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Maigret was aware that in most late-night venues the staff – often forty strong – usually has a meal before going home.
He turned his back on the club, and his eye alighted on a café-tobacconist’s
the sort of place where nightclub staff often gather during intervals or after work.
‘Is Pepito not in tonight?’ ‘He left quite a while ago,’ the barman replied.
Maigret shoved his way into the group that was fiddling about and found the staff register straight away. José Latourie, 71, Rue Lepic
‘José Latourie?’ ‘Still out. His key’s here …’ ‘Hand it over! Police! …’ ‘But …’ ‘At the double! …’
For the eyes of Detective Chief Inspector Maigret. Urgent. Around 23.30 man in tails entered Hôtel du Roi de Sicile. Stayed ten minutes. Left in a limousine. The Russian did not exit.
a call from the Courcelles police station,
‘A man by the name of José Latourie, a professional dancer, has been found dead by the railings of Parc Monceau. Three knife wounds.
in the surgery of Dr Lecourbe in Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.
le-Prince.
It took an hour. His body was stiffer. The bags under his eyes were so deep that Maigret looked different,
‘Who left the building?’ ‘A little old man all bent double, then two youngsters, then a woman of about thirty …’ ‘Did the old man have a beard?’ ‘Yes
Inspector Dufour asked: ‘Well? …’ ‘Keep a watch on the woman … At any rate, she can’t disguise herself as an old man.’ ‘You mean that …’
‘Do your best!’ Maigret called out to him. He didn’t want to take it out on the young man. It wasn’t his fault if he’d been taken for a ride. After all, hadn’t Maigret himself let Torrence get killed?
that Maigret had unmasked the identity of Oppenheim, alias Pietr the Latvian, was no big deal. In itself it didn’t put the detective at risk. The Latvian was hardly in hiding. On the contrary, he was flaunting himself
confident they had nothing on him.
Maigret’s discovery of the unexpected relations between the East European and Mortimer-Levingston.
Pietr was a self-avowed crook who was happy to taunt international police forces:
Mortimer was, in the eyes of the whole world, an honest and upright man!
Mortimer and the Latvian, presumably reassured by the three disposals, had gone back to their allotted places.
The tough guys were staying behind: Pietr,
Mortimer-Levingston,
and Pepito Moretto, the team...
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Connected by invisible threads, all three were gearing themselves up. The en...
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The first to emerge was Pietr,
Maigret kept fairly close behind, making no effort to remain unseen.
At this point in the game there was
no point playing hide-and-seek.
Ferocious will-power of the same kind could be seen in the grey-green eyes of Pietr the Latvian.
you could feel the shadow of Fyodor Yurevich, the Russian vagrant in the trenchcoat, hovering over the neat figure of the guest at the Majestic. It was a moral certainty that they were one and the same man;
Pietr went missing. Next morning Maigret caught up with him in Fécamp in the shape of Fyodor Yurevich. Fyodor returned to Rue du Roi-de-Sicile.
Mortimer dropped in on him at his lodging. Several people then came out of the building, including a bearded old man. Next morning Pietr was back in his place at Hôtel Majestic.
Fyodor Yurevich was a genuine Slavic vagrant, a sentimental and manic déclassé.
On the other hand there wasn’t a thread out of place in the character of the East European intellectual, breathing refinement from head to toe.
Pietr-Fyodor was both Pietr and Fyodor from inside.
In Anna Gorskin’s room, it was overpowering. That’s partly because there was food all over the place. The saucisson was full of garlic but it had gone soft and turned an unprepossessing shade of pink. There were also some fried fish lying on a plate in a vinegary sauce. Stubs from Russian cigarettes. Half a dozen cups with tea-dregs in them. Sheets and underwear that felt still damp. The tang of a bedroom that has never been aired.
It had been occupied by the same person for such a long time that it had ceased to be just a hotel room. Every object and every detail down to the stains on the wallpaper
and the linen told the full story of Anna Gorskin.
Vodka, whisky, and a small vessel, which Maigret sniffed, holding some left-over opium in compressed sheets. Half an hour later he was at Quai des Orfèvres, listening to a translation of the letters, and he hung on to sentences such as:
‘… Your mother is asking if you still get swollen ankles when you walk a lot, because she thinks you have the same ailment as she does …’ ‘… We seem to be safe now, though the Vilna question hasn’t been settled. We’re caught between the Lithuanians and the Poles … But both sides hate the Jews …’
‘… Your mother won’t get out of her chair all day long … She’s becoming impossible to manage … You ought to come home …’ ‘… The Goldstein boy, who got back two weeks ago, says you’re not enrolled at the University of Paris. I told him he was wrong and …’
‘… You’ve been seen in Paris in unsuitable company, I want to know what is going on …’
come home …’ ‘… I’m sending you five hundred zloty for the fare …’ ‘… If you are not home within a month I will curse you …’
Then the final letter: ‘… How have you managed for a whole year since I stopped sending you any money? Your mother is very upset. She says it is all my fault …’
Maigret had at last ordered them to put her in a private cell,
Anna
was sitting on the stool. She didn’t jump but slowly turned her face towards the hatch, looked straight ...
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no point trying to be clever or asking those oblique questions
‘Anything to confess?’ ‘I admit nothing!’ ‘Do you still deny killing Mortimer?’ ‘I admit nothing!’
