Maigret and the Loner

by Georges Simenon

  It was quite likely that the one in Rue Saint-Denis, like the others, called on tramps and beggars to endure the clumsy efforts of their novice pupils. Both men and women attended these schools, including aspiring manicurists.

  But before going there, Maigret needed the photographs. For the moment, all he could do was wait for what the fingerprints showed.

  He left Moers and two of his men to continue their work in the room and walked back downstairs with Torrence and Ascan. It was a relief to breathe the relatively clean air of the cul-de-sac.

  ‘Why do you think he was killed?’

  ‘I don’t have the slightest idea.’

  There was a courtyard, through the entrance arch. It was cluttered with old crates and refuse but it did reveal to Maigret the answer to one of the pathologist’s questions. Against one of the walls was a pump, with a bucket in a fairly good state next to it on the cobbles. He tried the pump. Nothing happened at first, but then it started up, and the water began flowing.

  Wasn’t it here that the unknown man washed? Maigret could picture him, bare-chested, splashing water on himself.

  He took his leave of Ascan and headed for Rue de la Grande-Truanderie, then to Les Halles. It was getting hotter and hotter, and he took advantage of the fact that he needed to make a telephone call to go into a bistro that looked decent enough and order a draught beer. Torrence did the same.

  ‘Put me through to Criminal Records.’

  Then he asked for Inspector Lebel, who had been dealing with the man’s fingerprints.

  ‘Hello, Lebel? Did you have time to check in the records?’

  ‘I’ve just been doing that. There are no prints matching the dead man’s.’

  Another anomaly. Most tramps have been in trouble with the law at some time in their lives.

  ‘Thanks. Do you know if the photographs are ready?’

  ‘They will be in ten minutes … Ten minutes, Mestral?’

  ‘Let’s say fifteen.’

  The headquarters of the Police Judiciaire at Quai des Orfèvres wasn’t far, and it took the two men only a few minutes to get there. Maigret went upstairs to the laboratory, where he had to wait for the photographs to dry. He had left Torrence in the inspectors’ room.

  He took three copies of each of the photographs, went back down to the Police Judiciaire offices and gave Inspector Lourtie the task of taking them to the newspapers, especially those that come out in the afternoon.

  ‘Come, Torrence. We still have an hour before lunch, let’s do the door-to-door.’

  Maigret passed a set of photographs to Torrence.

  ‘Show them to the owners of shops and little bars around Les Halles. We’ll meet back at the car.’

  He himself headed for Rue Saint-Denis. It was narrow and still bustling despite the holidays, the working-class locals not being the kind you see often at the seaside.

  Maigret checked the numbers. The one he had been given corresponded to a seed merchant’s shop. To the left of the window was an alley leading to a courtyard. Halfway along it was the bottom of a staircase, and two enamel nameplates were fixed to a wall that had once been painted green but had become an indefinable hue.

  Joseph

  School of hairdressing and manicure

  And an arrow pointed to the staircase, beside the word ‘Mezzanine’.

  Immediately below was another nameplate:

  Madame Cordier

  Artificial Flowers

  Here, too, an arrow pointed to the staircase, but was accompanied by the words ‘Second Floor’.

  Maigret mopped his brow, walked up to the mezzanine, opened a door and found himself in quite a large room barely lit by two half-windows. What dim light there was came from tarnished globes hanging from the ceiling.

  There were two rows of chairs, apparently one for men and the other for women. Young trainees, male and female, were moving about under the direction of older men, and a small, thin, almost bald character, his moustache dyed an inky black, supervised all of them.

  ‘I assume you’re in charge here?’

  ‘I’m Monsieur Joseph, yes.’

  He could have been sixty, he could have been seventy-five. Maigret looked mechanically at the men and women sitting in the chairs, which had definitely been bought second-hand. It was like being at the Salvation Army, or under the bridges, seeing that it was only tramps on whom the young people were exercising their combs, scissors and razors. It was all quite impressive, especially in the dim light. Because of the heat, the two half-windows were open, letting the street noises in, which made the atmosphere of the school even more unreal.

  Before Monsieur Joseph could lose patience, Maigret took the photographs from his pocket and held them out to the little man.

  ‘What am I supposed to do with these?’

  ‘Look at them, then tell me if you recognize him.’

  ‘What has he done? You’re police, aren’t you?’

  He was visibly mistrustful.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, Police Judiciaire.’

  This didn’t impress Monsieur Joseph.

  ‘Are you looking for him?’

  ‘No. Unfortunately, we’ve found him. He’d been shot three times in the chest.’

  ‘Where did this happen?’

  ‘At home. If we can call it that. Do you know where he lived?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’d moved into a building that was due for demolition. A young boy who was wandering in the building found him and alerted the local police. Do you recognize him?’

  ‘Yes … We all called him His Lordship.’

  ‘Did he come here often?’

  ‘It varied. Sometimes we didn’t see him for a whole month, then for a few weeks he’d come two or three times a week.’

  ‘Do you know his name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even his first name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he talk much?’

