Maigret’s Christmas

It always happened like that. Presumably he had said with a sigh as he went to bed : ‘Tomorrow I shall have a long lie-in.’

And Madame Maigret had taken him at his word, as if the years had taught her nothing, as if she did not know better than to pay attention to such casual remarks. She could quite well have slept late herself. She had no reason to get up early.

And yet, even before it was quite light, he had heard her moving cautiously about in the bedclothes. He had not stirred. He had forced himself to go on breathing deeply and regularly, as if he were asleep. It was a kind of game. There was something touching about the way she edged across the bed, pausing after every movement to make sure that he had not woken up. He invariably waited in suspense for the moment when the springs of the bed, relieved of his wife’s weight, would relax with a slight sound like a sigh.

Then she would pick up her clothes from the chair, take an inordinate time turning the handle of the bathroom door, and at last, in the distant kitchen, allow herself to move about in a normal way.

He had fallen asleep again, not deeply and not for long; just long enough to have a confused and uneasy dream. He could not remember it afterwards, but he knew it had been disturbing and it left him feeling unusually sensitive.

A streak of pale, bleak daylight was visible between the curtains, which never quite met. He waited a little longer, lying on his back with his eyes open. He could smell coffee, and when he heard the door of the flat open and close again, he knew that Madame Maigret had hurried down to go and buy him some hot croissants.

Usually he took nothing for breakfast but a cup of black coffee. But this was another ritual, one of his wife’s notions. On Sundays and holidays he was supposed to lie in bed till late in the morning, while she went to fetch croissants for him from the corner of the Rue Amelot.

He got up, put on his dressing-gown and slippers and drew the curtains. He knew that he was doing the wrong thing and that she’d be distressed. He was prepared to make great sacrifices to give her pleasure, but not to stay in bed when he no longer wanted to.

It was not snowing. When one was past fifty it was absurd to be disappointed because there was no snow on Christmas morning, but elderly people are never quite as sensible as the young imagine.

The low, dense, off-white sky seemed to lie heavily on the roofs. The Boulevard Richard-Lenoir was completely deserted, and across the street, above the main gate of the warehouse, the words Entrepôt Légal, Fils et Cie stood out in pitch-black letters. The E, heaven knows why, looked particularly gloomy.

He heard his wife going about the kitchen again, tiptoeing into the dining-room, still moving gingerly because she did not realize that he was up, standing by the window. When he looked at his watch on the bedside table he realized that it was only ten minutes past eight.

They had been to the theatre the night before. They would have liked to go to a restaurant afterwards for something to eat, like everybody else, but everywhere tables had been reserved for midnight suppers, and so they had walked home arm in arm. They had got in just before midnight and had not had long to wait before giving each other their presents.

His was a pipe, as usual. Hers was an electric coffee-pot of the latest model, which she had wanted, and for the sake of tradition a dozen finely embroidered handkerchiefs.

He filled his new pipe automatically. In some of the houses on the other side of the boulevard the windows had Venetian blinds; in others, not. Few people seemed to be up. Only here and there a light was on, probably because somebody’s children had got up early to rush and look at the toys round the Christmas tree.

Maigret and his wife would spend a peaceful morning together in their cosy flat. He would sit about late in his dressing-gown, without shaving, and chat with his wife in the kitchen while she prepared lunch.

He was not feeling sad. It was just that his dream – which he could still not remember – had left him feeling peculiarly sensitive. And perhaps after all it was not his dream, but just Christmas. He’d have to be very careful today, weighing his words, as careful as Madame Maigret had been getting out of bed, because she, too, would be in a rather more emotional state than usual.

Hush! He must not think of that. He must say nothing that could suggest such thoughts. He must not look into the street too often, presently, when the youngsters began showing off their toys on the pavements.

There were children in most, if not all, of the houses. Soon there would be heard the sound of shrill trumpets, drums and popguns. Little girls were already cradling their dolls.

Once, many years ago, he had remarked casually:

‘Why don’t we take advantage of Christmas to go off for a trip somewhere?’

‘Go off where?’ she had asked with her unassailable common sense.

Go and see whom? They hadn’t even any relatives to visit, apart from her sister, who lived too far away. To stay in a hotel in a strange town, or an inn in some country place?

Hush! It was time to drink his coffee, and afterwards he would feel steadier. He was never at his best before that first cup of coffee and his first pipe.

Just as he was reaching out towards the handle of the door it opened noiselessly, and Madame Maigret appeared, carrying a tray; she looked at the empty bed and then at him, disappointed, almost on the verge of tears.

‘You’ve got up!’

She was looking fresh and spruce already, with her hair neatly done and wearing a light-coloured apron.

‘And I was looking forward to bringing you breakfast in bed!’

He had so often tried, tactfully, to make her realize that this was no treat for him, that it didn’t agree with him, that it made him feel like an invalid or a cripple, but breakfast in bed still remained her ideal for Sundays and holidays.

‘Won’t you go back to bed?’

No! He couldn’t face that.

‘Come along then…Happy Christmas!’

‘Happy Christmas! You’re not vexed with me?’

They were in the dining-room, with the silver tray on one corner of the table, the steaming cups of coffee, the golden-brown croissants in a napkin.

Laying down his pipe, he ate a croissant to please her, but he remained standing up, and commented as he looked out of the window:

‘It’s snow-dust.’

It was not true snow. A kind of fine white dust was falling from the sky and it reminded him how, when he was small, he used to put out his tongue to catch a few tiny particles.

His gaze settled on the door of the house opposite, to the left of the warehouse. Two women had just come out, bareheaded. One of them, a blonde of about thirty, had flung a coat loosely over her shoulders; the other, an older woman, was huddled in a shawl.

The fair woman seemed to hesitate, as though ready to beat a retreat. The dark one, a thin little creature, was being insistent, and Maigret had the impression that she was indicating his own windows. Then the concierge appeared in the doorway behind them, as though coming to the rescue of the thin woman, and the blonde finally made up her mind to cross the street, casting an anxious glance behind her.

‘What are you looking at?’

‘Nothing…Some women…’

‘What are they doing?’

‘They seem to be coming here.’

For the pair of them, in the middle of the boulevard, were looking up in his direction.

‘I hope they’re not going to disturb you on Christmas day. I haven’t even done my housework.’

Nobody would have noticed that, for apart from the tray there was nothing lying about and no speck of dust on the polished furniture.

‘Are you certain they’re coming here?’

‘We shall see.’

He took the precaution of going to comb his hair, brush his teeth and splash some water on his face. He was still in the bedroom, relighting his pipe, when he heard a ring at the door. Madame Maigret must have put up some resistance, for it was a little time before she came to fetch him.

‘They insist on speaking to you,’ she whispered. ‘They say it may be important, that they need advice. I know one of them.’

‘Which one?’

‘The little skinny one, Mademoiselle Doncoeur. She lives across the street on the same floor as ours, and she spends all day working beside her window. She’s a very respectable person, who does fine embroidery for a shop in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. I’ve sometimes wondered whether she might not be in love with you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because when you leave the house she frequently gets up to watch you go off.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Forty-five or fifty. Aren’t you going to get dressed?’

Surely, when people came and disturbed him at home, at half-past eight on a Christmas morning, he was entitled to appear in his dressing-gown? He pulled on a pair of trousers under it, however, then he opened the door of the dining-room, where the two women were standing.

‘Forgiveme, ladies…’

Perhaps Madame Maigret had been right after all, for Mademoiselle Doncoeur did not blush but turned pale, lost her smile for a moment and then recovered it, and opened her mouth without finding anything to say right away.

As for the blonde, who was in perfect control of herself, she remarked somewhat petulantly:

‘It wasn’t me that wanted to come.’

‘Won’t you sit down?’

He observed that the blonde was only partly dressed under her coat and wore no stockings, whereas Mademoiselle Doncoeur was in her Sunday best.

‘You may wonder at our being bold enough to come to you,’ the latter began, choosing her words with care. ‘Of course, like everyone else in the neighbourhood, we know whom we’re privileged to have living among us…’

By now she was blushing a little and staring at the ceiling.

‘We’re preventing you from finishing your breakfast.’

‘I had finished. Go on.’

‘This morning, or rather last night, something happened in our building, something so disturbing that I immediately thought it was our duty to speak to you about it. Madame Martin didn’t want to bother you. I told her…’

‘Do you live across the street too, Madame Martin?’

‘Yes, Monsieur.’

She was clearly annoyed at having been forced to take this step. As for Mademoiselle Doncoeur, she had started off again.

‘We live on the same floor, just opposite your windows’ (and she blushed again, as if this constituted a confession). ‘Monsieur Martin is often away on business, which is quite understandable since he’s a commercial traveller. For the past two months their little girl has been in bed, as the result of a silly accident.’

Maigret turned politely to the blonde.

‘You have a daughter, Madame Martin?’

‘That’s to say she’s not our daughter but our niece. Her mother died a little over two years ago, and since then the child has been living with us. She broke her leg in the stairway, and she would have recovered after six weeks if there hadn’t been complications.’

‘Is your husband out of town at the moment?’

‘He’s probably in the Dordogne.’

‘Go on, please, Mademoiselle Doncoeur.’

Madame Maigret had gone back to the kitchen by way of the bathroom, and the clatter of pans could be heard. From time to time Maigret glanced out at the livid sky.

‘This morning I got up early as usual, to go to the first Mass.’

‘You went to it?’

‘Yes. I got back about half-past seven, for I heard three Masses. I prepared my breakfast. You may have seen a light in my window.’

He indicated that he had not noticed.

‘I was eager to take Colette a few little presents, because this is such a wretched Christmas for her. Colette is Madame Martin’s niece.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Seven. That’s right, isn’t it, Madame Martin?’

‘She’ll be seven in January.’

‘At eight o’clock I knocked at the door of Madame Martin’s flat.’

‘I wasn’t up,’ said the blonde woman. ‘I sometimes sleep late.’

‘As I was saying, I knocked and Madame Martin kept me waiting a few minutes, while she put on her dressing-gown. I was carrying my presents for Colette and I asked if I could take them to her.’

He was aware that the blonde had had time to scrutinize everything in the room, and was meanwhile casting an occasional sharp, suspicious glance at him.

‘We opened the door of the child’s room together.’

‘She has a bedroom to herself?’

‘Yes. The flat consists of two bedrooms, a cabinet de toilette, a dining-room and a kitchen. But I must tell you… No! that comes later. I’d got to where we opened the door. As it was dark in the room, Madame Martin switched on the electric light.’

‘Was Colette awake?’

‘Yes. You could see that she’d been lying awake for a long time, waiting. You know what children are like on Christmas morning. If she’d been able to use her legs she’d certainly have got up to see what Father Christmas had brought her. Maybe another child would have called out. But Colette is a very mature little girl. You feel that she thinks a lot, that she’s much older than her age.’

Madame Martin now glanced out of the window, and Maigret tried to guess which her flat was. Probably the one on the right, at the far end of the block, where two windows were lighted.

Mademoiselle Doncoeur went on:

‘I wished her a Merry Christmas. I said to her, and these were my very words: “Look, darling, what Father Christmas has left in my room for you.” ’

Madame Martin’s fingers were twitching uneasily.

‘And do you know what she answered me, without looking to see what I’d brought her–they were only trifles, anyway.

‘ “I saw him.”

‘ “Who did you see?”

‘ “Father Christmas.”

‘ “When did you see him? Where?”

‘ “Here, last night. He came into my room.”

‘That’s what she told us, wasn’t it, Madame Martin? Coming from any other child it would just have made you smile, but as I told you, Colette is a very mature little girl. She wasn’t joking.

‘ “ How could you have seen him in the dark?”

‘ “He had a light.”

‘ “Did he switch on the electric light?”

