The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien

by Georges Simenon

  This conundrum fascinated him. He kept finding excuses for his behaviour.

  ‘Amsterdam isn’t that far from Paris …’

  And then …

  ‘So what! I can take an express from Bremen and be back in thirteen hours.’

  The man was dead. There was no compromising paper on him, nothing to reveal what he had been doing except an ordinary revolver of the most popular make in Europe.

  He seemed to have killed himself only because someone had stolen his suitcase! Otherwise, why would he have bought rolls from the station buffet but never eaten them? And why spend a day travelling, when he might have stayed in Brussels and blown his brains out just as easily as in a German hotel?

  Still, there was the suitcase, which might hold the solution to this puzzle. And that’s why – after the naked body had been photographed and examined from head to toe, carried out wrapped in a sheet, hoisted into a police van and driven away – the inspector shut himself up in his hotel room.

  He looked haggard. Although he filled his pipe as always, tapping gently with his thumb, he was only trying to persuade himself that he felt calm.

  The dead man’s thin, drawn face was haunting him. He kept seeing him snapping his fingers, then immediately opening his mouth wide for the gunshot.

  Maigret felt so troubled – indeed, almost remorseful – that only after painful hesitation did he reach for the suitcase.

  And yet that suitcase would supposedly prove him right! Wasn’t he going to find there evidence that the man he was weak enough to pity was a crook, a dangerous criminal, perhaps a murderer?

  The keys still hung from a string tied to the handle, as they had in the shop in Rue Neuve. Maigret opened the suitcase and first took out a dark-grey suit, less threadbare than the one the dead man had been wearing. Beneath the suit were two dirty shirts frayed at the collar and cuffs, rolled into a ball, and a detachable collar with thin pink stripes that had been worn for at least two weeks, because it was quite soiled wherever it had touched the wearer’s neck … Soiled and shoddy …

  That was all. Except for the bottom of the suitcase: green paper lining, two brand-new straps with buckles and swiveling tabs that hadn’t been used.

  Maigret shook out the clothing, checked the pockets. Empty! Seized with a choking sense of anguish, he kept looking, driven by his desire – his need – to find something.

  Hadn’t a man killed himself because someone had stolen this suitcase? And there was nothing in it but an old suit and some dirty laundry!

  Not even a piece of paper. Nothing in the way of documents. No sign of any clue to the dead man’s past.

  The hotel room was decorated with new, inexpensive and aggressively floral wallpaper in garish colours. The furniture, however, was old and rickety, broken-down, and the printed calico draped over the table was too filthy to touch.

  The street was deserted, the shutters of the shops were closed, but a hundred metres away there was the reassuring thrum of steady traffic at a crossroads.

  Maigret looked at the communicating door, at the keyhole he no longer dared to peek through. He remembered that the technicians had chalked the outline of the body on the floor of the neighbouring room for future study.

  Carrying the dead man’s suit, still wrinkled from the suitcase, he went next door on tiptoe so as not to awaken other guests, and perhaps because he felt burdened by this mystery.

  The outline on the floor was contorted, but accurately drawn.

  When Maigret tried to fit the jacket, waistcoat and trousers into the outline, his eyes lit up, and he bit down hard on his pipe-stem. The clothing was at least three sizes too large: it did not belong to the dead man.

  What the tramp had been keeping so protectively in his suitcase, a thing so precious to him that he’d killed himself when it was lost, was someone else’s suit!

  2. Monsieur Van Damme

  The Bremen newspapers simply announced in a few lines that a Frenchman named Louis Jeunet, a mechanic, had committed suicide in a hotel in the city and that poverty seemed to have been the motive for his act.

  But by the time those lines appeared the following morning, that information was no longer correct. In fact, while leafing through Jeunet’s passport, Maigret had noticed an interesting detail: on the sixth page, in the column listing age, height, hair, forehead, eyebrows and so on for the bearer’s description, the word forehead appeared before hair instead of after it.

  It so happened that six months earlier, the Paris Sûreté had discovered in Saint-Ouen a veritable factory for fake passports, military records, foreign residence permits and other official documents, a certain number of which they had seized. The counterfeiters themselves had admitted, however, that hundreds of their forgeries had been in circulation for several years and that, because they had kept no records, they could not provide a list of their customers.

  The passport proved that Louis Jeunet had been one of them, which meant that his name was not Louis Jeunet.

  And so, the single more or less solid fact in this inquiry had melted away. The man who had killed himself that night was now a complete unknown.

  Having been granted all the authorization he needed, at nine o’clock the next morning Maigret arrived at the morgue, which the general public was free to visit after it opened its doors for the day.

  He searched in vain for a dark corner from which to keep watch, although he really didn’t expect much in the way of results. The morgue was a modern building, like most of the city and all its public buildings, and it was even more sinister than the ancient morgue in Quai de l’Horloge, in Paris. More sinister precisely because of its sharp, clean lines and perspectives, the uniform white of the walls, which reflected a harsh light, and the refrigeration units as shiny as machines in a power station. The place looked like a model factory: one where the raw material was human bodies.

  The man who had called himself Louis Jeunet was there, less disfigured than might have been expected, because specialists had partially reconstructed his face. There were also a young woman and a drowned fellow who’d been fished from the harbour.

  Brimming with health and tightly buttoned into his spotless uniform, the guard looked like a museum attendant.

  In the space of an hour, surprisingly enough, some thirty people passed through the viewing hall. When one woman asked to see a body that was not on display, electric bells rang and numbers were barked into a telephone.

  In an area on the first floor, one of the drawers in a vast cabinet filling an entire wall glided out into a freight lift, and a few moments later a steel box emerged on the ground floor just as books in some libraries are delivered to reading rooms.

  It was the body that had been requested. The woman bent over it – and was led away, sobbing, to an office at the far end of the hall, where a young clerk took down her statement.

  Few people took any interest in Louis Jeunet. Shortly after ten o’clock, however, a smartly attired man arrived in a private car, entered the hall, looked around for the suicide and examined him carefully.

  Maigret was not far away. He drew closer and, after studying the visitor, decided that he didn’t look German.

  As soon as this visitor noticed Maigret approaching, moreover, he started uneasily, and must have come to the same conclusion as Maigret had about him.

  ‘Are you French?’ he asked bluntly.

  ‘Yes. You, too?’

  ‘Actually, I’m Belgian, but I’ve been living in Bremen for a few years now.’

  ‘And you knew a man named Jeunet?’

  ‘No! I … I read in this morning’s paper that a Frenchman had committed suicide in Bremen … I lived in Paris for a long time … and I felt curious enough to come and take a look.’

  Maigret was completely calm, as he always was in such moments, when his face would settle into an expression of such stubborn density that he seemed even a touch bovine.

  ‘Are you with the police?’

  ‘Yes! The Police Judiciaire.�
�

  ‘So you’ve come up here because of this case? Oh, wait: that’s impossible, the suicide only happened last night … Tell me, do you have any French acquaintances in Bremen? No? In that case, if I can assist you in any way … May I offer you an aperitif?’

  Shortly afterwards, Maigret followed the other man outside and joined him in his car, which the Belgian drove himself.

  And as he drove he chattered away, a perfect example of the enthusiastic, energetic businessman. He seemed to know everyone, greeted passers-by, pointed out buildings, provided a running commentary.

  ‘Here you have Norddeutscher Lloyd … Have you heard about the new liner they’ve launched? They’re clients of mine …’

  He waved towards a building in which almost every window displayed the name of a different firm.

  ‘On the fifth floor, to the left, you can see my office.’

  Porcelain sign letters on the window spelled out: Joseph Van Damme, Import-Export Commission Agent.

