‘Follow me into this corridor, and I’ll show you the records department, where all the—’
‘I know. I know.’
He was starting to get on my nerves. Anyone would have thought that the only reason he had disturbed my daily routine was in order to look at walls, ceilings and floors, and to look at all of us as if compiling a list.
‘At this hour, it’ll be crowded in the anthropometric section. They must have finished with the women and are starting on the men . . .’
There were about twenty of them, picked up during the night and now waiting their turn, stark naked, to be measured and photographed.
‘So,’ the young man said, ‘all I still have left to see is the special infirmary.’
I frowned. ‘Visitors aren’t allowed.’
It is one of the least-known places, where criminals and suspects have to undergo a certain number of mental tests for the medical examiners.
‘Paul Bourget used to attend sessions,’ my visitor replied calmly. ‘I’ll ask for authorization.’
All told, I retained only a banal memory of it all, as banal as the weather that day. There were two reasons I did not try to cut short the visit. One was that I was doing it at the chief’s request. The second was that I had nothing important to do and it managed to kill a certain amount of time.
When we got back to my office, he sat down and held out his tobacco pouch, saying, ‘I see you’re a pipe smoker too. I like pipe smokers.’
There were, as usual, a good half-dozen pipes on display, and he examined them like a connoisseur.
‘What case are you dealing with at the moment?’
In my most professional tone, I told him about the jewel robbery, with the crate left outside, and remarked that this was the first time this method had been used.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It was used eight years ago in New York, outside a shop on Eighth Avenue.’
He must have been pleased with himself, but I have to say he did not seem to be boasting. He smoked his pipe gravely, as if to make himself look ten years older than he was, as if to put himself on a level footing with the already mature man that I was then.
‘You see, inspector, I’m not interested in professional criminals. Their psychology is quite straightforward. They’re simply doing their job, that’s all.’
‘What are you interested in?’
‘The others. Those who are just like you and me, and who end up committing a murder one fine day without having planned it.’
‘There are very few.’
‘I know.’
‘Apart from crimes of passion.’
‘Crimes of passion don’t interest me either.’
That is more or less everything I recall of that encounter. I must have told him in passing about a case that had required my attention some months earlier, precisely because it did not concern professionals, a case involving a young girl and a pearl necklace.
‘I’m very grateful, inspector. I hope I’ll have the pleasure of meeting you again.’
To myself, I said, ‘I hope not.’
• • •
Weeks passed, then months. Only once, in the middle of winter, did I have the impression I saw the man named Sim, pacing up and down in the main corridor of the Police Judiciaire.
One morning, I found on my desk, beside my mail, a small book, printed on bad paper, with a horrible illustration on the cover, the kind you see on news vendor’s stands and in the hands of shop girls. The title was The Girl with the Pearl Necklace, and the name of the author was Georges Sim.
I was not curious enough to read it. I do not read much, and never that kind of pulp novel. I do not even know where I put the book, probably in the waste-paper basket, and for some days I thought no more about it.
Then, another morning, I found an identical book in the same place on my desk, and now, every morning, a new copy made its appearance next to my mail.
It took me a while to realize that my inspectors, particularly Lucas, were sometimes glancing at me in an amused way. At last, one lunchtime when we went and had an aperitif together at the Brasserie Dauphine, Lucas, after beating about the bush for a long time, said:
‘So now you’ve become a fictional character, chief.’
He took the book from his pocket.
‘Have you read it?’
He admitted that it was Janvier, the youngest in the squad at the time, who had been putting a copy of the book on my desk every morning.
‘In some ways it’s quite like you, you’ll see.’
He was right. It was like me in the same way that a drawing scribbled on a marble-topped café table by an amateur cartoonist is like an actual flesh and blood person.
In the book, I was bigger than in real life, heavier too, with a heaviness that was, if I can put it this way, positively ponderous.
As for the story, it was unrecognizable, and in the plot I used methods that were unexpected to say the least.
The same evening, I found my wife with the book in her hands.
‘It was the dairy maid who gave it to me. Apparently they’re all talking about you. I haven’t had time to read it yet.’
What could I do? As the man named Sim promised, it was not a newspaper. Nor was it a serious book, but a cheap publication to which it would have been absurd to attach any importance.
He had used my real name. But he could have retorted that there are a certain number of Maigrets in the world. I simply vowed to receive him quite coldly if by any chance I met him again, although I was convinced that he would avoid setting foot in the Police Judiciaire from now on.
But I was wrong about that. One day, when I knocked at the chief’s door without having been summoned, in order to ask for his opinion about something, he called out:
‘Come in, Maigret. I was just about to phone you. Our friend Sim is here.’
Our friend Sim was not embarrassed at all. On the contrary, he was absolutely at his ease, with a bigger pipe than ever in his mouth.
‘How are you, inspector?’
‘He’s just read me a few passages from the thing he’s written about the house,’ Guichard said.
