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  Maigret’s Boyhood Friend

  L’AMI D’ENFANCE DE MAIGRET

  THE 97TH EPISODE IN THE MAIGRET SAGA

  1968

  Georges Simenon

  translated from the French by Eileen Ellenbogen

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  MKM XHTML edition 1.0

  scan notes and proofing history

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  CONTENTS

  |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|

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  G.K. HALL&CO.

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Copyright © 1968 by Georges Simenon.

  English translation copyright © 1970 by Hamish Hamilton Ltd. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in Large Print by arrangement with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

  G.K. Hall Large Print Book Series.

  Set in 16 pt. Plantin.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Simenon, Georges, 1903-1989

  [Ami d’enfance de Maigret. English]

  Maigret’s boyhood friend / Georges Simenon : translated from the French by Eileen Ellenbogen.

  p. cm.—(G.K. Hall large print book series) (Nightingale series) translation of; L’ami d’enfance de Maigret.

  ISBN 0-8161-5116-4 (lg. print)

  1. Large type books. I. Title. [PQ2637.I53A7613 1991] 843'.912—dc20 90-23516

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  1

  The fly circled three times around his head before alighting on the top left-hand corner of the report on which he was making notes.

  With pencil poised, Maigret eyed it with amused curiosity. The fly had repeated this maneuver over and over again in the past half-hour. At any rate, Maigret presumed that it was the same fly. It seemed to be the only one in the office.

  Each time, it circled once or twice in a patch of sunlight, then buzzed around the Chief Superintendent’s head, and finally came to rest on the papers on his desk. And there it stayed for a while, lazily rubbing its legs together and looking at him with an air of defiance.

  Was it really looking at him? And if so, what did it take this huge mound of flesh to be—for that was how he must appear to it.

  He was at pains not to frighten it away. He sat motionless, with pencil still poised above his papers, until, quite suddenly, the fly took off and vanished through the open window.

  It was the middle of June. From time to time a gentle breeze stirred the air in the office, where Maigret, in shirt sleeves, sat contentedly smoking his pipe. He had set aside this afternoon to read through his inspectors’ reports, and was doing so with exemplary patience.

  Nine or ten times, the fly had returned to alight on his papers, always on the same spot. It was almost as though it had established a kind of relationship with him.

  It was an odd coincidence. The sunshine, the little gusts of cooler air blowing through the window, the intriguing antics of the fly, all served to remind him of his schooldays, when a fly on his desk had often engaged a larger share of his interest than the teacher who had the class.

  There was a discreet knock at the door. It was old Joseph, the messenger, bearing an engraved visiting card, which read: Léon Florentin, Antique Dealer.

  “How old would you say he was?”

  “About your age.”

  “Tall and thin?”

  “That’s right. Very tall and thin, with a real mop of gray hair.”

  Yes, that was the man, all right. Florentin, who had been at school with him, at the Lycée Banville in Moulins, the clown of the class.

  “Send him in.”

  He had forgotten the fly, which, feeling slighted perhaps, seemed to have gone for good. There was a brief, embarrassed silence as the two men looked at one another. This was only their second meeting since their school days in Moulins. The first had been a chance encounter in the street about twenty years ago. Florentin, very well groomed, had been accompanied by an attractive and elegant woman.

  “This is my old school friend, Maigret. He’s a police officer.”

  Then, to Maigret:

  “Allow me to introduce my wife, Monique.”

  Then, as now, the sun was shining. They had really had nothing to say to one another.

  “How are things? Still happy in your work?”

  “Yes. And you?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  “Are you living in Paris?”

  “Yes. Sixty-two Boulevard Haussmann. But I travel a good deal on business. I’ve just come back from Istanbul. We must get together some time, the two of us, and you and Madame Maigret… I suppose you’re married?”

  The encounter had been something of an embarrassment to both of them. The couple’s pale green, open sports car had been parked nearby, and they had got into it and driven off, leaving Maigret to continue on his way.

  The Florentin now facing Maigret across his desk was more seedy than the dashing figure he had seemed to be on the Place de la Madeleine. He was wearing a rather shabby gray suit, and his manner was a good deal less self-assured.

  “It was good of you to see me without an appointment. How are you?”

  After the first formal greeting, Florentin, a little uneasily, reverted to the “tu” of their boyhood. Maigret, somewhat grudgingly, did so too.

  “And you?… Do sit down. How’s your wife?”

  For a moment Florentine pale gray eyes went blank, as though he could not remember.

  “Do you mean Monique? The little redhead? It’s true we lived together for a time. She was a good sort, but we were never married.”

  “You’re not married, then?”

