Inspector Cadaver Read online

  A PENGUIN MYSTERY

  INSPECTOR CADAVER

  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 he moved to Paris to embark on a career as a novelist. He started by writing pulp-fiction novels and novellas published, under various pseudonyms, from 1923 onwards. He went on to write seventy-five Maigret novels and twenty-eight Maigret short stories.

  Although Simenon is best known in Britain as the writer of the Maigret books, his prolific output of over four hundred novels made him a household name and institution in Continental Europe, where much of his work is constantly in print. The dark realism of Simenon’s books has lent them naturally to screen adaptation.

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

  GEORGES SIMENON

  INSPECTOR CADAVER

  TRANSLATED BY

  HELEN THOMSON

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published as L’Inspecteur cadavre 1944

  This translation first published as Maigret’s Rival by Hamish Hamilton 1979

  Reissued under the present title, with minor revisions and a new introduction in Penguin Classics 2003

  This edition published by Penguin Books (USA) 2007

  Copyright © 1944 Georges Simenon Ltd (a Chorion company). All rights reserved.

  Translation copyright © Georges Simenon Ltd, 1979, 2003

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Simenon, Georges, 1903–1989.

  [Inspecteur Cadavre, English]

  Inspector Cadaver / Georges Simenon; translated by Helen Thomson.

  p. cm.—(A Penguin mystery)

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-0187-9

  1. Maigret, Jules (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—France—Paris—Fiction. 3. Paris (France)—Fiction. I. Thomson, Helen, 1945–II. Title.

  PQ2637.I53I613 2008

  843'.912—dc22 2007025934

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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  CONTENTS

  1 THE LITTLE EVENING TRAIN

  2 THE GIRL IN THE NIGHTDRESS

  3 AN UNDESIRABLE PERSON

  4 THE THEFT OF THE CAP

  5 THREE WOMEN IN A DRAWING ROOM

  6 ALBAN GROULT-COTELLE’S ALIBI

  7 THE OLD POSTMISTRESS

  8 MAIGRET PLAYS MAIGRET

  9 NOISE BEHIND THE DOOR

  1

  THE LITTLE EVENING TRAIN

  Maigret surveyed his fellow passengers with large, sullen eyes and, without meaning to, assumed that stuck-up, self-important look people put on when they have spent mindless hours in the compartment of a train. Then, well before the train began to slow down as it approached a station, men in large, billowing overcoats started to emerge from their various cells each clutching a leather briefcase or a suitcase, in order to take up their positions in the corridor. There they stood, one hand casually gripping the brass rod across the window, without apparently paying the slightest attention to their traveling companions.

  Huge raindrops were making horizontal streaks across this particular train window. Through the transparent, watery glass the superintendent saw the light from a signal box shatter into a thousand pointed beams, for it was now dark. Lower down, he glimpsed streets laid out in straight lines, glistening like canals, rows of houses which all looked exactly the same, windows, doorsteps, pavements and, in the midst of this universe, a solitary human figure, a man in a hooded cloak hurrying somewhere or other.

  Slowly and carefully, Maigret filled his pipe. In order to light it, he turned towards the procession of people in the corridor. Four or five passengers who, like himself, were waiting for the train to stop so that they could slip away into the deserted streets or quickly make their way to the station buffet, were standing between him and the end of the corridor. Among them, he recognized a pale face which immediately turned the other way.

  It was none other than old Cadaver!

  First of all, the superintendent groaned:

  “He’s pretended not to see me, the idiot.”

  Then he frowned. Why on earth would Inspector Cavre be going to Saint-Aubin-les-Marais?

  The train slowed down and pulled into Niort station. Maigret stepped on to the cold and wet platform and called a porter:

  “Can you tell me how to get to Saint-Aubin, please?”

  “Take the 20:17 train on platform 3…”

  He had half an hour to wait. After a brief visit to the gentlemen’s lavatory, which was right at the end of the platform, he pushed open the door of the station buffet and walked over to one of the many unoccupied tables. He then sat wearily on a chair and settled down to wait in the dusty light.

  Old Cadaver was there, at the other end of the room, sitting as Maigret was, at a table with no cloth on it, and once again he pretended he had not seen the superintendent.

  Cavre was his real name, Justin Cavre, but he had been known as old Cadaver for twenty years and everyone at the Police Judiciaire used this nickname when referring to him.

  He looked ridiculous sitting stiffly in his corner and shifting from one uncomfortable position to another in order not to catch Maigret’s eye. He knew the superintendent had seen him, that was certain. Skinny, sallow-skinned, his eyelids red, he made one think of those schoolboys who skulk peevishly at the edge of the playground and pretend they do not want to play with the rest of the class, although in reality they long to join in the fun.

