Maigret and the Killer

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Connoisseurs.’

  ‘A connoisseur, in any case.’

  ‘What’s troubling you?’

  ‘That these people haven’t killed yet. It’s not their style.’

  ‘It can happen, however, as it did last night.’

  ‘Let’s imagine that they suddenly suspected the tape recorder was running. It was easy for them to follow Antoine Batille, two of them, for example. Once he was in a deserted street, like Rue Popincourt, all they had to do was jump on him and pull off his tape recorder.’

  The magistrate sighed regretfully:

  ‘Clearly.’

  ‘These robbers rarely kill, and when they do it’s in desperate cases. They’ve been working for two years without being caught. We don’t even have any idea how they resell the paintings and artworks. That requires at least a brains behind the operation, a man who knows about painting, who has connections, who sets out what needs to be done and perhaps gets involved after assigning a task to each member of the gang.

  ‘This man, who must exist, wouldn’t let his accomplices kill.’

  ‘In that case, what do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think anything yet. I’m feeling my way. I’m on the trail, of course. Two of my inspectors are keeping an eye on the framing shop that belongs to this man Mimile. Another is searching through the files looking for a thirty-five-year-old individual with thick dark eyebrows.’

  ‘Will you keep me informed?’

  ‘As soon as I know anything.’

  Was everything Gino Pagliati said trustworthy? The Neapolitan had said that the murderer had stabbed the victim several times, that he had taken a few steps towards the corner of the street, had come back and struck three more times.

  That didn’t chime with the hypothesis of a semi-professional either, particularly since in the end he hadn’t taken the tape recorder.

  Janvier had delivered a report on his visit to the woman he had seen at a first-floor window.

  Madame Esparbès, a widow, seventy-two. Lives alone in a three-room apartment with kitchen, where she has been for ten years. Her husband was an officer. She has a pension and lives quite comfortably, but without any luxuries.

  Very nervous, she claims that she hardly sleeps these days and, every time she wakes up she is in the habit of going and resting her forehead against the window.

  ‘It’s an old woman’s obsession, inspector.’

  ‘What did you see last night? Don’t worry about going into details, even if they don’t seem interesting.’

  ‘I hadn’t yet taken my evening bath. At ten o’clock, as usual, I listened to the news on the radio. Then I turned it off and went and stood at the window. I hadn’t seen rain like that for a long time, and it brought back old memories. Never mind.

  ‘At about ten thirty, just before, a young man in a jacket came out of the little café opposite and on his chest he was wearing something that looked like quite a large camera. I was quite surprised.

  ‘Almost at the same time I saw another young man.’

  ‘You said: a young man?’

  ‘Yes. Smaller than the first, a little bulkier, but not much. I didn’t notice where he came from. In a few quick and probably silent steps he was beside the other man and started striking him several times. I nearly opened the window and called to him to stop, but there would have been no point. The victim was already on the ground. Then the murderer bent over him and lifted his head, grabbing him by the hair to look at him.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Certain. The streetlamp isn’t far away, and I vaguely made out his features.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘He went away. Then he turned back on himself, as if he had forgotten something. The Pagliatis were walking along the pavement, under their umbrella, about fifty metres away. Even so, he struck the man on the ground three times, then ran off.’

  ‘Did he turn the corner of Rue du Chemin-Vert?’

  ‘Yes. The Pagliatis arrived, then. But you know the rest. I recognized Dr Pardon; I didn’t know who was with him.’

  ‘Would you recognize the attacker?’

  ‘Not really. Not his face. Only his frame.’

  ‘And you’re sure he was young?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s over thirty.’

  ‘Long hair?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Moustache, sideburns?’

  ‘No. I’d have noticed.’

  ‘Was he drenched as if he had been walking in the rain or did he look like he’d just stepped out of a house?’

  ‘They were both drenched. You only needed to be outside for a few minutes to have your clothes soaking.’

  ‘A hat?’

  ‘Yes. A dark hat, probably brown.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ve told you everything I know, but please don’t put my name in the paper. I have nephews in good positions, and they wouldn’t want people to know that I live here.’

  The phone rang. He recognized Pardon’s voice.

  ‘Is that you, Maigret? Am I disturbing you? I didn’t expect to find you in your office. I took the liberty of phoning to ask if you have any news.’

  ‘We’re following a lead, but there’s nothing to say that it’s the right one. As for the post-mortem, it confirmed your diagnosis. There was only one fatal blow, the one that pierced the right lung.’

  ‘Do you think it’s a financially motivated crime?’

  ‘I don’t know. There weren’t a lot of prowlers and drunks in the street in this weather. There were no fights. In the two places where he stopped before going into Chez Jules, young Batille didn’t argue with anybody.’

  ‘Thank you. You see, I feel slightly involved in the case. Now, to work. I have eleven patients in my waiting room.’

  ‘Good luck!’

  Maigret went and sat in his armchair, chose a pipe from his desk and filled it, his expression vague like the landscape beyond the window, which was slowly filling with fog.

  3.

  At about 5.30 there was a call from Lucas.

