Maigret Enjoys Himself

by Georges Simenon

  He was coming up with these plans without really believing in them, just for the fun of it. This was all for Janvier to sort out, and Maigret was enjoying a foretaste of what retirement would be like.

  The thought cast a shadow. He could accept being at a loose end, being a member of the general public for a few days at a time, three weeks at most.

  But how would it be to play this role for the rest of his days?

  As they were walking towards the square in front of the Sacré-Cœur he suddenly gripped his wife’s arm, and she realized that he was moved, and he even thought she understood why, but she didn’t say anything.

  4. Where Was Josépha?

  He hadn’t phoned Pardon that evening as he said he would when they were in Place du Tertre. In truth, he hadn’t even thought about it.

  It must have been around five o’clock when he and his wife turned the corner of Faubourg-Montmartre and the Grands Boulevards. The sun was beating down on the pavement, which, due to the lack of pedestrians, seemed much wider than usual. Between a dressmaker’s display window and a cutler’s shop he had spotted the gloomy entrance to a sort of tunnel and heard the tinny sound of a bell like the ones they used to use in cinemas.

  In fact, it was the entrance to a small cinema, one he didn’t recall ever seeing before. They were showing early Charlie Chaplin films, and Maigret stopped and hesitated for a moment.

  ‘Do you want to?’ he suggested to his wife.

  She looked a bit suspiciously at the dark plush curtain behind the ticket kiosk and at the greyish walls of the corridor.

  ‘Do you think it’s clean?’

  In the end they decided to go in. When they came out later the glorious August sun had disappeared, replaced all along the Boulevards by a double garland of lights and neon signs. They hadn’t realized that it was the day they changed the programme and they had, in fact, sat through two separate screenings.

  It was too late to go home for dinner.

  ‘We’ll grab a bite round here somewhere.’

  Madame Maigret had remarked:

  ‘If we go on like this I will forget how to cook.’

  They went to Place des Victoires, to a restaurant whose quiet terrace appealed to them. Then they returned home on foot, and by the end Madame Maigret was tottering on her heels. They hadn’t walked so much together in years.

  They went to sleep with the window open, and almost immediately it was a new day, and a sun brighter than the one they had left behind in Boulevard Montmartre, a cool feel to the air and the familiar sounds of the morning.

  They had no particular plan for the day, and over breakfast Madame Maigret asked:

  ‘Should I do some shopping?’

  What was the point? Shopping meant having to prepare a meal, which meant they would have to be home at a predetermined hour.

  ‘We can eat here all year round.’

  ‘Except when you don’t come back.’

  It was true that, if you added up the days when a case obliged him to take his meals in town, there weren’t so many left when they could eat together in the apartment.

  All the more reason why it would be fun to have lunch or dinner out with her.

  No shopping! No ties! A first pipe at the window, watching the puppet movements of the little man from Catoire et Potut. In the bistro opposite, the landlord in shirt-sleeves, reading the newspaper he had spread out on his zinc bar.

  Maigret could have had his papers brought up each morning by the concierge, but that would have taken away the pleasure of going to fetch them himself.

  Eventually he got dressed, while his wife was taking care of the housework.

  ‘I’ll come and fetch you a bit later. I’m not sure yet where we’ll be going.’

  ‘Today, in any case, I’ll be wearing flat-soled shoes.’

  New habits were being formed. He bought his papers at the same kiosk, waited until he had sat down on his terrace in Place de la République before opening them, and the waiter already knew what to serve him.

  CRIME OR ACCIDENT?

  The professor of toxicology who had conducted the examin­ation of the intestines had submitted his report. For one reason or another, Quai des Orfèvres was being less parsimonious with information than it had been at the beginning, and the papers offered a summary of the report.

  A significant quantity of digitalin had been discovered in Éveline Jave’s body.

  We questioned Professor Loireau about this, and he provided us with some interesting information.

  Digitalin is a drug frequently employed to slow down the heart. The dose administered to Madame Jave was not large and would normally have had no fatal consequences.

  What is disturbing here is that this drug should be administered at all, since it is firmly contraindicated for someone with her medical condition.

  Ever since her childhood Éveline Jave has had a slow heartbeat. If she had an attack, Professor Loireau informed us, she would need a stimulant for the cardiac muscle such as camphor, the one most commonly used, or Pressyl, which is currently fashionable.

  Digitalin, on the other hand, would almost certainly be fatal for her, because instead of alleviating the effects of a slow pulse it would enhance them.

  Did Madame Jave have an attack on her return to Boulevard Haussmann? Did she acquire the bruise on her temple through falling while in the grip of this attack?

  Did the doctor who was on the scene – and we don’t know yet which one it was – in his panic get confused over which phial to use and inject her with digitalin instead of camphor or Pressyl?

  Or alternatively, fully intending to kill her, did he deliberately use a substance that he knew would have deleterious effects on the sick woman?

  Maigret sat for a few minutes watching people pass by in front of the terrace, then asked for a token and ensconced himself in a telephone booth.

  ‘Hello! Pardon?’

  The doctor had already recognized his voice.

  ‘Am I disturbing you?’

