Maigret and the Loner

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Did you have a lover?’

  ‘Why do you ask me that?’

  ‘Because I’m trying to find out who could have a grudge against your husband.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t have one when I met him.’

  ‘Was he jealous?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Don’t you think, detective chief inspector, this line of questioning is a little distasteful when a woman has just learned of her husband’s death?’

  ‘Do you own a car?’

  ‘Maurice recently gave me an Alfa Romeo.’

  ‘What about him? What car did he have?’

  ‘A Bentley.’

  ‘Did he drive?’

  ‘He had a driver, but he did drive himself sometimes.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have been so unpleasant. Unfortunately, it’s my job …’

  He stood up, sighing. The large drawing room, which had a magnificent Chinese carpet in the centre, was perfectly silent.

  She showed him to the door.

  ‘I may have further questions in the next couple of days. Would you rather I called you in to Quai des Orfèvres or came to see you here?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She replied with a curt good evening.

  His stomach still felt strange and his head was heavy.

  ‘La Sardine, Rue Fontaine.’

  A few expensive cars were still parked in front of the restaurant, and a liveried doorman was pacing about on the pavement. Maigret went in and took a breath of cool, air-conditioned air.

  A head waiter he knew well, Raoul Comitat, came rushing up.

  ‘A table, Monsieur Maigret?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If you’re after the boss, he’s not here.’

  The head waiter was bald and sickly looking.

  ‘That’s unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘It almost never happens …’

  The restaurant was spacious, with twenty or twenty-five tables. The beams on the ceiling were exposed, the walls panelled in old oak up to three-quarters of their height. Everything was heavy, opulent, but free of most of the tasteless elements that are invariably part and parcel of the rustic style.

  It was after three o’clock. There were only about ten people left, predominantly actors and performers, eating quietly.

  ‘What time did Marcia leave?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you exactly but it must have been around midnight.’

  ‘Didn’t that surprise you?’

  ‘It certainly did! I doubt it’s happened more than three or four times in twenty years. Besides, you know what he’s like. I’ve served you and your wife a number of times. Always in his dinner-jacket, standing there with his hands behind his back, watching. Looks as if he never moves but he sees everything. You think he’s out front and he’s already in the kitchen or the office.’

  ‘Did he say he was coming back?’

  ‘He just muttered:

  ‘“See you in a while.”

  ‘We were by the cloakroom. Yvonne handed him his hat. I reminded him it was raining and suggested he take his raincoat, which I could see on a hook.

  ‘“No need. I’m not going far,” he said.’

  ‘Did he seem concerned?’

  ‘It was hard to tell from his expression.’

  ‘Angry?’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘Did he get a telephone call just before he left?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask at the desk. All the calls go through the cashier. But, tell me, why these questions?’

  ‘Because he’s been shot dead, and his body has been found lying on the pavement in Avenue Junot.’

  The head waiter’s features stiffened and his lower lip started to tremble slightly.

  ‘That can’t be,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Who could have done that? I can’t think of a single enemy he had. He was a good man, deep down, very happy, very proud of his success. Was there a fight?’

  ‘No. He was killed somewhere else and then taken, probably by car, to Avenue Junot. You said he was wearing a hat when he went out, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There had been no sign of a hat on the ground in Avenue Junot.

  ‘I’ve got a few questions to ask the cashier.’

  The head waiter hurried over to a table that was asking for the bill. The bill was ready, and he put it on a plate, half covered with a napkin.

  The cashier was a small, slender brunette with beautiful dark eyes.

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  ‘I know …’

  ‘There’s no reason to keep you in the dark any longer: your employer has just been murdered.’

  ‘So that’s why you and Raoul looked as if you were plotting … I’m stunned … He was standing right where you are only moments ago.’

  ‘Did he get any telephone calls?’

  ‘Only one, just before he left.’

  ‘From a man? A woman?’

  ‘That’s just what I wondered. It could have been either, a man with a slightly high-pitched voice or a woman with a rather deep one.’

  ‘Had you heard that voice before?’

  ‘No. They asked to speak to Monsieur Maurice.’

  ‘Is that what they called him?’

  ‘Yes. Like all his friends. I asked who was calling and they said:

  ‘“He’ll know.”

  ‘I looked up, and Monsieur Maurice was already standing there, in front of me.

  ‘“Is it for me? What name did they give?”

  ‘“No name.”

  ‘He frowned and reached for the telephone.

  ‘“Who is this?”

  ‘Naturally I couldn’t hear what the person on the other end was saying.

  ‘“What’s that?” Monsieur Maurice went on, “I can’t hear you properly … What? … Are you sure? … If I get my hands on you …”

  ‘They must have been calling from a telephone box because they put more money in. I recognized the sound.

  ‘“I know where that is as well as you do …”

  ‘He slammed the phone down. He was heading for the door when he swung round and went into his office, behind the kitchens.’

  ‘Does he often go in there?’

  ‘Hardly ever during the evening. When he comes in he goes in there to have a look at the post. In the evenings after we close I take him the money, and we go over it together.’

  ‘Is the money kept here overnight?’

