14 - (Maigret) The Flemish Shop, page 3
“I know. That’s what he says. But there’s a witness who claims to have recognized his motor-bike here at Givet.””
“Has the boy any alibi?”
“He gives quite a plausible account of himself, but there’s nothing to corroborate it. He lives in lodgings where he can easily get in and out without anybody seeing him. He says he spent most of the evening in one of the bars frequented by students. I went over to Nancy and questioned a number of them. Several can remember his spending an evening with them, but not one of them can be sure whether it was the 3rd, the 4th, or the 5th.”
“Any chance of its being suicide?”
“Precious little. She wasn’t the type. A common little thing, with not much health and no morals… But she doted on the child.”
“Is there nobody else in the picture?”
Machère did not answer immediately. His eye wandered to the barges, which formed a little island, separated from the land by a few yards of water.
“I’ve tried myself to think of anybody else who might have done it,” he went on at last. “I’ve checked up on all the bargees… Most of them are a very steady lot, who live on board with their wives and children.
“There was only one boat I didn’t like the look of. Absolutely filthy, and in such rotten condition that it’s a wonder she keeps afloat. The Etoile Polaire, the last boat upstream.”
“Whose is it?”
“A Belgian’s. Comes from Tilleur near Liége. He’s a nasty old brute who’s been had up before for assaulting girls. He won’t spend a sou on upkeep, and there isn’t a company that will insure his boat… Apart from the time he was had up, there have been any amount of stories of the way he carries on with women and little girls… But there’s nothing whatever to connect him with Germaine Piedbœuf.”
The two men walked on towards the bridge. They came to street lamps, then bars on the right, French bars with automatic pianos.
“I’m keeping an eye on him all the same… But this evidence about the motor-bike…”
“Where are you staying?”
“At the Hôtel de la Gare.”
Maigret held out his hand.
“I’ll be seeing you again, old man… In the meantime, don’t forget, you’re in charge of the case. I’m. only here as an amateur.”
“But what do you expect me to do about it?… If we don’t find the body, we’ll never be able to prove anything. And if it’s been thrown in the water, we never will find it…”
Maigret shook hands with him absent-mindedly and walked off to the Hôtel de la Meuse.
During dinner Maigret had written in his little notebook:
Opinions on the Peeters.
Machère: It’s the drink that pays best, but they’d never admit they kept a bar.
Landlord of Hôtel de la Meuse: They take themselves very seriously. It never occurred to me to make my son into a lawyer.
A bargee: In Belgium they’re all like that.
Another: They stand up for each other like a band of Free Masons.
At the bridge you were right in the heart of a small French town. Little streets. Cafés full of people playing billiards and dominoes. The smell of aniseed, rising from the apéritifs.
Then that short stretch of river, the customs houses, and finally the Flemish shop that was at once the last house in France and the first in Belgium. A Flemish shop whose shelves were bent under the weight of food-stuffs; a bit of counter covered with zinc for the gin-drinkers; a kitchen behind, where a man turned eighty sat aimlessly in his wicker chair by the stove; a general living-room with a piano, a violin, comfortable chairs, a home-made tart, the large checks of the table-cloth. Then Anna and Marguerite, and Joseph, tall and weedy, arriving on his motor-bike to be admired by his womenfolk.
The Hôtel de la Meuse was a commercial hotel. The landlord knew all the travellers, each of whom had his own napkin.
About nine o’clock Joseph Peeters slunk in timidly, went up to the inspector, and stammered:
“Have you… have you heard the news?”
Everyone turned to stare at them, so Maigret thought it better to take the young man up to his room.
“What is it?”
“You knew about the advertisement, didn’t you?… Well, a chap’s come forward, a garage-hand from Dinant, who says he passed along the road by the Meuse about half-past eight on his motor-bike. He remembers passing our house.”
Maigret hadn’t started unpacking. He sat on the bed, leaving the only arm-chair to his visitor.
“Do you really love Marguerite?”
“Yes… that is…”
“That is what?”
“She’s a cousin of ours. We were engaged to be married. It was decided ages ago.”
“But it didn’t stop you having an affair with Germaine Piedbœuf.”
A silence. Then a faintly muttered:
“No.”
“Did you love her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you have married her?”
“I don’t know.”
The light shone full on Joseph’s thin face, with its tired eyes and sagging features. He didn’t dare look Maigret in the face.
“How did it happen?”
“I came across her. Started knocking about with her…”
“And Marguerite?”
“That’s different altogether.”
“And then?”
“Then she said she was going to have a baby. I didn’t know what to do…”
“It was your mother who…?”
“Yes, and my sisters. They persuaded me that Germaine had already had other…”
“Other adventures? …”
The window looked out on to the river just where it was broken by the piles of the bridge. The din was incessant.
“Do you love Marguerite?”
The young man stood up, anxious, ill at ease.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you in love with Marguerite or Germaine?”
“I… As a matter of fact…”
There were beads of sweat on his forehead.
