Maigret and the Lazy Burglar

by Georges Simenon

  ‘No hitches?’

  ‘He did manage to open fire. One of my men was hit in the shoulder.’

  ‘What about the woman?’

  ‘My face is covered in scratches. I’ll bring them in as soon as I’ve finished with the formalities.’

  The telephone wouldn’t stop ringing. This time, it was the prosecutor.

  ‘Yes, sir. We have them all … No, I haven’t asked them a single question yet. I put them in separate offices, and I’m waiting for the man and woman Buffet is bringing me from Corbeil.’

  ‘Be careful. Don’t forget that they’ll claim the police manhandled them.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Or that they have an absolute right to say nothing without the presence of a lawyer.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Maigret didn’t have any intention of questioning them immediately anyway, preferring to let them stew in their own juice. He was waiting for Madame Lussac.

  She did not arrive until eleven, because she had been in bed when the inspector arrived and it had taken her time to get dressed and explain to the social worker what needed to be done for her son.

  She was a short, thin, quite pretty brunette, barely more than twenty-five. She was pale, with pinched nostrils. She said nothing, avoiding playing the part of the indignant wife.

  Maigret sat her down in front of him, while Janvier installed himself at the end of the desk with pencil and paper.

  ‘Your husband’s name is René Lussac, and he’s a sales representative?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur.’

  ‘He’s thirty-one years old. How long have you been married?’

  ‘Four years.’

  ‘What’s your maiden name?’

  ‘Jacqueline Beaudet.’

  ‘Born in Paris?’

  ‘No, in Orléans. I came to Paris when I was sixteen to live with my aunt.’

  ‘What does your aunt do?’

  ‘She’s a midwife. She lives in Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.’

  ‘Where did you meet René Lussac?’

  ‘In a shop selling records and musical instruments where I worked as an assistant. Where is he, inspector? Tell me what’s happened to him. Ever since Joseph—’

  ‘Do you mean Joseph Raison?’

  ‘Yes. Joseph and his wife were our friends. We live in the same building.’

  ‘Did the two men go out a lot together?’

  ‘Sometimes. Not often. Ever since Joseph died …’

  ‘You’re afraid the same thing might happen to your husband, aren’t you?’

  ‘Where is he? Has he disappeared?’

  ‘No. He’s here.’

  ‘Alive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hurt?’

  ‘He almost was, but he isn’t.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Not right away.’

  ‘Why not?’ She gave a bitter smile. ‘Stupid of me to ask you that question! I can guess what you’re looking for, why you’re questioning me. You’re telling yourself it’ll be easier to make a woman talk than a man, aren’t you?’

  ‘Fernand has been arrested.’

  ‘Who’s Fernand?’

  ‘Do you really not know?’

  She looked him in the eyes.

  ‘No. My husband’s never mentioned him. All I know is that someone gives the orders.’

  Although she had taken a handkerchief from her bag, because she thought it was the thing to do, she wasn’t crying.

  ‘You see, it’s easier than you imagined. I’ve been afraid for quite a long time now, and I’ve been begging René not to see these people any more. He has a good job. We were happy. Although we weren’t rich, we didn’t have a bad life. I don’t know who it was he met …’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘About six months. It was towards the end of summer … I wish it were all over, because then I wouldn’t have to be scared any more. Are you sure that woman will be able to take care of my son?’

  ‘You have nothing to fear in that respect.’

  ‘He’s a nervous boy, like his father. He gets restless at night …’

  It was obvious she was exhausted and rather lost, and was making an effort to get her thoughts in order.

  ‘What I can tell you is that René didn’t shoot.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘First of all, because he’d be incapable of it. He let those people lead him on. He never imagined it would get so serious.’

  ‘Did he talk to you about it?’

  ‘For a while I’d seen that he was bringing back more money than he should have. He also went out more, almost always with Joseph Raison. One day, I found his automatic.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That I shouldn’t worry, that in a few months we’d be able to go and live quietly in the South. He wanted to start his own business, in Cannes or Nice …’

  At last she was crying, noiselessly, with little sobs.

  ‘Basically, it was all because of the car. He absolutely had to have a Floride. He made a down payment. Then the time came to start paying the instalments … When he finds out I’ve talked, he’ll be angry with me. Maybe he won’t want to live with me any more.’

  There was noise in the corridor, and Maigret motioned to Janvier to take the young woman into the next office. He had recognized Buffet’s voice.

  Three men pushed a fourth man into the room, a man with handcuffs on his wrists, who immediately gave Maigret a defiant look.

  ‘Where’s the woman?’ Maigret asked.

  ‘At the other end of the corridor. She’s more dangerous than he is, she scratches and bites.’

  Buffet had a scratched face and blood on his neck to prove it.

  ‘Come in, Fernand.’

  Buffet came in, too, while the two inspectors remained outside. Fernand looked around him at the room and said:

  ‘I think I’ve been here before.’

  He was regaining his self-confidence and his sardonic demeanour.

  ‘I suppose you’re going to wear me down with questions, like the last time. I can tell you right now that I won’t answer.’

  ‘Who’s your lawyer?’

