Georges Simenon - Maigret at the Crossroads

Maigret at the Crossroads

La nuit du carrefour
the 7th episode in the Maigret Saga
1931

Georges Simenon

Translated from the French by Robert Baldick

A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

Contents

Georges Simenon was born at Lige in Belgium in 1903. At sixteen he began work as a journalist on the Gazette de Lige . He has published over 212 novels, in his own name, eighty of which belong to the Inspector Maigret series, and his work has been published in thirty-two countries. He has had a great influence upon French cinema, and more than forty of his novels have been filmed.

Simenons novels are largely psychological. He describes hidden fears, tensions and alliances beneath the surface of lifes ordinary routine, which suddenly explode into violence and crime. Andr Gide wrote to him: You are living on a false reputation just like Baudelaire or Chopin. But nothing is more difficult than making the public go back on a too hasty first impression. You are still the slave of your first successes and the readers idleness would like to put a stop to your triumphs there You are much more important than is commonly supposed, and Franois Mauriac wrote, I am afraid I may not have the courage to descend right to the depths of this nightmare which Simenon describes with such unendurable art.

Simenon has travelled a great deal and once lived on a cutter, making long journeys of exploration round the coasts of Northern Europe. He is married and has four children, and lives near Lausanne in Switzerland.

TRANSLATED BY ROBERT BALDICK

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Le Nuit du carrefour first published 1931

This translation first published in Penguin Books 1963

Reprinted 1963, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1979

Copyright A. Fayard et Cie, 1931 Translation copyright (Q) the Estate of Robert Baldick, 1963

All rights reserved

Made and printed in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd,

Aylesbury, Bucks Set in Monotype Van Dijck

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

MAIGRET AT THE CROSSROADS

Chapter 1
The Black Monocle

When, with a sigh of relief, Maigret pushed his chair back from the desk at which he had been sitting, the interrogation of Carl Andersen had lasted exactly seventeen hours.

Through the uncurtained windows he had seen the crowd of midinettes and office-workers storming the dairy-shops in the Place Saint-Michel at noon, then the bustle dying down, the six oclock rush towards the Mtro and the railway stations, and the dawdling over apritifs

Mist had covered the Seine. The last tug had gone by, carrying green and red lights and towing three barges. The last bus. The last Mtro. The cinema whose grille was closed after the advertisement boards had been taken in

And the stove which seemed to be purring more loudly in Maigrets office. On the table there were some empty beer-glasses and the remains of some sandwiches.

A fire must have broken out somewhere, for they heard the noisy fire-engines going past. There was also a raid. The Black Maria drove out of the Prefecture about two oclock, and came back later by way of the depot yard, where it unloaded its booty.

The interrogation went on and on. Every hour, or every two hours, depending how tired he was, Maigret would press a button. Sergeant Lucas, who was dozing in a near-by office, would come in, glance at the chief-inspectors notes, and take over.

And Maigret would go and lie down on a camp-bed, returning to the attack with new stocks of energy.

The Prefecture was deserted. A few comings and goings in the Vice Squad. A drug pedlar whom an inspector brought in about four oclock in the morning and started questioning straight away.

The Seine donned a halo of milky mist which turned white, and it was daybreak, lighting up the empty embankments. Footsteps sounded in the corridors. Telephones ringing. Voices calling. Doors banging. The charwomens brooms.

And Maigret, putting down his overheated pipe on the table, stood up and looked the prisoner over from head to foot, with an irritation not unmixed with admiration.

Seventeen hours of unrelenting interrogation. Beforehand the mans shoelaces, collar, and tie had been removed and his pockets emptied.

During the first four hours he had been left standing in the middle of the office, and questions had been fired as fast as machine-gun bullets.

Are you thirsty?

Maigret was on his fourth glass of beer and the prisoner had given a shadow of a smile. He had drunk greedily.

Are you hungry?

He had been asked to sit down, then to stand up again. He had gone seven hours with nothing to eat, and after that he had been harried while he was bolting down a sandwich.

There were two of them taking it in turns to question him. Between sessions they could doze, stretch themselves, escape from the obsession of this monotonous interrogation.

And it was they who were giving up! Maigret shrugged his shoulders, looked for a cold pipe in a drawer, wiped his moist forehead.

Perhaps what impressed him most of all was not the mans physical and moral resistance, but the disturbing elegance, the distinction which he retained to the end.

A man of the world who emerges from the search-room without his tie, and who then spends a whole hour, stark naked, with a hundred criminals, in the Records Department, dragged along from the camera to the armchair scales, jostled around, and subjected to the depressing jokes of some of his companions, rarely retains that self-assurance which, in private life, formed part of his personality.

And when he has undergone a few hours of questioning, it is a positive miracle if anything remains to distinguish him from a common tramp.

Carl Andersen had not changed. In spite of his crumpled suit, he still displayed an elegance such as the staff of Police Headquarters rarely have occasion to appreciate, an aristocratic elegance, with that hint of stiffness and restraint, that touch of haughtiness which is the peculiar attribute of diplomatic circles.

He was taller than Maigret, broad-shouldered, but slim, lithe, and narrow-hipped. His long face was pale, his lips rather colourless.

He wore a black monocle in his left eye.

Take it out, he had been told.

He had obeyed, with a ghost of a smile. He had uncovered a glass eye of unpleasant fixity.

An accident?

Yes, a flying accident

So you were in the war?

Im Danish. I didnt have to fight. But I had a private aircraft back there

This artificial eye was so embarrassing, in a young face with regular features, that Maigret had growled:

You can put your monocle back.

Andersen had not complained once, either that they had kept him standing, or that they had forgotten to give him anything to eat and drink. From his place he could see the people in the street, the trams and buses crossing the bridge, a ray of reddish sunshine towards evening, and now the bustle of a bright April morning.

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