Maigret Sets a Trap

by Georges Simenon

  She turned on him, ready to leap at his throat.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘We have reason to think that he is the man who has been attacking women in the streets of Montmartre and that he tried again, unsuccessfully, last night.’

  She began to tremble, and he had the feeling, without any clear reason, that she was play-acting. It seemed to him that her reaction was not the normal one for a mother who had suspected nothing of the kind.

  ‘And you dare to accuse my Marcel! But I can tell you it’s not true, he’s innocent, he’s as innocent as …’

  She looked at the childhood photographs of her son, and clenching her fists, went on:

  ‘Just look at him! Take a good look and you won’t dare say such monstrous things!’

  ‘Your son has not been here in the last twenty-four hours, then?’

  She repeated forcefully:

  ‘No, no and no!’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t remember his visits?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell me, Madame Moncin, did he have any serious illnesses as a child?’

  ‘Nothing worse than measles and bronchitis one time. What are you trying to get me to say? That he’s insane? That he has always been mad?’

  ‘When he got married, you gave your consent?’

  ‘Yes. I was rather stupid. I even …’

  She didn’t finish the sentence, but seemed to cut herself off short.

  ‘You arranged the marriage?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘And now you don’t get on with your daughter-in-law?’

  ‘What business is that of yours? My son’s private life doesn’t concern anyone, do you hear? Not you, not me. If that woman …’

  ‘If that woman …’

  ‘Nothing. Have you arrested Marcel?’

  ‘He’s in my office at Quai des Orfèvres.’

  ‘In handcuffs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you going to take him to prison?’

  ‘Possibly. Probably, even. The young woman he attacked last night has recognized him.’

  ‘She’s lying. I want to see him. I want to see her too, I’ll soon tell her …’

  This was the third or fourth sentence she had left unfinished. Her eyes were quite dry, though shining with fever or fury.

  ‘Wait a moment. I’m coming with you.’

  Maigret and Lognon looked at each other. She hadn’t been asked to come. She was the one making decisions suddenly, and they heard her in the next room, where the door stood ajar, changing her dress and taking a hat out of a box.

  ‘If you don’t wish me to accompany you, I’ll go by Métro.’

  ‘I should warn you that the inspector will stay here and search the flat.’

  She looked at the skinny Inspector Lognon as if she wanted to grab him by the scruff of the neck and push him down the stairs.

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Yes, madame. If you wish everything to be by the book, I’m willing to sign a search warrant for him.’

  Without replying, but muttering indistinctly, she made for the door, saying to Maigret:

  ‘Come along, then!’

  And from the landing to Lognon:

  ‘As for you, I’ve seen you somewhere before. And if by any chance you break anything or disarrange my cupboards …’

  For the whole journey in the car, as she sat beside Maigret, she was muttering to herself:

  ‘Ah no, this can’t be happening, I’ll go to the top, I’ll see the Minister, I’ll go to the President of the Republic if I have to … and the newspapers, I’ll see that they publish what I tell them …’

  In the corridor at the Police Judiciaire, she saw the photographers at once, and when they aimed their lenses at her, she marched straight at them with the clear intention of seizing their cameras, so that they had to beat a retreat.

  ‘This way.’

  When she found herself in Maigret’s office, where the only occupants were Moncin and a drowsy-looking Lapointe, she stopped dead, stared at her son in some relief, and said, without rushing towards him, but enveloping him with her protective gaze:

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Marcel. I’m here now.’

  Moncin had stood up and gave Maigret a look heavy with reproach.

  ‘What have they been doing to you? They haven’t hurt you, have they?’

  ‘No, Mamma.’

  ‘They’re mad! I tell you, they’re out of their minds! But I’ll get you the best lawyer in Paris, never mind the cost. I’ll give him all my money, I’ll sell the house, I’ll beg in the streets if I have to.’

  ‘Mamma, do calm down.’

  He hardly dared glance at her, and seemed to be apologizing to the policemen for his mother’s attitude.

  ‘Does Yvonne know you’re here?’

  She was peering round for her. How was it that at a time like this, her daughter-in-law wasn’t at her husband’s side?

  ‘Yes, she knows, Mamma.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Madame, if you would sit down.’

  ‘I don’t need to sit down. What I want is to get my son back. Come along, Marcel. You’ll see, they won’t dare keep you here.’

  ‘I regret to tell you that we will, madame.’

  ‘So you’re arresting him?’

  ‘I’m holding him here to assist us with our inquiries.’

  ‘It comes to the same thing. Have you given any thought to this? Do you realize the responsibility you are taking? I warn you, I’m not going to stand for this, I’ll move heaven and earth—’

  ‘Would you kindly sit down and answer a few questions, madame.’

  ‘No, I won’t answer anything!’

  And this time, she went over to her son and kissed him on both cheeks.

  ‘Don’t worry, Marcel. Don’t let them scare you. Your mother is here. I’ll take care of you. You’ll soon be hearing from me.’

  And, glaring at Maigret, she headed determinedly for the door. Lapointe looked as if he were waiting for instructions. Maigret signed to him to let her go, and they heard her in the corridor shouting something at the reporters.