  Cavre was just that sort of person. He was intelligent. He was probably the most intelligent man Maigret had come across in the police force. They were both about the same age. If the truth were known, Cavre was a little more experienced and, had he persevered, he could well have become a superintendent before Maigret.

  Why was it that even as a young man he already seemed to carry the burden of some kind of curse on his narrow shoulders? Why did he give them all black looks, as if he thought each and every one of them was going to do him down?

  “Old Cadaver has just begun his novena…”

  It was an
expression one often used to hear at the Quai des Orfèvres years ago. At the slightest provocation, or sometimes for no reason at all, Inspector Cavre would suddenly begin a course of silence and mistrust, a restorative of hatred, one might say. For a week at a time he would not say a word to anyone. Sometimes, his colleagues would catch sight of him chuckling to himself as though he had seen through their supposedly evil schemes.

  Very few people knew why he had suddenly left the police force. Maigret himself did not learn the facts until some time afterwards and had felt very sorry for him.

  Cavre loved his wife with the jealous, consuming passion of a lover rather than in a husbandly way. What exactly he found so beguiling about that vulgar woman who had all the aggressive characteristics of a demimondaine or a bogus film star, one could only surmise. Nevertheless, the fact remained that it was because of her that he had committed serious offenses in the course of his career in the force. Ugly discoveries concerning payments of money had sealed his fate. One evening, Cavre had emerged from the Chief of Police’s office with his head down and his shoulders hunched. A few months later, he was known to have set up a private detective agency above a stamp shop in the Rue Drouot.

  People were having dinner, each customer wrapped in his own aura of boredom and silence. Maigret finished his half pint of beer, wiped his mouth, picked up his suitcase and walked past his former colleague. He had been less than two yards away from his table, but Cavre had continued to stare down at a patch of spit on the floor.

  The little train, looking black and wet, was already at platform 3. Maigret climbed into a cold, damp compartment of the old-fashioned type and tried in vain to shut the window properly.

  People were walking to and fro on the platform outside and the superintendent heard other familiar sounds. The carriage door opened two or three times and a head looked in. Each passenger was trying desperately to find an empty compartment. Whenever one of them caught sight of Maigret, the door shut again.

  Once the train had started to move, the superintendent went out into the corridor to close a window which was causing a draft. As he did so, he saw, in the compartment next to his, Inspector Cavre, who this time was pretending to be asleep.

  There was nothing to be alarmed about. It was idiotic to keep brooding on this strange coincidence. Besides, the whole affair was nonsense and Maigret wished he could extricate himself from his promise with a mere shrug of the shoulders.

  What difference did it make to him if Cavre was also going to Saint-Aubin?

  In the darkness outside the carriage windows, through which the dot of a light on the side of the road could occasionally be seen, the headlights of a passing car would flash by or, looking even more mysterious and inviting, the yellowish rectangle of a window.

  The examining magistrate Bréjon, a charming, good-natured, rather shy man full of old-world courtesy, had repeatedly said to him:

  “My brother-in-law Naud will meet you at the station. I’ve told him you’re coming.”

  And Maigret could not help thinking as he drew on his pipe: “But what on earth can old Cadaver be up to?”

  The superintendent was not even on an official case. Bréjon, with whom he had worked so often, had sent him a short note asking him if he would be good enough to pop into his office for a few moments.

  It was the month of January. It was raining in Paris as it was in Niort. It had been raining for more than a week and the sun had not once come out. The lamp on the desk in the examining magistrate’s office had a green shade. While Monsieur Bréjon was talking and constantly cleaning the lenses of his spectacles as he did so, Maigret reflected that he, too, had a green lampshade in his office, but that the one he was looking at now was ribbed like a melon.

  “…am so sorry to bother you…especially as it’s not a professional matter…Do sit down…But of course…A cigar?…You may perhaps know that my wife’s maiden name is Lecat…It doesn’t matter…That’s not what I want to discuss…My sister, Louise Bréjon, became Madame Naud when she married…”

  It was late. People in the street outside, on looking up at the gloomy façade of the forbidding Palais de Justice and seeing the light on in the examining magistrate’s office, would no doubt think that serious issues were being debated up there.

  And one had such a strong impression of authority when one saw Maigret’s bulky figure and thoughtful countenance that no one could possibly have guessed what he was thinking about.

  In actual fact, as he listened with half an ear to what the examining magistrate with the goatee beard was telling him, he was thinking about the green lampshade in front of him, about the one in his own office, how attractive the ribbed shade was, and how he would get one like it for himself.

