Maigret and the Spinster

Georges Simenon

Maigret and the Spinster

A book in the Inspector Maigret series

1942

A young woman who shares an apartment with an elderly aunt returns to police headquarters repeatedly to complain of strange shifts in the position of her furniture during the night. On a particularly busy day the Inspector puts her off just long enough for disaster to strike. Translated by Eileen Ellenbogen.

F
rom the moment he lit it, in the doorway of the apartment house on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, Maigret savored his pipe with greater enjoyment than on other mornings. The first fog of the year was an unexpected treat, like the first snow to a child, especially as this was no noxious, yellowish winter fog but, rather, a milky haze interspersed with haloes of light. The air was crisp. He felt a tingling in his fingers and the tip of his nose, and his footsteps rang out on the pavement.

A faint smell of mothballs still clung about the heavy, velvet-collared overcoat which was such a familiar sight at the Quai des Orfèvres. With his hands in his pockets and his bowler hat pulled down low over his forehead, Maigret sauntered unhurriedly toward police headquarters. Indulgently, he smiled as a slip of a girl appeared suddenly out of the fog at a run and collided with his dark, bulky figure.

“Oh! sorry, mister…”

She was off again in a flash, anxious not to miss her bus or subway.

The whole of Paris, that morning, seemed to be enjoying the fog every bit as much as the Chief Superintendent. Only the tugs on the Seine, invisible to the passers-by, intermittently sounded a hoarse, uneasy note.

One impression above all remained with him, though he could not have explained why. Having crossed Place de la Bastille, he was passing a little bistro on his way down Boulevard Henri IV. The door, like the door of most cafés on this cold morning, was shut for the first time for months. As he went past, someone opened it and Maigret’s nostrils were assailed by a gust of fragrance which was forever to remain with him as the very quintessence of Paris at daybreak: the fragrance of frothy coffee and hot croissants, spiced with a hint of rum. Behind the steamed-up windows he could just make out in shadowy outline some ten, fifteen, or perhaps twenty people crammed up against the zinc counter, breakfasting before rushing off to work.

It was just nine as he went through the arched gateway of police headquarters and, along with several of his colleagues, climbed the great staircase, which, as always, was thick with dust. No sooner was his head on a level with the first-floor landing than he glanced mechanically toward the glass-walled waiting room. Catching sight of Cécile sitting on one of the green velvet chairs, he frowned.

Or rather, to be perfectly honest, he deliberately assumed a grumpy expression.

“What do you know, Maigret! She’s back!”

It was Cassieux, head of the Vice Squad, who had arrived close on his heels. Inevitably he would be subjected to a lot more banter of this sort, as he was every time Cécile came to see him.

He attempted to slink past without being seen. How long had she been there? She was quite capable of sitting in one spot like an effigy for hours at a time, her hands folded on her bag, her absurd green hat a little askew on top of her tightly screwed-back hair.

Needless to say, the Chief Superintendent did not escape unseen. She sprang to her feet. Her mouth opened. He could not hear her voice through the glass screen, but no doubt she had murmured with a sigh:

“At last!”

Hunching his shoulders, Maigret made a dash for his office at the end of the corridor. He was intercepted by the guard, eager to announce her…

“I know…I know…She’ll just have to wait.” mumbled Maigret.

Owing to the fog, he had to switch on the green-shaded light on his desk. He took off his coat and hat and glanced at the stove, reflecting that, if it was as cold as this tomorrow, he would give orders to have it lit. Then, rubbing his cold hands together, he sat down heavily, breathed a sigh of contentment, and picked up the telephone.

“Hello!…Is that Le Vieux Normand? Could I speak to Monsieur Janvier, please?…Hello!…Is that you, Janvier?”

In accordance with instructions, Inspector Janvier had been at his post in this little café on Rue Saint-Antoine since seven o’clock that morning. From there, seated at one of the tables, he could keep watch on the Hôtel des Arcades.

