behind a curtain and probably locked. Maigret could
have pressed his ear to it and overheard everything, but he was loath to do so in
front of the two women.

Nine got dressed, contenting herself
with wiping her face with a moistened towel by way of a wash. She was on edge. Her
movements were jerky. It was clear that she was out of her depth and now she was
expecting all sorts of trouble; she didn't have the strength to react or even
to grasp the situation.

The other woman
was calmer, perhaps because she was still under the influence of ether, perhaps
because she had more experience of this sort of thing.

‘What is your name?'

‘Céline.'

‘Do you have a
profession?'

‘I was a hairdresser doing home
visits.'

‘And on the vice squad's
books?'

She shook her head, without showing
annoyance. A murmur of voices could still be heard coming from next door.

Nine, who had slipped on a dress, gazed
around the room and suddenly burst into tears, exclaiming, ‘Oh God! Oh
God!'

‘It's a funny
business!' said Céline slowly. ‘And, if it really is a murder,
they're going to keep pestering us.'

‘Where were you last night at
around eight p.m.?'

She cast her mind back.

‘Hold on … Eight
o'clock … Well, I was at the Cyrano
.
'

‘Was Roger with you?'

‘No. We can't be together
all the time. I met him at midnight, at the tobacconist's in Rue
Fontaine.'

‘Did he tell you where he'd
been?'

‘I didn't ask.'

Through the window, Maigret could see
Place Pigalle, its tiny garden, the nightclub signs. Suddenly, he straightened up
and marched towards the door.

‘Wait here for me, both of
you!'

And he went out, knocked at the
neighbouring door and turned the handle.

A man in pyjamas
was sitting in the only armchair in the room, which reeked of ether despite the open
window. Another man was pacing up and down, gesticulating. It was Monsieur Martin,
whom Maigret had met twice the previous evening, in the courtyard at Place des
Vosges.

‘Ah, so you found your
glove!'

Maigret was looking at the two hands of
the official from the Registry Office, who turned so pale that the inspector thought
for a moment that he was about to faint. His lips quivered. He attempted to speak
but failed.

‘I … I—'

The young man had not shaved. He had a
pasty complexion, red-rimmed eyes and soft lips that were a sign of his
spinelessness. He gulped water out of the tooth mug.

‘Get a grip on yourself, Monsieur
Martin! I hadn't expected to meet you here, especially at this hour when your
office must have opened some time ago.'

Maigret studied him from head to toe. He
had to make an effort not to take pity on him, such was the poor man's visible
confusion.

From his shoes to his tie and his
detachable white collar, Monsieur Martin was like a caricature of the archetypal
civil servant. A dignified, neat and orderly official with a waxed moustache, not a
speck of dust on his clothes, who no doubt deemed it shameful to go out without
gloves.

Right now, he didn't know what to
do with his hands, and his gaze searched the corners of the untidy room as if he
hoped to find inspiration there.

‘May I ask
you a question, Monsieur Martin? How long have you known Roger Couchet?'

It was no longer fear, it was sheer
terror.

‘Me?'

‘Yes, you!'

‘Since … since my
marriage!'

He said this as if it were
self-evident.

‘I don't
understand!'

‘Roger is my stepson, my
wife's son.'

‘And Raymond Couchet was his
father?'

‘Well
yes … As—'

He grew more assured.

‘My wife was Couchet's first
wife. She has a son, Roger. After she got divorced, I married her.'

This had the effect of a gust of wind
sweeping an overcast sky. The building in Place des Vosges was transformed by it.
The nature of the events changed. Some points became clearer. Others, on the
contrary, became muddier, more worrying.

To such an extent that Maigret no longer
dared speak. He needed to muster his thoughts. He looked from one man to the other
with mounting concern.

That very night, the concierge had asked
him, looking up at all the windows that could be seen from the courtyard,
‘Do you think it's one of the residents?
'

And her eyes finally came to rest on the
archway. She hoped that the murderer had come in that way, that it was someone from
outside.

Well it wasn't! The drama was
indeed an internal affair! Maigret couldn't have said why, but he was
convinced of it.

What drama? He
hadn't the faintest idea!

Only he had a hunch that there were
invisible threads linking points far apart in space, stretching from Place des
Vosges to this hotel in Rue Pigalle, from the Martins' apartment to
Couchet's laboratory, from Nine's room to that of the couple in an
ether-induced stupor.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing was
seeing Monsieur Martin tossed like a hapless spinning-top into this maze. He always
wore gloves. His putty-coloured overcoat alone was an orderly, dignified statement.
And his anxious look sought to alight somewhere without success.

‘I came to tell
Roger …' he stammered.

‘Yes.'

Maigret looked him in the eyes, calmly,
deeply, and almost expected to see Monsieur Martin shrink with fear.

‘My wife told me that it would be
best if we were the ones to …'

‘I understand.'

‘Roger is very—'

‘Very sensitive.' Maigret
took the words out of his mouth. ‘An anxious boy.'

The young man, who was on his third
glass of water, glared at him venomously. He must have been twenty-five, but his
features were already careworn, his eyelids withered.

And yet he was still attractive, with a
dark complexion and looks capable of seducing some women; everything about him was
tinged with romanticism, even his weary, slightly nauseated air.

‘Tell me, Roger Couchet, did you
see your father often?'

‘Sometimes.'

‘Where?'

And Maigret's eyes bored into
him.

‘At his office, or at a
restaurant.'

‘When did you see him for the last
time?'

‘I don't know, a few weeks
ago.'

‘And did you ask him for
money?'