Maigret's Anger Read online

‘ “Door, please …” ’

  ‘Do you know what time that was?’

  ‘My alarm clock has phosphorescent numbers. It was twenty past two.’

  ‘Was it one of your residents on their way out?’

  ‘No. It was that gentleman …’

  She spoke with the awkwardness of someone forced to be indiscreet.

  ‘What gentleman?’

  ‘The one who was attacked …’

  Maigret and Lapointe looked at one another in amazement.

  ‘Do you mean Inspector Lognon?’

  She nodded, adding:

  ‘We have to tell the police everything, don’t we? I don’t usually talk about my residents, about what they do or who visits them. Their private life is none of my business, but after what’s happened …’

  ‘Have you known the inspector long?’

  ‘Yes, for years … Ever since my husband and I have lived here … but I didn’t know his name. I saw him go past and I knew he was in the police, because he came into the lodge several times to carry out identity checks … He’s not very talkative …’

  ‘How did you get to know him better?’

  ‘When he started seeing the young lady on the fourth floor …’

  This time Maigret was left speechless. As for Lapointe, he was completely stunned. Policemen aren’t necessarily saints. Maigret was not unaware that in his own department, some officers did not shy away from extramarital affairs.

  But Lognon! … That Hard-Done-By should pay nocturnal visits to a young lady, two hundred metres from his own home!

  ‘Are you sure it’s the same man?’ ‘He’s quite recognizable, isn’t he?’

  ‘How long has … has he been going up to see this person?’

  ‘About ten days …’

  ‘So one night, I presume, he came home with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he hide his face as he passed the lodge?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Did he come back often?’

  ‘Almost every night …’

  ‘Did he leave very late?’

  ‘Initially, I mean the first three or four days, he left just after midnight … Then he stayed later, until two or three in the morning …’

  ‘What’s this woman’s name?’

  ‘Marinette … Marinette Augier … A very pretty girl of twenty-five, a nice young lady …’

  ‘Is she in the habit of receiving gentleman visitors?’

  ‘I think I can answer, because she’s never made a secret of her behaviour … For a year, she received two or three visits a week from a good-looking young man she told me was her fiancé …’

  ‘Did he spend the night with her?’

  ‘You’ll find out sooner or later … Yes … And when he stopped coming, I thought she looked sad … One morning, when she came to collect her post, I asked her whether the engagement was off, and she replied:

  ‘ “Don’t talk to me about it ever again, Angèle. Men aren’t worth crying over …”

  ‘She can’t have fretted over him for long, because she soon recovered her good spirits … She’s a very jolly girl, robust …’

  ‘Does she work?’

  ‘She’s a beautician, from what she told me, in a salon on Avenue Matignon … That explains why she’s always so well groomed, tastefully dressed—’

  ‘What about her boyfriend?’

  ‘The fiancé who never came back? He was around thirty. I don’t know what he did for a living. I only know his first name. I called him Monsieur Henri, the name he gave when he passed the lodge at night—’

  ‘When did they break up?’

  ‘Last winter, around Christmas time …’

  ‘So, for nearly a year, this young lady … What did you say her name is … Marinette?’

  ‘Marinette Augier …’

  ‘For nearly a year, then, she didn’t have any visitors?’

  ‘Only her brother, from time to time. He lives in the suburbs with his wife and their three children.’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago, she came home one night accompanied by Inspector Lognon?’

  ‘Like I told you.’

  ‘And since then, he’s been back every day?’

  ‘Except Sunday, unless I didn’t see him come in or leave.’

  ‘He never came during the day?’

  ‘No. But you’ve just reminded me of a detail. One night he arrived at around nine o’clock, as usual. I ran after him before he started going up the stairs to say:

  ‘ “Marinette’s not home.”

  ‘ “I know,” he replied, “she’s at her brother’s …”

  ‘He went upstairs all the same, with no explanation, so I assume she’d given him the key …’

  Maigret now understood why Inspector Chinquier had gone upstairs.

  ‘Is Mademoiselle Augier home at the moment?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she go to work?’

  ‘I don’t know, but when I wanted to tell her what had happened, and break it to her gently—’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘After phoning the police …’

  ‘So before three o’clock in the morning?’

  ‘Yes … I said to myself that she must have heard the shots … All the residents did … Some were leaning out of their windows, others came down in their dressing gowns to find out what was going on …

  ‘On the pavement, it was not a pretty sight … So I ran upstairs and knocked on her door … No one answered … I went in and found the apartment empty …’

  She looked at Maigret with a certain smugness, as if to say:

  ‘You might have come across some strange things in the course of your career, but admit that you weren’t expecting this!’

  It was true. Maigret and Lapointe could only exchange nonplussed glances. Maigret was thinking that meanwhile his wife was with Madame Lognon, whose first name was Solange, consoling her and probably doing her housework!

  ‘Do you think she left the building when he did?’

  ‘I’m positive she didn’t. I have keen hearing and I’m sure that only one person, a man—’

  ‘Did he shout his name in passing?’

  ‘No. He was in the habit of yelling: “Fourth!” I recognized his voice. Besides, he was the only one who used that word.’

  ‘Could she have left before him?’

  ‘No. I only opened the door once last night, at half past eleven, to the people from the third floor who came back from the cinema.’

  ‘Could she have gone out after the shooting?’

  ‘That’s the only explanation. When I saw the body on the pavement, I raced in here to telephone the emergency services … I wasn’t sure whether to close the main door … I didn’t dare … It felt as if it would be abandoning the poor man—’

  ‘Did you lean over him to find out whether he was dead?’

  ‘It was hard, because I hate the sight of blood, but I did …’

  ‘Was he conscious?’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘He didn’t say anything?’

  ‘His lips moved … I could tell he wanted to speak … I thought I made out a word, but I must have got it wrong, because it makes no sense … Maybe he was delirious—’

  ‘What word?’

  ‘Ghost …’

  She blushed, as if she were afraid that Maigret and Lapointe would laugh at her or accuse her of making things up.

  THE BEGINNING

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  First published in French as La Colère de Maigret (Presses de la Cité, 1963)

  This translation first published 2018

  Copyright © Georges Simenon Limited, 1963

  Translation copyright © William Hobson, 2018

  GEORGES SIMENON ® Simenon.tm

  MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited

  All rights reserved

  The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted

  Cover photograph © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos

  ISBN: 978-0-241-30402-0