Maigret's Patience

by Georges Simenon

  ‘I see! I see! Very crafty! On the other hand, not entirely by the book. I couldn’t take such a course of action, but I’m beginning to understand your tactics. What will you do now?’

  ‘First, I’ll take a trip down to Rue La Fayette, where a diamond market takes place every morning in a bar and on the street. I know a few diamond dealers. It’s somewhere I’ve visited on numerous occasions. Then I will head off to Gelot and Son, for reasons I am sure you can guess.’

  ‘In short, if I have understood you correctly, the fact of the matter is this …’

  And the magistrate, with a mischievous look in his eye, picked out the bones of the case, which proved he had spent part of the night studying the case file.

  ‘I suppose you regard Palmari as the leader of the operation. Over the years, he has got to know crooks of all ages who have used his bar in Montmartre as a meeting place. The older generation has gradually dispersed throughout the country but has still preserved its contacts.

  ‘In other words, with one well-placed phone call, Palmari could drum up the two or three men he needed for a given job. Right?’

  Maigret nodded, amused by the magistrate’s excitement.

  ‘Even cut off from the world by his accident, nothing prevented him running his organization thanks to the help of Aline Bauche. He swiftly bought up the building where he lived with her, and I now wonder if he didn’t have a particular reason for doing so.’

  ‘Among other things, it allowed him to give certain tenants notice when he needed a vacant apartment.’

  ‘For Barillard, for example. It’s very handy having an accomplice on the same landing when you are being watched by the police. Do you think Barillard is capable of re-cutting gems and selling them on?’

  ‘Selling them on, yes. Cutting them? No. It’s one of the most expert jobs there is. Barillard identified the jewellers’ shop windows that were worth raiding. That was very easy, given the work he does.

  ‘He did this through Aline. And she sometimes gave us the slip and went to the Hôtel Bussière …’

  ‘Hence the purchase of that hotel, which, apart from anything else, was a good investment.’

  ‘Their accomplices would come up from the provinces for a day or two. Aline, or maybe Barillard, would wait for them at a predetermined location to take possession of the jewels.

  ‘Mostly, the perpetrators of the heist were able to slip away without any difficulty, without even knowing on whose behalf they had pulled off the theft, which explains why so few of the crooks we arrested have been able to tell us anything.’

  ‘In short, there is someone missing.’

  ‘Precisely. The diamond cutter.’

  ‘Good luck, Maigret. Can I call you that? Call me Ancelin.’

  And Maigret replied with a smile:

  ‘I’ll try. In view of my relationships with previous examining magistrates, especially one called Coméliau, I fear I may not succeed at the first attempt. In the meantime, good day to you, sir. I will keep you posted.’

  It was Gelot Junior who answered the phone when he rang the cardboard manufacturer on Avenue des Gobelins.

  ‘No, no, Monsieur Gelot, nothing for you to worry about. I’m just making a few inquiries that have nothing to do with your firm. You say that Fernand Barillard is an excellent salesman, and I believe you.

  ‘I simply wanted to know, for our information, the names of the jewellers who have placed orders with him in the last two years, say. I assume it will be easy for your accounts department to provide me with this list; I’ll drop by later this morning to pick it up. Never fear. We know how to be discreet.’

  In the inspectors’ office he cast his gaze around all the faces in the room and in the end landed on Janvier, as usual.

  ‘Doing anything important?’

  ‘No, chief. I was finishing off a report, but it can wait. There’s just so much paperwork.’

  ‘Grab your hat and follow me.’

  Maigret was of that generation which tended to resist learning to drive. In his case, he was worried about the way his mind would tend to wander into hazy reverie during the course of an investigation.

  ‘The corner of Rue La Fayette and Rue Cadet.’

  It was a principle of the police that when going off on an important mission you always took someone with you. If he hadn’t had Lapointe with him the previous day at the Clou Doré, he wouldn’t have been able to have Monsieur Louis followed, and it would no doubt have taken him several days to get on to the trail of Barillard.

