Maigret Sets a Trap

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Lognon wants to speak to you, sir.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In some café in Montmartre.’

  ‘Hello! Lognon?’

  ‘Yes, boss. They’re still hunting for him. They’ve closed off a big chunk of the district. But I’m pretty sure he’s the man I saw running down the steps, just opposite where I live, Place Constantin-Pecqueur.’

  ‘And you couldn’t catch up with him?’

  ‘No, I ran as fast as I could, but he’s much faster.’

  ‘And you didn’t shoot?’

  Those had nevertheless been the orders: shoot on sight, aiming for the legs if possible, on condition passers-by were not put at risk.

  ‘I didn’t dare because there was an old beggar-woman asleep on the bottom step, and I might have hit her. Then it was too late. He disappeared into the shadows, as if he’d faded into a wall. After that I searched the area, square metre by square metre, and all the time I had the feeling he wasn’t far away, that he was watching my movements.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Yes. My colleagues arrived and we did a collective search.’

  ‘With no result?’

  ‘Just this: a man apparently went in at about that time to a bar in Rue Caulaincourt, where customers were playing belote. Without stopping at the counter, he went into the phone booth, which means he must have had telephone tokens. He made a call, then he went out again as he had come in, not a word or a glance to the barman or the drinkers. That’s why they noticed. The people in that bar had no idea what was going on.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘This man is described as fair-haired, youngish, thin, no hat.’

  ‘His suit?’

  ‘Dark coloured. My thoughts are that he called someone who came to pick him up in a car at a prearranged spot. We didn’t think of stopping cars with more than one occupant.’

  It would be the first time in the annals of crime, indeed, that a maniac of this kind was not operating on his own.

  ‘Thanks anyway, my friend.’

  ‘I’ll stay on the spot. We’ll keep looking.’

  ‘It’s all we can do.’

  It might just have been a coincidence. After all, anyone can go into a café simply to use the telephone, without having time to stop for a drink. But it troubled Maigret all the same. He wondered about the wedding ring the policewoman had remembered.

  Could it be that in order to escape from the police cordon, the man had had the gall to telephone his wife? In that case, what excuse would he have given her? In tomorrow’s newspapers, she would surely read about what had happened in Montmartre.

  ‘Is Moers here yet?’

  ‘He’ll be along any moment. He was reading in bed. I told him to get a taxi.’

  Marthe Jusserand brought him her essay, that is, her report on the events as she had experienced them.

  ‘I didn’t try to write it up in a fancy way, just to put it all down as objectively as possible.’

  He ran his eye over the two sheets of paper without noting anything new, and it was only when the young woman turned round to pick up her handbag that he noticed that her dress was slashed at the back. That detail suddenly made concrete the danger Maigret had placed her in, along with the other women auxiliaries.

  ‘You can go home to bed now. I’ll get someone to drive you.’

  ‘There’s no need, sir. Jean will certainly be downstairs with his car.’

  He looked at her with an amused expression.

  ‘But you couldn’t have asked him to meet you here at headquarters, could you, since you didn’t know you would end up here.’

  ‘No. But he was one of the first people to arrive from Place du Tertre. I spotted him among all the people staring and the inspectors. He saw me talking to you and getting into your car. He will be sure to have guessed you were bringing me here.’

  Astonished, Maigret could only murmur as he shook hands with her:

  ‘Well, my dear, I wish you all the luck in the world with your Jean. Thank you. And I apologize for all the turmoil I have put you through. Of course, the press must not learn a whisper about the trap we laid. We will not be letting them know your name.’

  ‘Good, I’d prefer it that way.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  He accompanied her courteously to the top of the stairs and returned to his inspectors, shaking his head.

  ‘Strange girl,’ he grunted.

  Torrence, who had his own ideas about the younger generation, commented quietly:

  ‘The girls are all like that, these days.’

  Moers entered the room a few minutes later, looking as fresh as if he had had a good night’s sleep. He knew nothing of the evening’s events. The plans to entrap the killer had not been communicated to the laboratory staff.

  ‘Some work for me, boss?’

  Maigret held out the button and Moers pulled a face.

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Moers turned it over several times in his hand.

  ‘Want me to go upstairs and examine it?’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  It was almost out of superstition. The telephone calls kept coming in, one after another. Maigret still did not feel confident. Yet every time the phone rang, he could hardly help giving a start, hoping that the miracle had happened. Perhaps if he wasn’t on the spot it would transpire after all, and they would come to the laboratory and tell him that the killer had been caught.

  Moers switched on the lights, and picked up first a magnifying glass, then tweezers, and a whole series of delicate instruments, before he examined the thread and the scraps of fabric under the microscope.

  ‘I suppose you’d like to know where the garment was made that this button came from?’

  ‘I want to know everything there is to know about it.’

