Madame Maigret's Friend

by Georges Simenon

  7.

  Maigret’s Sunday

  Madame Maigret was somewhat surprised when her husband phoned her at about three o’clock on Saturday afternoon to ask if dinner was already cooking.

  ‘Not yet. Why? … What’s that? I’d love to, obviously. If you’re sure you’ll be free … Absolutely sure? … All right, then. I’ll get dressed. I’ll be there … By the clock, yes. No, no choucroute for me, but I’ll happily eat a pork hotpot … What? You aren’t joking, are you, Maigret? You are serious? Wherever I like? It’s too good to be true, I bet an hour from now you’re going to call me back and tell me you won’t be back to eat or to sleep. Well, I’m getting ready anyway!’

  So that Saturday, instead of cooking smells, the apartment on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir smelled of warm bathwater, eau de Cologne and the slightly sweet perfume that Madame Maigret kept reserved for special occasions.

  Maigret was almost on time – just five minutes late, in fact – at the Alsatian restaurant in Rue d’Enghien where they sometimes had dinner and where, relaxed, apparently thinking the same thoughts as other men, he now ate a choucroute cooked just the way he liked it.

  ‘Have you chosen the cinema?’

  That was what had made Madame Maigret so incredulous on the phone earlier: he had invited her to spend the evening in whichever cinema she liked.

  They went to the Paramount on Boulevard des Italiens and Maigret queued for tickets without grumbling, emptying his pipe into an enormous spittoon as they went in.

  They heard the electric organ, and then the orchestra rose from ground level on a platform, while a curtain was transformed into a kind of synthetic sunset. It was only after the cartoons that Madame Maigret understood. The trailers had been and gone, followed by commercials for a sugary cereal and furniture on the instalment plan.

  We are informed by the Prefecture of Police …

  It was the first time she had seen those words on a screen. Immediately afterwards, a full-face mugshot appeared, then another in profile. It was Alfred Moss. A list of his various identities was also shown.

  Anyone who has seen this man in the past two months is asked to immediately telephone …

  ‘Was that why?’ she said once they were out in the street, walking part of the way home in order to get some air.

  ‘Not just because of that. Actually, it wasn’t my idea. It was suggested to the Prefecture a long time ago, but this is the first time it’s been done. It was Moers who pointed out that photographs published in the newspapers never look right, because of the grain, or the ink used. But if you show them on a cinema screen the fact that everything’s enlarged makes more of an impression.’

  ‘Well, whether it was for that or another reason, I really enjoyed myself. When was the last time we did it?’

  ‘Three weeks ago?’ he said, in all sincerity.

  ‘Exactly two and a half months ago!’

  They argued a little, just for fun. And the following morning, because of the sun, which was again bright and springlike, Maigret sang in his bath. He walked all the way to the Quai des Orfèvres, along almost deserted streets, and it was always a pleasure to find all the doors open in the wide corridors of the Police Judiciaire and most of the offices unoccupied.

  Lucas had only just arrived. Torrence was there too, as was Janvier. Young Lapointe soon appeared. Because it was a Sunday, it felt as if they were working for the love of it. And maybe that was why they left the doors open between their offices. From time to time, by way of music, the bells of the nearby churches pealed out.

  Lapointe was the only one who had brought in any new information. The previous day, before leaving, Maigret had asked him, ‘By the way, that young reporter who’s seeing your sister, where does he live?’

  ‘You mean Antoine Bizard. He isn’t seeing her anymore.’

  ‘Have they quarrelled?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s afraid of me.’

  ‘I’d like his address.’

  ‘I don’t know it. I know where he usually eats. I don’t think my sister knows more than that. I’ll find out from the newspaper.’

  This morning, on arriving, he handed Maigret a piece of paper. It was the address he had asked for: a building in Rue de Provence, the same one where Philippe Liotard lived.

  ‘That’s good, son, thank you,’ Maigret simply said, without making any further comment.

  If it had been a little warmer, he would have taken off his jacket and remained in his shirt-sleeves, like people who tinker on Sundays – because tinkering was precisely what he intended to do. All his pipes were laid out on his desk, and he took from his pocket the big black notebook he always filled with notes but almost never consulted.

  Two or three times, he threw the large sheets he had scribbled on into the waste-paper basket. He had started by drawing columns, then changed his mind.

  But in the end, his work began to take shape.

  Thursday, 15 February. The Countess Panetti leaves Claridge’s with her maid, Gloria Lotti, in her son-in-law Krynker’s chocolate-brown Chrysler.

  The date had been confirmed by the day porter. As for the car, the information had been provided by one of the hotel’s valets, who had also indicated the time of departure as seven in the evening. He had added that the old woman seemed anxious and that her son-in-law was in a hurry, as if they were going to miss a train or an important appointment.

  There was still no trace of the countess. He went and made sure of that in the next office, where Lucas was still receiving reports from all over.

  Although the Italian reporters the previous day hadn’t got much from the Police Judiciaire, they had supplied some information themselves. They both knew of the Countess Panetti. The wedding of her only daughter, Bella, had caused something of a stir in Italy, because her mother hadn’t given her consent and the girl had run away from home and got married in Monte Carlo.

