Maigret and the Millionaires Read online

  Maigret and the Millionaires

  Maigret voyage

  the 79th episode in the Maigret Saga

  1958

  Georges Simenon

  Translated from the French by Jean Stewart

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  A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

  click for scan notes and proofing history

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  Contents

  Chapter One: What was happening at the Hotel George V while the rain was falling over Paris, Maigret was asleep, and various other people were doing their best to sleep also

  Chapter Two: In which we are still concerned with people whose names recur constantly in the papers, and not merely among the commonplace local news items

  Chapter Three: Which tells of the little Countess’s comings and goingings, and of Maigret’s scrules

  Chapter Four: In which Maigret meets another multimillionaire, aas naked as the first, but alive and well

  Chapter Five: In which Maigret at last meets somebody who has no money and who is worried

  Chapter Six: In which Maigret is invited out to lunch, and learns some more about VIPs

  Chapter Seven: In which Maigret is made to feel unwanted, and indeed is regarded with suspicion

  Chapter Eight: Those who had seen something and those who had not, or the art of mixing one’s witnesses

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  Maigret and the Millionaires

  Copyright © 1958 by Georges Simenon

  English translation copyright © 1974 by Georges Simenon

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Simenon, Georges, 1903-

  Maigret and the millionaires.

  “A Helen and Kurt Wolff book.”

  Translation of Maigret voyage.

  I. Title.

  PZ3.S5892Maegs [PQ2637.I53] 843'.9'12 74-7009 ISBN 0-15-155143-X

  First American edition B C D E

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  Chapter One

  What was happening at the Hotel George V while the rain was falling over Paris, Maigret was asleep, and various other people were doing their best to sleep also

  ^ »

  The most frustrating cases are those that seem so run-of-the-mill that at first you don’t think they’re important. It’s like those illnesses that sneak up on you, beginning with vague discomfort. When you finally take them seriously, it’s often too late.”

  Maigret had once said this to Inspector Janvier one evening when they were returning, together to the Quai des Orfèvres over the Pont-Neuf.

  But on this particular night Maigret made no comment on the events taking place, because he was sound asleep beside Madame Maigret in their apartment on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir.

  If he had expected any trouble, it would not have been from the Hotel George V, a place more often mentioned in the social columns of the press than among the sensational news items, but rather from the daughter of a minister, a girl he’d called in to warn her to stop indulging in certain eccentricities. Although he had adopted a fatherly tone, she had taken his reproof badly. It’s true that she had just been celebrating her eighteenth birthday.

  “You’re just a petty bureaucrat—I’ll have you fired.”

  At three o’clock in the morning a fine drizzle was falling, barely visible, yet just enough to make the street surfaces glisten and the lights glitter as though seen through tears.

  At half past three, on the third floor of the George V, a bell rang in the room where a chambermaid and a valet were dozing. They both opened their eyes. The man was the first to notice that it was the yellow light that had just flashed on. “It’s for Jules,” he said.

  That meant a call for the room waiter, who went to take a bottle of Danish lager to one of the guests.

  The two servants dozed off again in their chairs. There was a longish pause, then the bell rang again, just as Jules, who was over sixty and had always done night duty, came back with his empty tray.

  “All right, all right!” he grumbled between his teeth.

  He made his way leisurely to

  suite 332

  , where a light shone above the door; he knocked, waited for a moment, and then, hearing nothing, opened the door gently. There was nobody in the darkened sitting room. A little light came from the bedroom, where a faint continuous moaning, like a child’s or an animal’s, could be heard.

  The little Countess was stretched out on her bed, her eyes half-closed, her lips parted, both hands clasped over her heart.

  “Who’s that?” she moaned.

  “The waiter, Madame la Comtesse.”

  They knew one another well.

  “I’m dying, Jules. I don’t want to. Call the doctor quickly. Isn’t there one in the hotel?”

  “Not at this time of night, Madame la Comtesse, but I’ll get in touch with the nurse…”

  A little over an hour before, he had brought up to that very suite a bottle of champagne, a bottle of whisky, some soda water, and a bucket of ice. The bottles and glasses were still in the sitting room, except for one champagne glass that had been overturned on the bedside table.

  “Hello! Get me the nurse at once.…”

  Mademoiselle Rosay, the operator on duty, showed no surprise, but inserted one plug, then another, into one of the many holes in the switchboard. Jules heard a distant ringing sound, then a sleepy voice.

  “Hello!… Nurse speaking…”

  “Will you come down immediately to number 332?”

  “I’m dying, Jules…”

  “You’ll see, you won’t die, Madame la Comtesse…”

  He did not know what to do while he was waiting. He went to turn on the lights in the sitting room, noticed that the champagne bottle was empty, while the whisky bottle was still three quarters full.

  The Countess Paverini went on moaning, with her hands clenched over her breast.

  “Jules…”

  “Yes, Madame la Comtesse?”

