Maigret Sets a Trap

by Georges Simenon

  The photographers jostled each other. Flash bulbs went off in the corridor. Less than a minute later, the glass door closed, and everyone rushed towards Maigret’s office, which looked like the scene of a battlefield. Beer glasses littered the desks, cigarette ends and torn papers were strewn everywhere, and the air smelled of tobacco, now stale. Maigret himself, still jacketless, was leaning into the closet, and washing his hands at the little enamel basin.

  ‘Can you give us some pointers, chief inspector?’

  He looked at them with the wide-eyed expression he always wore in these circumstances, appearing not to recognize anyone.

  ‘Pointers?’ he repeated.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man who just left here.’

  ‘Someone with whom I have had a rather long conversation.’

  ‘A witness?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Have you taken him into custody?’

  Maigret seemed to wake up a bit, and apologized in an amiable way:

  ‘Gentlemen, I’m sorry not to be able to give you any answers, but frankly, I can’t make any statement at this stage.’

  ‘Will you be making one shortly?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Are you going to see the examining magistrate?’

  ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘Is it to do with the killer?’

  ‘Once more, you will have to forgive me, but I can’t give you any information.’

  ‘Are you going home now?’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Half past eleven.’

  ‘In that case, the Brasserie Dauphine is still open, so I’m going for a bite to eat.’

  They watched as Maigret, Janvier and Lapointe all left. Two or three journalists followed them as far as the bar and stood at the counter drinking, while the three police officers, looking tired and concerned, sat down at a table in the back room and gave their orders to the waiter.

  A few minutes later, Lognon joined them, but not Lucas. The four men were talking in low voices and it was impossible to hear what they were saying or to guess anything from their lip movements.

  ‘Better call it a day. Want me to take you home, Maguy?’

  ‘No, take me to the paper.’

  Once the door had closed behind them, and only then, Maigret stretched. A merry, youthful smile appeared on his lips.

  ‘That’s it, then!’ he sighed.

  Janvier said:

  ‘I think they’ve swallowed it.’

  ‘Well, I should damn well hope so!’

  ‘What will they write?’

  ‘No idea, but they’ll manage to make it sound sensational. Especially that young Rougin.’

  He was a new recruit to journalism, young and aggressive.

  ‘What if they realize they’ve been tricked?’

  ‘It’s essential they don’t!’

  It was an almost entirely different Lognon who was eating with them, a Lognon who since four that afternoon had drunk four glasses of beer, and was not refusing the shot of spirits the café owner came to offer them.

  ‘So how’s your wife getting on, Lognon?’

  ‘She’s written to say the treatment’s going well. She’s just worrying about me.’

  It didn’t make them laugh or even smile. Some subjects are sacrosanct. It did not prevent him being relaxed, almost optimistic.

  ‘You played your role very well. Thank you for that. I hope that apart from Alfonsi, nobody in your station knows anything about this.’

  ‘No, nobody.’

  It was half past midnight when they separated. There were still customers sitting out on café terraces, and more people than usual on the streets, breathing in the comparative coolness of the night air, since there had been none during the day.

  ‘You’re taking the bus?’

  Maigret shook his head. He preferred to make his way home on foot, alone, and as he trod the pavements, his excitement dropped away and a more serious, almost anguished expression took over his face.

  If, as happened a few times, he passed a woman hurrying down the street alone, she would invariably be keeping close to the walls, and would shrink back, ready to run or shout for help at the slightest move on his part.

  Over the past six months, five women who, like these, had been on their way home or to see a friend, five women on foot in the streets of Paris, had been the victims of the same murderer.

  Strangely enough, all five crimes had been committed in just one of Paris’ twenty arrondissements, the 18th, Montmartre, and not only the same arrondissement but the same part of it, a very specific area which could be described as being between four Métro stations: Lamarck, Abbesses, Place Blanche and Place Clichy.

  The names of the victims, the neighbourhood where the attacks had taken place and the time of each crime had become familiar to newspaper readers, and Maigret was literally haunted by them. He knew the list by heart and could have recited it, like a La Fontaine fable learned at school.

  2 February. Avenue Rachel, near Place Clichy, and hardly any distance from Boulevard de Clichy with its bright lights: Arlette Dutour, 28, a streetwalker, living in furnished rooms in Rue d’Amsterdam.

  Two stab wounds in the back, one of which had killed her almost instantly. Her clothing had been systematically slashed, and there were a few superficial cuts to her body.

  No sign of rape. Neither her jewellery, which was of little value, nor her handbag containing a certain amount of money had been taken.

  3 March. Rue Lepic, a little beyond the Moulin de la Galette. 8.15 at night. Joséphine Simmer, born in Mulhouse, a midwife, aged 43. She lived in Rue Lamarck and was on her way back from the top of the Butte Montmartre, where she had been delivering a baby.

  A single stab wound in the back, which had penetrated the heart. Clothing slashed, superficial cuts to the body. Her midwife’s bag was lying beside her on the pavement.

