Maigret’s Pipe - Seventeen Stories

  Maigret’s Pipe:

  Seventeen Stories

  Georges Simenon

  early episodes in the Maigret saga

  La Pipe de Maigret

  translated from the french by jean stewart

  1936-44

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  A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

  click for scan notes and proofing history

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  Contents

  · Maigret’s Pipe

  · Death Penalty

  · Mr Monday

  · The Open Window

  · Madame Maigret’s Admirer

  · The Mysterious Affair In The Boulevard Beaumarchais

  · Two Bodies On A Barge

  · Death Of A Woodlander

  · In The Rue Pigalle

  · Maigret’s Mistake

  · The Old Lady Of Bayeux

  · Stan The Killer

  · The Drowned Men’s Inn

  · At The Étoile Du Nord

  · Mademoiselle Berthe And Her Lover

  · The Three Daughters Of The Lawyer

  · Storm In The Channel

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  A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

  New York and London

  Copyright © 1977 by Georges Simenon English translation copyright © 1977 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

  “Maigret’s Pipe” first published in France 1947 under the title La Pipe de Maigret, copyright © 1947 by Georges Simenon; “Death Penalty,” “Mr Monday,” “The Open Window,” “Madame Maigret’s Admirer,” “The Mysterious Affair in the Boulevard Beaumarchais,” “Two Bodies on a Barge,” “Death of a Woodlander,” “In the Rue Pigalle,” “Maigret’s Mistake,” “The Old Lady of Bayeux,” “Stan the Killer,” “The Drowned Men’s Inn,” “At the Étoile du Nord,” “Mademoiselle Berthe and her Lover,” “The Three Daughters of the Lawyer,” and “Storm in the Channel” first published in France 1944 in Les Nouvelles Enquêtes de Maigret under the titles Peine de mort, Monsieur Lundi, La fenêtre ouverte, L’amoureux de Madame Maigret, L’affaire du boulevard Beaumarchais, La péniche aux deux pendus, Les larmes de bougie, Rue Pigalle, Une erreur de Maigret, La vielle dame de Bayeux, Stan le tueur, L’Auberge aux Noyés, L’Étoile du Nord, Mademoiselle Berthe et son amant, Le notaire de Châteauneuf and Tempête sur la Manche, copyright © 1944 by Georges Simenon.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Simenon, Georges, 1903-1989 Maigret’s pipe.

  “A Helen and Kurt Wolff book.”

  Translation of La pipe de Maigret.

  I. Detective and mystery stories, French—Translations into English. 2. Detective and mystery stories,

  English—Translations from French. I. Title.

  [PZ3.S5892Mair] 843'.912 78-4169

  isbn 0-15-155553-2

  First American Edition 1978

  BCDE

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  maigret’s pipe

  48th episode

  in the Maigret Saga

  La Pipe de Maigret

  I. The House Where Things Change Places

  It was half past seven. In the Director’s office, Maigret had heaved a sigh of mingled relief and exhaustion, the sigh of a heavy man at the close of a hot July day, and he had automatically pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket. Then he had reached out to collect his files from the mahogany desk. The baize door had closed behind him and he had gone out through the waiting-room. Nobody was sitting on the red armchairs. The old office messenger was in his glazed cubby-hole. The corridor of Police Headquarters was a long, empty stretch of sunlit greyness.

  His movements were familiar ones. He went back into his own room, where a persistent smell of tobacco lingered in spite of the wide open window overlooking the Quai des Orfèvres. He laid his files down on a corner of the desk, knocked out his pipe, which was still warm, against the window ledge, came back to sit down and automatically reached out for a different pipe to the right, where it ought to have been.

  It was not there. There were three pipes, one of them a meerschaum, lying beside the ashtray, but his favourite, the one he was looking for, the one he came back to with the most pleasure and always carried about with him, a thick briar pipe with a slightly curved stem which his wife had given him for a birthday present ten years before, and which he called his good old pipe, was not there.

  Surprised, he felt his pockets and thrust his hands into them. He looked on top of the black marble chimney piece. Actually, he was scarcely thinking. There was nothing extraordinary about not finding one of one’s pipes right away. He walked round the room two or three times and opened the cupboard where there was an enamel washbasin.

  He was hunting as anyone might have done, but it was rather stupid of him, since he had not opened that cupboard all afternoon, whereas when Judge Coméliau had rung him up a few minutes after six he had been smoking that very pipe.

  Then he rang for the office messenger.

  “I say, Emile, has nobody come in here while I was with the Chief?”

  “Nobody, sir.”

  He hunted through his pockets once again, his jacket pockets and his trouser pockets. He was looking sulky and the fruitless search made him feel hot.

  He went into the Inspectors’ room, because he had occasionally left one of his pipes there. There was nobody in the room, and it was odd and pleasant to find the premises of Headquarters so empty, with a holiday feeling about the place. There was no pipe there. He knocked at the door of the Chief’s room; the Chief had just gone out. He went in, but he knew beforehand that his pipe was not there, because he had been smoking a different one when he had gone in at about half past six to talk about certain pending cases and also about his forthcoming departure for the country.

