Maigret in Montmartre (16 page)

“Did she say who Bernard was?”

“She made out she didn’t know.”

He must be a drug-peddler, of course.

“Philippe’s going towards the Place Clichy now.”

Maigret had scarcely hung up when the phone rang again, and this time it was Torrence.

“I say, sir, when I went back to the ”confessional“to open the window, I fell over young Philippe’s bag. We forgot to give it back to him. Do you suppose he’ll come to fetch it?”

“Not before he’s found some dope.”

Returning to the main room, Maigret found Madame Rose and Arlette’s successor both there, on the dance-floor. Fred had moved into one of the boxes, and was sitting there like a customer. He signed to Maigret to do the same.

“Rehearsal!” he announced with a wink.

The girl was very young, with fair, fuzzy hair and the pink complexion of a baby or a country lass—whose firm limbs and artless expression she had as well.

“Shall I begin?” she asked.

There was no music and no spotlight. Fred merely switched on one more lamp, above the dance floor, and began to hum the tune that usually went with Arlette’s act, beating time with his hand.

Rose, after greeting Maigret, started gesticulating at the girl, to show her what she had to do.

The newcomer broke awkwardly into what was intended as a dance step, swaying her hips as much as possible; and then began, slowly, as she had been taught, to undo the hooks on the long black sheath she was wearing, which had been let out to fit her.

Fred cast an eloquent glance at the Inspector. Neither of them laughed, though they could hardly keep from smiling. The girl’s shoulders were revealed, and then one breast, which, in this humdrum atmosphere, caused a kind of surprise.

Rose held up her hand for a pause at this point, and the girl stared fixedly at it.

“Go right round the floor now,” said Fred, resuming his humming at once. “Not so quick…Tra-la-la-la…Good!…”

And Rose’s hand indicated:

“The other breast…”

Her nipples were large and pink. The dress slid slowly down, the shadow of the navel appeared, and finally the girl, with a clumsy gesture, let it fall right to the ground and stood there on the dance-floor, hands clasped over her nakedness.

“That’ll do for today,” sighed Fred. “You can go and put your clothes on again, my child.”

The girl picked up the dress and went off to the kitchen. Rose came to sit with the men for a moment.

“They’ll have to be satisfied with that! It’s the best I can get out of her. She does it the way she’d drink a cup of coffee. It’s nice of you to come and see us, Inspector.”

She meant it, she was really pleased to see him.

“Do you think you’ll find the murderer?”

“Monsieur Maigret hopes to catch him tonight,” said her husband.

She glanced from one to the other, decided she was in the way, and went off to the kitchen in her turn, announcing:

“I’m going to get some food ready. You’ll have something with us, Inspector?”

He did not refuse. He didn’t know yet whether he would. He had chosen Picratt’s as a strategic point and also, a little, because he liked being there. He wondered whether it wasn’t the atmosphere of the place that had made young Lapointe fall in love with Arlette.

Fred went to turn off the lamps over the dance-floor. They heard the girl walking about overhead. Then she came down and joined Rose in the kitchen.

“What were we saying?”

“We were talking about Oscar.”

“I suppose you’ve made inquiries in all the cheap hotels?”

The question was not worth an answer.

“And he never went to Arlette’s place either?”

They had reached the same point, because they both knew the district and the kind of life that went on there.

If Oscar and Arlette had been on intimate terms, they obviously must have had some meeting-place.

“Did no one ever ring her up here?” asked Maigret.

“I didn’t pay attention, but if it had happened often I should have noticed.”

And she had no telephone in her flat. According to the concierge, no men ever came there—and that concierge was reliable, not like the one in the Countess’s house.

Lapointe had been all through the registration slips of the cheap hotels. Janvier had been the round of the places themselves and done it thoroughly, for he’d come across Fred’s traces.

It was more than twenty-four hours since Arlette’s photo had appeared in the papers, and nobody had so far reported having seen her go regularly into any particular place.

“I tell you again, he’s no fool, that chap!”