  “What would be the point?”

  Florentin made a face. His sharp, well-defined features were so flexible that they might have been made of india rubber. His knack of twisting them into an infinite variety of comical grimaces had been a source of endless amusement to his schoolmates and exasperation to his teachers.

  Maigret could not muster the courage to ask what he had come for. He was watching him covertly, finding it hard to believe that it had all been so long ago.

  “I like your office. I must admit I never expected to see good furniture in the Law Courts!”

  “So you’re an antique dealer now?”

  “In a manner of speaking… I buy old furniture and do it over. I rent a small workshop on the Boulevard Rochechouart. You know how it is, almost everyone is an antique dealer, nowadays.”

  “Doing all right, are you?”

  “I can’t complain. Everything is fine, at least it was until the sky fell around my ears this afternoon.”

  He was so used to playing the clown that, almost mechanically, his features took on an expression of comical dismay. All the same, his face was gray and his eyes were troubled.

  “That’s what I came to see you about. I said to myself: He’s the only one who’ll understand.”

  He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. His long, bony fingers were trembling slightly. Maigret thought he caught a faint whiff of liquor.

  “To tell you the truth, I’m upset…”

  “Go on.”

  “That’s just the trouble. It’s hard to explain. I have a friend, a woman. It’s been going on for four years now…”

  “You and she have been living together?”

  “Yes and no. No. Not exactly… She lives on the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, near the Place Saint-Georges…”

  His stammering hesitancy and shifting eyes astonished Maigret. Florentin had been noted for his easy self-assurance. Maigret had always envied him a little on this account, and also because his father had owned the best bakery in the town, facing the cathedral, and Florentin had had a walnut cake named after him. In time, it had
become something of a regional specialty.

  Florentin had never been short of money. However much he played the clown in class, he was never punished. It was as though he enjoyed a special immunity. And when school was over he used to go out with girls.

  “Go on.”

  “Her name is Josée. Well, actually her real name is Joséphine Papet, but she prefers to be called Josée… I prefer it myself. She’s thirty-four, but you’d never think it …”

  As he talked, Florentin’s mobile face never ceased to change and crease and twitch. It was almost as though he had a nervous tic.

  “It’s so hard to explain, you know…”

  He got up and went over to the window, a tall, sharply etched figure against the sunlight.

  “It’s hot in here,” he sighed, mopping his forehead.

  The fly had not returned to its place on the corner of the report on the Chief Superintendent’s desk. Cars and buses could be heard rumbling across the Pont Saint-Michel, and from time to time a tug, sounding its siren before lowering its funnel to pass under the bridge.

  In Maigret’s room, as in every office in Police Headquarters, not to mention all the other Government Departments, there was a black marble clock. The hands stood at twenty past five.

  “I’m not the only one…” stammered Florentin at last.

  “The only what?”

  “I’m not Josée’s only friend. That’s what makes it so hard to explain. She’s a marvelous girl… the very best… I was everything to her, lover, friend, and confidant…”

  Maigret, struggling to contain his impatience, relit his pipe. His old friend returned from the window and resumed his seat opposite him.

  After a silence that threatened to become unbearable, the Chief Superintendent ventured a little gentle prompting:

  “And she had a good many other friends?”

  “Let me think… There was Paré… one… And Courcel… two… Then there was Victor… three… And a youngster known as the redhead—I never saw him… that’s four.”

  “Four lovers who visited her regularly?”

  “Some once a week, the others twice.”

  “Did any of them know about the others?”

  “Of course not!”

  “In other words, each of them was under the delusion that he was keeping her?”

  Florentin, nervously tapping the ash of his cigarette onto the carpet, seemed to find this way of putting it embarrassing.

  “I told you it was difficult to explain…”

  “And where, in all this, do you come in?”

  “I’m her friend… I go there when she’s alone…”

  “Do you sleep at the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette?”

  “Every night except Thursdays.” Maigret, trying not to sound sardonic, asked:

  “Because that’s someone else’s night?”

  “Yes, Courcel’s… She’s known him ten years… He lives in Rouen, but he has business premises on the Boulevard Voltaire… It would take too long to explain… I daresay you despise me for it…”

  “I’ve never despised anyone in my life.”

  “I realize it’s a delicate situation, and that most people would frown on it…But you have my solemn word for it, Josée and I love each other…” Abruptly, he added: “Or rather, I should say, loved each other.”

  Though careful to avoid showing it, Maigret was shaken by this use of the past tense.

  “Are you saying that you’ve broken with her?”

  “No.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did she die?”

