Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses

by Georges Simenon

  Then he turned around to get a better look at him, as if Maigret’s face were familiar to him too.

  The lift went down. The concierge was on the lookout behind her glass door.

  ‘Did you see him? He’s just gone upstairs.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you think of her?’

  ‘She’s lovely.’

  He thanked her, smiling. He might need her again; he mustn’t discourage her. He also shook hands with the taxi-driver husband, who had driven him several times.

  When he finally emerged on the pavement, he saw a red Panhard convertible at the door.

  6

  Maigret had to wait a while before he could slip between the cars because everyone was leaving work. Once he’d crossed the road, he looked back up at the apartment he had just left. Its iron balcony ran the length of the façade, with a railing in the middle dividing it in two. It was completely dark now, and there were lights on behind at least half the curtains.

  The French window was half open on the fifth floor, and a man was leaning out, looking down at the street, a cigarette between his lips. He jerked back when he saw Maigret.

  It was the same man who had just gone upstairs and frowned when he bumped into Maigret at the door of the lift: Jacques Sainval, as he called himself, the film publicist.

  He went back into the apartment, the French window closed. What was he saying to Véronique Lachaume as she laid the table?

  There was a bar opposite the apartment building, not an ordinary one, but one of those American bars with high stools and discreet lighting you get more and more of these days around the Champs-Élysées.

  Maigret went in and, even though it was crowded, saw an empty stool by the wall. It was hot. There was lots of noise, women’s laughter, cigarette smoke. A pretty girl in a black and white apron waited with a smile as he took off his coat and hat.

  When the barman turned towards him, also looking as if he was trying to work out where he had seen him, Maigret hesitated for a moment, then ordered:

  ‘A hot toddy.’

  Then he asked:

  ‘Where’s the telephone?’

  ‘Downstairs.’

  ‘Have you got a token?’

  ‘See the operator.’

  It wasn’t the sort of bar he’d go to by choice, and he always felt a little uncomfortable in places like this because they hadn’t existed in his day. The panelled walls were lined with hunting scenes, lots of riders in red jackets, and an actual hunting horn was hung just above the bar.

  As he made his way to the stairs at the back of the room, he felt someone looking at him. The barman had finally recognized him. Others had too, probably. Most of the women were young. The men, although older, weren’t his generation.

  He had spotted some familiar faces himself. He remembered that there were some television studios further down the same street.

  He went down the oak staircase and found another pretty woman at a telephone switchboard by the cloakroom.

  ‘A token, please.’

  There were three booths with glass doors, but he couldn’t dial out directly.

  ‘What number do you want?’

  He had no choice but to give her the Police Judiciaire’s number. It was the young woman’s turn to recognize him, and she looked at him more closely.

  ‘Cabin 2.’

  ‘Police Judiciaire here.’

  ‘It’s Maigret. Give me Lucas, will you?’

  ‘Just a moment, detective chief inspector.’

  He had to wait; Lucas was on the telephone to someone. Eventually he heard his voice:

  ‘Sorry, chief. That was the examining magistrate. It’s the third time he’s rung since you left. He’s surprised you haven’t been keeping him up to date.’

  ‘Go on …’

  ‘He asked masses of questions …’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘First he asked if you’d gone back to Quai de la Gare. I said I didn’t think so. Then he wanted to know if you’d talked to other witnesses. And finally, a few minutes ago, he left you a message. He’s had to go home to get changed because he’s having dinner in town. He’ll be on Balzac 2374 all evening …’

  That was around the Champs-Élysées, where Maigret was now.

  ‘He insisted that if you’re planning on questioning anybody, he wants it to happen in his office.’

  You could feel Lucas was embarrassed.

  ‘Was that all?’

  ‘No. He asked me where the inspectors were, what they were doing, what they’d found out …’

  ‘Did you tell him?’

  ‘No. I said I didn’t know. He wasn’t pleased.’

  ‘Has there been any news?’

  Through the door of the booth, he saw the telephone attendant watching him as she put on lipstick. A customer was fastening her suspenders in front of the mirror.

  ‘No. Lapointe has just come on duty. He’s restless. He wants to get on with something.’

  ‘Put him on.’

  This was good timing.

  ‘Lapointe? Take one of the cars and go to Ivry. On a corner just opposite Pont National you’ll see a badly lit grocer’s. I forget the woman’s name. Something like Chaudais, Chaudon or Chaudois … She wears her hair up in a bun and has a bit of a squint. Be very nice to her, very polite. Tell her we need her for a moment. She’ll want to get all dressed up. Try to make sure it doesn’t drag on too long. Take her to Rue François Premier, 17a. You’ll probably find a red car outside. Park nearby. Both of you stay in the car until I give you the signal …’

  ‘OK, chief.’

  He left the booth and paid for his call.

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur Maigret.’

  He hadn’t got any pleasure out of that sort of thing for a long time. Upstairs, the bar was more crowded than before, and a young woman with red hair had to take a step back to allow him to sit on his stool. He felt her warm hip against his body. Her scent was very strong.