  ‘He didn’t talk at all. He’d sit down in the first chair he found, half close his eyes and let us do whatever we wanted. I was the one who asked him to let his moustache and goatee beard grow. They’re coming back into fashion, and young hairdressers have to learn how to cut them, which is harder than you might think.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Three or four months.’

  ‘Before that, he was clean-shaven?’

  ‘Yes. He had wonderful hair, the kind you can do anything you like with.’

  ‘Had he been coming here long?’

  ‘Three or four years.’

  ‘You only use tramps, I see.’

  ‘Almost exclusively. They know that at the end of the morning or afternoon I’ll give them each a five-franc coin.’

  ‘Did you give him five francs, too?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did he know any of your regulars?’

  ‘I never saw him talk to any of them, and whenever anyone talked to him he pretended not to hear.’

  It was nearly midday. The scissors were clattering more quickly now. In a few minutes, there would be a stampede to get out, just like in school.

  ‘Do you live locally?’

  ‘I live with my wife on the first floor of this building, just above where we are now.’

  ‘Have you ever bumped into him in the street?’

  ‘I don’t think so. If it did happen, I didn’t notice … Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time …’

  He went and pressed a button, then sat down behind a kind of counter, in front of which a queue formed.

  Maigret slowly went back downstairs. After so many years in the Police Judiciaire, including stints on the beat and in the railway police, he thought he knew all the Parisian fauna. But he did not recall having ever met a man like the one who had been nicknamed His Lordship.

  He walked slowly back to the car, which was parked on the corner of Rue Rambuteau. Torrence got there almost at the same time, mopping the sweat from his brow.

>   ‘Did you find anything?’

  ‘First of all, the baker’s in Rue du Cygne, where he bought his bread.’

  ‘Did he go there every day?’

  ‘Pretty much. Most often late in the morning.’

  ‘Do they know anything about him there?’

  ‘No, nothing. He barely opened his mouth to place his order.’

  ‘Did he ever buy anything else?’

  ‘Not there. But in Rue Coquillière he’d buy slices of sausage, or a saveloy. On one corner of the street there’s an open-air fries stall that also sells hot sausages, especially at night. He’d sometimes buy a bag of fries and a sausage about three in the morning. I also showed the photographs in two or three bistros. They did see him, but not very often, and then he’d only order a coffee. He never drank wine or spirits.’

  The picture of this man was growing increasingly strange. His Lordship, to use the name Monsieur Joseph had given him, seemed to have had no contact with other human beings. Apparently he worked in Les Halles at night, whenever they hired him to unload a lorry of vegetables or fruit.

  ‘I have to telephone the Forensic Institute,’ Maigret said, remembering.

  That gave him the opportunity to have his second beer of the morning.

  ‘Could you put me through to Dr Lagodinec, please?’

  ‘Hold on, I’ll call him back. He’s just on his way out.’

  ‘Hello, Lagodinec? Maigret here. I don’t suppose you’ve done the post-mortem yet?’

  ‘I’m doing it first thing this afternoon.’

  ‘Could you make sure you don’t spoil the face? I’m going to need more photographs.’

  ‘That’s easy. When will you send the photographer?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning, along with a hairdresser.’

  ‘What will he do to him?’

  ‘Shave off his moustache and beard.’

  Torrence dropped Maigret off in Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, opposite his apartment.

  ‘Shall I carry on this afternoon?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the same neighbourhood?’

  ‘Maybe try the riverbank, too. He may have slept there at some time.’

  Madame Maigret could see immediately that he was worried and pretended not to notice.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Not very.’

  He was the one who wanted to talk about his morning.

  ‘I’ve just encountered one of the most surprising characters imaginable.’

  ‘A criminal?’

  ‘No. A victim. The man’s dead. He’d set up home in an empty building that had been marked for demolition for years. He only used one room that was still more or less inhabitable and in it he put together the most incongruous collection of objects found in dustbins and on waste ground.’

  ‘A tramp, in other words.’

  ‘Except that he looked quite aristocratic.’

  He told her about the hairdressing school and showed her the photographs.

  ‘Of course, it’s hard to judge from the photographs of a dead man.’

  ‘But surely people in the neighbourhood must know him?’

  ‘Nobody knows his name, not even his first name. At the hairdressing school, they called him His Lordship … Photographs will appear in the afternoon papers … Maybe some of the readers will recognize him.’

  True to his word, he ate without much appetite. He didn’t like it when he couldn’t understand, and right now he understood nothing about that morning’s discovery.

  By two o’clock, he was sitting in his office. After filling his pipe, he looked through his mail. When he was shown the newspapers, he saw that two of them had put the photograph on the front page.

  ‘Do you know this man?’ one asked.

  The other had the headline: ‘A dead man with no name’.

  There were reporters in the corridor, and Maigret let them in. He had almost nothing to tell them except that he was making every effort to identify the man found in Impasse du Vieux-Four.

  ‘Could he have committed suicide?’

  ‘There was no weapon in the room or anywhere in the building.’

