Maigret Afraid MAIGRET A PEUR THE 70TH EPISODE IN THE MAIGRET SAGA 1953 Georges Simenon translated by Margaret Duff 3S XHTML EDITION 1.0 SCAN NOTES AND PROOFING HISTORY CONTENTS |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9| Copyright© 1953 by Georges Simenon English translation copyright © 1961 by Hamish Hamilton Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to: Permissions, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Publishers, 757 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Simenon. Georges. 1903-Maigret afraid. Translation of: Maigret a peur. “A Helen and Kurt Wolff book.” I. Title. PQ2637.153M255113 1983 843'.912 82-23233 ISBN 0-15-155560-5 Printed in the United States of America First American edition 1983 Maigret Afraid 1 Quite suddenly, between two small stations, whose names he could not make out, and of which he saw hardly anything in the darkness, except the driving rain against a large lamp and figures of men pushing wagons, Maigret wondered what he was doing there. Perhaps he had dozed off for a moment in the overheated compartment? He could not have lost consciousness completely, because he knew he was in a train; he could hear its monotonous noise; he would have sworn that he had continually seen, every so often in the dark expanse of fields, the lighted windows of an isolated farm. All this, and the smell of soot mingling with that of his damp clothes, remained real, and also a steady murmur of voices in a nearby compartment, but it was in some way not entirely real; it was no longer very clearly situated in space, let alone in time. He might have been somewhere else, in any little train traveling through the countryside, and he himself might have been a fifteen-year-old Maigret returning from school on a Saturday on a local train exactly like this one, with ancient cars, their couplings creaking at each pull of the engine. With the same voices, in the night, at each stop, the same men bustling around the mail car, the same whistle blast from the stationmaster. He half opened his eyes, pulled at his pipe, which had gone out, and his glance rested on the man sitting in the opposite corner of the compartment. He might have seen this man too, in those days, in the train that took him home to his father’s. He could have been the Count, or the owner of the château, the most important person of the village or of any little town. He was wearing golf clothes of light tweed, and a raincoat of the kind one sees only in certain very expensive shops. His hat was a green sportsman’s hat, with a tiny pheasant’s feather tucked inside the ribbon. In spite of the heat he had not taken off his fawn gloves, for such men never remove their gloves in a train or in a car. And despite the rain, there wasn’t a spot of mud on his well-polished shoes. He was probably sixty-five years old. He was already an elderly gentleman. Isn’t it strange that men of that age take so much care over the details of their appearance? And that they still try to set themselves apart from the ordinary run of mortals? His complexion was of that pink peculiar to the species, with a small silvery- white mustache marked with the yellow circle left by cigar-smoking. His expression, however, did not have quite the assurance it should have had. From his corner Maigret watched the man, and he, on his part, glanced back several times and on two or three occasions appeared to be on the point of speaking. The train was setting off again, dirty and wet, into a dark world sprinkled with widely scattered lights, and now and then, at a grade crossing, one could make out someone on a bicycle waiting for the last car to pass. Was it that Maigret was depressed? It was vaguer than that. He wasn’t feeling quite himself. And anyway, these last three days, he had drunk too much, not with any pleasure but out of necessity. He had been attending the International Police Congress, which, this year, was held at Bordeaux. It was April. When he had left Paris, where the winter had been long and monotonous, spring seemed to be not far off. But at Bordeaux it had rained all three days, with a cold wind that made your clothes cling to your body. By chance, the few friends he usually met at these congresses, like Mr. Pyke, had not been there. Each country, it seemed, had contrived to send only young representatives, men of thirty to forty whom he had ever seen before. They had all shown great kindness to him, had been very deferential, as one is to an older man one respects and finds slightly old-fashioned. Could that be it? Or had the unending rain put him in a bad humor? And all the wine that they