Maigret's Failure

by Georges Simenon

  ‘If he wasn’t lying, he watched her get dressed again, pointed her to her chair and shorthand pad, then started dictating a letter to her …’

  ‘Do you have a lover?’ Maigret asked point-blank.

  She denied it strongly, but, as she did so, she looked in the barman’s direction.

  ‘Is that him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you in love with him?’

  ‘It’s not love.’

  ‘But it wouldn’t take much, would it?’

  ‘I don’t know. He won’t have anything to do with me.’

  He ordered coffee, asked Martine:

  ‘No dessert?’

  ‘Not today. I feel so queasy I’m going to go to bed. Do you need me any more?’

  ‘No. Leave it. I’ll take care of the bill. Until you hear differently you’re not to leave Rue de l’Étoile.’

  ‘Even for meals?’

  ‘Only for meals.’

  The inspectors had had lunch at a little Norman restaurant they had found near Boulevard de Courcelles and were already back at work when Maigret arrived.

  There were several pieces of unimportant news. It had been confirmed that Roger Gaillardin had committed suicide and that the revolver hadn’t been slipped into his hand after he died. It was the same gun he used to keep in the apartment on Rue François Premier.

  The firearms expert also stated that the automatic found in Fumal’s bedroom hadn’t been used for months, probably years.

  Lucas and Monsieur Joseph had returned from Rue Rambuteau, where confusion reigned.

  ‘There’s nobody to give instructions and no one knows what’s going to happen. Fumal hated delegating power. He ran everything himself, would suddenly show up when he was least expected, and his employees lived in a constant state of dread. The only person, apparently, who knows what’s what is Monsieur Joseph, but he has no legal authority and is as loathed as his boss was.’

  The latest editions of the papers that had just come out confirmed this state of affairs.

  Almost all had the same headline:

  King of Meat Trade Murdered

  A man with a very low public profile who nonetheless played a considerable role …

  They listed the companies he had set up, which, with their branches and subsidiaries, constituted a veritable empire.

  They recalled, which Maigret didn’t know, that five years earlier this empire had almost collapsed when the tax authorities had done some digging into Fumal’s affairs. A scandal had been avoided, although the word in informed circles was of tax fraud amounting to over a billion francs.

  How had it been hushed up? The newspapers didn’t say, but the implication was that the former butcher of Saint-Fiacre had friends in high places.

  One of the papers asked:

  Will his death reopen the case?

  At all events, some people must have been feeling uneasy that afternoon, including the minister who had telephoned the Police Judiciaire.

  What the newspapers still did not know, but perhaps would find out, was that the previous day the aforementioned Fumal had asked the police to protect him.

  Had Maigret done everything in his power to keep him safe?

  He had sent an inspector to guard the house on Boulevard de Courcelles, which was standard procedure in such cases. He had gone to the trouble of casting an eye over the premises and put Lapointe in charge of shadowing Fumal wherever he went, starting the following morning. They had been about to continue the investigation when …

  He hadn’t made any professional mistakes. But that didn’t make him any less dissatisfied with himself. Hadn’t he, for a start, let his judgement be influenced by memories of his childhood, in particular by the way Fumal’s father had behaved towards his own father?

  He hadn’t afforded the man who had come to see him on the minister of the interior’s recommendation any sympathy.

  But when Louise Bourges, his secretary, had appeared, he hadn’t doubted her word for a minute.

  Similarly, he was convinced that the story Martine had just told him in the restaurant was true. Ferdinand Fumal was exactly the sort of man who would humiliate a woman in a sickening way. It was nonetheless true, however, that the secretary felt nothing but contempt – or hatred – for him, and that she was working for him purely so that she could marry Félix and that they could save enough money to buy an inn in Gien.

  Did she make do with her wages? Didn’t her proximity to Fumal, and the fact she was privy to his business secrets, mean she had other ways to make money?

  The man used to say to his mistress:

  ‘All anyone thinks about is how to steal from me …’

  Was he so far off the mark? Maigret hadn’t yet met anyone who showed the slightest affection for him. They were all working for him under protest.

  Nor did Fumal do anything to make himself lovable. Quite the opposite. It was as if he took a malign pleasure, a secret delight in provoking hatred. And he clearly hadn’t been feeling hatred coming at him from all sides just for a few days, or a few weeks, or even a few years.

  So why was it only yesterday that he had felt so worried that he had asked for police protection?

  Why, if his secretary wasn’t lying, had he gone to the trouble of sending himself anonymous threats?

  Had he suddenly discovered that he had a more dangerous enemy than the ones he already knew about? Or had he given someone especially urgent reasons to kill him?

  It was possible. Moers was studying specimens of Fumal’s and Louise Bourges’ handwriting along with the threats. He had called in one of the best experts in Paris to assist him.

  Sluggish and still in a foul mood, Maigret telephoned the laboratory from the office in Boulevard de Courcelles.

  ‘Moers? Getting anywhere?’

  He imagined them up there, under the eaves of the Palais de Justice, working by lamplight, projecting the documents one by one on to the screen.

