Maigret's Doubts

by Georges Simenon

  He opened his overcoat, his waistcoat, pulled his wallet from his inside pocket and took out a folded paper of the kind in which some chemists still put headache powders.

  The paper did contain powder, a powder of a dirty white colour.

  ‘I will leave you this specimen, which you can send for analysis. Before coming to you, I asked for it to be analysed by a salesman at the Louvre who is a passionate chemist and who has set up a real laboratory. He was categorical. It is white phosphide. Not phosphate, as you might think, but phosphide, I checked in the dictionary. And not just the Larousse. I also consulted textbooks on chemistry. White phosphide is an almost colourless powder, which is extremely toxic. It was used in the old days, in minute doses, as a remedy for certain illnesses and it was abandoned precisely because of its toxicity.’

  He paused, slightly disoriented at having in front of him a Maigret who was still impassive and apparently miles away.

  ‘My wife doesn’t do chemistry. She isn’t following a course of treatment. She has none of the illnesses for which one might, in extremis, prescribe zinc phosphide. And yet I didn’t find just a few grams at home, but a bottle containing at least fifty grams. And I happened upon it by chance. On the ground floor of our house I have a kind of studio where I work on the models for my window displays and carry out minor mechanical tests. They are just toys, of course, but as I have said, toys represent …’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘One day when my wife was out, I knocked over a pot of glue on my workbench. I opened the cupboard where we keep the brooms and cleaning products. Looking for a detergent of some kind, I happened to lay my hand on a small unlabelled bottle that seemed to me to be a strange shape.

  ‘Now, if you connect this discovery with the fact that over the last few months I have had, for the first time in my life, a number of anxieties that I have told Doctor Steiner about …’

  The phone on the desk rang, and Maigret picked it up, recognizing the voice of the commissioner of the Police Judiciaire.

  ‘Is that you, Maigret? Have you got a few minutes? I’d like to introduce you to an American criminologist who is in my office and very keen to shake your hand …’

  Once he had hung up again, Maigret looked around. There was nothing confidential lying about on the desk. His visitor didn’t have the look of a dangerous man.

  ‘Will you excuse me? I’ll only be a few minutes.’

  ‘Be my guest …’

  But at the door he had a sudden reflex and crossed the office once more to open, as he usually did, the door of the inspectors’ office. But he gave them no special instruction. It didn’t occur to him.

  A few minutes later he pushed open the chief’s padded door. A big red-haired man got out of an armchair and shook his hand vigorously, saying in French with the merest hint of an accent:

  ‘It’s a great joy for me to see you in the flesh, Monsieur Maigret. When you came to my country I missed you, because I was in San Francisco, and you didn’t come all the way to us. My friend Fred Ward, who welcomed you in New York and went with you to Washington, has told me exciting things about you.’

  The commissioner gestured to Maigret to sit down.

  ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you in the middle of one of those interrogations that seem so strange to us Americans?’

  The inspector reassured him. The chief’s guest held out his cigarettes and then changed his mind.

  ‘I forgot that you are a fan of the pipe.’

  It happened periodically, and it was always the same phrases, the same questions, the same exaggerated and embarrassing admiration. Maigret, who hated being examined as if he were a freak, put a brave face on things and at such moments he had a special smile that greatly amused his chief.

  One question led to another. They discussed technique, then talked about some famous cases, on which he had to supply an opinion.

  Inevitably the conversation turned to his methods, something that always strained his patience, because, as he repeated, without managing to destroy the legend, he had never had any methods.

  To rescue him, the commissioner rose to his feet, saying:

  ‘Now, if you would like to go upstairs and visit our museum …’

  It was part of every visit of this kind, and, with his hands crushed once more by a more vigorous grip than his own, Maigret was able to return to his office.

  He stopped, surprised, in the doorway, because there was no one sitting in the armchair that he had offered his train-set salesman. The office was empty, with only some cigarette smoke floating just below the ceiling.

  He went into the inspectors’ office.

  ‘Has he left?’

  ‘Who?’

  Janvier and Lucas were playing cards, which they did barely three times a year, except when they were on guard duty all night.

  ‘Nothing … It doesn’t matter …’

  He went out into the corridor, where old Joseph was reading the paper.

  ‘Has my client left?’

  ‘Not long ago. He came out of your office and told me he couldn’t wait any longer, that he absolutely had to get back to the shop, where they were waiting for him. Should I have …?’

  ‘No. It doesn’t matter.’

  The man was free to go, since no one had asked him to come.

  It was at that moment that Maigret realized he had forgotten the man’s name.

  ‘I don’t suppose, Joseph, that you remember what his name is?’

  ‘I must confess, inspector, that I didn’t look at his form.’

  Maigret went back to his office and immersed himself once again in his report, which contained nothing exciting. The boiler must have been racing, because the radiators had never been so scorching, and were making worrying noises. He nearly got up to turn the handle, but he couldn’t be bothered and instead reached for the telephone.

  His plan was to call the Magasins du Louvre and find out about the head of the toy department. But if he did that wouldn’t they wonder why the police were suddenly interested in one of the members of staff? Didn’t Maigret risk damaging his visitor’s reputation?