  17 April. (Because of the coincidences of the dates 2 February and 3 March, the police had been expecting another attack on 4 April, but nothing had happened.) Rue Étex, alongside the Montmartre cemetery, almost opposite the Bretonneau hospital. Three minutes past nine at night, Monique Juteaux, a dressmaker, aged 24, unmarried, living with her mother, Boulevard des Batignolles. She was coming back from visiting a friend who lived in Avenue de Saint-Ouen. It was raining, and she had been carrying an umbrella.

  Three stab wounds. Clothing slashed, nothing stolen.

  15 June. Between 9.20 and 9.30. Rue Durantin this time, still in the same district. Marie Bernard, a widow aged 52, who worked as a post office clerk and lived with her daughter and son-in-law in a flat on Boulevard Rochechouart.

  Two stab wounds. Clothing slashed. The second thrust had severed the carotid artery. Nothing stolen.

  21 July. The most recent crime so far. Georgette Lecoeur, aged 31, married with two children, living in Rue Lepic, not far from where the second attack had taken place. Her husband worked nights in a garage. One of the children was ill. She was going down Rue Tholozé in search of a chemist’s shop open at that time of night, and she had died at about 9.45, opposite a music hall. A single stab wound. Clothing slashed.

  It was hideous and monotonous.

  Police reinforcements had been posted in the area where the crimes had occurred, known as the Grandes-Carrières. Lognon had, like his colleagues, postponed his holiday leave. Would he ever be able to take it?

  The streets were being patrolled. Officers had been stationed at all the strategic points. They had already been in position when the second, third, fourth and fifth murders had taken place.

  ‘Tired?’ asked Madame Maigret, as she opened the door of their apartment at exactly the moment her husband reached the landing.

  ‘It was a hot day.’

  ‘Still nothing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I heard just now on the radio that there had been some excitement at Quai des Orfèvres.’

 
; ‘Already?’

  ‘They seemed to think it was to do with the murders in the 18th? Is that true?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Have you got any leads?’

  ‘Not that I know.’

  ‘Did you have any dinner?’

  ‘Yes, and I even had a bite of supper only half an hour ago.’

  She didn’t insist, and soon afterwards both of them were asleep, with the bedroom window wide open.

  He arrived next morning at his office without having had time to read the newspapers. They had been placed on his blotter, and he was about to look at them when the telephone rang. From the first syllable, he recognized who was on the line.

  ‘Maigret?’

  ‘Yes, sir, good morning.’

  Coméliau, of course, the examining magistrate in charge of the inquiry into the five crimes in Montmartre.

  ‘Is all this true?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What all the papers are saying this morning.’

  ‘I haven’t seen them yet.’

  ‘Have you arrested anyone?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘Perhaps it would be best if you were to come to my office right away.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  Lucas, who had come into the room and overheard the conversation, understood the expression on Maigret’s face.

  ‘Lucas, tell the chief I’ve gone over to the Palais de Justice and probably won’t be back in time for the daily report.’

  And Maigret set off in the same direction taken the previous day by Lognon, Lucas and the mysterious visitor, the man whose hat had been hiding his face. In the corridor where the magistrates had their offices, the gendarmes saluted him, while some of those waiting there, witnesses or people called in for questioning, recognized him, and one or two made a sign of greeting.

  ‘Come in! Read this!’

  He had been expecting this, of course, that Coméliau would be jumpy and aggressive, and would be restraining with some difficulty the indignation that was making his little moustache quiver.

  One headline read:

  Have the police nabbed the killer at last?

  Another:

  Almighty commotion at Police Headquarters!

  Is this the Montmartre maniac?

  ‘I would observe to you, detective chief inspector, that yesterday at four o’clock, I was sitting here in my office, less than two hundred metres from yours, with a telephone on my desk. I was still here at five, and at six, and I left for another engagement only at ten to seven. Even then, I could have been reached, whether at home, where you have often called me, or later at the home of some friends, whose address I took care to leave with my manservant.’

  Maigret, who had remained on his feet, heard all this without reacting.

  ‘When an event as important as this …’

  Looking up, Maigret said quietly:

  ‘There hasn’t been any event.’

  Coméliau, who was already launched so far into his speech that he could not immediately calm down, rapped the newspapers with his clenched fist.

  ‘And all this? Are you going to tell me this has all been invented by the journalists?’

  ‘It’s mere speculation on their part.’

  ‘In other words, nothing whatsoever happened, and these gentlemen speculated that you had an unknown man brought to your office, interrogated him for six hours, then sent him down to the Mousetrap and …’

  ‘I didn’t interrogate anyone, sir.’

  This time Coméliau, taken aback, looked at him in complete incomprehension.

  ‘I think you had better explain yourself to me, so that I can provide some account to the public prosecutor, whose first action this morning was to call my office.’

  ‘A certain person did indeed come to see me yesterday afternoon, along with two inspectors.’

  ‘A person whom the two inspectors had arrested?’

  ‘It was in the nature of a friendly visit.’

  ‘And that was why the man was hiding his face with his hat?’

