For the next ten minutes, Maigret would have paid dearly to be able to give a resounding slap to the boy he had been, aged ten, twelve and fifteen, who at school invariably won only three prizes: French composition, oratory and gymnastics.
Somewhere, a distant woman’s voice repeated:
‘Hello! … Hôtel des Bergues, Geneva …’
Then, automatically, like on the radio, the voice translated the same words into English and German.
‘Hello! … Whom do you wish to speak to?’
‘Would you put me through to Mr Smith, please?’ said a closer voice, which must have been that of Germaine Devon.
And Maigret guessed that the hotel’s switchboard operator, whose curiosity he had aroused, was probably listening in too.
With remarkable speed, a man’s voice was soon saying:
‘Hello! …’
Then Germaine Devon, in English, something that Maigret assumed meant:
‘Is that Mr Smith?’
More English on the other end, then suddenly an animated conversation, especially on the French side, in a language that was no longer English, but Polish or Russian.
Maigret could only stare resentfully at the carpet. The nurse’s voice was emotional, urgent, that of the man at first surprised, and then scolding.
She was recounting a long saga and he interrupted her to ask questions. Then she must have asked what she should do and he became angry and rebuked her for something that completely eluded Maigret.
Looking at the table, Maigret suddenly noticed that an important accessory was missing and, without putting the receiver down, he buzzed for room service.
‘Bring me a bottle of whisky as quickly as you can …’ he ordered, the receiver to his ear.
‘Full? With how many glasses?’
‘Full or empty! No glasses …’
What could she be saying now, in a muted, almost begging tone? A smattering of languages would have been enough to understand the whole thing!
Was the man in Geneva really furious? Sometimes conversations in foreign languages sound that way to those who don’t understand, and Maigret was wary. From the intonation, he would have translated as:
‘That’s your bad luck … You’ll have to fend for yourself! … Leave me in peace! …’
But the words spoken could just as easily have meant the opposite.
‘Excuse me …’ someone in the room was saying.
It was the night sommelier asking:
‘Which whisky would you like?’
‘A square, brown bottle, empty preferably …’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Hurry up, dammit! Can’t you see you’re going to ruin everything?’
He was hot. He fumed. If he’d kept Monsieur Louis with him, he would at least have been able to translate the telephone conversation.
‘Hello! Geneva …’ said a French voice finally. ‘Call over?’
‘Call over!’ replied Geneva.
‘Hello! The Excelsior? … Call over? … That’s three units …’
‘Thank you … Good night …’ replied the hotel operator.
And the sommelier arrived at last, snooty, with his empty bottle on a silver salver. Maigret barely had the time to get rid of him before there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He left the door ajar, turned around on the spot, his hands behind his back, and grunted: ‘Come in’, as soon as he heard a soft tread on the carpet.
Germaine Devon, a wary look in her eye, was in his room, and he instructed, still with his back to her:
‘Please close the door …’
Since he had never been any good at languages, he’d had to make up for this deficiency as best he could, so he stood facing the window and turned around only after a lengthy wait, his face as unwelcoming as possible.
‘How much did he tell you to pay?’ he growled.
‘Who?’
‘Geneva … How much?’
He had fresh proof of the difference of opinion regarding feminine beauty. Monsieur Louis had described her as:
‘An attractive blonde …’
And, because he’d added that she was curvaceous, Maigret had imagined her plump. Mademoiselle Germaine may have been beautiful, but she wasn’t pretty. Although her features were regular, they were hard, and her angular shape was far from giving the impression of feminine softness.
‘Answer: how much?’
‘How much are you asking?’
The bottle was on the table between them. Once it was gone, Maigret would no longer hold any cards.
‘It’s worth a lot,’ he grunted, trying to give himself the hypocritical air of a blackmailer.
‘That depends …’
‘Depends on what?’
‘On the bottle … May I?’
‘Just a moment … How much?’
She was tougher than he had initially thought, because he clearly saw suspicion flicker in her gaze.
‘I’d like to examine it first …’
‘And I’d like to know how much …’
‘In that case,’ she said, turning towards the door as if to leave.
‘If you like!’
‘What will you do?’ she asked, turning around.
‘I’m going to call the police officer who is on your floor. I’ll show him this bottle and I’ll tell him that I found it in Monsieur Owen’s room …’
‘It’s been sealed off …’
‘I’m well aware of that … I will confess, if necessary, that I broke in … I will advise the police to analyse the contents, or rather what the bottle had contained …’
‘And what had it contained?’
