Maigret Enjoys Himself

by Georges Simenon

Such as this dinner by the Marne. When he had gone to Rue Picpus to pick up Pardon, the doctor had simply said:

  ‘Jave has returned home.’

  ‘And Négrel?’ Maigret had asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  It was odd getting the information from a man like Pardon, who was not part of the force. They hadn’t discussed it again during the meal. Now that the men had been served with calvados and the women with a liqueur, the latter did as they always did after dinner in Rue Picpus: they pulled their chairs together and started chatting in low voices.

  The air was mild, humid, and there was a fine mist lifting off the river.

  A couple in a canoe were drifting along on the current, playing tender love songs on a phonograph.

  ‘I had Deberlin on the phone earlier,’ Pardon was saying. ‘It turns out he knew Philippe Jave quite well. They did their training at the same time and socialized together until quite recently.’

  ‘What did he have to say?’

  ‘It seems that Jave comes from a fairly modest background in Poitiers. His father was a bank clerk and his mother a teacher. His father died when he was young, and it was his mother who brought him up. It was only because of scholarships that he was able to complete his studies, and student life can’t have been that easy for him.

  ‘According to Deberlin, Jave is a plodder – bright, reserved and strong-willed. Everyone expected him to specialize in cardiology, his passion, perhaps because he saw his father die of angina.

  ‘Instead, he set himself up in a rather down-at-heel prac­tice in Issy-les-Moulineaux and led the exhausting exist­ence of most suburban doctors, working fourteen or fifteen hours a day.

  ‘He was thirty-eight or thirty-nine when he went on holiday to Beuzec, near Concarneau, where he met Éveline.’

  ‘The Le Guérec girl?’

  ‘Yes. They seem to have fallen in love, and he married her. Deberlin often visited their home in Boulevard Haussmann, where they moved almost straight after the wedding. Deberlin had the impression they were a close couple.

  ‘Éveline is pretty enough, but she doesn’t exactly turn heads in the street. She had a rather joyless childhood growing up in the house of her father, who was a widower. She was shy and self-effacing, and had what Deberlin calls a feeble smile.

  ‘Deberlin had the impression that she had health problems, but he didn’t know the details, as Jave was a discreet sort of fellow.

  ‘That’s more or less all I found out, except that the Javes seemed besotted with their little girl.

  ‘They didn’t go out much, and received visitors about once a week. Deberlin is just about the only one of Philippe’s old friends who kept in touch with them.’

  ‘How did you find out that he had returned home?’

  ‘Simple. It was on the radio.’

  Maigret had a radio too but never thought of listening to it.

  ‘On the seven o’clock bulletin they announced that the inquiry was taking its course and that Doctor Jave had returned to Boulevard Haussmann in a state of dejection.’

  There they were, on the terrace of a suburban bistro, watching the lights reflecting off the Marne, sipping a vintage calvados. What was Janvier doing at that precise moment? Was he in his office at Quai des Orfèvres, gathering witness statements and waiting for news from his colleagues out and about in Paris or elsewhere? Not having time to have dinner, had he had some sandwiches and beers sent up from the Brasserie Dauphine, as was their tradition?

  Pardon must have seen the nostalgic expression pass over his face, because he asked:

  ‘Tempted?’

  Maigret looked him straight in the eye, thought for a moment, then said:

  ‘No.’

  It was true. The Boulevard Haussmann affair looked like it was turning into one of the trickiest and most demanding cases he had known. Firstly, because of the social milieu it had to be handled with kid gloves. It is always difficult to take on people of higher social status, because the slightest false move can lead to unfortunate consequences. Then this case was all about doctors. Certain professions tend to close ranks more than others, such as military officers, teachers, colonial officials or, however strange it may seem, post-office employees.

  Janvier, who was pursuing an official inquiry, must be finding it harder to get information about Jave and Négrel than Maigret himself, who had his friend Pardon to turn to.

  As well as that, poor Janvier had been landed with Coméliau, the most disagreeable examining magistrate to deal with. Coméliau was afraid of the press. Every art­icle on a case he was involved in gave him the shakes or else put him in a foul mood.

  ‘Above all, not a word to the reporters,’ he would invariably insist.

  Conversely, to avoid being criticized by the more impatient members of the press, he had a tendency to treat the first available suspect as the guilty party and not release him from custody.

  As many as fifty or a hundred times in his career, Maigret had stood up to him, sometimes at the risk of his own job.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Why don’t you arrest him?’ the little magistrate with the pointy moustache would bark.

  ‘I’m waiting for him to put the rope round his own neck.’

  ‘Or for him to escape over the border, maybe? Then the gutter press will have a field day ...’

  Janvier didn’t have Maigret’s patience, his stubbornness or his ability to let Coméliau’s rages wash over him. Maigret was convinced that it was because of Coméliau that Janvier had got on the wrong side of the papers from the start of the case, by refusing to give them even the most basic snippets of information.

  ‘Anything on Gilbert Négrel?’

  ‘Nothing more than I’ve already told you. He’s a loner. Apart from his work for Professor Lebier I haven’t heard much about him, and I know nothing whatsoever about his personal life. He can’t have any private wealth, as he hasn’t thought of setting up a practice. Unless he is working on his diploma and is aiming to go into teaching.’

