Maigret's Failure

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The boss, for a start. He could have gone out and come back in. Haven’t you seen the little door on Rue de Prony? It used to be the servants’ entrance and he’s got the key.’

  ‘Does he use it sometimes?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t know.’

  ‘Who else has a key?’

  ‘Monsieur Joseph. I’m sure about that, because I once saw him going out in the morning when I hadn’t seen him come back in the night before.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Probably the fancy woman.’

  ‘Who do you mean by that?’

  ‘The boss’s fancy woman, the latest one, a little brunette, don’t know her name, who lives around l’Étoile.’

  ‘Was she here last night?’

  ‘I’ll say it again, I haven’t got a clue. I’ve had this happen to me once before, you see, with the gamekeeper. The questioning went on so long they made me make up things. They even made me sign a statement saying it was all true, and then later they used it against me.’

  ‘Did you like your boss?’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer?’

  ‘All I’ll say is that it’s got nothing to do with anything, and it’s nobody’s business but mine.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘The only reason I’m talking to you in the first place …’

  ‘I understand.’

  It was better not to insist, and Maigret slowly went back up to the first floor.

  ‘Hasn’t Madame Fumal come down yet?’ he asked the secretary.

  ‘She doesn’t want to see him until he’s been tidied up.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Same as always.’

  ‘Didn’t she seem surprised?’

  Louise Bourges shrugged. She was more on edge than the day before, and Maigret saw her biting her nails several times.

  ‘I can’t find a gun, chief. They’re asking if they can take the body to the Forensic Institute.’

  ‘What does the examining magistrate say?’

  ‘He’s happy for them to.’

  ‘Then so am I.’

  Victor brought up the post just then. He turned to Louise Bourges, then hesitated.

  ‘Over here!’ said Maigret.

  There were fewer letters than he would have imagined. Presumably most of Fumal’s post went to his various offices. Here it was mainly bills, a couple of invitations to charity events, a letter from a lawyer in Nevers and finally an envelope that Maigret recognized immediately. Louise Bourges was watching him intently from across the room.

  The address was written in pencil. On a sheet of cheap paper only two words were written:

  Final warning.

  Wasn’t this becoming almost ironic?

  At that moment Ferdinand Fumal, lying on a stretcher, was leaving his townhouse on Boulevard de Courcelles, just opposite the main entrance of Parc Monceau with its dripping trees.

  ‘Look up Gaillardin, Rue François Premier, in the phonebook for me.’

  The secretary passed Lapointe the telephone directory.

  ‘Roger?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Get him on the telephone.’

  It wasn’t a man who answered the inspector’s call.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, madame. I’d like to speak to Monsieur Gaillardin … Yes … What’s that? He’s not at home?’

  Lapointe looked inquiringly at Maigret.

  ‘It’s very urgent … Do you know if he’s at the office? You don’t know? You think he’s travelling? One moment … Stay on the line …’

  ‘Ask her if he spent last night at Rue François Premier.’

  ‘Hello. Can you tell me if Monsieur Gaillardin spent last night at home? No … When did you see him last? You had dinner together? At Fouquet’s? And he left you at … I can’t hear … Just before nine thirty … Without telling you where he was going … I understand … Yes … Thank you … No, there’s no message …’

  He explained to Maigret:

  ‘From what I understand, she’s his mistress, not his wife, and he doesn’t seem to be in the habit of explaining himself to her.’

  Two inspectors, who had arrived some time ago, were giving the Criminal Records’ people a hand.

  ‘Hey, Neveu, get over to Rue François Premier as quick as you can … The address is in the book … Gaillardin … Try and find out if he took any luggage, if he seemed to be planning on leaving, anything like that … Make sure you get a photograph … And circulate his description to the stations and airports, just to be on the safe side …’

  It all seemed too easy. Maigret didn’t dare get his hopes up.

  ‘Did you know,’ he asked Louise Bourges, ‘that Gaillardin was meant to be coming over yesterday evening to see your employer?’

  ‘As I said, I know that someone telephoned and he answered something like: “Fine.” ’

  ‘What mood was he in?’

  ‘His usual.’

  ‘Was Monsieur Joseph in and out of his office during the evening?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Where is Monsieur Joseph at the moment?’

  ‘Upstairs probably.’

  He may have been upstairs a short while ago but he wasn’t now because they saw him cross the landing, looking around in amazement.

  It was a shock after the frenetic activity that had thrown the house into turmoil to see the greyish little man emerge from the stairs as if nothing was amiss and ask in an artless voice:

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear anything?’ Maigret asked gruffly.

  ‘Hear what? Where’s Monsieur Fumal?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said that he’s dead, and his body has already been moved out of the house. Are you a deep sleeper, Monsieur Joseph?’

  ‘I sleep like anyone else.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard anything since seven thirty this morning?’

  ‘I heard someone going into Madame Fumal’s room on the floor below mine.’

  ‘What time did you go to bed last night?’

  ‘Around ten thirty.’

  ‘When did you leave your employer?’