Fred frowned as he spoke. He was obviously thinking the same thing as the Inspector—that this Oscar was something out of the ordinary. Ten to one he lived in the district, but he didn’t share in its life. One couldn’t place him, or imagine what his existence must be. To all appearances he played a lone hand—that was what chiefly struck them both.

“Do you think he’ll try to get rid of Philippe?”

“We shall know before morning.”

“I went into the tobacconist’s in the Rue de Douai just now. They’re old pals of mine. I don’t think anyone knows the district better than they do. They get every possible type of customer, according to the time of day. And yet they’re completely fogged, too.”

“All the same, Arlette must have been meeting him somewhere.”

“At his own home, perhaps?”

Maigret would have sworn that wasn’t it. Which was possibly rather absurd. Because practically nothing was known about him, Oscar was taking on terrifying proportions. In the long run one began to be influenced in spite of oneself, by the mystery that surrounded him, and perhaps to credit him with more brains than he really had.

He was like a shadow—always more impressive than the solid object that casts it.

After all he was only a man, a flesh-and-blood man, who’d worked as valet and chauffeur and always been keen on women.

The last time he’d been seen in his true light had been at Nice. He was probably responsible for the pregnancy of little Antoinette Méjat, who’d died of it; Maria Pinaco had been his mistress too, and now she was a prostitute.

Then, a few years later, he’d bought a house near the place where he was born—typical of a self-made man who’d suddenly got hold of money. He went back to parade his new fortune in front of those who had seen him in his days of poverty.

“Is that you, sir?”

The telephone again, with the standard opening. Lapointe’s job was to report progress.

“I’m speaking from a little bar in the Place Constantin-Pecqueur. He went into a house in the Rue Caulaincourt, and up to the fifth floor. He knocked on a door there, but nobody answered.”

“What does the concierge say?”

“That a painter lives there, a Bohemian type. She doesn’t know whether he takes drugs, but says he often looks strange. She’s seen Philippe go up there before. Sometimes he’s spent the night there.”

“Is the painter a homo?”

“Probably. She doesn’t believe there are such people; but she’s never seen him with a woman.”

“What’s Philippe doing now?”

“He’s turned to the right, towards the Sacré—Coeur.”

“Nobody seems to be following him?”

“Nobody except us. Everything’s O.K. It’s begun to rain and it’s damn cold. If I’d known, I’d have put on a sweater.”

Madame Rose had covered the table with a red-checked cloth, and placed a steaming soup-tureen in the middle. Four places were laid: Arlette’s successor, who had got back into a navy-blue suit in which she looked like a well brought-up young girl, was helping to serve, and it was hard to realize that only a few minutes earlier she had been standing naked in the middle of the dance floor.

“I’d be surprised if he never came here,” said Maigret.

“To see her?”

“Well, she was his pupil. I wonder if he was jealous.”

That was a question to which Fred would certainly know the answer; for Fred, too, had had women who went to bed with other men—he even forced them to do so—and must know how a man felt in such circumstances.

“He’d never be jealous of the men she met here,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, he must have been so self-confident. He was convinced he’d got a firm hold and that she’d never escape.”

Was it the Countess who had pushed her old husband over the precipice, from the terrace of The Oasis? Most likely. If Oscar had done it, he wouldn’t have had such a hold over her. Even if he’d been an accomplice.

There was a certain irony in the whole story. The poor Count had been crazy about his wife, putting up with all her whims and humbly begging her to keep a little corner for him in her shadow. If he had not loved her so much, she might have put up with him. It was the very intensity of his adoration that she had found intolerable.

Had Oscar foreseen that that would happen one day? Had he been spying on her? Very probably.

It was easy to imagine the scene. The couple had gone out on to the terrace when they got back from the Casino, and the Countess had had no difficulty in leading the old man to the edge of the precipice and then pushing him over.

When she turned round, she must have been terrified to see that the chauffeur had been watching, and was now staring silently at her.

What had passed between them? What agreement had they reached?

In any case, it was not the gigolos who had squandered all her money—a good share of it must have gone to Oscar.