  ‘No. He takes it away in a briefcase, a special one we only really use for that.’

  ‘He would carry a gun as well, I imagine?’

  ‘He takes his automatic out of the drawer and puts it in his pocket.’

  Monsieur Maurice hadn’t been carrying any money that night but he had still gone back to his office to fetch his gun.

  ‘Is there another gun which is kept here the whole time?’

  ‘No. That’s the only one I know of.’

  ‘Will you show me his office?’

  ‘One moment …’

  She handed a note to Raoul Comitat.

  ‘This way.’

  They went along a corridor with green walls. On the left, a glass panel gave a view of the kitchen, where four men seemed to be tidying up.

  ‘Here it is. I suppose you have the right to go in.’

  The office was simple, not ostentatious. Three good leather armchairs, a mahogany Empire desk, a safe behind it, and some shelves with a few books and magazines.

  ‘Is there any money in the safe?’

  ‘No. Just the accounts. We don’t really need it. It was there when Monsieur Maurice bought the restaurant, and he never had it taken out.’

  ‘Where was the gun usually kept?’

  ‘In the right-hand drawer.’

  Maigret opened it. There were papers, cigarettes, cigars, but no automatic.

  ‘Does Madame Marcia often ring her husband?’

  ‘Hardly e
ver.’

  ‘Did she ring him this evening?’

  ‘No. The call would have come through me.’

  ‘What about him? Doesn’t he ring her?’

  ‘Rarely. I can’t remember the last time he did. It was sometime before last Christmas.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Maigret was feeling the weight of his tiredness and collapsed on to the back seat of the little black car.

  ‘Boulevard Richard-Lenoir.’

  The rain had stopped, but the ground was still glistening, and the sky was clearing in the east.

  He had a vague sense that something about all this didn’t add up. It was true that Monsieur Marcia was no saint. He had had a pretty turbulent youth and had been convicted of procuring a number of times.

  Then he had risen through the ranks when he was about thirty, becoming proprietor of what at the time was one of the most famous brothels in Paris, in Rue de Hanovre.

  The brothel wasn’t in his name. He spent the better part of his afternoons at the races and, if not, was generally to be found playing cards with other crooks in a bistro on Rue Victor-Massé.

  Some people called him the Judge. They claimed that when there was a dispute between figures in the underworld, he would have the final say.

  He was a good-looking man, dressed by the best tailors, never wore anything but silk underwear. He was married and already living on Rue Ballu at that time.

  He was growing stouter with age, which gave him added gravitas.

  Wait! Maigret had forgotten to ask the cashier if the person who had called had had an accent. That could prove important at some stage.

  For the moment, though, he was at a complete loss. He remembered something Maurice Marcia had said during one of their last encounters at Quai des Orfèvres. Marcia hadn’t been a suspect himself, but his barman seemed to have been involved in a hold-up of a branch of one of the big banks in Puteaux.

  ‘What do you think of this Freddy?’

  The barman was called Freddy Strazzia and came from Piedmont.

  ‘I think he’s a good barman.’

  ‘Do you reckon he’s honest?’

  ‘Well, inspector, it depends what you mean by that. There’s honest and then there’s honest. When you and I first met, when we were both what’s called cutting our teeth, I didn’t think of myself as a dishonest man, an opinion not shared by you or the judges.

  ‘Gradually, I’ve changed. You could say I’ve spent almost forty years of my life becoming an honest man. Well, it’s like with religious converts. They’re meant to be the most devout, aren’t they? Similarly, people who have worked to become honest tend to be more scrupulous than other folk.

  ‘You’re asking me if Freddy is honest. I wouldn’t stake my life on it but what I am certain of is that he’s not stupid enough to get himself tangled up in a mess like this.’

  The car had stopped in front of his building. He thanked the driver and slowly climbed the stairs, slightly short of breath. He couldn’t wait to lie down in bed and close his eyes.

  ‘Tired?’

  ‘I’m exhausted.’

  Less than ten minutes later he was asleep.

  It was almost eleven when he began to stir, and Madame Maigret immediately brought him a cup of coffee.

  ‘Look at that!’ he exclaimed in surprise. ‘The sun’s back.’

  ‘Was it this case in Rue Fontaine that kept you out last night?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘The radio. The papers. Monsieur Maurice seems to have been a real Parisian celebrity.’

  ‘Character, I’d say,’ he corrected.

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘Ever since I started in the Police Judiciaire.’

  ‘Do you understand why they went and dumped his body in Avenue Junot?’

  ‘I don’t understand anything so far,’ he admitted. ‘Least of all the fact that Marcia had his gun in his pocket.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’m amazed he didn’t fire first. He must have been taken by surprise.’

  Putting on his dressing gown, he went and sat in the bedroom armchair, picked up the telephone and dialled the number of the Police Judiciaire.

  Lucas, who had been on night duty, would be sleeping peacefully by now. It was Janvier who answered.

  ‘Not too tired, chief?’

  ‘No. I’m all right now. Are you up to date with what’s going on?’