  He worked a little longer and picked up the receiver almost mechanically.

  ‘Could you try and find me a certain Doctor Steiner, who lives on Place Denfert-Rochereau?’

  Less than ten minutes later the phone rang.

  ‘You’ve got Doctor Steiner on the line.’

  ‘Forgive me for disturbing you, doctor … This is Maigret … The detective chief inspector at the Police Judiciaire, yes … I think you recently had a patient whose first name is Xavier and whose surname escapes me …’

  The doctor, at the other end of the line, didn’t seem to remember.

  ‘He works in toys … Train sets, to be specific … He said he went to see you to check that he wasn’t insane and then talked to you about his wife …’

  ‘Just one moment. Will you excuse me? I will have to consult my files.’

  Maigret heard him saying to someone, ‘Mademoiselle Berthe, would you be so kind …’

  He must have moved away from the phone, because there was nothing to be heard, and the silence lasted for quite a while, so long that Maigret thought they had been cut off.

  Judging by his voice, Steiner was a cold man, probably vain, at least with a strong sense of his own importance.

  ‘May I ask you, inspector, why you called me?’

  ‘Because this gentleman was in my office just now and left before our discussion was over. But the fact is that while I was listening to him I tore the form on which he had written his name into little pieces.’

  ‘Did you call him in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is he suspected of doing?’

  ‘Nothing. He came of his own accord to tell me his story.’

  ‘Has anything happened?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He spoke to me about certain fears which I think he may have told you about.’

  Ninety-nine doctors in a hundred w
ould have been cooperative by this point; Maigret had landed upon one who wasn’t.

  ‘You know, I assume,’ Steiner said, ‘that patient confidentiality prevents me from …’

  ‘I’m not asking you, doctor, to betray patient confidentiality. I am asking you, first of all, for the surname of this man Xavier. I could find it easily by phoning the Grands Magasins du Louvre, where he works, but I thought that if I did so I would risk putting him in a bad light with his employers.’

  ‘That is quite likely, I grant you.’

  ‘I also know that he lives on Avenue de Châtillon, and my men, if they questioned the concierges, would reach the same result. In that way too we might prejudice your patient by causing a fuss.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘His name is Marton, Xavier Marton,’ the neurologist said reluctantly.

  ‘When did he come to see you?’

  ‘I think I can answer that question as well. About three weeks ago, on 21 December, to be precise …’

  ‘So just as he was at his busiest with the Christmas holidays. I expect he was rather agitated?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Listen, doctor, once again, I’m not asking you to give away a secret. We have, as you know, expeditious means of acquiring information.’

  Silence at the other end, a disapproving silence, Maigret could have sworn. Doctor Steiner mustn’t have been very fond of the police.

  ‘Xavier Marton, since that is his name,’ Maigret went on, ‘acted like a normal man in my office. And yet …’

  The doctor repeated:

  ‘And yet?’

  ‘I’m no psychiatrist, and after listening to him I would like to know whether I was dealing with an unbalanced person or …’

  ‘What would you call an unbalanced person?’

  Maigret was flushed and held the receiver in a tight and menacing grip.

  ‘You have responsibilities, doctor, and you are bound to a rule of patient confidentiality which I am not attempting to lead you to infringe in any way, but we too have responsibilities of our own. I don’t like to think that I let a man leave who might, tomorrow …’

  ‘I let him leave my office too.’

  ‘So you don’t think he’s a madman?’

  Another silence.

  ‘What do you think about what he told you about his wife? When he was here he didn’t have time to get to the end of his story …’

  ‘I haven’t examined his wife.’

  ‘And from what he told you, you have no idea of …’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘You have nothing to add?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m sorry to say. Will you excuse me? I have a client who is getting impatient.’

  Maigret put the phone down as if he wanted to break the receiver over the doctor’s head.

  Then, almost immediately, his rage subsided, and he shrugged his shoulders, even smiling in the end.

  ‘Janvier!’ he called so that he could be heard from the next room.

  ‘Yes, chief.’

  ‘I want you to go to the Grands Magasins du Louvre and go upstairs to the toy section. Pretend to be a customer. Look for a man who is supposed to be the head of the department, between forty and forty-five, dark hair, with a hairy mole to the left of his lip.’

  ‘What should I ask him?’

  ‘Nothing. If the head of department answers to that description, his name is Xavier Marton, and that’s all I want to know. In fact, while you’re there, pretend to take an interest in train sets as a way of getting him to speak. Observe him. That’s all.’

  ‘Is that who you were talking about on the phone a moment ago?’

  ‘Yes. Did you hear?’

  ‘You want to know if he’s mad?’

  Maigret merely shrugged. On any other day, he might not have worried for more than a few minutes about Marton’s visit. At the Police Judiciaire they are used to receiving madmen and semi-madmen, lunatics, fantasists, individuals, both male and female, who think they have been chosen to save the world from perdition, and others who are convinced that mysterious enemies are after their lives or their secrets.

