The same rather forced smile was still on Saint-Hilaire’s lips. But the pupils of his eyes, looking larger than usual, were darting about with unusual mobility so as not to leave Maigret for a moment. Maigret himself was coming and going the whole time, making about fifty vague gestures for every useful one, picking up the pink file, opening it, closing it again, slipping it under a green file, then suddenly going to change the position of one of the dead man’s shoes.
‘Come with me … yes, over the window-sill. So here we are in the nettle lane. Let’s suppose it is Saturday evening, it is dark, we can hear the sounds of the funfair and the rifle range. Perhaps we can even see the lights of the carousel with its wooden horses. Émile Gallet, having taken off his close-fitting jacket, hauls himself up to the top of this wall, not an easy thing for a man of his age to do, and he’s also worn down by illness. Follow me.’
He made Saint-Hilaire go over to the barred gate, opened it and then closed it again.
‘Give me the key. Right, this gate was locked, and as usual the key was in the gap you can see between two stones there. Your gardener himself told me about it. And now we’re on your property. Don’t forget, it’s dark. And take note of this: we are only looking for the meaning of certain clues, or rather we are trying to reconcile contradictory clues. This way, please. Now, imagine someone in this park who is worried by what Émile Gallet is doing. There must be some people who feel like that about him. Gallet is a crook with God knows what else on his conscience. So on this side of the wall we have a man like you and me, a man who has noticed that in the course of the evening Gallet was nervous and who may know that he is in a desperate situation. Our man, whom we will call X, as if he were part of an algebraic equation, comes and goes along the wall and suddenly he sees the outline of Émile Gallet, alias Monsieur Clément, get up on top of the wall without his jacket on. Can this part of the wall round the property be seen from the villa?’
‘No. I really don’t understand what you’re …’
‘Getting at? Oh, nothing, we’re pursuing our inquiries, ready to change track to a hundred different hypotheses if necessary – and wait! I’m switching to another track already. X isn’t walking, he’s caught sight of some empty barrels and, rather than climbing the wall to see what’s happening on the other side of it, he’s dragged over one of those barrels to give him a leg up. It’s at this moment that the silhouette of Émile Gallet is outlined against the sky. The two men don’t speak, because if they’d had anything to say to each other they’d have come closer. You have to raise your voice to be heard from ten metres away. And men meeting in such unusual circumstances, one of them on a barrel, the other balancing on a wall, wouldn’t want to attract attention. Besides, X is in shadow. Émile Gallet doesn’t see him. He comes down from his perch on the wall, goes back to his hotel room and … and here it gets more difficult. Unless we suppose that it was X who fired the shot.’
‘What do you mean?’
Maigret, who had climbed up on the barrel, got off it again heavily.
‘Give me a light, please. Ah, your left hand again! Now, without wondering who fired the shot, we’re going to follow the path taken by our friend X. Come along. He takes the key out of the gap in the wall. He opens the barred gate. But first he has gone somewhere to find a pair of rubber gloves. You’ll have to ask your cook if she happens to wear rubber gloves for preparing vegetables, and if so whether they’ve disappeared. Is she vain?’
‘I really don’t see what that has to …’
Thunder rolled in the distance, but not a drop of rain fell.
‘Let’s go through. The gate is open now. X approaches the window and sees the corpse … because Émile Gallet is dead! The knife wound was inflicted directly after the gunshot; that’s what the doctors say, and the bloodstains prove it. We saw just now that the knife wound looked just as if it had been inflicted by the victim himself. There are burned papers in the hearth of the room, still warm. And we find some of Gallet’s matches there. However, friend X searches the case, and very likely Gallet’s wallet as well. He puts it carefully back in Gallet’s pocket and leaves the hotel room, but forgetting to lock the gate and to put the key back in its place.’
‘And yet the key was found in the grass …’
Maigret, who for some time had not looked at the man who now spoke to him, noticed his downcast air.
