Maigret at the "Gai-Moulin" by Georges Simenon (Thorndike Press 1931)

“Good!… Now for you, young man. And if you’d like some good advice, don’t beat around the bush… Last night you were at the Gai-Moulin in the company of a certain Delfosse. We’ll be dealing with him later… Between you, you didn’t have enough money to pay for your drinks. In fact, you hadn’t paid for two or three days… Is that right?”

Jean opened his mouth, but he shut it again without uttering a sound.

“Your parents aren’t rich, and what you earn won’t take you very far. Yet you’re out having a rare good time, running up debts all over the place… Well? Is that correct?”

The wretched boy hung his head. He could feel the eyes of the five men on him. Inspector Delvigne spoke condescendingly, even a little contemptuously.

“At the tobacconist’s, for instance. Yesterday you owed him money… The old, old story! Boys just out of school, acting like right young men-about-town, without a penny to do it on… How many times have you stolen money from your father’s wallet?”

Jean turned crimson. That last remark was worse than a slap in the face. What made it so dreadful was that he’d earned it; everything the inspector said was true.

Yes, true. More or less. But the truth, put so baldly, was no longer quite the truth.

It had begun by Jean going to the Pelican now and then after work, to have a glass of beer with his friends. That was where they used to meet, and the warm feeling of comradeship was irresistible. Very soon it became a regular thing.

In a moment there, life was transformed; the day’s drudgery and the chief clerk’s sermons were forgotten. Sitting back in their chairs in the fanciest café the town possessed, they would watch people pass by along Rue du Pont d’Avroy, nod to acquaintances, shake hands with friends, eye the pretty girls, some of whom would occasionally join them at their table. Was not all Liège theirs?

René Delfosse stood more rounds than the others, since he was the only one who had an abundant supply of pocket money.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing.”

“Let’s go to the Gai-Moulin. There’s a simply terrific dancer there.”

That was more wonderful still. Intoxicating. Bright lights, crimson plush, the air filled with music, perfume, and familiarity. Victor had a friendly way of speaking that flattered the boys. But what counted far more were those bare-shouldered women, who would casually lift their skirts to hitch up a stocking.

So the Gai-Moulin had become a habit too. More than a habit — a necessity. One thing, however, marred its perfection. Rarely could Jean take his turn at paying. And once — though only once — to indulge in that luxury, he had helped himself to money that wasn’t his. He had taken it, not from his parents, but from the petty cash. Barely twenty francs. It was easily done; he simply charged a little extra on a number of registered letters or other mail he’d taken to the post office.

“I never stole from my father.”

“I don’t suppose he has very much to steal… But let’s get back to last night. You were both at the Gai-Moulin. Neither of you had any money, though that didn’t stop you from buying a drink for one of the dancers… Give me your cigarettes.”

Unsuspectingly, Jean held out his pack.

“Cork-tipped Luxors? Is that right, Dubois?”

“That’s right.”

“So!… Now, while you were sitting there, rich-looking man comes in and orders champagne. It wasn’t hard to guess that his wallet was well lined, was it?… Contrary to your usual habit, you left by the back door, which is near the steps to the cellar. And what should we find this morning on the cellar steps but two cigarette butts and some ash.

“Instead of leaving, you and Delfosse hid. The rich foreigner was killed. Perhaps at the Gai-Moulin, perhaps elsewhere. No wallet was found on him, and no gold cigarette case, though he’d been seen with one that night…

“Today you start paying off your debts. But this evening, knowing you’re being followed, you think you’d better throw the rest of the money away…”

This story was told in such a bored voice that it was hard to believe Delvigne took it seriously.

The Sailors' Rendezvous by Georges Simenon (Penguin Crime 1931)

‘Is the secret so burdensome, Le Clinche?’

Le Clinche was silent.

‘And you can’t possibly tell me anything, can you?… Yes! One thing! Do you still want Adèle?’

‘I detest her!’

‘I didn’t say that! I said want, want her as you wanted her the whole of the trip… We’re men, Le Clinche… Did you have many adventures before you knew Marie Léonnec?’

‘No… Nothing of importance… ’

‘And never that passion, that desire for a woman, that makes you fairly weep?’

‘Never… ’ He turned away his head.

‘Then it was on board that it happened. There was only one woman in that bleak monotonous setting. Perfumed flesh in that trawler that stank of fish… What did you say?’