“Any developments?”

“They’re all tucked up safe and sound, Chief. The woman went out half an hour ago to buy bread and butter, and a quarter pound of ground coffee. She’s just got back.”

“Is Lucas at his post?”

“I caught a glimpse of him at the window when I arrived.”

“Good! I’m sending Jourdan to relieve you. Chilled to the bone, are you?”

“It’s a bit raw…But I’m O.K.”

The thought of Sergeant Lucas shut up in one room for the past four days in the guise of an elderly invalid made Maigret chuckle. He was saddled with the job of keeping tabs on a gang of Poles, five or six of them, who were all holed up together in a squalid room in the squalid Hôtel des Arcades. There was nothing much to go on, except that one of them, nicknamed the Baron, had changed a bill, stolen from the Vansittart farm, at a parimutuel window at Longchamps.

This particular crowd were in the habit of wandering about Paris, aimlessly as far as anyone knew, but their lives seemed to revolve around a young woman who lived on Rue de Birague, though whether she was the mistress of one of them or was useful to them in some other capacity, no one could tell.

Lucas, disguised as a sick man muffled up in shawls, watched them from morning till night from a room in the building opposite.

Maigret got up and went across to empty his pipe into the coal bucket. He had a whole collection of pipes on his desk, and as he went to pick up another, he caught sight of the slip that Cécile had filled in. Just as he was about to read it, a bell shrilled insistently in the corridor.

The daily briefing! He scooped up the files that had been laid out for him and, in company with all the other departmental heads, made his way to the Chief Commissioner’s office. They went through the usual little ceremony. The Commissioner, who had long, white hair and a Van Dyck beard, shook hands with each of them in turn.

“Have you seen her?”

Maigret played the innocent.

“Who?”

“Cécile! If I were in Madame Maigret’s shoes…”

Poor Cécile! And yet she was still a young woman! Maigret had seen her personal papers. She was barely twenty-eight. But if ever anyone had spinster written all over her, it was she. In spite of her eagerness to be friendly, she was totally lacking in charm. Those black dresses of hers, which she made herself from cheap paper patterns…that absurd green hat. Beneath such wrappings, it was impossible to imagine any feminine charms. And her extreme pallor and, to cap it all, the slight cast in one eye…

“She squints!” asserted Chief Superintendent Cassieux.

This was an exaggeration. One could not go so far as to say that she was cross-eyed. All the same, it had to be admitted that her left and right pupils were not in perfect alignment.

She was in the habit of turning up, resigned in advance to being kept waiting, at eight in the morning.

“May I see Chief Superintendent Maigret, please.”

“I don’t know if he’ll be coming in this morning. I could take you to Inspector Berger, who…”

“No, thank you…I’ll wait…”

And she would wait, all day if need be, motionless, patient, and uncomplaining, until the Chief Superintendent reached the top of the stairs, when she would spring to her feet, seemingly in the grip of some powerful emotion.

“Take it from me, my dear fellow, she’s in love.”

The chief superintendents stood about idly chatting for a while, until the talk veered imperceptibly toward the work in hand.

“Any new developments in the Pélican case, Cassieux?”

“I’ve summoned the proprietor for questioning at ten o’clock. He’s bound to talk.”

“Go easy on him, won’t you. He’s got an influential friend in Parliament, and I don’t want any trouble…What news of your Poles, Maigret?”

“I’m still waiting. I intend to keep watch myself tonight. If by tomorrow there are still no developments, I’ll try the effect of a personal confrontation with the woman.”

A dirty bunch. Three murders in six months. All at isolated farms in the north. Coarse, brutal things, dealing death with a hatchet.

A golden glow was spreading through the fog. It was no longer necessary to have the lights on. The Chief Commissioner pulled a file toward him across his desk.

“If you have a moment to spare this morning, Maigret…it’s a family-welfare matter. A nineteen-year-old youth, the son of a prosperous industrialist, who…”

“I’ll see to it.”