‘Come on … that’s not all. I don’t think I’ve ever known a case that was so complicated and so simple at the same time. We know, don’t we, that the man known in these parts as Monsieur Clément was a crook? And now we see that he himself destroyed all traces of his criminal activities, as if he were expecting some important or indeed some major event … yes, this way! Here’s the hotel courtyard, and on the left is the room that Émile Gallet said he wanted on the Saturday afternoon – the one he couldn’t have because it wasn’t vacant. Now, in the afternoon he was in the same situation as in the evening. At all costs he must have 20,000 francs on Monday morning, or whoever was blackmailing him would hand him over to the police. Just suppose he had managed to get that room. He couldn’t have crossed the nettle lane and climbed the wall. So it was not a necessity for him to go along that wall. Or if you prefer, it could be replaced by something else, something that the courtyard provided. Now then,’ Maigret continued, ‘what do we see in that courtyard? A well! You will tell me, perhaps, that he felt like throwing himself into it. But in reply to that, I would tell you that if he left the room he was occupying he could go along the corridor and drown himself all the same. So he needed the combination of a well and a room … yes, what is it, Monsieur Tardivon?’
‘Nevers on the telephone for you.’
‘The inspector of indirect taxation?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Come on, Monsieur de Saint-Hilaire. Since you want to help me, it’s only fair that you are present at all stages of my inquiries. Take the receiver … Hello? Detective Chief Inspector Maigret speaking! Don’t worry, I only want to ask you a question that I didn’t think of just now. Was your friend Gallet left-handed? You say he was? And he also preferred to use his left foot? He played outside left at football? You’re certain of that, are you? No, that’s all … oh, one detail. Did he know Latin? Why do you laugh? … A dunce? … As bad as that, was he? It’s a strange thing, yes … Did you see the photo of the body? … You didn’t? Well, of course he’d have changed since those days in Saigon … the only photo I have was taken when he was on a diet … but perhaps, one of these days, I’ll show you someone who looks like him. Thank you … yes.’
Maigret hung up, uttered a laugh that was especially devoid of any humour and sighed.
‘You see how easily one can get carried away! All we’ve been saying so far depends on one fact, which is that our Émile Gallet is not left-handed. Because if he is left-handed, he could turn the knife against his attacker. What it is to believe the word of a hotelier and the waitresses who work for him!’
Monsieur Tardivon, who had heard that, looked offended. ‘Dinner is served,’ he announced.
‘I’ll be with you soon. Might as well finish this … especially as I’m afraid of trying the patience of Monsieur de Saint-Hilaire. Let’s go back to what they call the scene of the crime, shall we?’
• • •
Once there, he suddenly asked, ‘You saw Émile Gallet in his lifetime. What I’m about to tell you may make you laugh … yes, by all means put the light on. With this gloomy sky, darkness seems to fall an hour earlier than usual. Well now, I never saw him alive, and since his murder I’ve been spending my time trying to imagine him. To that end I’ve come to where I could breathe the air he used to breathe, I’ve rubbed shoulders with those he used to know … Look at this portrait photograph, and I bet you’d say, as I do, that he looks a sorry sight. Especially when you know that his
doctor gave him only three years to live. His liver was killing him! And he had a weak heart just waiting for an excuse to stop beating. I’d have liked to see Gallet in time as well as space. Unfortunately I can find out nothing about him until after the time of his marriage, because he was always unwilling to talk about his life before it, even to his wife.
‘All she herself knows,’ Maigret continued, ‘is that he was born in Nantes and lived in Indochina for several years. Although he brought back no photograph, not so much as a souvenir – and he never talks about those days. He’s a commercial traveller of no importance, a man with some 30,000 francs to his name. When he was thirty he was already clumsy, narrow-minded, melancholy. Then he meets Aurore Préjean and takes it into his head to marry her. The Préjeans have a high opinion of themselves. The girl’s father is in dire straits: he can’t find the funds to keep his journal going, but he was once private secretary to a claimant to the throne of France. He corresponds with princes and dukes. His youngest daughter is married to a master tanner. In that company our friend Gallet cuts a sorry figure, and if the family accepts him it is surely because he consents to invest his small capital in the journal, Le Soleil.’
