Maigret's Doubts Read online

  Georges Simenon

  * * *

  MAIGRET’S DOUBTS

  Translated by SHAUN WHITESIDE

  Contents

  1. The Tuesday Morning Visitor

  2. The Insurance Agent

  3. The Younger Sister from America

  4. The Restaurant on Rue Coquillière

  5. A Woman on the Embankment

  6. An Evening at the Cinema

  7. The Spiral Staircase

  8. A Mark on the Tray

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Georges Simenon was born on 12 February 1903 in Liège, Belgium, and died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life. Between 1931 and 1972 he published seventy-five novels and twenty-eight short stories featuring Inspector Maigret.

  Simenon always resisted identifying himself with his famous literary character, but acknowledged that they shared an important characteristic:

  My motto, to the extent that I have one, has been noted often enough, and I’ve always conformed to it. It’s the one I’ve given to old Maigret, who resembles me in certain points … ‘understand and judge not’.

  Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels.

  PENGUIN CLASSICS

  MAIGRET’S DOUBTS

  ‘Extraordinary masterpieces of the twentieth century’

  – John Banville

  ‘A brilliant writer’

  – India Knight

  ‘Intense atmosphere and resonant detail … make Simenon’s fiction remarkably like life’

  – Julian Barnes

  ‘A truly wonderful writer … marvellously readable – lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with the world he creates’

  – Muriel Spark

  ‘Few writers have ever conveyed with such a sure touch, the bleakness of human life’

  – A. N. Wilson

  ‘Compelling, remorseless, brilliant’

  – John Gray

  ‘A writer of genius, one whose simplicity of language creates indelible images that the florid stylists of our own day can only dream of’

  – Daily Mail

  ‘The mysteries of the human personality are revealed in all their disconcerting complexity’

  – Anita Brookner

  ‘One of the greatest writers of our time’

  – The Sunday Times

  ‘I love reading Simenon. He makes me think of Chekhov’

  – William Faulkner

  ‘One of the great psychological novelists of this century’

  – Independent

  ‘The greatest of all, the most genuine novelist we have had in literature’

  – André Gide

  ‘Simenon ought to be spoken of in the same breath as Camus, Beckett and Kafka’

  – Independent on Sunday

  1. The Tuesday Morning Visitor

  It hardly happens more than once or twice a year at Quai des Orfèvres, and sometimes it is over so quickly that you haven’t time to notice it: all of a sudden, after a frantic period in which there is a rapid succession of cases, arriving three or four at a time, putting all the staff on edge, so much so that the inspectors, for want of sleep, end up gaunt and red-eyed, all of a sudden there is dead calm, a void, one might say, barely punctuated by some unimportant phone calls.

  The same had been true the previous day. Admittedly that had been a Monday, a day that was usually less busy than the others anyway. The same atmosphere prevailed on Tuesday, at eleven o’clock in the morning. In the vast corridor, barely two or three small-time informers hung about uneasily, coming to pass on their information, and all the people in the inspectors’ office were at their desks except the ones who were off with flu.

  Whereas in an emergency Maigret usually didn’t have enough staff and had a huge amount of trouble finding enough men to put on a case, today he could have had access to almost his entire squad.

  It is true that it was more or less the same in the rest of Paris. It was 10 January. After the holidays, people were living their lives in slow motion, with a vague hangover, and the prospect of rents and taxes to be paid.

  The sky, in harmony with everyone’s minds and moods, was a neutral grey, the same grey, more or less, as the flagstones. It was cold, not cold enough to be picturesque or newsworthy, but an irritating cold, nothing more than that, the kind of cold you only noticed after walking in the streets for a certain amount of time.

  The radiators in the offices were scorching, adding to the thickness of the atmosphere, with occasional gurgles in the pipes and strange noises issuing from the boiler.

  Like schoolchildren once the exams are over, some addressed themselves to the small jobs that are normally put off until later, discovering in drawers forgotten reports, statistics to be established, dull administrative tasks.

  Almost all the people who made the headlines were on the Côte d’Azur or on the ski slopes.

  If Maigret had still had his coal-fired stove, which he had been allowed to keep for so long after the installation of central heating, but which had finally been taken away, he would have broken off from time to time to refill and poke it, bringing down a rain of red ash.

  He wasn’t in a bad mood, but he wasn’t in very good form either, and in the bus that brought him from Boulevard Richard-Lenoir he had wondered for a moment if he wasn’t coming down with flu.

  Perhaps it was his wife he was worried about? The previous day his friend Pardon, the doctor on Rue Picpus, had phoned him out of the blue.

  ‘Hello! Maigret … Don’t tell Madame Maigret that I’ve let you know.’

  ‘Let me know what?’

  ‘She came to see me just now and insisted that I wasn’t to talk to you about it …’

  Less than a year before, Maigret had gone to see Pardon as well, asking him not to tell his wife about his visit.