‘ “No. He had a torch. Look, maman Loraine…”

‘Because I must tell you that the child calls Madame Martin maman, which is quite natural since she’s lost her own mother and Madame Martin looks after her…’

It had all begun to sound like a confused buzzing in Maigret’s ears. He hadn’t drunk his second cup of coffee, and his pipe had gone out.

‘Did she really see somebody?’ he queried without conviction.

‘Yes, Superintendent. And that’s why I insisted on Madame Martin coming to speak to you. We have a proof of it. The little girl gave a knowing smile and lifted the sheet to show us, lying beside her in the bed, a magnificent doll which hadn’t been in the house the day before.’

‘You hadn’t given her a doll, Madame Martin?’

‘I was going to give her one, not nearly such a fine one, which I had bought yesterday afternoon at the Galeries. I was holding it behind my back when we went into the room.’

‘So that means that somebody came into your flat during the night?’

‘And that’s not everything,’ hastily broke in Mademoiselle Doncoeur, who was now well under way. ‘Colette’s not the sort of child who would tell a lie or make a mistake. We questioned her, Madame Martin and I. She’s certain she saw someone dressed as Father Christmas, with a white beard and a big red coat.’

‘What time was it when she woke up?’

‘She doesn’t know. It was during the night. She opened her eyes because she thought she saw a light, and there actually was a light in the room, shining on part of the floor in front of the fireplace.’

‘I can’t understand what it all means,’ sighed Madame Martin. ‘Unless my husband knows more about it than I do…’

Mademoiselle Doncoeur was determined to keep control of the conversation. It was obviously she who had questioned the child without sparing her a single detail, just as it was she who had thought of consulting Maigret.

‘Colette told us that Father Christmas had been crouching down, doing something on the floor.’

‘Wasn’t she frightened?’

‘No. She watched him, and this morning she told us he had been making a hole in the floor. She thought he wanted to go down through it to the Delormes’ flat below, where there’s a little boy of three, and she added that the chimney was probably too narrow.

‘The man must have felt that he was being watched. Apparently he got up, came over to the bed and deposited a big doll on it, laying a finger to his lips.’

‘Did she see him go out?’

‘Yes.’

‘Through the floor?’

‘No. By the door.’

‘Into which room in the flat does this door lead?’

‘It opens directly on to the passage. This is a room which used to be let out separately. It communicates both with the passage and with the rest of the flat.’

‘It wasn’t locked?’

‘It was locked,’ broke in Madame Martin. ‘I wouldn’t have left the child in a room that wasn’t properly shut.’

‘Had the door been forced?’

‘Probably. I don’t know. Mademoiselle Doncoeur immediately suggested coming to see you.’

‘Did you discover a hole in the floor?’

Madame Martin shrugged her shoulders as though in exasperation, but the older woman answered for her.

‘Not a hole strictly speaking, but you can see that some boards have been lifted up.’

‘Tell me, Madame Martin, have you any idea what there might have been under that floor?’

‘No, Monsieur.’

‘Have you been living in this flat a long time?’

‘Since I got married five years ago.’

‘Did this room already form part of the flat?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know who lived there before you?’

‘My husband did. He’s thirty-eight. When I married him he was thirty-three already and he had a place of his own; he liked to have a home to come back to after his business trips.’

‘Don’t you think he might have wanted to give Colette a surprise?’

‘He’s six or seven hundred kilometres away from here.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘Most likely in Bergerac. His trips are organized beforehand and it’s unusual for him not to keep to the timetable.’

‘What is his line?’

‘He’s the representative of Zenith watches for the centra! and south-western region. It’s a very big firm, as you probably know, and he has an excellent job.’

‘He’s the best man in the world!’ exclaimed Mademoiselle Doncoeur, and then corrected herself, blushing, ‘Next to yourself!’

‘In short, if I’ve understood aright, somebody broke into your flat last night disguised as Father Christmas?’

‘So the child declares.’

‘Did you hear nothing? Is your bedroom far from the child’s?’

‘There’s the dining-room between them.’

‘Don’t you leave the communicating doors open at night?’

‘It isn’t necessary. Colette is not a timid child, and she doesn’t usually wake up. If she needs me she has a little brass bell on the bedside table beside her.’

‘Did you go out last night?’

‘No, Superintendent,’ she replied curtly, sounding annoyed.

‘You received no visitors?’

‘I’m not in the habit of receiving visitors in my husband’s absence.’

Maigret glanced at Mademoiselle Doncoeur, who remained unmoved, which implied that this must be the truth.

‘Did you go to bed late?’

‘As soon as the radio had played “Midnight, Christians”. I had been reading until then.’

‘Did you hear anything unusual?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Did you ask the concierge if she pulled the cord to let in any stranger?’

Mademoiselle Doncoeur interrupted again: ‘I spoke to her about it. She says she didn’t.’

‘And this morning, you found nothing missing, Madame Martin? You didn’t get the impression that anyone had been into the dining-room?’

‘No.’

‘Who is with the child just now?’

‘Nobody. She’s used to being alone. I can’t stop at home all day. There’s the shopping to be done…’

‘I understand. Colette is an orphan, you told me?’

‘Her mother’s dead.’

‘Then her father is still living? Where is he? Who is he?’

‘He’s my husband’s brother, Paul Martin. As for saying where he is…’ She waved her arms vaguely.

‘When did you last see him?’

‘At least a month ago. More than that. About All Saints’ Day. He was just finishing one of his bouts.’

‘What did you say?’

She replied with a touch of ill-humour :

‘I may as well tell you at once, since now we’re deep in family problems.’

She was obviously feeling resentful towards Mademoiselle Doncoeur, whom she held responsible for the situation.

‘My brother-in-law, particularly since he lost his wife, is no longer a respectable person.’

‘What exactly do you mean?’

‘He drinks. He used to drink before, but not to excess, and he never got himself into trouble. He was in a regular job, quite a good job in a furniture store in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Since the accident…’

‘The accident to his daughter?’

‘I mean the one that caused his wife’s death. One Sunday he took it into his head to borrow a friend’s car and take his wife and child into the country. Colette was quite small then.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘About three years ago. They went for lunch to a riverside inn near Mantes-la-Jolie. Paul couldn’t resist drinking too much white wine, and it went to his head. On the way back to Paris he was singing at the top of his voice, and the accident occurred near Bougival bridge. His wife was killed on the spot. He himself had his skull fractured, and only escaped death by a miracle. Colette was unhurt. Since then he’s been only half a man. We took in the little girl, we practically adopted her. He comes to see her from time to time, but only when he’s more or less sober. Then he relapses immediately afterwards…’

‘Do you know where he lives?’

A vague gesture. ‘Anywhere. We’ve met him slouching about in the Bastille area, like a beggar. Sometimes he sells newspapers in the street. I’m telling you this in front of Mademoiselle Doncoeur because unfortunately the whole house knows about it.’

‘Don’t you think he might have had the idea of dressing up as Father Christmas to pay his daughter a visit?’

‘That’s what I said to Mademoiselle Doncoeur right away. She insisted on our coming to consult you all the same.’

‘Because he’d have had no reason to raise the floor-boards,’ Mademoiselle Doncoeur retorted rather tartly.

‘Who knows if your husband might not have returned to Paris sooner than he expected and…’

‘It must be something of the sort. I’m not worried. If it hadn’t been for Mademoiselle Doncoeur…’

Again! Decidedly, she had not crossed the boulevard of her own freewill.

‘Can you tell me where your husband is likely to be staying?’

‘At the Hôtel de Bordeaux in Bergerac.’

‘Didn’t you think of telephoning him?’

‘There’s no telephone in the house, except in the first floor flat, and the people there don’t like being bothered.’

‘Have you any objection to my ringing up the Hôtel de Bordeaux?’

She consented at first, then demurred: ‘He’ll wonder what’s going on.’

‘You can speak to him.’

‘He’s not used to my telephoning him.’

‘Would you rather be left in uncertainty?’

‘No. Just as you like. I’ll speak to him.’

He lifted the receiver and asked for the call. Ten minutes later the Hôtel de Bordeaux was on the line; he handed the receiver to Madame Martin.

‘Hello! I would like to speak to Monsieur Martin, please. Monsieur Jean Martin, yes… That doesn’t matter… Wake him up…’

She explained with her hand over the mouthpiece:

‘He’s still asleep. They’ve gone to fetch him.’

She was evidently wondering what to say.

‘Hello, is that you?… What?… Yes, happy Christmas!… Yes, everything’s all right… Colette’s fine… No, that’s not the only reason I’m calling you…No, no, nothing dreadful, don’t worry…’

She repeated, stressing each syllable: ‘I tell you not to worry… Only, something peculiar happened last night… Somebody dressed as Father Christmas came into Colette’s room… No, no! He didn’t hurt her… He gave her a big doll… Yes, a doll… And he did something to the floor… He lifted up two boards and then put them back hurriedly… Mademoiselle Doncoeur insisted on my speaking about it to the police superintendent who lives across the street… It’s from his place that I ’m ringing you… You don’t understand? Neither do I… You’d like a word with him?…I’ll ask him…’

And to Maigret : ‘ He’d like to speak to you.’

Maigret heard the voice of a decent, anxious man, evidently bewildered.

‘You’re quite sure no harm’s been done to my wife or the little girl? It’s so extraordinary! If it had just been the doll, I’d have thought it was my brother… Loraine will tell you about him… Loraine is my wife… Ask her for details… But he’d not have played about with the floor-boards… Do you think I’d better come back right away? There’s a train about three this afternoon… What did you say? I can count on you to look after them?’

Loraine took back the receiver.

‘You see! The Superintendent isn’t worried. I’m sure there’s no danger. It’s not worth interrupting your round just when you’ve got the chance of being appointed to Paris…’

Mademoiselle Doncoeur was staring at her, and there was little fondness in her gaze.

‘I promise to ring you up or send you a wire if there should be any fresh news. She’s quite happy. She’s playing with her doll. I haven’t had time yet to give her what you sent for her. I’m going to do so right away…’

She hung up, remarking: ‘You see!’

Then, after a pause: ‘I apologize for having bothered you. It wasn’t my fault. I’m sure the whole thing was just a bad joke, or else some whim of my brother-in-law’s. When he’s been drinking you can’t foretell what he’ll think of…’

‘Are you not expecting to see him today? Don’t you think he ’ll want to come and visit his daughter?’

‘It depends. Not if he’s been drinking. He takes care not to let her see him like that. When he comes he manages to be as decent as possible.’

‘Will you allow me to go and have a chat with Colette presently?’

‘I can’t prevent you. If you think it’s any use…’

‘Thank you, Monsieur Maigret,’ exclaimed Mademoiselle Doncoeur with a look that combined complicity and gratitude. ‘She’s such an interesting child! You’ll see!’

She backed towards the door. A few minutes later Maigret watched them crossing the boulevard, one behind the other, the spinster lady following close on Madame Martin’s heels and turning back to cast a glance up at the Superintendent’s windows.

Madame Maigret looked in from the kitchen, where onions were sizzling crisply. She said gently:

‘Are you happy?’

Hush! He mustn’t even appear to understand. That Christmas morning he was not being given an opportunity to remember that they were an elderly couple with nobody to spoil.

It was time to shave before going to see Colette.

2

It was while he was in the middle of dressing, just about to wet his shaving brush, that he had decided to telephone. He had not bothered to put on his dressing-gown; he was sitting in pyjamas in his special armchair next to the dining-room window, waiting for the call to be put through and watching the smoke rising slowly from many chimneys.

The ringing of the telephone bell over in the Quai des Orfèvres had quite a different sound, in his ears, from the ringing of any other bell, and he could picture the wide empty passages, the doors open on to deserted offices, and the switchboard operator calling Lucas to say: ‘It’s the Chief!’

He felt rather like one of his wife’s friends, whose greatest pleasure – in which she indulged almost every day – was to spend the morning in bed with the windows closed and the curtains drawn, by the dim light of a bedside lamp, calling up one or other of her friends at random.