  “You can understand the situation…A small, a tiny village…You will see for yourself…It’s miles from anywhere…The jealousy, the envy, the unwarranted malice…My brother-in-law is a charming person, and sincere too…As for my niece, she’s just a child…If you agree, I’ll arrange for you to have a week’s leave of absence. My entire family will be indebted to you, and…and…”

  That was how he had become involved in a stupid venture. What exactly had the little examining magistrate told him? He was still provincial in his outlook and like all provincials he let himself be carried away by local gossip about families whose names he pronounced as if they were of historical importance.

  His sister, Louise Bréjon, had married Etienne Naud. The examining magistrate had added, as if the whole world had heard of him:

  “The son of Sébastien Naud, you understand?”

  Now, Sébastien Naud was quite simply a stout cattle dealer from the village of Saint-Aubin which was tucked away in the heart of the Vendée fenland.

  “Etienne Naud is related, on his mother’s side, to the best families in the district.”

  That was all very well. But what of it?

  “They live about a mile outside the village and their house almost touches the railway line…the one that runs between Niort and Fontenay-le-Comte…About three weeks ago, a local boy—from quite a good family, too, at any rate on his mother’s side as she’s a Pelcau—was found dead on the tracks…At first, everybody thought it was an accident, and I still think it was…But since then, rumor has it…Anonymous letters have been sent around…In a nutshell, my brother-in-law is now in a terrible state as people are accusing him almost openly of having killed the boy…He wrote me a somewhat garbled letter about it…I then wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions in Fontenay-le-Comte for more detailed information, as Saint-Aubin comes under the jurisdiction of Fontenay. Contrary to what I expected, I discovered that the accusations were rather serious and that it will be difficult to avoid an official inquiry…That is why, my dear superintendent, I have taken it upon myself to contact you, purely as a friend…”

  The train stopped. Maigret wiped the condensation from the window and saw a tiny station with just one light, one platform and one solitary railwayman who was running along the side of the train and already blowing his whistle. A carriage door slammed shut and the train set off again. But it was not the door of the next-door compartment which Maigret had heard closing. Inspector Cavre was still there.

  Now and then, Maigret would glimpse a farm, near by or in the distance, but always beneath him as he peered through the window, and whenever he saw a light it would invariably be reflected in a pool of water, as if the train were skirting the edge of a lake.

  “Saint-Aubin!”

  He got out. Three people in all got off the train: a very old lady with a cumbersome, black wicker basket, Cavre and Maigret. In the middle of the platform stood a very tall, very large man, wearing leather gaiters and a leather jacket. It was obviously Naud, for he was looking hesitantly about him. His brother-in-law the examining magistrate had told him Maigret would be arriving that night. But which of the two men who had got out of the train was Maigret?

  First of all, he walked towards the thinner of the two men. His ha
nd was already moving upwards to touch his hat; his mouth was slightly open, ready to ask the stranger’s name in a faltering voice. But Cavre walked straight past, haughtily, as if to say with a knowing look:

  “It’s not me. It’s the other chap.”

  The examining magistrate’s brother-in-law abruptly changed direction.

  “Superintendent Maigret, I believe? I’m sorry I did not recognize you straightaway. Your photograph is so often in the papers. But in this little backwater, you know…”

  He had taken it upon himself to carry Maigret’s suitcase and as the superintendent was hunting in his pocket for his ticket, he said as he steered him, not towards the station exit but towards the level crossing:

  “Don’t worry about that…”

  And turning to the station master, he cried:

  “Good evening, Pierre…”

  It was still raining. A horse harnessed to a pony trap was tied to a ring.

  “Please climb up…The road is virtually impassable for cars in this weather.”

  Where was Cavre? Maigret had seen him disappear into the darkness. He had a strong desire to follow him, but it was too late. Moreover, would it not have looked extremely odd, so soon upon his arrival, to leave his host in the lurch and go off in hot pursuit of another passenger?

  There was no sign of an actual village. Just a single lamp-post about a hundred yards from the station, standing by some tall trees. At this point, a road seemed to open out.

  “Put the coat over your legs. Yes, you must. Even with the coat your knees will get wet, for we’re going against the wind…My brother-in-law wrote me a long letter all about you…I feel embarrassed that he has involved someone like you in such an unimportant matter…You have no idea what country folk are like…”

  He let the end of his whip dangle over the horse’s rump. The wheels of the pony trap sank deep into the black mud as they drove along the road which ran parallel to the railway line. On the other side, lanterns threw a hazy light over a kind of canal.