Maigret and the Ghost

by Georges Simenon

  ‘It really annoyed him that we knew.

  ‘ “Anyhow, if she’s expecting a baby, it can’t be mine, because we haven’t seen one another for over nine months …”

  ‘You see the type, chief! I asked him about their weekends.

  ‘ “You must have had favourite places where you used to go … Do you have a car?”

  ‘ “Of course.”

  ‘ “Did you go to the seaside or did you stay in the Paris region?”

  ‘ “In the Paris region … Not always the same spot … We’d choose an inn, nearly always by the river, because Marinette was crazy about swimming and canoeing … She didn’t like hotels, elegant and sophisticated places … To be honest, her tastes were very common …”

  ‘I managed to get half a dozen addresses out of him, those of the spots they went to several times, the Auberge du Clou, in Courcelles, in the Chevreuse valley, Chez Mélanie, in Saint-Fargeau, between Corbeil and Melun, Félix et Félicie, in Pomponne … It’s beside the Marne, not far from Lagny … She was especially fond of that bistro, because it’s just a rural café with two guest rooms and no running water …

  ‘Then Créguy, near Meaux, an open-air dance hall whose name he can’t remember and whose owner is deaf … The Pie-qui-Danse, in the middle of the countryside between Meulan and Apremont … They ate only once at the Coq-Hardi, in Bougival …’

  ‘Have you checked?’

  ‘I thought I’d do better staying here and gathering the intelligence. I could have phoned the local police in the various villages, but I was afraid they might give the game away and cause the young lady to run away … It’s not very regular, given that these places are outside our patch, but I understood you were in a hurry …’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I sent a man in each direction, Lourtie, Jamin and Lagrume …’

  ‘Did they each take a car?’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Janvier anxiously.

  ‘Is that why Lucas has just told me that there are probably no cars available?’

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘You did well … No results yet?’

  ‘Only from the Auberge du Clou … Nothing there … The others will be reporting back soon …’

  Maigret smoked his pipe in silence, as if he’d forgotten Janvier’s presence.

  ‘Do you still need me here?’

  ‘Not for the time being. Don’t go off without informing me, though. Tell Lucas to stay as well …’

  He wanted to move fast. After his long visit to the Dutchman that afternoon, he felt that someone was in danger, while remaining incapable of saying who was at risk.

  Of course, they’d contrived to show him a façade. While the paintings on the walls were authentic, wasn’t everything else he’d seen and heard false?

  ‘Get me Immigration …’

  It only took ten minutes or so for him to obtain Madame Jonker’s maiden name. Her first name wasn’t Mireille, as he had thought because of Mirella and her southern roots, but the very ordinary Marcelle, and her surname had been Maillant.

  ‘Get hold of the Nice Police Judiciaire, will you. Preferably Detective Chief Inspector Bastiani …’

  Unable to remain idle, he was casting around at random in all directions.

  ‘Hello! Bastiani? How are you, my old friend? … Like the weather? … Here it’s been raining for the past three days and it’s only let up since midday, but the sky’s still grey … Listen, I’d like your men to search through some old paperwork quickly … If you’ve got nothing, they could try at the Palais de Justice. It’s concerning a certain Marcelle Maillant, born in Nice, probably in the old town, in the Sainte-Réparate neighbourhood …’

  ‘She’s thirty-four. After her marriage to an Englishman by the name of Muir, who manufactures ball-bearings in Manchester, she lived in London for a number of years, where she married a wealthy Dutchman, Norris Jonker, and she currently lives in Paris …

  ‘A magnificent woman, the kind who turns heads in the street … Tall, dark-haired, elegantly dressed … Very much a woman of the world, but with a little something that niggles me … Do you know what I mean? … Something’s not quite right, I don’t know what but the way she looked at me confirms it …

  ‘Yes, it’s really urgent … I’d swear that something ugly’s going to happen and I’d like to prevent it … By the way, did you ever meet Lognon, when you were at the Sûreté? … Old Hard-Done-By, that’s right … He was shot last night … He’s not dead, but no one can be sure he’ll recover … It’s to do with this case, yes … I’m not sure how or to what extent she’s mixed up in it, but your intelligence may shed some light …

  ‘I’m staying in my office … All night if I have to …’

  He knew that on learning that the investigation concerned a colleague who had been shot, Bastiani and his men would pull out all the stops. For them it was a point of honour.