  Twenty minutes to eight. He had promised to be back home in the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir by eight o’clock, for his sister-in-law and her husband were expected for dinner. What else had he promised to do? To bring back some fruit. That was it. His wife had asked him to buy peaches.

  But on the way home, in the sultry evening air, he went on thinking about his pipe. It worried him almost unconsciously, as any trivial but inexplicable incident worries one.

  He bought the peaches, went home, and kissed his sister-in-law, who had put on weight again. He poured out drinks. That was when he should have been smoking his favourite pipe.

  “Had a busy day?”

  “No. Things are fairly quiet.”

  There are periods like that. Two of his colleagues were on holiday; the third had rung up in the morning to say that relatives from the country had just descended on him and that he was taking two days’ leave.

  “You’ve got something on your mind, Maigret,” his wife commented during dinner.

  And he dared not confess that it was his pipe that was preoccupying him. To be sure, he wasn’t treating the matter over-seriously, but it dampened his spirits nonetheless.

  At two o’clock — yes, he had sat down at his desk at a few minutes past two. Lucas had come to talk to him about a case of currency fraud, then about Inspector Janvier, whose wife was expecting another child.

  Then, quite peacefully, having taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, he had drawn up a report on a suicide which had for a short time been mistaken for a crime. He had been smoking his big pipe then.

  Next, Gégène, a petty pimp from Montmartre who had wounded his girl with a knife — ‘just given her a little jab’, as he said. But Gégène had not gone near the desk. In any case he had been handcuffed.

  Liqueurs were being handed round. The two women were talking cookery. The brother-in-law was listening vaguely as he smoked a cigar, and the noises from the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir drifted up to the open window.

  He had not even left his office that afternoon to go for a beer to the Brasserie Dauphine.

  Then there had been that woman… what was her name? Roy or Leroy. She had made no appointment. Emile had come in to announce ‘a lady and her son’.

  “What’s it about?”

  “She won’t say. She insists on speaking to the Chief.”

  “Bring her in.”

  By pure chance there was a gap in his timetable, for otherwise he would not have seen her. He had attached so little importance to this visit that now he could scarcely remember the details of it.

  His sister-in-law and her husband left. His wife commented, as she tidied the room: “You weren’t very talkative this evening. Is something going wrong?”

  No. Everything was fine, except for the loss of the pipe. Night had begun to fall and Maigret, in his shirt sleeves, sat with his elbows on the window sill, like thousands of other Parisians who were now enjoying the cool of the evening at their windows, smoking their pipes or cigarettes.

  The woman — her name must have been Leroy — had sat down exactly opposite the Superintendent, stiffly, as people do who have determined to be on their dignity. A woman of about forty-five, one of those who, towards middle age, begin to shrivel up. Maigret himself preferred those who grow plump with age.

  “I have come to see you, Monsieur le Directeur…”

  “The Director
isn’t here. I am Superintendent Maigret.”

  And here one detail recurred to him. There had been no reaction from the woman; presumably she did not read the papers and had never heard speak of him. She had seemed somewhat annoyed at not being taken to the Head of the Police Judiciaire in person, and had given a little wave of the hand as though to say:

  “Well, it can’t be helped, I’ll have to put up with it.”

  On the other hand the youth, whom Maigret had as yet scarcely noticed, had given a sudden start and turned a keen, eager gaze on the Superintendent.

  “Aren’t you coming to bed, Maigret?” asked Madame Maigret, who had just turned down the bed and begun to undress.

  “Presently.”

  Now, exactly what had that woman been telling him? She had talked so much! Volubly, insistently, like those people who attach considerable importance to their slightest words and who are always afraid of not being taken seriously. It’s an obsession with some women, particularly with those who are nearing fifty.

  “We live, my son and I…”

  Perhaps it was just as well she went on talking, for Maigret was only listening to her with half an ear.

  She was a widow, for one thing. She had said she’d been a widow for some years, five or ten, he didn’t remember. A longish period, since she complained of the hard time she’d had bringing up her son.

  “I’ve done everything for him, Superintendent.”

  How could one pay attention to the sort of remarks made by all women of the same age in the same position, with identical pride and a similar plaintive look? The mention of her widowhood, by the way, had provoked an incident. What was it? Oh yes…

  She had said: “My husband was a professional army officer…” And her son had corrected her:

  “Sergeant-major, Maman. In the Commissariat, at Vincennes.”

  “Excuse me… When I say officer, I know what I’m talking about. If he hadn’t died, if he hadn’t killed himself working for superiors who couldn’t hold a candle to him and who left him all the work to do, he’d have been an officer today…”

  Maigret had not forgotten about his pipe. On the contrary, he was on the right track; the proof being that the name Vincennes was somehow associated with the pipe. He had been smoking it, he was certain, when the word was uttered. After which there had been no further mention of Vincennes.

