Maigret's Doubts (Inspector Maigret) Page 3

  That fellow, train-set specialist though he might have been, wasn’t a pain in the neck of the kind that so often passed through Quai des Orfèvres. He had a problem. He had chosen to talk about it frankly to Maigret. Not to just any policeman. To Maigret.

  And yet, when Maigret had gone back to his office after going to the chief’s office to meet the American, Xavier Marton was gone.

  He had left without taking his confidences to their conclusion. Why? Was he in a hurry? Or was he perhaps disappointed?

  Before coming to see Maigret, he had formed a precise idea about him. He must have expected understanding, immediate human contact. The person he had found was someone rather listless, dulled by the suffocating heat of the radiators, who looked at him without much encouragement and wore a gloomy or bored expression.

  It was nothing, though. Just a fleeting shadow. Soon he would stop thinking about it. And when he was at the table he made a point of talking about something completely different.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time to get a maid? There’s a room we’ve never used on the sixth floor …’

  ‘What would she do?’

  ‘The housework, good heavens! The heavy work, let’s say.’

  He would have been wise not to approach the subject.

  ‘Is there something wrong with your lunch?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. But you’re wearing yourself out.’

  ‘I have a woman to do the cleaning two days a week. Can you tell me how I would spend my days if I had a maid?’

  ‘You could go for a walk.’

  ‘All on my own?’

  ‘There’s nothing to stop you having friends.’

  Right! Now it was his wife’s turn to be sad. In her mind it was a bit as if he wanted to take away one of her prerogatives, the one closest to her heart.

  ‘Do you think I’m getting old?’

  ‘We’re all getting old. That’s not what I mean. I thought …’

  There are days like this when you get everything wrong, with the best will in the world. Once they had finished lunch, he dialled a number. A familiar voice replied. He said:

  ‘Is that you, Pardon?’

  And he realized that he had committed yet another pointless act of cruelty. His wife was looking at him, frightened, saying to herself that he had discovered her secret …

  ‘Maigret here …’

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, I’m fine …’

  He hurried to add:

  ‘And so is my wife … So tell me, are you very busy?’

  Pardon’s remark made him smile. It was funny, because he too could have said exactly the same thing.

  ‘Dead calm! In November and December everyone decided to fall ill at the same time and I didn’t spend three whole nights in my bed. Some days the waiting room was full to bursting, and the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. During the holidays, a few hangovers and a few liver disorders. Now that people have spent their money, keeping only what they need for their rent, they’re all cured …’

  ‘Can I come and see you? I’d like to chat with you about a case that came up at the Police Judiciaire this morning.’

  ‘I’ll be here waiting.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘If you like.’

  Madame Maigret asked him:

  ‘Are you sure it’s not about you? You don’t feel ill?’

  ‘I swear.’

  He kissed her then stepped backwards to tap her on the cheeks and murmur:

  ‘Ignore me. I think I got out of the wrong side of bed.’

  Without hurrying, he reached Rue Picpus, where Pardon lived in an old building with no lift. The receptionist, who knew him, didn’t bring him into the waiting room, but along the corridor and through the back door.

  ‘He’ll just be a minute. As soon as his patient comes out, I’ll show you in.’

  He found Pardon in a white coat, in his surgery with its frosted-glass windows.

  ‘I hope you didn’t mention to your wife that I’d told you what was happening? She would be cross with me for the rest of her life.’

  ‘I’m delighted that she’s decided to take care of herself. Is it true that there’s nothing to worry about?’

  ‘Nothing at all. In a few weeks, in three months, let’s say, when she’s lost a few kilos, she’ll feel ten years younger.’

  Maigret pointed to the waiting room.

  ‘Am I not taking up your patients’ time?’

  ‘There are only two of them, and they have nothing else to do.’

  ‘Do you know a certain Doctor Steiner?’

  ‘The neurologist?’

  ‘Yes. He lives on Place Denfert-Rochereau.’

  ‘I vaguely knew him at the Faculty, because he’s about my age, and then I lost touch with him. But I’ve heard my colleagues talking about him. He’s one of the most brilliant minds of his generation. After passing all his exams with flying colours, he was first a trainee, then departmental head at Sainte-Anne’s Hospital. Then he passed his senior teaching diploma, and everyone expected him to become one of the youngest professors in the Faculty.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s his character. Perhaps he has an exaggerated sense of his own worth. He lets you know about it, he can be brusque, almost arrogant. At the same time he’s a troubled soul, for whom every case presents moral problems. During the war he refused to wear the yellow star, claiming that he didn’t have a drop of Jewish blood. The Germans proved the opposite in the end and sent him to a concentration camp. He came back embittered and imagines that his progress has been thwarted because of his origins, which is crazy, because there are several Jewish professors at the Faculty. Have you had dealings with him?’

  ‘I called him this morning. I wanted to get some information out of him, but now I understand that it’s pointless to insist.’

  A bit like the man who came to see him this morning, Maigret didn’t know where to start.