‘I already know it.’
Guichard had an amused gleam in his eyes, but it was me he seemed to be making fun of this time.
‘He’s been making some very relevant points. I think you should hear them. He’ll tell you himself.’
‘It’s quite simple. In France up until now, with very rare exceptions, the sympathetic role in literature has always been played by the criminal, while the police are ridiculed, or worse.’
Guichard was nodding approvingly. ‘That’s true, isn’t it?’
It was indeed true. Not only in literature, but also in everyday life. That brought back a somewhat bitter memory from my early days, at a time when I was on the beat. I was just about to arrest a pickpocket outside a Métro station when the man started yelling something – ‘Stop, thief!’ perhaps.
Instantly, twenty people jumped on me. I told them that I was a policeman, and that the individual walking away was a repeat offender. I am convinced they all believed me. And yet they did everything they could to delay me, thus giving the pickpocket time to get away.
‘Well,’ Guichard went on, ‘our friend Sim is planning to write a series of novels in which the police will be shown in their true light.’
I made a grimace that did not escape the chief.
‘More or less in their true light,’ he corrected himself. ‘Do you understand? This book is only a sketch of what he plans to do.’
‘He used my name in it.’
I thought the young man would be embarrassed and apologize. Not at all.
‘I hope you weren’t shocked by that. I couldn’t help myself. When I imagine a character with a particular name, I find it impossible to change it. I tried in vain to put together all the syllables you could possibly think of to replace the word Maigret. In the end, I gave up. He wouldn’t have been my character any more.’
He said my character, calmly, and the worst of it was that I did not react, perhaps because of Guichard and the mischievous gaze he kept fixed on me.
‘This time, it wouldn’t be a series of pulp novels, but what he calls . . . How was it you put it, Monsieur Sim?’
‘Semi-literature.’
‘And you want me to . . .’
‘I’d like to get to know you better.’
As I said when I started: he had no doubts. I even think it was his strength. It was partly thanks to this that he had already managed to get the chief on his side.
Guichard, who was interested in all specimens of humanity, now said to me quite gravely, ‘He’s only twenty-four.’
‘I find it hard to construct a character if I don’t know how he acts at every moment of the day. For example, I can’t write about a millionaire until I’ve actually seen one in his dressing gown, having a boiled egg for breakfast.’
All this happened a long time ago, and I wonder now for what mysterious reason we listened to all this without bursting out laughing.
‘So, you’d like . . .’
‘To get to know you better, to see you living and working.’
Of course, the chief did not give me any orders. I would doubtless have objected. For some time now, I had been wondering if this was all a hoax on his part. He still had a certain bohemian side to his character, from the days when bohemians went in for practical jokes.
It was probably to give the impression that I did not take any of this too seriously that I shrugged and said, ‘Whenever you like.’
At which Sim stood up, delighted. ‘Straight away.’
Once again, with hindsight, it may seem ridiculous. The dollar was worth some improbable amount. The Americans lit their cigars with thousand-franc notes. Montmartre was filled with Negro musicians, and wealthy mature ladies had their jewellery stolen at tea dances by Argentinian gigolos.
La Garçonne was a huge bestseller, and the vice squad were up to their eyes in ‘orgies’ in the Bois de Boulogne which they hardly dared interrupt for fear of catching consular officials in the act.
Women wore their hair short, their skirts too, and men wore pointed shoes and trousers tapered at the ankles.
That is no explanation for anything, I know. But everything is part of everything. And I can still see young Sim coming into my office in the morning, as if he had become one of my inspectors, saying pleasantly, ‘Don’t put yourself out,’ and sitting down in a corner.
He still did not take any notes. He asked few questions. He preferred statements to questions. He told me subsequently – not that I necessarily believed him – that someone’s reaction to a statement is more revealing than his answer to a specific question.
One lunchtime, when Lucas, Janvier and I went to have our aperitif at the Brasserie Dauphine, as we often did, he joined us.
And one morning, when I went to the chief’s office for the daily report, I found him sitting in a corner of the room.
This lasted a few months. When I asked him what he was writing, he replied:
‘I’m still turning out pulp novels to earn my living. From four to eight in the morning. By eight o’clock I’ve finished my day. I’ll only start on my semi-literary novels when I feel ready.’
I have no idea what he meant by that, but, after a Sunday when I invited him to lunch in my apartment on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and introduced him to my wife, he suddenly stopped his visits to Quai des Orfèvres.
It was an odd feeling to no longer see him in his corner, standing up when I stood up, following me when I left and accompanying me step by step through the offices.
Sometime in the spring, I received a card that was unexpected to say the least.
Georges Sim has the honour to invite you to the christening of his boat, the Ostrogoth, as performed by the Curé of Notre-Dame, next Tuesday, at Square du Vert-Galant.
I did not go. I heard later from the local police that for three days and three nights a gang of bizarre characters had made a great racket on board a sumptuously appointed boat moored bang in the middle of Paris.
