Maigret's Mistake

by Georges Simenon

  It was probably the truth, otherwise he wouldn’t have waited to read the paper at midday the following day to take fright and run away.

  ‘When she phoned you at the Grelot, did you have any idea what she had to say to you?’

  ‘No, I had no idea. She was in a nervous state and wanted to talk to me right away.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘That she’d made up her mind.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To give it all up.’

  ‘Give up what exactly?’

  ‘The old man.’

  ‘Had you asked her to?’

  ‘I’d been begging her to come and live with me for the past two years.’

  He added, as if challenging Maigret, as if challenging the whole world:

  ‘I love her!’

  He wasn’t being assertive. On the contrary, he spoke haltingly.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want a bite to eat?’

  This time, Pierrot automatically grabbed a sandwich, and Maigret took another. It was better this way. Both were eating, and that relaxed the atmosphere. No noise could be heard from the offices, except the tapping of a typewriter somewhere.

  ‘Had Lulu ever before called you to Avenue Carnot when you were at work?’

  ‘No. Not to Avenue Carnot. Once, when she was still living in Rue La Fayette and she suddenly felt ill … It was only a bad case of indigestion, but she was afraid … She was always afraid of dying …’

  Because of that word, and the images it evoked, his eyes grew wet again, and he paused for a while before biting into his sandwich.

  ‘What did she say to you on Monday night? Hold on, though. Before you answer my question, tell me if you have a key to the apartment.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. No reason. I didn’t go there often, and when I did she was always there to open the door.’

  ‘So, you rang the bell and she opened the door.’

  ‘I didn’t have to ring the bell. She was listening out for me and she opened the door as soon as I got out of the lift.’

  ‘I thought she was in bed.’

  ‘She had been. She must have been in bed when she phoned me. She got up just before I arrived. She was in her dressing gown.’

  ‘Did she seem normal?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What kind of state was she in?’

  ‘Hard to say. She looked as if she’d been doing a lot of thinking and was about to make a decision. I got scared when I saw her.’

  ‘Scared of what?’

  The musician hesitated.

  ‘You might as well know,’ he grunted in the end. ‘I was scared because of the old man.’

  ‘I assume you mean the professor?’

  ‘Yes. I kept expecting him to decide to get a divorce and marry Lulu.’

  ‘Was it on the cards?’

  ‘If it was, she never told me.’

  ‘Did she want him to marry her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did she love you?’

  ‘I think she did.’

  ‘Aren’t you sure?’

  ‘I don’t suppose women are like men.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He did not clarify his thought, perhaps because he was unable to, and merely shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘She was a poor girl,’ he finally murmured as if to himself.

  The mouthfuls went down his throat with difficulty, but he continued mechanically to eat.

  ‘Where did she sit when you arrived?’

  ‘She didn’t sit down. She was too nervous to sit. She started walking up and down and said without looking at me, “I have important news to tell you.” Then, as if she couldn’t hold it in any longer: “I’m pregnant.” ’

  ‘Did she seem pleased?’

  ‘She didn’t seem either pleased or upset.’

  ‘Did you think the child was yours?’

  He did not dare answer but, from his attitude, it was clear that for him it was obvious.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing. It had a strange effect on me. I wanted to take her in my arms.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she let you?’

  ‘No. She kept walking up and down, talking to herself, saying things like: “I wonder what I’m going to do. This changes everything. It may be very important. If I tell him …” ’

  ‘She meant the professor?’

  ‘Yes. She didn’t know if she should tell him the truth or not. She wasn’t sure how he’d react.’

  And now Pierrot, who had finished his sandwich, sighed despondently.

  ‘It’s hard to explain. I remember the smallest details, and at the same time it’s vague. I never imagined it would happen like that.’

  ‘What had you hoped?’

  ‘That she’d throw herself in my arms and tell me she’d finally made up her mind to come with me.’

  ‘Had the idea occurred to her?’

  ‘Maybe it had. I’m almost sure it had. She wanted it. In the beginning, when she came out of hospital, she claimed that she was obliged, out of gratitude, to act as she did.’

  ‘She felt indebted to Gouin?’

  ‘He saved her life. I think he spent more time treating her than any other of his patients.’

  ‘Did you believe it?’

  ‘Believe what?’

  ‘Did you believe in Lulu’s gratitude?’

  ‘I told her she wasn’t obliged to keep being his mistress. He had plenty of others.’

  ‘Do you think he was in love with her?’

  ‘He was definitely attached to her. I guess she’d got under his skin.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I loved her.’

  ‘When all’s said and done, why did she send for you?’

  ‘I’ve wondered that too.’

  ‘It was about half past five that she found out for sure, at a doctor’s in Rue des Dames, that she was pregnant. Couldn’t she have seen you then?’

  ‘Yes. She knew where I usually have dinner before going to the Grelot.’

  ‘She went back home. Later, between half past seven and eight, the professor dropped in on her.’