  ‘Even though it isn’t your specialization, I would like to ask your opinion about a story that someone told me just now. I had a man in his forties in my office. He seemed normal and talked to me calmly, without exaggerating, measuring his words. He’s been married for about twelve years, if I remember correctly, and he’s been living for longer than that on Avenue Châtillon.’

  Pardon, who had lit a cigarette, was listening attentively.

  ‘He works with electric trains.’

  ‘You mean he’s a railway engineer?’

  ‘No, I mean toy train sets.’

  Pardon frowned.

  ‘I know,’ Maigret said. ‘I was struck by that too. But he doesn’t do it as a hobby. He is the head salesman in the toy department of a large store, and it was he who, among other things, set up the train set for the Christmas window display. As far as I can tell he’s in reasonably good health.’

  ‘What crime has he committed?’

  ‘None. At least that’s what I assume. He told me that his wife has been trying to kill him for some time.’

  ‘How did he become aware of that?’

  ‘He left before he could give me any details. From what I can tell, hidden in a cupboard for brooms and cleaning products he found a little bottle containing a considerable quantity of zinc phosphide.’

  Pardon grew more attentive.

  ‘He was the one who analysed the product and he seems to have carried out an in-depth study of zinc phosphide. He even brought me a sample.’

  ‘Do you want to know if it’s a poison?’

  ‘I assume it’s a toxic product.’

  ‘Very toxic. In some areas it’s used to kill voles. Has he been ill?’

  ‘Off colour, several times.’

  ‘Did he report it?’

  ‘No. He disappeared from my office before
he could tell me what he was getting at. It’s just that I’m worried about it.’

  ‘I think I understand … Was he the one who went to see Steiner? With his wife …?’

  ‘No. Alone. He’s been seeing the doctor for almost a month, to check …’

  ‘… that he isn’t insane?’

  Maigret nodded and took a moment to relight his pipe before continuing:

  ‘I could call him into my office, and even examine him in turn, since Steiner is taking refuge behind patient confidentiality. When I say that I could, I’m exaggerating slightly, because in fact there is nothing to be held against him. He came to see me of his own free will. He told me a story that holds up. Neither he nor anyone else has brought a complaint, and the law doesn’t forbid you from possessing a certain quantity of a toxic product. Do you see the problem?’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘It could be that his story is true. If I go and see his bosses to check on his behaviour, I risk damaging his reputation, because in big stores, as in administrative offices, they are suspicious about people who have attracted the interest of the police. If I question his concierge and his neighbours, rumours will start circulating in his neighbourhood …’

  ‘You realize what you’re asking of me, Maigret. An opinion about a man I’ve never seen, and whom you don’t really know yourself. And I’m just a family doctor, with only the vaguest notions about neurology and psychiatry.’

  ‘I remember seeing, in your library, a number of books about …’

  ‘There is a great chasm between being interested in the subject and formulating a diagnosis. In short, what you would like to know is the reason why he came to tell you his story.’

  ‘That’s the first question. He still lives with his wife and seems to have no plans to leave her. He didn’t ask me to stop her, or to open an investigation into her. And when I had to leave my office for a few minutes because I was called in to see the chief, he disappeared, as if he didn’t want to confide in me any more. Does that suggest anything to you?’

  ‘It might mean all sorts of things. You see, Maigret, back when I was studying, those questions were simpler than they are today. The same is true of medicine as a whole, incidentally, and indeed nearly all the sciences. Whenever an expert was asked in court if a man was mad or of sound mind, the expert usually answered with a yes or a no. Do you read criminological journals?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘In that case you know as well as I do that it is no longer so easy to make a clear distinction between psychoses, neuroses, psychoneuroses and even, sometimes, schizophrenia. The barrier between a man of sound mind and a psychopath or a neuropath is more and more fragile and, if we were to follow certain foreign scientists … But I’m not going to launch off on a scientific or pseudo-scientific dissertation …’

  ‘At first sight …’

  ‘At first sight, the answer to your question depends on the specialist you are questioning. For example, this business about train sets, even if it is his profession, and remember that he chose it himself, may point to maladjustment, which would in turn suggest psychoneurosis. The fact of coming to see you at Quai des Orfèvres, and obligingly setting out his private life for you would make many a psychiatrist sit up and listen, as would the fact of his going, of his own accord, to see a neurologist to check that he is of sound mind.’

  This didn’t help Maigret. He had already thought of all these things himself.

  ‘You tell me that he was calm, that he spoke with self-control, without any exaggerated emotion, and that might just as easily be turned against him as considered in his favour, as would having analysed the zinc phosphide and read everything he could about the product. He didn’t claim that his wife was going mad?’

  ‘Not exactly. I don’t remember every detail. To tell the truth, at first I was only half listening. It was very hot in my office. I was drowsy …’

  ‘If he suspects his wife of being insane, that would be another sign. But it’s also quite possible that it was his wife who …’

  Maigret got up from his armchair and started pacing back and forth.

  ‘I would be better off not looking into such things!’ he grumbled, as much to himself as to his friend Pardon.