  For a good five minutes, he appeared to be daydreaming, dozing, then his arm reached for the telephone.

  ‘I’d like to be put through to Scotland Yard … As a matter of urgency … Inspector Pyke … One moment … No! Chief Inspector Pyke …’

  They had met in France, where the worthy Inspector Pyke had come to study the methods of the Police Judiciaire, and of Maigret especially, and had been surprised to discover that Maigret had no method at all.

  They had seen one another twice more in London and had become good friends. A few months earlier, Maigret had learned that Pyke had earned more stripes.

  Although he was put through to Scotland Yard in three minutes, it took another ten before Pyke was on the other end, and a few more to exchange congratulations in bad English on Maigret’s part and in bad French on Pyke’s.

  ‘… Maillant, yes … M for Maurice, A for André …’

  He had to spell out the names.

  ‘… Muir … M for Maurice again … U for Ursula …’

  ‘I know that name … Is it Sir Herbert Muir? … Of Manchester? … The Queen knighted him three years ago …’

  ‘Second husband: Norris Jonker …’

  He spelled out the name again, mentioning the Dutchman’s stint in the British army, his rank of colonel.

  ‘There were perhaps other men between the two … Apparently she lived for a while in London, where I doubt she remained alone …’

  Maigret took care to add that it was a case of a police officer being attacked, and Mr Pyke declared gravely:

  ‘Here the culprit would be hanged, man or woman. Those guilty of killing police officers are always hanged …’

  Like Bastiani, he promised to call back.

  It was half past six. When he opened the communicating door, Maigret found only four or five inspectors left in the big office.

  ‘Nothing at Chez Mélanie, in Saint-Fargeau, chief. Nothing either at the Coq-Hardi, as I expected, or at the Pie-qui-Danse … There’s just the Marne left, since I drew a blank with the Chevreuse valley and Seine areas.’

  Maigret was about to go back into his office when Inspector Chinquier came into the room in a state of great agitation.

  ‘Is the chief here?’

  He spotted Maigret before the words were out of his mouth.

  ‘I’ve got news … Rather than phoning you from the office, I preferred to dash over myself …’

  ‘Come in …’

  ‘I’ve left a witness in the waiting room, in case you want to question him.’

  ‘First, sit down and tell me …’

  ‘May I remove my coat? I’ve raced around so much today that I’m drenched in sweat … That’s better! … As you requested, the men from the eighteenth have gone through Avenue Junot and the surrounding streets with a fine-tooth comb … For hours, apart from old Maclet, it proved fruitless … Then, suddenly, I was given some information that seemed to me to be of the utmost …

  ‘We’d already been to that apartment building in the early afternoon and questioned the concierge and those residents who were at home, not m
any, mainly women, because the men were at work …

  ‘It’s an investment property located at the top of the avenue …

  ‘Just when one of my colleagues returned there, less than an hour ago, a man went into the lodge to collect his post, a certain Langeron, who’s a door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesman … I’ve brought him in …

  ‘He’s a rather morose man, more used to being kicked out than welcomed with open arms … He lives alone, in an apartment on the third floor, and works irregular hours, always in the hope of catching people at the right moment …

  ‘He generally cooks his own meals, but when he makes a sale he treats himself to dinner at a restaurant … That’s what happened yesterday … Between six and eight, when people are usually at home, he sold two vacuum cleaners and, after a drink in a brasserie on Place Clichy, he dined copiously in a little restaurant in Rue Caulaincourt …

  ‘Shortly before ten o’clock, he was walking up Avenue Junot carrying his demo vacuum cleaner … Outside the Dutchman’s house a car was parked, a yellow Jaguar whose number plate struck him because it was marked TT in red letters …

  ‘He was just a few metres away when the front door opened—’

  ‘Is he certain that it was the door of the Jonkers’ mansion?’