“How should I know?… My mother had already made plans to set me up as a lawyer in Rheims.”
“Plans for you and Marguerite. Is that it?”
“I suppose so… I met the other at a dance.”
“Germaine?”
“At a dance I was forbidden to go to… I saw her home… And on the way…”
“And Marguerite?”
“That’s different altogether… I…”
“You didn’t leave Nancy on the night of the 3rd?”
Maigret had had enough. He moved towards the door. He had sized Joseph up: raw-boned but spineless. His self-respect was only just maintained by the admiration of his sisters and cousin.
“What are you doing with yourself these days?”
“Working for my exam. It’s the last… Anna sent me a telegram asking me to run over and see you… Do you…?”
“No, I don’t need you here. You can go back to Nancy.”
A figure that Maigret was not to forget for many a long day. Blinking eyes that had become red-rimmed with worry. The jacket cut too straight. The trousers baggy at the knees.
In the same suit, with a mackintosh slipped over it, he would soon be riding off to Nancy, without exceeding the speed limits in the villages.
And at Nancy he would find a typical little student’s bedroom with an obliging old landlady to look after him… Lectures that he never cut… At noon the café… Billiards in the evening…
“If I want you, I’ll let you know.”
And Maigret, left alone, put his elbows on the window-sill and gazed once more at the Meuse rushing down towards the lowlands. In the distance a quiet little light: the Flemish shop.
On the dark surface of the water, still darker masses. Boats, masts, funnels, the blunt bows of the barges.
Nearest of all, the Etoile Polaire.
He went out, filling his pipe, with his coat collar turned up. And the wind was so strong that, in spite of his weight, he had to lean forward to keep his balance.
* * *
Chapter III
THE PHOTOGRAPH
« ^ »
AS usual, Maigret was up and about at eight o’clock. With his hands in his overcoat pockets and his pipe between his teeth, he stood motionless, his eye resting sometimes on the racing river, sometimes on the passers-by.
The wind was just as strong as on the previous day. It was much colder than in Paris.
He was standing on French soil, yet it was impossible to forget the nearness of the frontier. The houses were definitely Belgian houses, of ugly brown brick, with doorsteps of hewn stone, and copper flower-pots on the window-sills.
The people, too, had in their lined faces something of the hardness of the Walloon type. And then there was the khaki uniform of the Belgian customs officers.
Givet was unmistakably a frontier town, the meeting-ground of two nations. Even in the shops you could not forget it, as both French and Belgian money were accepted.
Maigret was more than ever conscious of it when he went into one of the bistros on the quay for a glass of hot grog. A typical French bistro, with the whole range of apéritifs of all colours. Light-coloured walls, covered with mirrors.
Some ten or a dozen bargees were standing at the bar, having their morning glass of white wine, talking to the owners of a couple of tugs. They were discussing the possibility of proceeding downstream in spite of the floods.
“It’s doubtful whether you’d get under the bridge at Dinant. And even if you could, we’re asking fifteen francs a ton per kilometre.”
“It’s too much… At that price it’s best to hang on.”
Eyes were turned on Maigret. One of them, spotting who he was, nudged his neighbour.
“One of the Belgians is talking of going down without a tug at all. Just drifting down on the stream…”
There wasn’t a single Belgian in the café. They preferred the Peeters’ shop with its dark woodwork and its mingled smells of coffee, chicory, cinnamon, and gin. There, in their own atmosphere, they could stand for hours at a time, leaning on the counter, talking lazily, while their pale blue eyes would stare dreamily at the transparent advertisements stuck on the glass door.
Maigret listened to all that was said around him. From the conversation, he gathered that the Belgians were unpopular, not so much because they differed in character, as because they were competitors. Their boats were kept in a perfect state of repair and were fitted with powerful motors, and they were generally in a position to undercut the French, often accepting cargoes at rates which the latter thought ridiculous.
“And they go about killing girls into the bargain!”
The remark was made for Maigret’s benefit, and the speaker watched the inspector out of the corner of his eye.
“Why don’t they arrest the whole family? I can’t think what the police are waiting for… Unless it’s because they’re well-to-do folk…”
Maigret left the bar and wandered once more along the quay, watching the brown flood which swept branches of trees down towards the sea. In a little side-street on the left he suddenly caught sight of the house which Anna had pointed out to him.
The morning light was grim, the sky a uniform grey. The people in the streets were cold, and hurried about their business.
Maigret went up to the front door and gave a pull at the bell. It was a little after a quarter past eight. The woman who opened the door had apparently been washing or scrubbing, for she wiped her hands on her wet apron as she asked:
“Who do you want?”
At the end of the passage he could see the kitchen, and in the middle of the floor a pail and a scrubbing-brush.
“Is Monsieur Piedbœuf in?”
The woman looked him up and down mistrustfully.
“Which Monsieur Piedbœuf?”
“The father.”
