The Madman of Bergerac

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1 - THE RESTLESS TRAVELER

  Chapter 2 - FIVE DISAPPOINTED MEN

  Chapter 3 - THE SECOND-CLASS TICKET

  Chapter 4 - MAIGRET’S RECEPTION

  Chapter 5 - PATENT-LEATHER BOOTS

  Chapter 6 - THE SEAL

  Chapter 7 - SAMUEL

  Chapter 8 - A COLLECTOR OF BOOKS

  Chapter 9 - THE KIDNAPPING OF AN OLD-TIME ARTISTE

  Chapter 10 - THE NOTE

  Chapter 11 - THE FATHER

  FOR THE BEST IN PAPERBACKS, LOOK FOR THE

  A PENGUIN MYSTERY

  THE MADMAN OF BERGERAC

  One of the most significant figures in twentieth-century European literature, GEORGES JOSEPH CHRISTIAN SIMENON was born on February 12, 1903, in Liège, Belgium. He began work as a reporter for a local newspaper at the age of sixteen, and at nineteen moved to Paris to embark on a career as a novelist. According to Simenon, the character Jules Maigret came to him one afternoon in a café in the small Dutch port of Delfzijl as he wrestled with writing a different sort of detective story. By noon the following day, he claimed, he had completed the first chapter of Pietr-le-Letton, The Strange Case of Peter the Lett. The pipe-smoking Commissaire Maigret would go on to feature in seventy-five novels and twenty-eight stories, with estimated international sales to date of 850 million copies. His books have been translated into more than fifty languages.

  The dark realism of Simenon’s fiction has lent itself naturally to film adaptation, with more than five hundred hours of television drama and sixty motion pictures produced throughout the world. A dazzling array of directors have tackled Simenon on screen, including Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, Claude Chabrol, and Bertrand Tavernier. Maigret has been portrayed on film by Jean Gabin, Charles Laughton, and Pierre Renoir; and on television by Bruno Cremer, Rupert Davies, and, most recently, Michael Gambon.

  Simenon died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.

  For Nobel Laureate André Gide, Simenon was “perhaps the greatest novelist” of twentieth-century France. His ardent admirers outside of France have included T. S. Eliot, Henry Miller, and Gabriel García Márquez.

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  First published as Le Fou de Bergerac 1932

  This translation first published in Penguin Books as part

  of the omnibus Maigret Travels South 1952

  Reissued with revisions and a new introduction in Penguin Classics 2003

  Published in Penguin Books 2007

  Le Fou de Bergerac copyright © 1932. Georges Simenon Limited, a Chorion company.

  Translation copyright © 1940, 1952, 2003. Georges Simenon Limited, a Chorion company.

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Simenon, Georges, 1903-1989.

  [Fou de Bergerac. English]

  The madman of Bergerac / Georges Simenon ; translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury.

  p. cm.

  “A Penguin mystery”—

  eISBN : 978-0-143-11196-2

  1. Maigret, Jules (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Paris (France)—Fiction.

  I. Sainsbury, Geoffrey. II. Title.

  PQ2637.I53F613 2007

  843’.912—dc22 2007000490

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  1

  THE RESTLESS TRAVELER

  It all came about by the merest chance. The day before, Maigret hadn’t even known he was going on a journey, although it was just the time of year when he had usually had enough of Paris. A month of March spiced with a foretaste of spring. The sun bright, eager, almost warm.

  Madame Maigret was spending a fortnight in Alsace with her sister, who was expecting a baby.

  But the post this Tuesday morning brought the inspector a letter from an old friend who had retired two years previously from the Police Judiciaire to settle down to country life in the Dordogne.

  And don’t forget: if ever a good wind should blow you into this part of the world, I count on you to spend a few days under my roof. My old servant is never so happy as when there’s a guest to be made a fuss of . . . The salmon fishing has begun . . .

  It was a detail that set Maigret dreaming. The note-paper had a letterhead: the outline of a little manor house, flanked by two round towers. Below this, the words:

  LA RIBAUDIERE

  NEAR VILLEFRANCHE-EN-DORDOGNE

  At twelve Madame Maigret rang up from Alsace to say they were hoping the child would arrive sometime during the night.

  “It’s just like summer,” she added, “and the fruit trees are in blossom . . .”

  Yes, it was the merest chance. A little later Maigret was in his chief’s room, chatting, when the latter said:

  “By the way, did you ever get down to Bordeaux to clear up that matter we were discussing the other day?”

  It was a matter of no great importance and of no urgency whatever: Maigret just needed to go down to Bordeaux to look through the municipal records.

  Bordeaux . . . Dordogne. A simple association of ideas.

