Maigret and the Reluctant Witness

  Maigret and the Reluctant Witness

  Maigret et les témoins récalcitrants.

  the 81st episode in the Maigret Saga

  1959

  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

  |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|

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  maigret abroad

  maigret travels south

  the patience of maigret

  maigret keeps a rendezvous

  maigret to the rescue

  maigret sits it out

  maigret and monsieur l’abbe

  no vacation for maigret

  inspector maigret and the strangled stripper

  inspector maigret and the killers

  maigret in new york’s underworld

  inspector maigret and the dead girl

  inspector maigret and the burglar’s wife

  the methods of maigret

  none of maigret’s business

  the short cases of inspector maigret

  madame maigret’s own case

  havoc by accident

  tropic moon

  affairs of destiny

  on the danger line

  escape in vain

  the shadowfalls

  the man who watched the trains go by

  blind alley

  black rain

  the first born

  the snow was black

  heart of a man

  the girl in his past

  act of passion

  satan’s children

  tidal wave

  strangers in the house

  in case of emergency

  the magician and the widow

  destinations: two novels

  the fugitive

  the witnesses and the watchmaker

  VERSUS INSPECTOR MAIGRET

  by GEORGES SIMENON

  Containing

  MAIGRET AND THE RELUCTANT WITNESSES

  and MAIGRET HAS SCRUPLES

  Published for the Crime Club by DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.

  Garden City, New York, 1960

  ALL OF THE CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK ARE FICTITIOUS, AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 60-8683

  Maigret Has Scruples copyright © 1958 by Georges simenon

  Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses copyright © 1959

  Translated from the French by Daphne Woodward

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  FIRST EDITION

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  Maigret And The Reluctant Witnesses

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  CHAPTER ONE

  ^ »

  Have you forgotten your umbrella?”

  “No.”

  In a moment the door would close behind Maigret; he had already turned toward the stairs.

  “You’d better wear your muffler.”

  Madame Maigret bustled away to get it, with no inkling that those simple words would stick in her husband’s mind for quite a while, with depressing effect.

  It was only November—November 3—and the weather wasn’t particularly cold. But rain was falling from a sky of low, unbroken gray, one of those steady showers that seem wetter and somehow more perfidious, especially first thing in the morning, than ordinary rain.

  A while ago, getting out of bed, he had winced because his neck hurt when he turned his head. You couldn’t really call it a stiff neck, but he couldn’t move it quite as usual, something felt wrong.

  The evening before, after the movies, they had walked for a good distance along the boulevards, and it had been raining already.

  All this was of no importance. And yet, because of the muffler, perhaps also because it was a thick muffler that his wife had knitted for him, he felt old.

  Going downstairs, where there were damp footprints on the steps, and then outside, walking under his umbrella, he remembered what she had said to him last night. In two years’ time he’d be retiring.

  He had shared her pleasure at the idea. For a long time they had chatted lazily about the part of the country where they were going to live, near Meung-sur-Loire, a district they were both fond of.

  A bareheaded little boy ran into him and didn’t apologize. A young married couple went past, arm in arm, sharing an umbrella; they doubtless worked in offices near each other.

  It had been an emptier Sunday than usual, possibly because this year it happened to be All Souls’ Day. He would have sworn that he could still smell the chrysanthemums this morning. From their window they had watched the family groups setting off for the cemeteries; but neither of them had any relations buried in Paris.

  He waited for his bus at the corner of Boulevard Voltaire, and felt glummer than ever when he saw the large vehicle drive up; it was one of the new kind without a platform, so that he was not only obliged to sit down, but had to knock out his pipe as well.

  We all have days like that, don’t we?

  He longed for the next two years to be over; then he wouldn’t have to wind a muffler around his neck and set out across Paris on wet mornings like this, with the place looking the same black and white as in an old silent film.

  The bus was full of young people; some recognized him, others took no notice.

  On the quays the rain slanted down more sharply and felt colder. He hurried into the arched, drafty entrance of Police Headquarters, strode toward the stairs, and then, all of a sudden, recognizing the characteristic smell of the building, the greenish glimmer of the lamps, which were still lit, he felt sad to think that in such a short time he would stop coming here each morning.

  Old Joseph, who for some mysterious reason had escaped the retired list, greeted him with a conspiratorial air and murmured:

  “Inspector Lapointe is waiting for you, Chief Inspector.”

  As usual on Mondays, there were a lot of people in the waiting room and in the long corridor. Some new faces; two or three young women who were hardly the type one would expect to see there, but mostly old acquaintances who turned up every now and then at one door or another.

  He went into his office, hung his overcoat in the closet together with his hat and that muffler, hesitated whether to open the umbrella and leave it out to dry, according to Madame Maigret’s instructions, finally stood it in a corner of the closet.