  The Crime Squad, or ‘Homicide’, as it is currently known, is not a psychiatric hospital and when it does deal with such individuals it is usually only when they have finally broken the law, which thankfully doesn’t always happen.

  It was almost midday. He thought of phoning Pardon, said to himself that it wasn’t worth it, that in that morning’s visit there was nothing more worrying than in a hundred visits of the same kind that he had received.

  Why was he thinking about the pills that his wife had to take with each meal? Because of the zinc phosphide that Xavier Marton claimed to have found in the broom cupboard. Where did Madame Maigret hide her pills so as not to worry her husband?

  Intrigued, he vowed to look everywhere. She had probably spent a long time coming up with a clever hiding place that he wouldn’t think of.

  He would see. In the meantime, he closed his file, went at last to turn the radiator halfway down and wondered whether he should leave the window open during the lunch hour.

  As he left, he noticed the sachet of white powder on his desk and took it to Lucas.

  ‘Pass this on to the laboratory. Ask them to let me know what it is this afternoon.’

  On the embankment the cold caught him unawares, and he turned up the collar of his overcoat, plunged his hands into his pockets and headed for the bus stop. He didn’t like Doctor Steiner at all and he was thinking more about him than about the train-set specialist.

  2. The Insurance Agent

  As had been the case for years and years, he didn’t need to knock on the door. It opened as soon as he put his feet on the mat, and he didn’t remember ringing the bell.

  ‘You’re home early,’ his wife observed.

  And all of a sudden she frowned very slightly, as she did when she saw that he was worried. In that she was never mistaken. She could spot the slightest change in his mood and, although she didn’t ask him direct questions, she still tried to guess what it was that was troubling him.

  And yet, for now, it wasn’t the visit of the man with the train sets. He might have been thinking about him on the bus, but what had just given him a concerned and slightly melancholy expression was a memory that had risen to the surface while he paused on the second-floor landing. The previous winter, the old woman who lived above them had said, when he bumped into her in front of the concierge’s lodge and touched his hat:

  ‘You should see a doctor, Monsieur Maigret.’

  ‘Do you think I look ill?’

  ‘No. I haven’t even noticed. It’s your footstep on the stairs. For some time now it has been getting heavier, and you seem to pause every four or five steps.’

  It wasn’t because of her that he had gone to see Pardon some weeks later, but she was still right. Was he going to explain to his wife that it was that memory that made him seem very distant?

  She hadn’t yet laid the table. As usual, he paced about the dining room and the sitting room and, almost unconsciously, began opening the drawers, lifting the lid of the sewing chest and a red lacquered box in which they kept unimportant objects.

  ‘Are you looking for something?’

  ‘No.’

  He was looking for the medicine. He was very intrigued. He wondered if he would end up finding the hiding place.

  And yes, in the end, it was true that he didn’t have his usual energy. Didn’t he have the right, like everyone else, to be sulky on a cold, grey winter day? He had been like that since the morning, and it wasn’t all that unpleasant. You can appear grumpy without being unhappy.

  He didn’t like his wife darting furtive little glances at him. It made him feel guilty, when in fact he wasn’t guilty in the slightest. What could he have said to reassure her? That Pardon had told him about her visit?

  In fact he was only just beginning to realize that he was annoyed, indeed a little sad. It was beca
use of the man who had come to see him that morning. It was the kind of intimate little secret that he couldn’t confide in anyone and didn’t like to confess to himself.

  That fellow, train-set specialist though he might have been, wasn’t a pain in the neck of the kind that so often passed through Quai des Orfèvres. He had a problem. He had chosen to talk about it frankly to Maigret. Not to just any policeman. To Maigret.

  And yet, when Maigret had gone back to his office after going to the chief’s office to meet the American, Xavier Marton was gone.

  He had left without taking his confidences to their conclusion. Why? Was he in a hurry? Or was he perhaps disappointed?

  Before coming to see Maigret, he had formed a precise idea about him. He must have expected understanding, immediate human contact. The person he had found was someone rather listless, dulled by the suffocating heat of the radiators, who looked at him without much encouragement and wore a gloomy or bored expression.

  It was nothing, though. Just a fleeting shadow. Soon he would stop thinking about it. And when he was at the table he made a point of talking about something completely different.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time to get a maid? There’s a room we’ve never used on the sixth floor …’

  ‘What would she do?’

  ‘The housework, good heavens! The heavy work, let’s say.’

  He would have been wise not to approach the subject.

  ‘Is there something wrong with your lunch?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. But you’re wearing yourself out.’

  ‘I have a woman to do the cleaning two days a week. Can you tell me how I would spend my days if I had a maid?’

  ‘You could go for a walk.’

  ‘All on my own?’

  ‘There’s nothing to stop you having friends.’

  Right! Now it was his wife’s turn to be sad. In her mind it was a bit as if he wanted to take away one of her prerogatives, the one closest to her heart.

  ‘Do you think I’m getting old?’

  ‘We’re all getting old. That’s not what I mean. I thought …’

  There are days like this when you get everything wrong, with the best will in the world. Once they had finished lunch, he dialled a number. A familiar voice replied. He said: