Maigret in New York

by Georges Simenon

  The man shrugged without answering, as if to say it was no concern of his.

  ‘You don’t know if there’s anyone in there?’

  ‘How would you expect me to know?’

  ‘Is it a man, a woman?’

  ‘A man, I think.’

  ‘Old?’

  ‘Depends on what you mean by that. Maybe my age … I don’t know. He only moved in a month ago.’

  Nobody cared what nationality he was or where he came from, and his neighbour, not in the least curious about the bottles of milk, headed down the stairs, only to look back with a frown at this odd visitor asking bizarre questions. Then he went on his way.

  Had the tenant of this room gone off on a trip but forgotten to tell the milkman? It was possible. But those who live in such barracks are poor people for whom a penny is a penny. Was he behind that door, perhaps? Living or dead, sick or dying, he could stay there a long time before anyone thought to worry about him.

  Even if the tenant had shouted, called for help, would anyone have bothered to check?

  A small boy, somewhere, was learning to play the violin. It was almost excruciating to hear the same phrase clumsily and endlessly repeated, to imagine the awkward bowing unable to draw from the instrument anything but that wretched noise.

  Top floor.

  ‘Excuse me, madame: do you know anyone in the house who …’

  He heard about an old woman whom no one knew, supposedly a long-time tenant there and who had died two months earlier while climbing the stairs with her shopping bag. But she might not have lived there for thirty years …

  In the end it became annoying to be heralded by this eager kid, who kept scrutinizing him, as if trying to solve the mystery of the stranger who had turned up unexpectedly in his universe.

  Enough! Maigret could go back downstairs. He stopped to relight his pipe and continued to sniff the atmosphere around him, imagining a slender, blond young man climbing those same stairs with a violin case under his arm; another young man, with already thinning hair, was playing the clarinet near a window, looking out at the street.

  ‘Hello!’

  Maigret scowled instantly. No doubt startled by that reaction, the usually subtly smiling O’Brien – for it was the redhead climbing the stairs to find the inspector – burst into hearty laughter.

  The inspector was masking his feelings, in a way, and grumbled awkwardly, ‘I thought you weren’t having anything to do with this business.’

  ‘Who says I am?’

  ‘Are you going to tell me you’ve come to visit relatives?’

  ‘First off, that’s not in the least impossible, because we all have all kinds of relatives.’

  He was in a good mood. Had he figured out what Maigret had been seeking there? He had realized, in any case, that his French colleague was experiencing certain emotions that morning that had touched him in turn, and there was a friendlier look in his eyes than usual.

  ‘I’m not here to have a battle of wits. It’s you I’m looking for. Let’s go outside, shall we?’

  Maigret had already gone down one floor when he changed his mind and went back up a few steps to give a small coin to the little boy, who looked at it without thinking to say thank you.

  ‘Are you beginning to understand New York? I bet you’ve learned more about it this morning than you would have in a month at the St Regis or the Waldorf.’

  They had stopped automatically on the front step, and were both looking at the shop across the street – and at the tailor, old Angelino’s son, working at his steam press, because the poor do not have time to dwell on their grief.

  A car marked with the police shield was parked a few metres away.

  ‘I dropped by your hotel. When they told me you’d left early, I thought I’d find you here. What I didn’t know was that I’d have to plod up to the fifth floor.’

  One tiny little jab of irony, an allusion to a certain sensibility – perhaps a certain sentimental streak – that he’d just discovered in this stocky French inspector.

  ‘If you had concierges, as we do, I wouldn’t have had to climb all those stairs.’

  ‘You think you wouldn’t have done that anyway?’

  They got into the car.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Wherever you want. As of now, it doesn’t matter any more. I’ll simply drop you off in a more central neighbourhood, less depressing for your mood.’

  He lit a pipe. The driver pulled away.

  ‘I have some bad news for you, my dear inspector.’

  Why, in that case, was his voice full of sweet satisfaction?

  ‘Jean Maura has been found.’

  Maigret turned with a frown and stared at him.

  ‘You don’t mean that it’s your men who …’

  ‘Come, now! Don’t be jealous.’

  ‘It isn’t jealousy, but …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘That wouldn’t fit with the rest,’ he said more softly, as if to himself. ‘No, there’s something wrong there.’

  ‘Well, well!’

  ‘What’s so surprising?’

  ‘Nothing. Tell me what you think.’

  ‘I don’t think. But if Jean Maura has reappeared, if he’s alive …’

  O’Brien nodded in affirmation.

  ‘I wager they simply found him up in the St Regis with his father and MacGill.’

  ‘Bravo, Maigret! That’s exactly what happened. In spite of the personal freedom I spoke to you about, perhaps exaggerating a tad to tease you, we do have a few small ways of finding things out, especially in a hotel like the St Regis. Well, this morning, an extra breakfast was ordered for Little John’s apartment. Jean Maura was there, settled in the large bedroom adjoining his father’s bedroom office.’