  Maigret stared at the ray of sunshine that shone on to the glass ball that the director of the Police Judiciaire used as a paperweight.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” he said. “I’ve nothing on at the moment.”

  Later that afternoon, armed with a first-class ticket, he got on the train to Villefranche at the Gare d’Orsay. The guard told him he had to change at Libourne.

  “Unless you’re in the sleeping car—that gets recoupled.”

  Maigret thought no more about it, looked through two or three newspapers, and then made his way to the dining car, where he lingered over his coffee till nearly ten o’clock.

  When he returned to his carriage he found the curtains drawn and the light dimmed. An elderly couple had taken over the two seats.

  An attendant passed along the corridor.

  “Is there a couchette free?”

  “There’s nothing first class. But I think there’s one in second. If you don’t mind . . .”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  And Maigret took his bag down from the rack and followed the man through the corridors, where the latter peeped through door after doo
r till he found a compartment in which only the upper couchette was occupied.

  Here too the curtains were drawn, and only the dim light was burning.

  “Shall I switch on the light?”

  “No, thanks.”

  The air inside was hot and clammy. From somewhere or other came a faint hiss as if one of the joints of the radiator pipes was leaking. The man in the upper couchette could be heard breathing heavily and tossing about.

  The inspector quietly took off his shoes, jacket, and waistcoat, and lay down. His head was in a thin draft. He couldn’t tell where it came from, but by balancing his bowler over one side of his face he was able to ward it off.

  Did he fall asleep? Hardly. But at any rate he dozed. Perhaps an hour. Perhaps two. Or it could have been even longer. But however that might be, he never completely lost consciousness.

  And in this semiconsciousness the dominant sensation was discomfort. Was it the heat? Or was it the draft, which succeeded after all in getting round the bowler?

  They were bad enough, but what really bothered him was the restlessness of the man above.

  He couldn’t keep still for a minute, nor even for a fraction of a minute. And he was right above Maigret’s head. Every time he moved he made a racket. Besides, the man’s breathing was irregular as though he was feverish.

  At last Maigret could stand it no longer. He went out and started pacing up and down the corridor. There, however, it was too cold.

  Back again in the carriage, another spell of troubled somnolence, writhing with sensations and ideas. They were cut off from the rest of the world. The atmosphere was like one in a nightmare.

  The man above—had he not leaned over the side of the upper couchette and peered into the shadow in which Maigret lay? Certainly he was never a moment still. Maigret, on the contrary, lay still as a corpse. The half-bottle of claret he had drunk at dinner and the two brandies he had had after it lay heavy on his stomach.

  The night dragged slowly on. Now and again the train stopped. There would be voices on the platform, steps in the corridor, the slamming of doors. And each time it seemed as though they were never going to start again.

  Was the man weeping? There were moments when his breathing stopped. Then a snuffle. He would turn over and blow his nose.

  Maigret regretted his first-class carriage. Why hadn’t he stayed there in spite of the elderly couple? He could easily have asked one of them to move.

  He dozed, woke, dozed, woke again, until finally he could contain himself no longer. He coughed to clear his throat.

  “Excuse me, monsieur, but would you please try to keep still?”

  Having said that, he felt more uncomfortable than ever, for his voice had been much gruffer than he had intended. And, after all, the man might be ill . . .

  There was no answer. No response whatever, except that the movements overhead ceased. The man must be making a frantic effort not to budge an inch. Then it suddenly occurred to Maigret that it might not be a man after all. Suppose it was a woman? He had never had a real view of the person above him, squeezed in between the bunk bed and the ceiling.

  And the heat, which was rising, must be fearful up there. Maigret tried to turn it half off, but the lever was jammed. It was three o’clock.

  “I really must get to sleep.”

  But he wasn’t in the least sleepy now. In fact, he felt almost as jumpy as his traveling companion. He listened intently.

  “There we are! He’s starting again.”

  He tried to take no notice, forced himself to breathe regularly, counted up to a hundred and then began again.

  There was no doubt about it now—the man was weeping. Probably someone who had been to Paris for a funeral. Or the contrary: some poor devil who worked in Paris, who had received a sudden call to his native town. His mother ill, or perhaps dead. Or it might be his wife. Maigret was sorry he had spoken so roughly. There might even be a coffin in a special wagon attached to the train. Why not? . . .

  And then there was his sister-in-law in Alsace . . . She might at any moment be giving birth to her third baby. Her third baby in four years!

  Maigret slept.

  The train stopped, then went on . . . It raced over a steel bridge, making an infernal din. He opened his eyes abruptly.

  The first thing he saw was a pair of legs that dangled from the upper berth. He lay still, watching them. The man was sitting, leaning forward, painstakingly lacing up his boots. In spite of the dimness of the light, Maigret noticed that the boots were of patent leather. The socks, on the other hand, were of thick gray wool, the sort of socks that are generally hand knitted.

