Maigret and the Loner

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Of course not. I was ten when he left here. An upholsterer took his place. He was here for about fifteen years. He wasn’t all that young any more and decided to retire to the country. That’s when I rented the workshop.’

  ‘Did anyone ever come and ask you for information about Marcel Vivien?’

  ‘No, nobody. But, since yesterday, people who’ve been here a long time have been talking about him. This morning, when I was having my coffee and croissants, it was all they were talking about. The old folks, even the middle-aged people, remember him and can’t understand how he could have become a tramp. Apparently he was a good-looking man, tall and strong, who had a good trade and made a very decent living. And yet he vanished overnight without saying a word to anyone.’

  ‘Not even to his wife?’

  ‘So they say. I don’t know if it’s true. I’m just repeating what I heard. They say he’d been missing for several days, maybe even a week, before she came here to ask after him. That’s all I know, but if you want to hear people talk about him, just go to the bistro next door.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He and Torrence went back out into Rue Lepic. The identity of the dead man was becoming clearer. They both went into the little bar next door. It was obvious from the start that all those at the counter, which was still of the old-fashioned kind, were regulars.

  ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘A beer.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Torrence said.

  A pleasant smell of fruit and vegetables filled the air, wafting in from the barrows lined up along the pavement.

  The owner served them.

  ‘Aren’t you Inspector Maigret?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘I assume you’re here about the man whose picture was in the papers yesterday afternoon.’

  Now everyone was looking at them and it was just a question of who would be the first to speak.

  In the event it was a powerful-looking man with huge arms in a white, bloodstained apron, a butcher, who spoke first.

  ‘Who’s to say he didn’t run off with some young thing, and then, when she dumped him, he couldn’t face going back to his old lady? I had an assistant for almost ten years. He was the quietest boy you could imagine. All the same, one morning he vanished without saying a word. He’d run off with an eighteen-year-old girl. He was forty-five. Two years later, we heard he’d shown up at the unemployment office in Strasbourg.’

  The others nodded in approval. This was a typical bistro in a densely populated neighbourhood. Most of those who were here were artisans, small shopkeepers and retired men who popped in for a quick drink in the middle of the morning.

  ‘Is there anyone here who saw him again after he disappeared?’

  They all looked at each other.

  A thin man in a leather apron conveyed the general opinion.

  ‘He wasn’t stupid enough to come back to the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Did you know his wife?’

  ‘No. I don’t even know where he lived. I only ever met him here, when he’d come in for his coffee. He wasn’t a big talker.’

  ‘You mean he was stuck-up?’

  ‘No, not stuck-up. He just didn’t like talking.’

  Maigret drank his beer. The first of the day. He was keeping count. When he saw Pardon again, he would quote figures to him, not without pride. Admittedly, when it came to tobacco, his record wasn’t so impressive, and he still smoked as many pipes a day as before. They couldn’t take away all his pleasures just because he was nearing fifty-five.

  ‘I think I bumped into him in Rue de la Cossonnerie one day, but his hair was all white, and he was dressed like a beggar. I told myself it couldn’t be him and I went on my way.’

  This was said by a little old man drinking an aperitif of a brand that had been fashionable forty years earlier but that nobody ordered these days.

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Maybe three months? No, more, spring was late this year and hadn’t started yet.’

  ‘Thank you very much, gentlemen.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. At your service. I hope you get your hands on the lowlife who shot him in the belly.’

  They set off for Rue Caulaincourt. Would they ring every doorbell and question every concierge to track down Vivien’s wife, assuming she still lived in the neighbourhood?

  Maigret couldn’t face it in this heat, and he headed for the local police station in Rue Lambert.

  He had once known a man who had vanished in similar circumstances to Vivien, although it was hard to know if it was for the same reasons.

  He was a Parisian industrialist, well-to-do, without any apparent problems. He was over fifty, with a wife and two children, including a twenty-one-year-old son who was studying at university. As for his daughter, who was three years younger, no one had a bad word to say about her.

  One morning, he had left at his usual time for his factory in Levallois. He drove himself. That was the last anyone had heard of him for several years.

  His car had been found not far from Rue du Temple. He didn’t have a mistress, as far as anyone was aware. His doctor stated that he had no serious illness and could expect to live many more years.

  The police had looked everywhere, except where he actually was. The reality was that overnight he had chosen to become a tramp. He had sold his clothes to a second-hand dealer in Rue des Blancs-Manteaux and swapped them for what were basically rags. From that point on, he had stopped shaving.

  Three years later, one of his suppliers had recognized him in Nice, his face hidden beneath a thick beard. He was selling newspapers on café terraces. The supplier had seen fit to inform the police and telephone his wife. But, although they had combed the city, they hadn’t found him. Maigret often thought about him.

  ‘You should stop searching for him, madame. You know now that he’s alive and well. He’s chosen to live the life he liked.’

