Madame Maigret's Friend

by Georges Simenon

  Maigret slipped the photographs into his pocket and lingered a moment longer, for the sheer pleasure of it, then sighed and walked into the lab next door, where they were still working on the food in Fernande’s pans.

  They hadn’t discovered anything. Either the story had been completely made up, for what purpose he couldn’t guess, or they hadn’t had time to put the poison in, or else the poison had fallen into the part that had completely overturned in the Métro carriage.

  Maigret avoided going back through the offices of the Police Judiciaire. He came out onto the Quai des Orfèvres in the rain, lifted the collar of his coat, walked towards the Pont Saint-Michel and had to hold out his arm a dozen times before a taxi stopped.

  ‘Place Blanche. Corner of Rue Lepic.’

  He wasn’t in a good mood. He felt displeased with himself and the way the investigation was going. He was particularly upset with Philippe Liotard, who had forced him to abandon his usual methods and set all the departments in motion right from the start.

  Now there were too many people dealing with the case, and he couldn’t control them personally. It was all becoming far too complicated, with new protagonists emerging about whom he knew very little and whose role he was incapable of figuring out.

  Twice he had felt like starting the investigation all over again, slowly, heavily, in accordance with his preferred method, but that was no longer possible. The machine had been started up and there was no way to stop it.

  He would have liked, for instance, to question the concierge again, and the cobbler opposite, and the old lady on the fourth floor. But what would have been the point? Everyone had questioned them by now: inspectors, reporters, amateur detectives, people on the street. Their statements had appeared in the newspapers and they had to stand by them. It was like a track that fifty people had already trodden thoroughly.

  ‘Do you think that bookbinder’s a murderer, Monsieur Maigret?’

  It was the driver, who had recognized him and was now addressing him in a familiar manner.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If I were you, I’d concentrate on the little boy. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the right lead, and I’m not just saying that because I have a child his age.’

  Even the taxi-drivers were joining in! He got off at the corner of Rue Lepic and went into the bar on the corner to have a drink. The rain was dripping in big drops from the awning over the terrace, where a number of women stood frozen as if in a wax museum. He knew most of them. Some probably took their clients to the Hôtel Beauséjour.

  There was a fat one outside the hotel itself, obstructing the doorway, and she smiled at him, thinking that he was coming for her, then recognized him and apologized.

  He climbed the dimly lit stairs, found the owner in her office, dressed this time in black silk, with gold-rimmed glasses, her hair flaming red.

  ‘Sit down. Will you excuse me a moment?’ She went and shouted up the stairs, ‘A towel for number 17, Emma!’ She came back. ‘Have you found anything?’

  ‘I’d like you to have a good look at these photographs.’

  He first handed her the few women’s photographs selected by Moers. She looked at them one by one, shaking her head each time, then gave him back the packet.

  ‘No. That’s not the type at all. She’s a bit more distinguished than those. Not so much distinguished, more “respectable”, know what I mean? She looks like a decent young woman. The ones you’re showing me could be my customers.’

  ‘What about these?’

  The dark-haired men. Again, she shook her head.

  ‘No. That’s not it at all. I don’t know if I can explain myself. These men look too much like wops. Monsieur Levine could have stayed in a big hotel on the Champs-Élysées and nobody would have turned a hair.’

  ‘And these?’ With a sigh, he handed her the last packet.

  As soon as she saw the third photograph, she froze and gave Maigret a shifty look, as if uncertain whether or not to speak.

  ‘Is it him?’

  ‘Maybe. Let me get closer to the light.’

  A girl was climbing the stairs with a client who kept himself to the dark part of the staircase.

  ‘Take number 7, Clémence. The room’s just been done.’

  She shifted her glasses on her nose.

  ‘I could swear it’s him, yes. It’s a pity he’s not moving. Seeing him walk, even from the back, I’d recognize him immediately. Even so, I don’t think I’m wrong.’

  Behind the photograph, Moers had written a summary of the man’s career. Maigret was interested to discover that he was probably Belgian, like the bookbinder. Probably, because he was known by several different names and his true identity had never been established.

  ‘I’m very grateful to you.’

  ‘I hope you’ll give me credit for this. I could have pretended not to recognize him. After all, these might be dangerous people and I’m taking a big risk.’

  She was wearing so much scent, and the smells of the hotel were so persistent, that he was happy to find himself back out on the pavement, breathing in the scent of the streets in the rain.

  It wasn’t yet seven o’clock. Young Lapointe must have gone to see his sister to tell her, as Maigret had advised, what had happened at the Quai des Orfèvres during the day.

  He was a good boy, still too nervous, too emotional, but they’d probably make something of him. Lucas, in his office, was still playing the orchestral conductor, linked by telephone to all the departments, to all the corners of Paris and elsewhere where the trio were being sought.

  As for Janvier, he was still following Alfonsi, who had gone back to Rue de Turenne and had spent nearly an hour in the basement with Fernande.

