Maigret's First Case

by Georges Simenon

  There were still few passers-by in the street – a handful of workers heading towards the Métro, maids or housewives hurrying to the shops in Rue Fontaine.

  Nobody came into the Vieux Calvados, where an enormous woman appeared on the spiral staircase, her feet coming into view first, encased in red slippers. Without saying a word, she went into the kitchen.

  Officers on a surveillance operation are no longer their own masters: their actions are determined by the behaviour of the individual under surveillance.

  Curtains opened on the first floor, those of Richard Gendreau’s bedroom. It was nine o’clock. The owner of the Vieux Calvados pottered about, a cloth in his hand, and seemed deliberately to be avoiding making conversation.

  ‘It looks as if my friend’s been delayed,’ said Maigret, anxious to keep up appearances.

  The Vieux Calvados wasn’t a bar but a restaurant with a regular clientele. The red gingham tablecloths matched the curtains. Cooking aromas were already drifting through the doorway at the back and potatoes could be heard plopping into a bucket one at a time as they were peeled.

  Why did the owner and his wife not speak to one another? Since the woman had come downstairs, the two of them – or rather the three of them – seemed to be acting out a strange pantomime.

  The owner carried on wiping his bottles and glasses and polishing the pewter counter. He lingered for a moment in front of a row of earthenware jugs and eventually chose one. Then he promptly filled two glasses, jerked his head in the direction of the wall clock, next to a promotional calendar, and said simply:

  ‘Time for a drink.’

  His beady eyes on Maigret to see how he would react to the calvados, he clicked his tongue and picked up his cloth, which he looped through his braces when he wasn’t using it.

  At 9.30, the chauffeur over the road put on his jacket and the engine could be heard spluttering into action. The car pulled up beneath the porch, and a few minutes later Richard Gendreau, in a grey suit with a carnation in his buttonhole, clambered in.

  Was the restaurant owner simply a mischievous fool? Or, on the contrary, had he already guessed everything? He glanced at the car as it drove past, then at Maigret, and then gave a gentle sigh and went back to work.

  A quarter of an hour later, he resumed his place behind the bar, selected another jug, filled two little glasses without saying a word and nudged one towards his customer.

  It was only later that Maigret gathered that this was a ritual, a kind of foible. Every half-hour, there was a little glass of calvados, which explained the man’s blotchy complexion and rheumy eyes.

  ‘Thank you, but …’

  Too bad! It was impossible to say no. There was such authority in the insistent gaze fixed on him that he preferred to knock back the drink. He was beginning to feel tipsy.

  At ten o’clock, he asked:

  ‘Do you have a telephone?’

  ‘Upstairs, opposite the WC.’

  Maigret went up the spiral staircase into a little low-ceilinged room where there were only four tables with gingham cloths. The windows began at floor level.

  Balthazar Coffee … Avenue de l’Opéra … Warehouses … Quai de Valmy … Head Office … Rue Auber …

  He called head office.

  ‘May I speak to Monsieur Richard Gendreau?’

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘Tell him that it’s Louis.’

  Almost immediately he recognized Gendreau’s voice on the other end.

  ‘Hello! Louis?’

  He sounded anxious. Maigret hung up. Through the window he could see the butler in his striped waistcoat stationed on the pavement, where he was calmly smoking a cigarette. He didn’t stay there for long. He must have heard the telephone ring.

  Alarmed, his boss was calling him.

  Good! So Richard Gendreau was at his office, where he probably spent the greater part of his time. Louis did not come back outside, but the main door stayed open.

  A very young face appeared at a second-floor window where the curtains had just been drawn back. It was Marie, the little maid with a pointed nose, a neck like a plucked bird’s and dishevelled hair beneath a pretty lace cap. She was wearing a soubrette’s black dress and white apron.

  He was afraid of staying upstairs too long and arousing the owner’s suspicions. He came down just in time for the third calvados, which the owner poured with the same authority as before. As he gave him the glass, he pushed towards him a saucer on which there were slices of andouille, stating:

  ‘I’m from Pontfarcy!’

  He pronounced the word with such solemnity that it must have contained some mysterious significance. Did that explain the andouille? Were people from Pontfarcy in the habit of knocking back a glass of calvados every half-hour? He added:

  ‘Near Vire!’

  ‘May I make another telephone call?’

  It wasn’t yet 10.30 and Maigret was already familiar with the place. He was beginning to feel at home, and his mood was even fairly cheerful. The floor-to-ceiling window was entertaining as it allowed passers-by in the street below to peer in and see the diners.

  ‘Hello! Is that Monsieur Gendreau-Balthazar’s residence?’

  This time it was Louis’ lugubrious voice that answered.

  ‘May I speak to Mademoiselle Gendreau, please?’

  ‘Mademoiselle is not at home. Who’s calling?’

  Maigret hung up, as he had done before, and went back downstairs where the owner, concentrating hard, was writing out the day’s menu on a slate, thinking carefully about each word.