  It was barely half-past eight. There were letters waiting on his blotter. He went across and opened the door into the inspectors’ office, greeted Lucas, Torrence, and two or three others with a gesture of the hand.

  “Somebody tell Lapointe I’m here.”

  That would touch off a rumor that the chief was in a bad mood today, which was not true. Sometimes, looking back on days when one has been grumpy, glum, touchy, one sees them in memory as among the happiest.

  “Good morning, Chief.”

  Lapointe was pale, his eyes a little bloodshot from lack of sleep, but sparkling with satisfaction. He was quivering with impatience.

  “Done it! I’ve got him!”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the little room at the end of the corridor; Torrence has gone to keep an eye on him.”

  “What time?”

  “Four o’clock this morning.”

  “Has he talked?”

  “I had coffee sent up, and then, about six o’clock, breakfast for both of us, and we chatted like old friends.”

  “Go and get him.”

  This was nice work. Grégoire Brau, known as
Patience, also as the Canon, had been at his game for years without ever being caught in the act.

  Only once, twelve years ago, he had been nabbed because he had overslept, but when he came out of prison he had gone right back to his old ways.

  He came into the office now, preceded by Lapointe looking as proud as though he’d caught the biggest trout or pike of the year, and stood, sheepishly, in front of Maigret, who was deep in his papers.

  “Sit down.”

  The chief inspector added, as he finished scanning a letter:

  “Have you got any cigarettes?”

  “Yes, Monsieur Maigret.”

  “You can smoke.”

  Brau was a fat fellow of forty-three, who must have been plump and flabby even in his school days. He had a fresh complexion, a pink face that reddened easily, a blunt nose, a double chin, guileless mouth.

  “So they got you after all?”

  “They got me.”

  It was Maigret who had arrested him the first time, and they had often met again since then, greeting each other without ill-feeling.

  “You’ve been at it again!” continued the chief inspector, alluding to the burglary of an apartment.

  Instead of denying the statement, the Canon smiled modestly. There was no proof. But though he never left a single fingerprint his jobs were signed.

  He worked alone, planning each job with incredible patience. He was the very image of a quiet man, with no vices, no passions, no nerves.

  He spent most of his time sitting in a corner of some bar, café, or restaurant, apparently deep in a newspaper, or dozing, but his keen ears lost nothing of what was being said around him.

  Moreover he was a great reader of weekly magazines; he studied their society and gossip columns with care and had an unparalleled knowledge of the comings and goings of celebrities.

  Sooner or later Police Headquarters would be called up by some famous person, sometimes an actor or film star, who had just got back from Hollywood, London, Rome, or Cannes to find that his apartment had been broken into.

  Without needing to hear the whole story, Maigret would ask:

  “What about the refrigerator?”

  “Empty!”

  All the liqueurs would have vanished from the cellar too. One could be sure, too, that the bed would have been slept in, and the pajamas, dressing gown, and slippers of the owner would have been used.

  That was the Canon’s signature, an obsession that had come over him right at the start, when he was only twenty-two, perhaps because in those days he was really hungry and longed for a comfortable bed. When he was sure that an apartment was empty for several weeks, that no servants were left there, that the concierge had not been told to go up and air it, he would move in, without the aid of a jimmy, for no lock could keep its secrets from him.

  Once inside, instead of hastily making off with any valuables such as jewelry, pictures, ornaments, he would settle down for a while, usually until the supply of provisions was exhausted.

  As many as thirty empty cans had been found after one of his visits; and a number of bottles too, of course. He read. He slept. He made use of the bathroom with a kind of voluptuous satisfaction, unsuspected by the other occupants of the house.

  Then he would go home and resume his regular habits, going out only in the evenings, for a game of belote, to a rather ill-famed bar on Avenue des Ternes, where, because he worked alone and never talked about his exploits, he was regarded with a mixture of respect and distrust.

  “Did she write to you, or call up?”

  He put this question in a kind of melancholy that resembled the feeling with which Maigret had left home a while earlier.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know very well, Monsieur Maigret. Otherwise you wouldn’t have picked me up. Your inspector”—he looked at Lapointe—“was in the house, on the stairs, before I got there, and I suppose he’d left one of his pals in the street outside? Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  Lapointe had spent not one night, but two, on the stairs of the house at Passy where a certain Monsieur Ailevard owned an apartment. That gentleman had gone to London for a fortnight. The newspapers had announced his trip, for it was connected with a film and with a very well-known star.

  The Canon didn’t always rush into a house the moment people had left it. He took his time and his precautions.

  “Can’t think how I missed seeing your inspector. Well, that’ll teach me.. .. Did she ring you up?”

