Maigret and the Lazy Burglar

by Georges Simenon

  ‘No, but it was quite a while ago.’

  ‘Did he sometimes spend the night?’

  She seemed to find Maigret naive.

  ‘What of it? They’re adults, aren’t they?’

  ‘Did he stay here for several days on end?’

  ‘Even weeks sometimes.’

  ‘Is Madame Evelyne in? What’s her surname?’

  ‘Schneider.’

  ‘Does she get a lot of post?’

  The bundle of letters in front of the pigeon-holes hadn’t yet been untied.

  ‘Almost none.’

  ‘Fifth floor on the left?’

  ‘On the right.’

  Maigret went out into the street to see if there was any light at the windows and, as there was, he set off up the stairs with Fumel. There was no lift. The staircase was well maintained, the house clean and quiet, with mats in front of the doors and the odd brass or enamel name plate.

  They noted a dentist on the second floor, a midwife on the third. Maigret stopped from time to time to catch his breath. He heard a radio playing somewhere.

  On the fifth floor, he almost hesitated before ringing the bell. There was a radio playing in this apartment, too, but it was switched off and footsteps approached the door, which opened. Quite a short woman, with light-blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed not in a dressing gown but a kind of smock, peered out at them, a cloth in her hand.

  Maigret and Fumel were as embarrassed as she was, because they could see first the surprise, then the fear grow in her eyes. Her lips quivered, and at last she said in a low voice:

  ‘Have you come to give me bad news?’

  She motioned them into the living room she had been cleaning and pushed away the vacuum cleaner that was in their way.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘I don’t know … A visit, at this hour, when Honoré has been away for so long …’

  She was about forty-five but looked a lot younger. Her skin was smooth, her figure rounded and firm.

  ‘Are you police?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret. This is Inspector Fumel.’

  ‘Has Honoré had an accident?’

  ‘You’re right, I have bad news for you.’

  She wasn’t crying yet and they could sense her trying to cling to trivia.

  ‘Sit down. Take off your coats, it’s very hot in here. Honoré likes it hot. Sorry it’s so untidy …’

  ‘Do you love him a lot?’

  She was biting her lips, trying to guess how serious the news was.

  ‘Is he hurt?’

  Then almost immediately:

  ‘Is he dead?’

  She wept at last, her mouth open like a child’s, with no fear of looking ugly. At the same time, she grasped her hair in both hands and looked around her as if searching for a corner in which to take shelter.

  ‘I always had a feeling something like this would happen.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know … We were too happy …’

  The room was comfortable and intimate, with solid furniture of good quality and a few trinkets which weren’t in excessively bad taste. Through an open door, they could see a bright kitchen, where the table had been laid for breakfast.

  ‘Take no notice of me …’ she kept saying. ‘I’m sorry …’

  She opened another door. It led to the unlit bedroom, where she threw herself across the bed, flat on her stomach, to cry freely.

  Maigret and Fumel looked at each other in silence. Of the two, Fumel was the more moved, perhaps because he had never been able to resist women, in spite of the trouble they had caused him.

  It didn’t last as long as they might have feared. She went into the bathroom and ran some water, and when she came back, her face was almost relaxed.

  ‘I do apologize,’ she said. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘He was found dead in the Bois de Boulogne. Haven’t you read the papers in the last few days?’

  ‘I don’t read the papers. But why the Bois de Boulogne? What was he doing there?’

  ‘He was murdered somewhere else.’

  ‘Murdered? For what reason?’

  She made an effort not to burst into tears again.

  ‘Had you been friends for a long time?’

  ‘More than ten years.’

  ‘Where did you meet?’

  ‘In a brasserie near here.’

  ‘The Régence?’

  ‘Yes. It was a place I occasionally ate in. I noticed him sitting alone in his corner.’

  Didn’t that suggest that Cuendet had been preparing a burglary in the neighbourhood around that time? Probably. Examining the lists of unsolved robberies, they might well find one committed in Rue Caulaincourt.

  ‘I don’t remember how we got talking. But anyway, one evening, we had dinner at the same table. He asked me if I was German, and I told him I was from Alsace. I was born in Strasbourg.’

  She gave a wan smile.

  ‘We both laughed at each other’s accents. He’d kept his Swiss accent the way I’ve kept mine.’

  It was a pleasant, singsong accent. Madame Maigret was also from Alsace and was more or less the same height, with the same slightly stout figure.

  ‘And you became friends?’

  She wiped her nose without concern for how red it was getting.

  ‘He wasn’t always here. He seldom spent more than two or three weeks with me, then he’d go travelling. I wondered at first if he didn’t have a wife and children in the provinces. Some provincials take off their wedding rings when they come to Paris.’

  She gave the impression she had known other men before Cuendet.

  ‘How did you know that wasn’t the case with him?’

  ‘He wasn’t married, was he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I was sure of it. First of all, I realized he didn’t have any children of his own from the way he looked at other children in the street. You could see he was resigned not to be a father, but there was a kind of longing there. And when he stayed here, he didn’t behave like a married man. It’s hard to explain. He had a modesty about him that married men tend to lose. The first time we slept together, for example, I realized he was embarrassed to find himself in my bed, and he was even more embarrassed when he woke up the next morning …’

  ‘Did he ever tell you about his profession?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you ever ask him about it?’