  Maigret had another glass of beer, during which time he read Moers’ notes, which reminded him of something.

  Alfred Moss, Belgian nationality (?). Approximately forty-two years old. Was a variety performer for about ten years. Belonged to a troupe of acrobats called Moss, Jef and Joe.

  Maigret remembered them. He particularly remembered the one who’d been the clown: black clothes that were too big for him, never-ending shoes, a blue chin, a huge mouth, a green wig.

  The man had seemed completely double-jointed, and after every acrobatic stunt he had fallen so badly, to all appearances, that it seemed impossible he hadn’t broken something.

  Worked in most countries of Europe and even in the United States, where he was with the Barnum Circus for four years. Abandoned this profession after an accident.

  There followed the names by which the police had known him subsequently: Mosselaer, Van Vlanderen, Paterson, Smith, Thomas … He had been arrested successively in London, Manchester, Brussels, Amsterdam, and three or four times in Paris.

  But he had never been convicted, for lack of evidence. Whichever identity he used, his papers were invariably in order and he spoke four or five languages fluently enough to change nationality as he wished.

  The first time he had been investigated by the police was in London, where he passed himself off as a Swiss citizen and worked as an interpreter in a luxury hotel. A jewellery case had disappeared from a suite he had been seen leaving, but the owner of the jewellery, an elderly American woman, testified that it was she who had called him to her suite to get him to translate a letter she had received from Germany.

  Four years later, in Amsterdam, he had been suspected of a confidence trick. But this time too, the evidence had been lacking, and he had disappeared from circulation for a
while.

  Subsequently, the police intelligence service in Paris had taken an interest in him, at a time when there was large-scale gold smuggling across borders and Moss, now Joseph Thomas, was shuttling back and forth between France and Belgium. Again, nothing could be pinned on him.

  He’d had his highs and lows, sometimes living in first-class hotels, even luxury ones, sometimes in seedy rooming houses.

  For three years, nobody had seen him. Nobody knew in which country, or under which name, he was operating, if he was still operating.

  Maigret walked to the phone booth and called Lucas.

  ‘Go up and see Moers and ask him for what he’s got on a man named Moss … Yes. Tell him he’s one of the people we’re looking for. He’ll give you his description and the rest. Put out a general appeal. But he isn’t to be arrested. In fact if we do find him, we must try not to alert him. Got that?’

  ‘Got it, chief. There’s just been another report about the boy.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Avenue Denfert-Rochereau. I sent someone. I’m waiting to hear. I’m running out of men. There was also a call from Gare du Nord. Torrence has gone there.’

  He felt like walking a little in the rain, and as he passed Place d’Anvers he glanced into the park and saw the bench, streaming with water right now, where Madame Maigret had waited. Opposite, on the building at the corner of Avenue Trudaine, was a sign with the word Dentist on it in large pale letters.

  He’d be back. There were lots he wanted to do but which, in the rush of things, he was always forced to put off until tomorrow.

  He jumped on a bus. When he got to his door, he was surprised not to hear any noise in the kitchen and not to smell any food. He went in, crossed the dining room, where the table had not been laid, and at last saw Madame Maigret, in her slip, busy taking off her stockings.

  This was so unlike her that he could find nothing to say, and when she saw him standing there wide-eyed, she burst out laughing.

  ‘You’re angry, Maigret.’

  There was an unfamiliar, almost aggressive good humour in her voice. He noticed her best dress and hat on the bed.

  ‘You’ll have to make do with a cold dinner. Just imagine, I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to make anything. Besides, it’s so rare for you to come home for meals these days!’ Sitting in the wing chair, she massaged her feet with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘I don’t think I’ve walked so much in my life!’

  He just stood there, in his overcoat, with his wet hat on his head, looking at her and waiting, and she deliberately made him wait.

  ‘I started with the department stores, although I was almost certain there was no point. But you never know, and I didn’t want to blame myself later for being neglectful. Then I did the whole of Rue La Fayette, came back up Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and walked along Rue Blanche and Rue de Clichy. I came back down towards the Opéra, all on foot, even when it started raining. I should mention I’d already done the Ternes and the Champs-Élysées yesterday, without telling you.

  ‘Just to set my mind at rest, because I was sure it was going to be too expensive in those areas.’

  He at last uttered the words she had been waiting for, the words she’d been trying to provoke for some time now: ‘What were you looking for?’

  ‘The hat, of course! Hadn’t you got that? The business of the hat was bothering me. I didn’t think it was a job for men. A tailored suit is a tailored suit, especially a blue tailored suit. But a hat, now that’s different, and I’d had a good look at that one. White hats have been in fashion for some weeks now. But one hat is never exactly the same as another. Don’t you see? Does it bother you to have a cold meal? I brought some things from the Italian delicatessen, Parma ham, mushrooms in vinegar, and a whole lot of little ready-made hors-d’œuvres.’