  At one of the tables, a man his age, slightly balding and greying around the temples, had his arm around the waist of a plump girl who can only just have been twenty. For the first time Maigret was shocked. Perhaps because of the examining magistrate who was only just out of college, he suddenly felt like an old man, a relic of the past.

  All these girls, who were smoking, drinking whiskey and cocktails, weren’t for men of his generation any more. Some of them, talking loudly, turned fairly blatantly to give him curious looks.

  He just had to lean forward to see the lighted windows on the fifth floor up there. A shadow sometimes moved back and forth behind them.

  He had weighed the pros and cons. His first thought was to wait for Jacques Sainval at the entrance to the block. Véronique Lachaume, that fat, genial woman, was in love, there was no doubt about that. Might it cause her heartache? Wasn’t there a risk he’d drive a wedge between the lovers?

  It wasn’t the first time he had been inhibited by scruples of this kind. But if his intuition was right, it was better she knew, wasn’t it?

  He drank his drink slowly, trying to picture what was happening in the apartment. The food was being dished up. The couple were sitting down. He gave them time to eat and Lapointe and the grocer time to set off.

  ‘Same again …’ he ordered.

  Everything changes. And, like children growing up, you never realize at the time, only when it’s happened.

  His friendly enemy, as he liked to call him, Judge Coméliau, had retired. Now he was just an old man who took his dog for a walk every morning, arm in arm with a lady with dyed purple hair.

  Maigret had started seeing inspectors in the office – and in his team, after a while – who had never worked a beat, never patrolled the railway stations, who had just come straight from college. Some of his colleagues these days – same rank, same wages – were forty, if that. Admittedly they were law graduates, often with two or three other degrees. They rarely ventured out of their offices, simply sending their subordinates to cri
me scenes and then interpreting whatever results that threw up.

  Police prerogatives had gradually been chipped away over the course of his career, and now the examining magistrates were taking over. A team of young tyros were replacing the Coméliaus, with the firm intention, like Angelot, of running investigations from start to finish.

  ‘What do I owe you?’

  ‘Six hundred …’

  The prices had changed too. He sighed, looked around for his coat, had to wait by the door for the young cloakroom attendant.

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur Maigret.’

  Would the examining magistrate have been such a stickler if they had been dealing with a professional thief such as the Monk or a Quai de Javel labourer?

  Even reduced to the all but squalid penury he had witnessed at Quai de la Gare, the Lachaumes were still patricians, a grand upper-middle-class family whose name had been uttered with respect for over a century.

  Would the younger generation continue to take any note of that?

  These weren’t questions he usually asked himself, but he couldn’t help his thoughts reverting to certain things that bothered him. There are days when you’re more sensitive to certain aspects of the world than others, he supposed. It had been All Souls’ Day the day before, after all.

  He shrugged and crossed the street. Through the tulle curtains he saw the concierge and her husband sitting at a round table. He gave a vague wave as he walked past without being sure they had seen him.

  The lift deposited him on the fifth floor, and he rang the bell, heard voices, then footsteps. The buxom figure of Véronique opened the door, her face more flushed than earlier. She had just been drinking hot soup, as he would soon discover.

  She was surprised to see him again but didn’t seem worried.

  ‘Have you forgotten something? Did you have an umbrella?’

  She looked instinctively at the coat-stand in the hallway.

  ‘No. I just want to have a quick word with your boyfriend.’

  ‘Oh …’

  She closed the door.

  ‘Come in. This way …’

  She led him through to the kitchen rather than the living room. It was also white, stocked with the sort of chrome appliances you see in interior design shows. A kind of balustrade divided it in two, and one side had been turned into a miniature dining room. The soup tureen was still steaming on the table. Jacques Sainval had his spoon in his hand.

  ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, who would like to talk to you …’

  The man stood up, evidently uncomfortable, in two minds whether to hold out his hand, which he did finally.

  ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘Sit down. Carry on with your dinner …’

  ‘I was going to clear away the soup.’

  ‘Don’t mind me.’

  ‘You’d better take your coat off. It’s very hot.’

  She took his overcoat out to the hallway. Maigret sat down, an unlit pipe in his hand, feeling that Angelot would have heartily disapproved.

  ‘I just want to ask you a question or two, Monsieur Sainval. I saw your car downstairs. It’s the red Panhard, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wasn’t it parked by Pont National yesterday evening at about six?’

  Was Sainval expecting the question? Without turning a hair, he seemed to be casting his mind back.

  ‘Pont National?’

  ‘It’s the last bridge before Ivry, a railway bridge …’

  Véronique, who had come back, was looking at both of them in surprise.

  ‘I don’t think … No … Wait a minute … Yesterday afternoon …’

  ‘Around six.’

  ‘No. Definitely not …’

  ‘You didn’t lend your car to anyone?’

  Maigret wasn’t throwing him a lifeline unwittingly.

  ‘Not as such, but one of my colleagues could have taken it …’

  ‘Do you normally leave it outside your office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With the keys in it?’

  ‘It’s one of those risks you take, isn’t it? People hardly ever steal those sorts of eye-catching cars, they’re so recognizable.’

  ‘Do you and your colleagues go into the office on a Sunday?’