Once, crossing the Pont-Neuf, I saw the boat in question, and at the foot of the mast, someone typing, wearing a sea captain’s cap.
The following week, the boat was no longer there and Square du Vert-Galant had returned to normal.
More than a year later, I received another invitation, written this time on one of our fingerprint charts.
Georges Simenon has the honour of inviting you to the anthropometric ball which will be held at the Boule Blanche on the occasion of the launch of his detective novels.
Sim had become Simenon.
Or to be more precise, feeling perhaps that he was now an adult, he had gone back to his real name.
I took no notice. I did not attend the ball in question, although I found out the following day that the prefect of police had gone.
Through the newspapers. The same newspapers that informed me, on the front page, that Chief Inspector Maigret had just made a striking entrance into the field of detective fiction.
That morning, when I arrived at the Quai and climbed the main staircase, I saw only sardonic smiles, amused faces turning away.
My inspectors were doing everything they could to keep a straight face. During the daily report, my colleagues pretended to treat me with new respect.
It was only the chief who behaved as if nothing had happened, and who asked me, with an absent air, ‘What about you, Maigret? What about your current cases?’
In the shops in the Richard-Lenoir area, not a single shopkeeper neglected to show my wife the newspaper, with my name in capital letters, and ask her, impressed, ‘This is your husband, isn’t it?’
Unfortunately, it was!
2.
In which there is some discussion of what is called the naked truth, which convinces nobody, and of ‘organized’ truths which are truer than life
When it became known that I was writing this book, and then that Simenon’s publisher had offered to publish it, even before reading it, even before the first chapter was finished, I sensed, among most of my friends, a somewhat hesitant approval. I am sure they were saying to themselves, ‘Now it’s Maigret’s turn!’
Over the course of the last few years, as it happens, at least three of my former colleagues, from those of my generation, have written and published their memoirs.
I hasten to add that in this they have followed an old tradition of the Paris police, which has given us, among other things, the memoirs of Macé and those of the great Goron, both chiefs in their day of what was then called the Sûreté. As for the most famous of all, the legendary Vidocq, he unfortunately did not leave us any recollections of his own that we can compare with the way he has been depicted by novelists, who have called him by his real name, or, as in the case of Balzac, Vautrin.
It is not my role to defend my colleagues, but I can nevertheless reply in passing to an objection I have often heard.
‘To judge by what they wrote,’ people have said to me, ‘every famous case has been solved by at least three people.’
The case that was particularly cited was the Mestorino case, which once caused a great stir.
Well, I could include myself too, because a case of that significance requires the collaboration of all the departments. As for the final interrogation, that famous twenty-eight-hour interrogation that is cited today as an example, there were not just four, but at least six of us who took turns, repeating the same questions one by one, in every conceivable way, each time gaining a little more ground.
In such circumstances, anybody who could say for certain which of us, at a given moment, triggered the final confession, would be clever indeed.
Besides, I insist on declaring that the title Memoirs was not chosen by me, and has been given to the book only as a last resort, after we failed to find another word.
The same is true (I underline this as I correct the proofs) of the chapter headings, which the publishe
r has asked my permission to add after the event, for typographical reasons, as he kindly put it – in reality, I think, to give my text a touch of humour.
Of all the tasks I did at Quai des Orfèvres, the only one about which I never complained was the writing of reports. Is that because of an atavistic concern for accuracy, a scrupulousness I saw my father struggle with before me?
I have often heard the almost classic quip: ‘Maigret’s reports are full of parentheses.’
Probably because I want to explain too much, to explain everything, because nothing seems simple or resolved.
If, by ‘memoirs’, people mean an account of events in which I have been involved in the course of my career, I fear the public will be disappointed.
In the space of nearly half a century, I do not think there were more than twenty or so really sensational cases, including those to which I have already referred – the Bonnot case, the Mestorino case – plus the Landru case, the Sarret case and a few others.
But my colleagues, my former chiefs in some cases, have written a great deal about those.
As for the other cases, those that were interesting in themselves but caused no stir in the newspapers, Simenon has taken care of them.
At last I have come to what I have been leading up to, or trying to lead up to, ever since I began this manuscript – in other words, the real reason I am writing these memoirs that are not memoirs – and I am even less sure now than I was then as to how to express myself.
I read once in the newspapers that Anatole France, who must have been an intelligent man at the very least and who loved irony, having posed for a portrait by the painter Van Dongen, not only refused to take delivery of it once the painting was finished, but forbade it from being exhibited in public.
It was around the same time that a famous actress brought a sensational case against a cartoonist who had depicted her in a way that she considered outrageous and damaging to her career.
I am neither an Academician nor a stage star. I do not think I am unusually sensitive. Never, in all the years I have exercised my profession, have I ever demanded an apology from the press, even though the newspapers have had no qualms in criticizing my actions or my methods.
Maigret's Memoirs Page 2