‘How much?’ he repeated.
‘And what if it’s not the actual bottle?’
‘Too bad. Take it or leave it!’
‘How much are you asking?’
‘A very high price … Don’t forget the liberty of one or two people is at stake, and probably someone’s life …’
As he was saying this, he blushed to the roots of his hair with shame because he suddenly realized that he had made an unforgivable mistake. Although he hadn’t been able to understand the young woman’s conversation, was it not likely that the hotel telephone operator, who was bound to speak several languages, had listened in? He could simply have called him before Germaine Devon’s arrival …
Too bad! It was too late now! The poker game had begun and he had to play his hand to the end.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, jaw clenched, glaring at him.
‘Let us say I am nobody—’
‘Police?’
‘No, mademoiselle …’
‘Colleague?’
‘Possibly …’
‘You’re French, aren’t you?’
‘So are you, I think …’
‘On my father’s side … but my mother was Russian …’
‘I know …’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I’ve just listened to the conversation you had with Geneva …’
He couldn’t help admiring her, because he had never been faced with an adversary who displayed so much composure. She didn’t take her eyes off him for a second, and perhaps no one had ever examined his person in such a penetrating, detailed manner. Even her pout said clearly: ‘In any case, you’re just small fry …’
And she contrived to move imperceptibly closer to the table, while Maigret, as if coincidentally, was stepping back from it. When she was just a metre away, her arm shot out and she grabbed the empty whisky bottle, sniffed, and at once her nostrils quivered with such rage that, if she’d had a gun to hand, Maigret reckoned she’d have had his hide.
‘…’
(Here, a few syllables in Russian, probably, which Maigret couldn’t understand but which clearly expressed the young woman’s contempt.)
‘Is that not the bottle?’ he mocked, stepping forward and placing himself between her and the door.
An icy, fearsome look.
‘I apologize … I must have made a mistake … I must have given back the bottle that contained the substance in question to the sommelier and kept this one … I can call him to check …’
‘What game are you playing? Who are you? What do you want of me? Admit it’s not money you’re after …’
‘You have guessed correctly.’
‘So? Let me pass …’
‘Not right away!’
‘What have you found out?’
‘So far, nothing precise … But I’m certain that between us we’re going to be able to establish the full truth … What did your first employer die of?’
‘I won’t answer you …’
‘As you like. In that case, I’m going to ask the police officer to come up and we’ll continue the interview in his presence …’
‘What right do you have?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
She was beginning to be dismayed by this man who revealed nothing of himself but was gaining a growing hold over her.
‘You’re not a blackmailer,’ she observed, ruefully.
‘You’re not entirely mistaken. I asked you a question. What illness was Monsieur Stilberg suffering from that meant he needed a nurse by his side all the time?’
At that moment, he wondered whether she would answer him or not. He was playing double or quits, without taking his eyes off her.
‘He was a morphine addict,’ she murmured, after an inner struggle.
‘That’s what I thought. He probably tried to kick the habit and hired a nurse to help him?’
‘He didn’t succeed …’
‘That’s true: he died. But, for a year and a half, you had the leisure of observing the reactions of a morphine addict. Did you already have a lover at that time?’
‘Only towards the end …’
‘What did he do? A student, probably …?’
‘How do you know?’
‘It doesn’t matter … He was a student, wasn’t he? Chemistry, probably … He wasn’t well … During one bout of illness, he had to take morphine, which is usually the start of addictions of this kind …’
It was years since he’d had to put someone through an interrogation like this, nerves tensed, an interrogation where he had to find out everything without ever showing his empty hands. He was hot. He’d let his pipe go out, and he chewed on the stem as he spoke. He paced up and down, missing Quai des Orfèvres, where, when he was tired, he could at least ask a colleague to relieve him.
Luckily, he was spurred on by the thought that meanwhile the officer on duty must be peacefully sleeping on the padded banquette on the floor below!
‘You became his mistress … You had no job. Neither did he … Perhaps his drug abuse prevented him from finishing his thesis?’
‘But …’
Maigret only had to look at her for confirmation that everything he was saying was absolutely true.
‘… Who are you?’
‘It doesn’t matter! It is likely that your lover had to mix in certain circles in Paris to get hold of morphine, and that you went with him … Do stop me if I’m wrong …’
And he carried on his questioning through sheer doggedness.
‘What are you driving at?’