  The little man still didn’t seem to understand what was happening to him.

  ‘Why are you asking me these questions?’

  ‘Because Fumal has been murdered. Did you go down to see him yesterday after dinner?’

  ‘No, but I stopped in to see him when I got back.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Around nine thirty. A little after, maybe.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then nothing. I went up to my apartment, worked for an hour and went to bed.’

  ‘Did you hear a gunshot?’

  ‘You can’t hear anything on this floor from upstairs.’

  ‘Do you have a revolver?’

  ‘Me? I’ve never touched a gun in my life. I didn’t even do my military service, I failed the medical.’

  ‘Did you know that Fumal had one?’

  ‘He showed it to me.’

  Under some papers in the drawer of the bedside table they had finally found a Belgian-made automatic. It hadn’t been fired for years, so couldn’t have had anything to do with the crime.

  ‘Did you also know that Fumal was expecting a visit?’

  No one gave immediate answers in this house. After every question there was a pause, as if they had to repeat the question to themselves a few times before they could understand it.

  ‘From who?’

  ‘Don’t play dumb, Monsieur Joseph. Incidentally, what is your full name?’

  ‘Joseph Goldman. You were told it yesterday when we were introduced.’

  ‘What was your profession before you started working for Fumal?’

  ‘I was a bailiff for twenty-two years. And it’s not quite right to say I was working for him. That makes me sound like a servan
t or an employee. In fact I was a friend, an advisor.’

  ‘You mean you devoted all your energies to making his crooked schemes vaguely legal?’

  ‘Careful, inspector. There are witnesses.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I could hold you accountable for your rash language.’

  ‘What do you know about Gaillardin’s visit?’

  The little old man pursed his strikingly thin lips.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I suppose you don’t know anything either about someone called Martine, who lives in Rue de l’Étoile and probably has a key to the small door like you?’

  ‘I never have anything to do with the women.’

  Maigret had barely been in the house for an hour and a half and he already felt he was suffocating. He couldn’t wait to get out and breathe fresh air, however damp.

  ‘Please stay here.’

  ‘Can’t I go to Rue Rambuteau? I’m expected there to make some important decisions. You seem to be losing sight of the fact that we are responsible for Paris’ meat supply, or an eighth of it at least, and …’

  ‘One of my inspectors will go with you.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Nothing, Monsieur Joseph. Nothing whatsoever!’

  Maigret was on edge. The prosecutor’s men were taking the last of the statements in the main drawing room. Judge Planche asked:

  ‘Have you gone up to see her?’

  It was obvious he meant Madame Fumal.

  ‘Not yet.’

  He needed to do that. He also needed to question Félix and the rest of the staff. And find Roger Gaillardin and question this Martine Gilloux, who might have a key to the small door.

  And finally he needed to go to the offices on Rue Rambuteau and at La Villette and gather all the testimony that might be relevant …

  Maigret was already disheartened. He felt he had got off to a bad start. Fumal had asked for his protection. He hadn’t believed him, and Fumal had been shot in the back. Any moment now the minister of the interior would be ringing the commissioner of the Police Judiciaire.

  As if the Englishwoman vanishing into thin air wasn’t enough!

  Louise Bourges was looking at him from across the room as if she was trying to guess what he was thinking. He was thinking about her, as it happened, wondering if she had really seen her employer writing one of the anonymous notes.

  If she hadn’t, that changed everything.

  4. The Drunk Woman and the Photographer with the Muffled Tread

  Almost thirty years earlier, when Maigret, newly married, was still the secretary of the police station in Rue de Rochechouart, his wife would sometimes come and meet him at the office at midday. They would make do with a quick bite for lunch so they’d have time for a walk along the backstreets and boulevards, and Maigret remembered coming in spring to this same Parc Monceau that he could now see, in black and white, outside Fumal’s windows.

  There had been more nannies back then, the majority in smart uniforms. The babies’ prams exuded an air of luxurious comfort, the iron chairs on the paths were freshly painted yellow, and an old lady with a hat trimmed with violets was feeding bread to the birds.

  ‘When I’m detective chief inspector …’ he had joked.

  And both of them had looked through the railings, with their gilded spikes glinting in the sun, at the opulent townhouses around the park, imagining the elegant, harmonious lives people must be living behind their windows.

  If there was anyone in Paris who had gained first-hand experience of life’s brutal realities, who had learned, day after day, how to discover the truth of appearances, it was him, and yet he had never entirely grown out of certain fantasies from his childhood and adolescence.

  Hadn’t he once said that he would have liked to be a ‘mender of destinies’, such was his desire to restore people to their rightful places, the places they would have occupied if the world were a naive, picture postcard version of itself?

  Conflict rather than harmony probably reigned in eight out of ten of the still magnificent houses that surrounded the park. But he had rarely had the opportunity to breathe such a strained atmosphere as the one between these walls. Everything seemed fake, grating, starting with the lodge of the concierge-cum-manservant, who was neither a concierge nor a manservant, despite his striped waistcoat, but a former poacher, a murderer turned guard dog.