  ‘Are you telling me he deliberately became a tramp?’

  She hadn’t understood. The man had kept his identity card, and they had been able to inform his family when he had died, fifteen years later, in the old quarter of Marseille, which still existed at the time.

  ‘Hello, Dubois,’ Maigret said to the officer behind the counter.

  Miraculously, or because of the season, the station was empty.

  ‘The chief has just gone out, but he’ll be back soon.’

  ‘I’m not here to see him. I’d just like you to look in your registers and tell me if a Madame Vivien, Madame Marcel Vivien, is still living in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Do you have her last known address?’

  ‘It’s in Rue Caulaincourt, but I don’t know the number.’

  ‘Recently?’

  ‘No. She was there twenty years ago.’

  The officer opened several large black books and ran his forefinger down some of the pages.

  After a quarter of an hour, he had found it.

  ‘Is her first name Gabrielle?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘She’s still registered at 67, Rue Caulaincourt.’

  ‘Thanks, Dubois. You’ve saved me at least an hour’s door-to-door. Rue Caulaincourt’s a long street.’

  The two men took the car, even though they only had 300 metres to go. Number 67 was quite close to Place Constantin-Pecqueur.

  ‘Shall I come in with you?’

  ‘It’s best if I’m alone. Two of us might alarm her.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you at Manière’s.’

  The famous brasserie was just along the street. Maigret knocked at the door of the concierge’s lodge, where he could see a fairly young woman arranging fruit on a dish.

  ‘Come in.’

  He opened the door.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘I need to know if Madame Vivien still lives here.’

  ‘Yes, on the fourth floor.’

  ‘Is it the same apartment she was living in when her husband was still around?’


  ‘I wasn’t concierge then. I was too young. But I think she changed floors to have a smaller apartment: two rooms and a kitchen, looking out on the courtyard.’

  ‘Do you know if she’s in?’

  ‘It’s quite likely she is. She only goes out early in the morning, to do her shopping. And even then not every day.’

  Maigret headed for the narrow lift. The concierge caught up with him to say:

  ‘It’s the door on the left.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Maigret was more impatient than ever. He had the impression he was reaching his goal, that in a few minutes, he would know everything about the man in Impasse du Vieux-Four.

  He pressed a button and heard a bell ringing behind the door. Then the door opened, and a hard-faced middle-aged woman looked at him with a frown.

  ‘Madame Vivien?’

  ‘What do you want? Are you a reporter?’

  ‘No. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Police Judiciaire, and I think you phoned me yesterday.’

  She didn’t say either yes or no and didn’t invite him to enter. They looked at each other without coming to a decision, and it was Maigret who at last made up his mind to push the door open and walk into the hall.

  ‘I have nothing to say,’ she said, as if her mind, too, was made up.

  ‘All I ask is for you to answer a few questions.’

  A door was open, the door to a kind of sitting room that served rather as a dressmaker’s workshop. The sewing machine was on a little table, and the big table was covered in unfinished dresses.

  ‘You’ve become a dressmaker, I see.’

  ‘We all have to earn a living.’

  The chairs were as cluttered as the table, and Maigret remained standing. The woman did not sit down either.

  What was most striking about her was the hardness of her face, the stiffness of her body. You sensed that she had suffered a lot and had become somehow frozen, withdrawn.

  She must have been pretty once, must have dressed in bright colours, but now she seemed unconcerned about her appearance.

  ‘Two people, two women, phoned me yesterday. They both asked me the same question and then immediately hung up as if they didn’t want to be identified. I assume the second one was your daughter.’

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘Is she married? Does she have children?’

  ‘What business is that of yours? Can’t we be left in peace? If this goes on, we’ll be getting reporters and photographers soon.’

  ‘I can promise you I won’t give them your address.’

  She shrugged, as if she were resigned.

  ‘Your husband has been identified by several people. There’s no doubt about it now. Did you know what had become of him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did he tell you when he left twenty years ago?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Did you notice anything different about him before he left?’

  He had the impression she shuddered at this, but he wasn’t sure.

  ‘He was the same as usual.’

  ‘Were you and he on good terms?’

  ‘I was his wife.’

  ‘We sometimes see a husband and wife who constantly quarrel and make each other’s life difficult.’

  ‘That wasn’t the case with us.’

  ‘Did he ever go out alone in the evenings?’

  ‘No. Whenever he went out, I went with him.’

  ‘What kinds of places did you go?’

  ‘To the cinema. Or else we’d go for a walk in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘In the days before he left, did he seem worried?’

  ‘No.’

  Maigret had the impression she was lying, and that was the reason she was mostly answering in monosyllables.

  ‘Did you have friends come to visit you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Relatives?’

  ‘Neither of us had relatives in Paris.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘In the shop where I worked.’

  She had the pale, dull complexion of someone who lives indoors all the time, and her body had lost all its suppleness.