‘You met a man whom for the time being we can call Monsieur Saft, which is doubtless not his real name … A Pole or a Russian … Russian before the war and Polish afterwards, probably … Now, if you don’t like the name Saft, we can call him Smith and telephone him at the Hôtel des Bergues …’
At that point, Germaine sat down, without a word. A simple movement, but how much more significant than all the long tirades! Her legs must be feeling weak. She looked about her, as if seeking something to drink, but this was not yet the moment to give her a break.
‘He hauled you over the coals, didn’t he, your Monsieur Saft or Smith, during your telephone conversation? And it is your fault, Mademoiselle Germaine! Now, he’s a man who knows his profession, an international swindler of some stature. Oh yes he is! Don’t protest! He would say to you, if he were here, that, in your situation, you’d better show yourself to be a skilled player. Look! I’ll admit that I don’t know what his specialism is yet. Was it cheques, bankers’ drafts, forged credentials or identity cards? It is of no importance!’
‘You’re bluffing,’ she ventured, recovering a little of her composure.
‘What about you? Supposing we’re both bluffing … At least I have an advantage over you: you don’t know what I know and you don’t even know who I am …’
‘A private detective!’
‘You’re very warm …! But that’s not quite it … Monsieur Saft, then, suggests using the acquaintances of your lover … What shall we call him?’
She looked brazen:
‘Let’s say Jean …’
Just then, a person in the neighbouring room whom they were keeping awake banged on the wall.
‘Let’s say Jean … And so this Jean, who is sick and addicted to morphine, becomes the centre in fact of an organized gang. He’s the only amateur among professionals … All he wants is his regular fix and to live a carefree life … And this is where you wanted to be cleverer than your accomplices and you made a mistake …’
She couldn’t stop herself from asking:
‘What?’
‘You didn’t want to be cloistered with your lover in a room in Montmartre or the Latin Quarter … Nor did you want to go from one cheap hotel to another … You thought it smart to give your Jean a new look and a new identity … You had just been the nurse of a Swede … so you disguised your friend as a middle-aged Swede like the other one, staying in luxury hotels like him, dressed in grey like him and spending hours and hours in a chair …’
She looked away and Maigret went on:
‘Those who are unable to create, inevitably imitate … You manufactured Monsieur Owen based on Monsieur Stilberg … And so your Jean Owen was quite peaceful, warming himself in the sun for most of the day, having his injection at a set time, not without, I am certain, having to do his little job beforehand …’
‘What little job? Admit you have no idea …’
‘I admit that I had no idea or almost no idea at the start of this conversation. Relax! Don’t look at the door so longingly. You wouldn’t even get as far as the foot of the stairs without my telephoning the doorman … Three things bothered me, three details that jarred with the rest: the grey gloves, the windowpane removed with a glass cutter and the bottle of whisky … Those three details were like the mistakes a pupil adds to the work of the master … Let us say that Saft is the expert in question and that you are the pupil … Mind you, beginners always want to correct the work of the masters …’
He would have given anything for an expertly pulled beer, and even for a whisky, of which there was an empty bottle in front of him, but he couldn’t stop in his tracks now. He contented himself with lighting his pipe, which would go out a few seconds later.
‘The gloves, that’s childish, that’s mistake number one. People don’t wear gloves all day, including at meals, except to hide damaged hands, and, in this case, it was hard not to think of acid burns … The bottle, I didn’t think of it until this evening … I suddenly remembered that a morphine or cocaine addict is never an alcoholic as well, and that whisky bottle struck me as odd … I asked if you drank … I was told you didn’t … I checked that the bottle hadn’t been supplied by the hotel …’
‘Where is it now?’ asked the nurse, who was pale but hadn’t lost hope, and was listening to Maigret’s explanations with a critical ear.
‘It must be in its place, in the room, where no one thought to sniff it … As for the windowpane … I am certain, Mademoiselle Germaine, that your friend Saft or Smith is not proud of you … I’ll wager it’s an idea that came to you after the event … A painter friend of mine has often said to me that, once he’s finished a painting, he has to fight the urge to make one last change, because usually, that change only ruins the painting … Now! Think …’
He took a chair and straddled it and, despite himself, put on a benign air, as if they were talking between professionals.
‘Can you see yourself, or can you see your Monsieur Owen, inviting a stranger who has climbed in through the window to strip naked and accept a little morphine jab, then, to round off the party, take off their clothes and have a bath in your bath tub?
‘If the windowpane hadn’t been removed …! Perhaps certain improbabilities would have been less obvious … but you wanted to spell out the intruder lead too clearly … The same with that letter you had supposedly been asked to deliver by hand to Nice …’
He was stunned to hear her say, just when he least expected it:
‘How much?’