  ‘Most importantly, don’t be anxious. I examined her carefully. There’s nothing serious …’

  The previous day, when he took the call, Maigret had been as lethargic as he was this morning, with the same administrative report to complete.

  ‘What did she say was wrong with her?’

  ‘For some time she’s been breathless when climbing the stairs, and particularly in the morning her legs feel heavy. Nothing to worry about, I should tell you again. Except that her circulation isn’t quite what it should be. I prescribed her some pills to be taken after each meal. I should also tell you, so that you aren’t surprised, that I’ve put her on a diet. I would like her to lose five or six kilos, which would take the strain off her heart.’

  ‘You’re sure that …’

  ‘I swear that there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, but I thought it was better to put you in the picture. If you want my advice, pretend not to notice a thing. What scares her most is the idea that you might worry on her account …’

  Knowing his wife, she would have gone to buy her medication from the nearest chemist. The phone call was in the morning. At lunchtime he had watched Madame Maigret, who hadn’t taken any pills in front of him. Not in the evening either. He had looked for a little bottle, or a box, in the drawers in the sideboard and then, as if he wasn’t doing anything, in the kitchen.

  Where had she hidden her medication? She had eaten less than usual; she hadn’t had any pudding, in spite of her sweet tooth.

  ‘I think I’m going to go on a bit of a diet,’ she had said, joking. ‘I’m starting to split my dresses …’

  He trusted Pardon. He stayed calm. But it did weigh on his mind, or more exactly it made him melancholy.

  The previous year he had been the first to have three weeks of complete rest. It was his wife’s turn now. That meant that they were very slowly reaching
the age of minor ailments, of little repairs that needed carrying out, a little like cars which suddenly need to go to the garage almost every week.

  Except that you can buy replacement parts for cars. You can even put in a new engine.

  When the clerk knocked on his door and opened it as usual without waiting for an answer, Maigret was not aware of his ruminations. He lifted his head from his dossier and looked at old Joseph with big, sleepy-looking eyes.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Someone insists on seeing you in person.’

  And Joseph, who didn’t make a sound when he walked, set down a form on the corner of the desk.

  Maigret read a name written in pencil, but since the name meant nothing to him he paid it no attention. He would only remember that it was a two-syllable surname probably beginning with an M. Only the first name stayed in his memory, Xavier, because it was the name of his first boss at Quai des Orfèvres, old Xavier Guichard.

  Beneath the printed words: ‘object of visit’, it said something like: ‘absolutely needs to talk to Detective Chief Inspector Maigret’.

  Joseph waited impassively. It was grey enough in the office for the lamps to be lit, but Maigret hadn’t thought of lighting them.

  ‘Will you see him?’

  He replied with a movement of his head and a slight shrug. Why not? A moment later, a man of about forty was brought in. He had an unremarkable face and might have been any one of the thousands of men one sees at six o’clock in the evening, hurrying towards the nearest Métro.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, detective chief inspector …’

  ‘Have a seat.’

  His visitor was slightly nervous, but not excessively so, more emotional, like so many who came into this very office. He wore a dark overcoat, which he unbuttoned before sitting down, keeping his hat on his knees at first and then, a little later, placing it on the carpet by his feet.

  Then he smiled mechanically, probably a sign of shyness. After giving a little cough, he said:

  ‘The most difficult thing, I’m sure you’ll agree, is where to start. Of course, like everyone, I have said heaven knows how many times in my head the things that I am about to tell you, but when the time comes it all turns into a blur …’

  Another smile, seeking approval or encouragement from the inspector. But Maigret’s interest had not yet been aroused. The man had come at a bad time, when his mind was still drowsy.

  ‘You must receive many visits of the same kind, people coming to tell you about their small troubles, convinced that you will find them interesting.’

  He had brown hair, he wasn’t bad-looking, although his nose was a little crooked and his lower lip was a bit too fleshy.

  ‘I can assure you that that isn’t the case with me and that I hesitated for a long time before disturbing a man as busy as you are.’

  He must have expected a desk covered with files, with two or three telephones ringing at the same time, inspectors going in and out, witnesses or suspects slumped on the chairs. And that was more or less what he would have found on another day, but his disenchantment didn’t raise a smile from Maigret, whose mind seemed to be quite blank.

  In fact, looking at the man’s suit, he was thinking that it was made of a good material and must have been cut by a local tailor. A grey suit, almost black. Black shoes. A neutral tie.

  ‘Let me assure you, inspector, that I’m not insane. I don’t know if you know Doctor Steiner, Place Denfert-Rochereau. He’s a neurologist, which is, I believe, more or less synonymous with psychiatrist, and he has acted several times as an expert witness in court trials.’

  Maigret’s thick eyebrows rose slightly, but not exaggeratedly.

  ‘Have you been to see Steiner?’

  ‘I went to ask him for a consultation, yes, and I should mention in passing that his consultations last an hour and that he leaves nothing to chance. He found nothing. He considers me completely normal. As for my wife, who didn’t go and see him …’

  He paused, because his monologue was not exactly the one he had prepared, and he was struggling to remember it word for word. With a mechanical gesture he had taken a pack of cigarettes from his pocket but didn’t dare to ask permission to smoke.