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Do you have a photograph of him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can see one on the mantelpiece.’

  A young, good-humoured, almost cheerful Marcel Vivien.

  ‘I’m not taking that one out of its frame.’

  ‘You’ll get it back as soon as we’ve had copies made.’

  ‘And I say no. At least don’t deprive me of what I have left.’

  She took a step towards the door.

  ‘May I have your daughter’s address?’

  ‘Where did you get mine?’

  ‘At the local police station.’

  She almost told him that he could find her daughter’s address in the same way, then shrugged again.

  ‘She was barely eight when he left.’

  ‘She’s married, isn’t she?’

  On the mantelpiece, there was also a photograph of two children who looked about six and four.

  ‘She’s married, yes. Her name’s Odette Delaveau now and she lives at 12, Rue Marcadet. Now I’d like you to leave. I have a customer who’s coming for a fitting this afternoon, and her dress still needs putting together.’

  ‘I’m very grateful to you,’ Maigret said, not without irony.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  He still had a lot of questions to ask her but sensed it would be futile. It would take a lot longer to tame her, if he ever could.

  He found Torrence on the terrace of Manière’s.

  ‘How about a beer?’ Torrence said.

  Maigret gave in to the temptation. This was the second one.

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Tough.’

  He somewhat resented the fact that she was making things harder for him with her reticence, but deep down he understood her.

  Would she demand her husband’s body so that she could give him a proper funeral? Had she been thinking about that before Maigret tracked her down in Rue Caulaincourt?

  It was as if Torrence had read his thoughts:

  ‘He’s going to need a funeral all the same.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And there’ll be reporters and photographers there.’

  ‘Take me to Rue Marcadet. Number 12.’

  ‘It’s just round the corner.’

  ‘I know. In Montmartre, everything’s just round the corner.’

  It was also one of the parts of Paris where people lived the longest in the same place. Some of them almost never went down into town.

  ‘Are we going to the daughter’s place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The building was identical to the one in Rue Caulaincourt, except that it was a little more recent, and the lift was bigger.

  ‘Shall I let you go up?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t think I’ll be there long. Judging by how her mother received me.’

  He inquired of the concierge. This one was quite old.

  ‘Second floor on the right. She got back with the children just a quarter of an hour ago.’

  ‘Does her husband come back for lunch?’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t have time. He has an important position. He’s head of a department at the Bon Marché store.’

  Maigret went up to the second floor and rang at the door on the right, behind which he could hear children’s voices. The apartment was bright and, at this hour, flooded with sunlight.

  The young woman who had opened the door looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘You’re Inspector Maigret, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Who gave you my address?’

  ‘Your mother. I just left her.’

  ‘She agreed to see you?’

  ‘Yes. She has nothing to feel ashamed of, or has she?’

  ‘No, she has nothing to feel ashamed of, but she hates any
one to talk to her about the past.’

  ‘And yet she keeps a photograph of your father on the mantelpiece.’

  The two children were on their knees, playing with a little electric train.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why you hung up when I still had questions to ask you.’

  ‘I didn’t want anyone in the neighbourhood pointing their finger at me.’

  ‘What do people think?’

  ‘That my father died twenty years ago and my mother’s a widow.’

  ‘I assume she’ll go and identify the body and ask if she can give him a decent funeral.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

  ‘Would you both have let him be put in a mass grave?’

  ‘Like I said, I hadn’t thought about it.’

  ‘Do you remember your father?’

  ‘Yes, I remember him very well. Don’t forget I was eight when he left.’

  ‘What kind of man was he?’

  ‘A handsome man, very strong, almost always cheerful. He’d often take me out for a walk, just the two of us. He’d buy me ice cream and let me do whatever I wanted.’

  ‘Not your mother?’

  ‘Mother was stricter. She was always afraid I’d get dirty.’

  ‘How did you find out that your father wouldn’t be coming back? Did he send you a letter?’

  ‘If he did, Mother never told me. I don’t think he wrote to me. We didn’t know a thing. My mother spent her time watching out for him. She’d go every day to his workshop in Rue Lepic to see if he was there.’

  ‘Had you noticed anything unusual in the days before he left?’

  ‘No. Did Mother tell you anything?’

  ‘All I got from her were one-word answers. Do you think she has something to say?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never asked her, but I have the impression she’s always hidden something from me.’

  ‘Now that you’re not a little girl any more, I can ask you if you ever heard about your father having another woman.’

  She blushed.

  ‘It’s funny. I thought about that, too. But, given the life he led, it’s not very likely. He wouldn’t have left us for a woman, or else he would have done it openly.’

  ‘Did he have any friends?’

  ‘I never knew of any. Nobody ever came to the house. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d spend the evening playing cards in a café.’

  ‘Did he and your mother ever argue?’

  ‘I never saw them argue.’