Inspector maigret omnibu.., p.40
Inspector Maigret Omnibus, Volume 1, page 40
‘Waiter! Another beer!’
Then Maigret noticed that the young woman had left her handbag on the table. Imitation crocodile-skin, full to bursting, brand new.
Then a shadow coming towards him on the ground. He looked up and got a front view of the owner of the handbag, who was coming back to the terrace.
The inspector gave a start. His nostrils flared slightly.
He could be wrong, of course. It was more an impression than a certainty. But he could have sworn he was looking at the person in the headless photo.
Cautiously, he took the photo out of his pocket. The woman had sat down again.
‘Well, waiter? Where’s my lemonade?’
‘I thought … The gentleman said …’
‘I ordered lemonade!’
It was the same slightly fleshy line of the neck, the same full but firm breasts, the same voluptuous buoyancy …
And the same style of dressing, the same taste for very glossy silk in loud colours.
Maigret dropped the photo in such a way that the woman at the next table could not fail to see it.
And see it she did. She stared at the inspector as though she were trawling through her memories. But if she was disconcerted, her feelings did not show in her face.
Five minutes, ten minutes went by. Then there was the distant thrum of an engine. It grew louder. It was the grey car heading back to the terrace. It stopped, then set off again, as though the driver could not make up his mind to drive away and not come back.
‘Gaston!’
She was on her feet. She waved to the man. This time she grasped her bag firmly and the next moment she was getting into the car.
The three women at the next table followed her with their eyes and a disapproving air. The young man with the Kodak turned round.
The grey car was already vanishing in a roar of acceleration.
‘Waiter! Where can I get hold of a car?’
‘I don’t think you’ll find one in Yport … There is one which sometimes takes people to Fécamp or Étretat, but now that I think I saw it drive off this morning with some English people in it.’
The inspector’s thick fingers drummed rapidly on the tabletop.
‘Bring me a road map. And get me the chief inspector of Fécamp police on the phone … Have you ever seen those two before?’
‘The couple who were arguing? Almost every day this week. Yesterday they had lunch here. I think they’re from Le Havre.’
There were now only families left on the beach, which exuded all the warmth of a summer evening. A black ship moved imperceptibly across the line of the horizon, entered the sun and emerged on the other side, as if it had jumped through a paper hoop.
4. The Mark of Rage
‘Speaking for myself,’ said the chief inspector of Fécamp’s police department as he sharpened a blue pencil, ‘I’ll admit I have few illusions left. It’s so rarely that we manage to clear up any of these cases involving sailors. And that’s being optimistic! Just you try getting to the bottom of one of those mindless brawls that happen every day of the week down by the harbour. When my men get there, they’re all beating seven bells out of each other. Then they spot uniforms and they close ranks and go on the offensive. Question them and they all lie, contradict each other and muddy the waters to the point that in the end we give up.’
There were four of them smoking in the office, which was already filled with tobacco fumes. It was evening. The divisional head of Le Havre’s flying squad, who was officially in charge of the investigation, had a young inspector with him.
Maigret was there in a private capacity. He sat at a table in a corner. He hadn’t yet spoken.
‘It looks straightforward enough to me,’ ventured the young inspector, who was hoping to earn the approval of his chief. ‘Theft wasn’t the motive for the crime. So it was an act of revenge. On which member of the crew did Captain Fallut come down hardest when they were away at sea?’
But the chief inspector from Le Havre gave a shrug, and the junior inspector turned red and fell silent.
‘Still …’
‘No, no! It’s something else. And top of the list is this woman you unearthed for us, Maigret. Did you give the boys in uniform all the information they need to find her? Dammit, I can’t for the life of me work out what part she played in all this. The boat was at sea for three months. She wasn’t there when it docked, because no one has reported seeing her get off it. The wireless operator is engaged to be married. By all accounts, Captain Fallut didn’t seem the kind of man who’d do anything silly. And yet he wrote his will just before he got himself murdered.
‘It would also be interesting to know who exactly went to the trouble of delivering the will here,’ sighed Maigret. ‘There’s also a reporter – he’s the one who wears a beige raincoat – who claims in L’Éclair de Rouen that the owners of the Océan had sent it to sea to do something other than fish for cod.’
‘They always say that, every time,’ muttered the Fécamp chief inspector.
The conversation languished. There was a long silence during which the spittle in Maigret’s pipe could be heard sizzling. He got stiffly to his feet.
‘If anyone asked me what the distinctive feature of this case is,’ he said, ‘I’d say that it has the mark of rage on it. Everything to do with the trawler is acrimonious, tense, overheated. The crew get drunk and fight in the Grand Banks Café. I bring the wireless operator’s fiancée to see him, and he could barely conceal his irritation and gave her a pretty cool reception. He almost as good as told her to mind her own business! At Yport, the chief mechanic calls his wife all sorts and treats me like some dog he can kick. And then I come across two people who seem to have the same mark on them: the girl called Adèle, and her boyfriend. They make scenes on the beach, and no sooner do they settle their differences than they disappear together …’
‘And what do you make of it all?’ asked the chief inspector from Le Havre.