  ‘He wasn’t questioned?’

  ‘You’re forgetting that we have no reason to question him. No law, federal or otherwise, requires passengers disembarking from a ship to dash headlong into their father’s arms, and this father never filed a complaint or notified the police of his son’s disappearance.’

  ‘One question.’

  ‘If it’s a discreet one.’

  ‘Why does Little John – who pays for an elegant suite at the St Regis, as you say, a four- or five-room apartment – personally occupy what we’d call a maid’s room and work at a plain pine table, while his secretary sits enthroned behind a fancy mahogany desk?’

  ‘Does it really surprise you?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Here, you see, it doesn’t surprise anyone, no more than it does to know that a certain millionaire’s son insists on living in the Bronx, which we are now leaving, and on taking the subway every day to his office, when he could easily have at his disposal as many luxury cars as he wanted.

  ‘That detail you mentioned about Little John is well known. It’s part of his legend. Every successful man has a legend, and his works very well; the popular press publications refer to it often.

  ‘The man who has become rich and powerful recreates, at the St Regis, the room of his youthful beginnings and lives there simply, disdaining the luxury of the other rooms.

  ‘As for knowing whether Little John is sincere or managing his public relations, that is a different question.’

  For some reason Maigret found himself responding without hesitation, ‘He is sincere.’

  ‘Ah!’

  Then they were silent for a while.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to learn the pedigree of MacGill, of whom you do not seem inordinately fond? I just happen t
o have been told these things, remember, this is not police information.’

  Even though O’Brien was only joking, Maigret found this constant doublespeak exasperating.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘He was born in New York twenty-eight years ago, probably in the Bronx, of unknown parentage. For a few months, I’m not sure exactly how many, he was cared for by a children’s aid society in a suburb of the city.

  ‘He was removed by a man who stated that he wished to take responsibility for him and who provided the requisite moral and financial guarantees for such cases.’

  ‘Little John …’

  ‘Who was not yet called Little John and who had recently established a small business in second-hand phonographs. The child was entrusted to a certain Mrs MacGill, a Scotswoman, the widow of a funeral-home employee. The woman and child left the country to go and live in Canada, in St Jerome. As a young man, MacGill studied in nearby Montreal, which explains why he speaks French as well as he does English. Then, when he was around twenty, he disappeared from circulation to resurface six months ago as Little John’s private secretary. That’s all I know and I can’t guarantee that this hearsay is accurate.

  ‘And now, what will you do?’

  He displayed his mellowest, most aggravating smile with his least expressive countenance.

  ‘Are you going to visit your client? After all, young Maura is the one who turned to you and who—’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Maigret was furious. Because it really was no longer Jean Maura and his fears that interested him but his father, Little John, and the house at 169th Street, and a certain cabaret handbill, and finally an old Italian named Angelino Giacomi someone had run over like a dog while he was crossing the street.

  He would go to the St Regis, obviously, because he could not do otherwise. They would undoubtedly tell him again that they had no need of him and would offer him a cheque and passage on a ship to France.

  His wisest course would be to go home the way he had come, even if it meant spending the rest of his days being wary of all the young men and Messrs d’Hoquélus in creation.

  ‘Shall I drop you off there?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the St Regis.’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘Shall I see you this evening? I think I will be free for dinner. If you are as well, call me, I’ll come and pick you up at your hotel or elsewhere. Today is a lucky day: I’ve the use of an official car. I wonder if we’ll be drinking to your departure?’

  And his eyes said no. He had understood Maigret so well! But he needed to shrug off the slightest emotion with a pleasantry.

  ‘Good luck!’

  What lay ahead was the worst part, a thankless task. Maigret could have predicted almost exactly what would happen: nothing surprising, nothing of interest, but he felt obliged to go through with it.

  He went up to the reception desk, as he had when first arriving.

  ‘Would you please announce me to Mr Jean Maura?’

  The clerk had been briefed, for he promptly picked up the phone.

  ‘Mr MacGill? There is someone here asking for Mr Jean Maura … I believe so, yes. Let me make sure … And you are, sir?’

  The inspector told him his name.

  ‘That’s right,’ confirmed the clerk. ‘Of course. I will send him up.’

  So MacGill had known from the first moment who was at the desk.

  A bellboy took him upstairs once more. He recognized the floor, the corridor, the apartment.

  ‘Come in!’

  And a smiling MacGill came towards him, seemingly without the least resentment and, as if relieved of a great weight, holding out his hand without appearing to remember that Maigret had ignored it the day before.

  When he did again, MacGill exclaimed evenly, ‘Still put out, my dear inspector?’

  Hmm! He had always said simply ‘inspector’ before, and this familiar touch was perhaps not insignificant.

