Maigret and the Nahour Case

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Has Lapointe got in?’

  ‘I think I can hear him in the corridor. One moment … Yes, it’s him.’

  ‘Tell him to get a car and come and pick me up. Let Manicle know I’ll be there as soon as possible. Then you go and get some sleep.’

  ‘Thanks, chief.’

  Maigret repeated in a low voice:

  ‘Nahour … Nahour …’

  Another foreigner. The couple from last night were Dutch and Colombian. Now Nahour and the Middle East.

  ‘A new case?’ asked his wife.

  ‘A murder, apparently, on Avenue du Parc-Montsouris.’

  He wrapped the thick scarf round his neck, put on his overcoat and grabbed his hat.

  ‘Aren’t you going to wait until Lapointe gets here?’

  ‘I need to get some fresh air for a minute.’

  Lapointe found him waiting by the kerb. Maigret slid into the front of the little black car.

  ‘Have you got the exact address?’

  ‘Yes, chief. It’s the last house before the park, surrounded by a garden. Looks like you didn’t get much sleep last night.’

  The traffic was slow and heavy. Here and there a car had skidded and was skewed across the road, and pedestrians walked cautiously on the pavements. The Seine was dark green, studded with blocks of ice slowly drifting downstream.

  They stopped at a detached house with a mainly glass-fronted ground floor. It looked as if it had been built in 1925 or 1930, when a number of what were then ultramodern houses had sprung up all over Paris, especially Auteuil and Montparnasse.

  A policeman pacing up and down outside greeted Maigret, then opened an iron gate leading to a little garden with a bare tree.

  The two men followed the path, climbed the four front steps and found another policeman in the hallway who showed them into the studio.

  Manicle was in there with one of his inspectors. He was a small, thin man with a moustache, whom Maigret had known for over twenty years. The two men shook hands, then Manicle pointed to a body stretched out behind a mahogany desk.

  ‘The cleaner, a woman called Louise Bodin, rang us at five past eight this morning. She starts work every day at eight. She lives just round the corner in Rue du Saint-Gothard.’

  ‘Who is Nahour?’

  ‘Félix Nahour, forty-two, Lebanese citizen, unemployed. He moved into the house six months ago and rents it furnished from a painter who’s in the United States.’

  It was very hot in the room despite the huge windows, which were partly covered in frost like the ones at Boulevard Richard-Lenoir.

  ‘Were the curtains open when you got here?’

  ‘No. They were closed. As you can see, they’re heavy curtains with a felt lining to keep out the cold.’

  ‘Hasn’t the doctor got here?’

  ‘A local doctor came just now and confirmed that he was dead, which was obvious. I’ve informed the pathologist and I’m expecting him and the prosecutor’s office to arrive at any moment.’

  Maigret turned to Lapointe.

  ‘Ring Moers then and tell him to come immediately with his men from Criminal Records. No, not from here. There may be prints on the receiver. There’ll be a café or public telephone nearby.’

  He took off his overcoat and scarf. After an almost sleepless night, the heat was going to his head and making him feel dizzy.

  The room was huge. There was a pale-blue carpet on the floor, and the furniture, although not matching, was valuable and in good taste.

  Walking round the Empire desk to get a closer look at the dead man, Maigret noticed a photograph in a silver frame by the blotter.

  It was a portrait of a young woman with very blonde hair and a sombre smile, who had a three-year-old little girl at her side and a roughly one-year-old baby on her knees.

  Frowning, he grabbed the frame to study the image more closely and noticed a two-centimetre-long scar running from her left eye towards her ear.

  ‘Is that his wife?’

  ‘I assume so. I had Records look her up. She is registered under the name of Evelina Nahour, née Wiemers, born in Amsterdam.’

  ‘Is she in the house?’

  ‘No. We knocked on her door. When there was no answer we opened it. The room is in a bit of a mess but the bed hasn’t been slept in.’

  Maigret bent down over the body, which was curled in a ball so he could only see half the face. As far as he could tell without moving him, a bullet had gone into the man’s throat, severing the carotid artery and leaving a vast pool of blood on the carpet.

  Nahour was rather small and tubby, with a trim brown moustache. He was going bald. There was a wedding ring on his carefully manicured left hand, and he had tried unsuccessfully to staunch the bleeding with his right.

  ‘Do you know who lived in the house?’

  ‘I’ve only had the cleaning lady questioned briefly, thinking you’d rather do that. Then I asked the secretary and maid to wait upstairs, where one of my men is making sure they don’t talk to each other.’

  ‘Where is this Madame Bodin?’

  ‘In the kitchen. Shall I call her?’

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  Lapointe had just come back.

  ‘Done it, chief,’ he reported. ‘Moers is on his way.’

  Louise Bodin came in, her face stubborn and set, a look of defiance in her eyes. Maigret knew the type, the type of most of Paris’s cleaners, women who have suffered, been mistreated by life and are now hopelessly anticipating an even grimmer old age. So they become hard and mistrustful and resent the whole world for their misfortunes.

  ‘Are you called Louise Bodin?’

  ‘Madame Bodin, yes.’

