‘You know me?’ asked Maigret.
‘Don’t think that I don’t see you walk past every day! … I recognized you at once, at least a week ago … I said to Babette, I did: “That, my love, is the famous Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, or I’m not La Popine …”
‘I think I’ve still got somewhere an illustrated magazine from three weeks ago which has an article about you in it, with a lovely photo …’
Francis had risen to his feet, embarrassed. It was as if, without his livery, he felt naked in front of Maigret.
‘Don’t be afraid, silly! … I’m sure he’s not here about you but about your boss … Am I in the way, inspector? … Because I can always go into my bedroom … Except that if it’s information you want, I can probably give you more than Francis … Sit down … You’ll have a little drink with us, won’t you? … I have to tell you that I’ve always loved crime stories, so I’ve known about you for at least fifteen years … When I see a juicy murder, nice and complicated, I say: “I hope it’s Maigret who’s handling it …”
‘And in the morning I open my newspaper before putting the water for the coffee on to boil …’
Maigret sat down. He had no option. And it was cosy, almost family-like. The fishmonger must be proud of her furniture, her gleaming copper pots, her trinkets, proud of this interior that was so typically petty bourgeois.
When all was said and done, were her dreams so different from Madame Maigret’s?
Francis was less at ease and wanted to put on his jacket. It was the woman who stopped him.
‘No need to feel awkward in front of the inspector! If everything that’s written about him is true, he doesn’t mind you being in your shirt-sleeves, quite the opposite. He’s the one who’s going to make himself comfortable …’
A door to the left opened into the shop, all in marble, which exuded a faint smell of fish.
‘Do you think it was an accident, Monsieur Maigret?’
It was clearly one of those days. At Doctor Bellamy’s already, he had been the one who had been interrogated.
‘Mind you, I don’t want to speak ill of that man … I knew him as a boy … I think I’m three or four years older than he is, and I’m not ashamed to say so …’
Even though she was in her fifties, she was astonishingly youthful, truly delectable still. She had filled Maigret’s glass and held hers out to clink glasses.
‘I knew his father too … He was the same type of man. Not talkative … and yet you can’t say that they’re proud … I mean, they’re gentlemen, but they don’t shove it in your face all the time. But the mother, now she’s something else … That woman, Monsieur Maigret, let La Popine tell you, she’s a nasty piece of work … And, if something bad happened, I’m absolutely certain that it was her fault … Do you think the doctor will be arrested?’
‘It is out of the question.’
This was awkward. He was not in charge of any investigation. He wanted a simple piece of information. And the next day, thanks to La Popine, the whole town would know that Chief Inspector Maigret was going around asking questions about Doctor Bellamy.
This could go far, and turn into an unpleasant business, and yet Maigret couldn’t bring himself to regret being there. He puffed gently on his pipe, warmed the glass in his hands and averted his eyes from the fat woman who sat with her legs splayed, revealing large expanses of pink thigh above her black stockings.
He finally managed to get a word in.
‘I wanted to ask Francis a question …’
‘How did you know I was here?’
Maigret was about to give some vague answer, but La Popine didn’t give him the time.
‘If you think, my boy, that the whole world doesn’t know … Mind you, Monsieur Maigret, I want to marry him, I do … He wouldn’t be the first … Unfortunately, there’s already a wife, and she won’t hear of a divorce …’
‘Tell me, Francis … This afternoon, when I went to Doctor Bellamy’s, a girl came out of an upstairs bedroom. I presume it was you who opened the door to her?’
‘It’s always me who opens the door,’ he said.
‘So you saw her. Do you know who she is?’
‘I was wondering the same thing myself.’
‘You don’t know her?’
‘No. She’s been to the house twice. The first time was on the 2nd of August, when Madame was so ill …’
‘One moment, Francis, if you don’t mind.’
‘Yes, take your time, darling … Let the inspector speak …’
‘The accident of which Mademoiselle Godreau was a victim took place on the 3rd of August … Is that right?’
‘That’s correct … The day of the concert—’
‘And on the 2nd of August, Madame Bellamy was very ill, you say?’
‘That’s correct … And even on the 1st of August … On the 1st of August she didn’t get out of bed …’
‘Is she often ill?’
‘I’ve never known her to stay in bed all day …’
‘Did they call for a doctor?’
‘It was Monsieur who attended her … He’s a doctor …’
‘Of course …’
Except that a doctor has no hesitation in calling on a fellow doctor to attend his family, particularly if he is a specialist.
‘You don’t know what was wrong with her?’
‘No …’
‘Did you go into her room?’
‘Never! … Even when she’s not there, it’s forbidden … Doctor Bellamy will not allow any man to set foot in Madame’s bedroom … Once, when there was no one in the house and Jeanne, the maid, was in the apartment, I went in … I took one or two steps, because I needed to speak to Jeanne—’
‘And are we meant to believe that all you did was talk to her?’
