Maigret and the Saturday Caller

by Georges Simenon

  ‘With my daughter?’

  ‘You’re still the head of the family.’

  ‘And what about her?’

  ‘You’re thinking of your wife?’

  Shamefacedly, Planchon nodded. Then he added:

  ‘And there’s my business …’

  Which indicated that passion wasn’t the only motive in this case.

  ‘I’ll see …’

  ‘Will you come and see me again?’

  ‘I’ve told you everything. I’ve taken too much of your time already. Your wife …’

  ‘Don’t worry about my wife, let’s think about you. All right, don’t come back to see me. But I would like us to remain in touch. Don’t forget that it was you who came to find me.’

  ‘Yes, and I apologize …’

  ‘You’re going to phone me every day.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Here or in my office. All I’m asking is that you call me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason, just to stay in touch. You can just say: “I’m here.” That will do.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll do that.’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘Every day.’

  ‘And if, at some stage, you were to feel on the point of putting your plan into operation, you’d call me?’

  He hesitated, as if balancing between yes and no.

  ‘That would mean I wouldn’t do it,’ he said at last.

  He was bargaining like a peasant at a fair.

  ‘Look, if I phoned you to say that—’

  ‘Answer my question.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘That’s all I ask you. And now you must go home.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It isn’t time yet, they’ll both be in the dining room. What would I do?’

  ‘You’re going to hang around in bars all evening?’

  He shrugged his shoulders in a resigned way and glanced at the plum brandy bottle. Maigret, although infuriated, ended up pouring him another glass.

  ‘You might as well drink it here as outside.’

  The man hesitated, glass in hand, looking ashamed.

  ‘Do you despise me?’

  ‘I don’t despise anyone.’

  ‘But if you did?’

  ‘It certainly wouldn’t be you.’

  ‘Are you saying that just to keep my spirits up?’

  ‘No, because it’s what I think.’

  ‘Well, I thank you, then.’

  This time, he had his hat in his hand and was glancing round, as if looking for something else.

  ‘I wish you would explain to your wife …’

  Maigret pushed him gently towards the door.

  ‘I’ve spoiled your evening. And hers.’

  He was on the landing now, and already more anonymous than in Maigret’s apartment, a very ordinary little man, such that nobody would turn round in the street if they saw him.

  ‘Goodbye, Monsieur Maigret.’

  At last! The door was shut, and Madame Maigret burst out of the kitchen.

  ‘I thought he’d never stop and you’d never manage to get rid of him. I was on the point of coming in to give you an excuse.’

  She looked hard at her husband.

  ‘You seem preoccupied.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Is he crazy?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  She rarely asked him questions. But this was something that had happened at home. As she brought in the soup, she ventured to murmur:

  ‘What did he come here for?’

  ‘To confess.’

  She sat down at her place, without blinking.

  ‘You’re not putting the television on?’

  ‘The programme will be almost over by now.’

  In the past, on Saturday evenings, they would both go to the cinema, not so much for the film itself as to be out together. Arm in arm, they would head for Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, feeling comfortable with each other; there was no need to say anything.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Maigret now announced, ‘we’ll go for a walk in Montmartre.’

  Arm in arm, like other Sunday strollers. He wanted to see Rue Tholozé again, to look at the house at the far end of the courtyard where Léonard Planchon, his wife, his daughter, Isabelle, and Roger Prou were living.

  Had he done the right thing? The wrong thing? Had he found the appropriate words?

  Had Planchon found what he was looking for in Boulevard Richard-Lenoir?

  By now he would be having a drink somewhere, no doubt going over in his mind everything he had said.

  It was impossible to know whether this interview, so long desired and so often postponed, had brought him any peace, or whether on the contrary it was going to trigger some kind of crisis.

  It was the first time that Maigret had left a man standing on the landing in his own house, wondering whether that man would go and kill two people shortly afterwards.

  It might happen this very evening, any minute, at the moment perhaps that Maigret was thinking about it.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. I just don’t like this business.’

  He wondered about telephoning the police station in the eighteenth arrondissement, to ask them to keep a watch on the Planchon house. But you couldn’t post a policeman on duty inside the bedroom.

  And an officer standing in the street outside would be unable to prevent anything.

  3.

  It was a Sunday morning like any other, lazy and empty, a little dull. Maigret was in the habit of enjoying a lie-in on a Sunday, if by good fortune he was able to spend it at home. Even if he was not sleepy, he would stay in bed, knowing that his wife would rather not have him ‘under her feet’ before she had finished the housework.

  Almost always, he would hear her getting up quietly at about seven, slipping out of bed, and tiptoeing to the door. Then he would hear the click of the light switch in the next room and a strip of light would appear under the door.

  He would nod off again, without having woken properly. He knew this always happened and the certainty penetrated his sleep.

  It wasn’t the kind of sleep of other days, but peculiar to Sunday morning, and it had a different texture, a different taste, so to speak. For instance, every half-hour or so he would hear church bells ringing, and he knew how empty the streets were, with no heavy trucks going past and only a few buses.

