Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses

by Georges Simenon

  He wasn’t in the mood to talk. Outside, he headed for Place Dauphine, knowing that at the last moment he would pop into the brasserie for a quick drink. At the bar, he found inspectors from other branches, but none from his own, because they were all on their way somewhere.

  ‘What will it be, Monsieur Maigret?’

  ‘A toddy.’

  He had started with a toddy so he might as well carry on, even if it was too early. The people from headquarters hadn’t needed to look at him for long to realize that now wasn’t the right moment to strike up conversation. Some even suddenly started speaking in low voices.

  Unconsciously, he was trying to place the inhabitants of the house in Ivry, to imagine them going about their daily lives, which wasn’t an easy task.

  They apparently ate their meals together, for instance. How did someone like Paulette behave when she was with the old couple? What was her attitude towards the self-effacing, withdrawn man who was her husband, and her brother-in-law, who seemed to be the heart and soul of the family?

  What about the evenings? Where did everyone go? What did they do? There’d been no sign of a radio or television …

  To keep up that huge house – partly abandoned, admittedly – they only had one maid, who was almost in her eighties!

  And what about the little boy, Jean-Paul, whom they had packed off to boarding school, but previously would have come back from school every afternoon?

  How would a twelve-year-old boy respond to an atmosphere like that?

  ‘Taxi!’

  He asked to be taken to Rue François Premier and, settling back in a corner, carried on trying to picture the house at different times of day.

  If it wasn’t for the examining magistrate’s obduracy, he would probably know more about what it was like. He felt in particular that if he had questioned Armand Lachaume for some time, in a certain way, he would have got him to talk.

  ‘Here we are!’

  He paid, looked at the six-storey block in front of which they had stopped. The ground floor was occupied by a fashion boutique, and the brass plaques by the door included a number of well-known businesses. He went in under the arch, opened the glass door of a neat, almost luxurious concierge’s lodge. No sign of a cat, no smell of boiled beef, and the concierge was young and friendly.

  He showed his badge, muttering:

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  She immediately showed him to a red velvet chair.

  ‘My husband has driven you a few times and he often talks about you. He’s a taxi driver. He works nights …’

  She pointed to a curtain dividing the lodge from the bedroom.

  ‘He’s in there. He’s asleep …’

  ‘Is there someone in the building called Mademoiselle Lachaume?’

  Why did an enigmatic, amused smile cross her lips?

  ‘Véronique Lachaume, yes. Are you interested in her?’

  ‘Has she been here long?’

  ‘Hang on … It’s easy to work out because she signed a new lease last month … That means a little over three years …’

  ‘Which floor?’

  ‘Fifth, one of the two apartments with a big balcony.’

  ‘Is she at home now?’

  She shook her head with another smile.

  ‘Does she work?’

  ‘Yes. But not at this time of day.’

  Maigret misunderstood.

  ‘You mean she …’

  ‘No. It’s not what you think. You know the Amazone just around the corner on Rue Marbeuf?’

  Maigret knew there was a nightclub called that, but he had never set foot in it. His only memory was of a glass door between a couple of shops, a neon sign, some photographs of strippers.

  ‘Does she own it?’ he asked.

  ‘Not exactly. She’s the barmaid and compère rolled into one.’

  ‘The clientele’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?’

  The concierge seemed to be enjoying herself.

  ‘I don’t expect you’ll bump into many men there. Then again, you will see a few women in dinner jackets …’

  ‘I get it. With that sort of work, Mademoiselle Lachaume can’t get back much before four in the morning, can she?’

  ‘Five, five thirty … It used to be like clockwork … In the last few months, though, she sometimes hasn’t come back at all.’

  ‘Is she having an affair?’

  ‘A proper one, with a man.’

  ‘Do you know who it is?’

  ‘I can tell you what he’s like: a fellow in his forties, elegant, who drives a Panhard convertible.’

  ‘Does he sometimes spend what’s left of the night up there?’

  ‘It’s happened a few times. Usually she goes to his place.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s not that far away. Mademoiselle Véronique, as I call her, always does her shopping by taxi. She doesn’t like the Métro or the bus. But when she’s gone for the night, I always see her come back on foot, which makes me think she hasn’t had very far to go.’

  ‘You don’t remember the Panhard’s licence plate, do you?’

  ‘It begins with seventy-seven … I could swear it ends with a three, but I’m not sure. Why? Is it urgent?’

  Everything is urgent at the start of an investigation, because you never know what unexpected developments are in store.

  ‘Does she have a telephone?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What’s her apartment like?’

  ‘Three beautiful rooms and a bathroom. She’s done it up in very good taste. I’m pretty sure she earns a very decent living.’

  ‘Is she a nice person?’

  ‘Do you want to know if she’s pretty?’

  The concierge’s eyes sparkled again.

  ‘She’s thirty-six and doesn’t try to hide it. She’s fat, her breasts are about twice as big as mine. She wears her hair short, like a man, and always puts on a suit to go out. She has rather coarse features, but she’s lovely to look at, perhaps because she’s always in a good mood and doesn’t seem to give a hoot about anything.’