‘The doctor arrived without making a sound … He’s never been so sharp with me … At one point I thought he was going to hit me.’
‘So,’ repeated Maigret, ‘on the 1st of August, two days before her sister’s death, Odette Bellamy was ill and didn’t get out of bed … And that was when, you say, the girl came to see her for the first time?’
‘Not the 1st of August, the 2nd—’
‘You let her in … What time was it?’
‘Around half past four …’
‘In other words, the hour when the doctor plays cards at the Brasserie du Remblai … He can be seen from the pavement if a person wants to be certain that he’s not at home …’
‘Probably …’
‘What did the girl say to you?’
‘She asked to see Madame Bellamy … At first I thought she meant the doctor’s mother …’
‘Where was she at that moment?’
‘In the laundry … It was the day the seamstress comes …’
‘Let me explain,’ said the fishmonger. ‘She all but makes her own clothes, to save money. She’s as stingy as a miser. She has an old humpbacked seamstress who togs her up any old how, but she doesn’t care, as long as it doesn’t cost much … I can tell you some stories … Listen! … When she telephoned me to ask for fish that wasn’t so fresh for the servants’ meals …’
‘Just a moment, if you don’t mind?’
‘I’m sorry … Carry on!’
‘You showed the girl upstairs?’
‘No! … I told her that Madame was not at home … She asked me to go and inform her that it was little Lucile and that she had something very important to tell her …’
‘So you went into the bedroom to deliver your message …’
‘Excuse me! … I called Jeanne … I was certain
that Madame would refuse to see the girl … But not at all, she asked for her to be shown up—’
‘Did she stay long?’
‘I don’t know … I went back to the scullery, where I had to clean the silver …’
‘Do you know, Monsieur Maigret, that it’s Francis who polishes my copper pans? … even though my cleaning woman comes every day, he claims that women don’t know how to scour—’
‘When the girl came back today, did you take her straight upstairs?’
‘I didn’t need to announce her … I saw Jeanne on the landing, and she said: “Show her up, Francis …”’
‘In other words, this time your employer was expecting Lucile?’
‘I presume so …’
‘Do you ever listen at the keyhole?’
‘No, monsieur.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because of Doctor Bellamy’s mother … She looks heavy, almost helpless … She leans on her stick as if she couldn’t stand on her own two legs but she swoops down on you out of the blue … She’s always roaming around the house …’
‘A pest! … And to top it all, Monsieur Maigret, she isn’t even from a good family … When she comes to the market with the cook, she yells at us as if we were trollops … She’s forgotten that her father was a drunkard who they used to have to rescue from the gutter and that her mother was a charwoman … It’s true that she was a beautiful girl … You wouldn’t believe it to look at her now …’
‘Tell me, Madame Popineau—’
‘You can call me Popine, like everyone else!’
‘Tell me, Popine − you know everyone at Les Sables d’Olonne − would you have any idea whose daughter this Lucile is?’
‘Ten years ago, I’d have answered yes … I was still a “pedlar” … I went from door to door with my barrow selling fish … So you see, I knew all the urchins—’
‘She’s lanky and thin with hair that is almost colourless, straw-coloured …’
‘Does she wear plaits?’
‘No …’
‘It’s a pity because I know one but she wears plaits … She’s the cooper’s daughter …’
‘Is she around fourteen or fifteen?’
‘Probably older … She’s already developed … A fine little bust—’
‘Think hard …’
‘I don’t see … Mind you, just give me until tomorrow lunchtime … With all the people that come to my shop, it won’t take me long to find out … The town isn’t so big, after all …’
Maigret was to remember those words a little later. The town isn’t so big!
‘Francis, do you have the impression that your employers get on well?’
The Belgian was at a loss for an answer.
‘Do they fight often?’
‘Never.’
He was nonplussed at the thought that anyone could argue with the doctor.
‘Does he sometimes speak to his wife sharply?’
‘No, monsieur …’
Maigret realized that he would have to press the matter.
‘Are they cheerful when they are together, at the table, for example? I presume you’re the one who serves their meals?’
‘Yes, monsieur.’
‘Do they talk to each other much?’
‘Monsieur talks … So does his mother …’
‘Do you have the impression that Madame Bellamy is happy?’
‘Sometimes, monsieur … It’s hard to say … If you knew Monsieur better …’
‘Try and explain what you mean.’
‘I can’t … He’s not a man you talk to like anyone else … He looks at you and you feel all small—’
‘Does his wife feel all small in front of him?’
