Maigret's Childhood Friend

by Georges Simenon

  Then, when everything seemed to be in place, an objection came into his mind, and everything collapsed.

  Then he started again with different pieces. Or else he picked up the same ones and put them in new positions.

  They happened upon an inn where the cooking was pretty much as good as what one might have found in a station buffet. The only difference was the size of the bill.

  When they tried to go for a little walk in the woods, they found a muddy path, and it started to rain.

  They came back early, had cold meat and Russian salad for dinner and then, seeing as Maigret was pacing around the apartment, they went to the cinema.

  At nine o’clock on Monday he went into his office. The rain had stopped, the sun was shining, still faintly.

  He found the reports of the inspectors who had taken turns keeping Florentin under surveillance.

  Florentin had spent Saturday evening in a brasserie on Boulevard de Clichy. It didn’t seem to be a place that he normally frequented, and no one said hello to him.

  He ordered a beer and sat down beside a table where four regulars who plainly knew each other were playing cards. With his chin propped on an elbow he vaguely followed the game.

  At about ten o’clock, one of the players, a thin little man who never stopped talking, announced to the others:

  ‘I’ll have to be off, guys. The wife will burn me to a crisp if I’m late, and I’m going fishing tomorrow.’

  The others pressed him in vain, and then looked around.

  A man with a southern accent asked Florentin:

  ‘Do you play?’

  ‘Yes, sure …’

  He had taken the seat of the man who had left, and played until midnight while Dieudonné, whose turn it was to keep watch, got bored in his corner.

  Good Lord, Florentin had paid for a round with part of the hundred francs that Maigret had given him.

  Then he had headed off home and gone to bed after a little complicit wave to the man on his tail.

  He had slept in. It was after ten when he reached the café and dunked croissants in his coffee. This time it wasn’t Dieudonné but Lagrume who was tailing him, and Florentin looked at him curiously because, to him, Lagrume was a new face.

  He was the gloomiest of all the inspectors, afflicted with a head cold for ten months out of twelve. He also had sensitive flat feet, which made him walk in a curious way.

  Florentin had made for a betting shop and filled in his slip, then walked down Boulevard des Batignolles. He hadn’t stopped in front of the Hôtel Beauséjour. He probably didn’t know that the redhead lived there.

  He had eaten lunch in a restaurant on Place des Ternes and then, like two days earlier, he had gone to the cinema.

  What would he do with that tall, thin body, his rubber face, when Maigret’s hundred francs had run out?

  He hadn’t met anyone. No one had tried to make contact with him. He had eaten dinner in a self-service restaurant before going home to bed.

  The stake-out on Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette hadn’t produced any more results. Madame Blanc had only left her lodge to put out the bins and give the stairs a sweep.

  Some tenants had gone to mass. Others had gone out for the day. The street, almost deserted, was less noisy than on the other days, and the two inspectors who had taken turns to watch it had champed at the bit.

  That Monday, Maigret reread all the reports, the one from the pathologist, the one from the armourer and finally the one from Moers and Criminal Records.

  A relaxed and refreshed Janvier, full of beans, came into the office after a discreet knock at the door.

  ‘How are you doing, chief?’

  ‘Badly …’

  ‘You didn’t have a good Sunday?’

  ‘No …’

  Janvier couldn’t help smiling, because he knew that mood and he knew that it was usually a good sign. In the course of an inquiry Maigret soaked everything up like a sponge, people and things, the slightest clues that he recorded unconsciously.

  The more he grumbled the heavier he got with everything that he had stored up in this way.

  ‘And what did you do?’

  ‘We went to see my sister-in-law, me, my wife and the kids. There was a fair in the main square, and I don’t know how much the children spent shooting at clay pipes.’

  Maigret got up and started pacing back and forth. When the bell rang announcing the daily briefing, he muttered:

  ‘They can manage without me.’

  He didn’t want to answer the questions that the big chief would ask him and was even more reluctant to tell him what he was going to do. Besides, it was still vague. He went on feeling his way.

  ‘If only that appalling creature would talk!’

  He was still thinking about that monumental and impassive woman.

  ‘I find myself somehow regretting that we can’t use water torture like in olden times. I wonder how much water it would take to fill her up …’

  He didn’t mean it, of course, but it was a way of venting his spleen.

  ‘Have you got any idea?’

  Janvier didn’t like it when Maigret asked him questions like that and his answer was a little evasive.

  ‘It seems to me …’

  ‘It seems to you what? Do you think I’ve made a colossal blunder?’

  ‘On the contrary. It just seems to me that Florentin knows more about it than she does … And Florentin’s position is less solid. He has nothing to hope for, except to mope around Montmartre and scrabble a few cents together here and there.’

  Maigret looked at him seriously.

  ‘Go and get him.’

  He called him back before he disappeared.

  ‘Call in at Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and grab the concierge while you’re at it. Let her protest as much as she likes but bring her here by force if necessary.’

  Janvier smiled, because he couldn’t easily see himself getting to grips with that tower of human flesh that weighed at least twice as much as he did.