‘Nothing… ’

‘You forgot about your fiancée?’

‘It’s not the same thing… ’

Maigret looked him in the face and was amazed at the change that had just taken place. His companion’s brow had suddenly become purposeful, his look fixed, his lips bitter. And yet, in spite of it all, the nostalgia, the dreamy expression remained.

‘Marie Léonnec is pretty… ’ Maigret went on, following up his idea.

‘Yes… ’

‘And much more distinguished than Adèle. What’s more, she loves you. She’s ready to make any sacrifice to… ’

‘Oh, do stop it!’ groaned the operator. ‘You know perfectly well that — that… ’

‘That it’s different! Marie Léonnec is a nice girl, will make a model wife and a good mother, but… There’ll always be something lacking, won’t there? Something more violent. Something that you knew on board, hidden in the captain’s cabin, fear constricting your throat a little, in Adèle’s arms. Something vulgar and brutal… Adventure… and the desire to bite, to do something desperate, to kill or to die… ’

Le Clinche listened in amazement.

‘How do you… ?’

‘How do I know? Because everyone experiences that sense of adventure at least once in his life… You weep! You cry out! You die! Then, a fortnight after, when you see Marie Léonnec, you wonder how you can have been excited by an Adèle… ’

While he was walking along, the young man gazed at the mirroring waters of the harbour, the distorted reflections of the boat-hulls, red, white, or green.

‘The trip’s over… Adèle’s gone… Marie Léonnec is here… ’

There was a moment of calm.

‘The crisis was dramatic,’ Maigret went on. ‘A man died because there was passion on board and… ’

But Le Clinche’s fever flared up again:

‘Stop it! Stop it!’ he repeated in a dry voice. ‘No! You see perfectly well that it’s not possible… ’

His eyes were haggard. He turned back to look at the trawler which, nearly empty now, stood monstrous and high in the water.

He was again seized with terror.

‘I swear… You must let me go… ’

‘The captain was in distress too during the whole trip, wasn’t he?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘And the chief engineer?’

‘No… ’

‘There were only you two, then. It was fear, wasn’t it, Le Clinche?’

‘I don’t know… Leave me alone, for heaven’s sake!’

‘Adèle was in the cabin. There were three men hanging round. And yet the captain wouldn’t yield to his desire, spent days and days without speaking to his mistress. And you watched her through the porthole, but after a single meeting you never touched her again… ’

‘Stop it!’

Maigret in Holland by Georges Simenon (Harcourt Brace & Company 1931)

Instead of going through the town from the police station to the Hotel Van Hasselt, Maigret went along the quay, accompanied by Jean Duclos, whose face and whole demeanor radiated bad temper.

“I suppose you know,” he said at last, “that you’re making yourself most objectionable?”

As he spoke his eyes were fixed on a crane, whose hoist swung only a foot or two above their heads.

“In what way?”

Duclos shrugged his shoulders and took several steps before answering.

“Is it possible you don’t understand?… Perhaps you don’t want to… You’re like all French people…”

“I thought we were both French.”

“With this difference, however: I have traveled widely. In fact, I think I could justifiably call myself a European, rather than a Frenchman. Wherever I go, I can fall into the ways of the country. While you… you simply crash straight through everything regardless of the consequences, blind to everything that requires a little discrimination…”

“Without stopping to wonder, for instance, whether or not it’s desirable that the murderer be caught!”

“Why shouldn’t you stop to wonder?” burst out the professor. “Why shouldn’t you discriminate?… This isn’t a dirty crime. It isn’t the work of a professional killer, or any other sort of ordinary criminal. The question of robbery hasn’t arisen… In other words, the person who did it is not necessarily a danger to society.”

“In which case… ?”

Maigret was smoking his pipe with obvious relish, striding along easily, his hands behind his back.

“You’ve only got to look around…” said Duclos, with a wave of his hand that embraced the whole scene: the tidy little town where everything was arranged as neatly as in a good housewife’s cupboard; the harbor too small to have any of the sordidness that so often belongs to ports; happy, serene people clattering along in their varnished sabots.

Then he went on:

“Everyone earns his living. Everyone’s more or less content. Everyone holds his instincts in check because his neighbor does the same, and that’s the basis of all social life… Pijpekamp will tell you that theft is a rare occurrence here—partly because when it does occur it’s severely punished. For stealing a loaf of bread, you don’t get off with less than a few weeks in prison… Do you see any signs of disorder?… None. No tramps. No beggars. It’s the very embodiment of cleanliness and order.”