  He knew, too, that he had no responsibilities, and there was nothing urgent to do, no task waiting for him outside.

  Later, he would hear the distant whirring of the vacuum cleaner in the other rooms and, later still, the smell of coffee would reach him, something to which he was very alert.

  All households surely have traditions they cling to, that lend savour to even the dullest of mornings.

  He dreamed about Planchon. It wasn’t really a dream. He could see him, just as he was the night before, in their small front room, but his attitude was different. Instead of being troubled by emotion or despair, his features, disfigured by the hare-lip, now appeared to express ironic malice. Although the man did not seem to move his lips, Maigret was aware of what he was saying:

  ‘Admit it, you think I’m right, there’s nothing else I can do but kill her. You daren’t say so, because you’re employed by the state and you’re afraid of getting into hot water. But you’re not holding me back. You’re waiting for me to have done with her. And with him.’

  A hand shook his shoulder gently and a familiar voice said as usual:

  ‘It’s nine o’clock.’

  His wife was handing him his first cup of coffee, which he always drank before getting up.

  ‘What’s the weather like?’

  ‘Cold. And windy.’

  Already looking fresh and clean in her light blue overall, she drew the curtains. The sky looked white, the air seemed white too, a glacial white.

  In his dressing gown and slippers, Maigret went to sit in the dini
ng room, now newly tidied. And the morning would go by, with certain rituals that had been gradually established over the years.

  Perhaps it was exactly the same in the apartments he could see on the other side of Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, and indeed all over Paris, or anywhere else. These little habits, the familiar round, must correspond to a certain human need.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked him.

  She had noticed that he seemed pensive and out of sorts.

  ‘That man yesterday.’

  Planchon’s wife wouldn’t be waking him with a cup of hot coffee. When he opened his eyes after the disturbed sleep of a man who has drunk too much, he would find himself on a camp bed in the dining room, and he would be the one who got up first, perhaps hearing regular breathing from the bedroom next door, and guessing at two warm, relaxed bodies in the matrimonial bed.

  This image distressed him more than the long monologue he had heard the evening before. Planchon had been referring mainly to weekdays. But what were his Sundays like? His workmen would not be waiting for him in the courtyard or the workshop. He’d have nothing to do, any more than Maigret had. No doubt in that house, it was Renée and her lover who had a long lie-in.

  Did Planchon perhaps make coffee for everyone, setting the table in the kitchen? Did his little daughter, barefoot in her nightdress, her face puffy with sleep, come and join him there?

  The man had said that she didn’t ask any questions, but there was nothing to stop Isabelle using her eyes and thinking. What did she make of life in that household and of the existence her father was leading?

  Maigret ate his croissants while Madame Maigret began preparing lunch. From time to time, they exchanged a few words through the kitchen door. Last night’s evening papers, which he had not read, were on the table, along with the weeklies, which he left until Sunday mornings.

  His phone call to the Police Judiciaire was another tradition. Perhaps, though, he called a little earlier than usual, with a degree of anxiety.

  Torrence was on duty. Maigret recognized his voice and pictured him in the almost deserted offices.

  ‘Nothing to report?’

  ‘Nothing important, chief, except there’s been another jewel robbery last night.’

  ‘At the Crillon again?’

  ‘At the Plaza, Avenue Montaigne.’

  And yet he had put officers on duty in all the grand hotels on the Champs-Élysées and the nearby streets.

  ‘Who was there?’

  ‘Vacher.’

  ‘He didn’t see anything?’

  ‘No. Always the same method.’

  They had of course scanned the records of known jewel thieves, including Interpol files. But this burglar’s modus operandi did not correspond to any known specialist, and he seemed to be launching his coups in quick succession, as if, in the space of a few days, he wanted to amass enough money to retire.

  ‘Did you send someone over to help Vacher?’

  ‘Dupeu’s gone to meet him. They can’t do much for now. Most of the hotel guests are still asleep.’

  Torrence must have found the next question odd.

  ‘Nothing reported from the eighteenth arrondissement?’

  ‘Not that I can remember. Hang on, I’ll check the cards. Wait a minute. Bercy … Bercy … I’m just passing over all the Bercys.’

  ‘Bercy’ was the term used by the police for the more or less disorderly drunks who were regularly brought in to spend a night in the cells.

  ‘There was a bit of a fight at 3.15 on Place Pigalle. A conman cheated someone … Another swindler, nearby … Knife attack outside a dance hall, Boulevard Rochechouart.’

  Just the usual litany of Saturday-night incidents.

  ‘No murders?’

  ‘No, can’t see any.’

  ‘Thanks. A good day to you, then. Call me if there’s anything new from the Plaza.’

  And he hung up.

  Madame Maigret, standing in the doorway, asked him, as he put the phone down:

  ‘Is it because of that man that you’re worrying?’

  He looked at her without knowing what to say.

  ‘You think he really will end up killing them?’

  Last night, as they went to bed, he had told his wife about Planchon’s confession, but light-heartedly, as if he were not taking it too seriously.