  ‘Can we go there and take photographs?’

  ‘The body’s not there any more, of course.’

  ‘Just to capture the atmosphere.’

  ‘If you like. There’s an officer guarding the door. Tell him you have my permission.’

  ‘You seem worried.’

  ‘I’m trying to understand, and I hope that’ll happen quite soon. This time, I’m not keeping anything under wraps. I’ve told you all I know. The more it’s talked about, the better.’

  About four o’clock, they started to receive telephone calls. Some came from practical jokers, others from the kind of fanatics who muscle in on every case. One young girl asked:

  ‘Does he have a wart on his cheek?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it’s not the person I was thinking of.’

  Four or five people came to headquarters. Patiently, Maigret admitted them and showed them the various photographs.

  ‘Do you recognize him?’

  ‘He looks a little bit like an uncle of mine who’s already run away several times … But no, it’s not him. This man was tall, wasn’t he?’

  ‘About one metre eighty.’

  ‘My uncle was very short and very thin.’

  For the first time that week, the storm didn’t break, and the air was stifling.

  At about five, Torrence got back.

  ‘Find anything?’

  ‘Nothing much … An old tramp under Pont-Marie vaguely remembers our man but I don’t know how far we can trust him … Apparently, several years ago, the unknown man used to sleep under the bridges … He wasn’t very sociable … They suspected that he spent part of his nights in Les Halles, but that was all they knew about him.’

  ‘No name, no nickname even?’

  ‘One nickname, yes: the Quiet One.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘From time to time he’d buy a candle.’

  At last, at six o’clock, he received some more specific information. It was Dr Lagodinec calling him after performing the post-mortem.

  ‘I’ll send you my report tomorrow morning but I can tell you roughly what I know. In my opinion, the man isn’t as old as he seems. How old would you say he was, Maigret?’

  ‘Sixty-five? Seventy?’

  ‘Judging by the state of his organs and arteries, he’s fifty-five at the most.’

  ‘He obviously had a hard life. What did you find in his stomach?’

  ‘Let me tell you first of all that he was killed between two and five in the morning, closer to three than to five. His last meal, which was half digested, consisted of sausage and fries. He must have eaten around two o’clock, just before going home to bed.’

  ‘And the killer took advantage of his being asleep to—’

  ‘To do what?’ the doctor objected. ‘It may have been someone he trusted, someone he didn’t have any suspicion of.’

  ‘I find it hard to see him trusting anyone that much. Did he have any diseases?’

  ‘No. No infirmities either. He was a strong man, very tough.’

  ‘Thanks, doctor. I’ll wait for your report. If you like, I can send someone for it tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Not before nine, please.’

  ‘Nine is fine by me.’

  What had most struck Maigret was His Lordship’s age. He seemed to have been a tramp for several years, perhaps many years, and tramps are generally older. They also tend to become quite close. From one end of the riverbanks of Paris, upriver, to the other end, downriver, they all knew each other, more or less, and a newcomer would immediately arouse curiosity among the veterans.

  ‘What else did you find, Torrence?’

  ‘That’s pretty much it. Apart from the old man under Pont-Marie, the others don’t remember him. And yet there are some who’ve been tramps for more than ten years … I went to the toba
cconist’s closest to where he lived. He sometimes bought matches there.’

  ‘What about cigarettes?’

  ‘No. As far as cigarettes went, he’d just pick up cigarette ends from the pavement.’

  The telephone rang.

  ‘Hello? Monsieur Maigret?’

  It was a woman’s voice, still young from the sound of her.

  ‘Yes … Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘My name wouldn’t mean anything to you … Did the man whose body you found this morning have a scar on his scalp?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know. If he does have one, I hope the pathologist will mention it in his report, which I’m expecting tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who he might be?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘I’ll phone you tomorrow during the day.’

  She hung up without saying anything more. It suddenly struck Maigret that he didn’t need to wait until the next day to have an answer to the young woman’s question. He called the hairdressing school. It was Monsieur Joseph who answered.

  ‘Maigret here. There’s a question I forgot to ask you this morning. Did you ever do His Lordship’s hair yourself?’

  ‘To show some pupils, yes.’

  ‘Did you notice a scar on his scalp?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t dare ask him what kind of accident he’d had.’

  ‘A large scar?’

  ‘About six centimetres long. It hadn’t been stitched up, which meant the scar was quite wide.’

  ‘Was it noticeable through his hair?’

  ‘Not when his hair had been done. He had a wonderful head of hair, as I think I told you.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  So a first contact had been established, at least for a few moments. Somewhere in Paris there was a young woman who had known His Lordship, given that she knew about his scar. She had been careful to hang up before Maigret could ask her any questions. Would she call back the next day as she had said?

  Maigret was impatient. He couldn’t wait to put a name to this unknown man and find out the reason why he had lived as he had.

  The heterogeneous collection of objects cluttering the room in Impasse du Vieux-Four suggested a madman or an obsessive. Why gather and put together things he could never sell and which were of no use to him?