Maigret and the Ghost

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Thank you, Carl. Have you informed madame that I am busy?’

  Out of politeness, he had chosen to speak to his manservant in French.

  ‘Is she still upstairs?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur …’

  ‘And now, Monsieur Maigret, I drink to your health and am ready to hear this gossip you mentioned …’

  ‘I don’t know what it is like in Holland, but in Paris a lot of people, especially the elderly, even more in Montmartre than anywhere else, spend a deal of their time at their window … One such person told us that frequently, often two or three times a week, young women ring at your door in the evening and are let into the house …’

  The Dutchman’s ears had suddenly turned red and, without answering, he puffed on his cigar.

  ‘I might have thought that these women were friends of Madame Jonker’s if they did not come from a particular milieu, which would be insulting to her …’

  Rarely had he chosen his words with such care. Rarely too had he felt so uncomfortable.

  ‘Do you deny that these visits took place?’

  ‘If you have troubled yourself to come here, Monsieur Maigret, it is because you are certain of your facts. Admit it! Admit that if I were to have the unfortunate idea of contradicting you, you would put me in front of one or several witnesses …’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘What have you been told about these young women?’

  ‘I asked you a question, and you have replied with another.’

  ‘I am in my own home, aren’t I? If I were in your office, we would both be in a different position.’

  Maigret preferred to give in.

  ‘Let us suppose that these persons belong to the category of what is called loose women. They do not simply come in and leave but spend part of the night, if not the whole night, in the house …’

  ‘That is correct.’

  He did not look away, on the contrary, but the blue of his eyes had clouded to grey.

  To pluck up the courage to continue, Maigret had to think of Lognon in his hospital bed and of the stranger who had viciously aimed one of the deadliest weapons at his stomach.

  Jonker wasn’t helping him. He sat there as impassive as a poker player.

  ‘If I am mistaken, please stop me. At first, I thought that these young ladies were coming to see your manservant; then I learned that he has a girlfriend and that he is sometimes outside with her at the time of the visits I mentioned.

  ‘May I ask you where your servant’s bedroom is?’

  ‘On the second floor, near the studio.’

  ‘Do the maids and the cook sleep on the second floor as well?’

  ‘No. There is an annexe in the garden where the three women sleep.’

  ‘Do you often happen to open the door to these nocturnal female visitors?’

  He answered neither yes nor no but continued to stare into Maigret’s eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry to add that, according to my source, Madame Jonker showed them into the house on several occasions …’

  ‘We are kept under close watch, aren’t we? You people are even worse than the old women in our little Dutch villages. Would you tell me now what connection you have established between these visits, alleged or real, and the shots fired in the street?

  ‘Because I refuse to accept that I am being targeted personally and that, for a reason that escapes me, someone is trying to make me persona non grata …’

  ‘That is out of the question and I’ll try to put all my cards on the table. The way last night’s tragedy unfolded, the weapon used and some other details which I’m not at liberty to reveal, give me reason to believe that the marksman was a professional.’

  ‘And you think I am in contact with these people?’

  ‘I’m going to make a completely gratuitous supposition. You are considered to be a very wealthy man, Monsieur Jonker. This house contains more artworks than a lot of provincial museums and their value is probably priceless …

  ‘Does the building have an alarm system?’

  ‘No. The real professionals, as you call them, make a mockery of the most sophisticated systems, as was proved recently in your very own country. I prefer to be properly insured …’

  ‘Have you ever been the victim of an attempted break-in?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘Can you vouch for your household staff?’

  ‘Carl and the cook, who have been with me for over twenty years, yes. I don’t know the maids so well, but my wife didn’t hire them without requesting reliable references. You still haven’t explained the connection between what you call my female visitors and …’

  ‘I’m leading up to it …’

  So far, Maigret hadn’t done too badly, and he rewarded himself with a sip of whisky.

  ‘Supposing a gang of art thieves, of which there are a number in this world, were planning to rob you … Supposing a local police inspector got wind of it but too vaguely to take direct action … Supposing that, last night, as on previous nights, that inspector had been stationed opposite your house so as to catch the thieves red-handed …’

  ‘That would have been imprudent of him, don’t you think?’

  ‘In our profession, Monsieur Jonker, we are often obliged to be imprudent …’

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘Although the gangs that specialize in art thefts sometimes hire a hit-man, they are generally made up of intelligent, cultured people who do not act without doing their homework … Since you can vouch for your staff, all I can think of is that one of these young ladies …’

  Did Jonker believe Maigret’s line of reasoning or did he smell a rat? It was impossible to tell.

  ‘The young women who work in nightclubs tend to hobnob with the crime world …’

  ‘Have you come to ask me for a list – names, addresses and telephone numbers – of the girls who have come here?’

  His irony was becoming acerbic.

  ‘That would perhaps be useful, but most of all I would like to know what they came to do in your house.’

  Whew! He was almost there. Jonker, stock-still, his cigar between his fingers, continued to stare straight at him without batting an eyelid.