  ‘I was just about to set off on my rounds, but I can spare you a couple of minutes.’

  ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘I’m sure hundreds of doctors all over Paris have been avidly reading the news.’

  ‘What are your thoughts?’

  ‘The article is not scientifically rigorous, but it is broadly accurate.’

  ‘Could it have been an accident?’

  ‘At a push, yes. I’ve just been looking into it. Certain injectable substances are contained in characteristic phials, which make it virtually impossible to make a mistake.’

  ‘Characteristic in what way?’

  ‘There are phials that have just one end tapering, others with both. And some have the name of the contents on them. Some are even coloured.’

  ‘And in the present case?’

  ‘Camphor, which is sold by several laboratories, comes in differently shaped phials, some with one point, some with two. Pressyl is more easily recognizable. I’ve just dug out an phial of digitalin from my cabinet and compared it with an phial of camphor.’

  ‘Do they look similar?’

  ‘Enough that a man in a hurry and in an anxious state could mix them up.’

  ‘And what is your opinion?’

  ‘I don’t have one. I have simply found out that Jave called Doctor Mérou yesterday evening. He’s a cardiologist. I don’t know whether Jave suffers from heart problems himself, or whether he wanted to consult Mérou about what had happened to his wife.’

  ‘Do you know Mérou?’

  ‘We’re friends, but he won’t say anything on the subject, and it would be indelicate on my part to ask him about it.’

  ‘Have you discovered anything else about Doctor Jave?’

  There was a silence at the other end of the line. Doctors stick together, in spite of everything.

  ‘You’ve kept away from Quai des Orfèvres?’

  ‘Thank God, yes.’

  ‘It’s just a rumour doing the rounds in
the medical world. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you we’re all in a bit of a turmoil, trying to make sense of this. Someone told me yesterday that, for all his glitzy façade, Jave is in debt and has had his back to the wall for several months now.’

  ‘What about his wife’s money?’

  ‘That’s all I know. Don’t tell this to the police – they’ll find out themselves soon enough. I don’t want this to come from me.’

  ‘One last question on the phials. You’ve held both phials in your hand and you have a doctor’s instincts. Could you have mixed them up?’

  He could sense his unseen interlocutor hesitating for a moment. Pardon finally replied, weighing his words carefully:

  ‘If it was my wife, maybe. It’s easy to get into a state when it concerns you or your loved ones.’

  ‘Or your mistress?’

  Pardon gave a little laugh.

  ‘I haven’t had a mistress since I was training.’

  Maigret returned to the terrace and sucked dreamily on his pipe. It was almost time for his first beer of the day, and he followed the hands of the electric clock with his eyes.

  ‘Another token,’ he finally asked the waiter.

  In the booth, he rang the newspaper that Lassagne worked for. There was a good chance that the redheaded reporter would be writing up his article around now.

  ‘Monsieur Lassagne, please, mademoiselle.’

  ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘Tell him I have some information on the Jave affair.’

  The newspaper must receive dozens of calls of that nature, most of them from madmen and cranks, but at the Police Judiciaire they listened to them patiently, because every now and then they gave an interesting lead.

  ‘Hello ... Who am I speaking to?’

  Lassagne spluttered as he talked.

  ‘That’s not important, Monsieur Lassagne. I don’t have any information as such, I just wanted to point out something you have missed in your articles.’

  He was disguising his voice, more or less successfully.

  ‘I don’t have a lot of time. Quickly, tell me what I’ve missed.’

  ‘Where was Josépha on Saturday afternoon?’

  The reporter replied curtly:

  ‘In the apartment.’

  He was about to hang up, but the inspector was quick off the mark.

  ‘Which apartment? That’s what I’m trying to say. Listen for a moment. Apart from the nurse the Javes had just two servants. That’s not many for an apartment the size of theirs, by which I mean their living quarters. On the other hand, in the apartment opposite, once the cleaning was done, there was nobody, except maybe someone to open the door to patients.’

  Lassagne didn’t hang up; Maigret could hear him breathing.

  ‘I think I understand.’

  ‘Where would Josépha have been during surgery hours? In the doctor’s apartment? In the waiting room? In the bedroom? In the bathroom? Would she have stayed there doing nothing while there was work to be done in the apartment opposite? I’m sure that the bell on the doctor’s door must be wired up to the other apartment.’

  ‘Won’t you tell me who you are?’

  ‘My name is of no importance.’

  ‘Thank you. I will look into it.’

  Maigret felt slightly ridiculous playing the role of a crank ringing up the newspapers, but it was the only means he had of getting hold of some information of interest to him.

  It was likely Janvier knew the answer already. But he couldn’t ring Janvier. For a moment he thought of contacting Lapointe and swearing him to secrecy about his still being in Paris. Did he decide not to simply because it would have been too easy?

  It was an important question. It was obviously possible that Josépha had been lying all along and that she had seen Madame Jave or her husband come in or go out. But it was also possible that she was in the other apartment and knew nothing of what was going on on the other side of the landing.

  Éveline Jave had no key, of course. But was Négrel expecting her? Hadn’t she been able to ring him from Orly, or even before taking off in Nice?

