Georges Simenon - My Friend Maigret (Inspector Maigret Mysteries)

Georges Simenon

My Friend Maigret

(The Methods of Maigret)

A book in the Inspector Maigret series

1949

Maigret is going about his work in rainy Paris, followed around by Inspector Pyke who has come from Scotland Yard to study the famous French detective's methods. Routine is disturbed when Maigret receives a telephone call from the island of Porquerolles off the Mediterranean coast. A small-time crook has been murdered, the night after he had fervently declared his friendship with Maigret in front of a large group of the island's inhabitants. Maigret and Inspector Pyke leave the greyness of Paris for the sunshine of Porquerolles where Simenon creates a wonderfully evocative atmosphere of the square and caf, the brilliant sea, the humidity in the air and the life and individuality of each of the inhabitants on the small island.

Y ou were standing in the doorway of your club?

Yes, officer.

It was no good remonstrating with him. Four or five times Maigret had tried to make him say Inspector. What did it matter anyway? What did all this matter?

A gray sports car stopped for a moment and a man got out, with a flying leap almost, thats what you said, isnt it?

Yes, officer.

To get into your club he must have passed close to you, and even brushed against you. Now theres a luminous neon sign above the door.

Its purple, officer.

So what?

So nothing.

Just because your sign is purple you are incapable of recognizing the individual who, seconds later, tore aside the velvet curtain and emptied his revolver into your barman?

The man was called Caracci or Caraccini (Maigret was obliged to consult the dossier each time). He was small, with high heels, a Corsican head (they still bear a faint resemblance to Napoleon), and he wore an enormous yellow diamond on his finger.

This had been going on since eight oclock in the morning and it was now striking eleven. In actual fact it had been going on since the middle of the night, as all the people who had been rounded up at the club in Rue Fontaine where the barman had been shot down had spent the night in the police station. Three or four detectives, including Janvier and Torrence, had already been working on Caracci, or Caraccini, without getting anything out of him.

It was May, but for all that the rain was falling as in the heaviest of autumn downpours. It had been raining like this since four or five oclock, and the roofs, window ledges, and umbrellas made reflections similar to the water of the Seine, which the Chief Inspector could see by twisting his neck.

Mr. Pyke did not move. He remained seated on his chair in a corner, as rigid as if he were in a waiting room, and it was beginning to be exasperating. His eyes traveled slowly from the Inspector to the little man and from the little man to the Inspector, without it being possible to guess what was passing in the English officials mind.

You realize, Caracci, that your attitude could cost you dear, and that your club may well be closed down for good and all?

The Corsican, unimpressed, gave Maigret a conspiratorial wink, smiled, smoothed the ends of his black mustache with his ring finger.

Ive always gone straight, officer. Try asking your colleague, Priollet.

Although there was a corpse, it was actually Chief Inspector Priollet, chief of the Vice Squad, that the case concerned, owing to the particular circumstances in which it had all started. Unfortunately Priollet was in the Jura at the funeral of some relation.

In short, you refuse to speak?

I dont refuse, officer.

Maigret, heavily, looking disgruntled, went and opened the door.

Lucas! Work on him a bit.

Oh, that look Mr. Pyke was fixing on him! Mr. Pyke might be the nicest man on earth, but there were moments when Maigret caught himself hating him. Just as it happened with his brother-in-law, who was called Mouthon. Once a year in the spring, Mouthon got off the train at the Gare de lEst with his wife, who was Madame Maigrets sister.

He, too, was the nicest man on earth. He would never have hurt a fly. As for his wife, she was gaiety personified, and from the moment she arrived in the flat in Boulevard Richard-Lenoir she would call for an apron to help with the housework. On the first day it was perfect. The second day it was almost as perfect.

Were leaving tomorrow, Mouthon would then announce.

I wont hear of it! Madame Maigret would protest. Why leave so soon?

Because well be getting in your way.

Not on your life!

Maigret would also declare with conviction:

Not on your life!

On the third day he used to hope that some unexpected job would prevent him dining at home. Now never, since his sister-in-law had married Mouthon and the couple had been coming to see them every year, never, ever, had one of those cases which keep you out of doors for days and nights on end cropped up at that moment.

From the third day onward his wife and he would exchange agonized glances, and the Mouthons would stay for nine days, invariably pleasant, charming, thoughtful, as discreet as could be, so that one became more vexed than ever on coming to detest them.

It was the same with Mr. Pyke. However, it was only three days now that he had accompanied Maigret in all his movements. One day during the holidays they had said to Mouthon idly:

Why not come and spend a week in Paris in the spring? We have a guest room which is always empty.

They had come.

Similarly, a few weeks back the Chief of Police had paid an official visit to the Lord Mayor of London. The latter had had him shown round the offices of the famous Scotland Yard, and the Chief had been agreeably surprised to discover that the high officials of the English police knew Maigret by repute and were interested in his methods.

Why dont you come and see him at work? the worthy man had said.

They had taken him at his word. Just like the Mouthons. They had sent over Inspector Pyke, and for the last three days the latter had followed Maigret about everywhere, as discreet, as self-effacing as could be. He was none the less there.

In spite of his thirty-five or forty years he looked so young that he reminded one of a conscientious student. He was certainly intelligent, perhaps even acutely so. He looked, listened, reflected. He reflected so much that one seemed to be able to hear him reflecting, and it was beginning to be wearing.

It was a little bit as though Maigret had been placed under observation. All his gestures, all his words were carefully sifted in the cranium of the impassive Mr. Pyke.

For three days now there had been nothing interesting to do. Just routine. Red tape. Uninteresting interrogations like the one with Caracci.

They had come to understand one another, Pyke and he, without anything being said. For example, the moment the night-club owner had been led off to the sergeants room, where the door had been carefully closed, there was no mistaking the question in the Englishmans eyes:

Strong-arm stuff?

Probably, yes. You dont put on velvet gloves to deal with people like Caracci. So what? It was of no importance. The case was without interest. If the barman had been done in, it was probably because he hadnt been playing straight, or because he had belonged to a rival gang. Periodically these characters settle their accounts, kill one another off, and in the long run it is a good riddance.

Whether Caracci talked or held his peace there would sooner or later be someone who would take the bait, very likely a police informer. Did they have informers in England?