  ‘What about the hat?’

  ‘So now you’re interested, Maigret? By the way, yours is dripping on the carpet. You really ought to take it off.’

  She had succeeded, because otherwise she wouldn’t have been in such a teasing mood and wouldn’t have allowed herself to play with him like this. It was better to let her get on with it, and to keep his grumpy air, because she liked it.

  As she was putting on a woollen dress, he sat down on the edge of the bed.

  ‘I knew perfectly well it wasn’t a hat from one of the top milliners, so there was no point looking in Rue de la Paix, Rue Saint-Honoré or Avenue Matignon. Besides, in those shops, they don’t put anything in the windows and I’d have had to go in and pretend to be a customer. Can you see me trying on hats at Caroline Reboux or Rose Valois?

  ‘But it wasn’t a hat from the Galeries or Printemps either.

  ‘Something in the middle. Still a hat by a milliner, and a fairly good milliner.

  ‘That was why I did all the little shops, especially around Place d’Anvers, anyway not too far from there.

  ‘I must have seen about a hundred white hats, but it was a pearl grey hat that caught my attention in the end, at Hélène et Rosine in Rue Caumartin.

  ‘It was exactly the same, but in another colour. I was sure I was right. I told you that the hat the woman with the little boy was wearing had a very small veil, two or three centimetres wide, falling just over her eyes.

  ‘The grey hat had the same thing.’

  ‘Did you go in?’

  Maigret had to make an effort not to smile, because this had to be the first time the shy Madame Maigret had involved herself in a case, probably also the first time that she’d been into a milliner’s shop in the Opéra area.

  ‘Does that surprise you? You think I’m too much of an old lady? Yes, I went in. I was afraid it might be shut. I asked as naturally as I could if they had the same kind of hat in white.

  ‘The lady said no, they had it in pale blue, in yellow, and in jade green. They had had it in white, but she’d sold it more than a month ago.’

  ‘What did you do?’ he asked, intrigued.

  ‘I took a deep breath and said, “That’s the one I saw a friend of mine wearing.”

  ‘I could see myself in the mirrors, because there are mirrors all around the shop, and my face was crimson.

  ‘“So you know the Countess Panetti?” she asked. She was so surprised, it wasn’t very flattering.

  ‘“I’ve met her. I’d really like to see her again, because I’ve got hold of a piece of information she asked me for and I’ve mislaid her address.”

  ‘“I suppose she’s still …”

  ‘She almost stopped. She didn’t completely trust me. But she didn’t dare not finish her sentence.

  ‘“I suppose she’s still at Claridge’s …”’

  Madame Maigret was looking at him, at once triumphant and sardonic, with an anxious quivering of the lips despite everything.

  ‘I hope you didn’t go to Claridge’s and question the doorman?’ he grunted, playing the game to the end.

  ‘No, I came straight home. Are you angry?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve already given you enough bother with this business. That’s why I wanted to help you. Now come and eat, because I hope you’re going to take time to have a bite before going over there.’

  This dinner reminded him of their first meals as a married couple, when she had been discovering Paris and was awestruck by all the little ready-made dishes available from the Italian shops. It was more a light supper than a dinner.

  ‘Do you think the information is good?’

  ‘Provid
ed you didn’t get the wrong hat.’

  ‘No, I’m certain of that. About the shoes, I wasn’t so confident.’

  ‘What’s all this about shoes?’

  ‘When you’re sitting on a park bench, you naturally have your neighbour’s shoes in front of your eyes. Once, when I was taking a closer look at them, I saw she was uncomfortable and tried to put her feet under the bench.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m going to explain, Maigret. Don’t look at me like that. It isn’t your fault if you don’t understand anything about women’s things. Suppose a woman used to the best dressmakers wants to look like an ordinary middle-class woman and not be noticed? She buys a ready-made suit, which is easy. She can also buy herself a hat which isn’t a particularly luxurious one, although I’m not so sure about the hat.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean she already had it, but thought it was similar enough to all the other white hats young women are wearing this season. She can take off her jewellery, that’s no problem. But there’s one thing she’ll find it hard to get used to: ready-made shoes. When you get your shoes from top bootmakers, it makes your feet delicate. You’ve heard me moaning often enough to know that women naturally have sensitive feet. Which means she keeps her shoes, thinking they won’t be noticed. That’s a mistake, because I, for one, always look at the shoes first. Usually, it’s the opposite that happens: you see pretty, well-dressed women, in expensive dresses or fur coats, wearing cheap shoes.’

  ‘So you’re saying she had expensive shoes?’

  ‘Made to measure shoes, definitely. I don’t know enough about the subject to know what bootmaker they came from. Other women would certainly be able to tell you.’

  After eating, he took the time to pour himself a glass of sloe gin and smoke almost a whole pipe.

  ‘Are you going to Claridge’s? You won’t be back too late, will you?’