  “What if they come too late …”

  “Mademoiselle Genévrier is coming down right away…”

  “If they do come too late anyhow, tell them that I’ve taken poison, but that I don’t want to die…”

  The nurse, gray-haired, gray-faced, her body still redolent of sleep under her white smock, came into the suite after tapping gently at the door for appearance’s sake. She had a bottle of something brownish in one hand, and her pockets were bulging with boxes of medicine.

  “She says she took poison…”

  Mademoiselle Genévrier took a quick look around, saw the wastepaper basket, extracted from it a pharmaceutical container, and read the label.

  “Ask the operator to call Dr. Frère. It’s urgent…”

  It seemed as though now that there was somebody to look after her the Countess had surrendered to her fate, for she no longer attempted to speak and her moans became weaker.

  “Hello! Please call Dr. Frère immediately… No, no, not for me!… It’s the nurse who’s asking…”

  These things happen so often in luxury hotels and in certain districts of Paris that at the police first-aid posts, when they get a call from the Sixteenth Arrondissement, for instance, somebody almost always asks: “Downs?”

  “Get me some hot water.”

  “Boiled?”

  “It doesn’t matter, just so it’s hot.”

  Mademoiselle Genévrier had felt the Countess’s pulse and lifte
d her upper eyelids.

  “How many pills did you take?”

  A girlish voice replied, “I don’t know. … I can’t remember…Don’t let me die…”

  “Of course not, dear. Drink this, anyhow.…”

  She had her arm around the patient’s shoulders and was holding a glass to her lips.

  “Is it horrible?”

  “You drink it up…”

  Near by, in his apartment on Avenue Marceau, Dr. Frère dressed hurriedly, grabbed his bag, and presently, leaving the silent building, got into his car, which was parked parallel to the sidewalk.

  The marble entrance hall of the Hotel George V was deserted, except for the night receptionist, who was reading a newspaper behind his mahogany desk on one side, and the bell captain, who was doing nothing at all on the other.

  “Number 332,” announced the doctor as he went by.

  “I know …”

  The switchboard operator had given them the word.

  “Should I call an ambulance?”

  “I’m going up to see…”

  Dr. Frère was familiar with most of the suites in the hotel. Like the nurse, he gave a token knock on the door, then went in, took off his hat, and moved swiftly to the bedroom.

  Jules, after bringing a pitcher of hot water, had withdrawn into a corner.

  “Poison, doctor… I’ve given her…”

  They exchanged a few words, like a kind of shorthand or conversation in code, while the Countess, still propped up on the nurse’s arm, was retching violently and beginning to vomit.

  “Jules!”

  “Yes, doctor…”

  “Get them to call the AmericanHospital at Neuilly to send an ambulance …”

  There was nothing unusual about all this. The operator, her headphones over her ears, spoke to another night operator at Neuilly.

  “I don’t exactly know, dear.… It’s Countess Paverini, and the doctor’s up there with her…”

  The phone rang in number 332. Jules answered, and reported, “The ambulance will be here in ten minutes.”

  The doctor put away the hypodermic he had just used for an injection.

  “Shall I get her dressed?”

  “Just wrap her in a blanket. If you can see a suitcase anywhere, pack a few things. You know better than I do what she’ll need…”

  A quarter of an hour later, two attendants carried the little Countess downstairs and lifted her into the ambulance, while Dr. Frère got into his own car.

  “I’ll be there by the time you are…”

  The doctor and the ambulance attendants were old acquaintances. He also knew the hospital receptionist, to whom he said a few words, and the young doctor on duty. These people spoke little, and always as though in code, because they were accustomed to working together.

  “Room 41 is free…”

  “How many pills?”

  “She doesn’t remember. The bottle was found empty.”

  “Did she vomit?”

  The doctor knew this nurse as well as the one at the George V. While she organized things, he lighted a cigarette at last.

  Stomach pump. Pulse-taking. Another injection.

  “Just let her sleep now. Take her pulse every half hour.”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  He went down in an elevator exactly like the one in the hotel and gave some instructions to the receptionist, who jotted them down.

  “Have you notified the police?”

  “Not yet…”

  He glanced at the black-and-white clock. Half past four.

  “Get me the police station on Rue de Berry.”

  There, bicycles were standing in front of the door, under the lamp. Inside, two young constables were playing cards and a sergeant was brewing himself some coffee over an alcohol lamp.

  “Yes … Rue de Berry Police Station… Doctor what?… Frère?… Like brother?… okay … I’m listening… Just a minute…”

  The sergeant grabbed a pencil and jotted on a scrap of paper the information given to him.

  “Yes… yes… I’ll tell them you’re going to send in your report…Is she dead?…”

  He hung up and said to the other two, who were watching him, “Barbiturates… George V…”

  For him this just meant extra work. He lifted the receiver again with a sigh.

  “Headquarters?… Rue de Berry Station here… It’s me, Marchai.… How are things on your end?… It’s quiet here… The fight? No, we didn’t keep them at the station… One of the thugs knows a lot of people, you know?… I had to call the superintendent, who told me to let them go…”

  There had been a fight in a night club on Rue de Ponthieu.