  A few moments later, Maigret was calling the Ministry of Public Works.

  ‘I’d like to speak to Monsieur Paré, please …’

  ‘I’ll put you through to his office.’

  ‘Hello! Monsieur Paré?’

  ‘Monsieur Paré isn’t here. His wife just called to say he’s ill.’

  Next, the Versailles number.

  ‘Madame Paré?’

  ‘Who’s speaking?’

  ‘Inspector Maigret … How is your husband?’

  ‘Not very well. The doctor came and fears it’s a nervous collapse.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I can speak to him?’

  ‘He’s been recommended complete rest.’

  ‘Is he anxious? … Has he asked to see the newspapers?’

  ‘No. He’s saying nothing. He barely replies with a word or a gesture when I ask him a question.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Then he called the Hôtel Scribe.

  ‘Is that you, Jean? … Maigret here … Has Monsieur Victor Lamotte come back from Bordeaux? … He’s already left for his office? … Thank you.’

  Then the office on Rue Auber.

  ‘I’d like to speak to Monsieur Lamotte … This is Inspector Maigret.’

  There was a sequence of clicks, as if the call had to pass through a whole hierarchy before reaching the big boss.

  ‘Yes …’ a dry voice said at last.

  ‘This is Maigret …’

  ‘They told me.’

  ‘Do you plan to spend the morning in your office?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I should ask you not to go out and to wait for me to call you …’

  ‘I have to advise you that, if you summon me again, I will be accompanied by my lawyer.’

  ‘That’s your right.’

  Maigret hung up and called Boulevard Voltaire, where Fernand Courcel had not yet arrived.

  ‘He never gets here before eleven and sometimes he doesn’t come on Mon
day morning. Would you like to talk to the assistant manager?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  As he roamed about his office with his hands behind his back, Maigret had time to run through the hypotheses that he had constructed the previous day when they had gone for a drive.

  In the end he had kept only one, with a number of variations. He looked at the clock several times.

  Almost ashamed, he opened the cupboard, where he always kept a bottle of brandy. It wasn’t there for him, but sometimes he needed it for a client who collapsed at the moment of confession.

  He hadn’t collapsed. He wasn’t the one who was going to have to confess. Nevertheless, he took a long swig straight from the bottle.

  He wasn’t proud of himself for doing it. He looked impatiently at the clock again. At last he heard the footsteps of several people in the corridor and a furious voice that he recognized: Madame Blanc.

  He went and opened the door.

  ‘I’m getting to know this office,’ Florentin tried to joke, even though he was worried.

  Meanwhile the woman thundered:

  ‘I’m a free citizen, and I demand that …’

  ‘Shut her up in an office, Janvier. Stay with her and make sure she doesn’t scratch your eyes out.’

  And, to Florentin:

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘I’d rather stand up.’

  ‘And I’d rather see you sitting down.’

  ‘If you insist.’

  He pulled a face like in the old days when he had had a row with a teacher and was trying to make the class laugh.

  Maigret went and got Lapointe from the neighbouring office. He was the one who had witnessed all the interrogations and who knew the case best.

  Maigret took the time to stuff a pipe, light it and tamp down the burning tobacco with a careful thumb.

  ‘I imagine, Florentin, that you still don’t have anything to tell me?’

  ‘I’ve told you what I knew.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I swear it’s the truth.’

  ‘And I’m sure you’ve been lying all along.’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

  ‘You always were. Even at school.’

  ‘Just for a laugh.’

  ‘Exactly. Well, we aren’t laughing here.’

  He looked his former classmate in the eyes. He was serious. There was a mixture of contempt and pity on his face. Perhaps more pity than contempt.

  ‘What do you think will happen?’

  Florentin shrugged.

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘You’re fifty-three …’

  ‘Fifty-four. I was a year older than you, because I resat the first year of secondary.’

  ‘You’re getting on a bit, and it won’t be easy for you to find another Josée.’

  He lowered his head.

  ‘I won’t even look for one.’

  ‘Your antiques business is a joke. You have no job, no profession. And these days you don’t have the looks to take anyone for a ride.’

  It was harsh but necessary.

  ‘You’re a mess, Florentin.’

  ‘The whole thing just fell apart … I know I’m a failure, but …’

  ‘But you go on hoping. Hoping for what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Right. Now that we’ve resolved that question, I’m going to lift a weight from your shoulders.’

  Maigret took a moment, looked his old schoolmate in the eyes and said:

  ‘I know you didn’t kill Josée.’

  8.

  The one who was most surprised wasn’t Florentin, but Lapointe, who sat there with his pencil in the air and gave his superior a startled look.

  ‘Don’t get too excited, because it doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.’

  ‘But you do admit …’

  ‘I admit that there was one point on which you didn’t lie, and I still find that surprising of you—’

  ‘I told you—’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t interrupt me. Last Wednesday, at more or less the time you said, probably at about three fifteen, someone rang at the door of the apartment—’

  ‘You see!’

