Maigret and the Bum

  Maigret and the Dosser

  maigret et le clochard

  the 88th episode of the maigret saga

  Georges Simenon

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  A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

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  Contents

  |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|

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  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Simenon, Georges

  Maigret & the dosser

  I. Title

  843'.9'1F PQ637.153M25795

  ISBN 0-86009-278-X

  First Published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton Ltd 1973

  Copyright © 1963 by Georges Simenon

  Translation copyright © by Georges Simenon

  Published in Large Print 1980 by arrangement with Hamish Hamilton Ltd London

  Published in the USA under the title Maigret & the Bum

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Copyright owner.

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  CHAPTER 1

  ^ »

  For a moment, somewhere between the Quai des Orfèvres and the Pont Marie, Maigret halted, so briefly that Lapoint, who was walking beside him, did not notice. And yet, during the space of a few seconds, perhaps for less than a second, the Superintendent had become a young man again, no older than his companion.

  It was probably due to the quality of the air, the brightness, the smell, the taste of it. There had been a morning just like this, other mornings like it, when as a young detective newly appointed to the Police Judiciaire, which Parisians still called the Sûreté, Maigret had belonged to the Public Highways Squad and had walked the streets of Paris from morning till night.

  Although this was the 25th of March, today was the first real Spring day, specially clear after a last heavy shower that had fallen during the night, accompanied by the distant rumble of thunder. For the first time that year, too, Maigret had left his overcoat hanging in the cupboard of his office, and from time to time the breeze blew open his unbuttoned jacket.

  Because of that breath from the past, he had unconsciously begun to walk at his old pace, neither fast nor slow, not exactly the pace of an idler pausing to watch trivial incidents in the street, nor yet that of a man making for a definite goal.

  His hands clasped behind his back, he looked about him, to right and left and into the air, mentally recording visual images to which he had long ceased to pay attention.

  For so short a journey, there had been no point in taking one of the black cars lined up in the courtyard of Police Headquarters, and the two men walked along the embankment. As they crossed the square in front of Notre-Dame, a flight of pigeons took off; a big yellow coach, come from Cologne, had already brought the first party of tourists.

  Crossing the iron footbridge, they had reached the Ile Saint-Louis, and at one of the windows Maigret had noticed a young housemaid in uniform and muslin cap, looking like a character out of a Boulevard comedy. A butcher’s boy, also in uniform, was delivering meat a little farther on; a postman was leaving a block of flats.

  Buds had burst open that very morning, and the trees were speckled with pale green.

  “The Seine’s still high,” observed Lapointe, who had not spoken until now.

  It was true. For the past month the rain had barely stopped for more than a few hours at a time and almost every evening the television showed rivers in spate, towns and villages with water pouring through their streets. The Seine was a yellowish flood, carrying along refuse, broken boxes, branches of trees.

  The two men walked along the Quai de Bourbon as far as the Pont Marie, and as they crossed the bridge at the same leisurely pace, they could see downstream a greyish-coloured barge with the red and white triangle of the Compagnie Générale painted on her bow. Her name was Le Poitou, and a crane, whose grunting and creaking mingled with the confused noises of the city, was unloading the sand with which her holds were full.

  Another barge was moored above the bridge, some fifty yards upstream from the first. She was cleaner looking, as if she had been polished that very morning, and a Belgian flag was fluttering lazily over her stern, while, close to the white cabin, a baby lay asleep cradled in a canvas hammock, and a very tall man with pale blond hair was looking out expectantly towards the river bank.

  The boat’s name, in gilt letters, was De Zwarte Zwaan, a Flemish name which meant nothing to either Maigret or Lapointe.

  It was two or three minutes to ten. The policemen reached the Quai des Célestins, and as they were about to go down the ramp towards the port a car stopped and three men got out, slamming the door behind them.

  “Hullo! That’s well timed…”

  They had come from the Palais de Justice too, but from the more imposing part of it reserved for magistrates. There was Parrain, the Deputy Public Prosecutor, Dantziger the examining magistrate, and an old clerk of the court whose name Maigret could never remember, although he had met him hundreds of times.

  Passers-by on their way to work, children playing on the pavement opposite did not suspect that a police investigation was under way. In the clear morning light, there was nothing impressive about it. The Deputy Public Prosecutor pulled a gold cigarette case from his pocket and automatically offered it to Maigret, who had his pipe in his mouth.

  “Of course…I was forgetting…”

  He was tall and slender, fair-haired and distinguished-looking, and the Superintendent reflected, not for the first time, that this was typical of the Public Prosecutor’s department. Dantziger, the examining magistrate, was short and tubby and casually dressed. There were all sorts of examining magistrates. Why were the Parquet people always as elegant, as polite and often as haughty, as the private secretaries of Cabinet Ministers?