  ‘I’ll find somewhere to park the car and then I’ll join you.’

  Like him, Janvier knew the gemstone market. Most Parisians, however, even those who pass through Rue La Fayette every day, have no idea that these unassuming-looking men, dressed like office clerks, chatting in groups on the pavement or around tables in the bar, have a fortune in precious stones in their pockets.

  And these stones are passed from hand to hand in little bags, though no receipts are ever issued on the spot.

  In this self-contained world, where everyone knows everyone, all transactions are based on trust.

  ‘Hey, Bérenstein!’

  Maigret shook hands with a tall, thin man who had just walked over from his two companions, having pocketed a bag of diamonds as if it were a simple letter.

  ‘Hello, inspector. Another jewel robbery?’

  ‘Not since last week.’

  ‘You still haven’t found who’s responsible? I must have discussed it with my colleagues about two dozen times. Like me, they know all the stone cutters in Paris. As I’ve told you, there aren’t many of them, and I can vouch for all of them. Not a single one of them would risk re-cutting stolen gems, or even any that are suspicious. They have a nose for this sort of thing, believe me! Will you have a beer with me?’

  ‘Gladly. Once my inspector has crossed the road.’

  ‘Hey! Janvier too! I see you’re out in force today.’

  They sat around a table, and between the rows some brokers stood talking. Occasionally one of them would take a magnifying glass out of his pocket to examine a stone.

  ‘Before the war, the two main centres for stone cutting were Antwerp and Amsterdam. Curiously, for reasons I’ve never understood, most stone cutters come from the Baltic states, Latvia or Estonia.

  ‘In Antwerp they had foreigners’ identity cards, and when they retreated before the German advance, they were transferred as a group to Royan and then on to the United States.

  ‘After the war, the Americans tried to hold on to them. But they barely managed to keep a tenth of them, because they were all homesick.

  ‘Some of them, however, when they got back, succumbed to the lure of Paris. You’ll find them in the Marais and Saint-Antoine districts. They are all well known and have their own pedigree, so to speak. It’s a trade that gets passed down from father to son and it has its secrets.’

  Maigret suddenly gave him a vague look, as if he wasn’t listening any more.

  ‘Wait. You mentioned …’

  Something Bérenstein had said had struck him.

  ‘What was it I said that’s bothering you?’

  ‘One moment! The German advance … The Antwerp stone cutters who … The United States … Some stayed over there … But mightn’t some of them have stayed in France at the time of the exodus?’

  ‘It’s possible. As they were nearly all Jews they would have very likely ended up in concentration camps or the gas chambers.’

  ‘Unless …’

  Maigret suddenly stood up.

  ‘Let’s go, Janvier! Where’s the car? Bye, Bérenstein. Excuse me. I should have thought of it earlier …’

  And Maigret weaved his way through the groups filling the pavement as quickly as he could.

  6.

  Janvier stared straight in front of him, gripping the steering wheel of the little black car more tightly than usual, and he had to resist the temptation to observe the face of Maigret, who was sitting next to him. At one
point he opened his mouth to ask a question that was preying on his mind, but he had enough self-control to remain silent.

  Though he had worked with the chief ever since he had joined the Police Judiciaire and collaborated with him on hundreds of cases, he never failed to be impressed when he witnessed the phenomenon that had just been set in motion.

  The previous day, Maigret had thrown himself into the case with a cheerful frenzy, drawing the protagonists out of the shadows, turning them over in his fat paws like a cat playing with a mouse and then putting them back in their corners. He was sending inspectors this way and that, as if he didn’t have a plan, telling himself that something would emerge.