  ‘Would you believe that sometimes I go a month without having a chance to speak French? My employees and even my secretary are German. That’s business for you!’

  It would have been hard to divine a single one of Maigret’s thoughts from his expression; he seemed a man devoid of subtlety. He agreed; he approved. He admired what he was asked to admire, including the car and its patented suspension system, proudly praised by Van Damme.

  The inspector followed his host into a large brasserie teeming with businessmen talking loudly over the tireless efforts of a Viennese orchestra and the clinking of beer mugs.

  ‘You’d never guess how much this clientele is worth in millions!’ crowed the Belgian. ‘Listen! You don’t understand German? Well, our neighbour here is busy selling a cargo of wool currently on its way to Europe from Australia; he has thirty or forty ships in his fleet, and I could show you others like him. So, what’ll you have? Personally, I recommend the Pilsner. By the way …’

  Maigret’s face showed no trace of a smile at the transition.

  ‘By the way, what do you think about this suicide? A poor man down on his luck, as the papers here are saying?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Are you looking into it?’

  ‘No: that’s a matter for the German police. And as it’s a clear case of suicide …’

  ‘Oh, obviously! Of course, the thing that struck me was only that he was French, because we get so few of them up in the North!’

  He rose to go and shake the hand of a man who was on his way out, then hurried back.

  ‘Please excuse me – he runs a big insurance company, he’s worth a hundred million … But listen, inspector: it’s almost noon, you must come and have lunch with me! I’m not married, so I can only invite you to a restaurant, and you won’t eat as you would in Paris, but I’ll do my best to see that you don’t do too badly. So, that’s settled, right?’

  He summoned the waiter, paid the bill. And when he pulled his wallet from his pocket, he did something that Maigret had often seen when businessmen like him had their aperitifs in bars around the Paris stock exchange, for they had that inimitable way of leaning backwards, throwing out their chests while tucking in their chins and opening with careless satisfaction that sacred object: the leather portefeuille plump with money.

  ‘Let’s go!’

  Van Damme hung on to the inspector until almost five o’clock, after sweeping him along to his office – three clerks and a typist – but by then he’d made him promise that if he did not leave Bremen that evening, they would spend it together at a well-known cabaret.

  Maigret found himself back in the crowd, alone with his thoughts, although they were in considerable disarray. Strictly speaking, were they even really thoughts?

  His mind was comparing two figures, two men, and trying to establish a relationship between them.

  Because there was one! Van Damme hadn’t gone to the trouble of driving to the morgue simply to look at the dead body of a stranger. And the pleasure of speaking French was not the only reason he had invited Maigret to lunch. Besides, he had gradually revealed his true personality only after becoming increasingly persuaded that his companion had no interest in the case. And perhaps not much in the way of brains, either!

  That morning, Van Damme had been worried. His smile had seemed forced. By the end of the afternoon, on the other hand, he had resurfaced as a sharp little operator, always on the go, busy, chatty, enthusiastic, mixing with financial big shots, driving his car, on the phone, rattling off instructions to his typist and hosting expensive dinners, proud and happy to be what he was.

  And the second man was an anaemic tramp with grubby clothes and worn-out shoes, who had bought some sausages in rolls without the faintest idea that he would never get to eat them!

  Van Damme must have already found himself another companion for the evening aperitif, in the same atmosphere of Viennese music and beer.

  At six o’clock, a cover would close quietly on a metal bin, shutting away the naked body of the false Louis Jeunet, and the lift would deliver it to the freezer to spend the night in a numbered compartment.

  Maigret went along to the Polizeipräsidium. Some officers were exercising, stripped to the waist in spite of the chill, in a courtyard with vivid red walls.

  In the laboratory, a young man with a faraway look in his eye was waiting for him near a table on which all the dead man’s possessions had been laid out and neatly labelled.

  The man spoke perfect textbook French and took pride in coming up with le mot juste.