  ‘I thought you’d like me to give you an initial report, chief. I’m in a little bar just opposite the framer’s shop. His name’s actually Émile Branchu. He moved into Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine about two years ago.

  ‘He seems to come from Marseille, but we don’t know that for certain. They also say that he was married down there, but that he separated from his wife or divorced.

  ‘He lives alone. An old woman from the area comes and does his cleaning, and he takes most of his meals in a restaurant frequented by locals.

  ‘He has a car, a green 6CV, which he parks in the courtyard closest to his home. He goes out a lot in the evening and comes back in the small hours, often in the company of a pretty girl, never the same one. Not the kind of girls that you find locally or in the nightclubs in the Rue de Lappe. Girls who look like models, in evening dress and furs.

  ‘Is that significant?’

  ‘Of course. Go on.’

  Of all his colleagues, Lucas was the oldest, and Maigret was often informal with him. He was also informal with Lapointe, because he had started very young, when he still looked like an overgrown child.

  ‘There were only three customers, two men and a woman. The woman bought a magnifying mirror, because he sells mirrors too. One of the men brought a photographic enlargement for framing and took a long time making his choice.

  ‘The third left with a framed canvas under his arm. I had a clear view of it, because he had come and looked at it closely when it was in the window. It’s a landscape with a river, a bit of a daub.’

  ‘Did he make any phone calls?’

  ‘From my post, I can see the phone very clearly, on the counter. He didn’t use it. On the other hand, when the newspaper boy passed he came out into the doorway to buy two different papers.’

  ‘Is Lapointe still there?’

  ‘For now he’s outside. A door at the back opens up not only on to the courtyard, but on to a
network of alleyways like many in the area. Given that he has a car and could use it, it would be a good idea for Lourtie and Neveu to bring a vehicle too when they take over from us.’

  ‘Fine. Thank you.’

  Janvier had come back down with about fifteen photographs showing men of about thirty-five with brown hair and thick eyebrows.

  ‘This is all I can find, chief. Do you still need me? One of the kids has a birthday and …’

  ‘Wish him a happy birthday from me.’

  He went into the inspectors’ office, saw Lourtie and told him to take a car to go to Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

  ‘Where is Neveu?’

  ‘He’s in one of the offices. He’ll be back soon.’

  Maigret had nothing more to do at the office and, with the photographs in his pocket, he went down into the courtyard, passed through the arch, greeted the guard with a wave and headed towards the Boulevard du Palais, where he found a taxi. He wasn’t in a bad mood, but he wasn’t cheerful either. One might have believed that he was leading this investigation without any conviction, as if something had been skewed from the outset, and it all came back to the scene that had played out under the torrential rain, in the darkness of Rue Popincourt.

  Young Batille, coming out of the dimly lit bistro where the four men were playing cards … The Pagliatis, under their umbrella, still quite a way down the street … Madame Esparbès at her window …

  And someone, a man of thirty at most, who suddenly appeared on the scene … There was no way of telling if he was waiting in a doorway for Antoine Batille to come out, or whether he too had been walking along the pavement … He walked quickly for a few metres and then stabbed, once, twice, at least four times …

  He heard the footsteps of the pasta-maker and his wife, who were less than fifty metres away … He walked towards the corner of Rue du Chemin-Vert and, as he turned the corner, he retraced his steps.

  Why did he bend over his victim, and only bother to lift his head? He didn’t touch Antoine’s wrist, or his chest, to check if the boy was dead … He looked at his face …

  To be sure that it really was the man he had decided to kill? From that moment something was wrong. Why did he stab the man lying on the ground three more times?

  It was a film that Maigret replayed constantly in his head, as if he was hoping that he would suddenly understand.

  ‘Place de la Bastille,’ he said to the taxi-driver.

  The landlord of the Café des Amis was still at the till, with his hair combed over his bald patch. Their eyes met, and there was nothing affable about the café manager’s expression. Rather than sit on the ground floor, Maigret went down to the basement, where he found a place at a table. There were many more people than in the morning. It was time for aperitifs. When the waiter came to take his order, he was less friendly than before.

  ‘A beer, please.’

  And, holding out a packet of photographs:

  ‘See if you recognize one of these men.’

  ‘I haven’t got much time.’

  ‘It’ll only take you a moment.’

  The manager must have had a word with him when he saw the inspector emerging from the basement after spending a lot of time down there.

  The waiter hesitated, then took the photographs.

  ‘I should go and look at them in the back room.’

  He came back almost immediately and held out the bundle to Maigret.

  ‘I don’t recognize anybody.’

  He seemed sincere and went to fetch the beer that Maigret had ordered. Maigret had nothing planned except going home for dinner. He drank his beer slowly, climbed the stairs to the ground floor and, just opposite, saw Lapointe sitting alone at a table.

  Lapointe spotted him too but pretended not to know him. Émile Branchu must have been somewhere in the café, and Maigret preferred not to look too hard at the customers.

  He had two hundred metres to walk to his apartment, which smelled of baked mackerel. Madame Maigret cooked them in white wine, on a low heat, with lots of mustard.

  She understood straight away that he wasn’t happy with his investigation and asked no questions.

