Maigret Sets a Trap

by Georges Simenon

  A smile, in which there was something fragile and childlike, floated on his lips.

  ‘My wife has just woken me up. She says …’

  Was she not at all curious to find out the purpose of their visit? She had not come back. Perhaps she was listening outside the door, which her husband had now closed.

  ‘I’ve been doing a lot of work lately, decorating a huge villa that a friend of mine is building on the Normandy coast.’

  Pulling a fine lawn handkerchief from his pocket, he mopped his brow and patted his top lip, where beads of sweat had appeared.

  ‘Even warmer than yesterday, isn’t it?’

  He looked outside at the lavender-coloured sky.

  ‘It doesn’t help to open the windows. I hope there’s a storm on the way.’

  ‘I must apologize,’ Maigret began, ‘but I have to ask you a few indiscreet questions. The first thing is that I would like to see the suit you were wearing yesterday.’

  The question appeared to surprise him, but not to unnerve him. His eyes opened a little wider, and his lips pouted: his expression seemed to indicate:

  ‘What an odd request!’

  Then, as he went to the door:

  ‘Excuse me for a moment.’

  He was away only half a minute at most, and returned with a grey, well-pressed suit over his arm. Maigret examined it and found inside a pocket a label with the name of the little tailor in Rue Vanneau.

  ‘This is what you were wearing yesterday?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘And last night as well?’

  ‘Until dinner. Then I changed into these more comfortable clothes before starting work. I tend to work all night.’

  ‘And you didn’t leave the house after eight?’

  ‘I was in my office until two in the morning, or half past, which is why I was asleep when you arrived. I need a lot of sleep, like all people of a sensitive nature.’

  He seemed to be asking for their approval, reminding them more of a student than of someone over thirty.

  From close up, however, it was possible to see that his face was more gaunt than it had seemed, contradicting the impression of youth he had given at first. There was something tired and fragile about his complexion, not lacking in charm, as may happen with women of a certain age.

  ‘May I ask you to show me your entire wardrobe?’

  This time, he stiffened a little, and was perhaps on the point of protesting or refusing.

  ‘If that is what you wish. This way.’

  If his wife was waiting behind the door, she had had time to move away, since they could see her at the end of the corridor, talking to the maid in the light modern kitchen.

  Moncin pushed open another door, to a bedroom with coffee-coloured walls, in the middle of which was an unmade divan-bed. He went to draw the curtains aside, as the room was dark, and opened the sliding doors of a fitted cupboard occupying the whole of one wall.

  There were six lounge suits hanging up on the right, all immaculately pressed as if they had not been worn, or were just back from the dry-cleaners, and three overcoats, one lighter than the others, plus a dinner-jacket and a morning coat.

  None of the suits matched the fabric in Lapointe’s pocket.

  ‘Can you pass me that material?’ Maigret asked him.

  He held it out to their host.

  ‘Last autumn, your tailor delivered to you a suit made of this fabric. Do you remember?’

  Moncin looked at the sample.

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘What has become of this suit now?’

  He seemed to think.

  ‘I know,’ he said finally. ‘I was on a bus and someone’s cigarette scorched it.’

  ‘And you sent it to be repaired?’

  ‘No, I hate any object that’s less than perfect. It’s obsessive, I know, but I’ve been like this since I was a child. I used to throw away a toy if it was scratched.’

  ‘So you threw away this suit? You mean you put it in the dustbin?’

  ‘No, I gave it away.’

  ‘Personally?’

  ‘Yes. I picked it up one night when I was going out for a walk along the embankment, as I sometimes do, and I gave it to a tramp.’

  ‘A long time ago?’

  ‘Two or three days.’

  ‘Can you be a bit more precise?’

  ‘The day before yesterday.’

  On the left-hand side of the cupboard, there were at least a dozen pairs of shoes lined up on shelves, and above them drawers containing shirts, underpants, pyjamas and handkerchiefs, all in impeccable order.

  ‘Where are the shoes you were wearing last night?’

  There was no intake of breath, and he did not appear troubled.

  ‘I wasn’t wearing shoes, just slippers, which I always wear in my office.’

  ‘Would you call the maid? We can go back to the drawing room.’

  ‘Odile,’ he called in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Come here for a minute.’

  The maid gave the impression of having arrived only recently from the French countryside, of which she still had something of the bloom.

  ‘Yes, monsieur.’

  She did not seem troubled either, only a little excited to be in the presence of an official personality whose name was in the papers.

  ‘Do you sleep overnight in the apartment?’

  ‘No, monsieur, I have a room up on the sixth floor with the other maids in the building.’

  ‘And did you go up there late last night?’

  ‘At about nine o’clock, like I do nearly every day, after washing the dishes.’

  ‘And where was Monsieur Moncin then?’

  ‘In his office.’

  ‘And can you tell me what he was wearing?’

  ‘Same as he is now.’

  ‘Sure about that, are you?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur, certain.’

  ‘Have you seen his grey suit lately, the one with a little blue thread in the pattern?’

  She thought for a moment.