  ‘You may,’ Maigret said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  His fingers were slightly clumsy. He was nervous.

  ‘Excuse me. I should control myself better than that. I can’t help being emotional. It’s the first time that I’ve seen you in the flesh, all of a sudden, in your office, with your pipes …’

  ‘May I ask you what your profession is?’

  ‘I should have started with that. It isn’t a very common one, and like many people you may smile. I work at the Grands Magasins du Louvre on Rue de Rivoli. Officially, my title is first salesman in the toy department. That is to say that I was kept on my toes during the holiday season. In fact, I have a specialism that takes up most of my activity: I look after the train sets.’

  He seemed to be forgetting the purpose of his visit and where he was and instead was talking freely about his favourite subject.

  ‘Did you walk past the Magasins du Louvre in December?’

  Maigret said neither yes nor no. He couldn’t remember. He vaguely remembered a giant decoration in lights on the façade, but he couldn’t have said what the moving and multi-coloured characters represented.

  ‘If you did, you saw, in the third window on the Rue de Rivoli, a precise reconstruction of Gare Saint-Lazare, with all its platforms, its suburban and express trains, its signals, its signal boxes. It took me three months of work, and I had to go to Switzerland and Germany to buy some of the material. That may seem childish to you, but if I told you our turnover on train sets alone … Most importantly, don’t imagine that our clientele consists only of children. Some grown-ups, including men in important positions, are passionate about train sets, and I am often called to people’s houses to …’

  He broke off again.

  ‘Am I boring you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  Maigret nodded. His visitor must have been between forty and forty-five, and wore a red-gold wedding ring, broad and flat, almost the same as the one the inspector was wearing. He also wore a tie-pin representing a railway signal.

  ‘I can’t remember where I got to. I didn’t come to see you to talk to you about train sets, of course, and I realize that I’m wasting your time. And yet you need to be able to place me, don’t you? You need me to tell you that I live on Avenue de Châtillon, near the church of Saint-Pierre de Montrouge, in the fourteenth arrondissement, and that I have lived in the same accommodation for eighteen years. No: nineteen … Well, it will be nineteen years in March … I’m married …’

  He was sorry not to be clearer, and sorry that he had to give too many details. It seemed as if when the ideas came to him he weighed them up, wondered whether they were important or not, then expressed or rejected them.

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘It’s precisely because I’m married …’

  He smiled apologetically.

  ‘It would be easier if you asked the questions, but you can’t, because you don’t know what it’s about …’

  Maigret almost blamed himself for being so static. It wasn’t his fault. It was physical. He was struggling to take an interest in what he was being told, and regretted allowing Joseph to show the visitor in.

  ‘I’m listening …’

  He filled a pipe to keep himself busy and glanced at the window, beyond which there was only pale grey. It looked like a worn-out backcloth from a provincial theatre.

  ‘Above all I must stress that I am not accusing anyone, inspector. I love my wife. We’ve been married for twelve years, Gisèle and I, and we have hardly ever argued. I talked to Doctor Steiner about it, after he examined me, and he said to me solicitously, “I would be obliged if you would bring your wife to see me.” Except, on what pretext can I ask Gisèle to follow
me to see a neurologist? I can’t even claim that she is mad, because she gets on with her work, and no one has any complaints.

  ‘You see, I’m not a very educated person. I grew up in care and had to educate myself, and I consider that knowledge is man’s most precious property.

  ‘Forgive me for talking to you like this. It is to explain to you at last that when Gisèle started behaving differently towards me, I went to libraries, including the Bibliothèque Nationale, to consult books that would have been too expensive for me to buy. Besides, my wife would have been worried if she had found them at home …’

  To prove that he was more or less following this chatter, Maigret asked:

  ‘Books about psychiatry?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t claim to have understood everything. Most of them are written in a language that is too complicated for me. But I did find books on neuroses and psychoses that made me think. I imagine you know the difference between neuroses and psychoses? I’ve also studied schizophrenia, but I think in all conscience that her condition doesn’t go quite that far …’

  Maigret thought of his wife, of Doctor Pardon, and observed a little brown mole in the corner of his visitor’s lip.

  ‘If I understand correctly, you suspect your wife of not being in her normal state of mind?’

  The moment had come, and the man paled slightly and gulped back his saliva two or three times before declaring, as if searching for his words and weighing their meaning:

  ‘I am convinced that for several months, five or six at least, my wife has been planning to kill me. That, inspector, is why I came to see you in person. I have no formal proof, or else I would have started with that. I am prepared to give you all the clues I have, which fall into two categories. Psychological clues first of all, the most difficult to expose, as you must understand because most of them are trivial facts which have no significance in themselves, but which cumulatively assume a meaning.

  ‘As to material clues, there is one, which I have brought you, and which is the most troubling …’