‘What, is it really ten o’clock? What’s the weather like outside? It’s raining? And you’ve been out already? You’ve done your shopping?’

Thus she sought to make contact with the troubled world outside, while sinking ever more voluptuously into the soft warmth of her bed.

‘Is that you, Chief?’

Maigret, too, longed to ask Lucas who was on duty with him, what they were both doing, what the place was like that morning.

‘Nothing new? Not too much work?’

‘Hardly anything. Just routine…’

‘I’d like you to make a few enquiries for me. I think you can get the information by telephone. First, a list of all prisoners who have been released during the last two, or let’s say three, months.’

‘From which prison?’

‘From all prisons. Only bother with those who have served at least a five-year sentence. Try to find out if there’s one of them who at some period of his life has lived in the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. Do you follow?’

‘I’ve made a note of it.’

Lucas must have been completely puzzled, but did not betray it.

‘Another thing. I’d like you to trace a certain Paul Martin, an alcoholic, no fixed address, who often hangs about the Bastille district. He’s not to be arrested or bothered. Just find out where he spent the night on Christmas Eve. The local stations may be able to help you.’

Actually, unlike his wife’s friend, he felt uneasy at being at home in his armchair, unshaven and in pyjamas, looking out at a familiar landscape where there was no sign of life but the smoke from the chimneys, while at the other end of the line good old Lucas had been on duty since six in the morning and must already have unpacked his sandwiches.

‘That’s not all, old fellow. Ring up Bergerac. At the Hôtel de Bordeaux there’s a commercial traveller called Jean Martin. No, Jean! It’s not the same man, it’s his brother. I’d like to know whether at any time yesterday or during the night he received a call or a wire from Paris. And while you’re at it, find out where he spent the evening. I think that’s all.’

‘Shall I call you back?’

‘Not immediately. I have to go out. I’ll call you.’

‘Has something been happening in your neighbourhood?’

‘I don’t know yet. Maybe.’

Madame Maigret came to talk to him in the bathroom while he finished dressing. And because of those chimney pots, he did not put on his overcoat. Seeing them with the smoke slowly rising and dissolving in the sky, one could imagine overheated rooms behind those windows, and he would be spending some time in poky flats where he would not be asked to make himself at home. He decided to cross the boulevard as though to make a neighbourly call, merely putting on his hat.

The block of flats, like his own, was old but decent, somewhat gloomy, particularly on this grey December morning. He avoided the concierge, who watched him go past somewhat resentfully, and as he went up the stairs, doors opened noiselessly and he could hear muffled footsteps and whispering voices.

On the third floor Mademoiselle Doncoeur, who must have been keeping watch through the window, was waiting for him in the passage, in a state of mingled shyness and excitement, as though for a rendezvous with a lover.

‘This way, Monsieur Maigret. She went out quite a while ago.’

He frowned, and she noticed this.

‘I told her she shouldn’t, that you were coming and that she’d better stay at home. She answered that she hadn’t done her shopping yesterday, that she was short of all sorts of things and that later the shops would all be shut. Come in.’

She was standing by the far door, which led into a dining-room that was rather small and dark, but clean and tidy.

‘I’m looking after the little girl till she comes back. Colette is looking forward to seeing you, for I’ve told her about you, and her only fear is that you might take away her doll.’

‘When did Madame Martin decide to go out?’

‘Immediately we got back from seeing you. She began dressing.’

‘How fully did she dress?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I suppose that for shopping in the neighbourhood she doesn’t dress quite in the same way as when she’s going to town?’

‘She’s very nicely dressed, she’s wearing her hat and gloves. She took her shopping bag with her.’

Before visiting Colette, Maigret went into the kitchen, where the remains of someone’s breakfast were lying.

‘Had she eaten before she came to see me?’

‘No. I didn’t give her time to.’

‘Did she eat afterwards?’

‘No, she just made herself a cup of black coffee. It was I who gave Colette her breakfast while Madame Martin was dressing.’

On the window ledge overlooking the courtyard there was a meat-safe, at which Maigret had a careful look; it contained cold meat, butter, eggs and vegetables. In the kitchen cupboard he found two fresh, untouched loaves of bread. Colette had eaten croissants with her cup of chocolate.

‘Do you know Madame Martin well?’

‘She’s my neighbour, isn’t she? I’ve seen more of her since Colette has been laid up, because she often asks me to keep an eye on the child when she goes out.’

‘Does she go out a great deal?’

‘Not much. Just for her shopping.’

Something had struck him on coming in, which he tried to define, something about the atmosphere, the arrangement of the furniture, the kind of order that prevailed there and even the smell of the place. It was while he looked at Mademoiselle Doncoeur that he found, or thought he had found, the answer.

He had been told, a little earlier, that Martin had lived in the flat before his marriage. Now in spite of the fact that Madame Martin had also lived there for five years, it still looked like a bachelor’s flat. For instance, in the dining-room, he pointed to two enlarged photographs on either side of the mantelpiece.

‘Who are these two?’

‘Monsieur Martin’s father and mother.’

‘Are there no photographs of Madame Martin’s parents?’

‘I’ve never heard them mentioned. I suppose she must be an orphan.’

Even the bedroom lacked any sort of feminine prettiness. He opened a hanging cupboard and beside a neat row of men’s clothes he saw some women’s garments, chiefly tailor-made suits and very plain dresses. He did not venture to open the drawers, but he was convinced that they contained no trinkets, none of those little trifles that women tend to collect.

‘Mademoiselle Doncoeur!’ called a quiet little voice.

‘Let’s go and see Colette,’ he decided.

The child’s room, too, was austere, almost bare, and in a bed that was too big for her there lay a little girl with a grave face and questioning but trustful eyes.

‘Are you the Superintendent, Monsieur?’

‘I am, my dear. Don’t be frightened.’

‘I’m not frightened. Hasn’t maman Loraine come back?’

The phrase struck him. Hadn’t the Martins more or less adopted their niece? But the child did not just say maman; she said maman Loraine.

‘Do you believe it was Father Christmas who came to see me last night?’

‘I’m sure it was.’

‘Maman Loraine doesn’t think so. She never believes me.’

She had a funny little face with very bright eyes and a piercing look, and the plaster which encased one of her legs half way up the thigh formed a little mountain under the blanket.

Mademoiselle Doncoeur was standing in the doorway, and tactfully, in order to leave them alone together, she announced:

‘I’m going to run back and make sure there’s nothing burning on my stove.’

Maigret, who had sat down beside the bed, did not know quite how to set about it. In fact, he did not know what question to ask.

‘Are you very fond of maman Loraine?’

‘Yes, Monsieur.’

She answered quietly, without enthusiasm but without hesitation.

‘And your daddy?’

‘Which one? Because I’ve got two, you know, papa Paul and papa Jean.’

‘Is it a long time since you saw papa Paul?’

‘I don’t know. Some weeks, maybe. He promised to bring me a toy for Christmas and he hasn’t come yet. He must have been ill.’

‘Is he often ill?’

‘Yes, often. When he’s ill he doesn’t come to see me.’

‘And what about papa Jean?’

‘He’s away now, but he’ll be back for New Year. Perhaps then he’ll get the job in Paris and then he won’t have to go away any more. He’ll be glad and so will I.’

‘Have you had a lot of friends to visit you since you’ve been laid up?’

‘What friends? The girls at school don’t know where I live. Or if they do know, they’re not allowed to come by themselves.’

‘Friends of maman Loraine, or your daddy’s?’

‘Nobody ever comes.’

‘Never? Are you sure?’

‘Only the gas man or the electricity man. I hear them, because the door’s nearly always open. I know them. There was just twice that somebody else came.’

‘A long time ago?’

‘The first time was the day after my accident. I remember, because the doctor had only just left.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I didn’t see him. I heard him knocking at the other door, and then maman Loraine shut the door of my room. They talked in low voices for quite a long time. Afterwards she told me he’d come bothering her about an insurance. I don’t know what that is.’

‘And he came back?’

‘Five or six days ago. This time it was in the evening, after my light had been turned out. I was still awake. I heard the knocking and the quiet talking, just like the first time. I knew it wasn’t Mademoiselle Doncoeur, who sometimes comes in the evening to keep maman Loraine company. Later on I thought they were quarrelling and I was frightened. I called out, then maman Loraine came in to tell me it was about the insurance again and I must go to sleep.’

‘Did he stay a long time?’

‘I don’t know. I think I fell asleep.’

‘Didn’t you see him either time?’

‘No, but I should recognize his voice.’

‘Even when he speaks low?’

‘Yes. Just because he speaks low and it makes a noise like a big bumble bee. I may keep the doll, mayn’t I? Maman Loraine bought me two boxes of sweets and a little work-basket. She had bought me a doll too, much smaller than Father Christmas’s, because she isn’t very rich. She showed it me this morning before she went out, then she put it back in the box because I don’t need it now I’ve got this one. The shop will take it back.’

The flat was overheated, the rooms were airless, and yet Maigret felt chilly. The house was like his own, over the way. Why did everything here seem smaller and meaner?

He bent over the floor, at the place where the boards had been lifted, and he saw only a dusty cavity, slightly damp, as under any other floor. A few scratches in the wood suggested that a chisel or some similar tool had been used.

He went to examine the door, and there too saw signs that force had been used. It had been an easy amateurish job, actually.

‘Was Father Christmas cross when he saw you were watching him?’

‘No, Monsieur. He was busy making a hole in the floor to go and see the little boy who lives underneath.’

‘Did he say anything to you?’

‘I think he smiled. I’m not quite sure because of his beard. It was rather dark. I’m sure he put his finger to his lips so that I shouldn’t call out, because grown-up people aren’t allowed to see him. Have you ever seen him?’

‘A very long time ago.’

‘When you were little?’

He heard steps in the passage. The door opened. It was Madame Martin, in a grey suit and little beige hat. She was carrying a shopping bag full of provisions. She looked very cold; the skin of her face was taut and pale, but she must have hurried up the stairs, because there were two red patches on her cheeks and she was panting for breath.

Without a smile, she asked Maigret :

‘Has she been good?’

Then, taking off her jacket: ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I had to go out to buy various things, and later on I’d have found all the shops shut.’

‘Did you meet anyone?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing. I wondered if anybody had tried to talk to you.’

She had had time to go much further than the Rue Amelot or the Rue du Chemin-Vert, where most of the local shops were. She could even have taken a taxi or the métro, and gone almost anywhere in Paris.

All the tenants in the house must have been on the alert, and Mademoiselle Doncoeur now came in to ask if she was needed. Madame Martin was certainly going to say no, but Maigret replied for her:

‘I’d like you to stay with Colette while I go into the next room.’

She realized that he wanted her to distract the child’s attention while he interviewed Madame Martin. The latter must have understood it too, but she betrayed no sign of it.

‘Please come in. Do you mind if I get rid of these things?’

She went into the kitchen to put down her provisions, then took off her hat and ran her fingers through her blonde hair, puffing it out a little. When the bedroom door was closed she said :

‘Mademoiselle Doncoeur is very excited. What a treat for an old maid, isn’t it? Especially for an old maid who collects newspaper articles about a certain police superintendent and who at last gets the chance to have him in her own house! Do you mind if I smoke?’

She took a cigarette from a silver case, tapped the end of it and lit it with a lighter. It might have been this gesture which prompted Maigret to put a question to her.

‘You don’t go out to work, Madame Martin?’

‘It would be difficult for me to do a job as well as look after the flat and the little girl into the bargain, even when she goes to school. In any case, my husband doesn’t want me to work.’

‘But you had ajob before you knew him?’

‘Of course. I had to earn my living. Won’t you take a seat?’

He sat down in a rustic straw-bottomed armchair, while she perched on the edge of the table.

‘You were a typist?’

‘I was.’

‘For a long time?’

‘Fairly long.’

‘You were still working as a typist when you met Martin? Forgive me for asking you these questions.’

‘It’s your job.’