  There were a lot of open windows now, with rugs being beaten above the empty street. An elderly lady in black, wearing a hat with a purple veil, was walking a little dog which stopped at every doorway to raise its hind leg, in vain.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ mumbled Maigret with a forced laugh, ‘whether my friend has forgotten that we’re meeting.’

  Did the owner believe him? Had he guessed that Maigret was from the police?

  At eleven o’clock, he watched a coachman hitch a bay horse to a brougham in the courtyard of the Gendreaus’ residence. But this coachman had not come in through the carriage entrance. He was unlikely to have slept in the house, which suggested that there was another way out of the property.

  At 11.15, Félicien Gendreau, the father, came down dressed in a morning coat, yellow gloves, beige hat, cane in hand, his moustache neatly waxed. The coachman helped him clamber into the carriage, which set off in the direction of Rue Blanche. The elderly gentleman was probably going for a ride in the Bois de Boulogne before having luncheon at his club.

  … Police officers are advised to own a black dress suit, a dinner jacket and a morning coat …

  And Maigret, looking at himself in the mirror, surrounded by bottles, had a wry smile. And yellow gloves too, I suppose? And a cane with a gold knob! And light-coloured spats and patent-leather shoes!

  Just his luck, for his first investigation! He could have been required to infiltrate any milieu − petty bourgeois, shopkeepers, ragmen, vagrants. Any of those would have been easy but not this private mansion, its carriage entrance more imposing than a church door with its marble peristyle, and even its courtyard where a driver was polishing a limousine for one of the masters before harnessing a pedigree horse for the other!

  Calvados! He had no choice. He would hold out until the end and remain at his post in the Vieux Calvados for as long as was necessary.

  He hadn’t caught sight of Ma
dame Louis. Maybe she didn’t do her shopping every morning, she probably had provisions at home, and the gentlemen must be having luncheon out.

  Justin Minard was lucky. He was in the country now, tracking down Germaine Babœuf – he’d found out her surname from the dairy woman – who was at her sister’s, probably in a humble little shack with a garden and chickens.

  ‘Don’t you think your wife …’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  And Madame Maigret who had decided to give the apartment a thorough spring clean today!

  ‘Do you think it’s worth it?’ he had asked her. ‘We won’t be staying here for long. We’re bound to find a place in a nicer neighbourhood soon.’

  He couldn’t know that, thirty years later, they would still be living in the same home on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, having acquired the next-door apartment too.

  At half past eleven, some customers walked into the Vieux Calvados at last, painters in white overalls who were clearly regulars, since one of them greeted the owner with a familiar:

  ‘Salut, Paumelle!’

  For them, this was an aperitif, which they drank as they stood reading the menu slate before going to sit at a window table.

  By midday all the tables were full. Every so often, Madame Paumelle would emerge from her kitchen carrying plates while her husband served the drinks, going up and down the stairs from the cellar to the ground floor and from the ground floor to the mezzanine. Most of the customers were workers from the nearby building sites, but there were also two cabmen whose carriages stood outside the restaurant.

  Maigret would have liked to telephone Monsieur Le Bret to ask his advice. He had eaten and drunk too much. He felt sluggish and, if he had been in the Oise in the flautist’s shoes, he would probably have indulged in a little nap in a field, under a tree, with a newspaper spread over his face.

  His self-confidence was beginning to dwindle, as was his faith in his profession which, at times, felt futile. Was it a manly job idling the day away in a café, watching a house where nothing was happening? The other people there all had a specific job. All over Paris, people were coming and going like ants, but at least they knew where they were going!

  No one was forced, for example, to drink a glass of calvados every half-hour, with a man whose eyes were growing increasingly unfocused, his smile increasingly sinister.

  Paumelle was laughing at him, he was certain of it. But what else could he do? Go and stand outside, in the bright sunlight, in full view of the many windows overlooking the street?

  The thought brought back an unpleasant memory, a stupid episode barely two years earlier that had almost made him leave the police. He had been put on patrol, with specific responsibility for pickpockets in the Métro.

  A cap, a scarf and a worn jacket are …

  In those days, he believed in his job. Deep down, he still did. The incident had happened opposite La Samaritaine. He’d been coming up the stairs from the Métro. Just in front of him, a man in a bowler hat deftly sliced the strap of an elderly lady’s reticule. Maigret leaped at him, grabbed the black velvet bag and tried to hold on to the man, who started yelling:

  ‘Stop thief!’

  And the crowd had set upon Maigret with fists flying, while the man in the bowler hat discreetly slipped away.

  Now he was beginning to have doubts about his friend, Justin Minard. Maybe the second-floor window had been opened, but so what? Everybody was entitled to open their window in the middle of the night. There are people who sleepwalk, who start shouting …

  The Vieux Calvados had emptied. The owner and his wife hadn’t exchanged a single word all day. They each went about their jobs in silence, as in a perfectly choreographed ballet.

