Maigret and the Ghost

by Georges Simenon

‘You’ll have to ask Monsieur Mingault.’

  ‘If you have a private room, I’d be grateful if you would reserve it for him. It is important. An inspector will keep watch at his bedside.’

  She pricked up her ears because the operating-theatre door had just opened and a man had appeared in the corridor, a skullcap on his head and a bloodstained apron over his white coat.

  ‘Monsieur Mingault, this is someone who—’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Is he alive?’

  ‘For the time being … Barring any complications, I hope to save him.’

  His forehead was beaded with sweat, and his eyes betrayed his exhaustion.

  ‘One more thing … It is important for him to be put in a private room …’

  ‘See to that, Madame Drasse … Excuse me.’

  He strode towards his office. The door opened again. A nurse was pushing a gurney on which the form of a body could be made out beneath the sheet. That of Lognon, stiff and pale, with only the top half of his face visible.

  ‘Take him to 218, Bernard.’

  ‘Yes, madame.’

  She followed the gurney, Maigret, Lapointe and Créac behind her. In the wan light coming from the high windows, they walked past wards lined with beds. It was like being in a bad dream.

  A junior doctor came out of the operating theatre and joined the mournful procession.

  ‘Are you family?’

  ‘No … Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  ‘Oh! It’s you?’

  He darted him a curious look, as if to reassure himself that Maigret resembled his mental image of him.

  ‘Monsieur Mingault says there’s a chance he’ll pull through …’

  This was a world apart, where voices didn’t sound the same as elsewhere and questions did not find answers.

  ‘If he told you so—’

  ‘You have no idea how long it will take him to come round?’

  Was Maigret’s question so ridiculous that they had to gaze at him in that way? The matron stopped the police officers in front of the door.

  ‘No. Not now.’

  They had to settle the wounded patient in, probably administer treatment, because two nurses brought in equipment, including an oxygen tent.

  ‘Wait in the corridor if you must, although I don’t like that. There are visiting times.’

  Maigret glanced at his watch.

  ‘I think I’ll leave you, Créac. Try to be there when he regains consciousness. If he’s able to talk, note down exactly what he says.’

  No, he didn’t feel humiliated. All the same, he felt uncomfortable because he wasn’t used to being brushed off like that. Here his renown did not impress people for whom life and death meant something different to what it did to the average person.

  Out in the courtyard he was relieved to be able to light his pipe while Lapointe lit a cigarette.

  ‘As for you, you’d better go to bed. Just drop me at the town hall of the eighteenth arrondissement first.

  ‘Won’t you let me stay with you, chief?’

  ‘You spent the night—’

  ‘At my age, you know …’

  They were just around the corner. In the inspectors’ office, they found three plainclothes officers hunched over their typewriters writing reports, like conscientious clerks.

  ‘Hello, gentlemen … Which one of you is up to date …?’

  He knew them too, if not by name, then at least by sight, and all three had risen to their feet.

  ‘All of us and no one …’

  ‘Has someone been to talk to Madame Lognon?’

  ‘Durantel’s taking care of it.’

  There were wet footprints on the floor and the air smelled of stale cigarette smoke.

  ‘Was Lognon on a case?’

  They exchanged hesitant glances. Finally one of them, a short, plump officer, began:

  ‘That’s precisely what we were wondering … You know Lognon, sir … When he was following up a lead he would sometimes behave mysteriously … It wasn’t unusual for him to work on a case for weeks without talking to us about it.’

  Because poor Lognon was used to others getting the credit instead of him!

  ‘He’d been acting secretive for at least a fortnight, sometimes coming back to the office with the air of someone who’s planning a big surprise …’

  ‘He didn’t give any hints?’

  ‘No. Except that he nearly always chose to be on night duty.’

  ‘Does anyone know which sector he was working in?’

  ‘The patrols spotted him several times in Avenue Junot, not far from the place where he was attacked … but not recently … He would leave the office at around nine p.m. and come back at around three or four a.m … Some nights, he didn’t come back at all …’

  ‘He didn’t keep a written record?’

  ‘I checked the log book. He simply wrote “nothing to report”.’

  ‘Have you got men at the scene?’

  ‘Three, led by Chinquier.’

  ‘The press?’

  ‘It’s hard to keep an attack on a police inspector from them … Don’t you want to see the superintendent?’

  ‘Not now.’

  Maigret had Lapointe drive him to Avenue Junot. The trees were shedding their last leaves, which were plastered to the damp pavements. It was still raining, but that didn’t stop around fifty people from gathering halfway down the avenue.

  Uniformed officers had cordoned off a square of pavement in front of a four-storey apartment building. When Maigret alighted from the car and had to push his way through the curious onlookers and the umbrellas, the photographers caught sight of him.

