‘Yes.’
‘What time did you go out?’
‘I’m getting to that, sir. Just before midnight, the phone rang.’
‘I assume your number is in the directory?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Isn’t that inconvenient? Does’t it make it possible for all kinds of people, including practical jokers, to call you directly?’
‘I used to think that, too. For years, my number wasn’t listed, but people always found it out in the end anyway. After changing numbers five or six times, I let it appear in the directory, like everyone else.’
‘Which is convenient for your informers. They can call you directly instead of calling the Police Judiciaire, and as far as the public are concerned, you get all the credit for solving a case.’
Maigret managed to keep silent.
‘So – you received a call just before midnight. How long before midnight?’
‘It was dark when I answered the phone. It was a long conversation. When my wife switched on the light, it was ten to midnight.’
‘Who was phoning you at such an hour? Someone you knew?’
‘No. A woman.’
‘Did she tell you her name?’
‘Not just then.’
‘You mean, not in the course of this telephone conversation you say you had with her?’
‘Which I did have.’
‘Very well! She arranged to meet you in town?’
‘In a way, yes.’
‘What do you mean?’
He was beginning to realize that he had been naive, although it pained him to admit it to this greenhorn with his smug smile.
‘She had just arrived in Paris, where she’d never set foot before.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m repeating what she told me. She added that she was the daughter of a magistrate in La Rochelle, that she was eighteen, that she felt stifled by her very strict family, especially as a school friend of hers, who’s been here for a year, kept telling her about the delights and opportunities available in Paris.’
‘Not very original, is it?’
‘I’ve had confessions that were less original than that but were genuine all the same. Do you know the number of girls, some from good families, as they say, who every year—’
‘I read the statistics.’
‘I grant you her story wasn’t new. If it had been any newer, I might not have gone to the trouble I did. She’d left home without telling her parents, taking with her a suitcase of clothes and personal belongings as well as her savings … Her friend was waiting for her at Gare Montparnasse, but she wasn’t alone. A man in his thirties was with her, and she introduced him as her fiancé.’
‘A tall, dark stranger, the kind the fortune tellers always mention?’
‘They got into a red Lancia, and about ten minutes later stopped in front of a hotel.’
‘Do you know which hotel?’
‘No.’
‘Nor, I suppose, in which area it’s located?’
‘That’s correct, sir, but in my career I’ve known stories much more far-fetched than this one that turned out to be true. This young girl didn’t know Paris. This was her first time here. A childhood friend was waiting for her and introduced her to her fiancé. She was driven down streets and boulevards she’d never seen before. They stopped at last in front of what looked like a third-class hotel, where she left her bags, and they took her out to dinner. They plied her with drinks …’
Maigret remembered the pathetic voice on the telephone, the simple but fair and moving words, words that – or so it seemed to him – it was impossible to make up.
‘It’s true I’m still a bit drunk,’ she had admitted. ‘I don’t even know what I drank … “Come and see my apartment,” my friend said. And the two of them took me to a kind of modern studio apartment, where I started to panic as soon as I saw the prints and especially the photographs on the walls. My friend laughed. “Is that what you’re afraid of? Show her, Marco, that it’s not so terrible.” ’
‘If I understand correctly, she told you all this on the telephone, and you were listening in bed, with Madame Maigret next to you.’
‘That’s right, except that there may have been some details she only told me later.’
‘So this continued later?’
‘It got to a point where she felt she had to run away, and she found herself alone in Paris, without her luggage, without her handbag, without her money.’
‘And that was when it occurred to her to phone you? Obviously, she knew your name through the newspapers. She didn’t have her handbag, but she found the money to call you from a public telephone.’
‘From a café, where she went in, ordered a drink and asked for a telephone token. Café owners don’t usually ask to be paid in advance.’
‘So you flew to her rescue. Why didn’t you ask the local police to help her out?’
Because Maigret had had his doubts, but he was determined not to mention them. From now on, in any case, he would say as little as possible.
‘You see, detective chief inspector, the young woman in question isn’t from the provinces at all, and her version of events bears no relation to yours. Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Prieur was worried this morning when his niece didn’t come to breakfast and he discovered that she wasn’t in her room. She returned in a dishevelled state, almost distraught, at eight thirty this morning. The story she told had such an effect on Monsieur Prieur that he personally telephoned the minister of the interior. When I was then informed, I sent someone to take a statement in shorthand from Mademoiselle Prieur … You’re three years from retirement, Monsieur Maigret.’
Pardon’s words came back to him.
‘Tell me something … In your career, have you ever encountered …’
Pure spite! Wickedness for its own sake! A wicked act committed in full awareness!
But who?
‘What do you want from me, sir? My resignation?’
‘I would have to accept it.’
‘What’s stopping you?’
‘I’d like you to read the young lady’s account, which has been typed up. Then I’d like to put down in writing your version of events, just as you’ve told it to me. Naturally, I forbid you to bother Mademoiselle Prieur or to question anyone about her. I’ll summon you again when I’ve received your statement.’
He walked to the door and opened it, a vague smile still on his lips.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN CLASSICS
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published in French as Maigret et le fantome by Presses de la Cité, 1964
This translation first published 2018
Copyright © Georges Simenon Limited, 1964
Translation copyright © Ros Schwartz, 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 (detail) © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos
Cover design by Alceu Chiesorin Nunes
ISBN: 978-0-241-30404-4
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Maigret and the Ghost Page 14