  ‘He knows all the buildings on Avenue Junot inside out because, of course, he tries to sell vacuum cleaners there … Listen carefully … Two men came out, supporting a third who was so drunk that he could no longer stand on his own feet …

  ‘When the two individuals who were virtually carrying the third one to the car spotted Langeron, they made as if to go back into the house, but one of them rebuked the drunk one:

  ‘ “Come on! … Walk, idiot! … What a disgrace you are, getting yourself into such a state!” ’

  ‘Did they take him away?’

  ‘Wait. That’s not all. First, my vacuum-cleaner salesman states that the man who spoke had a strong English accent … Secondly, the drunkard, was wearing neither shoes nor socks … Apparently his bare feet were being dragged over the pavement … They put him on the rear seat, with one of the men who’d been supporting him, while the other took the wheel … The car roared off …

  ‘Do you want me to call my man in?’

  Maigret hesitated, convinced that there was less and less time to lose.

  ‘Make him comfortable next door and take down his statement. Make sure he leaves nothing out. A detail can prove important …’

  ‘Then what do I do?’

  ‘Let’s talk about it again when you’ve finished …’

  The previous day, at the same time, he had been grilling young Bauche, nicknamed Jeannot, and, at one o’clock in the morning, he had wormed the confession out of him that had enabled him to lock up Gaston Nouveau.

  He was beginning to wonder whether, again tonight, the lights in his office would be on until goodness-knows-what hour. That rarely happened twice in a row. Between cases, there was nearly always a pause and, paradoxically, if this pause went on too long, Maigret became bad-tempered and restive.

  ‘Vehicle Registration … Quick! …’

  He didn’t recall ever having seen a yellow Jaguar, an unusual colour for an English car. The ‘TT’ indicated that the car had entered France with a foreign driver who would only be staying in the country for a short time and was exempt from customs duty.

  ‘Who deals with TTs in your department? … Rorive? … He’s not in the office? … Everyone’s gone home? … What about you, you’re there, aren’t you? … Listen, young man … You’ll simply have to manage … Either go into Rorive’s office and look for the information I need, or phone him and tell him to come at once … It doesn’t matter if he’s in the middle of having dinner … Understood? … It’s about a Jaguar … Jaguar, yes …

  ‘It was still driving around Paris last night … It’s yellow and has a TT plate … No! I don’t know the number … That would be a fine thing … but I presume there aren’t dozens of yellow Jaguars with TT plates in Paris …

  ‘Get a move on one way or another and call me at Quai des Orfèvres with the information … The owner’s name, his address, date of arrival in France … Hurry up … My apologies to Rorive if you have to disturb him … I’ll return the favour … Tell him it’s about finding the guy who shot Lognon … Yes, the inspector from the eighteenth …’

  He went and opened the door a fraction to call Janvier.

  ‘Still nothing from the Marne?’

  ‘Not yet. Maybe Lagrume has broken down …’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Seven o’clock …’

  ‘I’m thirsty … Have some beers sent up … While you’re about it, I think it might be a good idea to order some sandwiches …’

  ‘For how many?’

  ‘I don’t know … A heap of sandwiches …’

  He paced up and down, his hands behind his back, then ended up reaching for the phone again.

  ‘My wife, please …’

  To tell her that he definitely wouldn’t be home for dinner.

  He had barely hung up when it rang and he hurried over to pick it up.

  ‘Hello! … Yes … Bastiani? … So it was easier than you expected? … Luck? … Right! … Go on …’

  He sat at his desk, pulled over a notepad and grabbed a pencil.