  ‘One more, inspector … Take a few steps forward into the crowd …’

  He glared at them in the same way that the matron had glared at him at Bichat. On the area of empty pavement, the rain hadn’t been enough to wash away a pool of blood which was slowly being diluted, and, since it wasn’t possible to draw with chalk, the police had formed the outline of a body as best they could using twigs.

  Inspector Deliot, from the eighteenth-arrondissement police station, removed his sopping hat to greet Maigret.

  ‘Chinquier is with the concierge, inspector. He was the first on the scene.’

  Maigret walked into the old-fashioned but very clean and well-maintained building and pushed open the glass door of the lodge just as Inspector Chinquier was putting his notebook back in his pocket.

  ‘I thought you’d come. I was surprised not to see anyone from Quai des Orfèvres.’

  ‘I dropped into Bichat first.’

  ‘The surgery?’

  ‘It seems to have been successful. The consultant thinks there’s a chance he’ll pull through.’

  The lodge too was clean and tidy. The concierge, who must have been around forty-five, was an affable woman with pleasing curves.

  ‘Have a seat, gentlemen … I’ve just told the inspector everything I know … Look at the floor …’

  The green linoleum was strewn with shards of glass from the smashed windowpane.

  ‘And here …’

  She pointed to a hole, about a metre above the bed at the back of the room.

  ‘Were you alone at the time?’

  ‘Yes. My husband is a night porter at Le Palace, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and doesn’t get home until eight in the morning.’

  ‘Where is he at the moment?’

  ‘In the kitchen.’

  She pointed to a closed door.

  ‘He’s trying to rest because he’ll have to go back to work this evening, in spite of all this.’

  ‘I presume, Chinquier, that you have asked all the necessary questions. Please don’t be annoyed if I ask some myself as well.’

  ‘Do you need me?’

  ‘Not right away.’

  ‘In that case I’ll go upstairs for a minute …’

  Maigret frowned, wondering whe
re he was going, but didn’t press the matter, not wishing to offend the neighbourhood inspector.

  ‘Apologies, madame …’

  ‘Madame Sauget. The residents call me Angèle.’

  ‘Do please sit down.’

  ‘I’m so used to being on my feet!’

  She went over to draw the curtain which hid the bed during the day, turning the room into a little sitting room.

  ‘You don’t want anything to drink? A cup of coffee?’

  ‘No thank you. So last night, you were in bed …’

  ‘Yes. I heard a voice saying:

  ‘ “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.

  2. Lunch at Chez Manière

  It was as if the man had chosen that particular moment for dramatic effect. Maybe he’d been listening at the door? The word ghost had barely been uttered when the knob turned, the door opened a fraction and a head appeared while the rest of the body remained unseen.

  His face was pale, his features drawn, his eyelids and mouth drooping, and it took Maigret a few seconds to realize that what gave the newcomer his mournful expression was the absence of dentures.

  ‘Aren’t you asleep, Raoul?’

  And, as if it were necessary, she introduced the man:

  ‘My husband, inspector.’

  Much older than her, he was wearing an unsightly purple dressing gown over his pyjamas.

  Behind his desk at Le Palace, in his gold-trimmed livery, he must have cut a fine figure, but here, unshaven, his body weary, with the scowl of someone who can’t get to sleep, he was both ridiculous and pathetic.

  Holding a cup of coffee, he vaguely greeted Maigret, then his gaze turned to the lace curtains on the other side of which dark shapes were still clustered in the driving rain, despite the police officers’ efforts to keep them at bay.

  ‘Is this going to go on for long?’ he groaned.

  He was being deprived of his much-needed sleep, the sleep he was entitled to, and from the look on his face, anyone would have thought that he was the real victim.

  ‘Why don’t you take one of those pills the doctor prescribed?’

  ‘They give me a stomach ache.’

  He sat down in a corner to drink his coffee, his feet bare inside felt slippers, opening his mouth only to sigh during the rest of the interview.

  ‘Madame, I’d like you to try and remember what happened, almost second by second, from the moment when you were asked to open the door.’

  Why this delectable woman had married a man at least twenty years her senior was none of his business, and she probably hadn’t seen him without his dentures at the time.

  ‘I heard: “Door-pull, please.”

  ‘And the voice, which I recognized, shouted:

  ‘ “Fourth!”

  ‘As I’ve already told you, I automatically glanced at the clock. It’s a habit. The time was twenty past two. I reached out to press the button, because nowadays there isn’t a door-pull any more, but an electric button that opens the door.

  ‘Just then I thought I heard the sound of an engine, as if a car was parked not right outside but further along, with the motor still running. I even said to myself that it was probably the Hardsins – a couple who live in the next building who often come home in the small hours.