  ‘You see, we were right, the boss and I, and you were wrong. Speaking of which! I must first congratulate you regarding your police connection: you were quick to hear about the prodigal son’s return.’

  He went and opened the door to the next room. Jean Maura was there with his father and, the first to notice the inspector, he blushed.

  ‘Your friend Maigret,’ announced MacGill, ‘would like to speak to you. If you don’t mind, sir?’

  Little John stepped into the office as well, but merely nodded absently at the inspector. As for the young man, he came over and shook his hand, appearing embarrassed and ill at ease.

  He turned his head away and mumbled, ‘I must apologize.’

  MacGill still seemed brimming with carefree good humour, whereas Little John, on the contrary, looked tired and careworn. He probably hadn’t slept the night before. His gaze, for the first time, was evasive, and to bolster his confidence he felt the need to light one of those fat cigars made especially for him with his initials on the band.

  His hand shook a little as he struck the match. He, too, must have been in a hurry to get this unavoidable farce over with.

  ‘What are you apologizing for?’ asked Maigret, well aware that this was expected of him.

  ‘Of having gone off and left you so rudely. You see, I spotted a fellow I’d known last year among the journalists who came on board; he had a pocket flask of whisky and absolutely insisted on celebrating my arrival …’

  Maigret did not inquire where this scene had occurred on the ship because he knew it was purely imaginary, concocted for the young man by MacGill or Little John.

  By the former, probably, who assumed too detached and indifferent an air during his pupil’s recitation, like a teacher who won’t prompt his favourite.

  ‘He had some girls with him in the taxi.’

  How plausible was that, this newsman going off to work at ten in the morning taking women along! They weren’t bothering to make it believable. They were tossing him any old explanation to chew on, without caring to see if he would believe it or not. Why bother? Wasn’t he now out of the game?

  Curiously enough, Jean Maura was much less fatigued than his father. He had the look of a young man who has slept soundly and he seemed more embarrassed than worried.

  ‘I should have let you know. I did look for you out on deck.’

  ‘No!’

  Why had Maigret said that?

  ‘That’s true, I didn’t look for you. I’d been on my best behaviour too long while we crossed. I didn’t dare drink in front of you except that last night. You remember? And I didn’t even apologize to you right away.’

  As on the previous day, Little John had gone to stand by the window, holding back the curtain with what must have been a familiar gesture.

  As for MacGill, he made a point of bustling around like a man only half-listening to the conversation, even going so far as to make a routine telephone call.

  ‘Care for a cocktail, inspector?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Jean Maura was winding things up.

  ‘I don’t know what happened next. That’s the first time I was ever completely drunk. We went to lots of places, we were drinking with lots of people I wouldn’t recognize if I ever saw them again.’

  ‘At the Donkey Bar?’ asked Maigret, with a cynical glance at MacGill.

  ‘I don’t know … it’s possible … There was a party given by some people my friend knows …’

  ‘In the country?’

  This time Jean Maura sho
t a quick look at MacGill, who had his back turned, however, so the young man had to answer on his own.

  ‘Yes … In the country … We drove there.’

  ‘And you returned only last evening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They brought you back?’

  ‘Yes. No … I mean, they drove me back to the city.’

  ‘But not to the hotel?’

  Another glance at MacGill.

  ‘No … not to the hotel … I’m the one who didn’t want that, because I was ashamed.’

  ‘I assume you do not need me any more?’

  This time he looked at his father as if to appeal for help, and it was puzzling to see Little John, the man of action par excellence, remaining aloof from the conversation as if it did not concern him. And yet it did concern his son, to whom he wrote so tenderly that he might almost have been composing love letters …

  ‘I had a long conversation with my father.’

  ‘And with Mr MacGill?’

  He did not answer yes, or no. He almost denied it, then caught himself and went on.

  ‘I feel bad about having made you come so far on account of my childish fears. I know how worried you’ve been … I wonder if you will ever forgive me for having left you completely at a loss about my whereabouts.’

  As he spoke, he, too, seemed to grow astonished at his father’s attitude, and looked imploringly at him for rescue.

  And it was MacGill, yet again, who took the situation in hand.

  ‘Don’t you think, sir, that it might be time to conclude any unfinished business with the inspector?’

  Then Little John turned around, tapped the ash off his cigar with his little finger, walked over to the mahogany desk.

  ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that there is not much business to conclude. I apologize, inspector, for not having received you with all due cordiality. I thank you for having looked after my son with such solicitude. I will ask you simply to accept the cheque that my secretary will give you and which is but slight compensation for the trouble we have caused you, my son and I.’

  He hesitated an instant, doubtless wondering whether he would shake hands with the inspector; in the end he bowed slightly, somewhat abruptly, and walked towards the connecting door, signalling Jean to follow him.