  ‘Same one as before. Maître Gambier.’

  ‘Do you want us to call him?’

  ‘Personally, I have nothing to say to him. If you find it amusing to drag the man out of his bed …’

  All night at Quai des Orfèvres, there were comings and goings in the corridors and from office to office. There was the rattle of typewriters. The telephone rang constantly, because the prosecutor’s office was determined to keep in touch, and the examining magistrate hadn’t gone to bed.

  One of the inspectors spent most of his time making coffee. From time to time, Maigret would meet one of his colleagues between offices.

  ‘Still nothing?’

  ‘He’s keeping quiet.’

  None of the three men from the Café des Amis admitted to recognizing Fernand. They were all playing the same game.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  And when they were played a recording of the call to Corbeil, they would reply:

  ‘That’s René’s business. His love affairs are no concern of ours.’

  René himself replied:

  ‘I’m entitled to have a mistress, aren’t I?’

  They brought Madame Lussac in to confront Fernand.

  ‘Do you recognize him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Fernand said triumphantly. ‘These people have never seen me. I came out of Saint-Martin-de-Ré without a cent, and a friend gave me the address of his girlfriend, telling me she’d give me something to eat. I was staying in her house, simple as that.’

  Maître Gambier arrived at one in the morning and immediately raised points of law.

  According to the new code of criminal procedure, the police couldn’t detain these men for more than twenty-four hours, after which the case would be taken over by the prosecutor’s office and the e
xamining magistrate, who would decide whether or not to proceed.

  They could already sense doubts growing in the Palais de Justice.

  The confrontation between Madame Lussac and her husband yielded nothing.

  ‘Tell them the truth.’

  ‘What truth? That I have a mistress?’

  ‘The automatic …’

  ‘A pal gave me an automatic. So what? I’m often on the road, travelling alone at the wheel of my car …’

  Once morning came, they would start searching for witnesses, all those who had already been through Quai des Orfèvres: the café waiters from Rue La Fayette, the cashier, the beggar, the off-duty police officer who had opened fire.

  Also once morning came, they would search the apartments of the three men arrested at Porte de Versailles. Perhaps they would find the case with the money in one of them.

  It was all a matter of routine, a somewhat sickening, taxing routine.

  ‘You can go back to Fontenay-les-Roses, but the social worker will stay with you until further orders.’

  He had her driven back there. She was ready to drop, and she looked around her with startled eyes, as if she no longer knew where she was.

  While his men continued to bombard the prisoners with questions, Maigret went out for a walk. The first snowflakes fell on his hat and his shoulders. A bar was just opening its doors on Boulevard du Palais, and he stood at the counter, ate some warm croissants and drank two or three cups of coffee.

  When he got back to the office at seven, sluggish and blinking in the light, he was surprised to find Fumel there.

  ‘What do you have for me now?’

  Fumel, who was very excited, began talking volubly.

  ‘I was on duty last night. I was kept up to date with what you were doing on Avenue de Versailles, but as I wasn’t involved I took the opportunity to phone a few friends from the other arrondissements. They’ve all had the photograph of Cuendet by now. I told myself that one of these days something might come of it …

  ‘Anyway, I was chatting to Duffieux from the eighteenth and I mentioned Cuendet. And Duffieux told me he’d been just about to phone me on that very subject. He works with a friend of yours, Inspector Lognon. When Lognon saw the photograph yesterday morning, he immediately made a face and stuffed it in his pocket without saying a word. Cuendet’s face looked familiar to him. Apparently, he started asking questions in the bars and little restaurants in Rue Caulaincourt and Place Constantin-Pecqueur.

  ‘You know when Lognon gets an idea in his head, he can’t let go of it. He ended up knocking at the right door, just at the top of Rue Caulaincourt, a brasserie called the Régence. They recognized Cuendet without hesitation and told Lognon he came there quite often with a woman.’

  ‘How long had that been going on?’ Maigret asked.

  ‘Well, that’s the most interesting part. For years, according to them.’

  ‘Do they know the woman?’

  ‘The waiter doesn’t know her name, but he’s sure she lives locally, because he sees her pass by every morning on her way to do her shopping.’

  The whole of the Police Judiciaire was busy with Fernand and his gang. In two hours, the corridors would again be overflowing with witnesses to whom the four men would be presented in turn. It would take all day, and the typewriters would be constantly spewing out the transcripts of statements.

  In the middle of this agitation that had nothing to do with him, only Inspector Fumel, his fingers stained with nicotine from the cigarettes he smoked to the very end, to the point that they had left an indelible mark above his lip, only Fumel was talking to Maigret about the quiet Swiss whom everyone else had forgotten.

  Wasn’t that case dead and buried? Wasn’t Judge Cajou convinced he wouldn’t have to deal with it any more?

  He had uttered his verdict on the first day:

  ‘A gangland killing.’

  He didn’t know old Justine, or the apartment in Rue Mouffetard, let alone the Hôtel Lambert and the sumptuous mansion opposite.

  ‘Are you tired?’

  ‘Not too much.’

  ‘Shall we both go?’