‘Me? I don’t make anything of it. I merely remark that I feel as if I’m going round in circles surrounded by a lot of mad people … Anyway, I’ll say good night. I’m just an observer here. Besides, my wife is expecting me back at the hotel. You’ll let me know, chief inspector, if you locate the Yport woman and the man in the grey car?’
‘Of course! Good night!’
Instead of walking through the town, Maigret went via the harbour, hands in pocket, pipe between his teeth. The empty port was a large black rectangle where the only lights that showed were those of the Océan, which was still being unloaded.
‘… the mark of rage!’ he muttered to himself.
No one paid attention when he climbed on board. He walked along the deck, with no obvious purpose, he saw a light in a foredeck hatchway. He leaned over it. Warm air blew up into his face, a combined smell of doss-house, canteen and fish market.
He went down the iron ladder and found himself face to face with three men who were eating from mess tins balanced on their knees. For light, there was an oil lamp hung on gimbals. In the middle of their quarters was a cast-iron stove caked with grease.
Along the walls were four tiers of bunks, some still full of straw, the others empty. And boots. And sou’westers hanging on pegs.
Of the three, only Louis had stood up. The other two were the Breton and a black sailor with bare feet.
‘Enjoying your dinner?’ growled Maigret.
He was answered with grunts.
‘Where are your mates?’
‘Gone home, haven’t they,’ said Louis. ‘You gotta have nowhere to go and be broke to hang about here when you’re not at sea.’
Maigret had to get used to the semi-darkness and especially the smell. He tried to imagine the same space when it was filled by forty men who could not move a muscle without bumping into somebody.
Forty men dropping on to their bunks without taking their boots off, snoring, chewing tobacco, smoking …
‘Did the captain ever come down here?’
‘Never.’
And all the while the throb of the screw, the smell of coal smoke, of soot, of burning hot metal, the pounding of the sea …
‘Come with me, Louis.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Maigret caught the sailor, full of bravado, making signs to the others behind his back.
But once aloft, on the deck now flooded with shadow, his swagger evaporated.
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing … Listen … Suppose the captain died at sea, on the way home. Was there someone who could have got the boat safely back to port?’
‘Maybe not. Because the first mate doesn’t know how to take a bearing. Still they say that, using the wireless, the wireless operator could always find the ship’s position.’
‘Did you see much of the wireless operator?’
‘Never saw him at all! Don’t imagine we walk around like we’re doing now. There are general quarters for some, others have separate quarters of their own. You can go for days without budging from your small corner.’
‘How about the chief mechanic?’
‘Him? Yes. I saw him more or less every day.’
‘How did he seem?’
Louis turned evasive.
‘How the devil should I know? Look, what are you driving at? I’d like to see how you make out when everything’s going wrong, a lad goes overboard, a steam valve blows, the captain’s mind is set on anchoring the trawler in a station where there’s no fish, a man gets gangrene and the rest of it … You’d be effing and blinding nineteen to the dozen! And for the smallest thing you’d take a swing at someone! And to cap it all, when you’re told the captain on the bridge is off his rocker …’
‘Was he?’
‘I never asked him. Anyway …’
‘Anyway what?’
‘At the end of the day, what difference will it make? There’ll always be someone who’ll tell you. Look, it seems there were three of them up top who never went anywhere without their revolvers. Three of them spying on each other, all afraid of each other. The captain hardly ever came out of his cabin, where he’d ordered the charts, compass, sextant and the rest to be brought.’
‘And it went on like that for three months?’
‘Yes. Anything else you want to ask me?’
‘No, that’s it. You can go …’
Louis walked away almost regretfully. He stopped for a moment by the hatch, watching the inspector, who was puffing gently at his pipe.
Cod was still being extracted from the gaping hold in the glare of the acetylene lamps. But Maigret had had enough of trucks, dockers, the quays, the jetties and the lighthouse.
He was standing on a world of plated steel and, half-closing his eyes, he imagined being out on the open sea, in a field of surging swells through which the bows ploughed an endless furrow, hour after hour, day after day, week after week.
‘Don’t imagine we walk around like we’re doing now …’
Men below serving the engines. Men in the forward crew quarters. And on the after deck, a handful of God’s creatures: the captain, his first mate, the chief mechanic and the wireless operator.
A small binnacle light to see the compass by. Charts spread out.
Three months!
When they’d got back, Captain Fallut had written his will, in which he stated his intention to put an end to his life.
An hour after they’d berthed, he’d been strangled and dumped in the harbour.
And Madame Bernard, his landlady, was left grieving because now there would be no marriage of two ideally suited people. The chief mechanic shouted at his wife. The girl called Adèle defied an unknown man, but ran off with him the moment Maigret held a picture of herself scribbled on in red ink under her nose.
And in his prison cell the wireless operator Le Clinche in a foul temper.
The boat hardly moved. Just a gentle motion, like a chest breathing. One of the three men he’d seen in the foredeck was playing the accordion.
As he turned his head, Maigret made out the shapes of two women on the quayside. Suddenly galvanized, he hurried down the gangway.