‘You were married five years ago. Where were you working at that time? One minute. May I ask your age?’

‘I’m thirty-three. So I was twenty-eight then and I was working for Monsieur Lorilleux in the Palais-Royal.’

‘As a secretary?’

‘Monsieur Lorilleux had a jeweller’s shop, or rather he was a dealer in souvenirs and old coins. You know those old shops in the Palais-Royal? I was saleswoman, secretary and book-keeper all at once. I ran the shop when he was away.’

‘Was he married?’

‘Yes, with three children.’

‘Did you leave him when you married Martin?’

‘Not exactly. Jean didn’t like my going on working, but he wasn’t earning much and I had a good job. I stayed on in it for the first few months.’

‘And then?’

‘Then something happened which was simple and yet unexpected. One morning I turned up at nine o’clock as usual at the door of the shop and I found it shut. I waited, supposing that Monsieur Lorilleux had been delayed.’

‘He didn’t live at the shop?’

‘He lived with his family in the Rue Mazarine. At half-past nine I began to worry.’

‘Had he died?’

‘No. I rang up his wife, who told me he had left the flat at eight o’clock as usual.’

‘Where did you telephone from?’

‘From the glove shop next door. I waited all morning. His wife came along too. We went together to the police station, where, incidentally, they didn’t treat the matter very seriously. They merely asked his wife whether he was subject to heart trouble, whether he had any liaison, and so forth. He’s never been seen or heard of again. The business was taken over by some Poles, and my husband insisted on my not going back to work.’

‘How long was this after your marriage?’

‘Four months.’

‘Was your husband already travelling in the south-west?’

‘He did the same round that he does now.’

‘Was he in Paris when your employer disappeared?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Didn’t the police visit the premises?’

‘Everything was in order, just as it had been the night before. Nothing was missing.’

‘Do you know what has become of Madame Lorilleux?’

‘She lived for a while on the money she’d withdrawn from the business. Her children must be grown-up by now, maybe married. She runs a little haberdashery not far off in the Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule.’

‘Have you kept in touch with her?’

‘I’ve gone into her shop occasionally; in fact that’s how I found out that she was in the haberdashery business. At first I didn’t recognize her.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘I don’t know. About six months.’

‘Has she got a telephone?’

‘I couldn’t say. Why?’

‘What sort of man was Lorilleux?’

‘Do you mean physically?’

‘Physically, to begin with.’

‘He was tall, taller than you and even broader. He was a big fellow, but flabby, if you see what I mean, and rather slovenly.’

‘How old?’

‘Fiftyish. I don’t know for sure. He had a little pepper-and-salt moustache and his clothes were always too loose.’

‘Were you familiar with his habits?’

‘He used to walk to the shop every morning and get there about a quarter of an hour before me, so that he had gone through the mail by the time I came in. He never talked much. He was rather a depressed sort of man. He spent most of the day in the little office at the back of the shop.’

‘Any affairs with women?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘He never made advances to you?’

She spat out curtly:

‘No!’

‘Did he depend on you a good deal?’

‘I think I was a great help to him.’

‘Did your husband meet him?’

‘They never spoke to one another. Jean used occasionally to come and wait for me when I left the shop, but he always stood some way off. Is that all you wanted to know?’

There was impatience in her voice, and perhaps a touch of anger.

‘I must point out to you, Madame Martin, that you yourself came over to fetch me.’

‘Because that old fool seized the opportunity to see you at close quarters and dragged me along almost by force.’

‘You’re not fond of Mademoiselle Doncoeur?’

‘I dislike people who don’t mind their own business.’

‘Is that the case with her?’

‘We took in my brother-in-law’s daughter, as you know. You may or may not believe me, but I do all that I can for her, I treat her as I’d treat my own daughter…’

Maigret had another vague, indefinable intuition; as he looked at the woman before him, who was lighting a fresh cigarette, he could not envisage her in a mother’s role.

‘Well, on the pretext of helping me, she keeps coming round here. If I go out for a few moments I find her in the passage, saying with her sugary smile: “You’re not going to leave Colette all alone, Madame Martin? Do let me go and keep her company.”

‘And I wonder if when I’m not there she doesn’t go through my drawers.’

‘And yet you put up with her.’

‘Because I’ve got to. Colette keeps asking for her, particularly since she’s been laid up. My husband is fond of her too, because in his bachelor days he once had an attack of pleurisy and she came and looked after him.’

‘Did you take back the doll you bought Colette as a Christmas present?’

She frowned, with a glance at the communicating door.

‘I see you’ve been questioning her. No, I haven’t taken it back, for the very good reason that it came from one of the big stores and they are closed today. Do you want to see it?’

She said this defiantly, and somewhat to her surprise he accepted her offer, and examined the cardboard box on which the price, a very low one, was still marked.

‘May I ask you where you went this morning?’

‘To do my shopping.’

‘In the Rue du Chemin-Vert or the Rue Amelot?’

‘In the Rue du Chemin-Vert and in the Rue Amelot.’

‘If it’s not indiscreet, what did you buy?’

Angrily, she went into the kitchen and picked up the shopping bag, which she flung on to the dining-room table.

‘See for yourself.’

There were three tins of sardines, some ham, some butter, potatoes and a lettuce.

She was staring at him with a hard, unflinching look in which there was more resentment than distress.

‘Have you anything else to ask me?’

‘I’d like to know the name of your insurance agent.’

She did not immediately understand, that was obvious. She searched her memory.

‘My insurance agent…’

‘Yes, the one who came to see you.’

‘Sorry, I’d forgotten. It’s because you spoke of my insurance agent, as though I was really doing business with him. I suppose it was Colette who told you about that. Yes, somebody did come, on two occasions, one of those people who knock on everybody’s door and whom one has the utmost difficulty in getting rid of. I thought at first that he was selling vacuum cleaners, but it turned out to be life insurance.’

‘Did he spend a long time with you?’

‘He stayed until I could get rid of him and make him understand that I had no desire to sign a policy on my own life or my husband’s.’

‘What company did he represent?’

‘He told me, but I’ve forgotten. The name had the word mutual in it.’

‘He renewed the attempt?’

‘That’s right.’

‘At what time is Colette supposed to go to sleep?’

‘I turn out the light at half-past seven, but she sometimes goes on telling herself stories for quite a while.’

‘On the second occasion, then, the insurance agent must have come to see you after half-past seven in the evening?’

She sensed the trap.

‘It may have been. In fact I was just washing up.’

‘And you let him come in?’

‘He’d got his foot in the doorway.’

‘Did he call on any other tenants in the house?’

‘I’ve no idea. I suppose you’ll go and find out. Because a little girl saw or fancied she saw Father Christmas you’ve been questioning me for half an hour as though I’d committed a crime. If my husband was here…’

‘In fact, is your husband’s life insured?’

‘I believe so. Yes, of course.’

And as he made his way to the door, after picking up his hat from a chair, she exclaimed in some surprise: ‘Is that all?’

‘That’s all. In the event of your brother-in-law’s coming to see you, as he seems to have promised his daughter, I’d be obliged if you would let me know or send him to me. And now I’d like a few words with Mademoiselle Doncoeur.’

The older woman followed him into the passage and hurried forward to open the door of her flat, which had a sort of convent smell about it.

‘Come in, Superintendent. I hope it’s not too untidy.’

There was no cat to be seen, no small dog; there were no antimacassars on the furniture, no ornaments on the mantelpiece.

‘How long have you lived in the house, Mademoiselle Doncoeur?’

‘Twenty-five years, Superintendent. I’m one of the oldest tenants, and I remember that when I settled here you were already living across the street, and you wore a long moustache.’

‘Who lived in the next door flat before Martin took it?’

‘An engineer from the Highways and Bridges Department. I don’t remember his name, but I could find it out. He lived with his wife and a deaf-and-dumb daughter. It was very sad. They left Paris and went to live in the country, in Poitou if I’m not mistaken. The old gentleman must be dead by now, because he was already of retirement age.’

‘Have you been bothered recently by visits from an insurance agent?’

‘Not lately. The last time that one called here was at least two years ago.’

‘You don’t like Madame Martin, I think?’

‘Why?’

‘I’m asking you if you do or don’t like Madame Martin?’

‘That’s to say, if I had a son…’

‘Go on!’

‘If I had a son, I shouldn’t want to have her for a daughter-in-law. Particularly as Monsieur Martin is so kind and gentle!’

‘Do you think he’s not happy with her?’

‘I don’t say that. I’ve no special criticism to make of her. She’s got her own ways, you see, as she’s quite entitled to.’

‘What sort of ways?’

‘I don’t know. You’ve seen her. You’re a better judge than I am. She’s not really like a woman. For instance, I’m sure she’s never cried in her life. She brings up the little girl quite properly, it’s true. But she’ll never say a loving word to her, and when I try to tell the child fairy tales I can feel it irritates her. I’m sure she’s told Colette that Father Christmas doesn’t exist. Luckily Colette doesn’t believe her.’

‘And does she love her?’

‘She obeys her, she tries to please her. I think she’s just as happy when she’s left alone.’

‘Does Madame Martin go out much?’

‘Not a great deal. There’s really nothing one can criticize her for. I don’t know how to put it. You feel she leads her own life, don’t you see? She pays no attention to other people. She never talks about herself either. She behaves correctly, always correctly, too correctly. She should have spent her life in an office, writing out figures or keeping an eye on the staff.’

‘Is that what the other tenants think?’

‘She doesn’t really belong to the house at all! She barely says good-morning to people when she meets them on the stairs. Really, if we’ve got to know her at all it’s only since Colette came, because one is always more interested in a child.’

‘Have you ever met her brother-in-law?’

‘In the passage. I’ve never spoken to him. He goes past you with his head bent, as though he was ashamed, and in spite of the care he must take to brush his clothes before coming here he always looks as if he’d slept in them. I don’t think it was him, Monsieur Maigret. He’s not the sort of man who’d do that. Unless he was very drunk indeed.’

Maigret stopped once more at the concierge’s lodge, where it was so dark that the lights were kept on all day, and it was nearly twelve o’clock when he crossed the boulevard again. The curtains were being twitched at every window in the house he had left; and at his own window, too, he saw the curtain move. Madame Maigret was watching, to know whether she might put her chicken in the oven. He waved to her from down below, and he nearly put out his tongue to catch one of those tiny frozen flakes that were floating in the air and the faint taste of which he could still remember.

3

‘I wonder if that child’s happy,’ sighed Madame Maigret as she got up from table to fetch the coffee from the kitchen.

She could see that he was not listening to her. He had pushed back his chair and was filling his pipe as he stared at the stove, which was purring gently with small regular flames licking the mica.

He gave her the vague smile that meant he didn’t know what she had been saying, and turned back to contemplate the stove. There were at least ten like it in the house, making the same purring sound, ten dining-rooms with the same Sunday smell, and probably just as many in the house across the street. In every cell of the honeycomb the same muted, leisurely life was going on, with wine and cakes on the table, the bottle of liqueur ready to hand in the sideboard, and all the windows letting in the bleak grey light of a sunless day.

It may have been this that had been baffling him without his realizing it ever since the morning. Nine times out of ten an investigation, a real one, would fling him at a moment’s notice into an unfamiliar setting, confronting him with people of a set about which he knew little or nothing, and everything had to be learnt, down to the most trivial habits and mannerisms of a social class with which he was unacquainted.

In the present case, which was not really a case since he was not officially in charge of anything, the situation was quite different. For the first time, things were happening in a world that was close to his own, in a house which might have been his own house.

The Martins .might have been living on his own landing, instead of in the house opposite, and probably Madame Maigret would have gone to look after Colette in her aunt’s absence. On the floor above his there was an old lady who was a slightly fatter and paler version of Mademoiselle Doncoeur. The frames of the photographs of the Martin parents were exactly the same as those of the Maigret parents, and the enlargements had no doubt been done by the same firm.