  It would have been easy to ring Doctor Paul, the pathologist, who was a friend, to find out the results of the post-mortem. What did Éveline Jave die of? There was no mention in the papers of a revolver, a knife or strangulation. If she had had a fatal accident, there would have been no reason to literally fold her in half and push her into a cupboard.

  ‘Tell me, Pardon. How long after death is it possible to bend a body?’

  ‘That depends on the state of rigor mortis. And that, in turn, depends on a number of elements, including the ambient temperature. One hour in some cases, several hours in others.’

  That didn’t move him any further forward. On the other hand, he didn’t want to get immersed in the case. He had decided that he would follow it in the way newspaper readers throughout France were following it at that moment, and nothing more.

  He was just a member of the public, not a policeman. The only thing that was bothering him was the responsibility that was weighing on Janvier, who, for the first time, was bearing the whole of the Police Judiciaire on his shoulders, at the height of the holidays, when at least half the force was not available.

  ‘What we need to know above all is whether Jave was in Cannes at the time his wife died.’

  It was easy to check, and Janvier must have thought about it. Only, Maigret himself did not know the results of the inquiry.

  He didn’t find out the answer until the next morning, at about eight o’clock, when he went out to buy the papers. The Pardons had dropped them outside their door around midnight. A little later, as she was undressing, Madame Maigret had murmured:

  ‘Will you promise me that you won’t go into the office?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘You see, you’re already doing much better! After three days of rest you’re a new man. But if you threw all that away because of some dead woman ...’

  ‘I won’t throw it away.’

  She felt reassured when she saw him open the sideboard and take out t
he bottle of calvados.

  ‘A nightcap ...’ he murmured.

  He wasn’t drinking because he was on edge, or feeling low, or to give himself a lift. On the contrary, this evening it was because he felt relaxed. It was the last little treat of the day.

  Only, in the morning he didn’t stand by the window as his wife made the bed before going out to get the papers. He wasn’t breaking his word. He wasn’t involved in the case. He was following it, along with other readers, which is not the same thing at all.

  The headlines were even bigger than the day before. The most striking one said:

  THE DILEMMA OF THE TWO DOCTORS

  A rival paper had the more cautious:

  THE MYSTERY OF THE FOUR KEYS

  Admittedly, both amounted to the same thing in the end. It seemed that the police had loosened up somewhat, since there were pieces of information that could only have emanated from Quai des Orfèvres or from the office of the examining magistrate.

  Firstly, there was a very incomplete summary of the pathologist’s report.

  The post-mortem conducted by Doctor Paul has revealed that the bruise that we mentioned yesterday, on the victim’s right temple, is the result of a blow received a short time before the death, but that this blow was not sufficiently violent to have been the cause of death. It was not made by a blunt instrument. It may well have been the result of a fall on to the floor or a punch.

  Much more mysterious is the needle prick on Éveline Jave’s left thigh, as there is no doubt that it was caused by a hypodermic syringe.

  What substance was injected? We will know once the intestines and soft tissue have been examined by experts.

  The victim was not a drug addict and did not inject herself, otherwise older needle marks would have been evident on her body. Besides, her husband is adamant this was not the case ...

  Maigret was ensconced in the same spot as the day before, on Place de la République, and the sky was the same uniform blue, the air, soft and warm.

  Because of all the wine and calvados of the night before, he had ordered a coffee, and he slowly smoked his pipe as he read through the three columns of more or less sensational information.

  The most dramatic revelation was that Jave had left Cannes the previous Saturday and returned there on the Train Bleu on the Sunday morning.

  They didn’t give a full report of the doctor’s questioning. To Maigret, who was au fait with such matters and who knew how newspapers operated, it was clear that there had been some confusion.

  At first Jave seemed to be claiming he had driven to Monte Carlo on Saturday afternoon and spent the night at a casino in town.

  Unfortunately for him, his car was spotted by staff at Nice airport, parked there between midday on Saturday and ten o’clock on Sunday morning.

  So Janvier had done well. Maigret could imagine how many phone calls it had taken to reconstitute the chain of events.

  At 9.15 on Saturday Éveline Jave had arrived at the airport in a taxi and caught a flight to Paris.

  One hour later, her husband had arrived at the same airport in his car and inquired about flights. There were none available before midday.

  As luck would have it, a British Airways Viscount had been held up by an engine fault and was just about to fly to London. He had got on this and, from London, found an immediate connection to Paris, where he had arrived at two in the afternoon.

  The concierge at Boulevard Haussmann, however, was quite clear. She hadn’t seen him, any more than she had seen his wife.

  The concierge was a certain Madame Dubois, whom the reporter described as still young and good-looking, and who had a ten-year-old son. Her husband had walked out a few days after the child was born, and she had never heard from him again.

  She had also, it was said, spent two hours at Quai des Orfèvres and on leaving had refused to make any comment.

  The papers printed a photo of her, but it was impossible to make out her face, which she was covering with her right forearm.