‘What are you doing here?’
He felt his face burn because he had sounded gruff, but especially because he was aware that he too was being infected by the frenzy which filled all those involved in the case.
‘We wanted to see the boat,’ said Madame Maigret with disarming self-effacement.
‘It’s my fault,’ said Marie Léonnec. ‘I was the one who insisted on …’
‘All right! That’s fine! Have you eaten?’
‘It’s ten o’clock … Have you?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
The windows of the Grand Banks Café were more or less the only ones still lit. A few shadowy figures could be made out on the jetty: tourists dutifully out for their evening stroll.
‘Have you found out anything?’ asked Le Clinche’s fiancée.
‘Not yet. Or rather, not much.’
‘I don’t dare ask you a favour.’
‘You can always ask.’
‘I’d like to see Pierre’s cabin. Could I?’
He shrugged and took her there. Madame Maigret refused to walk over the gangway.
Literally a metal box. Wireless equipment. A steel table, a seat and a bunk. Hanging on a wall, a picture of Marie Léonnec in Breton costume. Old shoes on the floor and a pair of trousers on the bed.
The girl inhaled the atmosphere with a mixture of curiosity and delight.
‘Yes! But it isn’t at all how I’d imagined. His shoes have never been cleaned … Oh look! He kept drinking from the same glass without ever washing it …’
A strange girl! An amalgam of shyness, delicacy and a good upbringing on the one hand and dynamism and fearlessness on the other. She hesitated.
‘And the captain’s cabin?’
Maigret smiled faintly, for he realized that deep down she was hoping to make a discovery. He led the way. He even fetched a lantern he found on deck.
‘How can they live with this smell?’ she sighed.
She looked carefully around her. He saw her become flustered and shy as she said:
‘Why has the bed been raised up?’
Maigret stopped drawing on his pipe. She was right. All the crew slept in berths which were more or less part of the architectural structure of the boat. Only the captain had a metal bed.
Under each of its legs a wooden block had been placed.
‘You don’t think that’s strange? It’s as if …’
‘Go on.’
All trace of ill-humour had gone. Maigret saw the girl’s pale face lighten as her mind worked and her elation grew.
‘It’s as if … but you’ll only laugh at me … as if the bed’s been propped up so that someone could hide underneath … Without those pieces of wood, the bedstead would be much too low, but the way it is now …’
And before he could stop her, she lay down flat on the floor regardless of the dirt on the floor and slid under the bed.
‘There’s enough room!’ she said.
‘Right. You can come out now.’
‘Just a minute, if you don’t mind. Pass me that lamp for a minute, inspector.’
She went quiet. He couldn’t work out what she was doing. He lost patience.
‘Well?’
She reappeared suddenly, her grey suit covered with dust and eyes shining.
‘Pull the bed out … You’ll see.’
Her voice broke. Her hands shook. Maigret yanked the bed away from the wall and looked at the floor.
‘I can’t see anything …’
When she didn’t answer he turned and saw that she was crying.
‘What did you see? Why are you crying?’
‘There … Read it.’
He had to bend down and place the lamp against the wall. Then he could make out words scratched on the wood with a sharp object, a pin or a nail.
Gaston – Octave – Pierre – Hen …
The last word was unfinished. And yet it did not look as if it had been done in a hurry. Some of the letters must have taken an hour to inscribe. There were flourishes, little strokes, the sort of doodling that’s done in an idle moment.
A comic note was struck by two stag’s antlers above the name ‘Octave’.
The girl was sitting on the edge of the bed, which had been pulled into the middle of the cabin. She was still crying, in silence.
‘Very curious!’ muttered Maigret. ‘I’d like to know if …’
At this point, she stood up and said excitedly:
‘Of course! That’s it! There was a woman here! She was hiding! … All the same, men would come looking for her … Wasn’t Captain Fallut called Octave?’
The inspector had rarely been so taken off guard.
‘Don’t go jumping to conclusions!’ he said, though there was no conviction in his words.
‘But it’s all written down! … The whole story is there! Four men who …’
What could he say to calm her down?
‘Look, I’ve a lot of experience, so take it from me. In police matters, you must always wait before making judgements … Only yesterday, you were telling me that Le Clinche is incapable of killing.’
‘Yes,’ she sobbed. ‘Yes, and I still believe it! Isn’t it …’
She still clung desperately to her hopes.
‘His name is Pierre …’
‘I know. So what? One sailor in ten is called Pierre, and there were fifty men on board … There’s also a Gaston … And a Henry …’
‘So what do you think?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you going to tell the examining magistrate about this? And to think it was me who …’
‘Calm down! We haven’t found out anything, except that the bed was raised for one reason or another and that someone has written names on a wall.’
‘There was a woman there.’
‘Why a woman?’
‘But …’
‘Come on. Madame Maigret is waiting for us on the quay.’
‘You’re right.’
She wiped her tears, meek now, and sniffled.
‘I shouldn’t have come … But I thought … But it’s not possible that Pierre … Listen! I must see him as soon as I can! I’ll talk to him, alone … You can arrange it, can’t you?’