He was too shrewd to stay with her. He had disappeared, and waited for several years before buying that house near his birthplace.

He had done nothing to attract attention, he hadn’t started throwing money about.

Maigret always found himself back at the same point: the man was a lone wolf, and he had learnt that lone wolves were not to be trusted.

Bonvoisin was known to have a taste for women—the old cook’s description had been revealing. Before meeting Arlette at La Bourboule, he must have had other women.

Had he trained them in the same way? Kept as firm a hold over them? There had never been a scandal to call attention to him.

The Countess had begun to go downhill, and nobody spoke of him. She used to give him money. He must live not far off, somewhere in the district; yet a man like Fred, who had been employing Arlette for two years, had never been able to find out anything about him.

And now, perhaps, it was his turn to be trapped as the Count had been. Wasn’t it quite likely that Arlette had been trying to get rid of him? In fact she
had
tried at least once after that impassioned discussion with Lapointe.

“What I can’t understand,” said Fred—as though Maigret had been uttering his thoughts aloud, while he ate his soup, “is why he killed that crazy old woman. He’s supposed to have been after the jewels she kept hidden in her mattress. It’s possible he was—in fact it’s certain. But he had a hold over her, and he could have got them some other way.”

“There’s no saying she’d have let them go so easily,” objected Rose. “They were all she had left, and she must have been trying to make them last. Besides, remember, she doped, and those people are apt to talk too much.”

Arlette’s successor understood not a word of this, and sat staring curiously at each of them in turn. Fred had found her in a little theatre where she had a walking-on part. She was very proud of being promoted to a solo act, but one could feel she was rather afraid of meeting the same fate as Arlette.

“Will you be staying on this evening?” she asked Maigret.

“Perhaps. I don’t know.”

“The Inspector may leave in two minutes’ time, or he may stay till to-morrow morning,” said Fred with a sly smile.

“If you ask me,” remarked Rose, “Arlette was fed up with him, and he knew it. A man can hold a woman like that for a time, especially when she’s very young. But she’d met other men…”

She stared rather hard at her husband.

“Hadn’t she, Fred? They’d made offers to her. And it isn’t only women who can feel that kind of thing coming. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d decided to get hold of a lot of money at one stroke, and take her away to live somewhere else. Only he made the mistake of being too sure of himself, and told her about his plans. He’s not the first to have been ruined that way.”

All this was still rather confused, of course; but the truth was beginning to take shape, in a way which shed a clearer light on the sinister figure of Oscar.

Again the telephone rang, but when Maigret went he found the call was not for him, but for Fred—who took the receiver, and courteously refrained from shutting the cloakroom door.

“Hello?” they heard him say, “Yes…What?…What are you doing there? Yes…Yes, he’s here…Don’t shout so loud, you’re deafening me…O.K…Yes, I know…Why?…But that’s idiotic…You’d better speak to him yourself…All right…I don’t know what he’ll decide to do…Stay where you are…Probably he’ll come along and join you…”

He came back to the table looking rather worried.

“That was the Grasshopper,” he murmured, as though to himself.

He sat down, but did not go on with his meal at once.

“I wonder what’s at the back of his mind. He’s been working for me for five years, but I never know what he’s thinking. He’s never even told me where he lives. For all I can tell, he may have a wife and family.”

“Where is he now?” inquired Maigret.

“Up at the top of the
Butte
, at Chez Francis, the little restaurant at the corner, where there’s always a bearded fellow telling fortunes. You know where I mean?”

Fred pondered, searching for an explanation.

“The funny thing is that Inspector Lognon is walking up and down just opposite.”

“What’s the Grasshopper doing up there?”

“He didn’t tell me exactly. I gathered it was something to do with that chap Philippe. The Grasshopper knows every pansy in Montmartre—in fact I used to wonder if he wasn’t one himself. And between ourselves, it’s possible he does a bit of drug-peddling at odd moments. I know you won’t take advantage of that, and I promise you there’s never any brought in here.”

“Is Chez Francis one of Philippe’s hang-outs?”

“So it would seem. The Grasshopper may know more about that.”