The iron bed looked as though it had come from a barracks, as did the coarse blanket. On the whitewashed walls hung colored prints representing sunny towns: Nice, Naples, Istanbul...On the floor were more piles of magazines.

  With his hands, which did not shake in spite of his age, the old man tried to explain that he was deaf and dumb, that he could say nothing, and in his turn Maigret gave a sign of helplessness.

  Then he explained that he could read the words on Maigret's lips.

  "I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm from the police. Would you happen to know a tenant named Palmari?"

  Maigret pointed to the floor to show that Palmari lived downstairs, held up two fingers to specify the number of floors. Old Jeff shook his head, and the Superintendent spoke about Aline.

  As far as he could gather, the old man had met her on the stairs. He described her comically, carving in space her narrow face, her slim, curving figure.

  Back on the fourth floor, Maigret felt he had visited a whole universe. He felt heavier, rather sad. Manuel's death in his wheelchair had only caused a very slight stir, and people who had for years been separated from him only by a partition, a floor, or a ceiling did not even know who had been carried away under a sheet.

  Lucas was no longer playing cards. Aline was not in the living room.

  "I think she's asleep."

  Young Lapointe was there, thrilled to be working with the Chief.

  "I took a car. Was that all right?"

  "Is there any beer left, Lucas?"

  "Two bottles."

  "Open one for me, and I'll have half a dozen delivered to you."

  It was six o'clock. The traffic jams were beginning to form in Paris, and despite the regulations an impatient driver was tooting under the windows of the building.

  Chapter 4

  The Clou Dorè in Rue Fontaine was flanked on one side by a third-rate striptease joint and on the other by a lingerie shop specializing in highly fanciful female underclothes, which foreigners took home with them as a souvenir of "Gay Paree."

  Maigret and Lapointe, who had left the Police Judiciaire's car in Rue Chaptal, slowly wandered up the street, where daytime workers were beginning to mingle with the very different figures of night life.

  It was seven o'clock. The bouncer, whom everyone called Big-Armed Jo, was not yet at his post, in his blue uniform with gold braid, on the doorstep of the restaurant.

  Maigret, who was looking around for him, knew him well. He looked like a former side-show boxer, although he had never worn six- or eight-ounce gloves, and, at the age of forty, he had spent half his life in the shade, first as a minor in a reform school, then in prison, serving six months to two years at a time, for petty theft or assault and battery.

  He had the intelligence of a child of ten, and in an unexpected situation his eyes became blurred, almost pleading, like those of a schoolboy being asked about a subject he has not studied.

  He was indoors, in his uniform, busy passing a rag over the fawn leather seats, and when he recognized the Superintendent, his face had about as much expression as a block of wood.

  The two waiters were busy setting the tables, putting on the tablecloths the plates with the crest of the house, glasses, and silver, and, in the middle of each table, two flowers in a crystal vase.

  The lamps, with pink shades, were not lighted, because the sun still gilded the sidewalk opposite.

  The bartender, Justin, in a white shirt and black tie, gave a last wipe to his glasses. The only customer, a large man with a red face, sitting on a high stool, was drinking a menthe verte.

  Maigret had seen him somewhere before. It was a familiar face, but he could not place it immediately.

  Had he met him at the races, or even here, or in his office at the Quai des Orfevres?

  Montmartre was full of people who had had dealings with him, sometimes years earlier, and who vanished for a longer or shorter period of time, either to serve a term at Fontevrault or Melun, or to sink into the background waiting to be forgotten.

  "Good evening, sir. Good evening, Inspector," said Justin airily. "If it's for dinner, you're rather early. What can I give you?"

  "A beer."

  "Dutch, Danish, German?"

  The manager came out of the back room silently, his hair scanty, his face pale and rather puffy, mauve rings under his eyes.

  With no surprise or apparent emotion he went up to the two men, gave Maigret a soft hand, and then shook Lapointe's hand before leaning against the bar, but not sitting down. He had only to put on his dinner jacket before being ready for his customers.