  Moers delivered his report in a monotone, confirming that Fumal’s, Maigret’s and Lucas’ were the only fingerprints that had been found on all the threatening letters, with one exception. Louise Bourges’ fingerprints had also been found on the first note.

  This seemed to corroborate her account of events, since she claimed to have opened the first letter but not the following ones.

  But it didn’t prove anything either because, if she had written the notes, she was clever enough to have done so wearing gloves.

  ‘What about the handwriting?’

  ‘We’re still working on it. The block capitals make it tricky. So far there’s nothing to indicate that Fumal didn’t write the letters himself.’

  The staff were still being questioned in the next room, first in groups and then separately. Pages and pages of statements had already been produced, which Maigret started leafing through.

  The chauffeur Félix backed up Louise Bourges’ testimony. He was a short, sturdy man, black-haired, with a hint of arrogance in his expression.

  Question: Are you Mademoiselle Bourges’ lover?

  Answer: We’re engaged.

  Question: Do you sleep with her?

  Answer: She can tell you that if she likes.

  Question: Do you spend most nights in her bedroom?

  Answer: If she said that, it must be true.

  Question: When do you plan on getting married?

  Answer: As soon as possible.

  Question: What are you waiting for?

  Answer: Us to have enough money to get ourselves set up.

  Question: What did you do before starting to work for Monsieur Fumal?

  Answer: I was an apprentice butcher.

  Question: How did he come to hire you?

  Answer: He bought the butcher’s where I worked, nothing new there – he never stopped buying them up, did he? He noticed me and asked if I could drive. I told him I did all the deliveries in the van.

  Question: Was Louise Bourges already working for him?

  Answer: N
o.

  Question: Did you know her?

  Answer: No.

  Question: Did your boss ever walk anywhere in Paris?

  Answer: He had three cars.

  Question: Could he drive?

  Answer: No. I went everywhere with him.

  Question: Including Rue de l’Étoile?

  Answer: Yes.

  Question: Did you know who he was seeing there?

  Answer: His piece on the side.

  Question: Did you know her?

  Answer: I drove them places. They sometimes went to a restaurant or Montmartre together.

  Question: Fumal didn’t try to shake you off recently, did he?

  Answer: I don’t understand.

  Question: He didn’t ask you to drive him somewhere, for instance, then take a taxi on to somewhere else?

  Answer: Not that I noticed.

  Question: Did he ever get you to stop outside a stationer’s or a newsagent? Did he send you to buy writing paper?

  Answer: No.

  There were pages and pages of questions. At one point, he read:

  Question: Do you consider him a good boss?

  Answer: There’s no such thing as a good boss.

  Question: Did you hate him?

  No answer.

  Question: Did Louise Bourges have sexual relations with him?

  Answer: Fumal or no Fumal, I would have smashed his face in, and if you’re insinuating …

  Question: He didn’t try it on, then?

  Answer: Luckily for him.

  Question: Did you steal from him?

  Answer: I’m sorry?

  Question: I’m asking if you made anything on the side, on the petrol, say, or repairs, that sort of thing.

  Answer: You obviously didn’t know him.

  Question: Was he tight with money?

  Answer: He didn’t want to be taken for an idiot.

  Question: So you had nothing but your wages?

  In the file for Louise Bourges, Maigret read:

  Question: Did your boss ever try to sleep with you?

  Answer: He had a girl for that.

  Question: Did he still have sexual relations with his wife?

  Answer: That’s none of my business.

  Question: Did anyone ever give you money to influence him, say, or pass on anything he was planning to do?

  Answer: It was impossible to influence him, and he didn’t confide his plans to anyone.

  Question: How much longer did you intend to work for him?

  Answer: The bare minimum.

  Germaine, the maid responsible for the heavy cleaning in the house, was born in Saint-Fiacre, where her brother was still a tenant farmer. Fumal had bought his farm, as he had almost all the farms that belonged to the counts of Saint-Fiacre.

  Question: How did you come to start working for him?

  Answer: I was a widow. I was working at my brother’s. Monsieur Fumal suggested I come to Paris.

  Question: Have you been happy here?

  Answer: When have I ever been happy?

  Question: Did you like your boss?

  Answer: He didn’t like anyone.

  Question: But did you?

  Answer: I don’t have time to ask myself questions.

  Question: Did you know that Madame Fumal’s brother often came and slept on the second floor?

  Answer: That’s no concern of mine.

  Question: Did it ever occur to you to talk to your boss about it?

  Answer: The boss’s carrying on is none of my business.

  Question: Are you planning on continuing to work for Madame Fumal?

  Answer: I’ll do what I’ve done all my life. I’ll go where I’m wanted.

  The telephone rang on the desk. Maigret picked up. It was Rue de Maistre station in Montmartre.

  ‘The guy you’re looking for is here.’

  ‘Which guy?’

  ‘Émile Lentin. They found him in a bistro near Place Clichy.’

  ‘Is he drunk?’

  ‘Getting there.’