  “Well, I’ve got something else… An O.D… Will you take the report?… A countess… yes, a countess… Real or phony, I don’t know… Paverini… p as in Peter, a as in apple, v as in Victor, e as in… Paverini, yes… Hotel George V…

  suite 332

  … Dr. Frère, like your brother… AmericanHospital at Neuilly… Yes, she talked… She wanted to die, then she stopped wanting to… The same old story.”

  At half past five Detective Inspector Justin, of the Eighth Arrondissement, questioned the night concierge of the George V, wrote a few words in his notebook, talked to Jules, the waiter, and finally made his way to the hospital at Neuilly, where he learned that the Countess was asleep and that her life was not in danger.

  At eight o’clock that morning it was still drizzling, but the sky was lighter, and Lucas, who had a slight cold, sat down in his office on Quai des Orfèvres, where the previous night’s reports awaited him.

  He was thus informed, in a few official phrases, about the fight on Rue de Ponthieu, the arrest of ten or twelve prostitutes, some cases of drunkenness, a knifing on Rue de Flandre, and a few other incidents, none of which were out of the ordinary.

  Six lines told him, moreover, of the attempted suicide of the Countess Paverini, née La Serte.

  Maigret showed up at nine o’clock, still a little worried about the minister’s daughter.

  “Has the chief asked to see me?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Anything important in the reports?”

  Lucas hesitated for a second, decided that, all things considered, an attempted suicide, even at the George V, was not an important matter and answered, “Nothing…”

  He had no idea he was making a serious mistake that was going to complicate Maigret’s life and the crime squad’s entire file.

  When a bell rang in the hall, the superintendent, carrying a few files, left his office and went with the other departmental heads to a meeting in the police director’s room. They discussed outstanding business that concerned the various superintendents, but Maigret said nothing about Countess Paverini because he knew nothing about her.

  By ten o’clock he was back at his desk and, his pipe between his lips, was beginning his report on a case of robbery with assault that had occurred three days earlier; an Alpine beret that had been dropped at the scene of the crime would, he hoped, enable him to trace and arrest the criminals very shortly.

  At about the same time, in the Hotel Scribe on the Grands Boulevards, a certain John Arnold, who was breakfasting in pajamas and dressing gown, picked up his telephone receiver.

  “Hello, mademoiselle . .. Will you get Colonel Ward at the Hotel George V?”

  “Right away, Mr. Arnold.”

  For Arnold was an old habitué of the Hotel Scribe; he lived there almost all year round.

  The switchboard operators at the two hotels, the Scribe and the George V, knew one another without having met, as operators do.

  “Hello, dear, will you put me through to Colonel Ward?”

  “For Arnold?”

  The two men habitually phoned one another several times a day, and the ten a.m. call was traditional.

  “He hasn’t called for his breakfast yet.… Shall I call him anyway?”

  “Wait a minute…I’ll find out…”

  The plug shifted from one
hole to another.

  “Mr. Arnold … the Colonel hasn’t rung for his breakfast yet…Shall I ask them to wake him up?”

  “Has he left no message?”

  “I haven’t been told of any…”

  ’It’s ten o’clock, isn’t it?”

  Ten after ten.…”

  “Call him again…”

  The switchboard got busy once more.

  “Call him, dear…Never mind if he grumbles…”

  There was silence on the line. The operator at the Scribe had time to put through three other calls, including one to Amsterdam.

  “Hello there, dear, have you forgotten my Colonel?”

  “I keep ringing him. He doesn’t answer.”

  A few minutes later there was another call from the Scribe to the George V.

  “Listen, dear. I’ve told my caller that the Colonel doesn’t answer. He says that’s impossible, that the Colonel is expecting a call from him at ten o’clock, that it’s very important…”

  “I’ll try ringing him once more…”

  Then, after a vain attempt: “Wait a sec. I’ll ask the concierge if he went out.”

  A pause.

  “No. His key’s not on the board. What shall I do?”

  In his room, meanwhile, Mr. John Arnold was losing patience.

  “Well, mademoiselle, have you forgotten my call?”

  “No, Mr. Arnold. The Colonel doesn’t answer. The concierge hasn’t seen him leave and his key isn’t on the board…”

  “Get them to send somebody to knock on his door.”

  The messenger this time was not Jules, but an Italian named Gino, who was on duty on the third floor, where Colonel Ward’s suite was five doors away from Countess Paverini’s.

  Gino called back to tell the concierge: “There’s no answer and the door’s locked.”

  The concierge turned to his assistant. “You go and see.…”

  The assistant, in his turn, rang, knocked, and said softly, “Colonel Ward…”

  Then he took a master key from his pocket and managed to open the door.

  Inside, the shutters were closed and a lighted lamp stood on one of the living-room tables. The light was on in the bedroom too, with the bed turned down for the night and the pajamas laid out.