had had to drink in the cellars they had been invited to visit by the Chamber of Commerce? “Are you enjoying yourself?” his wife had asked on the telephone. He had replied with a grunt. “Try to rest a little. You looked tired when you left. At any rate, it will be a change for you. Don’t catch cold.” Perhaps he had suddenly felt old? Even their discussions, which almost all had to do with new scientific methods, hadn’t interested him. The banquet had taken place the previous evening. That morning there had been a final reception, at the Town Hall this time, and a lunch with lots to drink. He had promised Chabot that he would take advantage of not having to be in Paris until Monday morning and stop off to see him at Fontenay-le-Comte. Chabot wasn’t getting any younger either. They had been friends in the old days, when he had taken two years of medicine at the University of Nantes. Chabot himself had been a law student. They lived in the same boarding-house. On two or three Sundays he had gone with his friend to his mother’s house in Fontenay. And since then, across the years, they had seen each other perhaps ten times all told. “When are you coming to visit me in Vendée?” Madame Maigret had had a hand in it too. “Why don’t you stop and see your friend Chabot on your way back from Bordeaux?” He should have been at Fontenay two hours ago. He had taken the wrong train. At Niort, where he had waited a long time, having a number of glasses of brandy in the waiting room, he had hesitated to telephone for Chabot to come and fetch him by car. He hadn’t done so, in the end, because if Julien came to meet him, he would insist on Maigret’s staying at his place, and the Chief Inspector hated sleeping in other people’s houses. He would go to the hotel. Once there, and not before, he would telephone. He had been wrong to make this detour instead of having these two days’ holiday at home, on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. Who knows? Perhaps in Paris it was no longer raining and spring had arrived at last. “So, they have sent for you…” He jumped. Without realizing it, he must have gone on staring vaguely at his fellow passenger, and the latter had just made up his mind to speak to him. He seemed to be embarrassed about it himself. He felt he had to put on a slightly ironical tone of voice. “I beg your pardon?” “I said that I suspected they would call for someone like you.” Maigret still not seeming to understand, he continued: “You are Chief Inspector Maigret, aren’t you?” The traveler became once more the man of the world, rose from his seat to introduce himself: “Vernoux de Courçon.” “How do you do?” “I recognized you immediately, from having often seen your photograph in the newspapers.” He said that rather as if he were apologizing for being one of those who read newspapers. “It must happen to you often.” “What?” “That people recognize you.” Maigret did not know what to reply. He hadn’t yet come firmly down to earth. As for the man, little drops of sweat had appeared on his forehead, as if he had got himself into a situation from which he didn’t know how to recover advantageously. “Was it my friend Julien who telephoned you?” “Do you mean Julien Chabot?” “The Examining Magistrate. I’m only surprised that he said nothing to me about it when I met him this morning.” “I still don’t understand.” Vernoux de Courçon looked at him more attentively, frowning. “You mean to say that it’s just by chance that you’re coming to Fontenay-le- Comte?” “Yes.” “Aren’t you going to see Julien Chabot?” “Yes, but…” Maigret reddened suddenly, furious with himself, because he had just replied subserviently, as he used to do in the old days when he was addressed by people of this type, “the people from the château.” “Curious, isn’t it?” said the other ironically. “What is so curious?” “That Chief Inspector Maigret, who has probably never set foot in Fontenay…” “Has someone told you that?” “I only presume so. At any rate, you have not been seen there often, and I have never heard any mention of it. It’s curious, I say, that you should be arriving just at a time when the authorities are baffled by the most puzzling mystery that…” Maigret struck a match, took little puffs at his pipe. “I did part of my studies with Julien Chabot,” he announced calmly. “Many times in the past, I have been a guest at his house on Rue Clemenceau.” “Indeed?” Coldly, he repeated: “Indeed.” “In that case, we shall surely see you tomorrow evening at my house on Rue Rabelais, where Chabot comes every Saturday for a game of bridge.” It was the last stop before Fontenay. Vernoux de Courçon had no luggage, only