  “Excuse me. Where do you live?”

  He had forgotten the name of the quai, but it was close to the Quai de Bercy, at Charenton. He remembered visualizing a very broad quai, with warehouses and barges unloading.

  “A small one-storeyed house between a café at the corner and a big block of flats.”

  The young man was sitting at the corner of the desk, with his straw hat — for he had a straw hat—on his knees.

  “My son didn’t want me to come and see you, Monsieur le Directeur — excuse me, Superintendent. But I said to him: ‘If you’ve nothing on your conscience, there’s no reason why…’ ”

  What colour was her dress? Blackish, with touches of mauve; one of those dresses worn by middle-aged women who want to look distinguished. A rather elaborate hat, which had probably been altered more than once. Dark cotton gloves. She was listening to herself speaking. She began all her sentences with:

  “Just imagine…” or else: “As everyone will tell you…”

  Maigret, who had put on his jacket again to receive her, felt hot and drowsy. It was a chore; he wished he had sent her straight to the Inspectors’ room.

  “More than once, on coming home I’ve noticed that somebody had been there during my absence.”

  “Excuse me. Do you live alone with your son?”

  “Yes. And at first I thought it might have been him. But it happened while he was at work.”

  Maigret glanced at the youth, who was looking vexed. A familiar type: probably about seventeen, tall and thin, with a spotty face, reddish hair and freckles round his nose.

  Was there something shifty about him? His mother was to say so presently, for there are some people who like speaking ill of their nearest and dearest. Shy, in any case, and withdrawn. He stared at the carpet, or at some object or other in the room, and when he thought himself unobserved he would cast a keen glance at Maigret.

  He was not happy to be there, that was obvious. He did not feel that his mother was doing the right thing. Perhaps he was somewhat ashamed of her, of her pretentiousness, of her loquacity?

  “What is your son’s occupation?”

  “He’s a hairdresser.”

  And the youth declared with some bitterness:

  “Just because one of my uncles has a hairdressing salon at Niort, mother has got it into her head that…”

  “There’s nothing to be ashamed of in being a hairdresser. The point is, Superintendent, that he couldn’t have left the place where he works, near the République. In any case, I made sure of that.”

  “Forgive me. You suspected your son of coming home in your absence and so you kept a watch on him?”

  “Yes, Superintendent. I don’t suspect anyone in particular, but I know that men are capable of anything.”

  “What could your son have come home to do without your knowledge?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Then, after a pause:

  “Brought in women, perhaps! Three months ago I found a letter from a girl in his pocket. If his father…”

  “How can you be certain that someone came into your house?”

  “For one thing, one can feel it immediately. As soon as I opened the door I could tell…”

  Not very scientific, but natural enough and not unconvincing. Maigret had himself experienced such impressions.

  “And what else?”

  “Next, various small details. For instance, although I never lock the door of the wardrobe, I found that the key had been turned.”

  “Is anything valuable kept in your wardrobe?”

  “Our clothes and our linen, plus some family heirlooms, but nothing has gone, if that’s what you mean. And in the cellar a packing-case had been moved.”

  “What did it contain?”

  “Some empty jars.”

  “In short, nothing is missing from your house?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How long is it since you first had the impression that somebody was visiting your home?”

  “It’s not an impression. It’s a certainty. About three months.”

  “In your opinion, how many visits have there been?”

  “Perhaps ten altogether. After the first occasion there was a long gap of about three weeks when nobody came. Or else I didn’t notice. Then two visits in quick succession. Then another gap of three weeks or longer. During the last few days there have been several visits, and the day before yesterday, when there was that terrible storm, I found footmarks and traces of damp.”

  “You don’t know whether they were a man’s or a woman’s footmarks?”

  “Probably a man’s, but I’m not sure.”

  She had said a great deal more. She had poured forth information unsolicited! The previous Monday, for instance, she had deliberately taken her son to the cinema, because hairdressers don’t work on Mondays. So she’d kept him under her eye. They had been together all afternoon. They had gone home together.

  “And somebody had been there!”

  “And yet your son didn’t want you to speak to the police?”

  “That’s just it, Superintendent. That’s what I can’t understand. He saw the marks, just as I did.”

  “You saw the marks, young man?”

  He preferred not to speak, assuming a stubborn look. Did this mean that his mother was exaggerating, that she was talking nonsense?

  “Do you know how the person or persons got into the house?”

  “Through the door, I suppose. I never leave the windows open. The wall is too high for anyone to get in through the yard and they’d have to come through the yards of the neighbouring houses.”

  “Did you see any marks on the lock?”

  “Not a scratch. I even examined it with my late husband’s magnifying glass.”

  “And nobody has the key to your house?”

  “Nobody. There’s my daughter, of course” (here the young man gave a slight start) “but she lives at Orléans with her husband and her two children.”