  Beginning with the nondescript grey suit Jeunet had been wearing when he died, he explained that all the linings had been unpicked, every seam examined, and that nothing had been found.

  ‘The suit comes from La Belle Jardinière in Paris. The material is fifty per cent cotton, so it is a cheap garment. We noticed some grease spots, including stains of mineral jelly, which suggest that the man worked in or was often inside a factory, workshop or garage. There are no labels or laundry marks in his linen. The shoes were purchased in Rheims. Same as the clothing: mass-produced, of mediocre quality. The socks are of cotton, the kind peddled in the street at four or five francs a pair. They have holes in them but have never been mended.

  ‘All these clothes have been placed in a strong paper bag and shaken, and the dust obtained was analysed.

  ‘We were thus able to confirm the provenance of those grease stains. The clothes are in fact impregnated with a fine metallic powder found only on the belongings of fitters, metal-workers, and, in general, those who labour in machine shops.

  ‘These elements are absent from the items I will call clothing B, items which have not been worn for at least six years.

  ‘One more difference: in the pockets of suit A we found traces of French government-issue tobacco, what you call shag tobacco. In the pockets of clothing B, however, there were particles of yellowish imitation Egyptian tobacco.

  ‘But now I come to the most important point. The spots found on clothing B are not grease spots. They are old human bloodstains, probably from arterial blood.

  ‘The material has not been washed for years. The man who wore this suit must have been literally drenched in blood. And finally, certain tears suggest that there may have been a struggle, because in various places, for example on the lapels, the weave of the cloth has been torn as if it had been clawed by fingernails.

  ‘The items of clothing B have labels from the tailor Roger Morcel, Rue Haute-Sauvenière, in Liège.

  ‘As for the revolver, it’s a model that was discontinued two years ago.

  ‘If you wish to leave me your address, I will send you a copy of the report I’ll be drawing up for my superiors.’

  By eight that evening, Maigret had finished with the formalities. The German police had handed the dead man’s clothes over to him along with the ones in the suitcase, which the technician had referred to as clothing B. And it had been decided that, until further notice, the body would be kept at th
e disposition of the French authorities in the mortuary refrigerator unit.

  Maigret had a copy of Joseph Van Damme’s public record: born in Liège of Flemish parents; travelling salesman, then director of a commission agency bearing his name.

  He was thirty-two. A bachelor. He had lived in Bremen for only three years and, after some initial difficulties, now seemed to be doing nicely.

  The inspector returned to his hotel room, where he sat for a long time on the edge of his bed with the two cheap suitcases in front of him. He had opened the communicating door to the neighbouring room, where nothing had been touched since the previous day, and he was struck by how little disorder the tragedy had left behind. In one place on the wallpaper, beneath a pink flower, was a very small brown spot, the only bloodstain. On the table lay the two sausage bread rolls, still wrapped in paper. A fly was sitting on them.

  That morning, Maigret had sent two photos of the dead man to Paris and asked that the Police Judiciaire publish them in as many newspapers as possible.

  Should the search begin there? In Paris, where the police at least had an address, the one where Jeunet had sent himself the thirty thousand-franc notes from Brussels?

  Or in Liège, where clothing B had been bought a few years before? In Rheims, where the dead man’s shoes had come from? In Brussels, where Jeunet had wrapped up his package of 30,000 francs? Bremen, where he had died and where a certain Joseph Van Damme had come to take a look at his corpse, denying all the while that he had ever known him?

  The hotel manager appeared, made a long speech in German and, as far as the inspector could tell, asked him if the room where the tragedy had taken place could be cleaned and rented out.

  Maigret grunted his assent, washed his hands, paid and went off with his two suitcases, their obviously poor quality in stark contrast with his comfortably bourgeois appearance.

  There was no clear reason to tackle his investigation from one angle or another. And if he chose Paris, it was above all because of the strikingly foreign atmosphere all around him that constantly disturbed his habits, his way of thinking and, in the end, depressed him.