  "I expected you today. I was even surprised you didn't come sooner. What do you think of it?"

  He seemed worried and sad.

  "What do I think of what?"

  "Somebody finally managed to do him in. Have you any idea who it could have been?"

  So, although the papers had not mentioned Manuel's death, although Aline had been watched all day and had not made a single telephone call, they knew the news at the Clou Dorè.

  If a policeman from the Ternes district had talked, it would have been to a reporter. As for the tenants of the building, they did not seem to have any connection with the Montmartre set.

  "Since when have you known about it, Jean-Loup?"

  The manager, who was also the headwaiter, was called Jean-Loup Pernelle. The police did not know anything against him. Born in the Allier, he had started as a waiter at Vichy.

  Married young, he was the father of a family; his son studied at the Medical College and one of his daughters had married the owner of a restaurant in the Champs-Elysèes. He led a bourgeois life in the house he had had built at Choisey-le-Roi.

  "I don't know," he answered in surprise.

  "Why do you ask? I suppose everyone knows?"

  "The papers haven't mentioned the crime. Try to remember. Did you know anything at lunchtime?"

  "I think so, yes. The customers tell us so many things! Can you remember, Justin?"

  "No. It was mentioned at the bar, too."

  "Who by?"

  Maigret was up against the law of silence.

  Even if Pernelle, the manager, did not belong to the set, and led the most orderly of lives, he was no less bound to secrecy by some of his customers.

  The Clou Dorè was no longer the bar it used to be, where one encountered only vagrants. And Manuel, who had then owned the place, had not needed much coaxing to tip the Superintendent off about them.

  The restaurant had acquired some wealthy customers. There was a large number of foreigners, some pretty girls, too, at about ten or eleven at night, because dinner was served until midnight. A few of the gang leaders still stuck to their habits, but they were no longer young and ready for anything. They had houses of their own, and most of them had wives and children.

  "I'd like to know the first person to tell you both about it."

  And Maigret went fishing, as he put it.

  "It wasn't a certain Massoletti?"

  He had had time to memorize the names of all the tenants of the building on Rue des Acacias.

  "What does he do?"

  "He sells cars...Italian cars..."

  "I don't know him. Do you, Justin?"

  "It's the first I've heard of him."

  They both seemed sincere.

  "Vignon?"

  Not a glimmer in their eyes. They shook their heads.

  "A physical-training instructor named Destouches?"

  "Don't know him here."

  "Tony Pasquier?"

  "I know him," broke in Justin.

  "So do I," continued Pernelle. "He sends me customers sometimes. He's the second bartender at the Claridge, isn't he? I haven't seen him for months."

  "He hasn't telephoned today?"

  "He only telephones to give a customer a special recommendation."

  "Your bouncer wouldn't have heard the news, would he?" The bouncer, who had overheard, spat on the ground in feigned disgust and muttered between his teeth:

  "Well, if that doesn't beat everything!"

  "James Stuart, an Englishman? No? Fernand Barillard?"

  At each name, the two men looked as though they were thinking and shook their heads once more.

  "Who do you think would want to get rid of Palmari?"

  "It isn't the first time someone's tried to get him."

  "Except that the men who sprayed him with the machine gun were bumped off. And Palmari never left his apartment. Tell me, Pernelle, when did the Clou Dorè change hands?"

  A slight blush appeared on the manager's pale face.

  "Five days ago."

  "Who's the present owner?"

  He hesitated only for a second. He realized Maigret knew and that there was no point in lying.

  "I am."

  "Who did you buy the place from?"

  "From Aline, of course."

  "How long has Aline been the real owner?"

  "I can't remember the date. It's over two years."

  "Was the bill of sale made out by a lawyer?"

  "It was quite legal."

  "Which lawyer?"

  "Maitre Desgrieres, on Boulevard Pereire."