  Maigret knew the buildings on Boulevard Haussmann, which were all built around the same time and were pretty much of a standard type. The concierges’ lodges are spacious, with a sort of reception room in front, and double glass doors allow a clear view of all the comings and goings.

  Madame Dubois had seen Josépha, the maid, arrive at eight o’clock in the morning. She had seen Doctor Négrel walk by at nine o’clock. She had then seen him come down again at 12.10, go back up at two o’clock and finally leave at 5.30.

  Strangely, she hadn’t seen either Doctor Jave or his wife.

  But she at least must have entered the building as she was found there dead.

  Still according to the newspaper, Jave, when put on the spot, had refused to account for his movements in Paris during Saturday afternoon and hidden behind professional confidentiality.

  He had been released. Doctor Négrel was let go too, according to the latest report, which must have had Coméliau wrestling with his conscience.

  On arrival at Orly airport at 11.15, Madame Jave had taken the Air France shuttle bus, which had dropped her at Boulevard des Capucines. The driver remembered her, because he had been struck by her very Côte d’Azur white tailored suit.

  The white suit had disappeared, as well as the matching shoes and the underwear.

  After Boulevard des Capucines, there was no further trace of the young woman’s movements until the locksmith had opened the cupboard at nine o’clock on Monday morning in the presence of Josépha and Négrel.

  The question of the keys in fact complicated the issue. Still according to the papers, there were four keys in existence, which opened both the door to the residential apartment and that of the doctor’s surgery. Josépha had one of these keys; Doctor Négrel held another for the duration of his cover; Jave had the third; and the fourth was entrusted to the concierge.

  Éveline Jave herself was not in possession of her key to Boulevard Haussmann.

  That meant that someone must have opened the door to her. Unless, of course, the concierge had lied and had given her her own key.

  If only Doctor Paul could have been more precise about the time of death! His report said: ‘Saturday between four in the afternoon and six in the evening.’

  At four o’clock Négrel was still at Boulevard Haussmann, as was Josépha.

  Négrel had left at 5.30, Josépha around six, as she had nothing to do and was going to have dinner with her daughter.

  As for Jave, he had been in Paris since two o’clock in the afternoon, but had taken the night train from Gare de Lyon at 7.55.

  The paper published a photo of Josépha caught off guard as she left her daughter’s apartment on Rue Washington. She was a tall, lean woman, with somewhat masculine features. The reporter hinted that the daughter, Antoin­ette, who was twenty-nine, had been involved in some rather dubious activities.

  Mother and daughter, however, seemed to get on very well. Josépha had her own room on the sixth floor of Boulevard Haussmann, along with the other servants in the block, but as often as she could she stayed overnight at her daughter’s, where she had a bed at her disposal. She did so on Saturday evening, and again on Sunday.

  When the photographer had snapped her she hadn’t hidden her face, like the concierge, but had stared at the camera with a look of defiance.

  The nurse remained shut away with the child in the Villa Marie-Thérèse in Cannes, and the reporters had had no joy ringing the doorbell.

  One final piece of news at the foot of the third column: Yves Le Guérec, Éveline Jave’s brother, who ran the cannery in Concarneau, had arrived in Paris and was staying at the Hôtel Scribe.

  Maigret finished his coffee, wondered whether he wanted anything else, folded up his papers and started walking around the square.

  In general, a criminal case tends to have similarities with one or more previous cases, as the reasons for killing someone, along with the methods of committing murder, are limited.

  But Maigret scoure
d his memory in vain for a case like this. He had come across four or five doctors who were criminals. One of them, a doctor in Toulouse, fifteen years previously, had killed one of his patients by administering a lethal dose of a toxic drug. It was only discovered by chance three years later that he owed this lady a great deal of money and this was the only way he could find to free himself of his debt.

  Another, around the same time in the Massif Central, had used a hypodermic syringe to inject a substance different from the one he had prescribed. He had claimed afterwards that it had been an unintentional mistake and was given the benefit of the doubt, since it is not implausible that, after a stressful day of doing rounds, he could have used the wrong phial, especially as it was fairly dark in the sick person’s room.

  As far as could be ascertained to date, Éveline Jave appeared to have been killed in the same way.

  What was different from these earlier cases was that, in this instance, there was not just one doctor involved, but two.

  Did her husband have a motive to do away with her? She was rich. It was thanks to his marriage that he was able to escape the suburb, where he had led a tough and joyless life, to become a society doctor in the capital.

  Was he having an affair? Was he planning to set up with someone else? Or had his wife discovered some infidelity and threatened him with divorce?

  Anything was possible.

  Even a tale of jealousy. No one knew the circumstances that had led Éveline to leave Cannes on Saturday morning. What had she said to her husband? Were they in agreement about her trip? And, if yes, did Jave suspect that she had a reason different from the one she had given for her journey?

  One thing was certain: he had followed her as quickly as he could and had got to Paris a short time after her.

  Was Éveline Jave the mistress of young Négrel? Had she been for a while? Was it she who had suggested taking him on as a locum during their holiday?

  Négrel might also have had a motive for getting rid of her. For example, if he had other marriage plans, and if she, for her part, was insisting on leaving her husband in order to marry him.

  Or else ...