  She emphasized the ‘Madame’, which she considered the last vestige of her dignity as a woman. Her clothes hung off her thin frame, and the look in her dark eyes was so intense they were almost feverish.

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘I have been.’

  ‘Is your husband dead?’

  ‘He’s in Fresnes, if you must know. Good job too.’

  Maigret preferred not to ask why her husband had been sent to prison.

  ‘Have you been working in this house for a long time?’

  ‘Five months tomorrow.’

  ‘How did you get the job?’

  ‘I replied to a classified ad. Before that I was doing an hour here, an afternoon or morning there.’

  She sniggered, turning to the body, ‘Guess what, they put “permanent position” in the ad.’

  ‘You didn’t sleep here, did you?’

  ‘No, never. I’d go home at eight at night and I’d come back at eight the next morning.’

  ‘Did Monsieur Nahour work?’

  ‘He must have done something because he had a secretary and he spent hours buried in his papers.’

  ‘Who’s his secretary?’

  ‘A guy from his country, Monsieur Fouad.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  She turned to the local chief inspector, then said:

  ‘In his bedroom.’

  Her voice had an aggressive edge.

  ‘Don’t you like him?’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘You got here this morning at eight o’clock. Did you come straight into this room?’

  ‘I went into the kitchen first to heat some water on the gas stove and get my housecoat from the cupboard.’

  ‘Then you opened this door?’

  ‘I always start cleaning in here.’

  ‘When you saw the body, what did you do?’

  ‘I rang the police station.’

  ‘Without telling Monsieur Fouad?’

  ‘Without telling anyone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t trust people, especially not the ones who live in this house.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they’re not normal.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She shrugged and said flatly:

  ‘I know wh
at I mean. No one can stop me thinking my little thoughts, can they?’

  ‘While you were waiting for the police, did you go up and tell the secretary?’

  ‘No. I went and made my coffee in the kitchen. I don’t have time to have one at home in the morning.’

  ‘Didn’t Monsieur Fouad come downstairs?’

  ‘He hardly ever comes down before ten.’

  ‘Was he asleep?’

  ‘For the second time: I didn’t go upstairs.’

  ‘What about the maid?’

  ‘She’s Madame’s maid. She doesn’t look after Monsieur. Madame used to stay in bed until midday, if not later, so there was nothing to stop her taking liberties.’

  ‘What is she called?’

  ‘Nelly something. I heard her say her surname once or twice but I don’t remember it. A Dutch name. She’s Dutch, like Madame.’

  ‘Don’t you like her either?’

  ‘Is that a crime?’

  ‘I see from this photograph that your employer has two children. Are they in the house?’

  ‘They’ve never set foot in here.’

  ‘Where do they live?’

  ‘Somewhere on the Côte d’Azur with their nanny.’

  ‘Did their parents go and see them often?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. They travelled a lot, almost always separately, but I never asked them where they were going.’

  The Criminal Records van pulled up in front of the garden, and Moers marched towards the house with his colleagues.

  ‘Did Monsieur Nahour entertain much?’

  ‘What do you mean by entertain?’

  ‘Did he invite friends to lunch or dinner?’

  ‘Not since I’ve worked here, at any rate. Anyway, he generally had dinner in town.’

  ‘What about his wife?’

  ‘She did too.’

  ‘Together?’

  ‘I never followed them.’

  ‘Visitors?’

  ‘Monsieur would sometimes see people in his office.’

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘I don’t listen at doors. They were almost always foreigners, people from his country, who he spoke to in a language I didn’t understand.’

  ‘Was Monsieur Fouad present at these discussions?’

  ‘Sometimes he was, sometimes he wasn’t.’

  ‘One moment, Moers. You can’t start before the pathologist gets here. Thank you, Madame Bodin. Please stay in the kitchen and don’t do any housework until the premises have been inspected. Where is Madame Nahour’s bedroom?’

  ‘Upstairs, on the first floor.’

  ‘Did Monsieur Nahour and his wife share a bedroom?’

  ‘No. Monsieur’s apartment is on the ground floor, across the corridor.’

  ‘Isn’t there a dining room?’

  ‘The studio was used as a dining room.’

  ‘Thank you for your cooperation.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ she said, before making a dignified exit.

  Moments later Maigret was climbing the stairs, which were carpeted in the same lavender-blue as the studio. Manicle and Lapointe tagged along. On the first-floor landing they found a local inspector in plain clothes who was smoking a cigarette with an air of resignation.

  ‘Madame Nahour’s bedroom?’

  ‘That one, straight across.’

  The room was spacious and furnished in the Louis XVI style. The bed may not have been slept in, but the general impression was still one of mess. A green dress and some underwear were scattered on the carpet. The wardrobe doors were wide open, suggesting a hurried departure. Coat hangers were lying around, one on the bed and another on a silk-covered armchair, as if someone had been grabbing clothes and stuffing them into a suitcase.

  Maigret idly opened a few drawers.

  ‘Will you call the maid, Lapointe?’

  This took a while. They stood around for several minutes, and only then did a young woman, who was almost as blonde as Madame Nahour, with strikingly pale-blue eyes, appear in the doorway, followed by Lapointe.