‘But no, my dear! That was fine earlier, to get you talking. Haven’t you understood yet?’
‘Twenty thousand …’
‘Twenty thousand pounds?’
‘Twenty thousand francs … Forty … Fifty thousand?’
He shrugged and emptied his pipe on to the rug, which was the first time he had done so since he’d been at the Excelsior.
‘No! No! I don’t … Look! You are simply going to tell me whether my little story is correct or not … Your sick, drug-addict student Jean, since that’s how you call him, becomes your lover … You meet Monsieur Saft, who reveals what you can get out of him … Then, instead of doing things as they should be done, instead of shutting your student away in some discreet furnished lodging in Paris, you concoct this Monsieur Owen story, this fake identity as a Swede, the wig, the grey attire, the made-up face and, lastly, to hide his damaged hands, those terrible cotton gloves …
‘All that, you see, my dear, reeks of amateurism … and I am convinced that Saft must have told you so more than once …
‘But you were useful to him, especially Jean Owen, who laundered his cheques or bankers’ drafts and must have been adept at imitating signatures …
‘I would wager one hundred to one that you became the mistress of this Saft and that your lover found out … I’d also bet that he threatened that, if you were unfaithful to him again, he would tell the police everything …
‘And then, you decided to kill him … Saft shrewdly departed first, leaving the field clear for you. He got off the London flight at Lyon and took the one to Geneva …
‘You created a setting … You told yourself that the more baffling the crime, the less chance there would be of your being found out …
‘First of all, killing your lover, not disguised as Owen, but as his real self …
‘Now, that six a.m. bath was another mistake! Because who takes a bath at six o’clock in the morning? Someone who rises early or someone who goes to bed late.
‘But Monsieur Owen only came out mid-morning and went to bed early.
‘What can he be doing in his room until six a.m.? I asked myself.’
She appeared to be resigned. She sat completely still. Her gaze remained riveted on Maigret’s eyes.
‘… Because, whatever you thought, it is not easy to undress a person and then carry them into their bath tub against their will … That night, Owen worked as usual … Either I am very much mistaken or, to make your job easier, you increased the dose of morphine … When he was in his bath, it was easy for you to … I don’t need to go into detail, do I? A nasty moment!
‘Afterwards, you refined your story! More and more! The loud conversation at nine a.m.! The windowpane! The letter to be delivered to Nice! And the wig, the gloves and the cosmetics you took away so as to let people think it was a murder by a non-existent Monsieur Owen …
‘It’s over, mademoiselle!’
He shuddered, surprised himself at those last words, at his tone, because, after several years, he had inadvertently switched to his Quai des Orfèvres voice, that is to say, that of the police chief.
It was so obvious that, instead of protesting, she mumbled, with an instinctive movement to hold out her wrists to be handcuffed:
‘Are you arresting me?’
‘Me? Not at all …’
‘So?’
‘So nothing …’
He was nearly as bewildered as she was by the absurd end of that stormy interview.
‘But …’ began Germaine.
‘But what? You don’t expect me to arrest you when I am no longer a member of the police?’
‘But in that case …’
‘No! Don’t think you’re going to get away … There is a police officer on the fourth floor and another one downstairs …’
‘May I go back to my room?’
‘What do you want to do?’
With a tragic expression, she replied, looking him in the eyes:
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘Go on!’ he sighed.
Too bad! Better for things to end this way! All the same, he did not go to bed but soon went into the corridor to listen. He heard muffled sounds and learned a little later that the young woman had broken the seals on the communicating door with room 412. When he got there, the whisky bottle had disappeared. A police officer had handcuffed Germaine Devon. The night porter was there too.
‘Is that what you wanted to do?’ asked Maigret, sickened.
She merely smiled.
And, at that moment, he was still unaware what that smile held in store for him, because the investigation lasted six months, and twenty times during those six months Maigret was called as a witness, in the presence of a woman who denied everything, including the evidence.
She still denied it in the criminal court, where Maigret was summoned to appear, and the counsel for the defence almost made him look a fool.
‘Some people,’ he said, ‘cannot come to terms with retirement once and for all, even when the most competent authorities have decided that they have reached the age …’
She was nearly acquitted. In the end, the judge gave her the benefit of the doubt and she got off with five years, while Maigret, in a café near the law courts, refused Monsieur Louis’ invitation to go and spend a few days in Cannes.
As for Aunt Émilie, she hadn’t died on this occasion!