The Late Monsieur Gallet

 

THE LATE MONSIEUR GALLET
Translated by Anthea Bell

Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in French as
M. Gallet décédé
by Fayard 1931
This translation first published 2013

Copyright 1931 by Georges Simenon Limited
Translation © Anthea Bell, 2013
GEORGES SIMENON ® Simenon.tm
MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited
All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-698-15100-0

Version_1

Title Page

Copyright Page

About the Author

1. A Chore

2. A Young Man in Glasses

3. Henry Gallet's Replies

4. The Crook among the Legitimists

5. The Thrifty Lovers

6. The Meeting on the Wall

7. Joseph Moers' Ear

8. Monsieur Jacob

9. A Farcical Marriage

10. The Assistant

11. A Commercial Affair

EXTRA: Chapter 1 from
The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien

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. He published seventy-five novels and twenty-eight short stories featuring Inspector
Maigret.

 • • • 

The Late Monsieur Gallet
was the first Maigret novel to be published in book form. The series was launched in February 1931 with a lavish themed party, the ‘Anthropometric Ball', complete with invitations in the form of police
record cards and fake policemen stationed at the entrance.

PENGUIN BOOKS

‘I love reading Simenon. He makes me think of Chekhov'

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‘A truly wonderful writer … marvellously readable – lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with the world he creates'

Muriel Spark

‘Few writers have ever conveyed with such a sure touch, the bleakness of human life'

A. N. Wilson

‘One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century … Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories'

Guardian

‘A novelist who entered his fictional world as if he were part of it'

Peter Ackroyd

‘The greatest of all, the most genuine novelist we have had in literature'

André Gide

‘Superb … The most addictive of writers … A unique teller of tales'

Observer

‘The mysteries of the human personality are revealed in all their disconcerting complexity'

Anita Brookner

‘A writer who, more than any other crime novelist, combined a high literary reputation with popular appeal'

P. D. James

‘A supreme writer … Unforgettable vividness'

Independent

‘Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'

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‘Extraordinary masterpieces of the twentieth century'

John Banville

The very first contact between Detective Chief Inspector Maigret and the dead man with whom he was to spend several weeks in the most puzzling intimacy was on 27 June 1930 in circumstances that were mundane, difficult and unforgettable all at the
same time.

Unforgettable chiefly because for the last week the Police Judiciaire had been getting note after note announcing that the King of Spain would be passing through Paris on that day and reminding them of the precautions to be taken on such an
occasion.

It so happened that the superintendent of the Police Judiciaire was in Prague, at a conference on forensics. His deputy had been called home to his villa in Normandy, where one of his children was ill.

Maigret, as the senior inspector, had to take everything on in suffocating heat, with manpower reduced by the holiday season to the bare minimum.

It was also early in the morning of 27 June that the body of a murdered woman, a haberdasher, was found in Rue Picpus.

In short, at nine in the morning all available inspectors had left for Gare du Bois-de-Boulogne, where the Spanish monarch was expected.

Maigret had told his men to open the doors and windows, and in the draughts doors slammed and paper flew off tables.

At a few minutes past nine, a telegram arrived from Nevers:

Émile Gallet, commercial traveller, home address Saint-Fargeau, Seine-et-Marne, murdered night of 25, Hôtel de la Loire, Sancerre. Many curious details. Please inform family for identification of corpse. Send inspector from Paris if
possible.

Maigret had no option but to set off in person to Saint-Fargeau, a place thirty-five kilometres from the capital even the name of which had been unknown to him an hour earlier.

He did not know how the trains ran. As he arrived at Gare de Lyon, he was told that a local train was just about to leave. He began to run and was just in time to fling himself into the last carriage. That was quite enough to drench him in sweat,
and he spent the rest of the journey getting his breath back and mopping his face, for he was a large, thick-set man.

At Saint-Fargeau he was the only traveller to get out, and he had to wander about on the softened asphalt of the platform for several minutes before he managed to unearth one of the station staff.

‘Monsieur Gallet? Right at the end of the central avenue of the housing development. There's a sign outside the house with its name on it, “Les Marguerites”. In fact it's almost the only house to be finished so
far.'

Maigret took off his jacket, slipped a handkerchief under his bowler hat to protect the back of his neck, because the avenue in question was about 200 metres wide, and you could walk only right down the middle of it, where there was no shade at
all.

The sun was an ominous coppery colour, and midges were stinging furiously in advance of the coming storm.