  "How much was it?"

  "Two hundred thousand."

  "New francs, I suppose?"

  "Of course."

  "Paid in cash?"

  "Yes. So it even took some time to count the notes."

  "Did Aline take them away in a briefcase or a suitcase?"

  "I don't know. I left first."

  "Did you know that Manuel's mistress also owns the building on Rue des Acacias?"

  The two men were more and more ill at ease.

  "There are always rumors. You see, Superintendent, I'm an honest man, like Justin. We've both got a family. Because the restaurant is in Montmartre, we get all kinds of customers. And besides, the law forbids us to throw them out unless they're blind drunk, and that's very rare.

  "One hears stories, but one likes to forget them. Isn't that so, Justin?"

  "Exactly."

  "I wonder," murmured the Superintendent, "whether Aline had a lover."

  Neither of them flinched or said either yes or no, which rather surprised Maigret.

  "Did she ever meet men here?"

  "She didn't even stop at the bar. She came straight up to my office on the mezzanine and checked the accounts like a businesswoman before going off with the amount due to her."

  "Aren't you surprised that a man like Palmari apparently transferred to her name all or a good part of what he possessed?"

  "Many shopkeepers and businessmen put all their property in their wife's name, for fear of confiscation."

  "Palmari wasn't married," objected Maigret. "And there were thirty-five years between them."

  "I thought of that, too. You see, I think Manuel was really gone on Aline. He trusted her implicitly. He loved her. I could swear he'd never been in love before he met her. He felt belittled in his wheelchair. She became his life more than ever before, his only contact with the outside world."

  "And she?"

  "As far as I can see, she loved him, too. It happens to girls like her as well. Before meeting him, she had only met men who had their fun without considering her as a human being, you see? Girls like Aline are far more susceptible than honest women to attention, affection, the prospect of security."

  The large, red-faced man at the end of the bar ordered another menthe.

  "Right away, Monsieur Louis."

  And Maigret whispered:

  "Who is Monsieur Louis?"

  "A customer. I don't know his name, but he comes quite frequently to drink one or two menthes with water. I suppose he's from the neighborhood."

  "Was he here at midday?"

  "Was he here, Justin?" Pernelle repeated in a whisper.

  "Just a minute. I think so. He asked me for a tip on some race."

  Monsieur Louis mopped his brow and watched his glass gloomily.

  Maigret pulled out his notebook and wrote a few words, which he showed Lapointe.

  "Follow him if he goes out. Meet you here. If I've left, call me at home."

  "Pernelle, while you're not too busy do you mind if we go up to the mezzanine for a minute?"

  It was an invitation a restaurant owner can hardly refuse.

  "This way..."

  He had flat feet and waddled along like most elderly headwaiters. The staircase was narrow and dark. There was none of the luxury and comfort of the restaurant. Pernelle pulled a bunch of keys out of his pocket, opened a brown door, and they found themselves in a little room looking onto the courtyard.

  The cylindrical desk was covered with bills, pamphlets, two telephones, pens, pencils, and letterhead. On some white wooden shelves was a row of green file boxes and on the wall opposite hung framed photographs of Madame Pernelle, twenty or thirty years younger, a boy of about twenty, and a girl leaning her head forward pensively, her chin in her hand.

  "Sit down, Pernelle, and listen to me. Let's play it straight."

  "I've always played it straight."

  "You know that you haven't, and that you can't or you wouldn't be the owner of the Clou Dorè. To put you at your ease I'm going to tell you something that no longer matters for the person concerned.

  "When Manuel bought what was only a bistro twenty years ago, I sometimes came here for a drink in the morning, when I was almost sure of finding him alone.

  "He also sometimes gave me a call or made a discreet visit to the Quai des Orfevres."

  "An informer?" murmured the manager without much surprise.

  "Did you suspect it?"

  "I don't know. Maybe. I suppose that's why they shot at him three years ago."