Maigret went on with the tale of the family as he saw it.
‘The Préjeans do not care for him. Having a son-in-law who sells silver-plated giftware is a step down in the world for them. They try to rouse higher ambitions in him. He resists that idea. He does not feel that he is made for a career that would bring him prestige. He already has liver trouble. He dreams of a peaceful life in the country with his wife, whom he deeply loves. But he cannot please her either. Don’t her sisters have the audacity to treat her as a poor relation and pour scorn on her marriage?
‘Then her father, old Préjean, dies. Le Soleil is done for. Émile Gallet goes on selling his shoddy gifts to the peasants of Normandy. And after his weeks of work he consoles himself by going fishing, inventing ingenious devices, and taking watches and alarm clocks apart. His son inherits his physique and his liver trouble, but he has the ambitions of the Préjeans. So much so that one fine day Émile Gallet decides to try something. He has the records of Le Soleil. He finds out that many people used to donate various amounts of money if you mentioned the legitimist cause of the rightful king to them. And he tries his hand. He doesn’t tell anyone else about it. At first he probably carries on working as a commercial traveller, as a front for his still hesitant criminal activities. But they are what earns him more. Fairly soon he can even buy a plot on the Saint-Fargeau site and have a villa erected on it. He brings his good qualities of order and punctuality into his new way of life. As he is terrified of his wife’s family, so as far as she and they are concerned he is still working in Normandy for the firm of Niel.
‘He doesn’t make a fortune. The legitimists don’t have access to millions, and some of them are slow on the uptake. But at last he is living comfortably enough, and Gallet would be content with that if the family hadn’t been blaming him, even under his own roof, for his unambitious ideas. He loves his wife, for all her faults. Perhaps he even loves his son.
‘The years pass by. His liver trouble gets worse. Gallet has attacks that make him foresee a premature death. At that point he takes out life insurance for a large sum of money, so that after his death his nearest and dearest will be able to go on leading the same life. He goes to endless trouble … Monsieur Clément steps up his visits to the provincial manor houses, where he pesters the dowagers and gentlemen of the ancien régime … I hope you follow me?
‘Three years ago, a certain Monsieur Jacob writes to him. This Monsieur Jacob knows the nature of his work and wants money every two months, a continuous flow of it, as the price of his silence. What can Gallet do? He has brought shame on the Préjean family, he is the poor relation to whom they send a New Year card, but none of his brothers-in-law, who are making their way in the world, want to meet him.
‘On Saturday 25 June he is here, with the last letter from Monsieur Jacob in his pocket. It demands 20,000 francs on the following Monday. Obviously you don’t come by 20,000 francs in a day by knocking on the doors of legitimists even on the most ingenious of pretexts. And anyway, he doesn’t try to. He goes to see you. Twice! After his second conversation with you he asks for a room looking out on the courtyard. Did he have any hope of getting those twenty banknotes for 1,000 francs each out of you? If so, that evening all hope was gone.
‘So tell me, what was he going to do in that room that he was unable to get, and then we shall know why he climbed up on the wall!’
Maigret did not raise his eyes to the other man, whose lips were trembling.
‘An ingenious theory!’ said Saint-Hilaire. ‘But … especially where I am concerned, I really don’t see what …’
‘How old were you when your father died?’
‘Twelve.’
‘Was your mother still alive?’
‘She died soon after my birth. However, I’d be interested to know what …’
‘Were you brought up by other relations?’
