Maigret's Childhood Friend

by Georges Simenon

  ‘You think so?’

  Because his former classmate’s cheerfulness was clearly forced.

  ‘The one who took me aback was the concierge. It’s not going to be easy to get anything out of her. Do you think she knows?’

  ‘I hope so for your sake.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She claims no one went up there between the hours of three and four. If she sticks to that position, I will be obliged to arrest you, because you will automatically become the only possible culprit.’

  ‘Why did you make her appear in front of those men?’

  ‘In the hope that one of them will be afraid that she might talk.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid on my behalf too?’

  ‘Did you see the murderer?’

  ‘I’ve already told you I didn’t.’

  ‘Did you recognize his voice?’

  ‘I’ve told you I didn’t do that either.’

  ‘So what are you afraid of?’

  ‘I was in the apartment. You’ve told them. The man might believe that I’ve spotted him.’

  Maigret carelessly opened a drawer in his desk and took out a packet of photographs that Moers had sent down from Criminal Records. He chose one which he held out to Florentin.

  ‘Look.’

  The son of the Moulins pastry-chef studied the photograph carefully, pretending not to understand why he had been given this document to examine. The picture showed part of the room, the bed and the bedside table with the half-open drawer.

  ‘What am I supposed to see in particular?’

  ‘Does nothing strike you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Remember your first statement. There was a ring at the door. You hurried towards the wardrobe.’

  ‘That’s the truth.’

  ‘Right. Let us assume that it is the truth. According to you, Josée and her visitor only stayed in the sitting room for a few moments. Passing through the dining room, they entered the bedroom.’

  ‘That’s what they did …’

  ‘Wait. According to you they stayed there for almost a quarter of an hour before the shot was fired.’

  Florentin looked again at the photograph, frowning.

  ‘This picture was taken shortly after the murder, when nothing in the room had been touched … Look at the bed …’

  A slight blush came to Florentin’s thin cheeks.

  ‘Not only has the bed not been unmade, but the bedcover isn’t even creased.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Either the visitor only came to talk to Josée, in which case they stayed in the sitting room, or he was there for some other reason, and we wouldn’t have found the bed in that state. Would you like to tell me what they could have been doing in the bedroom?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He was visibly trying to think quickly, to find an answer.

  ‘Just now you were talking about letters.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He might have come to demand his letters back.’

  ‘And do you think Josée would have refused to give them to him? Do you think it likely she would blackmail a man who was bringing her a substantial monthly income?’

  ‘Perhaps they went into the bedroom for some other reason and then argued.’

  ‘Listen to me, Florentin. I know your statements by heart. From the first day I’ve felt that something was off. Did you take the letters just as you took the forty-eight thousand francs?’

  ‘I swear I didn’t. Where would I have put them? You’ve found the money, haven’t you? If I’d had the letters, I would have hidden them in the same place.’

  ‘Not necessarily. We patted your pockets to check that you didn’t have the revolver, but we didn’t search you thoroughly. You’re an excellent swimmer, I remember. And yet you suddenly threw yourself into the Seine …’

  ‘I’d had enough. I felt that you suspected me. And I’d just lost the only person in the world who …’

  ‘Stop that, will you? Drop the act.’

  ‘When I climbed over the parapet, I really wanted to end it all. Perhaps I wasn’t thinking. One of those men was following me.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Exactly what?’

  ‘Imagine you’d gone to hide the money on top of the wardrobe, and you didn’t think about the letters. So they were still in your pocket. It would have been dangerous for you if they were found in your possession. How would you have explained it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You suspected that the surveillance would continue. A dive into the Seine, as if in a fit of despair, and you would get rid of those papers, which would be kept at the bottom by some object, a stone, anything …’

  ‘I didn’t have the letters.’

  ‘That’s a possibility too, which would explain why, if you have been telling the truth, the murderer spent almost a quarter of an hour in the apartment. Except there’s one detail that’s troubling me.’

  ‘What new clue have you found?’

  ‘The fingerprints.’

  ‘If my fingerprints have been found all over the place, that’s to be expected, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s just the point, we didn’t find them in the bedroom. Or anyone else’s prints for that matter. And yet you opened the desk to take out the money. The murderer opened one of the drawers to take out the letters. He couldn’t have spent a quarter of an hour in a room without touching anything.

  ‘So after he left you carefully wiped all the smooth surfaces, including the door-handles.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I didn’t wipe anything. What is there to prove that no one came in while I was running home, and then went to see you at the Police Judiciaire?’

  Maigret didn’t reply and, seeing that the wind had subsided, went and opened the window. He left a long pause and then murmured:

  ‘When were you going to clear the place?’

  ‘What place? What do you mean?’

  ‘Leave the apartment … Leave Josée, who you were living off.’

  ‘There was never any question of that.’

  ‘Yes, there was, as you know very well. She was starting to think that you were getting a bit past your best, and perhaps also a bit too greedy.’

  ‘Is it that bastard of a redhead who told you that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It could only be him. He’s been trying to weasel his way into the house for weeks.’

