Cécile is Dead

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

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Georges Simenon was born on 12 February
1903 in Liège, Belgium, and died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived
for the latter part of his life. Between 1931 and 1972 he published seventy-five novels
and twenty-eight short stories featuring Inspector Maigret.

Simenon always resisted identifying himself
with his famous literary character, but acknowledged that they shared an important
characteristic:

My motto, to the extent that I have
one, has been noted often enough, and I've always conformed to it. It's
the one I've given to old Maigret, who resembles me in certain points …
‘understand and judge not'.

Penguin is publishing the entire series of
Maigret novels.

The pipe that Detective Chief Inspector
Maigret lit on coming out of his door in Boulevard Richard-Lenoir was even more
delicious than usual. The first fog of the season was as pleasant a surprise as the
first snow for children, especially when it was not that nasty yellowish fog you see on
certain winter days, but a misty, milky vapour with halos of light in it. The air was
fresh. The ends of your fingers and your nose tingled on a day like this, and the soles
of your shoes clicked smartly on the road.

Hands in the pockets of his large
velvet-collared overcoat, famous at Quai des Orfèvres and still smelling slightly of
mothballs, his bowler hat well down on his head, Maigret made his way to the Police
Judiciaire on foot, at his leisure, and was amused when a girl suddenly shot out of the
fog at a run and collided with his dark, solid form.

‘Oh, I'm sorry, sir.'

And she set off just as fast to catch her
bus or Métro train.

It seemed as if all of Paris was enjoying
the fog that morning, just like Inspector Maigret, and only the tugboats on the Seine
hoarsely announced their uneasiness.

A memory was to stick in his mind for no
good reason: he had just crossed Place de la Bastille on his way to
Boulevard Henri-IV. He was passing a little bistro. The door
opened, because it was the first time this season that the chill in the air had made the
cafés close their doors. In passing, Maigret walked through a gust of aromatic air that
was, to him, the quintessence of the Parisian dawn: the smell of good white coffee, hot
croissants and just a touch of rum. He guessed that behind the steamed-up windows ten,
fifteen or twenty customers were sitting at the metal counter, enjoying their first meal
of the day before hurrying off to work.

At nine o'clock precisely, he reached
the vaulted entrance of the Police Judiciaire building and climbed the vast and
ever-dusty staircase at the same time as several colleagues. As he reached the first
floor he automatically glanced through the waiting-room windows and on recognizing
Cécile, sitting on one of the chairs upholstered in green velour, he scowled.

Or rather, to be absolutely frank, he
adopted a deliberately curmudgeonly expression.

‘Hey, Maigret, there she
is!'

The speaker was Cassieux, head of the Drug
Squad, coming upstairs just after him. And the joke would go on, just as it always did
when Cécile visited the office.

Maigret tried to get past without being
seen. How long had she been there? She was capable of staying put for hours in the same
place, motionless, her hands folded on top of her bag, her ridiculous green hat always
tilted slightly sideways on her rather too carefully arranged hair.

Of course she spotted the inspector and
sprang to her
feet. Her mouth opened. She was
inaudible because of the glazed partition, but she must be sighing, ‘At
last!'

Shoulders hunched, Maigret hurried to his
office at the end of the corridor. The clerk came over to tell him …

‘I know, I know,' growled
Maigret. ‘I don't have time at the moment.'

Because of the fog, he had to switch on the
lamp with its green shade on his desk. He took off his overcoat, his hat, looked at the
stove, thinking that if it was as chilly as this tomorrow he would ask to have it lit,
and then, after rubbing his cold hands together, sat down heavily, with a growl of
contentment, and took the telephone off the hook.

‘Hello … is that the Vieux Normand
café? … Will you get me Monsieur Janvier, please? … Hello, is that you,
Janvier?'

Inspector Janvier would have been sitting in
that little café-restaurant in Rue Saint-Antoine since seven in the morning, keeping
watch on the Hôtel des Arcades.

‘Any news?'

‘They're all back in the nest,
boss. The woman went out half an hour ago to buy bread, butter and a quarter kilo of
ground coffee. She's just back.'

‘Is Lucas in position?'

‘I saw him at the window when I got
here.'

‘Right, Jourdan will be along to
relieve you. Not too frozen, I hope?'

‘A bit chilly. Not too bad.'

Maigret smiled, thinking of the change in
Sergeant Lucas, who had transformed himself into a disabled old
man four days ago. It was a case of keeping watch on the gang
of Poles, five or six of them, who were staying in a squalid room in the squalid Hôtel
des Arcades. There was no evidence against them, except that one of them, known as the
Baron, had paid at the tote on Longchamp racecourse with one of the banknotes stolen
from the Vansittart farm.

The members of the gang moved around Paris
with no obvious purpose, but they met in Rue de Birague, and the central figure there
was a young woman; the police hadn't yet worked out whose mistress she was, or
what exactly her role was in the gang.

At the window of an apartment opposite,
muffled up in scarves, Lucas was keeping watch on them from morning to evening in his
disguise.

Maigret rose to empty his pipe in the coal
scuttle. He chose another from the desk, where he kept quite a collection, caught sight
of the form that Cécile had filled in and was about to read what she had written, but at
that moment a bell rang in the corridor and went on ringing.

The briefing! He snatched up the files he
had ready and, along with all the other departmental heads, went to the office of the
commissioner of the Police Judiciaire. This little ritual took place every morning. The
commissioner had long white hair and a goatee beard like a musketeer's. Everyone
shook hands.

‘Did you see her?'

Maigret looked surprised.

‘Who?'

‘Cécile! Now if I was Madame Maigret
…'

Poor Cécile! And yet she
was still young. Maigret had seen her papers: barely twenty-eight years old. But it
would be difficult to look more like an old maid, to move less gracefully, no matter how
hard she tried to be pleasing. Those black dresses that she must make for herself from
bad paper patterns, that ridiculous green hat! It was impossible to perceive any
feminine allure under all that. Her face was too pale, and she had a slight squint into
the bargain.

‘She's cross-eyed,'
claimed Inspector Cassieux.

He was exaggerating; she wasn't
exactly cross-eyed. It was just that her left eye didn't look in quite the same
direction as her right eye.

She would arrive at eight in the morning,
already resigned to her fate. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret,
please.'

‘I don't know if he'll be
in this morning. You could see Inspector Berger, who …'

‘No, thank you. I'll
wait.'

And wait she did, all day, without moving,
without any sign of impatience, suddenly leaping up, as if she were a prey to emotion,
when the inspector came upstairs.

‘I tell you, old friend, she's
in love with you.'

The officers stayed on their feet. They
chatted about this and that at first, and then, almost imperceptibly, got down to
work.

‘How's the Pélican case going,
Cassieux? Any news?'