  ‘Well, first the button, although it looks quite ordinary, is actually of very good quality. It’s not the kind used for mass-produced clothes. I think it shouldn’t be too difficult tomorrow morning to find out where it was made, because there aren’t many button manufacturers. They nearly all have offices in Rue des Petits-Champs, close to the wholesale drapers.’

  ‘And the thread?’

  ‘It’s the kind most tailors use. The cloth is more interesting. As you can see, the weave is an ordinary grey but there’s a light-blue strand which makes it typical of its kind. I’d be prepared to bet this isn’t French-made suiting, but tweed imported from England. There are relatively few firms that handle such imports, and I can give you the list.’

  Moers possessed lists of all kinds, directories, catalogues, which he used to determine very quickly the origin of an object, whether a gun, a pair of shoes or a pocket handkerchief.

  ‘And look! As you can see, most of the importers also have offices in Rue des Petits-Champs.’

  Luckily, the wholesalers still had their headquarters more or less grouped in certain districts of Paris.

  ‘None of these offices will be open until eight in the morning, most of them only at nine.’

  ‘I’ll have the men make a start with the ones that open at eight.’

  ‘Is that all for tonight?’

  ‘Unless you think of anything else we should be doing.’

  ‘I’ll try, just in case.’

  He would no doubt be scrutinizing the thread and the scraps of tweed for some dust or other incriminating substance. After all, three years earlier, had they not identified one criminal thanks to traces of sawdust on a handkerchief, and another through a spot of printer’s ink?

  Maigret suddenly felt tired. The tension of the last days and hours had dropped and he found himself without energy, without a wish for anything, without optimism.

  Tomorrow morning, he would have to face Coméliau, and the journalists who would besiege him with awkward questions. What was he going to tell them? He couldn’t tell them the truth. But neither did he want to embark on a pack of lies.

  Wh
en he went back down to the Police Judiciaire, he realized that the ordeal by the press would not be for tomorrow, but straightaway. Although the Baron wasn’t there, three other reporters were, including young Rougin, whose eyes were bright with excitement.

  ‘May we have a word in your office, chief inspector?’

  Shrugging his shoulders, Maigret let them in and looked at the three of them standing there, notepads in hand and pencils at the ready.

  ‘So did your prisoner escape?’

  Inevitably they would start there, with the man whose existence had become an embarrassment, now that events had taken a sudden new course.

  ‘No one has escaped.’

  ‘Did you release him then?’

  ‘No one has been released.’

  ‘But tonight there was another attempted murder, wasn’t there?’

  ‘A young woman was indeed attacked in the street, not far from Place du Tertre, but she got away with just a fright.’

  ‘She wasn’t injured?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did her attacker have a knife?’

  ‘She’s not sure about that.’

  ‘She isn’t here now?’

  They were peering round suspiciously. No doubt they had been told up in Montmartre that the young woman had been seen getting into Maigret’s car.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Her name’s not important.’

  ‘Are you keeping it a secret?’

  ‘Let’s just say that it would serve no purpose to publish it.’

  ‘Why not? Is she married? Was she somewhere she shouldn’t have been?’

  ‘That might be one reason.’

  ‘The right one?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you think this is all becoming very mysterious?’

  ‘The only mystery that concerns me is the identity of the killer.’

  ‘And have you discovered that?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Have you got any new elements that might help you discover it?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘But of course you’re not going to tell us about them?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Did this young lady with the secret name see her assailant?’

  ‘Not clearly, but enough for me to be able to give you a description.’

  Maigret told them the few details she had recalled, but without mentioning the button torn from the jacket.

  ‘That’s pretty vague, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yesterday things were vaguer still, since we knew nothing at all about him.’

  He was in a bad mood, irritated with himself for having to treat them this way. They were simply doing their job, as he was. He knew he was infuriating them by his answers, and even more by his silences, but he could not make himself act in his usual cordial manner.

  ‘I’m very tired, gentlemen.’

  ‘Are you going home?’

  ‘As soon as you let me get away.’

  ‘Are they still looking for him up there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to release the man Inspector Lognon brought up here the day before yesterday, the one you interrogated twice?’

  He had to provide them with an answer to this question.

  ‘That man was not being interrogated. He wasn’t a suspect but a witness whose identity could not, for certain reasons, be divulged.’

  ‘As a precaution?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Is he still under police guard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And there was no possibility he could have been in Montmartre this evening?’

  ‘No. Any more questions?’

  ‘When we got here, you were up in the laboratory.’

  They knew the layout of the building as well as he did.

  ‘Up there, they don’t work on hunches but on evidence.’

  He stared at them without flinching.

  ‘May we conclude that the man in Rue Norvins left something behind, perhaps in the victim’s hands?’

  ‘It would be better, in the interests of the investigation, if you were not to draw any conclusions from my comings and goings. Gentlemen, I am quite exhausted, and I would ask you to let me go home now. In twenty-four or perhaps forty-eight hours, I may have something to tell you. Meanwhile, you will have to be satisfied with the description of the attacker I have given you.’