  The man stopped what he was doing. Was he listening? Had he noticed a change in Maigret’s breathing?

  Maigret started counting again. But there was no question of his going to sleep now. He was fascinated by the hands that once more went on cautiously lacing up the boots. They trembled. In fact, they shook so much that when the man tried to tie a bow he had to make four shots at it.

  They ran through a little station. Lights flicked past, showing faintly through the curtains.

  The stranger’s feet felt for the little ladder and he started to come down. It was quite ridiculous. He could just climb down normally. Was he scared of being ticked off again?

  His foot flailed around, seeking the ladder. He looked like he was about to fall. He turned his back to the inspector.

  He went out, forgetting to shut the door behind him, and headed off down the corridor.

  If it hadn’t been for that open door, Maigret would have turned over with a sigh of relief and gone to sleep at last. But he had to rouse himself to shut it.

  As he did so he looked out.

  He just had time to slip on his jacket, not bothering about the waistcoat.

  He had seen the man open the door at the end of the corridor. And it was certainly no accident: the train was slowing down.

  They were going through a wood. The clouds overhead were lit up by an invisible moon. The brakes went on. A minute or two before, they had been doing eighty kilometers an hour. They had come down to thirty, or even less, when suddenly the man disappeared.

  He jumped well clear of the train and rolled down the railway embankment. Maigret did not stop to think what he was about. He simply made a dash for the door. The train had slowed down even more—there was no danger.

  He jumped out into the night, landed on his side. He rolled over three times and came to rest next to a barbed-wire fence.

  The train rattled on, the red glow from the engine fading away in the distance.

  Maigret picked himself up, a little shaken, but with nothing sprained or broken. The other man’s fall must have been worse, for he was only now beginning to get to his feet, slowly and painfully, about fifty meters further back.

  It was an absurd situation. Ruefully, the inspector wondered what had possessed him to throw himself out into the night like that, leaving his luggage to complete the journey to Villefranche-en-Dordogne. He hadn’t even the faintest notion where he was.

  Apart from the railway embankment, he could only see trees, except in one place where there was a pale streak of road.

  Why didn’t the man move? He had risen no farther than to his knees. Was he really hurt? Or had he seen Maigret?

  “Hey, you over there,” called out the latter, feeling for his revolver.

  He had hardly grasped it, however, when he saw a flash. He felt a stab in his shoulder even before he heard the bang.

  It was all over in a fraction of a second. The man was on his feet now, and running. Maigret saw him cross the strip of road and disappear into the darkness beyond.

  The inspector swore. His eyes were wet, not with pain, but with surprise, anger, confusion. It had happened so quickly. And now he was in a thoroughly sorry plight.

  The revolver fell from his hand. He stooped to pick it up, and swore again because his shoulder hurt.

  As a matter of fact it was not so much pain as a horrid
feeling of blood flowing abundantly, welling out with every pulse.

  He stood there at a loss, not daring to run or even to move, no longer bothering about picking up his gun. His temples were moist, and it was difficult to swallow. When he put his hand to his shoulder, it was, as he expected, instantly sticky with blood. He felt for the exact position of the wound and pressed it to stay the bleeding.

  Half stunned as he was, he was conscious of the train stopping at some distance, perhaps as much as a kilometer away. He listened hard with a feeling of anguish.

  Why should he mind whether it started or not? He simply couldn’t help it—he longed for it to start. The empty silence was like a frightening void.

  At last! Thank God! The puffing and rumbling began again. Turning toward it, he could just make out the faint red glow moving behind the treetops.

  Then nothing. Silence once more. Only Maigret. There all by himself, holding his shoulder with his right hand. Yes, it was the left shoulder that was wounded. He tried to move the arm, but it was too heavy: he could only raise it a few inches.

  Not a sound from the wood. Was the man already out of earshot? Or was he lying low among the bushes? Waiting perhaps to finish Maigret off as soon as he reached the road?

  “You fool! . . . You fool! . . .”

  Maigret cursed himself, feeling utterly forlorn. What on earth had made him think of jumping out of the train? At dawn, his friend Leduc would be waiting for him at the station. There’d be salmon for lunch . . .

  He started to walk, dragging his feet, stopping every few meters, then staggering on again. All he could see was that white strip of road, dusty as in midsummer.

  He was still bleeding. Not so much as at first, because he stopped most of the flow with his hand. But his hand was sticky with the drying blood.

  You wouldn’t have thought he’d already been wounded three times in the course of his career. He would have suffered any downright pain rather than feel his blood oozing away like that. He felt as bad about it as if he was being wheeled into an operating theater.