  ‘What name did you say? … Stanley Hobson … What? … It’s a long story? … Make it as short as possible, without leaving anything out … But not at all, my friend … I’m a bit on edge this evening … I’m convinced we’ve got to move fast … There’s a barefoot drunkard who’s niggling me … Right … I’m listening …’

  The case went back sixteen years. A certain Stanley Hobson had been arrested in Nice, in a luxury hotel on the Promenade des Anglais. He had a record at Scotland Yard as a jewellery thief … Several jewellery robberies had just been committed in villas in Antibes and Cannes, another in a room at the hotel where Hobson was staying.

  At the time of his arrest, he was with a girl who was not quite eighteen and who had been his mistress for several weeks.

  She’d been taken to the police station with him and they’d both been questioned for three days. The room had been searched. The police had also searched the home in the old town of Nice of the girl’s mother, who worked at the flower market.

  No jewellery was found. For lack of proof, the pair were released and, two days later, they crossed over into Italy.

  There was no further news in Nice of either Hobson or Marcelle Maillant, because she was indeed the girl in question.

  ‘Do you know what became of the mother?’

  ‘For the past few years she’s been living in a comfortable apartment in Rue Saint-Sauveur and she has a private income. I sent one of my men over to her place, but he’s not back yet. She probably receives money orders from her daughter …’

  ‘Thank you, Bastiani. We’ll speak later, I hope …’

  The wheels were beginning to turn, as Maigret described it, and, at these times, he wished all the offices were open day and night.

  ‘Come here for a moment, Lucas … Go down to the Hotel Agency … With any luck someone will still be there … Note down the name … Stanley Hobson … According to Bastiani, he’d be between forty-five and forty-eight by now … I don’t have a description but, over fifteen years ago, Scotland Yard circulated his details to all the police forces as an international jewellery thief …’

  ‘Go up to Records if necessary … There’s a chance they’ll have something on him …’

  With Lucas gone, Maigret looked at the telephone reproachfully, as if he was annoyed with it for not ringing every second. Chinquier knocked on his door.

  ‘There you are, sir. The statement is typed up and Langeron has signed it. He’s asking if he may go and have dinner. You really don’t want to see him?’

  Maigret contented himself with a glance through the half-open door. The individual was ordinary, unassuming.

  ‘Let him go an
d eat and then come back, just in case. I don’t know yet whether I’ll need him or when, but too many people have already vanished into thin air …’

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Aren’t you hungry? Don’t you ever eat?’

  ‘I’d like to make myself useful …’

  ‘It would be best if you went back to the eighteenth and kept me posted on what’s happening in the neighbourhood …’

  ‘Are you hoping for something?’

  ‘If I weren’t, I’d go home and have dinner with my wife in front of the television …’

  The waiter from the Brasserie Dauphine was still in Maigret’s office, where he’d delivered a tray full of glasses of beer and sandwiches, when the telephone rang.

  ‘Good! … Well done! … Ed? … Just Ed? … An American? … I understand … Even their presidents have nicknames … Ed Gollan … double l? Do you have the address? … What?’

  Maigret was becoming gloomy. It was about the owner of the yellow Jaguar.

  ‘Are you sure it’s the only one there is in Paris? … Good! … Thank you, my friend … I’ll see where this leads, but I’d have been happier if he weren’t a guest at the Ritz …’

  He went into the inspectors’ office again.

  ‘I need two men to get ready to take cars … I hope there are some left down there?’

  ‘Two have just come back.’

  A moment later, he was on the phone again.

  ‘The Ritz? … Put me through to the concierge, please, mademoiselle … Hello! Is that the concierge? … Is that you, Pierre? … Maigret here …’

  He had carried out several investigations in the hotel on Place Vendôme, one of the most exclusive, if not the most exclusive, in Paris, and each time he had done so with appropriate discretion.

  ‘The detective chief inspector, yes … Listen carefully and don’t say any names … At this hour the lobby must be full of people … Do you have a certain Gollan among your guests? … Ed Gollan …’

  ‘Just a moment, if you don’t mind. I’m going to transfer the call to one of the booths …’

  Shortly after he confirmed:

  ‘He is staying here, yes. He’s a regular guest … He’s an American, born in San Francisco, who travels a lot and comes to Paris three or four times a year … He usually stays around three weeks …’