  "Possibly. Only, Manuel was clever, and if he occasionally tipped me off about some small fry, he looked after the big jobs himself and hushed them up."

  "Don't you want a bottle of champagne sent up?"

  "It's about the only drink that doesn't tempt me."

  "Some beer?"

  "Not for the moment."

  Pernelle was obviously suffering.

  "Manuel was very clever," Maigret went on, still looking his companion in the eyes.

  "So clever that I could never get any evidence against him. He knew I knew a great deal of the truth, at least. He didn't bother to deny it. He used to look at me calmly, with a touch of irony, and whenever it was necessary, he handed over one of his confederates."

  "I don't understand."

  "Yes, you do."

  "What do you mean? I never worked for Manuel except here, doing my job as headwaiter and then as manager."

  "And yet from twelve o'clock on you knew what had happened to him. As you said, one hears a lot at the bar or in the restaurant. What do you think of the jewel robberies, Pernelle?"

  "What I read in the papers: some youngsters trying their hand, who end up by being caught."

  "No."

  "They mention an older man who's always nearby in case of emergency."

  "Then?"

  "Nothing. I swear I know nothing else."

  "Well, I'll tell you something else, although I'm sure it's not new to you. What is the main risk the jewel burglars run?"

  "Being caught."

  "How?"

  "When they sell."

  "Good! You're getting there. All stones of a certain value have a sort of civil status, and the people in the business know them. The minute a burglary is committed, a description of the jewels is circulated, not only in France but also abroad.

  "A receiver, if the burglars know one, will give only ten to fifteen percent of the value of the goods.

  Nearly always, a couple of years later, when he puts the stones in circulation, the police will identify them and trace them back. Are you with me?"

  "I presume that's what happens. You know more about it than I do."

  "Well, for years jewels have been disappearing periodically as a result of holdups or window breakings, without ever being found again. What does that mean?"

  "How should I know?"

  "Come on, Pernelle. One doesn't do your job for thirty or forty years without knowing the tricks of the trade, even if one doesn't take a hand in it."

  "I haven't been in Montmartre for so long."

  "The first problem is not only to unset the stones, but also to transform them, which entails the complicity of a diamond cutter. Do you know one?"

  "No."

  "Not many people do, for the simple reason that there aren't many of them around, not just in France but in the world. There aren't more than about fifty in Paris, nearly all living in the Marais, near Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, and they form a very closed little set. Besides, the brokers, the diamond dealers, and the big jewelers who give them work have got their eye on them."

  "I hadn't thought of that."

  "You don't say!"

  There was a knock on the door. It was the bartender, who handed Maigret a slip of paper.

  "That's just been dropped off for you."

  "Who by?"

  "The waiter from the cafè on the corner."

  Lapointe had written in pencil on a page from a notebook:

  "He went into the phone booth. Through the window I saw him dial Etoile 42.39. Not sure of the last number. He's sitting in a corner reading a newspaper. I'm staying here."

  "Do you mind if I use one of your telephones? By the way, why have you got two lines?"

  "I've only got one. The second telephone connects with the restaurant."

  "Hello! Directory Assistance? Superintendent Maigret from the Police Judiciaire. I'd like to know, urgently, the name of the subscriber to Etoile 42.39. I'm not sure about the last number. Could you call me back here?"

  "Now," he said to Pernelle, "I wouldn't mind a glass of beer."

  "Are you sure you don't know any more than what you said about Monsieur Louis?"

  Pernelle hesitated, realizing the matter was becoming serious.

  "I don't know him personally. I see him at the bar. I've served him sometimes when Justin was away, and we've said a few words about the weather."

  "Is he ever with anyone?"

  "Hardly ever. I've occasionally seen him with some boys, and I even wondered if he was queer."

  "You don't know either his surname or his address?"

  "I've always heard him called Monsieur Louis, with a certain respect. He must live in the neighborhood, because he never comes by car..."

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12