  ‘He has a job. He earns a living.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Your job is a fake job. How many pieces of furniture do you sell in a year? Most of the time there’s a sign on your door saying you’re not there.’

  ‘I’m out and about, buying merchandise.’

  ‘No. Joséphine Papet was slowly finding she’d had enough. She was counting, wrongly in fact, on Bodard to take your place.’

  ‘It’s his word or mine.’

  ‘Yours isn’t worth a cent. I’ve been aware of that since school.’

  ‘You resent me, don’t you?’

  ‘Why would I resent you?’

  ‘You already resented me in Moulins. My parents had a good business. I had money in my pocket. Your father was only ever a kind of servant at the Chateau of Saint-Fiacre.’

  Maigret flushed, clenched his fists and nearly lashed out, because if there was one thing he wouldn’t permit it was anyone touching the memory of his father. He had been estate manager at the chateau, and had been responsible for over twenty farms.

  ‘You’re a lowlife, Florentin.’

  ‘You were asking for that.’

  ‘I’m not putting you in jail yet, for lack of formal evidence, but I’ll find it before long.’

  He opened the door to the inspectors’ office.

  ‘Who’s dealing with this scoundrel?’

  Lourtie got to his feet.

  ‘Stick to him closely and, when he goes home, go and stand outside his door. Arrange for a colleague to take
over from you.’

  Florentin, sensing that he had gone too far, murmured humbly:

  ‘I’m sorry, Maigret. I lost my cool and didn’t know what I was saying. Put yourself in my place.’

  Maigret kept his teeth clenched and didn’t watch him go when he left the office. The telephone rang a few moments later. It was the examining magistrate inquiring about the result of their meeting.

  ‘I can’t say yet,’ Maigret replied. ‘It’s like when you go fishing; I’ve stirred up the bottom but I don’t know what’s going to come out of it. The funeral is at ten o’clock tomorrow.’

  Some journalists were waiting in the corridor, and Maigret’s manner was less amiable than usual.

  ‘Are you following a lead, inspector?’

  ‘I’ve got several.’

  ‘And you don’t know which is the right one?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Do you think it’s a crime of passion?’

  He nearly told them that there are no such things as crimes of passion. And yet that was more or less what he believed. He had learned in the course of his career that the spurned lover or the abandoned wife will kill less out of love than out of wounded pride.

  That evening Madame Maigret watched television, and he had two little glasses of raspberry eau-de-vie that his sister-in-law had sent them from Alsace.

  ‘Are you enjoying the film?’

  He stopped himself from saying:

  ‘What film?’

  He saw images moving across the screen, people getting worked up, but he couldn’t have said what was happening.

  The next day, just before ten, he had Janvier drive him to the Forensic Institute.

  Florentin, long and thin, a cigarette dangling from his lips, was standing on the edge of the pavement in the company of Bonfils, the inspector who had taken over Lourtie’s shift.

  Florentin didn’t approach the police car. He stayed there, his shoulders slumped, like a humiliated man who doesn’t dare to raise his head.

  The hearse had arrived, and the people from the undertaker’s brought the coffin on a bier.

  Maigret opened the back door.

  ‘Get in!’

  And to Bonfils:

  ‘You can go back to headquarters. I’ll bring him to you.’

  ‘Can we go?’ the master of ceremonies asked.

  They set off and, in the rear-view mirror, Maigret noticed a yellow car following them. It was a two-seater convertible, cheap, with dented bodywork, and Jean-Luc Bodard’s red hair appeared above the windscreen.

  They drove in silence towards Ivry, and passed through the huge cemetery. The grave was ready in a new section where the trees had not yet had time to grow. Lucas hadn’t forgotten Maigret’s recommendation about flowers, and the redhead had brought a bouquet of his own.

  As the coffin was being lowered, Florentin hid his face with both hands, and his shoulders twitched a few times. Was he crying? It made no difference, because he was capable of crying to order.

  Maigret was invited to throw in the first spadeful of soil, and a few moments later the two cars were driving along the road again.

  ‘To the Police Judiciaire, chief?’

  He nodded. Behind him, Florentin was still silent.

  In the courtyard of Quai des Orfèvres, Maigret got out and said to Janvier:

  ‘Stay with him for a moment. I’m going to send out Bonfils, who will take him in.’

  An impassioned voice reached him from the back of the car:

  ‘I swear, Maigret, I didn’t kill her …’

  Maigret merely shrugged and, passing through the glass door, slowly climbed the stairs. He found Bonfils in the inspectors’ office.

  ‘Your client is downstairs. You’re to take charge of him.’

  ‘What do I do if he insists on walking beside me again?’

  ‘Do whatever you like, but don’t lose him.’

  He was surprised, upon entering his office, to find Lapointe waiting for him with a concerned expression.

  ‘Bad news, chief …’

  ‘Another corpse?’

  ‘No. The concierge has disappeared.’

  ‘I’d ordered her to be kept under surveillance.’

  ‘Lourtie phoned half an hour ago … He’s so rattled that there was a sob in his voice …’

  He was one of the old inspectors, one of the most conscientious, who knew the job inside out.

  ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘Lourtie was on the pavement opposite when the woman left the building, without a hat, holding a bag of groceries.

  ‘Without looking behind her to see if she was being followed, first of all she went into a butcher’s shop where they seemed to know her and bought a chop.

  ‘Still without turning round, she continued on down Rue Saint-Georges and this time she went into an Italian grocer’s shop, while Lourtie paced up and down outside.

  ‘After a quarter of an hour or so, he started to worry. He went into the long, narrow shop to find another entrance leading on to the Square d’Orléans and Rue Taitbout … Of course, the bird had flown.

  ‘Lourtie called us and then, rather than pointlessly combing the area, returned to his stake-out in front of the house … Do you think she’s fled?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  Maigret had returned to his place by the window and was looking at the leaves of the chestnut trees, where birds were chirping.

  ‘Since she wasn’t the one who killed Joséphine Papet, she has no reason to flee, particularly dressed as she was, with a bag of groceries on her arm.

  ‘She had someone to meet … I’m almost sure that she made her decision after the confrontation yesterday.

  ‘And yet I’ve always been sure that she’d seen the murderer, either going up or coming down, or both times …

  ‘Suppose that when he was leaving the man found her with her nose pressed against the glass, her eyes fixed on him …’

  ‘I’m starting to understand.’

  ‘He knew she would be questioned. But he was a regular visitor to Joséphine Papet, and the concierge knew him.’

  ‘Do you think he threatened her?’

  ‘She wasn’t the kind of woman to be easily intimidated. You may have noticed that yesterday afternoon. On the other hand, I can see that she might easily be seduced by money.’

  ‘If she received money, why disappear?’

  ‘Because of the meeting.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The murderer was there. She saw him. She only had to say a word to have him arrested. She chose to remain silent. Then I would bet that she understood that her silence was worth a lot more than what she had received …

  ‘That morning she decided to go and demand a top-up, but she couldn’t do that with an inspector on her heels.

  ‘Put a call through to the Hôtel Scribe … The porter …’

  A few moments later Maigret was holding the receiver.

  ‘Hello … The porter of the Scribe? … This is Detective Chief Inspector Maigret … How are you, Jean? … The children? … Fine … Perfect … I believe you have a regular tenant called Lamotte … Victor Lamotte, yes … I imagine he rents his apartment by the month? … Yes … That’s what I thought …

  ‘Would you put me through to him? … I’m sorry? … He left yesterday on the Bordeaux express? … I thought he didn’t usually leave Paris until Saturday evening …

  ‘No one asked for him this morning? … Did you see a very stout woman, badly dressed, with a bag of groceries in her hand?

  ‘No, I’m not joking … Are you sure? … Thank you, Jean.’

  He knew the porters of all the big hotels in Paris, and there were some that he had seen starting out as bellboys.

  Madame Blanc hadn’t turned up at the Hôtel Scribe, where she wouldn’t, in any case, have found the wine dealer.

  ‘Put me through to his office on Rue Auber.’

  He didn’t want to miss a chance. On Rue Auber the offices were sh
ut on Saturday, and a clerk who was working late replied. He was on his own in the office. He hadn’t seen his boss since two o’clock the previous afternoon.

  ‘Find me the number of Courcel Brothers ball-bearings on Boulevard Voltaire.’

  This time, the phone rang in vain in the deserted office. No one there on Saturday, not even a caretaker.

  ‘You should find his address in Rouen. Don’t use the word “police”. I just want to know if he’s at home.’

  Fernand Courcel lived in an old town-house on Quai de la Bourse, very close to Pont Boieldieu.

  ‘I’d like to talk to Monsieur Courcel.’

  ‘He’s just gone out. This is Madame Courcel speaking.’

  The voice was young and playful.

  ‘Can I give him a message?’

  ‘What time do you think he will be back?’

  ‘No later than lunchtime, because we’re having friends round.’

  ‘Did he come back this morning?’

  ‘Last night … Who’s speaking?’

  Given Maigret’s instructions, Lapointe preferred to hang up.

  ‘He’s just gone out. He came back last night. He has to come home to have lunch with friends. His wife has a nice voice.’

  ‘That leaves François Paré. Look for his number in Versailles.’

  There too a woman answered, weary and unsympathetic.

  ‘This is Madame Paré.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to your husband.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘A clerk from the ministry,’ Lapointe improvised.

  ‘Is it important?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because my husband is in bed. When he came home yesterday he didn’t feel well and this morning, after a troubled night, I made him stay in bed. He works too much for a man of his age.’

  The inspector felt that she was going to hang up and hurried to ask his question:

  ‘Has he had a visit this morning?’

  ‘What visit?’

  ‘Someone who had a commission for him.’

  ‘No one has been here.’

  She hung up without another word.

  Florentin and the redhead were at the cemetery when Madame Blanc had disappeared. She hadn’t seen any of the three other suspects.

  Madame Maigret let him have his lunch in peace, because he seemed preoccupied enough not to add to his worries. It was only when she had poured him his coffee that she asked: