Félicie (10 page)

She is about to say something, and a fatherly
Maigret is only too glad to encourage her …

But alas! At that same instant, there is a hint
of a reservation that sits behind that obstinate forehead and again takes her over, and it is in
her acid voice that she declares:

‘If you think for one moment that I
can't see what you're up to …'

She feels alone, left all
alone to carry the full weight of events on her shoulders. She is the centre of the world. And
if proof be needed, a detective chief inspector of the Police Judiciaire, a man like Maigret, is
now picking on her, just her!

She does not suspect that even then he is
pursuing a considerable number of lines of inquiry. Inspectors are working Place Pigalle and the
surrounding streets. At Quai des Orfèvres, men are busy questioning a number of individuals
who in the early hours were roused out of their beds in furnished rooms in dubious hotels. In
many towns, members of the Vice Squad are busy tracking down a girl named Adèle who some
time in the past worked for three months in a Rouen brasserie.

And all that, the plodding routine of police
work, will inevitably produce results.

But here, in this small restaurant where the
regulars greet each other with guarded nods – though they might eat their lunch at the
same table, they have never been formally introduced! – the inspector is looking for
something very different: to get to the heart of the affair, not to achieve a mechanical
reconstruction of events.

‘Do you like strawberries?'

There are strawberries on the sideboard, on
cotton-wool, in punnets, the first of the season.

‘Waiter … Give us …'

She is greedy, and strawberries are fun. Or more
accurately, she has a taste for rare things. It does not matter that Jacques Pétillon is in
no state to eat grapes and oranges or drink champagne. It's the gesture that counts, the
sight of
those opulent purplish globules and the bottle with the
gold-covered neck … She would eat strawberries even if she didn't like them.

‘What's the matter,
Félicie?'

‘Nothing.'

She has just turned pale, and this time she is
not play-acting. She has had a shock. The strawberry she has in her mouth has got stuck, and it
looks very much as if she is about to get up and rush outside. She coughs and buries her face in
her handkerchief as people do when something has gone down the wrong way.

‘What's the …?'

As he turns round, Maigret catches sight of a
small man who, though the weather is warm, removes a thick overcoat and scarf, hangs them on a
peg and takes a rolled-up serviette from one of the pigeon-holes, the one numbered 13.

He is middle-aged, greying, unremarkable, one of
those colourless individuals who are frequently encountered in cities: solitary, fastidious,
pernickety, widowers or confirmed bachelors, whose lives are just a maze of small habits. The
waiter serves him without asking what he wants, sets a half-started bottle of mineral water down
before him. As he opens his newspaper, the man stares at Félicie and frowns, rummages
through his memories and begins to think …

‘Had enough?'

‘I'm not hungry any more. Let's
go.'

She has already put her serviette down on the
table. Her hand is shaking.

‘Calm down, girl.'

‘Me? I am calm. Why
shouldn't I be?'

From where he is sitting, Maigret can observe
number 13 in the mirror on the wall in front of him and he is still following the effort to
remember on the man's face … He's got it … No, that's not it
… Try again! … He tries again … He is about to … Now he's there!
… His eyes widen … He is astonished … He looks as if he is thinking:
‘Good grief! Now there's a coincidence!'

But he does not get up and come over to say hello
to her. He does not give her any indication that they are known to each other. Where did he meet
her? What kind of relationship was it? He gives Maigret a thorough looking over from head to
foot, calls the waiter and whispers something to him; the waiter looks as if he's saying
he doesn't know, that this is the first time the couple …

Meanwhile Félicie, sick with panic, suddenly
gets to her feet and lurches in the direction of the washroom. Has her gullet become so
restricted that she is about to regurgitate the strawberries which she has just eaten so
daintily and with such enjoyment?

In her absence, Maigret and the stranger look at
each other more openly. Perhaps customer 13 is thinking of coming over to exchange a few words
with Félicie's companion?

The door with frosted glass panes which leads to
the cloakroom also leads to the kitchen. The waiter comes and goes. He has red hair! Just like
the ship-owner's son who wanted to marry Félicie when she lived at Fécamp. How
can he not smile? She takes her cue from whatever catches her eye: she sees a red-haired waiter,
she is asked if she had been very unhappy, her brain works with the speed of light
and lo! the waiter is transformed into the son of a ship-owner who …

She is away a long time, too long for
Maigret's liking. The waiter has also been gone for some time. Customer 13 is thinking,
thinking like a man who is about to reach a decision.

Eventually she emerges. She is almost smiling. As
she returns, she pulls the veil back down over her face. She does not sit down again.

‘Coming?'

‘I ordered coffee. You like coffee,
don't you?'

‘Not now. It would only make me
jumpy.'

He pretends to go along with this, calls the
waiter and looks him straight in the face as he settles the bill. The man's cheeks become
slightly flushed. It's so obvious! She has given him a message to give to customer 13.
Perhaps she scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper with an instruction not to give it to the
person it is intended for until after she has left.

As they leave, the inspector's eye falls
accidentally on the heavy overcoat on its peg with its pockets wide open.

‘We're going back to Jeanneville now,
aren't we?'

She takes his arm with a gesture that might well
seem spontaneous.

‘I'm so tired! It's been a
strain.'

She grows impatient when he just stands there,
not moving, on the edge of the pavement, like a man who is undecided.

‘What are you thinking? Why aren't
you coming? There's a train in half an hour.'

She is horribly afraid. Her
hand trembles on Maigret's arm, and he is seized with an odd impulse to reassure her. Then
he shrugs his shoulders.

‘Of course … Taxi! … Get in!
… Saint-Lazare station, suburban lines.'

What a weight of anguish he has taken off her
shoulders! In the open-topped taxi, where the sun nuzzles them gently, she feels a need to talk
and talk.

‘You said you'd stay with me. You did
say that, didn't you? Aren't you afraid of how it might look? Are you married?
… How silly of me. You're wearing a ring.'

An anxious moment at the station. He just buys
one ticket. Is he just going to see her to her compartment and then stay behind in Paris? But
she has forgotten he has a pass, and he settles heavily on the seat and gives her a look tinged
with self-reproach.

He will be able to catch up with grey-haired
customer 13 whenever he likes, since the man is a regular at the restaurant. The train shudders,
and Félicie believes she is out of danger now. At Poissy, they walk past the
café-dansant, where the proprietor, standing at the door of the wooden building, recognizes
Maigret and gives him a wink.

The inspector cannot pass up an opportunity to
tease Félicie.

‘Just a minute, I think I'll ask him
if Pegleg ever showed up here and watched you dancing …'

She pulls him away.

‘No need to bother. He did come, several
times.'

‘You see? He was jealous after
all.'

They climb the slope. Now they're outside
Mélanie
Chochoi's shop, and Maigret continues playing the same
game.

‘What if I go in and ask her how many times
she saw you roaming round of an evening with Jacques Pétillon?'

‘She never saw us!'

This time she is sure of herself.

‘So you made sure you kept out of
sight?'

Here is the house, which they see just as a large
car from Criminal Records drives off, leaving Lucas standing at the door like some upright,
law-abiding householder.

‘Who was that?'

‘Photographers, experts …'

‘Of course! Fingerprints!'

She is well informed. She has read lots of
novels, including detective stories!

‘How're things, Lucas?'

‘Not much to report, sir. The intruder wore
rubber gloves, just as you said. So they just took casts of his shoe-prints. Brand-new pair.
Hadn't been worn more than three days.'

Félicie has gone up to her room to change
out of her mourning clothes and remove her veil.

‘Anything new with you, sir? It's as
if …'

He knows him so well! At times Maigret has a way
of becoming expansive; he beams and seems to suck in life through his pores. He looks around him
now at these surroundings which have grown so familiar that with unconscious mimicry he begins
to think and act like the locals.