  ‘She told me.’

  ‘Did she also tell you if she’d announced the news to him?’

  ‘She hadn’t told him anything.’

  ‘She ate something and went to bed. It’s likely she didn’t sleep. And about nine o’clock she phoned you.’

  ‘I know. I’ve thought about all that and tried to understand. But I still don’t. The only thing I know for sure is that I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Answer this question frankly, Pierrot. If on Monday evening she’d told you she didn’t want to see you again, would you have killed her?’

  The young man looked at him, and a vague smile rose to his lips. ‘Do you want me to put a noose around my own neck?’

  ‘You aren’t obliged to answer.’

  ‘I might have killed her. But first of all, she didn’t tell me that. Secondly, I didn’t have a gun.’

  ‘You had one the last time you were arrested.’

  ‘That was years ago, and the police didn’t give it back to me. I haven’t had one since. I was going to add that I wouldn’t have killed her that way.’

  ‘How would you have gone about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I might have hit her without realizing what I was doing, or put my hands round her throat.’

  He stared at the wooden floor at his feet and paused before adding in a less distinct voice:

  ‘But maybe I wouldn’t have done anything. There are things like that that you think about when you’re falling asleep but that you never actually do.’

  ‘Did you ever think about killing Lulu as you were falling asleep?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because you were jealous of Gouin?’

  He shrugged again, which presumably meant that that wasn’t the whole story, that the
truth was more complicated than that.

  ‘Before Gouin, you were already Louise Filon’s boyfriend, and, unless I’m mistaken, you didn’t stop her from being on the game.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  Maigret was making an effort to get as close to the truth as possible, but he realized that absolute truth was elusive.

  ‘You never took advantage of the professor’s money?’

  ‘Never!’ he retorted, so sharply, with an abrupt movement of the head, that he seemed on the verge of losing his temper.

  ‘Did Louise ever give you presents?’

  ‘Nothing but trifles, a ring, ties, socks.’

  ‘And you accepted them?’

  ‘I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.’

  ‘What would you have done if she’d left Gouin?’

  ‘We’d have lived together.’

  ‘Like before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I never liked that.’

  ‘What would you have lived on?’

  ‘First of all, I earn a living.’

  ‘Not much of one, from what Louis told me.’

  ‘Not much of one, maybe. But I wasn’t planning to stay in Paris.’

  ‘Where did you plan to go?’

  ‘Anywhere. South America, Canada.’

  He was even younger in character than Maigret had thought.

  ‘Lulu wasn’t keen on the plan?’

  ‘Sometimes she was tempted, and occasionally she even promised that we’d leave in a month or two.’

  ‘I assume it was in the evening that she spoke like that?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘And in the morning she saw things in a clearer light?’

  ‘She was afraid.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of starving to death.’

  They were finally getting there. There was a resentment in Pierrot that showed through in spite of him.

  ‘Do you think it was because of that fear that she stayed with the professor?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘She was often hungry in her life, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Just like me!’ the young man retorted defiantly.

  ‘Only, she was afraid of being hungry again.’

  ‘What are you trying to prove?’

  ‘Nothing yet. I’m just trying to understand. The one thing we know for sure is that on Monday night someone shot Lulu at close range. You say it wasn’t you, and I believe you.’

  ‘Are you certain you believe me?’ Pierrot murmured mistrustfully.

  ‘Until proved otherwise.’

  ‘And you’ll let me go?’

  ‘As soon as we’ve finished this conversation.’

  ‘You’ll call off your search, order your men to leave me alone?’

  ‘I’ll even allow you to go back to your job at the Grelot.’

  ‘And the newspapers?’

  ‘I’ll issue a press release in a while saying that you came to the Police Judiciaire of your own free will and that after you’d explained yourself you were allowed to go free.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I’m not still under suspicion.’

  ‘I’ll add that there’s nothing pointing to you.’

  ‘That’s something at least.’

  ‘Did Lulu own a gun?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You said just now that she was afraid.’

  ‘Of life, of poverty, but not of people. She wouldn’t have needed a gun.’

  ‘You stayed just over a quarter of an hour at her place on Monday night?’

  ‘I had to get back to the Grelot. Plus, I didn’t like being there when the old man could come in at any minute. He has a key.’

  ‘Did he ever do that?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing. It was an afternoon, at a time when he never came to see Lulu. We’d arranged to meet in town at five, but something happened that stopped me going. As I was in the area, I went up to see her. We were in the living room, chatting, when we heard the key turn in the lock. He came in. I didn’t hide. He didn’t look at me. He advanced into the middle of the room with his hat on his head and waited without saying a word. It was a bit as if I wasn’t a human being.’

  ‘When all’s said and done, you still don’t know exactly why Lulu sent for you on Monday night?’

  ‘I assume she needed to talk to someone.’

  ‘How did your conversation end?’