  “This afternoon…”

  And Florentin, looking him straight in the face, said, in a tragic manner that Maigret could not help feeling was somewhat theatrical:

  “I swear it wasn’t me… You know me… It’s because you know me, and I know you, that I’ve come to you.”

  True, they had known each other at twelve, at fifteen, at seventeen, but they had long since parted and gone their separate ways.

  “How did she die?”

  “She was shot.”

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “In her apartment… her bedroom…”

  “Where were you at the time?”

  Maigret was finding it more and more awkward to use the informal “tu.”

  “In the wardrobe.”

  “In her apartment, you mean?”

  “Yes… It wasn’t the first time… Whenever I was there, and the bell rang, I… it sounds despicable to you, I daresay… but I swear it wasn’t like that… I work for my living… I earn…”

  “Try to describe exactly what happened.”

  “Where shall I begin?”

  “At midday, let’s say.”

  “We had lunch together. She’s a marvelous cook… We were sitting over by the window… She was expecting someone, as always on a Wednesday, but not before five thirty to six…”

  “Who was it?”

  “His name is François Paré. He’s a man in his early fifties, head of a Department in the Ministry of Public Works… He’s in charge of Waterways… He lives at Versailles…”

  “Did he never arrive early?”

  “No.”

  “What happened after lunch?”

  “We chatted.”

  “How was she dressed?”

  “In her dressing gown… Except when she was going out, she always wore a dressing gown… It was about half past three when the bell rang, and I took refuge in the wardrobe… It’s a sort of closet really… in the bathroom, not the bedroom…”

  Maigret was beginning to find all this a little wearing.

  “And then what?”

  “I’d been in there about a quarter of an hour when I heard a sound like a shot.”

  “That would have been at about a quarter to four?”

  “I imagine so.”

  “So you rushed into the bedroom?”

  “No… I wasn’t supposed to be there… Besides, it might not have been a shot, but just a car or a bus backfiring.”

  The whole of Maigret’s attention was now focused on Florentin. He recalled that in the old days most of the tales he told were pure fantasy, almost as though he had been unable to distinguish between lies and truth.

  “What were you waiting for?” Without realizing it, Maigret had addressed him as vous.

  “Why so formal?… Don’t you see?”

  Florentin looked hurt and disappointed.

  “Sorry, no offense meant. What were you waiting for, there in the wardrobe?”

  “It’s not a wardrobe, really—more of a large clothes closet. I was waiting for the man to go.”

  “How do you know it was a man? You didn’t see him, you say…”

  Florentin looked stunned.

  “I never thought of that!”

  “Was it because Josée had no women friends?”

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t think she did…”

  “Any family?”

  “She came from Concarneau originally. I never met any of her family.”

  “How did you know when the caller had gone?”

  “I heard footsteps in the living room, and the door opening and closing.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About four.”

  “So the murderer was there about a quarter of an hour after he killed her?”

  “I suppose he must have been.”

  “When you went into the bedroom, where did you find her?”

  “On the floor, next to the bed.”

  “How was she dressed?”

  “She was still wearing her yellow dressing gown.”

  “Where was she shot?”

  “In the throat.”

  “Are you sure she was dead?”

  “There couldn’t be any doubt about that.”

  “What was the state of the room?”

  “Much as usual… I didn’t noti
ce anything wrong.”

  “Any drawers left open… papers scattered about?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You mean you can’t be sure?”

  “I was too upset…”

  “Did you call a doctor?”

  “No… Seeing that she was already dead…”

  “Did you call the local police?”

  “No… I…”

  “You got here at five past five…What had you been doing since four o’clock?”

  “To begin with, I was absolutely stunned… I just collapsed into an armchair… I couldn’t understand it… I still can’t… Then I realized that I was the one they’d be bound to suspect… especially as that bitch of a concierge can’t stand the sight of me.“

  “Are you telling me that you sat there for the best part of an hour?”

  “No… I don’t know how long it was, but eventually I pulled myself together and went into a bistro, the Grand-Saint-Georges, and had three large brandies, one after another.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I remembered that you are now the Big White Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I took a taxi.”

  Maigret was furious, but his expression remained impassive. He went across to the door leading to the inspectors’ duty room, opened it, and looked uncertainly from Janvier to Lapointe, who were both at their desks. Finally, addressing Janvier, he said:

  “Come in here a minute, will you? I want you to call Moers, at the lab, and ask him to join us on the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette… What number?

  “Seventeen B.”

  Each time his glance rested on his old school friend, Maigret’s eyes hardened in an expression of impenetrable reserve. As Janvier was telephoning, he glanced at the clock. It was half past five.

  “What did you say his name was, the Wednesday visitor?”