  Maigret was beginning to get a clearer idea of why the youngest Lachaume had been in a hurry to leave home.

  ‘Before the latest affair you mentioned, had she had other romances?’

  ‘It wasn’t uncommon, but they were always short-lived. She’d sometimes come back with someone at about five in the morning, as I said. Then without fail, around three in the afternoon the following day, we’d see a man leave, looking the other way, trying to act inconspicuous …’

  ‘In other words, this is her first real relationship since she’s lived here.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Does she seem to be in love?’

  ‘She’s happier than she’s ever been. Draw your own conclusions.’

  ‘Do you know when’s a good time to find her?’

  ‘Anything’s possible. She could come back late in the afternoon or she could just as well go straight to the club without stopping off here. That’s happened two or three times. Do you think I should wake up my husband? When he finds out you were here and he missed you …’

  Maigret took his watch out of his pocket.

  ‘I’m in a hurry, but I’m sure I’ll get a chance to return …’

  A few minutes later, he was standing in front of the display of photographs of women at the entrance to the Amazone. The metal gate that served as a door was closed, and there wasn’t a bell.

  A passing delivery boy turned and gave the mature gentleman seemingly lost in contemplation of the titillating pictures a sardonic look. Maigret noticed and walked away, muttering.

  5

  The real reason – and this was something his wife must have suspected a long time ago – Maigret hardly ever went home for meals when he was in the thick of an investigation was not so much to save time as to remain withdrawn into himself, as it were, like someone asleep in the morning, in a ta
ngle of blankets, who curls up in a ball to breathe in his own smell as deeply as possible.

  What Maigret really did was pick up the scent of people’s private lives. Standing in the street now, for instance, with his hands in his overcoat pockets and the rain on his face, he was still breathing in the bewildering atmosphere of Quai de la Gare.

  So wasn’t it understandable that he was reluctant to go home to his apartment, his wife, his furniture, a seemingly permanent order that bore no resemblance to the essentially degenerate Lachaumes?

  This withdrawing into himself was one of the idiosyncrasies, like his notorious temper at this stage of an investigation, his rounded shoulders, his gruff manner, that formed part of a technique he had unconsciously built up over the years.

  For example, the fact that he now ended up going into an Alsatian brasserie and sitting at a table by the window wasn’t pure chance either. This lunchtime he needed to feel he had his feet firmly on the ground. He wanted to be heavy, impervious.

  He liked it that the waitress in traditional dress was thickset and healthy, a cheerful soul with dimples and curly blonde hair, free of any psychological complications. Similarly, it seemed obvious that he should order the sauerkraut, which came in lavish portions with generous helpings of gleaming sausages and baby-pink salt pork.

  After giving his order – including the obligatory beer – he went to telephone his wife, whose curiosity confined itself to three brief questions.

  ‘A murder?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Ivry.’

  ‘Difficult?’

  ‘I think so.’

  She didn’t ask him if he would be coming back for dinner, as she already knew that she might not see him for a day or two.

  He ate mechanically, drained two large glasses of beer, then drank his coffee watching the rain that was still falling at an angle, almost horizontally, and the passers-by walking along hunched over, their umbrellas held out in front of them like shields.

  He had forgotten the stiffness in his neck. It must have worn off in all the comings and goings. When he got back to his office a little after two p.m., a number of messages were waiting for him.

  He took his time getting comfortable, filling a fresh pipe. The little cast-iron stove at Quai de la Gare made him miss the almost identical one that had graced his office long after Quai des Orfèvres had installed central heating, until management finally took it away from him.

  For years people had laughed at his habit of poking it twenty times a day. He loved the shower of burning embers, as he did the booming sound you heard whenever there was a gust of wind.

  The first message he looked at was from one of Ivry’s inspectors.

  Someone called Mélanie Cacheux, a housewife who lived in the block next to the Lachaumes, had gone to see her sister in Rue Saint-Antoine the night before. She had had supper there, then caught the Métro back at nine in the evening.

  When she was nearly home, she had seen the blue Pontiac outside the biscuit factory. Léonard Lachaume was opening the double gate. As she was looking in her bag for her key, he had got into the car and driven it into the courtyard.

  She hadn’t spoken to him because, despite living on the same street for fifteen years, she had no dealings with the Lachaumes, whom she knew only by sight.

  The inspector had pressed her. Mélanie Cacheux was sure it was Léonard, the eldest son. She added, as Maigret already knew:

  ‘Besides, his brother doesn’t drive.’

  Had Léonard Lachaume gone out again after that?

  Not immediately, at any rate. The woman lived on the first floor. Her apartment looked out on to the river. As she was going out, she had decided to air it. When she had got back she had gone to the window and heard the heavy gate next door closing, the familiar clink of the latches. She had automatically looked down at the pavement and not seen anyone there.

  The second note was from Inspector Bonfils, whom Maigret had sent to the Canal Saint-Martin. He had tracked down the Twee Gebroeders, which was unloading bricks, then had had to do the rounds of various bars before he’d come across one of the two brothers, Jef Van Cauwelaert, who appeared intent on keeping the previous night’s party going.