  It was half past one in the morning. In the next office, the telephone calls were coming in less frequently, and he went to bid goodnight to Torrence and Lucas.

  ‘Still nothing?’

  He had only to look at them to see that the question was pointless. The police would still be scouring the Montmartre area, street by street, house by house, until the dawn lit up the dustbins pulled out on to the edge of the pavements.

  ‘Goodnight, boys.’

  He had kept on the car, in case of further need, and the driver was pacing round the courtyard. To find a place open for a glass of cool beer, he would have had to go as far as Montparnasse or the other way, up to Pigalle, and he had no heart for that.

  Madame Maigret, in her nightdress, opened the door before he had time to get his key out of his pocket, and he headed gloomily and with an obstinate frown towards the sideboard where the bottle of plum brandy was kept. He really wanted a beer, not a liqueur, but as he drank off his glass in a single gulp, he had a slight feeling he was getting his revenge.

  5.

  The Cigarette Burn

  It could have taken weeks. Everyone at Quai des Orfèvres that morning was worn out, with a bad taste in the mouth. Some people, Maigret among them, had slept for three or four hours. Others, who lived out in the suburbs, had not slept at all.

  A search of the Grandes-Carrières neighbourhood was still going on, with police watching the Métro stations, and observing any men coming out of buildings.

  ‘Sleep well, chief inspector?’

  It was young Rougin, as fresh as a daisy, and more ebullient than usual, calling out from the corridor, in his high-pitched, rather strident voice. He seemed in particularly good humour this morning, and Maigret discovered why only when he picked up the newspaper to which the young reporter was attached. Rougin too had taken a risk. Already, the previous day, then again during the evening, and finally when three or four of them had arrived to pester him, Rougin had suspected the truth.

  He had probably spent the rest of the night asking questions of certain people, hotel proprietors in particular.

  At any rate, his newspaper carried a banner headline:

  Killer escapes police trap!

  In the corridor, Rougin must have been waiting to see Maigret’s reaction.

  Our good friend, Detective Chief Inspector Maigret [his article ran] will probably not dissent if we say that the arrest carried out two days ago, and surrounded deliberately with much mystery, was a trick, intended to draw the Montmartre killer into a trap.

  Rougin had gone even further. He had woken a renowned psychiatrist in the middle of the night, and asked him questions very like those Maigret had put to Professor Tissot.

  Were they calculating that the murderer would come and prowl round police headquarters, to catch a glimpse of the man they had arrested instead of him? That is one possibility. But it is more likely that they hoped, by wounding his vanity, to provoke him into another attack, in a district which had been well staked out with police officers beforehand.

  It was the only newspaper to have taken this line. The other reporters were all in the dark.

  ‘Still here?’ grunted Maigret, when he saw Lucas. ‘Don’t you have a home to go to?’

  ‘I slept in an armchair, then I went for a dip in the Deligny Baths and I shaved in my cabin.’

  ‘Who’s available?’

  ‘Almost everyone.’

  ‘And nothing to report, naturally …’

  Lucas merely shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Get Janvier and Lapointe and two or t
hree others.’

  All he had drunk the previous night was a beer and a glass of plum brandy, but he still felt a bitter aftertaste. The sky was overcast but not with real clouds, which might have brought cooler air. A greyish veil had gradually gathered over the city, a sticky kind of haze slowly covering the streets, laden with dust and petrol fumes that caught in the throat.

  Maigret opened his window but shut it again at once, since the air outside was even more unbreathable than in his office.

  ‘Now, then, you’re going to go straight over to Rue des Petits-Champs. Here are a few addresses. If you have no luck with these, try others that you can find from the street directory. Some of them handle buttons, others suiting.’

  He explained what Moers had told him about the wholesalers and importers:

  ‘We just might be lucky this time. Keep me posted.’

  He was still in the same bad mood, and it was not, as everyone believed, because his plan had failed, because the man they were searching for had slipped through the net.

  He had expected that. The plan had not, in fact, been a failure, since his prediction had been confirmed and now at last they had a clue, something to work with, however insignificant it seemed.

  His mind was focusing on the killer, who was beginning to take shape in his mind, since at least one person had caught sight of him. He envisaged him as a youngish man, with light-coloured hair, probably melancholy or bitter. Why would Maigret have laid money just now that he came from a good family, and was accustomed to a comfortable way of life?

  He wore a wedding ring. So he had a wife. He had had a father and mother. He had been a schoolboy, perhaps a university student.

  And this morning he was alone, against the Paris police force, against the entire Parisian population, and he would also, no doubt, have read Rougin’s article in the paper.

  Had he slept, once he had escaped the dragnet which had almost caught him?

  If his crimes brought him a kind of release, euphoria even, what effect would a failed attempt produce?

  Maigret did not wait for Coméliau to call him in, but went straight to his office, where he found the magistrate reading the papers.

  ‘I did warn you, Maigret. You can’t argue either that I showed any enthusiasm for your plan, or that I approved of it.’