  ‘I did try to find out, though I didn’t want to be indiscreet.’

  ‘He told you that he travelled?’

  ‘That he needed to go away. He never told me where he was going, or why. One day, I asked him if his mother was still alive, and he blushed. That made me think that he was living with her. In any case, he had someone to mend his underwear and darn his socks, someone who didn’t do it very well. His buttons were always badly sewn on, for example, and I used to tease him about it.’

  ‘When did he leave you for the last time?’

  ‘Six weeks ago. I could find the date …’

  Now she asked:

  ‘When did … when did it happen?’

  ‘On Friday.’

  ‘But he never had much money on him.’

  ‘When he came to spend time with you, did he bring a suitcase?’

  ‘No. If you look in the wardrobe, you’ll find his dressing gown and his slippers there, and his shirts, socks and pyjamas in a drawer.’

  She pointed at the mantelpiece, and Maigret saw three pipes, including one meerschaum. Here, too, there was a coal stove, as in Rue Mouffetard, and an armchair beside it, Honoré Cuendet’s armchair.

  ‘Please forgive my indiscretion, but there’s a question I’m obliged to ask you.’

  ‘I can guess what it is. You want to ask me about money.’

  ‘Yes. Did he give you any?’

  ‘He offered to give me money. I didn’t accept it, because I make a good living. All I allowed him to do, because he insisted and because he felt uncomf
ortable living here without paying his share, was to pay half the rent. He did give me gifts. He was the one who bought the furniture in this room and set up my fitting room. You can see it …’

  A narrow room, with Louis XVI furniture and a profusion of mirrors.

  ‘He’s also the one who repainted the walls, including those in the kitchen, and papered the living room, because he loved doing odd jobs.’

  ‘How did he spend his days?’

  ‘He walked a bit, not very much, and always the same route, just around the neighbourhood, like someone walking his dog. Apart from that, he’d sit in his armchair and read. You’ll find heaps of books in the wardrobe, almost all travel books.’

  ‘Did you ever travel with him?’

  ‘We spent a few days in Dieppe, the second year. Another time, we went on holiday to Savoy, and he showed me the Swiss mountains in the distance, saying that was his country. Another time again, we went from Paris to Nice by coach and visited the Riviera.’

  ‘Was he a big spender?’

  ‘That depends what you call big. He wasn’t stingy, but he didn’t like it when people tried to cheat him and he’d often send back hotel and restaurant bills.’

  ‘Are you over forty?’

  ‘I’m forty-four.’

  ‘So you have a certain amount of experience. Didn’t you ever wonder why he led this double life? Or why he didn’t marry you?’

  ‘I’ve known other men who didn’t offer to marry me.’

  ‘The same kind as him?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  She thought this over.

  ‘Obviously, I did ask myself these questions. At the beginning, as I told you, I thought he was married in the provinces and that his business brought him to Paris several times a year. I wouldn’t have been angry at him. It was tempting to have a woman here to take him in and give him a nice home. He hated hotels, I saw that when we travelled the first time. He didn’t feel comfortable there, he always seemed to be afraid of something.’

  Good Lord!

  ‘Then, because of his character and the way his socks were darned, I concluded that he lived with his mother and that he was embarrassed to admit it to me. More men than you think don’t get married because of their mothers and even though they’re fifty years old are still like little boys when Mother is around. Maybe that was the case with Honoré.’

  ‘And yet he had to have earned his living.’

  ‘He might have had a little business somewhere.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever suspect another kind of activity?’

  ‘What kind of activity?’

  She was sincere. There was no way she was play-acting.

  ‘What do you mean? I’m ready for anything now. What did he do?’

  ‘He was a burglar, Mademoiselle Schneider.’

  ‘Him? Honoré?’

  She gave a nervous laugh.

  ‘It isn’t true, is it?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is. He stole all his life, starting at the age of sixteen, when he was an apprentice locksmith in Lausanne. He escaped from a reformatory in Switzerland and joined the Foreign Legion.’

  ‘He did mention the Legion when I discovered his tattoo.’

  ‘Did he also mention the fact that he spent two years in prison?’

  Her legs gave way beneath her, and she sat down, continuing to listen as if it were another Cuendet, not hers, not Honoré, that she was being told about.

  Occasionally, she would shake her head, still incredulous.

  ‘I myself arrested him once, mademoiselle, and since then, he’s been through my office several times. He wasn’t an ordinary burglar. He didn’t have any accomplices, didn’t frequent the underworld and led a steady life. From time to time, reading the newspapers or the magazines, he’d hit on a possible target and for weeks he’d observe the comings and goings in that particular house. Eventually, when he felt confident enough, he’d break in and take jewellery and money.’

  ‘No, I can’t believe it! It’s too incredible!’

  ‘I quite understand your reaction. But you weren’t wrong about his mother. Part of the time he didn’t spend here, he spent with her, in an apartment in Rue Mouffetard, where he also had his things.’