  She wasn’t wearing a work smock or the traditional black dress and white apron but a noticeably close-fitting tweed suit.

  She looked like the Dutch girls on cocoa tins, and the only thing missing was her national bonnet with its two wings.

  ‘Come in. Sit down.’

  Her face remained expressionless, as if she hadn’t grasped what was happening or who these people standing in front of her were.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  She shook her head, but opened her mouth enough to mutter:

  ‘No understand.’

  ‘Can’t you speak French?’

  She motioned that she couldn’t.

  ‘Just Dutch?’

  Maigret was already envisaging the difficulties of finding a translator.

  ‘English too.’

  ‘You speak English?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The little English Maigret spoke was not going to be enough to question what might be an important witness.

  ‘Do you want me to translate, chief?’ Lapointe offered shyly.

  Maigret looked at him in surprise; the young inspector had never told him he spoke English.

  ‘Where did you learn?’

  ‘I’ve been studying it every day for a year.’

  The young girl looked at them in turn. When they asked her a question she didn’t answer immediately but waited until she had digested what had been said to her.

  She didn’t seem hostile and suspicious, like the cleaner, but somehow impassive, either from birth or because she had picked it up at some stage in her life. Was she putting it on deliberately, to seem of less than average intelligence?

  Even when translated into English, their questions only seemed to reach her brain with difficulty, and her answers were brief, rudimentary.

  She was called Velthuis and was twenty-four years old. She was from Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands and had moved to Amsterdam when she was fifteen.

  ‘Did she start working for Madame Nahour straight away?’

  Lapointe translated the question and in reply only got the word:

  ‘No.’

  ‘When did she become her maid?’

  ‘Six years ago.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Through an advert in an Amsterdam newspaper.’

  ‘Was Madame Nahour already married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘She doesn’t know.’

  Maigret was having a hard time remaining calm. With these short yes and no answers, the questioning could take hours.

  ‘Tell her I don’t like being taken for a fool.’

  Lapointe translated in an embarrassed voice. The young girl glanced at Maigret with slight surprise before resuming her look of total indifference.

  Two dark-coloured cars pulled up by the kerb, and Maigret grunted:

  ‘The prosecutor’s office. Stay with her, will you? Try to get as much out of her as you can.’

  Noiret, the deputy prosecutor, was a middle-aged man with an old-fashioned grey goatee, who after doing the rounds of most of the provincial courts had finally been appointed to Paris, where he was scrupulously avoiding complications as he counted the days to his retirement.

  The forensic pathologist, a man called Colinet, was bent over the body. It was a while now since he had replaced Dr Paul, whom Maigret had worked with for so many years.

  Others had similarly disappeared over the years: Coméliau, for instance, the examining magistrate whom Maigret could have called his close personal enemy and missed occasionally.

  Cayotte, the relatively young examining magistrate in charge of this case, made a point of letting the police work on their own for two or three days before he got involved in an investigation.

  The doctor had changed the position of the body twice, and his hands were sticky with congealed blood. He looked around for Maigret.

  ‘Naturally I can’t tell you anything concl
usive before the post-mortem. The bullet’s entrance wound, here, makes me think we’re dealing with a medium- or large-calibre weapon, and that the shot was fired from more than two metres away.

  ‘The lack of an exit wound means the bullet is still in the body. I can’t really see it coming to rest in the throat, which wouldn’t offer sufficient resistance, so I suppose that, fired more or less upwards from a low position, it lodged in the skull.’

  ‘Do you mean the victim was standing while the murderer was sitting down – on the other side of the desk, for instance?’

  ‘Not necessarily sitting, he could have fired without raising his arm, from the hip.’

  It was only when the ambulance men lifted the body to put it on a stretcher that a 6.35 calibre pearl-handled automatic became visible on the carpet.

  The deputy prosecutor and examining magistrate looked at Maigret to see what he made of it.

  ‘I assume the wound couldn’t have been caused by that gun?’ Maigret asked the pathologist.

  ‘That’s my opinion, at least for the moment.’

  ‘Moers, will you examine the pistol?’

  Grabbing a cloth, Moers picked up the gun, sniffed it, then took out the magazine.

  ‘A bullet’s missing, chief.’

  Now the body was being taken away, the men from Criminal Records could set to work, and the photographer could start. He had already taken some photographs of the dead man. Everyone came and went. Little groups formed. Noiret, the deputy prosecutor, tugged at Maigret’s sleeve.

  ‘What nationality do you think he is?’

  ‘Lebanese.’

  ‘Do you think it’s a political crime?’

  The prospect terrified him, because he remembered similar cases that had proved disastrous for most of the people involved.

  ‘I think I’ll be able to answer that pretty quickly.’

  ‘Have you questioned the staff?’

  ‘The cleaner, who is not very forthcoming, and I’ve started with the maid, who’s even less. She doesn’t seem to speak a word of French, though, it’s true. Inspector Lapointe is questioning her in English upstairs at the minute.’

  ‘Let me know as soon as you can.’

  He looked around for the examining magistrate so they could leave. Today’s visit from the prosecutor’s office was merely a formality.