Was this what put him off? He felt that he was too close to it all and that he couldn’t see people and things with enough clarity and detachment.

He had described his morning’s doings to his wife over lunch – a pleasantly festive little meal that left him feeling rather drowsy – and all the while she had been looking at the windows of the house opposite with a troubled air.

‘Is the concierge certain that nobody could have come in from outside?’

‘She’s no longer quite so certain. She had friends visiting her until half-past twelve. Then she went to bed, and there was a good deal of coming and going, as you’d expect when people are celebrating.’

‘Do you expect something further to happen?’

It was this remark that went on worrying him. In the first place, there was the fact that Madame Martin had not come to fetch him of her own accord, but under pressure from Mademoiselle Doncoeur.

If she had got up earlier, if she had been the first to discover the doll and hear the story of Father Christmas, might she not perhaps have kept quiet about it and ordered the little girl to say nothing?

Next, she had taken advantage of the first opportunity to go out, although there were enough provisions in the house for the whole day. She had even absent-mindedly bought butter, when there was still a whole pound of it in the meat-safe.

He got up and moved over to his armchair by the window, lifted the receiver and called Police Headquarters.

‘Lucas?’

‘I did what you asked me, Chief, and I have the list of all the prisoners released in the last four months. There aren’t as many of them as you’d expect, and I can’t find one who ever lived in the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir.’

It no longer mattered. Maigret had practically given up that hypothesis. In any case it had only been a conjecture: somebody who lived in the flat across the street might have hidden the spoils of a theft or a crime before getting caught.

Once released, his first concern would naturally have been to recover the swag. Now, on account of Colette’s accident, which confined her to bed, the room was never unoccupied at any time of day or night. Acting Father Christmas would have been an ingenious way of getting into it practically without risk.

But in that case, Madame Martin would have had no hesitation in coming to see him. Nor would she subsequently have gone out on an unconvincing pretext.

‘Do you want me to go into each case separately?’

‘No. Have you any news of Paul Martin?’

‘That didn’t take long. They know him in at least four or five police stations between the Bastille, the Hôtel de Ville and the Boulevard Saint-Michel.’

‘Doyou know how he spent last night?’

‘First he went to eat on the Salvation Army barge; he goes there once a week on a particular day, like the other regulars, and on those evenings he’s sober. They were given a special Christmas dinner. He had to wait in a longish queue.’

‘And then?’

‘About 11 p.m. he went along to the Latin Quarter and acted as door-keeper at some night club. He must have earned enough to go out and drink, because at four in the morning he was picked up dead drunk some hundred yards from the Place Maubert. They took him to the station. He was still there at eleven o’clock this morning. He had just been let out when I obtained this information, and they’ve promised to bring him along as soon as they can lay hands on him. He still had a few francs in his pocket.’

‘And Bergerac?’

‘Jean Martin is taking the first train this afternoon. He seemed very surprised and worried about the telephone call he got this morning.’

‘Did he only get one?’

‘Only one this morning. But he’d been rung up yesterday evening when he was dining in the restaurant.’

‘Do you know who called him?’

‘The hotel cashier, who answered the call, says it was a man’s voice, asking for Monsieur Jean Martin. She sent a waitress to fetch him, but when he got there the caller had rung off. It quite spoilt his evening. A party of them, all commercial travellers, had arranged a visit to some night club in the town. I was given the hint that there had been some pretty girls with them. Martin had a few drinks so as to be like everyone else, but apparently he spent the whole time talking about his wife and daughter, for he refers to the child as his daughter. However, he stayed out until three in the morning with his friends. Is that all you wanted to know, Chief?’

Lucas, whose curiosity had been aroused, could not resist adding:

‘Has there been a crime in your neighbourhood? Are you still at home?’

‘So far, it’s only a matter of Father Christmas and a doll.’

‘Oh!’

‘One minute. I’d like you to try and get hold of the address of the managing director of Zenith Watches, in the Avenue de l’Opéra. Even during a holiday that should be possible, and the chances are that he’ll be at home. Will you call me back?’

‘As soon as I’ve got the information.’

His wife had just handed him a glass of Alsatian plum brandy, of which her sister sent her a bottle from time to time; he smiled at her and for a moment was tempted to give up thinking of this preposterous business and to suggest a peaceful afternoon at the cinema.

‘What colour are her eyes?’

He had to make an effort to realize that Madame Maigret was referring to the little girl, who alone interested her in the case.

‘Goodness, I really couldn’t say. They’re certainly not brown. She’s got fair hair.’

‘Then they must be blue.’

‘Maybe. At any rate they’re very light. And particularly calm.’

‘That’s because she doesn’t look at things as a child would. Did she laugh at all?’

‘She had nothing to laugh about.’

‘A real child always finds something to laugh about, if she’s allowed to feel at her ease and to think childish thoughts. I don’t like that woman!’

‘You prefer Mademoiselle Doncoeur?’

‘She may be an old maid, but I ’m sure she knows how to get on with the little girl better than that Madame Martin. I’ve met that woman out shopping. She’s one of those who keep a sharp eye on the scales and pull their money out one coin at a time from the depths of their purses, with a suspicious look as if everyone was trying to cheat them.’

The ringing of the telephone interrupted her, but she found time to repeat: ‘I don’t like that woman.’

Lucas was calling to give the address of Monsieur Arthur Godefroy, general representative in France of Zenith watches. He lived in a big private house at Saint-Cloud and Lucas had made sure that he was at home.

‘Paul Martin is here, Chief.’

‘Did they bring him along?’

‘Yes. He’s wondering why. Wait till I close the door. Okay, now he can’t hear me. At first he thought something had happened to his daughter and he began to cry. Now he’s calm and relaxed, with a terrible hangover. What shall I do with him? Send him to you?’

‘Have you anyone to bring him here?’

‘Torrence has just turned up and he’d be glad of the outing, for I think he made a night of it too. Anything else I can do?’

‘Yes. Get in touch with the Palais-Royal central station. About five years ago, a certain Lorilleux, a dealer in jewellery and old coins, disappeared leaving no trace, and I’d like to have all possible details about that business.’

He smiled when he saw his wife sit down opposite him and take up her knitting. There was something decidedly domestic about the atmosphere of this enquiry.

‘Shall I call you back?’

‘I shan’t stir from here.’

Five minutes later Maigret was on the line to Monsieur Godefroy, who spoke with a very strong Swiss accent. When he heard the name of Jean Martin he assumed at first that if he had been disturbed on Christmas day, some accident must have happened to his representative, whom he proceeded to praise enthusiastically.

‘He’s such a loyal and able fellow that I intend next year, that’s to say in a fortnight’s time, to keep him here in Paris as assistant manager. Do you know him? Is there some grave reason for your interest in him?’

He silenced some children in the background.

‘Excuse me. The whole family is here and…’

‘Tell me, Monsieur Godefroy, do you know whether anyone, within the last few days, has contacted your office to find out where Monsieur Martin is at present?’

‘Yes, someone did so.’

‘Would you give me details?’

‘Yesterday morning, somebody rang the office and asked to speak to me personally. I was very busy on account of the holidays. The caller must have given a name, but I’ve forgotten it. He wanted to know where he could get hold of Monsieur Martin with an urgent message, and I saw no reason not to reply that he was in Bergerac, probably at the Hôtel de Bordeaux.’

‘You weren’t asked anything further?’

‘No. The caller rang off immediately.’

‘Many thanks.’

‘You’re sure there’s nothing unpleasant about this business?’

The children must have seized hold of him, and Maigret took the opportunity to bring the conversation to an end.

‘Did you hear?’ he asked his wife.

‘I heard what you said, of course, but not what he answered.’

‘Yesterday morning a man rang up his office to find out where Jean Martin was. The same man, probably, rang up Bergerac that evening to make sure that Martin was still there and so could not be at home in the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir on the night of Christmas Eve.’

‘And that was the man who got into the house?’

‘More than likely. It proves, in any case, that it could not have been Paul Martin, who would not have needed those two telephone calls. He could have found out from his sister-in-law without arousing suspicion.’

‘You’re beginning to get excited. Admit that you’re glad this has happened.’

And as he was trying to justify himself, she went on:

‘It’s quite natural, you know! I’m interested too. How much longer do you suppose the little girl will have to keep her leg in plaster?’

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘I wonder what the complication can have been?’

Once again, involuntarily, she had suggested a fresh train of thought to Maigret.

‘There’s some point in what you’ve said.’

‘What have I said?’

‘After all, since she’s been in bed two months, it’s quite likely that unless there are really serious complications she won’t be laid up much longer.’

‘At first she’ll probably have to walk with crutches.’

‘That’s not the point. In a few days, or a few weeks, then, she’ll be able to leave her room. She’ll go out with Madame Martin sometimes. The coast will be clear and it will be easy for anybody to get into the flat without dressing up as Father Christmas.’

Madame Maigret’s lips were moving, because while she listened, with her untroubled gaze fixed on her husband, she was counting the stitches in her knitting.

‘In the first place, it was Colette’s presence in the bedroom that obliged the man to resort to a stratagem. Now she’s been in bed for two months. So he may have been waiting for two months. But for the complication that delayed her recovery, the floor-boards might have been lifted some three weeks ago.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘Nothing. Or rather I’m concluding that the man could not wait any longer, that he had some urgent reason to act without delay.’

‘In a few days, Martin will be back from his round.’

‘That’s so.’

‘What can have been found under the floor-boards?’

‘Was anything found there, in fact? If the visitor found nothing, the problem will remain as pressing for him as it was yesterday. So he’ll take action again.’

‘How?’

‘That I don’t know.’

‘Tell me, Maigret, you’re not worried about the child? Do you think she’s all right with that woman?’

‘I should know that if I knew where Madame Martin went this morning on the pretext of doing her shopping.’

He lifted the receiver and called Police Headquarters once more.

‘It’s me again, Lucas. This time I’d like you to enquire about taxis. I want to know if this morning, between nine and ten, a taxi picked up a woman somewhere near the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, and where he took her. Wait a minute. Here we are. She’s blonde, looks a little over thirty, fairly slender but well built. She was wearing a grey suit and a small beige hat. She was carrying a shopping bag. There can’t have been all that many cabs out in the streets this morning.’

‘Has Martin reached you?’

‘Not yet.’

‘He won’t be long. As for the other fellow, Lorilleux, they’re busy searching the files at the Palais-Royal station. You’ll have the information in a short while.’

Just now, Jean Martin must be catching his train at Bergerac. Little Colette was no doubt having a nap. Mademoiselle Doncoeur’s figure could be glimpsed behind her curtains, and she was probably wondering what Maigret was up to.

People were beginning to emerge from their houses, mostly families with children trailing their new toys along the pavements. Queues must be forming outside cinemas. A taxi stopped; then footsteps were heard in the stairway. Madame Maigret went to open the door before the visitor had time to ring the bell. Torrence’s deep voice asked :

‘Are you there, Chief?’

And he ushered into the room a man of indeterminate age, who stood with lowered eyes, humbly shrinking back against the wall.

Maigret went to fetch a couple of glasses from the sideboard and filled them with plum brandy.

‘Your good health,’ he said.

Hesitantly, the man held out a trembling hand, and lifted puzzled, anxious eyes.

‘Your health too, Monsieur Martin. I apologize for having brought you all this way, but you’ll be all the nearer for visiting your daughter.’

‘Nothing’s happened to her?’

‘No, no. I saw her this morning and she was playing happily with her new doll. You can go off now, Torrence. Lucas must have some jobs for you.’

Madame Maigret had vanished with her knitting into the bedroom, where she had settled down on the edge of the bed, still counting stitches.

‘Sit down, Monsieur Martin.’

The man had merely dipped his lips in his glass and then set it on the table, but from time to time he cast an anxious glance towards it.

‘Now don’t worry, above all, and remember that I know your story.’