  ‘I should say, sir, that I don’t have much to do with monsieur’s clothes. He’s … very, er, particular about them.’

  She had been on the point of saying something like ‘fussy’.

  ‘You mean he presses them himself?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘And you don’t have permission to open his cupboards?’

  ‘Only to put linen in, when it comes back from the laundry.’

  ‘So you don’t know when he last wore his grey suit with the blue thread?’

  ‘I think it was two or three days ago.’

  ‘You didn’t by any chance, while you were serving at table, hear mention of the jacket being scorched by a cigarette?’

  She looked at her employer as if to ask for his advice, and stammered:

  ‘N-no, I, I don’t think so. I don’t listen to what monsieur and madame talk about at table. They’re usually talking about things I don’t understand.’

  ‘That’s all, you may go.’

  Marcel Moncin was waiting calmly, a smile on his face and just a few beads of sweat on his upper lip.

  ‘I must ask you to dress for going out, if you will, and come with me to Quai des Orfèvres. My inspector will accompany you to your bedroom.’

  ‘And into the bathroom too?’

  ‘Yes, into the bathroom too, I’m sorry. I shall wait here and have a word with your wife. I regret this, Monsieur Moncin, but I have no choice in the matter.’

  The architect-decorator made a vague gesture, which seemed to signify:

  ‘As you like.’

  It was only as he reached the door that he turned and asked:

  ‘May I know why—’

  ‘Not just now, no. Presently, in my office.’

  And Maigret called from the corridor to Madame Moncin, who was still in the kitchen:

  ‘Madame, would you mind coming here, please?’

  6.

  Sharing Out the Tweed Suit


  ‘Got the right one this time, have you?’ young Rougin had asked cheekily, as the chief inspector and Lapointe were crossing the corridor in Quai des Orfèvres with their captive.

  Maigret had simply stopped, turned his head slowly, and let his gaze rest a moment on the journalist. The other man had coughed, and the photographers themselves seemed less eager in their approach.

  ‘Sit down, Monsieur Moncin. If it’s too warm in here, you may take off your jacket.’

  ‘Thank you. I usually keep it on.’

  And indeed it was difficult to imagine him looking dishevelled. Maigret had taken off his own jacket before going through to the inspectors’ office to issue instructions. Stooping slightly, his neck hunched between his shoulders, he wore an absent-minded expression.

  Once in his office, he lined up his pipes, and packed two of them methodically, after signalling to Lapointe to stay and take notes of the interview. Some concert pianists take up position like this too, hesitating, adjusting the piano stool, running their fingers over the keys, as if to tame them.

  ‘Have you been married long, Monsieur Moncin?’

  ‘Twelve years.’

  ‘May I ask how old you are?’

  ‘I’m thirty-two. I was twenty when I got married.’

  There was quite a long silence, during which Maigret put his hands palms down on the table.

  ‘And you’re an architect?’

  Moncin corrected him:

  ‘Architect-decorator.’

  ‘That means, I suppose, that you’re an architect who specializes in interior decoration?’

  He noted that his interlocutor had coloured slightly.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Would you mind explaining what you mean?’

  ‘I’m not qualified to draw up plans for a house, because I don’t actually have a degree in architecture.’

  ‘What qualifications do you have?’

  ‘I began by doing painting, fine art.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘When I was seventeen.’

  ‘You have your baccalaureate, do you?’

  ‘No, when I was young I wanted to be an artist. The paintings you saw in our drawing room, they’re by me.’

  Maigret had not been able to work out what they represented, but they had disturbed him by their sad and morbid character. Neither the lines nor the colours were clear. The dominant shade had been a purplish-red, combined with curious shades of green that made him think of light under water, and it was as if the oil paint had spread by itself, like an ink-stain on a blotter.

  ‘So you don’t have any architectural qualifications, and if I understand you correctly, anyone can set themselves up as an interior decorator?’

  ‘I note the generous way you describe it. I suppose you’re trying to make me understand that I’m a failure.’

  There was a bitter smile on his lips.

  ‘You’d be within your rights. Other people have told me so,’ he went on.

  ‘Do you have many clients?’

  ‘I prefer to have just a few, people who believe in me and give me carte blanche, rather than to have a lot of clients who would oblige me to make compromises.’

  Maigret tapped out his pipe and lit another. Rarely had an interview got off to such an unpromising start.

  ‘You were born in Paris?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which district?’

  Moncin hesitated.

  ‘The corner of Rue Caulaincourt and Rue de Maistre.’

  In other words, right in the centre of the area where the five murders and the attempted attack had taken place.

  ‘And you lived there for a long time?’

  ‘Until my marriage.’

  ‘Are your parents still alive?’

  ‘Just my mother.’

  ‘And she lives …?’

  ‘Still in the same building where I was born.’

  ‘Are you on good terms with her?’

  ‘My mother and I have always got on well.’

  ‘And what did your father do, Monsieur Moncin?’

  Another hesitation, whereas Maigret had noticed none when his mother was mentioned.

  ‘He was a butcher.’

  ‘In Montmartre?’

