‘For the blotter was covered in traces of ink, as if it had been used to blot a vast number of letters.
‘It’s simple and silly, you see. One thinks of everything, except little things like that.
‘That feels a very long time ago now, whereas it happened only two weeks ago.’
‘Did you find the letters?’
‘In the hiding place that all women use: under her linen.’
‘Did Émile mention their departure?’
‘The last letter gave all the details.’
He spoke in a sharp, curt tone.
‘It was the day before …’
‘And you didn’t say anything?’
‘I didn’t give anything away.’
‘You were supposed to be going to a dinner at the sub-prefecture, weren’t you?’
‘A gentlemen’s dinner, yes. In evening dress.’
‘Did you go?’
‘I put in an appearance.’
‘After making sure your wife was in no state to go out?’
‘That is correct. On the pretext that she seemed on edge − which was true − I gave her some medication which was actually a powerful sedative. Then I put her to bed and locked her in her room.’
‘And you went to the meeting place?’
‘At the appointed hour, I had returned home. All I needed to do was open the door that you have seen, the one to the waiting room that opens on to the sidestreet. There was a shadow against the wall. The boy was startled. I thought for a moment that he would run off as fast as his legs would carry him and that I would have to give chase.’
‘You took him up to your consulting room?’
‘Yes. I think I said: “Would you come in for a moment? My wife isn’t feeling well and won’t be able to leave with you today.”’
Maigret imagined the two men in the dark street, Émile holding a suitcase, his two tickets for Paris in his pocket, quaking in his boots.
‘Why did you ask him up?’
The doctor looked at him in amazement, as if in asking that question Maigret showed himself not to be his equal.
‘I couldn’t do that in the street.’
‘You had already decided …’
The doctor blinked.
‘It is very simple, you know. And so much easier than one thinks!’
‘Did you have no pity?’
‘It didn’t occur to me. Still now, the word shocks me.’
‘All the same, he loved her.’
‘No.’
And the doctor, trembling, stared coldly, straight into Maigret’s eyes.
‘If you say that, it is because you know nothing. He was in love, I’ll admit. But not in love with her, do you understand? He didn’t even know her! He couldn’t love her!
‘Had he seen her ill, or ugly, had he seen her weak and moaning? Did he cherish her faults, her little weaknesses?
‘He didn’t know her.
‘What he loved was women. Another could have done just as well.
‘Do you know what attracted him the most? It was my name, my house, a certain luxury, a certain reputation. It was the dresses she wore and her aura of mystery …
‘I’ll go further, Maigret …’
For the first time, he used the familiar ‘Maigret’.
‘I am certain, you see, that I’m not mistaken. Without me, without my love, he would not have loved her.’
‘Did you talk to him for long?’
‘Yes. In the situation he was in, he couldn’t refuse to answer me, could he?’
Now, he looked away, a little ashamed.
‘I needed to know,’ he confessed quietly. ‘All the details, you understand? … All the sordid little details …’
Up there, in the consulting room, with the frosted-glass windows.
‘I needed …’
A sort of modesty made Maigret stop him going any further.
‘When did you hear a noise?’ he asked.
And Bellamy sat up, emerging from his nightmare.
‘You know that too, of course. I guessed so yesterday. When you insisted on visiting my consulting room and especially when you opened all the windows.’
‘That was the only possible explanation. She had to have seen something.’
‘Contrary to what I told you on the first day, my sister-in-law loved me. Was it really love? I sometimes wonder whether it wasn’t a kind of jealous rage against her sister …’
He let his thought hang in the air, and then tried to explain it.
‘My mother … Jeanne … Lili … It’s a bit as if the women couldn’t bear the sight of a certain sort, a certain quality, a certain intensity of love. I was a bachelor for a long time. My friends’ wives paid me no particular attention. When I married Odette, there were few who did not appear to be intrigued, then annoyed, then provocative. I never encouraged my sister-in-law. I pretended not to see anything. I would rather not go into details, but I noticed that there was something violently sexual about her feelings for me.’
‘Did she spy on you?’
‘She must have been curious on seeing the light on in my office. She probably thought I was seeing a woman. She would have been relieved, I think. It would have reinforced her hopes. I don’t know how to say this: in her mind it would have given her a hold over me.
‘I opened the door, as I did earlier on Jeanne. I’ve been hearing rustling behind closed doors since I was a child!
‘I said the first thing that came into my head, that I was with a patient, and I asked her to go back to the house.’
‘Did she see who you were with?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps. It is not important.’
‘And did you stay with him for a long time?’
‘Around a quarter of an hour. He apologized, and promised me he would not try to see Odette again. He spoke of killing himself—’
‘And you made him write?’