‘I wanted to go and see her this morning,’ the man sighed. ‘I’d vowed to myself that I’d go to bed and get up early to come and wish her a happy Christmas.’

‘I know that too.’

‘It always happens the same way. I swear only to take one glass, just to buck me up…’

‘You’ve only the one brother, Monsieur Martin?’

‘Yes, Jean, who’s six years younger than me. Next to my wife and daughter, he is the only person I love in the world.’

‘You don’t love your sister-in-law?’

He gave a start, surprised and embarrassed.

‘I’ve no criticisms to make of Loraine.’

‘You entrusted your child to her, didn’t you?’

‘That’s to say that when my wife died and I began to lose my grip…’

‘I understand. Is your daughter happy?’

‘Yes, I believe so. She never complains.’

‘Have you ever tried to turn over a new leaf?’

‘Every night I promise myself I’ll have done with that sort of life, and next day it begins all over again. I even went to see a doctor who gave me some advice.’

‘Did you follow it?’

‘For a few days. When I went back to see him he was very busy. He told me he hadn’t time to attend to me, that I’d better go to a special clinic…’

He reached out towards his glass, then hesitated, and in order to allow him to drink Maigret tossed off a glassful.

‘Have you ever happened to meet a man at your sister-in-law’s?’

‘No. I don’t think she goes in for that sort of thing.’

‘Do you know where your brother met her?’

‘In a little restaurant in the Rue de Beaujolais, where he used to eat when he was in Paris between two trips. It was close to his office and close to the shop where Loraine worked.’

‘Were they engaged for a long time?’

‘I don’t know exactly. Jean went off for two months and when he came back he told me he was getting married.’

‘Were you your brother’s witness at his wedding?’

‘Yes. Loraine’s witness was the landlady of the lodging-house where she was living. She has no relatives in Paris. Her parents were dead by then. Is there anything wrong…?’

‘I don’t know yet. A man got into Colette’s room last night, disguised as Father Christmas.’

‘He didn’t do anything to her?’

‘He gave her a doll. When she woke up he was lifting up a couple of floor-boards.’

‘Do you think I look decent enough to go and see her?’

‘You shall go in a moment. If you feel like it, you can have a shave and brush-up here. Is your brother the sort of man who would hide anything under the floor-boards?’

‘Jean? Absolutely not!’

‘Even if he had something to hide from his wife?’

‘He hides nothing from her. You don’t know him. When he comes home he shows her his accounts as though she were his boss, and she knows exactly how much spare cash he has.’

‘Is shejealous?’

The man gave no answer.

‘You’d better tell me what you think. You see, your daughter is involved.’

‘I don’t think Loraine is particularly jealous, but she’s self-seeking. At least so my wife declared. My wife didn’t like her.’

‘Why?’

‘She said Loraine’s lips were too thin, that she was too cold, too polite, always on the defensive. According to my wife, she had run after Jean on account of his position, his home, his prospects.’

‘Was she poor?’

‘She never talks about her family. We learnt, however, that her father died when she was very young and that her mother went out to work as a charwoman.’

‘In Paris?’

‘Somewhere in the Glacière district. That’s why she never talks about that part of the city. As my wife used to say, she’s a woman who knows what she wants.’

‘Do you believe she was the mistress of her former boss?’

Maigret poured him out a thimbleful of brandy, and the man looked at him gratefully, though uneasily, probably worrying about his breath and the forthcoming visit to his daughter.

‘I’ll make you a cup of coffee. Your wife must have had an opinion on that question too, didn’t she?’

‘How do you know? She never spoke ill of people, you know. But her dislike of Loraine was almost a physical matter. When we were to meet Loraine I used to beg my wife not to betray her mistrust or her aversion. It’s odd that I should be telling you all this, considering the way things are with me. Maybe I was wrong to leave Colette with her? I blame myself for it sometimes. But what else could I do?’

‘You’ve not answered my question about Loraine’s employer.’

‘Yes. My wife used to say that they seemed on pretty intimate terms, and that it was convenient for Loraine to marry a man who was away most of the time.’

‘Do you know where she lived before her marriage?’

‘In a street off the Boulevard Sébastopol, the first on the right when you’re coming from the Rue de Rivoli towards the boulevards. I remember because we fetched her from there in the car on the wedding day.’

‘The Rue Pemelle?’

‘That’s it. The fourth or fifth house on the left is a lodging-house that looks quiet and respectable, and is mainly lived in by people working locally. I remember for instance that there were some girls from the Châtelet theatre.’

‘Would you like to shave, Monsieur Martin?’

‘I’m really ashamed. And yet, now that I’m so close to where my daughter lives…’

‘Come with me.’

He took him through the kitchen so as to avoid the bedroom, where Madame Maigret was sitting, and gave him all that was necessary, including a clothes-brush.

When Maigret returned to the dining-room his wife peeped through the door to whisper: ‘What’s he doing?’

‘He’s shaving.’

He lifted the telephone receiver again; there was another job for good old Lucas on his Christmas day.

‘Are you needed in the office?’

‘Not if Torrence stays here. I’ve got the information you asked for.’

‘In a minute. Hurry along to the Rue Pernelle, where you’ll find a lodging-house which must surely still exist; I fancy I’ve noticed it among the houses nearest to the Boulevard Sébastopol. I don’t know whether it’s changed hands in the last five years. You may discover somebody who was working there at that period. I’d like to have all possible information about a certain Loraine…“

‘Loraine what?’

‘One minute. I hadn’t thought of that.’

He went to ask Martin, through the bathroom door, for his sister-in-law’s maiden name.

‘Boitel!’ the man called back.

‘Lucas? The woman was called Loraine Boitel. The landlady of the house was a witness to her marriage with Martin. Loraine Boitel was then working for Lorilleux.’

‘The Palais-Royal fellow?’

‘Yes. I’m wondering whether they may have had another relationship, and whether he used to visit her in her room. That’s all. Make haste. It may be more urgent than we think. What were you going to tell me?’

‘About Lorilleux. He was a queer customer. Enquiries were made when he disappeared. In the Rue Mazarine, where he lived with his family, he passed for a respectable business man who brought up his three children irreproachably. But funny things went on in his shop in the Palais-Royal. He sold not only souvenirs of Paris and old coins, but obscene books and prints.’

‘That’s a speciality of the place.’

‘Yes. In fact, they’re not sure that something else didn’t go on there too. There was some mention of a big divan covered in red rep that stood in the back room. But the matter was dropped for lack of evidence and to avoid embarrassing the shop’s customers, who were mainly people more or less in the public eye.’

‘Loraine Boitel?’

‘She’s barely mentioned in the report. She was already married at the time of Lorilleux’s disappearance. She waited all morning at the door of the shop. She doesn’t seem to have seen him the previous evening after closing time. I was on the phone about it when Langlois, from the Fraud Squad, came into my office. He jumped when he heard the name Lorilleux, told me it rang a bell and went to look through his files. Are you with me? Nothing very precise, only the fact that about this period Lorilleux had been observed frequently crossing the Swiss border, just when the gold smuggling wave was at its height. He was watched, and searched two or three times at the frontier, but nothing incriminating was ever found.’

‘Rush off to the Rue Pernelle, Lucas old fellow. I’m more than ever convinced that it’s urgent.’

Paul Martin, his close-shaven cheeks pale, stood in the doorway.

‘I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘You’re going to see your daughter, aren’t you? I don’t know how long you usually stay with her, nor how you’re going to manage this. But I should like you not to leave her until I come and fetch you.’

‘I can hardly spend the night there.’

‘Spend the night there if necessary. Manage as best you can.’

‘Is she in danger?’

‘I don’t know, but your place is beside Colette.’

The man drank his cup of black coffee avidly, and made his way to the stairs. The door had closed again when Madame Maigret came into the dining-room.

‘He can’t go to see his daughter empty-handed on Christmas day.’

‘But…’

Maigret was probably about to reply that there were no dolls in the house when she held out to him a small bright object, a golden thimble, which she’d had for years in her work-box and never used.

‘Give him that. Little girls always like them. Hurry up…’

He shouted from the top of the stairs :

‘Monsieur Martin!… Monsieur Martin!… Wait a moment, please!’

He thrust the thimble into the man’s hand.

‘Mind you don’t tell her where it comes from.’

Standing on the threshold of the dining-room, he protested with a sigh:

‘When you’ve quite finished making me play Father Christmas!’

‘I bet you she’ll be just as pleased with it as with the doll. Because it’s something grown-up, don’t you see?’

They watched the man crossing the boulevard, pausing for a moment in front of the house and turning back to look up at Maigret’s windows as though seeking encouragement.

‘Do you think he can be cured?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘If anything happened to that woman, Madame Martin…’

‘Well?’

‘Nothing. I’m thinking of the child. I’m wondering what will become of her.’

Ten minutes at least went by. Maigret opened a newspaper. His wife had resumed her seat opposite him and was knitting, still counting her stitches, when he murmured, letting out a puff of smoke: ‘ And you’ve never even seen her!’

4

Later on, Maigret was to retrieve from the drawer in which Madame Maigret thrust any stray scraps of paper an old envelope on the back of which he had automatically summarized events during the course of that day. It was only then that something struck him about this enquiry, which was conducted almost from beginning to end from his own home, something which he was subsequently often to cite as an example.

Contrary to what so frequently happens, there was strictly speaking no element of the accidental, no really sensational surprise. That sort of chance did not come into play, but chance intervened none the less, indeed quite constantly, in so far as each piece of evidence turned up at the right time, obtained by the simplest and most natural means.

It sometimes happens that dozens of detectives work night and day to obtain a relatively unimportant piece of information. For instance Monsieur Arthur Godefroy, the French representative of Zenith watches, might well have been spending Christmas in his home town, Zurich. Or he might just not have been at home. Or again he might quite well have known nothing about the telephone call to his office the previous day concerning Jean Martin.

When Lucas arrived shortly after four o’clock, frozen and red-nosed, the same chance had played in his favour.

A dense yellowish fog had suddenly descended on Paris, which is unusual, and the lights were on in all the houses; on either side of the boulevard the windows looked like distant beacons; the details of real life were obliterated to such an extent that one expected to hear a foghorn blowing, as though one were by the sea.

For one reason or another – probably on account of some childhood recollection – Maigret enjoyed this, just as he enjoyed seeing Lucas come into his home, take off his overcoat, sit down and warm his frozen hands by the fire.

Lucas was almost a replica of himself, although a head shorter and with shoulders half as broad and a face which did not readily assume an expression of severity. Unostentatiously, perhaps unconsciously, through mimicry and through sheer admiration, he had come to copy his boss in his slightest habits, in his attitudes, in his expressions, and this was more striking here than in the office. Even his way of sniffing at the glass of plum brandy before putting his lips to it…

The landlady of the house in the Rue Pernelle had died two years previously in a métro accident, which could have complicated the enquiry. The staff of that sort of establishment changes frequently and there was little hope of finding in the house anyone who had known Loraine five years earlier.

Luck was on their side. Lucas had discovered that the present landlord had formerly acted as night watchman, and it so happened that he had once been in trouble with the police on a matter of public morality.

‘It was easy to get him talking,’ said Lucas, lighting a pipe that was too big for him. ‘I was surprised that he’d had the wherewithal to buy the property on the spot, but he finally explained that he had acted as go-between for a man in the public eye who invests his money in that sort of concern but doesn’t want his name to appear.’

‘What sort of a joint?’

‘Outwardly respectable. Pretty clean. An office on the mezzanine floor. Rooms let by the month, some by the week, and on the first floor some bedrooms let by the hour.’

‘Does he remember the young woman?’

‘Very well, for she lived in the house for over three years. I gathered, eventually, that he didn’t like her because she was terribly stingy.’

‘Did she have visits from Lorilleux?’

‘On my way to the Rue Pernelle I had called in at the Palais-Royal station to pick up a photo of him that was in their files. I showed it to the landlord and he recognized it immediately.’