“You’re from the police, I suppose. In that case, you ought to know that he’s always in bed at this time of the morning. He’s on duty all night and only comes off at seven… Still, if you’d like to go up…”
“I won’t disturb him, thank you. What about his son?”
“He went out to work ten minutes ago.”
Maigret heard a spoon drop on to the kitchen floor, and looking over the woman’s shoulder he could see a bit of a child’s head.
“Is that, by any chance…?” he began.
“Yes, that’s poor Mademoiselle Germaine’s boy… Well, are you coming in or not? If you stand in the doorway much longer you’ll make the whole house cold.”
Maigret went in. The passage walls were painted imitation marble. The kitchen was in a fearful mess, and the woman muttered under her breath as she removed the pail. But it was impossible to tell whether she was grumbling or apologizing.
On the table were dirty cups and plates. A child of two was sitting all alone, clumsily eating a boiled egg and smearing his chin with the yolk.
The woman was at least forty. She was thin, and her face ascetic.
“Are you looking after the child?”
“As much as I can… His grandfather’s in bed half the day, and there’s nobody else at home, now that they’ve killed his mother. When I’m called out, I take him round to one of the neighbours.”
“When you’re called out?”
“Yes. I’m a certified midwife.”
She had discarded her check apron, as though it deprived her of her professional dignity.
“That’s all right, my little Jojo, there’s nothing to be frightened about.”
The child had stopped eating and was staring at the inspector.
Was he really like Joseph Peeters? It was difficult to say. One thing was certain: he was not a robust child. The features were irregular, the head too big, the neck thin, and, most striking of all, the mouth was long and thin and looked like a ten-year-old’s, to say the least of it.
He stared on at the inspector, but the eyes expressed nothing. Nor did any expression come into them when the midwife thought fit to kiss him rather theatrically and say:
“Mon pauvre chou! Eat up your egg, mon chéri!”
She hadn’t asked Maigret to sit down. There was a large pool of water on the floor, and some soup simmering on the stove.
“I suppose you’re the person they’ve brought from Paris?”
The voice was not exactly aggressive, but it was far from being friendly.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no use pretending. Everybody knows about it.”
“About what?”
“You know as well as I do. That’s a nice job you’ve put your hand to… But I suppose the police will always be on the same side as there’s money!”
Maigret frowned, not because the words had got under his skin, but because of the state of mind they revealed.
“They said as much themselves, those Belgians. They said things might go against them for the moment, but that everything would be changed as soon as some grand inspector came from Paris.”
She was aggressive enough now, and her smile was decidedly unpleasant.
“You’ve only to look, to see how it’s done. The case drags on, and the people who ought to be under lock and key are given plenty of time to work out a story amongst themselves… And of course they know very well that Germaine’s body will never be found.—Eat up your breakfast, my treasure. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”
Her eyes moistened as she looked at the child, whose spoon remained in mid-air as he gazed at the intruder.
“There’s nothing you’d like to tell me?” asked Maigret.
“Nothing at all. The Peeters will have told you all about everything, and even proved that the child has nothing to do with that Joseph of theirs.”
Maigret had been set down as an enemy, and there was nothing to be done about it. The atmosphere of the house was made up of poverty and hatred.
“And if you want to see Monsieur Piedbœuf, you’ve only to come back about twelve. That’s when he gets up. And you’d find Monsieur Gérard here too, as he comes home for lunch.”
She led him along the passage and closed the door behind him. Upstairs the blinds were down.
Maigret found Machère near the Flemish shop talking to a couple of bargees, whom he left as soon as he caught sight of the inspector.
“What do they say?”
“I was asking them about the Etoile Polaire.... They think the skipper was at the Café des Mariniers on the evening of the 3rd, and that he left about eight, drunk, the same as any other evening… He must be still asleep now, as I was on board a moment ago and he didn’t seem to hear me.”
Through the shop window they could see Madame Peeters’ white hair. She was watching the two policemen as they stood there looking round them and pursuing a desultory conversation.
On one side of them the river that had burst its dams and was coursing along at a good four and a half knots.
On the other side the Flemish shop.
“There are two entrances,” said Machère. “The one you can see from where you are, and another at the back… There’s a well in the yard…”
And he hastily added:
“I took soundings, and there was no sign of the body there… All the same—though I really can’t tell you why— I’ve got the feeling it wasn’t thrown into the Meuse… I’d like to know what that handkerchief was doing on the roof…”
“Did you hear about the motor-cyclist?”
“Yes. But if he did come along this way, it doesn’t prove that Joseph didn’t.”
Exactly! And it was like that all along the line. No proof one way or the other. In fact, no serious evidence at all.
Germaine Piedbœuf came into the shop about eight o’clock. According to the Belgians, she left a few minutes later, but nobody else saw her leave.
She had never been seen again.
And that was pretty well the whole story.
Yet on the strength of it the Piedbœufs were going to claim three hundred thousand francs damages.
Two bargees’ wives entered the shop, ringing the bell as they did so.