  ‘Your mother seems very attached to you.’

  ‘I’m all she has left in the world.’

  ‘Was she very fond of your father?’

  He opened his mouth to answer, but thought better of it, and Maigret thought he could understand.

  ‘What kind of man was your father?’

  Another hesitation.

  ‘Was your mother not happy with him?’

  To this, he spat out with deep bitterness in his voice:

  ‘He was a butcher!’

  ‘You were ashamed of him?’

  ‘Inspector, I beg you not to ask me questions like this. I can see what you’re getting at, and I can tell you that you’re barking up the wrong tree. You can see the state you’ve got my mother into.’

  ‘She got herself into a state all on her own.’

  ‘I presume that, at Boulevard Saint-Germain or somewhere, your men are putting my wife through the same treatment?’

  This time, Maigret chose not to reply.

  ‘She has nothing to tell you. Any more than my mother. Or me. Question me as much as you like, but leave them alone.’

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘Again? Will this take long?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘I suppose I’ve no right to have anything to eat or drink?’

  ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Some water.’

  ‘You wouldn’t prefer beer?’

  ‘I don’t drink, beer, wine or spirits.’

  ‘And you don’t smoke,’ said Maigret thoughtfully.

  He took Lapointe over to the door.

  ‘Start questioning him gently at first, without getting to the heart of the matter. Talk to him about the suit; ask him what he was doing on the 2nd of February and the 3rd of March
and all the other dates of the Montmartre murders. Find out whether he goes to see his mother on set days, and what time of day or evening, and why the two women don’t get on.’

  Then he went off himself to have lunch, sitting alone at a table in the Brasserie Dauphine, where he ordered a veal stew that gave off an aroma of good home cooking.

  He telephoned his wife to say he wouldn’t be home, and was on the point of telephoning Professor Tissot. He would have liked to see him and chat as they had at Pardon’s. But Tissot was a man as busy as himself. And anyway, Maigret had no precise question to put to him.

  He was melancholy and depressed for no particular reason. He felt that they were really almost there. Matters had moved faster than he had dared to hope. Marthe Jusserand’s reaction had been significant. And if she had not been more categorical, it was because she had scruples. The story of giving the suit to a tramp was entirely unconvincing. And in any case, they would soon hear about it, since the central Paris tramps were not very many in number and were mostly well known to the police.

  ‘You don’t need me any more, boss?’

  This was Mazet, who had played the role of presumed suspect, and now had nothing left to do.

  ‘I called in at headquarters. They let me take a look at the man. You think he’s the one?’

  Maigret shrugged his shoulders. Above all, he wanted to understand. It’s easy enough to understand a man who has stolen, or who has killed in order not to be captured, or out of jealousy, or in a fit of rage, or to get his hands on an inheritance. Crimes of that kind, everyday crimes after a fashion, sometimes made him feel sad, but rarely disturbed him.

  ‘Imbeciles,’ he usually grunted. Since he claimed, like some of his illustrious predecessors, that if criminals were intelligent, they wouldn’t need to commit murder.

  But he was nevertheless capable of putting himself in their place, reconstituting their train of thought, or their sequence of emotions.

  Faced with a Marcel Moncin, however, he felt like a greenhorn, and this was so true that he had not yet dared press the questioning too far.

  This was not a man like others he had encountered, men who had infringed the laws of society and more or less consciously placed themselves on its margins.

  Moncin was different: he was a man who killed for none of the reasons that other people would understand, and in an almost childish way, before slashing the garments of his victim with a knife, as if it gave him pleasure.

  In some sense, yes, he was intelligent. His childhood did not appear to have been particularly abnormal. He had married, and seemed to be on good terms with his wife. And if his mother was somewhat excessive, there were nevertheless affinities between them.

  Did he realize it was all up with him? Had he realized it this morning, when his wife had woken him and informed him that the police were waiting for him in the drawing room?

  What were the reactions of a man like this? Was he suffering? In between his crises, did he feel shame, or hate for himself and his instincts? Or, on the contrary, did he feel a certain satisfaction in supposing himself to be different from other people, a difference which perhaps in his own mind amounted to superiority?

  ‘Coffee, Maigret?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A cognac?’

  No! If he drank spirits, he would be drowsy and he was already feeling heavy, as almost always happened at a certain point in the investigation, when he tried to identify with the people he was confronting.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got him, then?’

  He looked up with inquiring eyes at the owner of the restaurant.

  ‘It’s in the midday papers. They appear to think this time it’s the right man. Led you a dance, didn’t he! Some people were saying he was like Jack the Ripper, he’d never be caught.’

  Maigret drank his coffee, lit a pipe and went out into the warm air, which seemed to stand still, imprisoned between the paving stones and the slate-coloured sky.

  A man with the appearance of a down-and-out was sitting on a chair in the inspectors’ office, cap in hand, and wearing a jacket entirely out of keeping with the rest of his clothes.

  It was Marcel Moncin’s famous jacket.

  ‘Where did you find him?’ Maigret asked his colleagues.

  ‘By the Seine, near Pont d’Austerlitz.’