‘Did Lorilleux often go to see her?’

‘Two or three times a month on an average, and he always had luggage with him. He would arrive about half-past one in the morning and leave again at six. I wondered at first what this could signify. I checked with the railway timetable. His visits coincided with his trips to Switzerland. He used to come back by the train that arrives in the middle of the night, but let his wife believe that he’d taken one arriving at six.’

‘Nothing further?’

‘Nothing, except that the Loraine woman was mean about tipping and that she used to cook in her room at night on a spirit-lamp, which is against the rules.’

‘No other men?’

‘No. Apart from Lorilleux, she lived respectably. When she got married she asked the landlady to be her witness.’

Maigret had finally persuaded his wife to remain in the room, where she kept very quiet and seemed anxious to have her presence forgotten.

Torrence was outside in the fog, visiting taxi-ranks. The two men were waiting quite calmly, each sunk in an armchair, in identical attitudes with a glass of brandy within reach. Maigret was beginning to grow drowsy.

As it happened, they were as lucky about taxis as about everything else. Sometimes one happens immediately on the taxi one is looking for; at other times one spends several days without picking up a single clue, especially when the cab in question does not belong to a firm. Some drivers have no regular hours but prowl around at random, and they do not invariably read police notices in the newspaper.

But before five o’clock Torrence rang up from Saint-Ouen.

‘I’ve found one of the cabs,’ he announced.

‘Why, were there more than one?’

‘It looks like it. He took on the young lady this morning at the junction of Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and Boulevard Voltaire, and drove her to the Rue de Maubeuge, where it passes the Gare du Nord. She didn’t keep him.’

‘Did she go into the station?’

‘No. She stopped in front of a shop selling travel goods, that stays open on Sundays and holidays. The driver didn’t pay any further attention to her.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Here. He’s just come in.’

‘Will you send him to me? He can come in his own car or in someone else’s, it doesn’t matter, but let him come as fast as possible. As for you, your next job is to find the driver who brought her back.’

‘Okay, Chief. Just give me time to drink a laced coffee, because it’s bloody cold.’

Maigret cast a glance across the street and noticed a shadow at Mademoiselle Doncoeur’s window.

‘Look in the telephone directory and find a shop selling travel goods, opposite the Gare du Nord.’

That took Lucas only a few minutes, and Maigret made another call.

‘Hello! This is the police, Criminal Investigation Department. Did you have a customer this morning, shortly before ten o’clock, who must have bought something from you, probably a suitcase? A blonde young woman in a grey suit, carrying a shopping bag. Do you remember her?’

Did the fact of its being Christmas Day make things easier? There was less traffic, and trade was almost non-existent. Moreover, people tend to remember more clearly the things that happen on a day that is unlike others.

‘I served her myself. She explained that she had to leave for Cambrai in a hurry to visit a sick sister, and hadn’t time to go home first. She wanted a cheap fibre suitcase, such as we’ve got stacks of on either side of the door. She chose the medium-sized model, paid for it and went into the bar next door. I was standing in the entrance of the shop a little later when I saw her go towards the station, carrying the case.’

‘Are you alone in your shop?’

‘I’ve got an assistant with me.’

‘Can you leave the shop for half an hour? Then jump into a taxi and come to see me at this address.’

‘I suppose you’ll pay my fare? Am I to keep the taxi?’

‘Yes, keep it.’

According to the notes on the envelope, it was at 5.50 p.m. that the driver of the first taxi arrived, somewhat surprised that a call from the police should bring him to a private house. But he recognized Maigret, and glanced around with curiosity, obviously interested in the home setting of the famous Superintendent.

‘Go immediately to the house across the street and up to the third floor. If the concierge stops you, say you’re looking for Madame Martin.’

‘Madame Martin, right.’

‘Ring at the door at the end of the passage. If a blonde lady opens it and you recognize her, you must invent some pretext or other. Say you’ve come to the wrong floor, or something of the sort. If it’s somebody else, ask to speak to Madame Martin in person.’

‘And then?’

‘Nothing else. Come back here and tell me whether it was in fact the person you took to the Rue de Maubeuge this morning.’

‘Okay, Superintendent.’

As the door closed, Maigret involuntarily gave a little smile.

‘At the first call, she’ll begin to worry. At the second, if all goes according to plan, she’ll be seized with panic. At the third, provided Torrence can lay hands on him…’

And everything seemed to be running smoothly today. Torrence rang up:

‘I think I’m lucky, Chief. I’ve discovered a driver who took on a young woman answering your description at the Gare du Nord, but he did not take her back to the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. She asked to be set down at the corner of the Boulevard Beaumarchais and the Rue du Chemin-Vert.’

‘Send him along.’

‘I’m afraid he’s a bit sozzled.’

‘Never mind. Where are you?’

‘At the Barbes station.’

‘It won’t take you too much out of your way to come by the Gare du Nord. Go to the left luggage office. Unfortunately the man on duty won’t be the same as this morning. See if they’ve got a small fibre suitcase there, brand new, probably light-weight, which must have been deposited between 9.30 and 10 this morning. Make a note of the number. You won’t be allowed to take it out without the ticket. But ask for the name and address of the attendant who was on duty this morning.’

‘What shall I do then?’

‘Ring me up. I’ll be expecting your second driver. If he’s drunk, write my address on a bit of paper so that he doesn’t lose his way.’

Madame Maigret had retreated into her kitchen, where she was preparing dinner without venturing to ask whether Lucas was to eat with them.

Was Paul Martin still there with his daughter, across the street? Had Madame Martin attempted to get rid of him?

When the door-bell rang, there were two men, not just one, standing on the landing, staring with surprise at each other’s unfamiliar face.

The first taxi-driver, having just returned from the house across the street, had arrived on Maigret’s staircase at the same time as the man from the travel goods shop.

‘Did you recognize her?’

‘Not only did I recognize her, but she recognized me too. She turned quite pale. She hurried to shut a bedroom door and asked me what I wanted.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘That I’d come to the wrong floor. I saw she was wondering whether to let me get away with that, and I didn’t leave her time to think it over. From down below, I’ve seen her at her window. She probably knows I’ve come up here.’

The travel goods salesman was out of his depth. He was a middle-aged man, completely bald, with an unctuous manner. When the driver had left, Maigret explained to him what he was to do, and he raised objections, repeating obstinately:

‘She’s a customer, don’t you see? It’s not the thing to give away a customer.’

He eventually consented to go, but Maigret took the precaution of sending Lucas close on his heels, in case he changed his mind on the way.

Before ten minutes had elapsed they were back.

‘I must point out to you that I only acted under your orders, under constraint and compulsion.’

‘Did you recognize her?’

‘Shall I be called upon to give evidence under oath?’

‘That’s highly probable.’

‘It’ll be bad for business. People who buy luggage at the last minute are sometimes people who would rather not have their movements talked about.’

‘Perhaps, if the occasion arises, your statement to the examining magistrate will serve the purpose.’

‘Well! It was her all right. She’s dressed differently, but I recognized her.’

‘Did she recognize you?’

‘She immediately asked who had sent me.’

‘What did you reply?’

‘I don’t really know. I was very embarrassed. I said I’d come to the wrong door…’

‘Did she offer you anything?’

‘What do you mean? She didn’t even ask me to sit down. That would have been even more awkward.’

Whereas the taxi-driver had not asked for anything, this man, who was probably well off, insisted on being compensated for the time he had wasted.

‘Now we’ve got to wait for the third, Lucas old fellow.’

Madame Maigret, meanwhile, was growing fidgety. Standing in the doorway, she signalled to her husband, as discreetly as she could, that he should follow her into the kitchen. There she whispered :

‘Are you sure the father is still over there?’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t exactly understand what you’re hatching. I’m thinking about the little girl and I’m a bit frightened…’

Darkness had fallen long since. Families had gone home. There were lights in most of the windows opposite, and the shadowy figure of Mademoiselle Doncoeur was still visible behind hers.

Maigret, who was still collarless and tieless, finished dressing while waiting for the second taxi-driver. He called out to Lucas :

‘Help yourself. Don’t you want something to eat?’

‘I’m full of sandwiches, Chief. There’s only one thing I’d like, when we go out: a glass of draught beer.’

The second driver arrived at 6.20. At 6.35 he was back from the other house, with a randy glint in his eye.

‘She looks even better in a housecoat than in a suit,’ he said thickly. ‘She made me come in and asked me who’d sent me. As I couldn’t think what to answer I said the Director of the Folies Bergère. She was livid. She’s a dish, all the same. I don’t know if you noticed her legs…’

It was not easy to get rid of him, and Maigret only managed to do so after giving him a glass of plum brandy, for he had been eyeing the bottle with obvious longing.

‘What are you planning to do, Chief?’

Lucas had seldom seen Maigret take so many precautions, prepare his attack so carefully, as though he were tackling a powerful adversary instead of an apparently insignificant bourgeois housewife.

‘Do you think she’ll go on defending herself?’

‘Fiercely, and what’s more, coldly.’

‘What are you waiting for?’

‘A call from Torrence.’

It came as expected, as though in a well-prepared musical score.

‘The suitcase is here. It must be practically empty. As we foresaw, they won’t give it to me without a form. As for the attendant who was on duty this morning, he lives outside Paris, somewhere near La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire.’

This might have proved a hitch, or at any rate have caused a delay. But Torrence went on:

‘Only it’s not worth going all that way. After his day’s work he plays the trumpet in a dance band in the Rue de Lappe.’

‘Go and fetch him.’

‘Shall I bring him to your house?’

After all, perhaps Maigret too felt like a glass of cool beer.

‘No, to the house opposite, third floor, Madame Martin’s. I’ll be there.’

This time he took down his thick overcoat, filled a pipe and said to Lucas: ‘Coming?’

Madame Maigret ran after him to ask when he’d be back for dinner, and he hesitated for a moment, then replied with a smile:

‘Usual time!’ which was scarcely reassuring. ‘Take good care of the little girl.’

5

By ten o’clock that evening they had still obtained no tangible result. Nobody in the house was asleep save Colette, who had finally dropped off and by whose bedside her father was still keeping watch in the darkness.

At half-past eleven Torrence had arrived with the railway clerk who was a spare-time musician, and the man, as unhesitatingly as the others, had declared:

‘That’s her, right enough. I can still see her slipping the receipt not into a handbag but into her brown canvas shopping bag.’

The bag was brought from the kitchen to show him.

‘That’s the one. At any rate it’s the same sort and the same colour.’

It was very warm in the flat. They were speaking in lowered voices, as though by mutual consent, so as not to wake the sleeping child in the next room. Nobody had eaten or thought of eating. Before going up Maigret and Lucas had drunk a couple of beers each in a small café in the Boulevard Voltaire.

As for Torrence, after the musician had left, Maigret took him into the passage and gave him his instructions in a low voice.

There seemed to be no nook or cranny of the apartment which had not been searched. Even the framed photographs of Martin’s parents had been taken down, to make sure the left-luggage receipt had not been slipped under the cardboard. The crockery had been taken out of the cupboard and stacked on the table, and even the meat-safe had been emptied.

Madame Martin was still wearing the pale blue housecoat in which the two men had seen her. She was chain-smoking cigarettes, and the smoke, mingling with that of the men’s pipes, formed a heavy cloud that drifted round the lamps.

‘You are entitled to say nothing, to refuse to answer any questions. Your husband will arrive at 11.17 and perhaps you’ll be more talkative in his presence.’

‘He knows no more than I do.’

‘Does he know as much as you do?’

‘There’s nothing to know. I’ve told you everything.’

She had denied everything, from beginning to end. On one point only had she been shaken. When she had been questioned about the house in the Rue Pernelle she had admitted that her former employer had happened to visit her at night on two or three occasions. She maintained none the less that there had never been any intimate relations between them.

‘In other words, he visited you on business at one in the morning?’