  That was five years ago, and since then the two women had not seen each other.

  ‘Krynker must have been in Paris to attempt another reconciliation,’ the Italian reporters had said.

  Friday, 16 February. Gloria Lotti, wearing the countess’s white hat, goes to Concarneau. From there, she sends a telegram to Fernande Steuvels. She returns to Paris the same night without having seen anyone.

  In the margin, he amused himself drawing a woman’s hat with a little veil.

  Saturday, 17 February. At midday, Fernande leaves Rue de Turenne to travel to Concarneau. Her husband doesn’t go with her to the station. At about four o’clock, a customer comes to collect some work he has ordered, and finds Frans Steuvels in his workshop, where everything seems perfectly normal. Questioned about the suitcase, the customer doesn’t recall seeing it.

  At a few minutes after eight o’clock, three people, including Alfred Moss, and probably also the man who will later register in Rue Lepic under the name Levine are driven by taxi from Gare Saint-Lazare to the corner of Rue de Turenne and Rue des Francs-Bourgeois.

  Just before nine o’clock, the concierge hears someone knocking at Steuvels’ door. She has the impression the three men went in.

  In the margin, in red pencil, he wrote: Is the third man Krynker?

  Sunday, 18 February. The stove, which hasn’t been lit lately, has been on all night, and Frans Steuvels has to make at least five trips to the yard to carry ashes to the dustbins.

  Mademoiselle Béguin, who lives on the fourth floor, is disturbed by the smoke ‘which had a stran
ge smell’.

  Monday, 19 February. The stove is still on. The bookbinder is alone at home all day.

  Tuesday, 20 February. The Police Judiciaire receive an anonymous tip-off about a body having been burnt in the bookbinder’s stove. Fernande returns from Concarneau.

  Wednesday, 21 February. Lapointe pays a visit to Rue de Turenne. Under a table in the workshop, he sees a suitcase with a handle that has been repaired with string. Lapointe leaves the workshop about midday. He has lunch with his sister and tells her about the case. Does Mademoiselle Lapointe meet her boyfriend, Antoine Bizard, who lives in the same building as Liotard, a lawyer who doesn’t have any cases? Or does she phone him?

  Before five in the afternoon, Liotard goes to Rue de Turenne on the pretext of ordering an ex-libris.

  By the time Lucas carries out his search at five o’clock, the suitcase has disappeared. Interrogation of Steuvels at the Police Judiciaire. Towards the end of the night, he appoints Maître Liotard as his lawyer.

  Maigret went for a little walk and glanced at the notes the inspectors were taking while speaking on the phone. It wasn’t time yet to have beer sent up, and he made do with filling another pipe.

  Thursday, 22 February.

  Friday, 23 February.

  Saturday …

  A whole column of dates, with nothing opposite, except that the investigation was getting nowhere, the newspapers were on the offensive, and Liotard, as angry as a mutt, was attacking the police in general and Maigret in particular. The right-hand column remained empty until:

  Sunday, 10 March. A man named Levine takes a room at the Hôtel Beauséjour in Rue Lepic, and settles in with a young boy of about two.

  Gloria Lotti, who passes for his nurse, looks after the child, taking him to Square d’Anvers every morning for a bit of air while Levine sleeps.

  She does not sleep at the hotel, which she leaves late at night when Levine gets back.

  Monday, 11 March. Ditto.

  Tuesday, 12 March. At 9.30, Gloria and the boy leave the Hôtel Beauséjour as usual. At 9.45, Moss turns up at the hotel and asks for Levine. Levine immediately packs his bags and takes them downstairs while Moss remains alone in the room.

  10.55: Gloria spots Levine and hurriedly leaves the boy in the care of Madame Maigret.

  Soon after 11, Gloria and Levine get back to the Beauséjour. They find Moss there and the three of them argue for more than an hour. Moss is the first to leave. At 12.45, Gloria and Levine leave the hotel, and Gloria gets into a taxi on her own.

  She returns to Square d’Anvers and collects the child.

  She is driven to Porte de Neuilly, then asks to be taken to Gare Saint-Lazare. On Place Saint-Augustin, she suddenly stops the taxi and gets into another one. She gets out of this one, still with the boy, at the corner of Faubourg Montmartre and the Grands Boulevards.

  The page was quite picturesque, because Maigret had decorated it with what looked like children’s drawings.

  On another sheet, he noted down the dates on which they had lost track of the various individuals involved.

  Countess Panetti: 16 February.

  The valet from Claridge’s had been the last to see her, when she had got into her son-in-law’s chocolate-brown Chrysler.

  Krynker?

  Maigret hesitated to put the date of 17 February, because there was no evidence that he was the third man dropped by the taxi at the corner of Rue de Turenne.

  If it wasn’t him, then he had been lost sight of at the same time as the old woman.

  Alfred Moss: Tuesday, 12 March.

  He had been the first to leave the Hôtel Beauséjour, at about midday.