  He put no questions to the tramp, only to the inspectors.

  ‘And what does he say?’

  ‘That he found this lying on the embankment.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Six o’clock this morning.’

  ‘Where are the trousers?’

  ‘They were in the same place, apparently. Two of these men, they’re pals, decided to split the suit between them. We haven’t got the one with the trousers yet, but it won’t be long.’

  Maigret went over to the tramp, leaned over and noticed that there was indeed a cigarette burn on the lapel.

  ‘Take the jacket off.’

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath, only a ragged vest.

  ‘Sure it was this morning, are you?’

  ‘Yes, I am. My pal, he’ll tell you, Big Paul. These gents here, they all know him.’

  Maigret knew him too, and he passed the jacket to Torrence.

  ‘Take it to Moers. I don’t know if it’s possible, but he might be able to work out whether the cigarette burn is recent or not. Tell him that in this case, it’s a matter of the last forty-eight hours. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, understood, boss.’

  ‘If that lapel was burned last night or this morning …’

  He pointed to his own office.

  ‘Where’ve they got to in there?’

  ‘Lapointe has had beer and sandwiches brought up.’

  ‘For both of them?’

  ‘The sandwiches, yes. The other one just drank Vichy water.’

  Maigret pushed open the door. Lapointe, sitting at the desk, was leaning over the paper on which he was making notes, and thinking up his next question.

  ‘You shouldn’t have opened the window. It just brings more warm air in.’

  Maigret went over to close it. Moncin followed him with his eyes, with a reproachful air, like a defenceless animal being tormented by children.

  ‘Let me see.’

  He glanced over the notes, questions and answers, which told him nothing new.

  ‘No further developments?’

  ‘The lawyer, Maître Rivière, telephoned to say he would handle his defence. He wanted to come over at once. I told him to contact the examining magistrate.’

  ‘Good, that was the thing to do. Anything else?’

  ‘Janvier phoned from Boulevard Saint-Germain. He’s found in the office some scrapers of various models that could have been used for the crimes. In the bedroom he found a pocketknife with a safety catch, quite a common model, with a blade of less than eight centimetres.’

  The pathologist who had carried out the autopsies, Doctor Paul, had spoken at length about the murder weapon, which had intrigued him. Normally crimes of this kind are committed with butcher’s knives, carving knives, daggers or stilettos.

  ‘From the shape and size of the wounds, I’d be inclined to say this was done with a quite ordinary pocketknife,’ he’d said. ‘Of course a pocketknife would have bent back on itself, so it had to be a model with a safety catch. In my view, the weapon wouldn’t look very dangerous in itself. What makes it lethal is the skill with which it is used.’

  ‘We’ve found your jacket, Monsieur Moncin.’

  ‘On the embankment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again. What had he been going to ask?

  ‘Have you had enough to eat?’

  The tray was still there, with half a ham sandwich uneaten. The bottle of Vichy water was empty.

  ‘Tired?’

  He gave a resigned half-smile in response. Everything about this man, including his clothes, was in half-tones. He had retained from his teenage years an air of ti
midity and amiability, difficult to describe. Maybe it had to do with his blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes, or perhaps with fragile health?

  Tomorrow, no doubt, he would be in the hands of the doctors and psychiatrists. But it would be wise not to hurry things. Afterwards it would be too late.

  ‘I’ll take over,’ Maigret said to Lapointe.

  ‘Can I go?’

  ‘Wait next door. Let me know if Moers comes up with anything.’

  Once the door was shut, he took off his jacket, slumped into a chair and put his elbows on the table. For perhaps five minutes, he let his gaze rest on Marcel Moncin, who had turned his head and was staring out of the window.

  ‘Are you very unhappy?’ he murmured at last, as if reluctant to speak.

  Moncin gave a start, and avoided looking at him for a moment before replying:

  ‘Why would I be unhappy?’

  ‘When did you discover you were different from other people?’

  The young man’s face twitched, but he managed to give a sharp laugh:

  ‘You think I’m not like other people?’

  ‘When you were younger …’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You had already realized?’

  Maigret had the feeling at that moment that if he could only find the right words, the barrier would fall between him and the man across the desk, who was holding himself rigid on the chair. He hadn’t imagined the twitch of the face. A shift had happened for a few seconds, and it would not have taken much for tears to come to Moncin’s eyes.

  ‘You must know that there’s no risk you will go either to the scaffold or to prison.’

  Had Maigret made the wrong move? Chosen the wrong words?

  The man in front of him had stiffened once more, and was back in control of himself, looking absolutely calm.

  ‘There’s no risk of anything at all, because I’m innocent.’

  ‘Innocent of what?’

  ‘What you’re accusing me of. I have nothing more to say to you. I shall answer no more questions.’

  It was not an idle threat. Maigret could sense that he had taken a decision and would now stick to it.

  ‘As you wish,’ sighed the chief inspector, pressing the bell.

  7.

  In the Lap of the Gods

  Maigret made a grave mistake. Would anyone else in his position have been able to avoid it? That was a question he often asked himself after the event, and of course he never found a satisfactory answer.