  Then suddenly he wasn’t playing any more. The man sitting next to Janvier was a whole different person now, a human mass on whom no one had any purchase, an almost frightening monolith. In the late morning, the avenues and streets of Paris were a veritable firework display in the July heat. There were splashes of light everywhere: glancing off the slate and red-tile roofs, the panes of windows where geraniums provided a single note of red, rippling across the many-coloured bodywork of cars – blues, greens, yellows – blaring horns, voices, the screech of brakes, bells, the piercing whistle of a policeman.

  The black car was like an island of silence and immobility in the midst of this symphony, and Maigret himself was like an immovable object. He was certainly oblivious to the sights and sounds around him and didn’t even notice that they had arrived at Rue des Acacias.

  ‘We’re here, chief.’

  He struggled out of the car, which had become too narrow for him, gazed vacantly at the street, with which he was nonetheless very familiar, then lifted his head as if to take possession of the entire building, all its floors and all its inhabitants.

  He paused to empty his pipe on the pavement by tapping it against his heel, and to fill another one and light it.

  Janvier didn’t ask him if he should accompany him; nor did he say a word to Janin, who was watching the building and wondering why the chief didn’t seem to recognize him.

  Maigret headed for the lift, followed by Janvier. Rather than press the button for the fourth floor, he chose the one for the fifth. Once there, he took long strides as he headed up to the garret.

  Turning left, he stopped before the door of the deaf-mute and, knowing he would get no reply, he turned the doorknob. The door opened. The garret was empty.

  Maigret almost ripped off the curtain of the wardrobe and made a brief inventory of the small number of mainly shabby clothes hanging there.

  He took a mental snapshot of every corner of the room, after which he went back down to the floor below, hesitated, then took the lift back down to the ground floor. The concierge was in her lodge, a shoe on her right foot, a slipper on her left.

  ‘Do you know if Claes went out this morning?’

  Seeing him so tense made an impression on her.

  ‘No, he hasn’t been down yet.’

  ‘Did you leave your lodge at any point?’

  ‘Not even to sweep the stairs. A neighbour did it for me, because I’ve got my aches and pains again.’

  ‘Did he go out last night?’

  ‘No one went out. I only opened up for tenants coming home. Anyway, you’ve got an inspector outside who can tell you all that.’

  Maigret was thinking strong and hard, to use the expression Janvier reserved for him alone.

  ‘Tell me … Each tenant, if I understand correctly, has a part of the garret for their own personal use …’

  ‘That’s right. And in principle any of them can rent a room for a maid.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked. What about the cellar?’

  ‘Before the war, there were only two large cellars, and everyone had their own spot for storing their coal. During the war, when anthracite became as expensive as caviar, there were lots of disputes, and some people claimed their own piles were going down rather too quickly. So the owner at the time built cubicles, each with its own door and padlock.’

  ‘So each tenant has his own personal cellar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Including Claes?’

  ‘No. He doesn’t count as a proper tenant, since he lives in a maid’s room.’

  ‘And the Barillards?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you have keys to the cellars?’

  ‘No. I’ve just told you they have padlocks. Each tenant has his own.’

  ‘Do you see who goes downstairs to the basement?’

  ‘Not from here. The cellar stairs are opposite the service stairs at the back of the building. You just have to go through the door with no name on it and no doormat.’

  Maigret went back to the lift and looked straight into Janvier’s eyes without saying a word. He was too impatient to ring the Barillards’ bell, but instead banged on the door with his fist. Madame Barillard answered in a cretonne dress, with a frightened expression on her face.

  ‘Your husband?’

  ‘He’s in his study. He says you stopped him from going to work.’

  ‘Call him.’

  They could see Barillard’s silhouette, still in pyjamas and dressing gown. Try as he might, he didn’t seem as well or as self-assured as he had the day before.

  ‘Bring me the key to the cellar.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Do as I say.’

  What followed had an air of unreality, as if it was a dream, or rather a nightmare. Suddenly, the relationships between them all shifted. It was as if everyone was now in a state of shock, and their words, gestures and looks all had a different meaning.

  ‘Lead on.’

