The doctor, at the other end of the line, didn’t seem to remember.
‘He works in toys … Train sets, to be specific … He said he went to see you to check that he wasn’t insane and then talked to you about his wife …’
‘Just one moment. Will you excuse me? I will have to consult my files.’
Maigret heard him saying to someone, ‘Mademoiselle Berthe, would you be so kind …’
He must have moved away from the phone, because there was nothing to be heard, and the silence lasted for quite a while, so long that Maigret thought they had been cut off.
Judging by his voice, Steiner was a cold man, probably vain, at least with a strong sense of his own importance.
‘May I ask you, inspector, why you called me?’
‘Because this gentleman was in my office just now and left before our discussion was over. But the fact is that while I was listening to him I tore the form on which he had written his name into little pieces.’
‘Did you call him in?’
‘No.’
‘What is he suspected of doing?’
‘Nothing. He came of his own accord to tell me his story.’
‘Has anything happened?’
‘I don’t think so. He spoke to me about certain fears which I think he may have told you about.’
Ninety-nine doctors in a hundred would have been cooperative by this point; Maigret had landed upon one who wasn’t.
‘You know, I assume,’ Steiner said, ‘that patient confidentiality prevents me from …’
‘I’m not asking you, doctor, to betray patient confidentiality. I am asking you, first of all, for the surname of this man Xavier. I could find it easily by phoning the Grands Magasins du Louvre, where he works, but I thought that if I did so I would risk putting him in a bad light with his employers.’
‘That is quite likely, I grant you.’
‘I also know that he lives on Avenue de Châtillon, and my men, if they questioned the concierges, would reach the same result. In that way too we might prejudice your patient by causing a fuss.’
‘I understand.’
‘So?’
‘His name is Marton, Xavier Marton,’ the neurologist said reluctantly.
‘When did he come to see you?’
‘I think I can answer that question as well. About three weeks ago, on 21 December, to be precise …’
‘So just as he was at his busiest with the Christmas holidays. I expect he was rather agitated?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Listen, doctor, once again, I’m not asking you to give away a secret. We have, as you know, expeditious means of acquiring information.’
Silence at the other end, a disapproving silence, Maigret could have sworn. Doctor Steiner mustn’t have been very fond of the police.
‘Xavier Marton, since that is his name,’ Maigret went on, ‘acted like a normal man in my office. And yet …’
The doctor repeated:
‘And yet?’
‘I’m no psychiatrist, and after listening to him I would like to know whether I was dealing with an unbalanced person or …’
‘What would you call an unbalanced person?’
Maigret was flushed and held the receiver in a tight and menacing grip.
‘You have responsibilities, doctor, and you are bound to a rule of patient confidentiality which I am not attempting to lead you to infringe in any way, but we too have responsibilities of our own. I don’t like to think that I let a man leave who might, tomorrow …’
‘I let him leave my office too.’
‘So you don’t think he’s a madman?’
Another silence.
‘What do you think about what he told you about his wife? When he was here he didn’t have time to get to the end of his story …’
‘I haven’t examined his wife.’
‘And from what he told you, you have no idea of …’
‘No idea.’
‘You have nothing to add?’
‘Nothing, I’m sorry to say. Will you excuse me? I have a client who is getting impatient.’
Maigret put the phone down as if he wanted to break the receiver over the doctor’s head.
Then, almost immediately, his rage subsided, and he shrugged his shoulders, even smiling in the end.
‘Janvier!’ he called so that he could be heard from the next room.
‘Yes, chief.’
‘I want you to go to the Grands Magasins du Louvre and go upstairs to the toy section. Pretend to be a customer. Look for a man who is supposed to be the head of the department, between forty and forty-five, dark hair, with a hairy mole to the left of his lip.’
‘What should I ask him?’
‘Nothing. If the head of department answers to that description, his name is Xavier Marton, and that’s all I want to know. In fact, while you’re there, pretend to take an interest in train sets as a way of getting him to speak. Observe him. That’s all.’
‘Is that who you were talking about on the phone a moment ago?’
‘Yes. Did you hear?’
‘You want to know if he’s mad?’
Maigret merely shrugged. On any other day, he might not have worried for more than a few minutes about Marton’s visit. At the Police Judiciaire they are used to receiving madmen and semi-madmen, lunatics, fantasists, individuals, both male and female, who think they have been chosen to save the world from perdition, and others who are convinced that mysterious enemies are after their lives or their secrets.
The Crime Squad, or ‘Homicide’, as it is currently known, is not a psychiatric hospital and when it does deal with such individuals it is usually only when they have finally broken the law, which thankfully doesn’t always happen.
It was almost midday. He thought of phoning Pardon, said to himself that it wasn’t worth it, that in that morning’s visit there was nothing more worrying than in a hundred visits of the same kind that he had received.
Why was he thinking about the pills that his wife had to take with each meal? Because of the zinc phosphide that Xavier Marton claimed to have found in the broom cupboard. Where did Madame Maigret hide her pills so as not to worry her husband?
Intrigued, he vowed to look everywhere. She had probably spent a long time coming up with a clever hiding place that he wouldn’t think of.
He would see. In the meantime, he closed his file, went at last to turn the radiator halfway down and wondered whether he should leave the window open during the lunch hour.
As he left, he noticed the sachet of white powder on his desk and took it to Lucas.
‘Pass this on to the laboratory. Ask them to let me know what it is this afternoon.’
On the embankment the cold caught him unawares, and he turned up the collar of his overcoat, plunged his hands into his pockets and headed for the bus stop. He didn’t like Doctor Steiner at all and he was thinking more about him than about the train-set specialist.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN CLASSICS
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in French as Maigret voyage by Presses de la Cité 1957
This translation first published 2018
Copyright © Georges Simenon Limited, 1957
Translation copyright © Howard Curtis, 2018
Extract from Maigret’s Doubts copyrig
ht © Georges Simenon Limited, 1958
Translation copyright for Maigret’s Doubts © Shaun Whiteside, 2018
GEORGES SIMENON ® Simenon.tm
MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted
Cover photograph (detail) © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos
Front cover design by Alceu Chiesorin Nunes
ISBN: 978-0-241-30383-2
Maigret Travels Page 15