  ‘Does she know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Has she always known?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she let him?’

  She wasn’t indignant, just surprised.

  ‘Is it because of that that he was killed?’

  ‘More than likely.’

  ‘Was it the police?’

  She was hardening, becoming colder, less trusting.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was it the people he … he was trying to burgle who killed him?’

  ‘I assume so. Now listen carefully. I’m not the person in charge of the investigation, that’s Judge Cajou, the examining magistrate. He entrusted a number of tasks to Inspector Fumel.’

  Fumel nodded.

  ‘This morning, the inspector is here unofficially, without a warrant. You had a right not to answer my questions or his. You could have stopped us coming in. And if we happened to search your apartment, we’d be overstepping our authority. Do you understand?’

  No. Maigret sensed that she didn’t grasp the significance of his words.

  ‘I think so …’

  ‘To be more specific, none of what you’ve told us about Cuendet will be in the inspector’s report. It’s quite likely that when he discovers your existence and your relationship with Honoré, the examining magistrate will send Fumel or another inspector to see you, this time with a properly issued warrant.’

  ‘What should I do?’

  ‘When that happens, you’ll be able to request a lawyer.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I said you’ll be able to. You’re not obliged to do so by law. Apart from his clothes, his books and his pipes, Cuendet may have left some things in your apartment …’

  The blue eyes at last expressed understanding. Too late, because Mademoiselle Schneider was already murmuring, as if to herself:

  ‘The suitcase …’

  ‘It’s only natural that, living with you for part of the year, your friend should have entrusted to you a suitcase full of personal effects. It’s natural, too, that he left you the key and advised you, for example, to open it if anything should happen to him …’

  Maigret would have preferred it if Fumel hadn’t been there. Becoming aware of that, Fumel adopted a sullen, absent air.

  As for Evelyne, she shook her head.

  ‘I don’t have the key, but …’

  ‘Once again, it doesn’t matter. It’s not unthinkable that a man like Cuendet might have taken the precaution of drawing up a will in which he entrusted you, after his death, with certain tasks, if only to take care of his mother …’

  ‘Is she very old?’

  ‘You’ll meet her, since apparently you’re the only women in his life.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  She seemed pleased, in spite of everything, and couldn’t help letting it show through her smile. When she smiled, she had dimples like a very young girl.

  ‘I don’t know what to think any more.’

  ‘When we’ve left, you’ll have plenty of time to think.’

  ‘Tell me, inspector …’

  She hesitated, suddenly red to the roots of her hair.

  ‘Did he … did he ever kill anybody?’

  ‘I can assure you he didn’t.’

  ‘Mind you, if you’d said yes, I’d have refused to believe you.’

  ‘I’ll add something that’s more difficult to explain. It’s certain that Cuendet lived partly on the proceeds of his burglaries.’

  ‘He spent so little!’

  ‘Precisely. It’s quite possible, likely even, that he felt a need for security, a need to know that he’d built up a nice nest egg for himself. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if in his case another element played an essential role. For weeks, as I
told you, he’d observe the life of a house …’

  ‘How did he do that?’

  ‘By installing himself in a bistro, where he’d spend hours near the window, or renting a room in a building opposite when he had the chance …’

  The thought that had already occurred to Maigret now struck Evelyne.

  ‘You think that when I met him at the Régence …’

  ‘It’s very likely. He didn’t wait for the apartments to be unoccupied, for the tenants to be out. On the contrary, he waited for them to come back.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A psychologist or psychiatrist would answer that question better than I could. Did he need to feel a sense of danger? I’m not so sure. You see, he didn’t just break into a stranger’s apartment, but in a way, into people’s lives. They were sleeping in their beds and he brushed past them. It was rather as if, as well as taking their jewellery, he took a part of their privacy …’

  ‘Anyone would think you don’t bear him a grudge.’

  Maigret smiled in his turn and merely grunted:

  ‘I don’t bear anybody a grudge. Goodbye, mademoiselle. Don’t forget what I told you, not a word. Think it over calmly.’

  He shook her hand, much to Evelyne’s surprise, and Fumel did the same, in a more awkward manner, as if he was troubled.

  They were still on the stairs when Fumel exclaimed:

  ‘What an extraordinary woman!’

  He would return and hang about the neighbourhood, even when everyone had forgotten Honoré Cuendet. He couldn’t help himself. He already had a mistress to deal with who was complicating his life, and now he was going to make sure he complicated it even more.

  Outside, the snow was starting to settle on the pavements.

  ‘What shall I do, chief?’

  ‘You must be tired, aren’t you? Let’s have a drink anyway.’

  There were a few customers now in the brasserie, where a travelling salesman was copying addresses from the commercial directory.

  ‘Did you find her?’ the barman asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nice, isn’t she? What can I get you?’

  ‘For me, a toddy.’

  ‘For me, too.’

  ‘Two toddies!’

  ‘Write up your report this afternoon, once you’ve slept.’

  ‘Should I mention Rue Neuve-Saint-Pierre?’

  ‘Of course, and the Wilton woman who lives opposite the Hôtel Lambert. Cajou will summon you to his office and ask you for details.’