‘Fancy a drop of something?'

He goes to the sideboard in
the dining room, takes out the part-full decanter, pours out two liqueur glasses and then stands
in the doorway. overlooking the garden.

‘Here's to you! … Ah,
Félicie, tell me …'

She has come back down, is wearing an apron and
starts busying around making sure the men from Criminal Records haven't left her kitchen
in a mess.

‘Would you be kind enough to make a cup of
coffee for my friend Lucas? I must go round to the Anneau d'Or, but I shall leave you in
the sergeant's hands. I'll see you this evening.'

He is expecting that suspicious, anxious
glare.

‘I really am going to the Anneau
d'Or.'

And so he is, but not for long. Since there is no
taxi at Orgeval, he asks the garage mechanic, Louvet, to drive him to Paris in his van.

‘I need to go to Les Ternes. Go along Rue
du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.'

There is no one in the restaurant when he marches
in, and the waiter must have been taking a nap somewhere in the back, because he emerges
yawning, with his hair ruffled.

‘Do you know the address of the man to whom
you gave a note from the lady who was with me earlier on?'

The fool thinks he is dealing with a jealous
husband or an angry father. He denies everything, starts getting flustered. Maigret shows him
his warrant card.

‘I don't know his name, that's
the truth. He works in this area, but I don't think he lives around here, because he only
comes in at lunchtime.'

Maigret has no intention of waiting until
tomorrow.

‘Do you know what he
does?'

‘Wait a moment. One day I overheard him
talking with the boss … I'll go and see if he's still in.'

Obviously, the place is dedicated to the patron
saint of the siesta. The landlord appears minus his collar and pushes his untidy hair back with
one hand.

‘Number 13? He's in leathers and
furs. He told me all about it one day, though in connection with what I couldn't say. He
works for a firm on Avenue de Wagram.'

With the help of a phone book, Maigret soon comes
up with Gellet & Mautoison, Leathers and Furs, Import-Export, 17A Avenue de Wagram. He pays
them a call. The clack of typewriters in offices which are darkened by green-tinted windows on
which the names of the owners, reading from inside, are reversed.

‘You'll be wanting Monsieur Charles.
One moment.'

He is led through a maze of corridors and stairs
which all reek of untreated fleeces, all the way to a small office under the eaves. On the door
is a sign which reads: ‘Stationery'.

There he is, Monsieur 13, looking greyer than
ever in his long grey overall, which he wears for work. He gives a start when he sees Maigret
walk into his private sanctuary,

‘Can I help you? …'

‘Police Judiciaire. Nothing to worry about.
Just a few simple questions to ask you …'

‘I don't see …'

‘But you do see, Monsieur Charles, you see
very well. Show me the note the waiter gave you earlier this afternoon.'

‘I swear …'

‘Don't swear, or
I'll be forced to arrest you immediately as an accomplice to murder.'

The man blows his nose noisily, and not as a way
of playing for time. He has a permanent cold in the head – hence the thick overcoat and
muffler.

‘You put me in an embarrassing position
…'

‘But much less embarrassing for you than
the one you will land yourself in if you refuse to answer my questions truthfully.'

Maigret is using his big voice, he is coming on
tough
, as Madame Maigret would say, who always finds it very amusing, because she
knows him better than anyone.

‘Look, inspector, I never thought that what
I did …'

‘First, let me see the note.'

The man does not produce it from his pocket but
has to climb a ladder to retrieve it from the top of a set of shelves where he had hidden it
behind a stack of headed stationery. He does not return with just the note but with a revolver,
which he holds carefully, like a man who is terrified of guns.

Please, don't say anything, ever, for
whatever reason. Throw you know what in the Seine.
It's a matter of life and
death.

Maigret smiles at these last words, which are
pure Félicie. Didn't she say exactly the same thing to Louvet, the garage mechanic
from Orgeval?