  That left the concierge. Had the concierge lied? The living room of her lodge was separated from the kitchen and the bedroom by a thick curtain, as is the case in many apartment blocks. Had she perhaps been busy behind the curtain when Éveline Jave had arrived?

  He ordered his beer and drank it slowly. He continued to mull over the case, but dispassionately, with a sort of detachment. He could imagine the frenzy going on at Quai des Orfèvres, the impatient phone calls from Coméliau, who always thought that the police weren’t working quickly enough.

  Janvier would know, from the inspector on guard at Boulevard Haussmann, that Jave had had recourse to Doctor Mérou. He would also know, from the officers of the Flying Squad who had questioned the nurse in Cannes, under what circumstances Éveline Jave, and then her husband, had left the Villa Marie-Thérèse.

  There had been no mention of the nurse coming to Paris, or the child, and it was understandable that they would want to keep both of them well out of it.

  He fancied a walk and headed down to the riverside, staying as far away from the Préfecture as possible. At Saint-Germain-des-Prés he proceeded with caution and at the corner of Rue des Saints-Pères he had to stop, as young Lapointe was standing smoking a cigarette on the pavement just a hundred metres away.

  That made him smile, but also gave him a small pang. From a distance he had a look at the building that corresponded to the description in the newspaper.

  ‘Taxi!’

  He went back home. This wasn’t any of his business. He was on holiday, and Pardon had insisted that it should be a real holiday.

  ‘Have you decided what we’ll do today?’

  Not yet.

  ‘Have you thought of anything?’

  She hadn’t, and they looked at each other, seriously at first, but then they started smiling and finally burst out laughing at the same time.

  After five days of holiday, having promised themselves so many hitherto unknown pleasures, they had already reached the point where they didn’t know what to do with themselves.

  ‘Where can we go for lunch? You didn’t want me to do any shopping. I can always buy some cold meats.’

  He hesitated, then nodded his head. The apartment had never seemed so quiet. With its rustic furniture it brought to mind a house in a small provincial town; outside the shutters, half closed against the sun, there was a soft semi-shade.

  ‘Off you go, then!’

  He called out to her when she was already outside on the landing:

  ‘Bring me a lobster tail.’

  His favourite dish back when they had no money and lingered outside the windows of delicatessens.

  He poured himself an aperitif, sat down in an armchair, unknotted his tie and smoked a pipe, musing. The heat was weighing down on him; his eyelids were twitching. He thought he could hear the voice of the young woman in Place du Tertre who was so determined to turn the Boulevard Haussmann affair into a love story.

  He wasn’t so sure any more. Jave was in debt. How had he got there? Was he a gambler? Did he speculate on the stock market? Because his household was not living beyond its means, given the clientele his practice had and his wife’s income.

  Was he keeping a second household?

  Gilbert Négrel had a fiancée who was also no doubt his mistress, since she came to see him in his bachelor’s apartment.

  What role did Éveline play between these two men? Why did Maigret get the feeling that she had been frustrated by both of them?

  It was nothing but an intuition. He pictured her photo again: the skinny thighs, the hesitant look, which seemed to solicit indulgence or sympathy.

  When he was a boy in Paray-le-Frésil he used to pity rabbits because he thought that nature had designed them to serve as food for more powerful animals.

  Éveline reminded him of the rabbits. She had no defences. When she wandered the beach at Beuzec
as a young woman she would have fallen into the arms of any man who showed her the slightest scrap of consideration or tenderness.

  Jave had married her. She had had a child by him.

  Had Négrel, as the young lover from the day before had made out, come into her life?

  He finished his drink, put his pipe back between his teeth, and, when Madame Maigret got back a little later, that pipe was dangling down his chin: he had fallen asleep.

  They had a real snack lunch, just like when they were young and they still lived in furnished lodgings where they weren’t allowed to cook. Madame Maigret, however, was keeping a careful eye on him.

  ‘I wonder if you’d be better off phoning Janvier.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Not to get involved in the case, but so that he can keep you up to date. At times I get the feeling you’re fretting. You’re not used to not knowing, to having to wait until the papers come out.’

  He was tempted. It was an easy option. But Janvier would surely ask his advice. And as sure as night follows day he would end up back in his office at Quai des Orfèvres, directing the whole police operation.

  ‘No!’ he decided.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t do that to Janvier.’

  That was also true. This was Janvier’s chance to solve a sensational case all on his own. He was probably terrified, but at the same time these were the best days of his career.

  ‘Are you having a nap?’

  He said no again, as the afternoon papers were about to appear, and he was in a hurry to know whether Lassagne had found the answer to his question.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he announced.

  He waited patiently while she washed the dishes and was even on the point of helping her.

  ‘Are we going far?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Don’t you think there’s going to be a storm?’

  ‘If it starts raining we’ll duck into a café.’

  They ambled gently as far as Canal Saint-Martin, where he had often been on an investigation but where he had never come with his wife. A few large white clouds had scudded across the sky, and, to the east, there was one that was heavier than all the others, greyer in the centre, reminiscent of a boil about to burst. The air was hot and still.