  ‘What does he have to say for himself?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Take him to Quai des Orfèvres. I’ll be there in a little while.’

  Still no sign of a gun in the house or the outbuildings.

  Monsieur Joseph was sitting on one of the uncomfortable Renaissance armchairs on the landing, biting his nails as he waited to be questioned for the third time.

  6. The Man in the Box Room and the Borrowings from Petty Cash

  It was five o’clock when Maigret got to Quai des Orfèvres, where the lights were on. That made it one more day without a glimpse of sun. You wouldn’t even have suspected such a thing still existed behind the thick, malevolent-looking layer of cloud.

  Various messages, as usual, were waiting for him on his desk, most of them concerning Mrs Britt. The public never gets going immediately. It’s as if they’re suspicious of cases the press has only just started to talk about. But after two or three days Paris begins to bear fruit, then the regions. The story of the missing Englishwoman had already reached the remotest villages, even overseas.

  One of the messages was from Monte-Carlo, where she’d supposedly been seen at a gaming table by two people, one of whom was a croupier. As this wasn’t entirely unlikely, Maigret went into the inspectors’ office to give the relevant instructions.

  The office was almost empty.

  ‘They’ve brought someone for you, chief. Seeing the state of him, I thought it best to lock him in the box room.’

  That was their name for a narrow room at the end of the corridor, which had the advantage of only being lit by an unreachable skylight. After a suspect had thrown himself out of the window of the office where he had been put while they waited to question him, a grey-painted bench had been moved into the former storeroom and a sturdy lock fitted to its door.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Drunk. He’s lying flat on his back, fast asleep. I hope he hasn’t thrown up.’

  Maigret had spent the taxi ride back from Boulevard de Courcelles thinking about Fumal and the strange way he had died.

  He was a very suspicious man, all the testimony agreed on that. An innocent is the last thing he was. And he was obviously quite a shrewd judge of people, you had to grant him that.

  He hadn’t been killed in his bed or caught off guard in any way.

  He had been found fully dressed, in his office. He had been standing in front of a cabinet containing files when he was shot at point-blank range from behind.

  Had the murderer been able to silently enter the room and get within shooting range without arousing his suspicions? Unlikely, given that the parquet floor in his office was largely uncarpeted.

  So Fumal must have known him, been aware he was behind him and had no inkling he was going to be attacked.

  Maigret had glanced over the papers in the mahogany cabinet, which were a complete mystery to him, mainly business papers, contracts, deeds of sale or transfer. He had sent for a specialist from the finance department, who had arrived and was going through them one by one.

  In another cabinet, two packs of writing paper of the kind used for the anonymous notes had been found, which meant more work for the police. First Moers was going to try to find out who the manufacturer was, then the inspectors would question all the shop managers who sold paper of that sort.

  ‘The commissioner hasn’t asked for me, has he?’

  ‘No, chief.’

  What was the point of going to see him now? To tell him he hadn’t found anything? He had been given the job of looking after Fumal’s life, and a few hours later Fumal was dead. Was the minister furious? Or was he actually secretly relieved?

  ‘Have you got the key?’

  The key to the box room, in other words. He headed to the end of the corridor, listened through the door for a moment. Hearing nothing, he opened it and saw an extremely lanky-looking man stretched out on the bench with his head resting on his folded arms.

 
While not actually a tramp’s, his suit was old, crumpled, stained, like that of someone who sleeps fully dressed wherever he finds himself. His brown hair was too long, especially at the back.

  Maigret touched his shoulder, then shook him until the drunkard stirred, groaning, and finally turned over almost completely.

  ‘What is it?’ he grunted, slurring his words.

  ‘Do you want a glass of water?’

  Émile Lentin sat up, still not knowing where he was, opened his eyes and looked at Maigret for a long time, wondering why this man was standing in front of him.

  ‘Don’t you remember? You’re at the Police Judiciaire. I am Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  Gradually he came to, and the expression on his face changed, became fearful, sly.

  ‘Why have I been brought here?’

  ‘Can you understand what I’m saying to you?’

  He ran his tongue over his dry lips.

  ‘I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Come to my office.’

  He let him go first. Lentin’s legs were too weak for there to be any danger of him running away.

  ‘Have a drink of this, at least.’

  Maigret handed him a large glass of water and two aspirin tablets, which Madame Fumal’s brother swallowed meekly.

  His face was ravaged, his eyelids reddish, his watery eyes almost brimming over.

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ he began, before Maigret could speak. ‘Jeanne hasn’t done anything either.’

  ‘Sit down.’

  He perched tentatively on the edge of a chair.

  ‘How long have you known your brother-in-law was dead?’

  The man stared at him without answering, so Maigret went on:

  ‘When they tracked you down in Montmartre the newspapers hadn’t come out yet. Did the police tell you about it?’

  He struggled to remember, repeating:

  ‘The police?’

  ‘The police who picked you up in the bar.’

  He tried to smile politely.

  ‘Perhaps … Yes … There was something like that … I’m sorry …’

  ‘How long have you been drunk?’

  ‘I don’t know … A long time …’