  ‘She said, “I wanted you to know. I have no idea what I’m going to do. In any case, nothing’s visible yet. You think it over, too.” ’

  ‘Did Lulu ever talk to you about marrying the professor?’

  He seemed to search in his memory.

  ‘Once, when we were in a restaurant on Boulevard Rochechouart and we were talking about a girl we both knew who had just got married, she said, “If it was only up to me, he’d get a divorce and marry me.” ’

  ‘Did you believe that?’

  ‘He might have done it. At that age, men are capable of anything.’

  Maigret was unable to hold back a smile. ‘I won’t ask you where you’ve been hiding since yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell you. Am I free to go?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘And your men won’t arrest me when I leave?’

  ‘To be honest, you’d do well to spend an hour or two in the vicinity, without being too conspicuous, to give me time to issue orders. There’s a brasserie on Place Dauphine where you’ll be left alone.’

  ‘Give me my coat.’

  He seemed wearier than when he had come in, because he was no longer living on his nerves.

  ‘And I think you should also find a room in the first hotel you come to and get some sleep.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be able to sleep.’

  In the doorway, he turned.

  ‘What are they going to do with her?’

  Maigret understood.

  ‘If nobody claims the body …’ he began.

  ‘Am I allowed to claim it?’

  ‘If there’s no family …’

  ‘Will you tell me how to go about it?’

  He wanted to give Lulu a decent funeral. Their friends from the dance hall and the Barbès district would probably follow the hearse.

  Maigret watched his weary figure move away down the long corridor. He slowly closed the door, stood motionless for a while in the middle of his office and at last headed for the inspectors’ room.

  7.

  It was about six o’clock when the car from the Police Judiciaire stopped on Avenue Carnot, outside the building where the Gouins lived but at the pavement opposite, the front of it pointing towards the Ternes neighbourhood. Night had fallen early: that day, there had not been any more sunshine than the three previous days.

  The lights were on in the concierge’s lodge. They were also on at the Gouins’ on the fourth floor, in the left-hand part of the apartment. Here and there, other windows were lit.

  Some apartments were temporarily unoccupied. The Ottrebons, for example, Belgians who were in high finance, were in Egypt for the winter. The Count of Tavera and his family, who lived on the second floor, spent the hunting season in their chateau somewhere to the south of the Loire.

  Wedged into the back of the car, wrapped in his overcoat, with his pipe sticking out from his turned-up collar, Maigret did not move. He appeared to be in such a bad mood that after a few minutes the driver had taken a newspaper from his pocket and murmured:

  ‘Do you mind?’

  It was a wonder he could read without any more light than the reflected glow of a streetlamp.

  Maigret had had the same air all afternoon. It wasn’t a bad mood strictly speaking, his colleagues knew that, but the effect was the same, and the word had been passed around Quai des Orfèvres not to disturb him.

  He had hardly left his office, except to emerge two or three times into the inspectors’ room, where he looked
at them with big eyes as if he had forgotten what he had come in for.

  He had dealt with some long-pending files with as much ardour as if they had suddenly become really urgent. At about 4.30, he had made his first call to the American hospital in Neuilly.

  ‘Is Professor Gouin operating at the moment?’

  ‘Yes. He’ll be at least another hour. Who shall I say called?’

  He had hung up, reread the report that Janvier had drawn up on the tenants of the building and the answers he had been given. Nobody had heard the gunshot. On the same floor as Louise Filon, on the left-hand side, lived a certain Madame Mettetal, a widow, still young, who had been at the theatre on Monday evening. On the floor below, the Crémieux had given a dinner party for ten people which, by the time it ended, had been really boisterous.

  Maigret had worked on another case and made a few unimportant phone calls.

  At 5.30, when he had called Neuilly again, he had been told that the operation had just ended and that the professor was getting dressed. That was when he had taken the car.

  There were few people passing on the pavements of Avenue Carnot, and not many cars on the street. Over the driver’s shoulder, he could read a headline on the front page of the newspaper:

  Pierrot the Musician released

  It was he who had informed the reporters, in accordance with his promise. The clock on the dashboard, which let out a faint light, showed 6.20. If there had been a bistro closer, he would have had a drink, and he was sorry now that he had not stopped on the way.

  It was not until 6.50 that a taxi stopped outside the building. Étienne Gouin was the first to get out and stand motionless on the pavement for a moment, while his assistant emerged in her turn from the car.

  He was near a streetlamp and his figure stood out against the light. He must have been half a head taller than Maigret and was almost as broad-shouldered. It was hard to judge his build, because of his loose overcoat, which seemed too big for him and much longer than was the fashion that year. He couldn’t have been unduly bothered about his appearance, and his hat was placed just anyhow on his head.

  Standing there, he gave the impression of a fat man who had got thinner and retained only a strong frame.

  He was waiting without any impatience, staring absently at a point in space, while the young woman took money from her bag to pay the driver. Then, as the taxi drove off, he stood listening to what she was telling him. She was presumably reminding him of his appointments the following day before she left.