“And I’ve crashed in like a bull in a china shop! Is that it?”

“Look at those houses over there on the left, near the Amsterdiep. That’s where the best people live. People of wealth, or at any rate of substance. People who have power or influence in the locality. Everybody knows them. They include the mayor, the clergy, teachers, and officials, all of whom make it their business to see that the town is kept quiet and peaceful, to see that everybody stays in his proper place without damaging his neighbor’s interests. These people—as I’ve told you before—don’t even allow themselves to enter a café for fear of setting a bad example… And now a crime has been committed—and the moment you poke your nose in, you sniff some family scandal…”

Maigret listened while looking at the boats, whose decks, because it was high tide, were well above the quay.

“I don’t know what Pijpekamp thinks about it. He is a very respected man, by the way. All I know is that it would have been far better for everybody if it had been given out that Popinga had been killed by a foreign sailor, and that the police were pursuing their investigations… Yes. Far better for everybody. Better for Madame Popinga. Better for her family, particularly for her father, who is a man of considerable repute in the intellectual world. Better for Beetje and for her father. Above all, better for the public welfare, for the people in all these other houses, who watch with respect all that goes on in the big houses by the Amsterdiep. Whatever is done over there, they want to do the same… And you… you want truth for truth’s sake—or for the personal satisfaction of unraveling your little mystery.”

“You’re putting it in your own words, Professor, but in substance what you say is what Pijpekamp said to you this morning. Isn’t that so?… And he asked your advice as to the best method of dampening my unseemly zeal… And you told him that in France people like me are disposed of with a hearty meal, even with a tip.”

“We didn’t go into details.”

“Do you know what I think, Monsieur Duclos?”

Maigret had stopped and was looking at the harbor. A little bumboat, its motor making a noise like a fusillade, was going from ship to ship, selling bread, spices, tobacco, pipes, and schnapps.

“What?”

“I think you were lucky to have come out of the bathroom holding the revolver in your hand.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing… But I’d like you to assure me once more that you saw nobody in the bathroom.”

“I saw nobody.”

“And you heard nothing?”

Duclos looked away. Maigret repeated the question.

“I didn’t hear anything definite… It’s only a vague impression, but there might have been a sound coming from under the lid over the tub.”

“Excuse me, I must be off… I think that’s someone waiting for me.”

Maigret at the Crossroads by Georges Simenon (Penguin Books 1931)

When Maigret came back into the kitchen, Monsieur Oscar was ostentatiously rubbing his hands.

‘You know, I must say that I’m enjoying this… Because I know the ropes, of course. Something happens at the crossroads …There are only three sets of people living here… Naturally you suspect all three… Yes, you do! Don’t play the innocent… I saw straight away that you didn’t trust me and that you weren’t keen on having a drink with me… Three houses… The insurance agent looks too stupid to be capable of committing a crime… The lord of the manor is a real gent…So there’s nobody left but yours truly, a poor devil of a workman who’s managed to become his own boss but doesn’t know how to behave in polite society… A former boxer!… If you ask them about me at the Police Headquarters, they’ll tell you that I’ve been picked up two or three times in raids, because I used to enjoy going to the rue de Lappe to dance a Java, especially in the days when I was a boxer… Another time I gave a poke in the kisser to a copper who was annoying me…Bottoms up, Chief-Inspector!’

‘No, thanks.’

‘You aren’t going to refuse! A blackcurrant liqueur never hurt anybody… You know, I like to put my cards on the table… It got on my nerves seeing you snooping round my garage and looking at me on the sly… That’s right isn’t it, ducks? Didn’t I say as much to you last night?… The Chief-Inspector’s there! Well, let him come in! Let him rummage around all over the place!… Let him search me! And then he’ll have to admit that I’m a good chap as honest as the day is long… What fascinates me about this story is the motors… Because when all’s said and done, it’s all a matter of motors…’

Maigret and the Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon (Harcourt Brace 1931)

“Yes. We have to go around the harbor. It should take half an hour.”

The fishermen were less interested than the townsfolk in the drama going on around the Admiral Café. A dozen boats were making the most of the lull in the storm and sculling out to the harbor mouth to pick up the wind.

The policeman kept looking at Maigret like a pupil eager to please his teacher. “You know, the mayor played cards with the doctor at least twice a week. This must have given him a shock.”