  At the table, she said:

  ‘Don’t you want the television on?’

  It had become a habit, an obsession.

  ‘They talked a lot about Antoine Batille on the seven o’clock news. They went to the Sorbonne to interview some of his fellow students.’

  ‘And what did they say about him?’

  ‘That he was well behaved, rather self-effacing, a little embarrassed at belonging to such a well-known family. He had a passion for tape recorders and was waiting for a miniature version that you can hold in the palm of your hand to arrive from Japan.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘They tried to question his sister, who only replied:

  ‘“I have nothing to say.”

  ‘“Where were you that night?”

  ‘“In Saint-Germain-des-Prés.”

  ‘“Did you get on well with your brother?”

  ‘“He minded his business and I minded mine.”’

  Journalists were rummaging everywhere: Rue Popincourt, Quai d’Anjou, at the Sorbonne. Police stations on the edge of the city were getting involved. They had already found a label for the crime: ‘The lunatic of Rue Popincourt’.

  They stressed the number of stab wounds: seven! In two rounds! The murderer had retraced his steps, as if he hadn’t finished, to strike again.

  Doesn’t that suggest the idea of revenge [one of the reporters insinuated]? If the seven knife blows had been delivered one after the other, this might plausibly be a case of crazed, unpremeditated rage. Juries always interpret multiple blows as the sign of a murderer who has lost control. Batille’s murderer walked away, then calmly retraced his steps to deliver the last three blows.

  One of the papers ended with:

  Did the tape recorder play a part in this case? We believe that the police attach a certain importance to it, but nobody at Quai des Orfèvres has agreed to answer questions on the subject.

  At 8.30, the phone rang.

  ‘This is Neveu, chief. Lucas suggested I should keep you up to date.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the little bar opposite the framing shop. Before Lourtie and I got there, Émile Branchu closed his door and walked in the direction of Place de la Bastille, where he had an aperitif. As he passed the till he greeted the manager, who returned his greeting as if he was a local.

  ‘The framer didn’t talk to anyone, he just read the papers he had in his pocket. Lapointe was—’

  ‘I saw.’

  ‘Fine. Do you also know that he went for dinner in a modest restaurant where they keep a napkin for him and call him Monsieur Émile?’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Lapointe claims to have eaten very well there. Apparently the andouillette …’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Branchu came home, closed the shutter of the shop and attached the wooden panel over the glass door. There’s a faint light coming through the slats of the shutters. Lourtie is watching the courtyard.’

  ‘Do you have a car?’

  ‘It’s parked a few metres from here.’

  On the first channel, male and female singers were prancing about. Maigret hated that kind of thing. On the second channel there was an old American film with Gary Cooper, which Maigret and his wife watched.

  The film finished at 10.45, and Maigret was brushing his teeth, in his shirt-sleeves, when the phone rang again. This time it was Lourtie.

  ‘Where are you?’ Maigret asked him.

  ‘Rue Fontaine. The framer went out at about ten thirty, and went and got his car from the courtyard. Neveu and I took the police car.’

  ‘He didn’t notice that you were following him?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He came right here, as if he had done so many times, and after finding a place to park he went inside the Lapin Rose.’

&
nbsp; ‘What’s the Lapin Rose?’

  ‘A strip club. The doorman greeted him as if he knew him. We went in as well, Neveu and I, because in those places two men attract less attention than one on his own. Neveu even pretended to be slightly drunk.’

  That was Neveu, who loved adding a personal touch. He also liked disguises, which he perfected down to the tiniest details.

  ‘Our man is at the bar. He’s shaken hands with the barman. The manager, a little fat man in a dinner-jacket, came and shook his hand too, and two or three of the girls kissed him.’

  ‘What about the barman?’

  ‘I was coming to that. He looks very much like the description we were given. Between thirty and forty. Good-looking guy, Mediterranean type.’

  Leaving the Café des Amis, Maigret should have handed the bundle of photographs back to Lucas, who was still in Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, to pass on to Lourtie. He had thought about it when leaving Quai des Orfèvres, then it slipped his mind.

  ‘Go back to the Lapin Rose. I’ll be up there in twenty minutes. What’s the name of the bar you’re calling me from?’

  ‘You can’t miss it. It’s the local café. I didn’t want to call from the club for fear that I might be heard.’

  ‘Be at the bar in twenty minutes.’

  Madame Maigret had understood and, with a sigh, she went and fetched her husband’s overcoat and hat from their hooks.

  ‘Shall I call a taxi?’

  ‘Thank you. Yes.’

  ‘Will you be long?’

  ‘Less than an hour.’

  Even though they had had a car for a year – which Maigret had never driven – Madame Maigret preferred to use it as little as possible in Paris. They used it mostly, on Saturday evening or Sunday morning, to go to Meung-sur-Loire, where they had their weekend home.

  ‘When I retire …’

  Sometimes it seemed as if Maigret was counting the days until he could step down. Other times he appeared to be panicking at the prospect of leaving Quai des Orfèvres.

  Until three months before, retirement age for detective inspectors was sixty-five, and he was sixty-three. A new decree had just changed everything, and moved the age to sixty-eight.