  ‘From the papers and the latest reports that have just come in, particularly the one from the eighteenth. I also got a call from Doctor Bourdet.’

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘The shot was fired from about a metre, possibly a metre and a half. The gun is most likely a short-barrelled revolver, a .32 or .38. He’s sent the bullet to the laboratory. As for poor Marcia, his death was almost instantaneous, from an internal haemorrhage.’

  ‘So he didn’t bleed much?’

  ‘Hardly at all.’

  ‘Did he have a heart defect?’

  ‘Bourdet didn’t say anything about that. Do you want me to ring him?’

  ‘I’ll do it. I’ll be in early this afternoon. Call me if anything, no matter what, comes up before then.’

  A few minutes later he had Doctor Bourdet on the line.

  ‘I suppose you’re just getting out of bed,’ Bourdet said to Maigret. ‘I worked until nine this morning and now they’ve brought me another customer, a woman this time.’

  ‘Listen, other than the gunshot wound, did you notice anything out of the ordinary, any sign of illness?’

  ‘No. He was a healthy man, in very good shape for his age.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with his heart?’

  ‘As far as I can tell, his heart was in good condition.’

  ‘Thank you, doctor.’

  Hadn’t Marcia’s blonde wife Line mentioned Professor Jardin, who her husband went to see from time to time? He called the professor’s office, then the hospital where he was told he was.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, professor. It’s Detective Chief Inspector Maigret here. I think one of your patients met with a violent death last night. Maurice Marcia.’

  ‘The Montmartre restaurant owner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I only saw him once. I think he was planning to take out life insurance and, before undergoing the official medical, he wanted to see a doctor of his own choosing.’

  ‘What were the results?’

  ‘His heart was in perfect condition.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Well,’ asked Madame Maigret, ‘was he ill?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why did his wife tell you …?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Would you mind getting me another cup of coffee?’

  ‘What do you want to eat?’

  He still remembered his indigestion during the night.

  ‘Ham, boiled potatoes with oil and a green salad.’

  ‘Is that all? Haven’t you digested my guinea fowl?’

  ‘I have, yes, but I think Pardon and I overdid it on the sloe gin a little. Not to mention the wine.’

  He stood up with a sigh and lit his first pipe of the day, then went and planted himself in front of the open window. He hadn’t been there for more than ten minutes before he was summoned to the telephone.

  ‘Hello, chief, Janvier here. I’ve just had a visit from Inspector Louis of the ninth arrondissement, who was hoping to see you. Apparently, he’s got something interesting to tell you. He’s wondering if you can see him early this afternoon.’

  ‘Tell him to come to my office at two.’

  You never knew with Louis. He was a strange man. About forty-five years old, he had been a widower for roughly fifteen years and yet still dressed in black from head to foot, as if he were as much in mourning for his wife as ever. Among themselves, his colleagues in the ninth called him the Widower.

  You never saw him laugh or joke. When he was on desk-duty he worked without a break. Being a non-smoker, he
didn’t even have to stop to light a pipe or cigarette.

  Most of the time he worked out of doors, preferably at night. He probably had the most comprehensive knowledge of Pigalle of anyone in Paris.

  He rarely spoke to a prostitute or a pimp without good reason, and they watched him go by with a certain trepidation.

  He lived alone in the apartment he had once shared with his wife, on the other side of the boulevard, at the bottom of Rue Lepic. He had been born in the neighbourhood himself. People often saw him doing his shopping.

  He knew the pedigree of all the local crooks, the life stories of all the girls.

  He would go into bars without taking off his hat and invariably order a quarter bottle of Vichy mineral water. He could stay there for a long time, watching. Sometimes he would chat to the barman.

  ‘I didn’t know Francis was back from Toulon.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘He’s just spotted me and slipped off to the gents.’

  ‘I didn’t see him. I’m surprised because usually he comes and says hello when he’s up in Paris.’

  ‘It’s probably because of me.’

  ‘Who was he with?’

  ‘Madeleine.’

  ‘That’s his old girlfriend.’

  He never took notes and yet all the surnames, first names and nicknames of these ladies and gentlemen of the night were carefully filed away in his brain.

  Rue Fontaine was in his area. He must have known more about Monsieur Maurice than Maigret or anyone really. Besides, he can’t have come to Quai des Orfèvres by chance, because he was a shy man.

  He knew that he would never rise above the rank of inspector and quietly accepted this fact, doing his job as best he could. Having no other passions, he dedicated his life to his work.

  ‘I’m going down to buy some ham.’

  He watched her through the window as she headed off towards Rue Servan. He was glad to have a wife like her and there was a little smile of satisfaction on his lips.

  How long had Inspector Louis lived with his wife before she was run over by a bus? A few years at most, as he was only thirty when it happened. He had been looking out of the window, like Maigret now, and the accident had happened right there in front of him.

  Maigret touched wood, not a habit of his, and waited at the window until he saw his wife cross the boulevard again and go back into the building.

  Louis was the inspector’s surname. For a while Maigret had thought of adding him to his squad, but he was so lugubrious the atmosphere in the inspectors’ office would have been affected.