  Maigret shook his head.

  “She wrote to you?”

  He nodded.

  “I suppose you couldn’t show me the letter? She must have disguised her writing, of course?”

  Not even that. No point in telling him, though.

  “I rather thought, without letting myself believe it, that this would happen someday. She’s a bitch, if you’ll excuse my language, and yet I can’t hold it against her… After all, I’ve had two pretty good years, when you come to think of it.”

  He had gone on for years without any woman in his life, and because of his appearance some people used to tease him for this, declaring that there were good reasons for his virtuous behavior.

  Suddenly, at the age of forty-four, he had set up house with a certain Germaine, twenty years younger, who had had her pitch on Avenue de Wagram for a short while past.

  “Did you marry her in the registry office?”

  “And in church. She’s from Brittany. I suppose she’s already moved in on Henri?”

  He was referring to a young pimp known as Henri-My-Eye.

  “No, he’s moved into your place.”

  The Canon displayed no indignation, did not rail against fate, blamed only himself.

  “What’ll I get?”

  “From two to five years. Did Inspector Lapointe take down your statement?”

  “He made notes of what I told him.”

  The phone rang.

  “Hello? Chief Inspector Maigret.”

  He listened, frowned:

  “The name again, please.”

  He pulled a pad toward him, scribbled: “Lachaume.”

  “Quai de la Gare?… At Ivry?… All right… Is there a doctor there?… Fellow’s definitely dead, is he?…”

  The Canon’s importance had instantly dwindled, as he himself seemed to realize. He got up without being told.

  “I suppose you’ve other things to do…”

  Maigret turned to Lapointe.

  “Take him to the depot, then go and get some sleep.”

  He opened the closet to take out his hat and coat, then, on second thought, held out his hand to the fat man with pink cheeks.

  “It isn’t our fault, old man.”

  “I know.”

  He didn’t put on the muffler. Going to the inspectors’ room, he chose Janvier, who had only just arrived and was not yet at work.

  “You’re coming with me.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Lucas, you ring up the Public Prosecutor’s office. A man has been killed by a bullet in the heart, on the Quai de la Gare at Ivry. Name of Lachaume… Lachaume’s Biscuits…”

  This called up memories that took him right back to his country childhood. In those days, in every dimly lit village grocery, where dried vegetables were offered for sale alongside clogs and sewing, you were sure to find packages labeled “Biscuiterie Lachaume.”

  Lachaume’s made petits-beurre and wafer cookies, both of which had the same rather cardboardy taste.

  He had not heard of them since those days. Neither had he seen any more of those calendars showing a little boy with exaggeratedly rosy cheeks and an inane grin, eating a Lachaume wafer, and it was even rare nowadays to see the name in faded letters on a wall in some isolated village.

  “Tell the Identity people too, of course.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  Lucas was reaching for the phone already. Maigret and Janvier went downstairs.

  “Are we taking the car?
”

  Maigret’s depression had evaporated in the everyday atmosphere of Police Headquarters. Caught up in the routine, he had forgotten to be introspective or to put questions to himself.

  Sundays have a pernicious influence. Sitting in the car and lighting a pipe that tasted delicious again, he asked:

  “Do you know Lachaume biscuits?”

  “No, Chief.”

  “You’re too young, of course.”

  Besides, maybe they had never been sold in Paris? A whole lot of things are manufactured just for country districts. Then there are the makes that go out of fashion but still have a limited following. He could remember some apéritifs that were celebrated in his young days, but you never came across them now except in some lost inn, far from any main road.

  After crossing the bridge they could not follow the river, because of the one-way traffic along the quays, and Janvier had to go a long way around before getting back to the Seine, opposite Charenton. On the other side they could see the Halle aux Vins, and to the left a train was going over an iron bridge across the river.

  In the old days there had been nothing here except small detached houses and brick and lumberyards; now there were blocks of apartments, six or seven stories high, with shops and bistros on the ground floor, but every so often came a gap, a patch of waste ground, some studios, or two or three low houses.

  “What number?”

  Maigret told him, and they pulled up in front of what must once have been a good-looking house, a three-story building in brick and stone, with behind it a tall chimney, like a factory chimney. There was a car at the door. A policeman was walking back and forth along the sidewalk. It was difficult to tell whether this was still Paris or already Ivry, and the turn they had just passed was probably the dividing street.

  “Good morning, Chief Inspector. The door isn’t locked. They’re waiting for you upstairs.”

  The house had a carriage entrance, with a gate painted green, and a smaller door let in on one side. Going in, the two men found themselves in an arched passage, not unlike that of the Quai des Orfèvres, except that the far end was closed by a door with frosted glass panes. One of the panes was missing and the gap had been filled with a piece of cardboard.