‘Yes.’
‘Under what pretext?’
Slight surprise mixed with reproach in Bellamy’s eyes, as he grew irritated with Maigret for being obtuse.
‘There was no need for a pretext. I think that at first he didn’t even know what he was writing.’
‘You had brought the postcard with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were still in dinner dress?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you …’
‘Just as he finished writing. I took the card and put it away.’
Away from the blood!
‘I had sat him down in my chair. He still had the penholder in his hand. I was standing behind him and, for a good while, I had been toying with the silver-handled paper knife. It was very simple, Monsieur Maigret. He couldn’t live, could he? Especially after the confidences I had pried out of him.’
His lips were barely trembling now, but Maigret was no longer fooled.
‘He slumped to the floor. I had planned everything. I had plenty of time. Again, I heard a noise on the other side of the door. I only opened it a fraction. My sister-in-law could just see his feet. “What’s going on?” she screamed. “I am ordering you to go back inside the house. My patient has fainted, that’s all.”
‘I don’t know whether she believed me. I don’t think she entirely believed me, even though my explanation was plausible.
‘And you see that I was right, at first, to tell you that you had no charge against me. I defy you to find the body.’
‘We always find them in the end,’ sighed Maigret.
‘I spent part of the night getting rid of it and removing all the traces. I went out to
post the letter that I knew was in his pocket, the letter to his parents. He also had one for his employers—’
‘And to send the picture postcard to your mother-in-law.’
‘That is correct.’
‘How did your wife react, the next day, when she woke up from her drugged sleep?’
‘I didn’t say anything to her. She didn’t dare ask me anything.’
‘And until now, there has been no discussion of anything between you?’
‘No.’
‘And you have been in to see her every day?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you haven’t given yourself away?’
‘No. She was very weary, very depressed. I ordered her to stay in bed.’
‘Did you go to the recital with your sister-in-law?’
‘I didn’t make any changes to our routine.’
‘What were you planning to do?’
A vague wave of his hand.
‘I don’t know.’
‘When did Lili discover the knife?’
‘So it was her!’ exclaimed Bellamy. ‘I have wondered, from the beginning, what set you on the trail. I knew your wife was in the hospital where Lili died.’
‘She sometimes talked in her delirium.’
‘And she mentioned the knife?’
‘The silver knife.’
‘She was accusing me.’
He was taken aback, shocked.
‘On the contrary, she defended you. She shouted to the nun that you shouldn’t be arrested, that it was your wife who was the monster.’
‘Oh!’
‘She also uttered words which the nuns refused to repeat, filthy words, apparently.’
‘That confirms what I told you.’
And, curious in spite of everything:
‘Was it Sister Marie des Anges who alerted you?’
‘Yes. I understood that in the car you and your sister-in-law were driving home in, she had found a clue, probably the knife.’
‘That is correct.’
It was strange to see him examining his case with clarity, like a problem that had nothing to do with him, and yet Maigret was far from fooled, he could sense that the doctor was on the alert for the slightest sound in the house. It was as if he were counting the minutes during which he was still entitled to conduct himself as a man like any other.
‘You see to what extent a ridiculous sentiment can take on importance. I had destroyed all the evidence. There was nothing, not the slightest clue against me. Nothing but that knife, which I had cleaned and put back in its place on my desk. Why? Out of habit, because I liked the shape of the handle. Perhaps too because I had always seen it there and I absently fiddled with it during my consultations.
‘The next morning I saw it back in its place and I frowned, because it reminded me of a very particular gesture.
‘I remember wrapping it in a handkerchief and putting it in my pocket. A little later, I took my car out. The knife was making me uncomfortable and I stuffed it in the little compartment on the right of the dashboard.
‘I thought no more about it when, on the way back from La Roche-sur-Yon, Lili opened the compartment to take out some matches.
‘She grabbed the handkerchief and opened it out.
‘I can picture her, knife in hand, looking at me with horrified eyes. Of course she was thinking about the feet she had glimpsed the night before in my office. Maybe she knew more? Maybe she suspected her sister’s affair?
‘I lunged at her to take the knife away. Did she misinterpret my movement? I don’t think so. She was obeying an irrational impulse. As I grabbed the knife by the blade, she let go and opened the door.
‘I shouldn’t have needed to kill Lili either. You believe that, don’t you?’
‘I believe that.’
‘Afterwards, because of you, I had to defend myself.’
And Maigret said slowly:
‘Defend what?’
‘Not my life, you are aware of that. Not even my freedom. That’s what I want you to understand, as I think only you are able to.