‘Maybe, sometimes … She sometimes talks like everyone else … She starts telling a story, laughing … Then she looks at him and stops in mid-sentence—’
‘I think it’s rather when she looks at her mother-in-law,’ broke in La Popine. ‘You have to understand, Monsieur Maigret, that a young woman like Odette – I knew her as a little girl too, and she wasn’t stuck-up in those days – I say that a young woman like her isn’t made to live with a witch … and old Madame Bellamy is just like a witch … It’s not a walking stick but a broomstick she should have between her legs …’
Maigret briefly thought of the interrogation that the gentle Mansuy had conducted in front of him, when he was questioning Polyte. The latter had stubbornly clammed up, opening his mouth when forced to only to deny all evidence.
In contrast, these two talked nonstop, and yet it was just as difficult to get close to the truth.
He sensed that it was within reach. He had a whiff of it, trying in his mind to put each of them in their place around the family dinner table, for example, but there was always a detail that was wrong, that rang false.
It is not easy to see people through the eyes of a butler, of Madame Popineau’s lover.
‘Before being ill, how did Madame Bellamy spend her days?’
Poor Francis! La Popine encouraged him to talk, almost prompting him, like at school. He wanted to be helpful and tried to express himself as clearly as possible.
‘I don’t know … First of all, she would stay in her room till late morning and have her breakfast brought up to her.’
‘At what time?’
‘Around ten o’clock.’
‘Just a moment … Do the doctor and his wife sleep in separate rooms?’
‘Well, there are two bedrooms and two bathrooms, but I’ve never known Monsieur to sleep in his room.’
‘Even these last two days?’
‘I’m sorry! … Since the 3rd of August, he has slept alone … In the daytime, Madame often used to go into Mademoiselle’s music room … She would sit in a corner and read, listening to the music—’
‘Does she read a lot?’
‘Whenever I see her she’s nearly always got a book in her hand.’
‘Does she go out?’
‘Rarely without Monsieur … Or without her mother-in-law—’
‘She never goes out alone?’
‘She has done.’
‘More often recently than before?’
‘I don’t know … It’s a big house, you see … In the scullery there’s a little notice board … It’s Monsieur’s mother who put it there … We are three servants, the cook, Jeanne and myself … On the notice board, we find our timetable for the whole day … At such-and-such a time we must be in such-and-such a room, doing such-and-such a job, and all hell breaks loose if we are found elsewhere …’
‘Did the two sisters get on well?’
‘I think so, yes …’
‘At the table, was Lili more cheerful, or more talkative, than Odette?’
‘It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other …’
‘I’m going to repeat my earlier question and I urge you to think hard: are you sure that it was the 1st of August, two days before her sister died, that your employer fell ill?’
‘I’m certain.’
‘Where does the doctor see his patients?’
‘He doesn’t see them in the house but in the annexe at the bottom of the garden. The annexe has a direct entrance from a little sidestreet—’
‘Who opens the door to the patients?’
‘No one. They ring the bell and the door opens automatically. The patients go into a waiting room. There are very few, nearly always by appointment … Monsieur doesn’t need to do that, you understand?’
‘Drink up, Monsieur Maigret, and let me refill your glass.’
He drained it and they all clink
ed glasses again. Francis and La Popine were both slightly overwhelmed by Maigret’s gravity, by the huge effort he was making and which they vaguely sensed.
‘It’s so hard,’ said La Popine, as if to console him, ‘to know what goes on in those big houses … People like us, we say what we think and even more … but others—’
‘Look,’ broke in Francis. ‘Just take this evening, for instance … Usually, I wait for Monsieur to ring for his whisky … Every night, at around ten, when he is in his library, he has a nightcap … Even though I have a room in the house, he knows that I don’t sleep there … I put the tray down on the desk, I put the ice in the glass, and invariably he says to me: “Good night, Francis … you may go …”’
‘Tonight …’
He sensed that Maigret was tense and it made him awkward, as if he were afraid of letting him down once again.
‘It’s only a detail … It came back to me because La Popine just said that you never know what’s going on in big houses … Usually, I prepare the tray in advance and I sometimes sit there for a quarter of an hour watching the clock … I am alone at that moment … Jeanne is in her room, smoking cigarettes and reading novels in bed … The cook is married and sleeps in town. At ten fifteen when I realized that Monsieur hadn’t rung for me, I quietly went upstairs with the tray … There was some light under the door … I waited for a while, then I looked through the keyhole … He wasn’t in his chair … I knocked but I saw no one. I went into every room, except Madame’s bedroom, of course, but he was nowhere to be found … Not downstairs, nor in his consulting room in the annexe … I went up to Jeanne’s room and she told me that he wasn’t in Madame’s room either, and that her door was locked.’
‘Just a moment … Is the door usually locked?’
‘Not when Monsieur is out … Mind you, I didn’t think anything of it and, at half past ten I put the tray out for him and left … It’s the first time he’s ever gone out without telling me. What’s more, he’d left his light on.’
‘Are you sure he had gone out?’
‘His hat wasn’t on the coat stand.’
‘Did he take the car?’
‘No, I looked in the garage …’
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