  ‘Right!’ he said at length, rising to his feet.

  And, after putting his cigar end down in a blue ashtray, he took a few steps forward.

  ‘I told you at the beginning of this interview that I would answer all your questions, so long as they didn’t concern my private life. You very skilfully – and I congratulate you – put this private life on the table by linking it to the events of last night.’

  He stopped in front of Maigret, who had also got to his feet.

  ‘You have been a member of the police for a long time, I think?’

  ‘Twenty-eight years.’

  ‘I presume you haven’t only investigated the underworld. Is this the first time you have seen a man of my age and in my situation give in to certain instincts and do you consider that reprehensible?

  ‘Paris is not considered a puritanical city, Monsieur Maigret. In my country, people would point at me and my family would perhaps disown me.

  ‘A lot of foreigners who live here or on the Riviera have chosen France purely for the freedom enjoyed in these things …’

  ‘May I ask whether Madame Jonker …’

  ‘Madame Jonker is not a puritan and knows about life. She is not unaware that some men of my age need change to stimulate them … You have forced me to speak of very private things and I hope you are satisfied now …’

  From the way he was looking at the door, he appeared to consider the interview over.

  Maigret, however, ploughed on, softly, in an undertone.

  ‘Earlier you mentioned names, addresses and telephone numbers …’

  ‘I hope you aren’t asking me for them? These individuals may not be leading exemplary lives, but they are not accountable to the police, and it would be improper of me to put
them in an awkward situation …’

  ‘You told me that you went out seldom and that you don’t go to nightclubs. So how did you meet your female visitors?’

  Further silence. Further hesitation.

  ‘Do you not know how these things work?’ he sighed at last.

  ‘There are pimps and madams, but their activity constitutes an offence.’

  ‘And does their clients’ activity constitute an offence too?’

  ‘They could possibly be accused of complicity, but, generally …’

  ‘Generally, the clients are left in peace, is that not so? In that case, Monsieur Maigret, I don’t think I have anything more to say to you.’

  ‘But I do have one more request for you.’

  ‘Is it really a request? Is that not a euphemism?’

  It was now almost open war between the two men.

  ‘Well, if you were to refuse, I might have to resort to legal means.’

  ‘So what is this request …’

  ‘I would like a tour of your house.’

  ‘Isn’t the word “to search”?’

  ‘You are forgetting that, until now, I have been working from the hypothesis that you were a potential victim …’

  ‘And you wish to protect me?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Come, then …’

  There was no longer any question of offering Maigret a cigar or pouring him a drink. Jonker’s manner had suddenly become very superior, if not lordly.

  ‘You have seen the room where I spend most of my day. Do I have to open the drawers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For your information, the one on the right contains an automatic pistol, a Lüger, which I brought back from the war.’

  He took it out, adding:

  ‘It is loaded … I have another one, a Browning, in my bedroom, also loaded. I’ll show it to you later …

  ‘This is the drawing room … I know you’re not here to admire the paintings, but I do advise you have a look at this Gauguin, which is considered one of his finest works and which I’ll bequeath to the Amsterdam Museum …

  ‘This way … Do you know anything about carpets? … Never mind … Here we are in the dining room, and the painting to the left of the chimney breast is Cézanne’s last work …

  ‘This door leads into a little room which I designed to be intimate, very feminine, and is my wife’s small parlour …

  ‘… The scullery … Carl busy cleaning the silverware … It is seventeenth-century English silverware whose only drawback is that it is unwieldy …

  ‘The kitchen is in the basement … The cook too … Do you really want to go down?’

  Whether intentional or not, there was something insulting in his easy manner.

  ‘Now let us go upstairs … The staircase comes from an old castle near Utrecht … To the left, my apartment …’

  He opened the doors like an estate agent showing a prospective buyer around a house.

  ‘Another study, you see, like on the ground floor … I love books and they are very useful to me … These files on the left contain the history of several thousand paintings, with the list of their successive owners and the price they sold for at each auction …

  ‘My bedroom … In the bedside-table drawer, the automatic I mentioned … A common 6.5 that wouldn’t be much use if I were threatened …’

  Everywhere, even on the walls of the staircase, the paintings were almost touching each other, and the best ones were not in the drawing room but in the Dutchman’s bedroom, a very understated room with English furniture and deep leather armchairs.

  ‘My bathroom … Now let us go over to the other side, but allow me to check that my wife isn’t in her room …’

  He knocked, opened the door a fraction, and took a few steps into the room.

  ‘You may follow me … Her boudoir, for which I found these two Fragonards … The wing chairs belonged to Madame de Pompadour … If you were here as an art lover, Monsieur Maigret, and not as a detective, I would be delighted to talk to you about each piece … The bedroom …’

  All draped in crushed strawberry satin.

  ‘The bathroom …’

  Maigret did not go in but glimpsed a bath tub that was more like a black marble pool with several steps down.

  ‘Let us go up to the next floor … You are entitled to see everything, isn’t that so?’