The briefing went on for another half-hour, amid the fumes of pipes and cigarettes, with periodic interruptions from the telephone.

“Very well, Monsieur le Ministre…Yes, indeed, Monsieur le Ministre…”

Outside in the vast corridors, the inspectors could be heard scurrying back and forth between the various offices, and there was much banging of doors and ringing of telephones.

Maigret, with his papers under his arm, returned to his own office, his mind occupied with the gang of Poles. Absently, he put his papers down on top of the slip filled in by Cécile. He had only just sat down when the guard knocked at the door.

“About that young woman…”

“Well?”

“Will you see her now?”

“Later…”

First, he wanted to settle the matter in which the Chief Commissioner had enlisted his aid. He knew where to find the young man, on whom he had had his eye for some time.

“Hello! Get me the Hôtel Myosotis, on Rue Blanche.”

It was a seedy hotel, where youths like the young man in question hung out to sniff cocaine and indulge their kinky vices.

“Hello! Listen, Francis…I think I’m going to have to close down that place of yours, for good. What? I couldn’t care less…Aren’t you laying it on a bit thick? You can do yourself a good turn if you take my advice and send young Duchemin over to me right away. Better still, bring him along yourself…I have a few words to say to that young man…Oh yes, he
is
at your place, all right. And even if he isn’t, I’m quite sure you’ll know how to get hold of him before lunch…I’m counting on you!”

There was a call waiting for him on another line. An embarrassed examining magistrate.

“Chief Superintendent Maigret?…It’s about Pénicaud, Chief Superintendent. He claims that you obtained his confession by intimidation. He says you made him strip to the skin in your office, and left him there stark naked for five hours…”

In the Duty Office next door, a crowd of inspectors, with their hats set jauntily on their heads and cigarettes dangling from their lips, were awaiting their orders. It was eleven o’clock before he remembered Cécile and pressed the buzzer.

“I’ll see the young woman now…”

The guard was back within seconds. There was no one with him.

“She’s gone, Chief Superintendent.”

“Ah!”

His first reaction was to shrug it off. Then, as he sat down again, he frowned. This was not like Cécile, who had once waited seven hours for him, sitting motionless in the waiting room. There were papers all over his desk. He searched through them for the slip she had filled in. At last, under young Duchemin’s file, he found it.

I must see you most urgently. Something terrible happened last night.

Cécile Pardon

In response to the buzzer, the guard returned.

“Tell me, Leopold,” (his name was not Leopold, but he had been so nicknamed because he cultivated a resemblance to the former King of the Belgians), “what time did she leave?”

“I don’t know, Chief Superintendent. Everybody seems to be buzzing for me this morning. She was still there half an hour ago.”

“Was there anyone else in the waiting room?”

“Two people for the Chief Commissioner…An elderly man asking to see someone in the Department of Public Prosecution. Then…well, you know how it is in the mornings, people coming and going the whole time.…I hadn’t noticed, until just now, that the young lady was no longer there.”

Maigret felt a nasty little twinge of uneasiness in his chest. He was not happy about it. Poor Cécile! She wasn’t all that much of a figure of fun.

“If she comes back, let me…”

No! He had changed his mind. He called in one of his inspectors.

“The proprietor of the Hôtel Myosotis will be here shortly with a young man of the name of Duchemin. Tell them they’re to wait for me. If I’m not back by lunchtime, the hotel proprietor can go back to his work, but hold on to the young man.”

When he got to the Pont Saint-Michel he was on the point of hailing a taxi, as a gesture. And precisely because he thought of it as a gesture, he changed his mind and decided to take the streetcar. The wretched Cécile and her concerns weren’t all that important! Why should he concede…?

The fog, far from dispersing, was thickening, though it was growing less cold. Maigret stood on the open platform, smoking his pipe. The rattling and braking of the streetcar almost shook his head off his shoulders.