  He added straight away:

  ‘And yet I know I will look into it.’

  ‘It’s not impossible that all of those things exist only in his imagination, and that he bought the zinc phosphide himself.’

  ‘Is it freely on sale?’ Maigret asked.

  ‘No, but the shop where he works may have got hold of some to kill rats, for example.’

  ‘Let’s imagine that that’s the case, that Marton falls under the category you’re thinking of: is he a danger?’

  ‘He could become one at any moment.’

  ‘And let us imagine that his wife is really trying to …’

  Maigret suddenly turned to the doctor and growled:

  ‘Dammit!’

  Then he smiled.

  ‘Excuse me. That wasn’t meant for you. Everything was nice and quiet at the office. Just as it is here! The dead season, so to speak. And here’s this oddball who shows up with a form, sits down in my office and comes right out and dumps all this responsibility on me …’

  ‘You’re not responsible.’

  ‘Officially, professionally, no. Which isn’t to say that if, tomorrow or next week, one of the two, the man or the woman, commits a crime, I won’t be convinced that it was my fault …’

  ‘I’m sorry, Maigret, not to be able to help you any further. Do you want me to try and see Steiner to ask him his opinion?’

  Maigret said yes, but without conviction. Pardon called Place Denfert-Rochereau, then the clinic where Steiner was to be found at that time of day. Pardon tried to be humble and respectful, an obscure local doctor speaking to a famous specialist. Maigret could tell from his face and the peremptory tone that he heard vibrating down the receiver that this approach was no more successful than his own.

  ‘He put me in my place.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What for? We had to try. Don’t fret too much. If everyone who behaved strangely were to become murderers or victims, you’d find more free apartments than you do today.’

  Maigret walked to Place de la République, where he took his bus. At Quai des Orfèvres, Janvier, who was in the inspectors’ office, came immediately to give his report, with a sheepish expression.

  ‘He can’t have seen me here, can he?’ he said. ‘And my photograph hasn’t exactly been on the front page of the papers. Do I look that much of a policeman?’

  In the whole building, Janvier was the one who looked least like a policeman.

  ‘I went up to the toy department and I recognized him straight away from the description you gave me. At work he wears a long grey overall, with the initials of the shop embroidered in red. There was a train set in operation, and I watched it run. Then I gestured to our man and started asking him innocent questions, like a father who wanted to buy a train set for his son. I know what it is, because I bought one for my own boy two Christmases ago. He barely let me say two or three sentences. Then he interrupted me, murmuring, “Tell Inspector Maigret that it isn’t very clever on his part to send you here, and that he risks making me lose my job.”

  ‘He spoke almost without moving his lips, looking uneasily at a store inspector who was watching us from a distance.’

  On Maigret’s desk there was a laboratory file, with the words Zinc phosphide written in red.

  Maigret was close to dropping the case. As he had said to Pardon, or as Pardon had said to him, he couldn’t really remember, it didn’t concern him from a strictly professional point of view and, if he annoyed Xavier Marton, he might very easily bring a complaint and cause him trouble.

  ‘I’d like to send you to Avenue de Châtillon to questi
on the concierge and the neighbours. Except no one in the area must suspect that the police are looking into our man. You could go door to door selling vacuum cleaners, for example …’

  Janvier couldn’t help pulling a face at the idea of dragging an electric vacuum cleaner from house to house.

  ‘If you prefer, present yourself as an insurance salesman.’

  Janvier clearly did prefer that.

  ‘Try and find out how the household lives, what the wife looks like, what people think of her locally. If his wife is at home you can always ring and suggest a life insurance policy …’

  ‘I’ll do my best, chief.’

  The weather was still just as grey, just as cold, and the office was almost freezing, as Maigret had forgotten to turn the radiator back on. He was about to turn the knob when he wondered if he should go and see the chief to ask his advice. If he chose not to, it was for fear of appearing ridiculous. He had realized, as he told the story to Pardon, how little evidence he had.

  Slowly filling his pipe, he immersed himself again in the file that he had abandoned that morning, and which no longer interested him. An hour passed. The air became more opaque, because of the smoke and the twilight. He turned on the lamp with the green shade and got up to adjust the radiator, which was overheating again. There was a knock at the door. Old Joseph murmured, setting down a form on the corner of the desk:

  ‘A lady.’

  She must have impressed the old clerk for him to use that word.

  Joseph added:

  ‘I think it’s the wife of that man this morning.’

  The name written on the file had reminded him of something: Madame Marton. And underneath it, after ‘object of visit’, the word ‘personal’ was written.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In the waiting room. Shall I show her in?’

  He nearly said yes, then changed his mind.

  ‘No. I’ll deal with her myself.’

  He took his time, crossed the inspectors’ office, then two more rooms, not emerging into the huge corridor until he had passed the glazed walls of the waiting room. Because it wasn’t yet completely dark, the lamps seemed to be casting less light than usual, and the atmosphere was yellowish and sad, like that of a little provincial railway station.