  ‘Yes, often …’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not lying, Jacquot?’

  The question was Véronique’s, as she put the roast at the table.

  ‘Why would I lie? You know the office pays for the upkeep and petrol … If someone needs something from the shops that minute and there isn’t a car handy …’

  ‘Of course you don’t know Paulette, do you?’

  ‘Paulette who?’

  Véronique Lachaume wasn’t laughing any more. In fact she’d become extremely serious.

  ‘My sister-in-law,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes … I vaguely remember you talking about her …’

  ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘By name.’

  ‘And you know she lives at Quai de la Gare, do you?’

  ‘You’ve jogged my memory … Her address had slipped my mind …’

  Maigret had seen a telephone in the concierge’s lodge. Véronique also had one in her living room.

  ‘Can I make a phone call?’

  ‘Do you know where it is?’

  He went out on his own, called the lodge.

  ‘Maigret here. I’m on the fifth floor … Yes … Will you go outside and see if a little black car’s there? … There should be a youngish man and a middle-aged woman in it … Will you tell them to come up, from me …’

  He hadn’t lowered his voice. The couple had heard him from the kitchen. It wasn’t pleasant work but he was trying to do it as properly as possible.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have to check …’

  He had the impression Véronique’s large eyes, so merry moments ago, were watering. Her breast was heaving to a different rhythm. She was forcing herself to eat, but her appetite had gone.

  ‘You swear you’re not hiding anything, Jacquot?’

  Even that ‘Jacquot’ was starting to grate.

  ‘I assure you, Nique …’

  As Véronique had admitted, it was the first time she’d had a steady relationship, and, despite her veneer of cynicism, she must have cared deeply about their love. Did she already feel it was under threat? Had she always had some doubts about the publicist’s sincerity? Had she turned a blind eye on purpose, because at thirty-four she was tired of her women in dinner-jackets routine and was dying to get married like everyone else?

  He was listening out for the bell. When it rang, he hurried out into the corridor and opened the door.

  As he’d expected, the grocer had put on her Sunday dress and a black coat with a sable collar, and she was wearing an elaborate hat. With a wink at his boss, Lapointe just said:

  ‘I came as quick as I could.’

  ‘Come in, madame. You saw a red car parked outside your establishment yesterday evening, didn’t you?’

  He was careful not to say corner shop.

  ‘Yes, monsieur.’

  ‘Come with me …’

  She stopped abruptly at the kitchen door, turned to Maigret and asked:

  ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Do you recognize anyone?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That gentleman eating.’

  Maigret fetched Sainval’s raincoat and hat from the coat-stand.

  ‘I recognize those too. Anyway, I’d already recognized the car in the street. The bumper has got a dent on the driver’s side.’

  Véronique Lachaume stood up without crying, her teeth clenched, and went and put her plate in the sink. Her boyfriend also stopped eating. Unsure whether to remain sitting down, he finally stood up in turn, muttering:

  ‘All right!’

  ‘What’s all right?’

  ‘I was there.’

  ‘Thank you, madame. You can drive her back
now, Lapointe. Have her sign a statement, just to be on the safe side.’

  When it was only the three of them again, Véronique said in a slightly hoarse voice:

  ‘Would you two mind going and discussing your little business somewhere other than in my kitchen? In the living room, if you like …’

  Maigret understood that she wanted to be alone, perhaps to have a cry. He had spoiled her evening, and a lot more besides, probably. The cosy little supper had turned out badly.

  ‘Come with me …’

  He left the door open, thinking the daughter of the Lachaume family had a right to hear their conversation.

  ‘Sit down, Monsieur Sainval.’

  ‘May I smoke?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you realize what you’ve just done?’

  ‘Do you?’

  Véronique’s lover looked shifty and sullen, like a schoolboy who’s been caught playing a nasty prank.

  ‘I can tell you right off that you’re making a mistake.’

  Maigret sat down opposite him and filled his pipe. He didn’t speak, didn’t do anything to make the situation easier for the publicist. He realized it was a little unfair. Angelot wasn’t there. And Sainval wasn’t demanding his lawyer be present.

  Some women must have found him handsome, but close up, especially now, he looked shabby. Without his usual confident front, you could feel he was listless, hesitant.

  He would have been more at ease, and at home, in the American bar across the street.

  ‘I’ve read the newspaper, like everybody else, and I can guess what you’re thinking.’

  ‘I’m not thinking anything yet.’

  ‘Then why did you get that woman I’ve never seen before to come up to the apartment?’

  ‘To make you admit that you were at Quai de la Gare yesterday.’

  ‘What does that prove?’

  ‘Nothing, except that you know Paulette Lachaume.’

  ‘So?’

  He was regaining his confidence, or, more exactly, trying to act tough.

  ‘I know hundreds of women. I’ve never heard it’s crime.’

  ‘I’m not accusing you of a crime, Monsieur Sainval.’

  ‘But you come here, to my girlfriend’s, knowing full well that … that …’

  ‘That I’m putting you in an awkward position. Because I presume you’ve never told her about your relationship with Paulette Lachaume …’