  ‘Will you shut up? As usual, you headed for the bedroom, not knowing who it was. You pricked up your ears, because you and Josée weren’t expecting anyone.

  ‘I imagine one of her lovers would occasionally come at a different time from usual, or indeed a different day.’

  ‘In that case, they telephoned.’

  ‘None of them ever came without warning?’

  ‘Very rarely.’

  ‘And in that case you went and hid in the wardrobe. On Wednesday, you weren’t in the wardrobe, but in the bedroom. You recognized the voice and you were frightened, because you realized that the visit wasn’t for Josée.’

  Florentin froze, clearly not understanding how his old schoolmate had reached this conclusion.

  ‘You see, I have proof that someone went upstairs on Wednesday. That someone, frightened by the crime he had just committed, wanted to buy the concierge’s silence and gave her everything he had in his pocket: two thousand two hundred francs.’

  ‘You admit that I’m innocent.’

  ‘Of the murder. Although you are indirectly its cause and, if we can talk about morality when it comes to you, you bear the moral responsibility.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  Maigret got to his feet. He couldn’t stay seated for long, and Florentin’s eyes followed him around the room.

  ‘Joséphine Papet had a new live-in lover.’

  ‘You mean that redhead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was only a passing fancy. He would never have agreed to live with her, to hide, to stay out on certain nights. He’s a young fellow, who can get as many girls as he wants.’

  ‘Josée was in love with him, and she’d had enough of you.’

  ‘How do you know? Is that just a supposition on your part?’

  ‘She said so.’

  ‘Who to? Not you, because you never saw her alive.’

  ‘To Jean-Luc Bodard.’

  ‘Do you believe everything that kid tells you?’

  ‘It’s not in his interest to lie.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You risk one or two years in prison … Probably two, because of your previous convictions.’

  Florentin was reacting less and less. He didn’t yet know how far Maigret’s discoveries would go but he had heard enough to be worried.

  ‘Let’s go back to that Wednesday visit … Recognizing the voice, you were frightened because, a few days or a few weeks previously, you had started blackmailing one of Josée’s lovers.

  ‘Of course, you chose the one you considered the most vulnerable, the one whose respectability was most important to him. You talked to him about his letters.

  ‘How much did you get?’

  Florentin lowered his head gloomily.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘He wouldn’t strike a deal?’

  ‘No, but he asked me for a few days’ delay.’

  ‘How much did you ask for?’

  ‘Fifty thousand … I wanted it in cash, to get it over with and start a new life somewhere else.’

  ‘So Josée was gradually getting rid of you.’

  ‘It’s possible … She’d changed …’

  ‘You’re starting to talk reasonably and, if you continue, I’ll help you get out of this without too much damage.’

  ‘You’ll do that?’

  ‘You’re such an idiot!’

  Maigret had said those words very quietly, to himself, but Florentin had heard, and his face had turned crimson.

  It was true. There are several thousand people in Paris living on the margins, on more or less obvious swindles, or on the naivety or greed of their fellow men.

  They always have some marvellous project that they would only need a few thousand or tens of thousands
of francs to turn into reality.

  In most cases they end up swindling an idiot and then they have a certain amount of time to live the high life, drive cars and dine in expensive restaurants.

  Once the money has gone, they limp along until it starts over again, but barely one in ten of them goes through the courts and experiences prison.

  Florentin, on the other hand, had messed up every time, the last time lamentably.

  ‘Now, would you like to talk or do I have to go on?’

  ‘I’d rather you did.’

  ‘The visitor asks to see you. He knows you’re in the apartment, because he took the trouble to ask the concierge. He isn’t armed. He isn’t particularly jealous and he doesn’t want anybody to die.

  ‘But he’s agitated. Josée, who is worried for you, says you aren’t there, she doesn’t know where you are.

  ‘He goes into the dining room, walks across it. You hurry towards the bathroom, then, probably, towards the wardrobe.’

  ‘I didn’t have time to get there.’

  ‘Fine. He drags you back into the bedroom.’

  ‘Shouting that I’m a good-for-nothing,’ Florentin added bitterly. ‘And in front of her.’

  ‘She isn’t aware of the blackmail. She doesn’t understand what’s happening. You tell her to be quiet. In spite of everything, you’re clinging to those fifty thousand francs that you see as your last chance …’

  ‘I can’t remember … No one knew what he was doing … Josée was begging us to calm down … The man was furious … At some point, because I refused to give him back his letters, he opened the drawer and grabbed the revolver …

  ‘Josée started screaming … I was scared too and …’

  ‘And you went and stood behind her?’

  ‘I swear to you, Maigret, that it was a matter of chance that she took the bullet.

  ‘He clearly wasn’t used to holding a gun … He was waving his arm about … I was about to give him those damned letters when the shot went off …

  ‘He looked startled … A strange noise came from his throat, and he hurried towards the sitting room …’

  ‘Still holding the gun?’

  ‘I suppose so, because I didn’t find it again … When I bent over Josée, she was dead …’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the police?’