  Maigret’s tone was almost conspiratorial, as if he had suggested they both play truant.

  ‘By the time we get there, it’ll be day.’

  He left instructions for his men, stopped at the corner to buy tobacco and, accompanied by Fumel, who was shivering with cold, waited for the bus to Montmartre.

  7.

  Did Lognon suspect that Maigret attached more importance to the almost anonymous corpse in the Bois de Boulogne than to the hold-up in Rue La Fayette and the gang who would be all over the newspapers the next day?

  If he did, would he have followed the thread he had picked up? And in that case, God alone knew how far he would have gone to discover the truth, because he was probably the police officer with the most highly developed sixth sense in Paris, the most stubborn, too, and the one who most desperately wanted to succeed.

  Was it bad luck that stood in his way, or the belief that fate had it in for him, that when it came down to it he was destined always to be a victim?

  The fact remained, he would end his career as an inspector in the eighteenth arrondissement, just as Aristide Fumel would in the sixteenth. Fumel’s wife had left without leaving a forwarding address; Lognon’s was ill, and had spent the last fifteen years complaining.

  As far as the Cuendet case was concerned, it had all happened rather stupidly. Lognon, busy with something else, had passed the tip on to a colleague, who in turn had only attached enough importance to it to mention it in passing during his telephone conversation with Fumel.

  The snow was falling quite heavily now and was starting to settle on the roofs, although unfortunately not on the streets. Maigret was always disappointed to see the snow melt on the pavement.

  The bus was overheated. Most of the travellers were quiet and looked straight ahead, their heads swaying from side to side, fixed expressions on their faces.

  ‘Anything new on the rug?’

  Fumel, who had been lost in thought, gave a start and echoed as if he didn’t immediately understand:

  ‘The rug?’

  He, too, hadn’t slept enough.

  ‘The wildcat fur rug.’

  ‘I looked in Stuart Wilton’s car. I didn’t see any rug. Not only does the car have heating, it has air conditioning. It even has a little bar, a garage mechanic told me that.’

  ‘What about his son’s car?’

  ‘He generally parks it outside the George-V. I took a glance at it. I didn’t see any rug there either.’

  ‘Do you know where he gets his petrol?’

  ‘Usually at a garage in Rue Marbeuf.’

  ‘Did you go there?’

  ‘I didn’t have time.’

  The bus stopped at the corner of Place Constantin-Pecqueur. The pavements were practically empty. It wasn’t yet eight in the morning.

  ‘That must be the brasserie.’

  The lights were on, and a waiter was sweeping sawdust off the floor. It was an old-fashioned brasserie, of the kind that were less and less common in Paris, with round metal holders for the napkins, a marble counter where a cashier probably sat behind the till, and mirrors all around the walls. There were signs up, recommending the choucroute garnie and the cassoulet.

  The two men went inside.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Fumel ordered coffee and brioches, while Maigret, who had already drunk too much coffee during the night and whose tongue felt coated, ordered a little glass of brandy.

  Outside, it was as if life were finding it difficult to get into gear. It was neither night nor day. Children on their way to school were trying to grab snowflakes that must have tasted like dust.

  ‘Tell me, waiter …’

  ‘Yes, monsieur?’

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  The waiter looked at Maigret with a knowing air.

  ‘You’re Mo
nsieur Maigret, aren’t you? I recognize you. You came here two years ago with Inspector Lognon.’

  He examined the photographs smugly.

  ‘He’s a customer, yes. He always comes with the little lady with the hats.’

  ‘Why do you call her the little lady with the hats?’

  ‘Because she always wears different hats, these funny little fascinators. Mostly they come in to have dinner. They sit in the corner over there, right at the far end. They’re nice. She loves the choucroute. They take their time, have coffee after the meal, then have a little drink and hold hands.’

  ‘Have they been coming here long?’

  ‘Years. I don’t know how many.’

  ‘Apparently, she lives locally?’

  ‘I’ve already been asked that question. She must have an apartment in one of the buildings nearby, because I see her pass almost every morning with her shopping bag.’

  Why was Maigret delighted to discover a woman in Honoré Cuendet’s life?

  Soon afterwards, he and Fumel walked into the concierge’s lodge of the first building. The mail was just being sorted.

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  She looked closely at the photograph and shook her head.

  ‘I think I’ve seen him before, but I can’t say I know him. Anyway, he’s never been here.’

  ‘You don’t have, among your tenants, a woman who often changes her hats?’

  She looked at Maigret in astonishment, shrugged her shoulders and muttered something he didn’t understand.

  They were no more successful in the second building, or in the third. In the fourth, the concierge was bandaging her husband’s hand after he had cut it taking out the dustbins.

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Does he live here?’

  ‘Not exactly. He’s a friend of the little lady on the fifth floor.’

  ‘What little lady?’

  ‘Madame Evelyne, the milliner.’

  ‘Has she lived here long?’

  ‘At least twelve years. She was already here when I started.’

  ‘Was he already her friend then?’

  ‘He might have been. I don’t remember.’

  ‘Have you seen them lately?’

  ‘Who? Her? I see her every day!’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Do you remember the last time he came, Désiré?’