  ‘You don’t think he’s wrong in the head?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not a psychiatrist.’

  ‘Why did he come to find you, then? As soon as I saw him on the landing, I realized this wasn’t an ordinary visit, and I admit he frightened me.’

  What was the point of worrying? Was it any of his business? Not yet, anyway. He replied evasively and, sitting down in his armchair, was soon deep in the papers.

  He had been there hardly ten minutes when he got up again to look for the telephone directory and found the name of Planchon, Léonard, painter and decorator, Rue Tholozé.

  So the man had not concealed his identity. Maigret hesitated a moment before dialling the number, finally did so, and, as the telephone rang in that unknown house, he felt a little tug at his heart.

  He thought at first there was no one home, since it rang for a long time. Eventually there was a click, and a voice said:

  ‘What is it?’

  It was the voice of a woman who did not sound in a very good mood.

  ‘I wanted a word with Monsieur Planchon.’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Am I speaking to Madame Planchon?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘Do you know how long he will be?’

  ‘He’s just gone out with his daughter.’

  Maigret noticed that she had said ‘his’ daughter not ‘my’ daughter or ‘our’ daughter. He also gathered that someone else was in the room, speaking to the woman and no doubt telling her:

  ‘Ask him his name.’

  And indeed after a brief pause she said:

  ‘Who’s this speaking?’

  ‘Just a customer. I’ll call back.’

  He hung up. Renée was alive and well. Roger Prou too, evidently, and Planchon had gone for a walk with his daughter, which proved that in Rue Tholozé, like everywhere else, there were Sunday-morning traditions.

  He hardly thought about all that for the rest of the morning. Once he had finished the papers, without any great interest, he stayed for a while standing at the window, watching people walking quickly home from mass, hunched forward, their faces blue with cold. Then he took a bath and dressed, as the smell of cooking spread throughout the apartment.

  At midday, they ate their meal facing each other, not the television. They chatted about Doctor Pardon’s daughter, who was expecting her second child, then about various other things that did not stay in his memory.

  At three o’clock, when the dishes had been washed and everything put away, he suggested:

  ‘Shall we go for a walk?’

  Madame Maigret put on her astrakhan coat, and he picked his warmest scarf.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Montmartre.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. You said so yesterday. Shall we take the Métro?’

  ‘It would be warmer there …’

  They came out of the Place Blanche Métro station and began walking slowly up Rue Lepic, where the shutters of all the shops were closed.

  Where it meets Rue des Abbesses, Rue Lepic makes a long dog-leg. Rue Tholozé by contrast climbs up straight ahead to rejoin it at the Moulin de la Galette.

  ‘Is this where he lives?’

  ‘Bit higher up. Just by the steps.’

  About halfway along, on the left, Maigret noticed a purple-painted façade and a sign which would light up at night: the Bal des Copains. Three young men standing on the pavement outside seemed to be waiting for someone, and from inside came the sound of an accordion. It was too early for anyone to be dancing. The accordionist, at the back of an almost dark room, was just practising.

 
; So it was here that, nine years earlier, the lonely Planchon had met Renée, by chance, because the place was crowded and a harassed waiter had sat a girl at his table.

  The Maigrets walked on up the street, a little out of breath from the slope. Between the five- and six-storey buildings, there were still a few smaller houses dating from the time when Montmartre was a village.

  They eventually found themselves in front of an open gate leading to a cobbled courtyard. At the far end was a small house, built of characteristic Parisian millstone, the kind you see in the suburbs. It was a two-storey building, old-fashioned and showing its age, with red and yellow bricks round the windows. The woodwork, however, was freshly painted, a bright blue that clashed with the rest of the façade.

  ‘He lives here?’

  They dared not linger, contenting themselves with seeing as much as they could by walking slowly past. Madame Maigret later remembered that the curtains at the windows were very clean. Maigret himself noted the ladders in the courtyard, a handcart and a wooden shed with large cans of paint visible through the windows.

  The van was not in the courtyard. There was no garage. The curtains did not move. No sign of life was visible. Should they conclude that Planchon, his wife, Isabelle and Prou had all gone out together in the van?

  ‘What shall we do now?’

  Maigret didn’t know. He had wanted to see, and now that he had seen, he had no further plans.

  ‘Well, since we’re here, shall we go up to Place du Tertre?’

  They drank a small carafe of rosé wine and a long-haired artist offered to draw their portraits.

  By six p.m. they were back home. He telephoned Quai des Orfèvres. Dupeu was there. He was no further forward with the theft at the Plaza, where some guests, having been out all night, had not yet ordered their breakfast.

  This time Maigret did not miss his television programme, although it was a police drama that made him grumble out loud all evening.

  At heart, although he appreciated the monotony of Sundays, he liked even better the moment on Monday morning when he took possession once more of his office. He went to the daily briefing, and shook hands with his colleagues. Each of them reported back on current cases, at greater or lesser length, and he preferred to keep quiet about the visit he had received on Saturday evening. Was he afraid of looking ridiculous if he attached too much importance to it?