  “Shall we go, messieurs?”

  They went down the unevenly paved ramp as far as the water’s edge, not far from the barge.

  “Is that the one?”

  Maigret knew no more about it than his companions. He had read the brief newspaper reports of what had happened during the night, and a telephone call half an hour previously had asked him to be present at the Parquet’s investigation.

  He was quite glad to do so. He was back among people and in an atmosphere with which he was not unfamiliar. The five men walked together towards the motor-barge, while the tall blond bargee set out to meet them along the plank that connected it with the bank.

  “Take my hand,” he said to the Deputy Public Prosecutor, who was walking in front. “It’ll be safer, n’est-ce pas?”

  He had a pronounced Flemish accent. His strongly marked features, his pale eyes, his long arms and his way of moving recalled those Belgian racing cyclists whom one sees being interviewed after an event.

  The noise of the crane unloading sand could be heard even more loudly here.

  “Your name is Josef Van Houtte?” Maigret asked, after glancing at a piece of paper.

  “Jef Van Houtte, yes, monsieur.”

  “Are you the owner of this boat?”

  “Of course I’m the owner of it, monsieur, who else could be?”

  A good smell of cooking rose from the cabin, and at the foot of the stairs, which were covered with floral-patterned linoleum, a very young woman could be seen coming and going.

  Maigret pointed to the baby lying in its cradle.

  “Is that your son?”

  “That’s not a son, monsieur, that’s a daughter. Yolande, her name is. My sister’s called Yolande too, and she’s its godmother…”

  Parrain, the Deputy Public Prosecutor, felt impelled to intervene, after m
otioning to the clerk to take notes.

  “Tell us what happened.”

  “Well! I fished him out and the chap on the other boat helped me… ”

  He pointed to the Poitou, at the stern of which a man, leaning against the tiller, was looking at them as if waiting for his turn.

  A tug hooted repeatedly and sailed slowly past, going upstream with four barges behind it. Each time one of them drew level with the Zwarte Zwaan, Jef Van Houtte raised his right arm in greeting.

  “Did you know the drowned man?”

  “I’d never set eyes on him before…”

  “How long have you been berthed at this quay?”

  “Since last night. I’ve come from Jeumont with a cargo of slates for Rouen…I meant to pass through Paris and stop for the night at the Suresness lock…I suddenly noticed that something was wrong with the engine…Us lot aren’t keen on sleeping in the middle of Paris, you understand?”

  From a distance, Maigret caught sight of two or three down-and-outs sitting about under the bridge, including a very stout woman whom he fancied he had seen before.

  “How did it happen? Did the man jump into the water?”

  “I don’t think so, you know, monsieur. If he’d jumped into the water what would the other two have been doing here?”

  “What time was it? Where were you? Tell us everything that happened during the evening. You had moored by the quay shortly before nightfall? ”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you notice a vagrant under the bridge?”

  “That’s not the sort of thing one notices. There’s nearly always some of them.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “We had our supper, Hubert and Anneke and me…”

  “Who’s Hubert?”

  “He’s my brother. He works with me. Anneke’s my wife. Her name’s Anna but we call her Anneke… ”

  “And then?”

  “My brother put on his good suit and went to a dance. He’s the age for that, isn’t he?”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Is he here?”

  “He’s gone shopping. He’ll be back.”

  “What did you do after supper?”

  “I went to work on the engine. I saw straight away that there was an oil leak, and as I wanted to set off this morning I began to mend it.”

  He was casting watchful glances at them each in turn, with the mistrustful air of people who are used to dealing with the Law.

  “When did you finish the job?”

  “I didn’t finish it, not until this morning.”

  “Where were you when you heard cries?”

  He scratched his head, staring at the great gleaming spotless deck.

  “First I went up once to smoke a cigarette and see if Anneke was asleep.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About ten o’clock…I don’t know exactly…”

  “Was she asleep?”

  “Yes, monsieur. And the baby was asleep too. Some nights she cries, because she’s cutting her first teeth…”

  “Did you go back to your engine?”

  “Of course…”

  “Was it dark in the cabin?”

  “Yes, monsieur, because my wife was asleep.”

  “And on deck too?”

  “Sure.”

  “And then?”

  “Then, a long time after, I heard the noise of an engine, as if a car was stopping not far from the boat. ”

  “Didn’t you go and find out?”

  “No, monsieur. Why should I have?”

  “Go on.”

  “ A little later, there was a splash… ”

  “As if someone was falling into the Seine?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “And then?”

  “I went up the ladder and stuck my head through the hatchway.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Two men running towards the car…”

  “So there really was a car?”

  “Yes, monsieur. A red car. A Peugeot 403.”

  “Was it light enough for you to make it out?”