  And then at last, at 2.20, something happened. A car came cruising leisurely down the street, and it was a grey De Dion-Bouton. The man at the wheel was wearing a grey goatskin jacket and goggles.

  The car did not stop in front of the Gendreau residence, but drove slowly past, and Maigret could see that there were no passengers. He rushed over to the window and managed to make a note of the registration number: B780.

  He couldn’t possibly run after the car, which turned into Rue Fontaine. He stood there, his heart racing, and less than five minutes later, the same car cruised past again.

  When he returned to the bar, Paumelle stared fixedly at him, giving no indication of what he was thinking. He merely filled two glasses and pushed one towards his customer.

  The car did not reappear. It was the hour when the Opéra’s nymph-like corps de ballet was performing in the gardens of Versailles, all those gentlemen in full dress, a hundred thousand people crammed together, children hoisted on to shoulders, amid red balloons, hawkers selling coconuts and little paper flags.

  Meanwhile Rue Chaptal dozed. The occasional cab went by, and now and again came the dull clip-clop of hooves on the wooden paving blocks.

  At ten to four, Louis appeared. He had slipped a black jacket over his striped waistcoat and wore a black bowler hat. He stood framed in the entrance arch for a moment, lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out defiantly, then he walked slowly to the corner of Rue Fontaine. Maigret watched him go into the tobacconist’s.

  He soon came out again and returned to the house. For a second, his gaze rested on the Vieux Calvados sign: it was too light outside and too dark inside for him to be able to recognize the secretary from the Saint-Georges police station.

  Was he expecting someone? Was he trying to make up his mind? He walked to the corner of Rue Blanche and there he seemed to spot someone who was outside Maigret’s field of vision. Then he hastened off and disappeared.

  Maigret almost followed him. It was a sort of human respect that stopped him. He could feel the owner’s bleary eyes on him. He would have to find an explanation, ask for the bill, wait for change, and then by the time he reached Rue Blanche, the butler would probably be far away.

  He thought of another plan: calmly pay his bill and take advantage of Louis’ absence to go and ring the doorbell of the house over the road, ask to speak to Mademoiselle Gendreau, or simply to young Marie.

  On second thoughts, he did neither. A horse-drawn cab was approaching from Rue Blanche. The driver with the boiled leather hat carefully scrutinized the numbers on the houses and pulled up just past the Gendreau residence. He did not leave his seat. He seemed to have received orders. His meter flag was down.

  Two or three minutes at most went by. Marie’s mouse-like face appeared under the arch. She was still wearing her apron and lace cap. Then she vanished, came back with a travel bag, looked up and down the street and walked up to the cab.

  Maigret couldn’t hear what she said to the driver who, without leaving his perch, lifted up the bag, which couldn’t have been heavy, and set it down beside him.

  Marie returned to the house with a jaunty step. Her waist was as slender as that of the legendary Polaire’s and she was so tiny that her mass of hair made her look as if she might overbalance.

  She disappeared, and a moment later someone else appeared, a tall, curvaceous young woman wearing a navy-blue suit and a blue hat with a white veil decorated with large polka dots.

  Why did Maigret turn red? Because he had seen her in her nightdress in a cluttered maid’s room?

  The woman was no maid, that was clear. She could only be Lise Gendreau. She walked over to the cab, very dignified despite her hurry, wiggling her hips a little, and clambered inside.

  Maigret was so flustered that he almost forgot to make a note of the numbe
r of the cab: 48. He wrote it down straight away, and reddened again under Paumelle’s stare.

  ‘And there it is!’ sighed the owner, wondering which jug to choose.

  ‘There what is?’

  ‘There’s how it is with these so-called “good” families.’

  He sounded jubilant, although he did not go so far as to smile.

  ‘That’s what you were waiting for, isn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He became contemptuous and nudged a glass towards Maigret. Scowling, he appeared to be signalling: ‘Since you are acting so secretively!’

  And Maigret, to redeem himself, as if to curry the owner’s favour:

  ‘That’s Mademoiselle Gendreau, isn’t it?’

  ‘Balthazar Coffee, yes, sir. And I don’t think we’ll be seeing her again in our street for a while.’

  ‘Do you think she’s gone travelling?’

  The man’s expression became crushing. He intimidated his young customer with the full weight of his fifty or sixty years, with all the little drinks he’d had with people of all kinds, with his knowledge of all the neighbourhood’s secrets.

  ‘Who are you working for?’ he asked, suddenly cagey.

  ‘But … I’m not working for anyone …’

  A mere look, which said more bluntly than words: ‘You’re lying!’

  Then, with a shrug:

  ‘Too bad!’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘Go on, admit that you’ve already been sniffing around this area?’

  ‘Me? I swear …’

  It was true. He felt the need to prove his good faith. And the owner studied him calmly, seemed hesitant, and finally sighed:

  ‘I had taken you for a friend of the count’s.’

  ‘What count?’