‘I have no other relations. I am the last of the Saint-Hilaires. When he died my father only just had the money to pay for my keep and my studies at a school in Bourges until I was nineteen. But for an unexpected legacy from a cousin whose existence everyone had forgotten …’
‘And who lived in Indochina, I believe?’
‘In Indochina, yes. A distant relation who didn’t even bear our name. A Duranty de la Roche.’
‘At what age did you get this legacy?’
‘I was twenty-eight.’
‘So that from the age of nineteen to twenty-eight …’
‘I had a hard time, yes. I don’t blush to say so, far from it. Inspector, it’s getting late. Wouldn’t it be better if we …’
‘Just a moment. I haven’t yet shown you what can be done with a well and a hotel bedroom. You don’t have a revolver on you, I suppose? Never mind, I have mine. There must be some string around somewhere. Right, follow my movements. I tie this string to the butt of the weapon. Let’s suppose it measures six or seven metres, or more, that’s of no importance. Now, go and find me a large pebble in the road.’
Once again Saint-Hilaire was quick to obey and brought back the stone.
‘Your left hand again,’ Maigret commented. ‘Never mind that. So I tie this pebble firmly to the other end of the string. We can have our demonstration here, if we suppose that the window-sill is the rim of the well. I let my stone down on the other side of it. Yes, that’s right, into the well. I have the revolver in my hand. I aim at something, never mind what. Myself, for instance … Then I let go. And what happens? The stone, which is dangling above the water, goes down to the bottom of the well, taking with it the string and the revolver tied to the other end. The police arrive to find a dead body, but no trace of a weapon … and what do they deduce from that?’
‘A crime has been committed!’
‘Very good,’ said Maigret, and without asking for his companion’s lighter he lit his pipe with matches taken from his pocket.
As he picked up Gallet’s clothes, with the look of a man pleased with a long day’s work, he said in the most natural voice imaginable, ‘So now go and find me the revolver.’
‘But … but you didn’t let go of it. You’re holding it in your hand.’
‘I mean go and find me the revolver that killed Émile Gallet. And hurry up about it.’
So saying, he hung the trousers and waistcoat on the hook in the room, beside the close-fitting jacket with its shiny elbows that was hanging there already.
11. A Commercial Affair
Now that Maigret’s back was turned to him, Saint-Hilaire no longer kept firm control of the expression on his face, and a strange mixture of anxiety, hatred and, in spite of everything, a kind of self-assurance could be seen on it.
He decided to go out through the window, walked over to the barred gate in the nettle road and disappeared into the grounds, all so slowly that the inspector, slightly worried, strained his ears to hear him.
It was the time of day when you could see, on the riverbank, the luminous halo of light from the terrace, where knives and forks clicked on plates, accompanied by the muted murmuring of the hotel guests’ voices. Suddenly branches moved on the other side of the wall. The darkness was so complete that Maigret could hardly make out the figure of Saint-Hilaire on top of it. Another creaking of branches. A voice calling softly. ‘Would you like to take it?’
The inspector shrugged his shoulders and did not move, so that his companion had to make the same journey in reverse. When he was in the hotel room again he firstly put a gun on the table. He had straightened his back, and he touched Maigret’s arm with an almost casual, albeit slightly gauche, gesture.
‘What would you say to two hundred thousand?’ He had to cough. He would have liked to act the grand seigneur, completely at ease, but at the same time he felt himself blushing, and there was an obstruction in his throat. ‘Hmm … maybe three …?’
Unfortunately, when Maigret looked at him without any emotion or anger, only a touch of irony between his thick eyelids, he lost his footing, stepped back and cast a glance all around him, as if to catch hold of something.
It was a swift transformation. The best he could manage was a coarse smile, which did not keep him from going purple in the face or the pupils of his eyes from shining with anxiety. He had not brought off his act as a grand seigneur, so he tried another, more cynical and down to earth.
‘That’s your bad luck! Anyway, I was being naive – what could you do about it? You have to obey the rules.’
The Late Monsieur Gallet Page 12