a chestnut-colored leather briefcase placed by his side on the seat. “I shall be curious to see if you’ll unveil the mystery. Chance or not, it is lucky for Chabot that you’re here.” “Is his mother still alive?” “As fit as ever.” The man got up to button his raincoat, smooth his gloves, adjust his hat. The train was slowing down, a string of lights went past, and men began to run along the platform. “I am very glad to have met you. Tell Chabot that I look forward to seeing you both tomorrow evening.” Maigret merely replied with a nod and opened the door, took hold of his bag, which was heavy, and made his way to the exit without looking at the people he passed. Chabot could not be expecting him on this train, which he had only caught by accident. In front of the station, Maigret looked down the length of Rue de la République, where it was pouring rain. “Taxi, sir?” He nodded. “Hôtel de France?” He said yes again, settled himself irritably into the corner. It was only nine o’clock in the evening, but there was no longer any sign of life in the town; only two or three cafés were still lighted. The door of the Hôtel de France was flanked by two palm trees in barrels painted green. “Have you got a room?” “With a single bed?” “Yes. If it’s possible, I would like something to eat.”“ The hotel was already half in darkness, like a church after vespers. They had to go and ask in the kitchen, switch on two or three lights in the dining room. To save going up to his room, he washed his hands in a porcelain washbasin. “Some white wine?” He was sick of all the white wine he had had to drink in Bordeaux. “Haven’t you got some beer?” “Only in bottles.” “In that case, give me some red wine.” They had reheated some soup for him, and cut him some slices of ham. From his seat, he saw someone enter the lobby of the hotel, dripping wet. Finding no one to ask, this man peered into the dining room and seemed reassured to see the Chief Inspector there. He was a red-haired fellow of about forty, with large, ruddy cheeks and cameras slung over his shoulder outside his beige raincoat. He shook his hat for the rain to drop off, came forward. “First of all, do you mind if I take a photograph? I am the correspondent for Ouest-Eclair in this district. I just saw you at the station, but I wasn’t able to catch up with you in time. So, they have sent for you to throw some light on the Courçon case.” A flash of light. A click. “Superintendent Féron didn’t tell us anything about you. Neither did the Examining Magistrate.” “I am not here on the Courçon case.” The young redhead smiled, the smile of someone in the know, who can’t be fooled. “But of course.” “Why of course?” “You’re not here officially. I understand. It doesn’t mean that…” “It means nothing at all!” “The proof is that Féron’s told me he is hurrying over.” “Who’s Féron?” “The Fontenay Police Superintendent. When I spotted you at the station, I dived into a telephone booth and called him up. He told me he would meet me here.” “Here?” “Certainly. Where else would you stay?” Maigret emptied his glass, wiped his mouth, growled: “Who is this Vernoux de Courçon with whom I traveled from Niort?” “Yes, he was on the train. He’s the brother-in-law.” “Whose brother-in-law?” “Courçon’s, the murdered man’s.” A short brown-haired figure now entered the hotel and at once noticed the two men in the dining room. “Hello, Féron,” called the reporter. “Good evening to you. Forgive me, Chief Inspector. Nobody told me of your arrival, which explains why I wasn’t at the station. I was having a quick snack, after a harassing day, when…” He pointed to the redhead. “I hurried and…” “I was telling this young man,” said Maigret, pushing away his plate and grasping his pipe, “that I have nothing to do with this Courçon affair of yours. I’ve come to Fontenay-le-Comte, by purest chance, to pay a visit to my old friend Chabot and…“ “Does he know that you’re here?” “He was supposed to be expecting me on the four o’clock train. Since he didn’t see me, he probably thought that I wouldn’t come until tomorrow, or that I wouldn’t come at all.” Maigret rose. “And now, with your leave, I shall go and call on him before going to bed.” Both the Superintendent and the reporter looked disconcerted. “You really know nothing?” “Absolutely nothing.” “You haven’t read the newspapers?” “The past three days, the organizers of the Police Congress and the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce haven’t left us a moment to ourselves.” They exchanged dubious glances. “You know where the Magistrate lives?” “Yes, indeed. That is, if the town hasn’t changed since I paid my last visit.”