“What are people saying?”

“That depends. Ordinary folks—workers, fishermen aren’t too upset… In a way, they’re even kind of glad about what’s happening. The doctor, Monsieur Le Pommeret, and Monsieur Servières aren’t very well thought of around here. Of course, they’re important people, and nobody would dare say anything to them. Still, they overdid it, corrupting the girls from the cannery. And in the summer it was worse, with their Paris friends. They were always drinking, making a racket in the streets at two in the morning, as if the town belonged to them. We got a lot of complaints. Especially about Monsieur Le Pommeret, who couldn’t see anything in a skirt without getting carried away… It’s sad to say, but things are slow at the cannery. There’s a lot of unemployment. So, if you’ve got a little money… all those girls…”

“Well, in that case, who’s upset?”

“The middle class. And the businessmen who rubbed shoulders with that bunch at the Admiral Café… That was like the center of town, you know. Even the mayor went there…”

Maigret's War of Nerves by Georges Simenon (Penguin Books 1931)

“He worked like a slave. His professors regarded him as their most promising pupil. He had no friends. He never spoke much, even to his fellow students.“
He was poor, but he was used to poverty. Often he went to his classes with no socks. More than once he worked in the market, unloading vegetables to earn a few centimes…“
Then came the catastrophe. His mother died. There was no more money.“
And suddenly, without any transition, he turned his back on his dream. He might have looked for work, as so many students do. But no, he didn’t lift a finger…“
Did he have a suspicion that he wasn’t quite the genius he’d imagined? Had he begun to lose confidence in himself? In any case, he did nothing. Nothing whatever. He merely loafed about in cafés, writing begging letters to distant relatives and appealing to charitable organizations. He sponged cynically on any Czechs he happened to meet in Paris, even flaunting his lack of gratitude.“
The world hadn’t understood him. So he hated the world. And he spent his time nursing his hatred. In the Montparnasse cafés he would sit among people who were rich, happy, and bursting with good health. He would sip his café crème while cocktails were being poured out by the gallon.“
Was he already toying with the idea of a crime? Perhaps… I really don’t know. But I know that twenty or thirty years ago he’d have been a militant anarchist tossing bombs at royalty. But that’s no longer fashionable these days…

Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets by Georges Simenon (Penguin Books 1931)

“By working ourselves up into a frenzy, we ended up as packs of nerves. Especially those of us who didn’t eat enough. Do you see what I mean? Little Émile Klein included. A kid who didn’t eat, but kept himself going with loads of drink.

“Naturally, we re-discovered the world. We had our own ideas about all the great problems! We scoffed at the middle-class, society, and all established truths…“

As soon as we’d gulped down a few drinks and the air was thick with smoke, we’d bandy the craziest ideas about! A mixture of Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Moses, Confucius, and Jesus Christ.“

For instance, let’s see… I can’t remember who it was who discovered that pain didn’t exist and that it was only a figment of the imagination. I was so taken with the idea that, one night, in the middle of a breathless group, I stuck the end of a penknife into the fleshy part of my arm and tried to smile…“

Then there were other things. We were an Élite, a little group of Geniuses brought together by chance. We soared above the conventional world of law and prejudice.“

A handful of gods, do you see? Gods who were sometimes starving to death, but who walked the streets proudly, dismissing the passers-by with contempt.“

We used to plan the future: Lecocq d’Arneville was to be a Tolstoy. Van Damme, who was doing a boring course at the School of Economics, was to revolutionize political economy and reverse all accepted ideas on the organization of the human race

“Each of us had his place. There were poets, painters, and future heads of state.“

All on drink! And how! In the end, we were so used to getting carried away, that we’d hardly have got here, in the light of the lamp, with the skull from which we all drank, before each of us would manage to achieve the little frenzy he wanted, on his own…“

Even the more modest of us could already see a marble plaque one day on the wall of the house: Here met the famous Companions of the Apocalypse.…“

It was a challenge to see who could bring the latest book, or come up with the most far-fetched ideas.“

It’s pure chance that we didn’t become anarchists. We used to discuss the question, solemnly. There had been an attempted assassination in Seville. We’d read the newspaper article out loud.“

I can’t remember which of us cried out: ‘True genius is destructive!’…

Maigret Stonewalled by Georges Simenon (Penguin Books 1931)

“In a moment, almost finished, particularly as I’m afraid I must be trying Monsieur de Saint-Hilaire’s patience. Let’s go back to the scene of the crime, as they say, do you mind?”