‘He’d just got off the train, and often had large sums of money with him. I’ve already told you he was sometimes involved in gold smuggling. That’s nothing to do with me. You can’t prosecute me for that.’

‘Had he a large sum in his possession when he disappeared?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t always keep me informed about such matters.’

‘And yet he came to your room at night to talk about them?’

As to her movements that morning, she once again denied everything, in the teeth of the evidence, declared that she had never before seen the people who had been sent to call on her, the two taxi-drivers, the travel goods salesman and the clerk from the left-luggage office.

‘If I really deposited a parcel at the Gare du Nord you must be able to find the receipt.’

It was practically certain that it would not be found in the flat, not even in Colette’s room, which Maigret had searched before the little girl went to sleep. He had even thought of the plaster round the child’s leg, but it had not been renewed lately.

‘Tomorrow I shall lodge a complaint,’ she said fiercely. ‘It’s all a plot hatched by a spiteful neighbour. I was quite right to be suspicious of her this morning when she insisted on taking me to see you.’

She kept glancing anxiously at the alarm clock on the mantelpiece, evidently thinking of her husband’s return, but in spite of her impatience, she was not to be caught off guard by any question.

‘Admit that the man who came last night found nothing under the floor because you’d changed the hiding-place.’

‘I don’t even know if there ever was anything under the floor.’

‘When you learnt that he had come, that he was determined to regain possession of what you were hiding, you thought of the left-luggage office, where your treasure would be safe.’

‘I didn’t go to the Gare du Nord and there are thousands of blonde women in Paris who answer to the same description as myself.’

‘What did you do with the receipt? It isn’t here. I am convinced it isn’t in the flat, but I think I know where we shall discover it.’

‘You’re very clever.’

‘Sit down at this table.’

He handed her a piece of paper and a pen.

‘Write!’

‘What do you want me to write?’

‘Your name and address.’

She did so, after a little hesitation.

‘Tonight all the letters posted in the nearest letter-box will be examined and I’m willing to bet there’ll be one on which your writing will be recognized. You’ve probably addressed it to yourself.’

He instructed Lucas to ring up a police officer and have such an investigation put in hand. In fact he did not expect it to produce any results, but the thrust had gone home.

‘You hate me, don’t you?’

‘I admit that I don’t feel particularly fond of you.’

They were alone together in the dining-room now, Maigret prowling slowly round the room while she sat at the table.

‘And in case you’re interested, I’ll add that what shocks me most is not what you may have done but your coolness. I’ve had to cope with many people, both men and women. For the past three hours we’ve been sitting opposite one another and it’s clear that since this morning you’ve been on tenterhooks. You’ve not flinched yet. Your husband will be back soon, and you’ll try to make yourself out a victim. Now you know that inevitably, sooner or later, we’re going to learn the truth.’

‘What good will that do you? I’ve done nothing.’

‘Then why try to hide something? Why tell lies?’

She did not reply, but she was thinking. It was not her nerves that were giving way, as usually happens. It was her mind working to find a way out, weighing the pros and cons.

‘I shan’t say anything,’ she declared at last, sitting down in an armchair and pulling her housecoat over her bare legs.

‘Just as you please.’

He settled comfortably in another armchair opposite her.

‘Do you intend to stay in my flat a long time?’

‘At any rate until your husband gets here.’

‘Are you going to tell him about Monsieur Lorilleux’s visits to the lodging-house?’

‘If it’s necessary.’

‘You’re a cad! Jean knows nothing about the business, he has nothing to do with it.’

‘He’s your husband, unfortunately.’

When Lucas returned he found them face to face, both casting stealthy glances at each other.

‘Janvier is seeing to the letter, Chief. I met Torrence down below and he told me the man is at the wine merchant’s, two houses beyond your place.’

She sprang to her feet.

‘What man?’

And Maigret, never moving, replied:

‘The man who came here last night. I suppose you expected him to come back to see you, since he’d found nothing? Perhaps this time he’ll be in a different frame of mind?’

She was looking at the clock in terror. In another twenty minutes the train from Bergerac would be in. If her husband took a taxi she could not depend on more than forty minutes respite.

‘Do you know who he is?’

‘I can guess. I only have to go downstairs to make certain. It’s obviously Lorilleux, who is very anxious to retrieve his property.’

‘It’s not his property.’

‘Let’s say what he rightly or wrongly considers his property. He must be broke. He’s visited you twice without getting hold of what he wanted. He came back disguised as Father Christmas and he’ll be back again. He’s going to be very surprised to find you in our company, and I’m sure he’ll be more talkative than you are. Contrary to what people think, men talk more readily than women. Do you suppose he’s armed?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘I think he will be. He’s fed up with waiting. I don’t know what you’ve told him, but he’s not too pleased with it. He looks a nasty customer. There’s nothing worse than those weak men when they get going.’

‘Shut up!’

‘Would you like us to go away so that you can receive him?’

Maigret’s notes read: ‘10.38 p.m. She talks.’

But there was no police report of her first statement. It came in brief phrases, uttered with venom, and often Maigret spoke instead of her, proffering random assertions which she did not deny, or which she merely corrected.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Was there money in the case you left at the station office?’

‘Bank notes. Just under a million francs.’

‘To whom did this sum belong? To Lorilleux?’

‘It was no more his than mine.’

‘Did it belong to one of his customers?’

‘A man called Julien Boissy, who often visited the shop.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘How did he die?’

‘He was killed.’

‘By whom?’

‘By Monsieur Lorilleux.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I had led him to believe that if he had enough money at his disposal I would go away with him.’

‘Were you already married at that time?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t love your husband?’

‘I loathe being hard up. I’ve been poor all my life. All my life I’ve heard talk of nothing but money and having to do without things. All my life I’ve seen people scrimping and saving and I’ve had to scrimp and save myself.’

She spoke as though Maigret was responsible for her unhappiness.

‘Would you have gone off with Lorilleux?’

‘I don’t know. For a while, maybe.’

‘Long enough to get his money from him?’

‘I hate you!’

‘How was the murder committed?’

‘Monsieur Boissy was one of our customers.’

‘A connoisseur of erotic books?’

‘He was as dirty-minded as all the rest, as Monsieur Lorilleux, as you yourself probably. He was a widower and lived alone in a hotel room, but he was very rich, very miserly too. The rich are always miserly.’

‘You’re not rich yourself, though.’

‘I should have become rich.’

‘If Monsieur Lorilleux had not turned up again. How did Boissy die?’

‘He was afraid of devaluation and he wanted gold, like everybody else at that time. Monsieur Lorilleux was involved in the gold traffic; he used to go to Switzerland regularly to get it. He was always paid in advance. One afternoon, Monsieur Boissy brought the big money along to the shop. I wasn’t there. I’d gone out on an errand.’

‘On purpose?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t suspect what was going to happen?’

‘No. Don’t try to make me say that. You’d be wasting your time. Only, when I got back, Monsieur Lorilleux was packing up the body in a big trunk he’d bought specially for the job.’

‘Did you blackmail him?’

‘No.’

‘How do you account for his disappearance after handing over the money to you?’

‘It was because I frightened him.’

‘By threatening to give him away?’

‘No. I just told him that some neighbours had been giving me a funny look and that it might be wiser to put the money away in safety for some time. I told him about a floor-board in my flat that could easily be lifted and then replaced. He thought it was only going to be for a few days. A couple of days later he suggested my crossing the Belgian frontier with him.’

‘You refused?’

‘I made him believe that a man who looked like a detective had stopped me in the street and asked me questions. He took fright. I gave him a little of the money and promised to join him in Brussels as soon as we were out of danger.’

‘What did he do with Boissy’s body?’

‘He took it to a little house he had in the country, on the banks of the Marne, and there I suppose he buried it or threw it into the river. He took a taxi. Nobody ever spoke of Boissy again, nobody wondered about his disappearance.’

‘You managed to send Lorilleux into Belgium by himself?’

‘That was easy.’

‘And for five years you were able to keep him at bay?’

‘I used to write to him, poste restante, that the police were looking for him, that if nothing was said about it in the papers it was because a trap was being laid for him. I told him the police were constantly questioning me. I even sent him off to South America…’

‘And he came back two months ago?’

‘About then. He was broke.’

‘Didn’t you send him any money?’

‘Very little.’

‘Why?’

She made no reply, but glanced at the clock.

‘Are you going to take me off? What are you going to charge me with? I’ve done nothing. I didn’t kill Boissy. I wasn’t there when he died. I didn’t help to hide the corpse.’

‘Don’t worry about your fate. You kept the money because all your life you’ve wanted to have money, not in order to spend it but to feel yourself rich and safe from want.’

‘That’s my own business.’

‘When Lorilleux came to ask you to help him, or to keep your promise to run away with him, you took advantage of Colette’s accident to pretend that you couldn’t get at the hiding-place. Isn’t that how it happened? You tried to get him to cross the frontier once again.’

‘He stayed in Paris, in hiding.’

Her lips curled in a curious involuntary smile, and she could not resist muttering:

‘The idiot! He could have told everybody his name without getting into any trouble.’

‘All the same he thought of the Father Christmas plan.’

‘Only the money was no longer under the floor. It was here, under his nose, in my work-box. He only had to lift the lid.’

‘In ten or fifteen minutes, your husband will be here. Lorilleux, who is across the street, is probably aware of it; he knows that Martin was in Bergerac and he must have consulted the railway time-table. He’s no doubt plucking up his courage. I should be much surprised if he isn’t armed. Do you want to wait for the pair of them?’

‘Take me away. Just give me time to slip on a dress…’

‘The left-luggage receipt?’

‘At the poste restante in the Boulevard Beaumarchais.’

She had gone into the bedroom, leaving the door ajar, and without the least concern for modesty she took off her housecoat, sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on her stockings and took a woollen dress out of the wardrobe.

At the last minute she grabbed a travelling bag and thrust into it a confusion of toilet articles and underclothes.

‘Let’s leave at once.’

‘Your husband?’

‘To hell with that idiot.’

‘Colette?’

She shrugged her shoulders in silence. The door of Mademoiselle Doncoeur’s flat moved slightly as they passed. Down below, as they stepped out on to the pavement, she took fright and shrank back between the two men, peering into the surrounding fog.

‘Take her to Headquarters, Lucas. I’ll stay here.’

There was no car in sight and she was evidently scared at the thought of walking through the darkness escorted only by little Lucas.

‘You needn’t be afraid. Lorilleux is not in the neighbourhood.’

‘You’ve lied to me!’

Maigret went back into the house.

The conversation with Jean Martin took a good two hours, and most of it took place in his brother’s presence.

When Maigret left the building at about half-past one in the morning, he left the two men alone together. A light was showing under Mademoiselle Doncoeur’s door, but she tactfully refrained from opening it, and merely listened to the Superintendent’s footsteps.

He crossed the boulevard and went home. He found his wife asleep in her armchair in front of the dining-room table, where his place was laid. She gave a start.

‘You’re all alone?’

And as he stared at her in amused surprise:

‘You’ve not brought the child back?’

‘Not tonight. She’s asleep. Tomorrow morning you can go and fetch her, and make sure you’re nice to Mademoiselle Doncoeur.’

‘Really?’

‘I’ll have a couple of nurses sent, with a stretcher.’

‘But then… Can we…’

‘Sh!… Not for good, you understand? Maybe Jean Martin will find somebody else… and maybe his brother will get back into normal life and marry again some day…’

‘In short, she won’t be our own?’

‘Not our own, no. Only lent to us. I thought that would be better than nothing and that you’d be pleased.’

‘Of course I’m pleased… Only… only…’

She sniffed, hunted for a handkerchief, failed to find one and hid her face in her apron.

[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]

[for a complete bibliography of all 103 episodes of The Maigret Saga, check out Steve Trussel’s amazing fan site at http://www.trussel.com/f_maig.htm ]

[March 29, 2007—v1 html proofed and formatted]