  Jef had gone up on deck several times during the evening. His brother was the accordion player, not him. On one of his trips he had heard a noise in the street. A strange noise, which made him look up as he relieved his bladder:

  ‘Like someone crushing glass, you know?’

  It came from the wall of the biscuit factory. There was no one on the pavement, no one by the wall.

  Yes, he was sure he’d seen a head sticking over the wall, the head of someone in the courtyard, probably standing on a ladder.

  How far was he from the house? About ten metres. And by then Jef Van Cauwelaert had only drunk five or six glasses of Dutch gin.

  Maigret looked for the plan which Criminal Records had drawn up. The place where the glass had been crushed on top of the wall was marked with a cross, about a dozen metres from the house. There was a streetlight less than three metres away, which made the bargee’s statement plausible.

  Bonfils had pressed him on the timing, wanting to make sure that the man hadn’t witnessed the incident another time he went on deck.

  ‘It’s easy to tell, because the cake hadn’t been cut yet.’

  Bonfils had gone back to the barge to question Jef’s wife. The cake had been cut at about 10.30.

  Maigret took all this information in, without trying to put it in order or draw any conclusions.

  He glanced through a third message, also from Ivry, which had been sent a few minutes after the first. Each of these scraps of paper, which only consisted of a few lines of writing, represented hours of slogging back and forth in the rain and an impressive number of people being asked questions that must have struck them as absurd.

  At six in the evening – still the day before; they were working backwards – someone called Madame Gaudois, who ran a little local grocery just opposite Pont National, had spotted a red sports car parked a few metres away from her shop. She had noticed that the windscreen wipers were on and that there was a man behind the wheel. He had turned on the inside light and was reading a newspaper. He seemed to be waiting for someone.

  The car had been there for a long time. Counting the customers she had served while the car was parked, Madame Gaudois estimated it had waited there for about twenty minutes.

  No. The man wasn’t very young. In his forties. He was wearing a yellowish raincoat. She had got a better look at him when he had impatiently got out of the car and started pacing up and down on the pavement. He had even come and looked in the shop window at one point.

  He was wearing a brown hat and had a small moustache.

  It wasn’t one of the Lachaumes, Monsieur Léonard or Monsieur Armand. She knew them both by sight. Even old Catherine shopped with her sometimes and owed her money. Those people had unpaid bills at all the local businesses.

  The grocer had heard the footsteps of a woman in high heels. The light in the grocery window lit up part of the pavement and, even though she was wearing a fur coat and a beige hat, she was sure it was Paulette Lachaume who came to meet the stranger.

  The driver had opened the door. Paulette Lachaume had bent down to get in because the car was very low.

  ‘You don’t know the make of car, do you?’

  She didn’t know any makes of car. She’d never owned a car. She was a widow and …

  The inspector had been conscientious enough to show her brochures for various cars.

  ‘It looked like that one!’ the grocer said, pointing to a Panhard.

  That was all, apart from a brief news item in an afternoon newspaper, which Lucas had ringed in blue.

  AGGRAVATED BURGLARY

  Last night, a burglar broke into a house on Quai de la Gare in Ivry belonging to the Lachaume family. The eldest son, Léonard Lachaume, caught him in the act bu
t was shot in the process.

  The family didn’t discover the body until this morning and …

  The details would come later. There must be a good dozen journalists prowling around Ivry now.

  Sitting imperturbably in his office, where the smoke from his pipe was forming a blue cloud at head height, Maigret was putting this information in order.

  Confirming what they already knew, Paulette Lachaume left the riverside house at six o’clock, wearing a fur coat and a beige hat. She didn’t take her car but walked hurriedly in the direction of Pont National, about 200 metres away, where a man was waiting for her in a red sports car, apparently a Panhard.

  At roughly the same time, her car, the blue Pontiac, was parked outside the biscuit factory.

  There was nothing to say exactly when this car had been used.

  All they knew was that it wasn’t there at about seven o’clock, and that Léonard Lachaume had brought it back around nine o’clock and put it in the garage at the back of the courtyard.

  When did the Lachaumes have supper? Normally there would have been six of them at the table, since young Jean-Paul hadn’t started boarding yet.

  Paulette was certainly not there that evening. Nor, almost definitely, was Léonard.

  So the old couple, Armand and the little boy would have been the only people in the dining room.

  Around ten o’clock, the bargee from the Twee Gebroeders heard a sound of glass being crushed on top of the wall and saw a face.

  At 11.30 Paulette returned, it wasn’t known how. Did she take a taxi? Did the red car bring her home?

  While she was in the corridor on the first floor, her brother-in-law, in pyjamas and dressing gown, opened his door a little and wished her goodnight.

  Was Armand already asleep? Had he heard his wife come home?

  Once she had changed into her nightclothes, Paulette set off for the communal bathroom at the end of the corridor and saw a light under Léonard’s door.

  Then she apparently took a sleeping pill, as she was in the habit of doing, and didn’t wake up until the following morning, having heard nothing.