  “There’s a street lamp just above the wall.”

  “What were the two men like?”

  “One was a short man in a light-coloured raincoat, and he had broad shoulders.”

  “And the other?”

  “I didn’t see him so clearly because he got into the car first. He started up the engine immediately… ”

  “You didn’t notice the registration number?”

  “The what?”

  “The number on the plate?”

  “I only know there were two 9’s and it ended in 75…”

  “When did you hear the shouts?”

  “When the car started off…”

  “In other words, there was an interval between the time when the man was thrown into the water and the moment when he called out? Otherwise you’d have heard the shouts earlier?”

  “I guess so, monsieur. At night it’s quieter than now.”

  “What time was it?”

  “After midnight…”

  “Were there any people on the bridge?”

  “I didn’t look up…”

  On the embankment, beyond the wall, some passers-by had stopped, their curiosity aroused by the sight of these men arguing on the deck of a barge. It struck Maigret that the vagrants had moved several yards nearer. Meanwhile the crane kept on scooping up sand from the hold of the Poitou and emptying it into lorries which stood waiting for their turn.

  “Did he call out loudly?”

  “Yes, monsieur…”

  “What sort of a shout was it? Was he calling for help?”

  “He shouted…Then there was nothing more to be heard…Then… ”

  “What did you do?”

  “I jumped into the punt and unfastened it…”

  “Could you see the drowning man?”

  “No, monsieur…Not right away…The skipper of the Poitou must have heard too, for he was running the whole length of his craft trying to catch hold of something with his boathook…”

  “Carry on…”

  The Fleming seemed to be doing his best, but he found it hard and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

  “ He was saying : There !… there !… ”

  “Who was?”

  “The skipper of the Poitou. ”

  “And could you see?”

  “Sometimes I could see, other times I couldn’t.”

  “Because the body was sinking?”

  “Yes, monsieur…And it was being carried away by the current… ”

  “Your punt was too, I suppose?”

  “Yes, monsieur… The other chap jumped into it…”

  “The chap from the Poitou?”

  Jef gave a sigh, probably reflecting that his interlocutors were not very bright. The whole thing was quite straightforward to him, and he must have been through similar scenes more than once in his life.

  “Between you, you fished him out?”

  “Yes…”

  “What state was he in?”

  “His eyes were still open and when he was in the boat he was sick…”

  “He didn’t say anything?”

  “No, monsieur.”

  “Did he seem frightened?”

  “No, monsieur.”

  “What did he seem like?”

  “Nothing in particular. He stopped moving at last and the water went on running out of his mouth.”

  “Were his eyes still open?”

  “Yes, monsieur. I thought he was dead.”

  “Did you go for help?”

  “No, monsieur. It wasn’t me.”

  “Was it your mate from the Poitou?”

  “No. Somebody shouted to us from off the bridge.”

  “So there was someone on the Pont Marie?”

  “By then there was. He asked us if somebody had been drowned. I said yes. He shouted that he would go and tell the police.
”

  “Did he do so?”

  “He must have done, for not long after a couple of cops came up on bikes.”

  “Was it raining already?”

  “It started raining and thundering when we’d hoisted the chap on to the deck.”

  “Of your barge?”

  “Yes…”

  “Did your wife wake up?”

  “The light was on in the cabin and Anneke had put on her coat and was watching us.”

  “When did you see the blood?”

  “When we’d laid the man down beside the tiller. It was pouring out of a crack he’d got in his head. ”

  “A crack?”

  “A hole…I don’t know what you’d call it…”

  “Did the policemen arrive immediately?”

  “Almost immediately.”

  “And the passer-by who’d informed them?”

  “I didn’t see him again.”

  “You don’t know who it was?”

  “No, monsieur.”

  In the morning light, it required some effort to imagine that midnight scene, which Jef Van Houtte was describing as best he could, groping for his words as if he had to translate them one by one from Flemish.

  “I suppose you know that the dosser had been knocked on the head before being thrown into the water?”

  “That’s what the doctor said. Because one of the cops went to fetch a doctor. Then an ambulance came. Once they’d taken away the man’s body I had to swab the deck, where there was a great pool of blood…”

  “What happened, in your opinion?”

  “I couldn’t say, monsieur.”

  “You told the policeman… ”

  “I told him what I believed, didn’t I?”

  “Tell me again.”

  “I suppose he’d been sleeping under the bridge…”

  “ But you hadn’t seen him before?”

  “I hadn’t taken any notice…There’s always people sleeping under the bridges…”

  “ All right. Then a car drove down the ramp…”

  “A red car…That I’m sure of…”

  “It stopped not far from your barge?”

  He nodded, and flung out his arm towards a certain point on the river bank.

  “Did the engine keep on running?”

  This time he shook his head.