  Levine: Tuesday, 12 March.

  Half an hour after Moss, as he was putting Gloria in the taxi.

  Gloria and the boy: Same date.

  Two hours later, in the crowd at the Carrefour Montmartre.

  It was now Sunday, 17 March. Since the 12th, there had again been nothing new to report. Just the investigation.

  Or rather, there was one date still to be noted down, which he added to the column:

  Friday, 15 March. Someone in the Métro tries (?) to put poison in the food prepared for Frans Steuvels.

  But that remained doubtful. The experts hadn’t discovered any trace of poison. Given the nervous state Fernande had been in lately, she might well have misinterpreted what had simply been a passenger’s clumsiness.

  In any case, it couldn’t have been Moss, because she would have recognized him.

  Levine?

  What if they hadn’t been trying to put poison in the pan but leave a message there?

  Maigret blinked because a ray of sunlight had struck his face, made a few more little drawings, then went to the window and looked out at a line of boats passing on the Seine and families in their Sunday best crossing the Pont Saint-Michel.

  Madame Maigret must have gone back to bed, as she sometimes did on Sundays, but only to give a little more of a Sunday feeling, because she was incapable of falling asleep again.

  ‘Janvier! How about ordering some beer?’

  Janvier phoned the Brasserie Dauphine, whose owner naturally asked, ‘What about sandwiches?’

  Maigret made a tentative phone call and discovered that the scrupulous Judge Dossin was also at his desk, no doubt hoping, like him, to take stock of the case with a clear head.

  ‘Still nothing on the car?’

  It was funny to think that, on this beautiful Sunday that smelled of spring, conscientious gendarmes were looking at the cars parked outside village churches and cafés, in search of a chocolate-brown Chrysler.

  ‘Can I have a look, chief?’ asked Lucas, who had dropped into Maigret’s office between two telephone calls. He gave Maigret’s work a careful once-over and shook his head. ‘Why didn’t you ask me? I drew up the same chart, only more detailed.’

  ‘But without the drawings!’ Maigret joked. ‘What are we getting more calls about? The car or Moss?’

  ‘The car, for the moment. Lots of brown cars. Unfortunately, when I insist, it turns out they’re not exactly chocolate, more maroon, or else they’re Citroëns or Peugeots. We check them anyway. We’ve started getting calls from the suburbs, and they’re coming in from even further away, a hundred kilometres from Paris.’

  Soon, thanks to the radio, the whole of France would join in. All they could do was wait, and it wasn’t so unpleasant. The waiter from the brasserie brought a huge tray covered in beers and piles of sandwiches, and there was a good chance he would make more journeys today.

  They were eating and drinking and had just opened the windows, because the sun was warm, when they saw Moers come in, blinking in the light, as if emerging from a dark place.

  They hadn’t known he was in the house. Theoretically, he had nothing to do here today. But he had come from upstairs, where he must have been alone in the labs.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘A glass of beer? There’s one left.’

  ‘No, thanks. I was just going to sleep last night when an idea started niggling at me. We were so sure the blue suit belonged to Steuvels that we only examined it from the point of view of the bloodstains. As it’s still upstairs, I came here this morning to analyse the dust particles.’

  It was the routine thing to do, but the fact was that nobody had thought of it in the present case. Moers had placed each item of clothing in a strong paper bag which he had then beaten for a long t
ime to get even the smallest particles of dust out of the fabric.

  ‘Did you find anything?’

  ‘Large quantities of very fine sawdust. Actually, more like wood powder.’

  ‘Like in a sawmill?’

  ‘No. The particles would be less fine, less pervasive. This powder’s produced by some kind of precision work.’

  ‘Cabinet making, for instance?’

  ‘Perhaps. I’m not sure. It’s even finer than that, in my opinion, but before I come to a conclusion, I’d like to talk to the head of the lab tomorrow.’

  Without waiting for the end, Janvier had grabbed a telephone directory and was studying all the addresses in Rue de Turenne.

  The most varied trades were represented, some quite unexpected, but, as luck would have it, they almost all had something to do with metals or cardboard.

  ‘I just thought I’d come and let you know. I don’t know if it’s of any use.’

  Neither did Maigret. In a case like this, you could never predict what might be useful. But it did tend to support Frans Steuvels, who had always denied being the owner of the blue suit.

  But why, then, did he have a blue coat, which didn’t really match a brown suit?

  The telephone! Sometimes, six phones were ringing at the same time, and the switchboard operator didn’t know where to turn, because there weren’t enough people available to take the calls.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Lagny.’

  Maigret had been there once. It was a little town on the banks of the Marne, with lots of anglers and varnished canoes. He couldn’t remember what case had taken him there, but it had been summer and he had drunk a nice little white wine, the memory of which lingered.

  Lucas was taking notes, all the while signalling to Maigret that it sounded genuine.

  ‘We may have something,’ he said with a sigh as he hung up. ‘That was the gendarmerie from Lagny on the phone. For a month now, they’ve been in a tizzy about a car that fell into the Marne.’