  He opened another door.

  ‘Carl’s bedroom … And, beyond, the bathroom … You will note that he has a television … He prefers black and white images to art masterpieces …’

  He knocked at the door opposite, a heavy, ornately carved door, which must have come from some castle too.

  ‘May I, darling? … I am showing Monsieur Maigret around the house. He is head of the Crime Squad … That is correct, isn’t it, detective chief inspector?’

  Maigret had just received a shock. In the middle of the glazed studio, standing at an easel, was a white shape that reminded him of the words Lognon had said: the ghost …

  It wasn’t a traditional painter’s smock that Madame Jonker was wearing, more of a Dominican monk’s habit, the fabric as thick and soft as a bathrobe.

  The Dutchman’s wife also wore a white turban of the same fabric around her head.

  She was holding a palette in her left hand, a brush in her right, and her black eyes lighted on Maigret with curiosity.

  ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Monsieur Maigret, and I’m delighted to meet you. Forgive me for not shaking hands.’

  She put the brush down and wiped her hand on the white robe, where it left green smears.

  ‘I hope you’re not an art connoisseur … If you are, please don’t look at what I’m doing …’

  Maigret was surprised, after walking past so many masterpieces on the walls, to find himself standing in front of a canvas on which there was nothing but daubs.

  5. The Room Covered in Graffiti

  In that instant, something happened that Maigret would have been incapable of defining, a change of tone, or rather a sort of shift that suddenly lent more weight to gestures, words and attitudes. Did this stem from the presence of the young woman, still draped in her strange costume, or from the atmosphere of the room?

  Logs were burning and crackling in the vast white stone fireplace, and the flames seemed to be leaping sprites.

  Maigret now understood why the studio curtains that could be seen from Marinette Augier’s windows were nearly always drawn. The studio wasn’t only glazed on one side but two, which made it possible to choose the light required.

  These curtains were made of thick, black hessian faded to grey in the wash, and had shrunk, so they no longer closed.

  On one side, rooftops were visible as far as Saint-Ouen; on the other, with the sails of the Moulin de la Galette in the foreground, lay Paris in almost its entirety, scored by the boulevards, the wider gap of the Champs-Élysées, the curves of the Seine and the gilt dome of Les Invalides.

  It was not this panorama that fascinated Maigret, whose senses were sharpened. It is difficult, when suddenly plunged into an unknown milieu, to grasp it fully, and yet that was what seemed to be happening to him.

  Everything struck him at once, the two bare walls, for example, painted a glaring white, the dancing flames in the fireplace in the centre of one wall.

  Madame Jonker had been busy painting when the two men had come in. Would it not have been natural for there to be canvases on the walls? And also, as in all artists’ studios, other canvases stacked against each other? But the varnished wooden floor was as bare as the walls.

  Near the easel was a box full of tubes of paint on a pedestal table.

  On another table further away, a white-wood table, the only everyday object seen so far in the house, was a jumble of pots, tin cans, bottles and rags.

  The rest of the furniture comprised two antique cupboards, a chair and an armchair whose brown velvet upholstery had begun to fade.

  Something was not quite rig
ht. It was only a hunch, but he was on the alert, and the Dutchman’s words only struck him more forcefully. He said, addressing his wife:

  ‘Inspector Maigret isn’t here to admire my paintings, but, strange as it may seem, to give a lecture on jealousy. He appears surprised that not all women are jealous …’

  That could have passed as an unremarkable comment, with a hint of sarcasm. But Maigret understood it as a warning Jonker was giving his wife, and he could have sworn that she acknowledged the message by batting her eyelids.

  ‘Is your wife jealous, Monsieur Maigret?’

  ‘I confess, madame, that she has not yet given me the occasion to ask myself the question.’

  ‘But many women must visit your office?’

  Was he mistaken? He thought he detected some sort of signal, but a signal that was for his benefit this time.

  So much so that he racked his brains and asked himself if he had ever seen the woman now in front of him at Quai des Orfèvres. Their eyes met. Her lovely face still wore the vague, polite smile of the mistress of the house receiving a guest. But could he not read something else in her huge brown eyes with long fluttering eyelashes?

  ‘Please don’t stop working on my account,’ he muttered …

  Because she put the palette down on the pedestal table, removed the white fabric wound round her head like a turban and tossed her head to give her black hair back its shape.

  ‘You are French-born, I believe?’

  ‘Norris told you so?’

  The question was natural, ordinary. Was he wrong to perceive a hidden undertone?

  ‘I knew it before coming here.’

  ‘So you made inquiries about us?’

  Jonker was less nonchalant than when he had been in his downstairs study and when, his manner slightly sardonic, he had hurried Maigret around the various rooms like a museum or chateau guide.

  ‘Are you tired, darling? Do you want to go and lie down?’

  Another signal? An order?

  She removed the white hooded robe enveloping her and emerged in a tight-fitting black dress. Suddenly she looked taller, revealing a curvaceous figure that had reached a delightful maturity.