  He pushed him into the lift and when they got to the ground floor ordered him tersely:

  ‘To the basement.’

  Barillard became more and more reluctant, Maigret more and more determined.

  ‘Is it this door?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A single, very weak lightbulb illuminated the white wall, the doors with their painted numbers, now almost faded, and you could make out obscene graffiti on the flaking paintwork.

  ‘How many keys are there to this padlock?’

  ‘I only have one.’

  ‘Who else might own a key?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘Have you ever given the key to anyone else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you and your wife the only ones who access this cellar?’

  ‘We haven’t used it for years.’

  ‘Open up.’

  Barillard’s hands were trembling, and his smart appearance looked more grotesque down here than in the bourgeois confines of his apartment.

  ‘Well? Open it!’

  The door opened about fifteen centimetres then got stuck.

  ‘I can feel something blocking it.’

  ‘Push harder. Use your shoulder if necessary.’

  Janvier was giving Maigret a bewildered look, suddenly realizing that his chief had foreseen – but since when? – the current turn of events.

  ‘It’s giving a little.’

  Suddenly they saw a leg hanging. As the door swung further it released another leg. There was a body hanging there, bare feet dangling fifteen centimetres above the floor of beaten earth.

  It was old Claes, dressed in a shirt and some old trousers.

  ‘Put the ’cuffs on him, Janvier.’

  Janvier looked from the hanged man to Barillard. When the salesman saw the handcuffs, he protested:

  ‘Please, just a minute.’

  But Maigret’s unreadable gaze bore down on him, and he surrendered.

  ‘Go and fetch Janin from the street. He is not needed outside any more.’

  As he had done upstairs, Maigret inspected the long, narrow room, and it was evident that he was fixing every last detail in his mind. He fingered several tools that he took out of a bag, then seemed to dreamily caress a heavy steel table that was screwed into the floor.

  ‘You stay here, Janin, until the gen
tlemen arrive. Don’t let anyone in. Not even your colleagues. And don’t touch a thing. Got that?’

  ‘Got it, chief.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  He looked at Barillard, who cut a very different figure now with his hands behind his back and walking along like a mannequin.

  They didn’t take the lift but went up to the fourth floor via the back stairs, without bumping into anyone. Madame Barillard, who was in the kitchen, let out a cry when she saw her husband with handcuffs on his wrists.

  ‘Monsieur Maigret!’

  ‘Later, madame. First I have some telephone calls to make.’

  And, paying no notice to the others, he went into Barillard’s study, which smelled of stale cigarette smoke, and dialled the number of Examining Magistrate Ancelin.

  ‘Hello! … Yes, Maigret here. I am an idiot, sir. I feel responsible for a man’s death. Yes, another body. Where? Rue des Acacias, of course. It’s something I should have realized from the start. I was hacking about in the undergrowth rather than following a clear single path. The worst thing is that this third element, if I can call it that, has been on my mind for years.

  ‘Forgive me if I don’t give any details right now. There is a hanged man in the cellar. The doctor will, I am sure, discover that he didn’t hang himself but was dead or wounded when the rope was put round his neck. He is an old man.

  ‘Could I ask you to arrange things so the prosecutor’s office aren’t on the case in too much of a hurry? I’m very busy on the fourth floor and would prefer not to be disturbed before I get a result. I don’t know how long it will take. I’ll speak to you later. Ah, no, we won’t be having lunch at our nice Auvergnat bistro today.’

  A short while later, he received a call from his old colleague Moers, the specialist from Criminal Records.

  ‘I need to have a careful job done and I don’t want it done quickly. No point in having the prosecutor’s men and the magistrate tampering with things down in the cellar. You will find objects there that will surprise you. You might have to investigate the walls and dig up the floor.’

  He got up from Barillard’s chair with a sigh and walked across the living room to where Barillard sat facing Janvier, who was smoking a cigarette. Maigret went through to the kitchen and opened the fridge.