When they got there, he said suddenly:

“You have seen Émile Gallet alive… What I am going to say may perhaps make you laugh… Yes. Do put on the light; with this foul weather it gets dark an hour earlier than usual… Well, I didn’t see him, and I have spent all my time since the crime trying to imagine him alive.…

“To do that, I want to breathe the air he breathed… rub shoulders with the people he lived with… Look at this picture… I bet you’ll say the same as I did: ‘Poor fellow!’ Especially when you know that the doctors gave him only three more years to live. A rotten liver… And a tired heart just waiting for an excuse to stop… I want to picture this man as a living being, not only in space but in time… Unfortunately I could only go as far back as his marriage; he wouldn’t ever tell even his wife what happened before that.…All that she knows is that he was born in Nantes and that he lived several years in Indo-China. But he didn’t bring back a photograph or a souvenir. He never spoke about it…“

He was a little commercial traveller, with some thirty thousand francs… Even at the age of thirty he was skinny, awkward, with a melancholy disposition.“

He met Aurore Préjean and decided to marry her… The Préjeans are social climbers… The father was hard pressed and no longer had enough money to keep his paper alive… But he had been the private secretary to a pretender to the throne! He had corresponded with dukes and princes!“

His eldest girl married a master tanner.“

Gallet cut a miserable figure in that society, and if he was accepted at all it was only because he agreed to put his little bit of capital into the Soleil business… They didn’t put up with him easily. For the Préjeans it’s a come-down that a son-in-law should sell silver-plate articles for cheap presents.

“They try to give him a bit more ambition… He resists. He’s not made for a great career. His liver is far from good at that time… He dreams of a peaceful life in the country with his wife, of whom he is very fond.

Maigret Meets A Milord by Georges Simenon (Penguin Books 1931)

“To begin with, we couldn’t see very clearly… I thought for a moment he was dead…“

My husband wanted to call some of our neighbours to help lift him on to a bed… But Jean understood… he started squeezing my hand… squeezing it so hard!… It was as if he was hanging on to it like grim death…“

And I could see him sniffing…

“I understood… Because in the eight years he’s been with us, you know… He can’t talk… but I think he can hear what I’m saying… Am I right, Jean?… Are you in pain?”

It was difficult to know whether the injured man’s eyes were shining with intelligence or fever.

The woman brushed away a piece of straw which was touching his ear.“

Me, you know, my life’s my little household, my brasses, my bits and pieces of furniture… I do believe that if somebody gave me a palace, I’d be downright unhappy…“

For Jean, it’s his stable… and his horses… How can I explain?… There are naturally days when we don’t move because we’re unloading… Jean has got nothing to do… he could go to the pub…

"But no! He lies down here… He leaves an opening for a ray of sunlight to come in…”

And Maigret imagined himself where the carter was, seeing the partition coated with resin on his right, with the whip hanging on a twisted nail, the tin cup hooked on to another, a patch of sky between the boards above, and on the right the horses’ muscular croppers.

The whole scene gave off an animal warmth, a sensation of full-blooded life which took one by the throat like the harsh wine of certain hill-sides.

Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett by Georges Simenon (1931)

The situation was ridiculous. The Superintendent knew there was not one chance in ten that his vigil would lead to any result.

But he stuck to it, because of a vague impression; he could not even have called it a presentiment. It was more like a private theory, which he had never even worked out but which just stuck nebulously at the back of his mind; he called it the theory of the chink.

Every criminal, every gangster, is a human being. But he is first and foremost a gambler, an adversary; that is how the police are inclined to regard him, and as such they usually try to tackle him.

When a crime or felony is committed, it is dealt with on the strength of various more or less impersonal data. It is a problem with one—or more—unknown factors, to be solved, if possible, in the light of reason.

Maigret used the same procedure as anyone else. And like everyone else he employed the wonderful techniques devised by Bertillon, Reiss, Locard, and others, which have turned police work into a science.

But above all he sought for, waited for, and pounced on the chink. In other words, the moment when the human being showed through the gambler.

At the Majestic he had been confronted by the gambler. Here, he sensed a difference. This quiet, neat villa was not one of the pawns in the game that Pietr the Lett was playing. That young woman, and the children Maigret had glimpsed and heard, belonged to an entirely different material and moral universe.