‘Earlier, I gave up the fight, not because of the danger, not because I felt you were close to the truth, but because I realized that there would have to be other victims, that it would take too many.’
His lips were barely trembling now, but Maigret was no longer fooled.
‘Including me.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘It wasn’t mercy that stopped you.’
‘No. I have no more mercy.’
True, the picture was inconsistent, but seeing him before his eyes, Maigret felt he was looking at a man who had been emptied of all his substance, completely gutted.
He came and went, drank, talked like a normal man, but there was no longer anything inside him, nothing but his mind which continued to work through strength of habit. Similarly, so it is said, the heads of those who have been decapitated continue to move their lips for a few minutes after the execution.
‘What’s the point?’ he asked with a glance in the direction of the room he had locked so carefully earlier, whose key was in his pocket.
A scruple prompted him to keep as closely as possible to the truth.
‘And yet … Listen … For the boy, I was almost within my rights … All I needed to do was catch them together, and any French jury would have acquitted me. In spite of that, I took upon myself the despicable task of getting rid of the body and lying. Why? I am going to tell you, ridiculous as it might seem to you: because I would have been arrested anyway, because I would have been sent to prison for a few weeks or a few days, because, for a few weeks or a few days, I wouldn’t have seen her.
His smile, this time, was chillingly wry and he poured himself another drink.
‘That is the explanation. It was the same for the girl. You saw her here. I realized that you would find her, and question her, and that through her you would get to the truth, to the truth which for me, always meant the same thing: not to see her …’
His voice was choking. He still managed to say:
‘That’s all.’
But he wasn’t able to swallow the drink he was holding. His throat was too tight. He remained motionless, frozen, and Maigret, for his part, stayed silent.
Cars drove past on the quayside. At any moment now, one of them would pull up in front of the house and they would hear the voice of the examining magistrate in the hall.
‘If I hadn’t been on holiday in Les Sables d’Olonne …’ sighed Maigret at length.
The doctor nodded. They were both thinking of little Lucile.
‘Admit that earlier, immediately after my telephone call—’
‘No!’
The doctor was slowly regaining his composure.
‘It was before. When I telephoned, I had already made up my mind …’
‘You had thought of killing your wife and then yourself?’
‘Romantic, isn’t it? However, even the most intelligent of men has felt that temptation at least once in his lifetime.’
He put two fingers in the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a folded slip of paper which he held out to Maigret.
‘It was for myself,’ he sighed. ‘You’d better destroy it right away, because accidents can easily happen. It’s cyanide. Romantic as ever, you see! Admit that you were convinced that I wouldn’t let myself be arrested alive.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And that still a few minutes ago, you wouldn’t take your eyes off me …’
‘That is true.’
‘I had thought of it too, you see. You cannot imagine how thoroughly one thinks of everything i
n a situation like mine.’
He rose, picked up the decanter as if to pour another drink, but put it back down on the tray again.
‘What’s the point?’ he said.
And, shrugging:
‘That imbecile Alain will be here shortly. He won’t believe either of us. He’ll think we’re taking him for a ride.’
He walked with halting steps.
‘I’ll live, you’ll see! I’ll do whatever it takes to live. It’s absurd, but despite everything, I will keep hoping. As long as I am alive, she won’t dare—’
He bit his lip and asked, in a different tone:
‘Do you think I’ll be manhandled, beaten, I don’t know what?’
He spoke as a man of the world who had a horror of coming into contact with low life.
‘Is it really filthy in the prisons? Will I have to share my cell with other convicts?’
Maigret stifled a smile. Bellamy caressed the leather bindings, the curios, with his eyes.
‘I wonder what’s keeping him.’ Bellamy was growing impatient. ‘It takes half an hour to drive over from La Roche-sur-Yon, without going fast …’
He walked over to the window. Even though it was lunchtime, there were pale shapes under the beach umbrellas and bathers in the waves that shimmered like fish scales.
‘It’s taking a long time,’ he murmured.
Then:
‘It will be horribly long!’
He turned towards the door, hesitant. He finally burst out:
‘Say something! … You can see that … that—’
Just then there was a ring at the door which at last brought the long-awaited relief.
‘I’m sorry … Please forgive me … That reminds me that you haven’t had lunch …’
‘I’m not hungry.’
Bellamy opened the door in a natural manner.
‘Come upstairs, Alain.’
The magistrate could be heard grumbling as he climbed the stairs and made his way along the corridor.
‘What’s all this about? I was supposed to be having lunch with a friend. Someone you know, by the way. Castaing, from La Rochelle.’
A curt greeting for Maigret.
‘What is happening that is so exceptional?’
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