  What about that shady bailiff Monsieur Joseph, what was he doing up in the attic?

  Louise Bourges didn’t inspire confidence either, with her dreams of marrying the chauffeur and opening an inn in Gien.

  But Saint-Fiacre’s erstwhile butcher was the most out of place of them all, and his every attempt at decoration – the high panelled walls, the furniture that he’d probably bought at the same time as the house – seemed as incongruous as the two statues flanking the landing.

  What may have troubled Maigret the most was the malice he sensed in everything Fumal did, because he had always refused to believe in pure evil.

  It was after ten o’clock when he left the first floor where his colleagues were still working and started slowly up the stairs. On the second floor, there was no sign of a maid to prevent him pushing open the door of a drawing room that boasted fifteen or sixteen empty armchairs. He coughed to signal his presence.

  No one came. Nothing stirred. He headed towards a half-open door which gave on to a smaller sitting room in which a breakfast tray lay on a pedestal table.

  He knocked at a third door. Straining to hear, he thought he heard a stifled cough and ended up turning the door knob.

  It was Madame Fumal’s bedroom. She was lying in bed and, as he walked towards her, she watched him with a dazed look.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see anyone who could let you know I was here. I imagine all the maids are downstairs with my inspectors.’

  She hadn’t combed her hair or washed. Her nightdress left most of her shoulders and part of a pallid breast bare. He might have had his doubts the day before, but now he was certain that he was looking at a woman who had been drinking not only before she went to sleep but also since she had woken up that morning. A strong reek of alcohol still hung in the air.

  The butcher’s wife carried on looking at him in an ambiguous way, as if, although not yet entirely reassured, she was feeling a certain relief, even a secret merriment.

  ‘I imagine you’ve been told?’

  She nodded, and her eyes flashed with something other than grief.

  ‘Your husband is dead. Someone killed him.’

  In a slightly hoarse voice, she declared:

  ‘I always thought it would end like this.’

  She giggled a little, clearly even drunker than he’d thought when he came in.

  ‘Did you expect him to be murdered?’

  ‘I was prepared for anything with him.’

  Gesturing towards the messy bed, the untidy bedroom, she stammered:

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘Haven’t you been curious enough to go downstairs?’

  ‘Why?’

  The look in her eye suddenly became sharper.

  ‘He’s really dead, isn’t he?’

  When he nodded, she slipped her hand under the blankets, took out a bottle and brought it to her lips.

  ‘To his health!’ she joked.

  But Fumal still scared her even when he was dead. She looked fearfully at the door and asked Maigret:

  ‘Is he still in the house?’

  ‘They’ve just taken him to the Forensic Institute.’

  ‘What are they going to do to him?’

  ‘The autopsy.’

  Was it the news that her husband’s body was going to be cut open that made her break into an impish smile? Did that represent a sort of vengeance for her, compensation for everything she had suffered at his hands?

  She must have been a perfectly ordinary girl and young woman. What had Fumal put her through to reduce her to such a pitiful state?

  Maigret had
come across wrecks like her before but usually in sordid settings, deprived neighbourhoods, where poverty was invariably at the root of their degradation.

  ‘Did he come and see you yesterday evening?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your husband.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Did he sometimes?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes, but I’d rather have never had to see him.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever go down to his office?’

  ‘Never. That was where he saw my father for the last time, and three hours later my father was found hanged.’

  That was Fumal’s vice, apparently: ruining people, not only those who were in his way or causing him trouble but anyone he could, to assert his power, convince himself of it.

  ‘Do you know who paid him a visit last night?’

  Maigret would have to get an inspector to search her apartment in due course. The thought of doing it himself repelled him, but it had to be done. There was nothing to prove that this woman hadn’t finally got up the courage to kill her husband. It wasn’t out of the question that the murder weapon would be found in her rooms.

  ‘I don’t know … I don’t want to know any more … Do you know what I want? To be left alone and …’

  Maigret didn’t hear what she was saying. Still standing near her bed, he saw Madame Fumal’s gaze fix on a point behind him. There was a glare as a flashbulb went off, and at the same moment she threw back the covers and, with an energy he hadn’t imagined she possessed, hurled herself at a photographer who had silently appeared in the doorway.

  The man tried to back away, but she had already grabbed the camera and thrown it furiously to the floor. Then she picked it up and smashed it on the ground again even more violently.

  Maigret had recognized the reporter from one of the evening papers. He frowned. Someone, he didn’t know who, had tipped off the press. They would be out in force when he went downstairs.

  ‘One moment …’ he said firmly.

  He picked up the camera himself and took out the film.

  ‘Out you go, son …’ he said to the young man.

  And to Madame Fumal:

  ‘Go back to bed. I’m sorry for what’s happened. I’ll see that you’re left in peace from now on. One of my men will have to inspect your apartment, though.’

  He couldn’t wait to get out of that room – and the whole house, if it was up to him – and never come back. The photographer was waiting for him on the landing.