  Coméliau pointed to a photograph printed across two columns of the front pages of the newspapers.

  ‘Perhaps that was mere chance, an automatic movement on his part. We had a chat—’

  ‘For six hours?’

  ‘Time passes quickly.’

  ‘And you had beer and sandwiches sent up?’

  ‘That is quite true, sir.’

  The magistrate once more slapped his hand down on the newspapers.

  ‘I have in front of me a detailed account of all your comings and goings.’

  ‘I am sure that is correct.’

  ‘Who is this man?’

  ‘He’s a likeable fellow by the name of Mazet, Pierre Mazet, who worked in my squad for a while about ten years ago, just after passing his exams. Later, hoping for faster promotion and also, I believe, because of some unhappy love affair, he asked to be posted to Equatorial Africa, where he stayed for five years.’

  Coméliau could make no sense of this and frowned at Maigret, wondering whether the chief inspector was mocking him.

  ‘He had to leave Africa after an attack of fever, and the doctors have forbidden him to return. When he’s fully restored to health, he will probably apply to be re-employed at the Police Judiciaire.’

  ‘And it was to receive this man that you created what the newspapers have not hesitated to call an almighty commotion?’

  Maigret moved towards the door, to check that nobody could be listening to their conversation.

  ‘Yes, sir, that’s right,’ he finally admitted. ‘I needed a man whose appearance was as ordinary and non-distinctive as possible, and whose face was not known to the press or the general public. Poor Mazet has changed a lot since his spell in Africa. Do you see what I’m getting at?’

  ‘I can’t say that I do.’

  ‘I didn’t tell the reporters anything. I didn’t say a single word to entitle them to think his visit had anything to do with the Montmartre murders.’

  ‘But you didn’t deny it either.’

  ‘I repeated that I had nothing to say, which was the truth.’

  ‘And the result …!’ cried the magistrate, pointing to the papers again.

  ‘The result was the one I wanted to obtain.’

  ‘Without consulting me, of course. Or even keeping me informed!’

  ‘That was entirely so as to spare you from sharing any of the responsibility, sir, it was all mine.’

  ‘What are you hoping to achieve?’

  Maigret, whose pipe had gone out, relit it with a thoughtful expression and then said slowly:

  ‘I don’t quite know yet. I simply thought that it would be worth trying something.’

  Coméliau was still puzzled, and he stared at Maigret’s pipe, to which he had never been able to accustom himself. The chief inspector was in fact the only person who ventured to smoke in his office, and the magistrate considered this a kind of provocation.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said in the end, regretfully.

  And before sitting down himself, he went to open the window.

  2.

  Professor Tissot’s Theories

  It was on the previous Friday evening that Maigret and his wife had set off walking peaceably towards Rue Picpus, to pay a neighbourly visit: in all the nearby streets, people were sitting in their doorways, and many had even brought chairs out on to the pavement. The Maigrets’ regular practice of dining once a month with Doctor Pardon had continued, with a slight variation, introduced about a year ago.

  Pardon had taken to inviting, along with the Maigret couple, one or other of his medical colleagues, almost always an interesting man, either in personality or because of his research, and the inspector often found himself sitting opposite the head of a leading medical institution or some illustrious professor.

  He had not at first realized that it was these people who had asked to meet him, and who were studying him, asking countless ques
tions. All of them had heard of him by reputation and were curious to make his acquaintance. It had not taken long for them to feel that they had some common ground with Maigret, and some of their after-dinner conversations, aided by a well-aged liqueur in the Pardons’ peaceful sitting room, usually with the windows open on to the busy street, had lasted late into the night.

  Many times, following one of these chats, Maigret’s opposite number would suddenly ask him with a serious expression:

  ‘And you were never tempted to go in for medicine?’

  He would answer, almost with a blush, that such had indeed been his first intention, but that his father’s death had obliged him to give up his studies.

  It was curious, was it not, that they could sense this after so many years? Their interest in human behaviour, with its troubles and its failings, was almost identical with his own.

  And the policeman did not try to conceal that he was flattered that these professors, often household names, were drawn to talk shop with him almost as if they were colleagues.

  Had Doctor Pardon planned this deliberately that night, on account of the Montmartre killer, whose crimes had been preoccupying all of Paris for months? It was possible. Pardon was an unpretentious man, certainly, but capable of great tact and subtlety. This year, he had had to take his holiday early, in June, since that was the only time for which he could find a locum.

  When Maigret and his wife arrived, another couple was already in the living room with the tray of aperitifs: the man was of sturdy peasant build, with a ruddy complexion and thick, grey, crew-cut hair; his wife was dark and extremely vivacious.

  Doctor Pardon introduced them: ‘My friends the Maigrets … Madame Tissot … and Professor Tissot.’

  This was the famous Tissot, director of the Sainte-Anne Psychiatric Institution in Rue Cabanis. Although the professor was often called upon as an expert witness in court, Maigret had never had occasion to meet him, and he found himself faced with a solid, humane and jovial psychiatrist, of a kind he had not before encountered.