  ‘At the same address I just gave you.’

  ‘And he died …?’

  ‘When I was fourteen.’

  ‘Did your mother sell the business then?’

  ‘She had someone handle it for a while, then she sold it, but she kept the building and lives in an apartment on the fourth floor.’

  There was a discreet knock at the door. Maigret went out to the inspectors’ office and returned accompanied by four men all about the same age, height and general appearance as Moncin.

  They were all clerks at the Préfecture, whom Torrence had hastily assembled.

  ‘Would you stand up, Monsieur Moncin, and go and line up with these gentlemen against the wall?’

  A few minutes passed during which nobody spoke, and finally there was another knock at the door.

  ‘Come in!’ Maigret called.

  Marthe Jusserand appeared, surprised to find the room so full of people. She looked first at Maigret, then at the men standing in a row, and frowned as soon as her eyes lighted on Moncin.

  They all held their breath. She had turned pale, for she suddenly realized the responsibility on her shoulders. She was so conscious of it that she appeared on the point of weeping with stress.

  ‘Take your time,’ said Maigret, encouragingly.

  ‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ she whispered.

  ‘You should know better than anyone else, because you’re the only person who saw him.’

  ‘I think it’s him. Yes, I’m sure. And yet …’

  ‘And yet?’

  ‘Can I see him in profile?’

  ‘Would you stand sideways, please, Monsieur Moncin?’

  He obeyed without moving a muscle of his face.

  ‘I’m almost sure. He wasn’t wearing the same clothes. And his eyes didn’t have the same expression.’

  ‘This evening, Mademoiselle Jusserand, we’ll take you both to the place where you saw your assailant, under the same lighting and possibly with the same clothes.’

  His inspectors were combing the embankments, Place Maubert and all the usual haunts of Paris tramps, in search of the jacket with the missing button.

  ‘You don’t need me any more now?’

  ‘No, mademoiselle. Thank you for coming. Monsieur Moncin, you may sit down again. Cigarette?’

  ‘No thank you, I don’t smoke.’

  Maigret left him with Lapointe on guard, and the inspector had been told not to question him, or speak to him, and to answer vaguely if he should ask any questions himself.

  In the inspectors’ office, Maigret met Lognon, who had come to ask for instructions.

  ‘Could you go into my office and just take a look at the man sitting there with Lapointe?’

  Meanwhile, he made a brief call to Coméliau, and dropped in on the chief, bringing him up to date. When he caught up again with Inspector Hard-done-by, the other man was frowning, with the look of someone vainly trying to remember something.

  ‘You know him?’

  Lognon had been working in the Grandes-Carrières police station for twenty-two years, and he lived five hundred metres from the house where Moncin had been born.

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere before. But in what surroundings?’

  ‘His father was a butcher on Rue Caulaincourt. He’s dead, but the mother still lives in the same building. Come with me.’

  They took one of the Police Judiciaire’s small cars and an inspector drove them to Montmartre.

  ‘I’m still trying to think. It’s infuriating. I’m sure I know him. I’d even swear we’d had contact of some kind …’

  ‘Did you give him a ticket for anything, some minor offence?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’ll come to me.’

>   The butcher’s shop was quite a large one, with three or four assistants and a plump woman at the till.

  ‘Shall I come up with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The lift was cramped. The concierge came hurrying when she saw them entering it.

  ‘Who do you want?’

  ‘Madame Moncin.’

  ‘Fourth floor.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  The building, although clean and well-kept, was nevertheless a couple of notches down from the bourgeois house on Boulevard Saint-Germain. The lift shaft was narrower, as were the doors, and the stairs, waxed or polished, were uncarpeted; most of the doors carried visiting cards rather than brass plates.

  The woman who opened the door to them was much younger than Maigret had expected and very thin, so nervous that she was actually twitching.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret from the Police Judiciaire.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s me you want to speak to?’

  She was as dark as her son was fair, with small bright eyes and a few stray hairs on her upper lip.

  ‘Come in, then, I was just tidying up.’

  The apartment was nevertheless in apple-pie order. The rooms were small. The furniture must date from its owner’s marriage.

  ‘Did you see your son last night?’

  That was enough to make her stiffen.

  ‘What do the police want with my son?’

  ‘Could you answer my question, please?’

  ‘Why would I have seen him?’

  ‘I suppose he sometimes comes to visit?’

  ‘Often.’

  ‘With his wife?’

  ‘I don’t see that that’s any of your business.’

  She didn’t ask them to sit down, and stayed standing herself, as if she hoped their conversation would be brief. On the walls were photographs of Marcel Moncin at various ages, some taken in the countryside, and some drawings and naïve paintings which he must have done as a child.

  ‘Did your son call on you yesterday evening?’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘He did come, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not later at night either?’

  ‘He’s not in the habit of visiting me in the middle of the night! Are you going to tell me what these questions mean, yes or no? I warn you, I won’t answer. I’m in my own home, I have the right to say nothing.’

  ‘Madame Moncin, I’m sorry to inform you that your son is suspected of having committed five murders during the last few months.’