‘I killed young Duffieux and his sister.’
‘What?’
‘Ask the inspector.’
The magistrate shot Maigret a furious look.
‘Just a moment! I don’t like—’
‘Listen, Alain. Calm down for a moment. I am tired. Monsieur Maigret will give you the details later. You’ll find young Duffieux’s body—’
A hesitation. Was there not yet time? With the arrival of Alain de Folletier, day-to-day life had just intruded into the library.
All he needed to do was deny it. There had been no witnesses to his conversation with Maigret. Could he not prevent his mother-in-law from talking, as he had prevented the others?
A few more words and it would be too late.
He uttered those words in such a detached voice that he sounded as if he were explaining some finer points of architecture.
‘Before Les Sables d’Olonne had running water, we had a cistern on the roof. It was filled using a hand pump, to supply water to the bathrooms. The cistern is still there. That’s where the body is.
‘As for the knife, I fear it will never be recovered. I threw it in a sewer. Come over here. Look to the left, in the direction of the pines. You see where the surface of the water is ruffled? That’s where the main pipe runs before it empties out beyond the headland … Would you like a drink, Alain?’
‘Listen …’
‘For goodness’ sake! I don’t know how these things usually happen. I confess I’m horrified at the idea of being handcuffed. You will take me in your car. Once we’re at La Roche, you can question me if you must. However, I’d prefer we did this another day. You will drive me to prison yourself …’
Once again, he addressed Maigret.
‘Can one take any personal belongings?’
He was joking and at the same time he had to rest his hand on the table.
‘Hurry, Alain.’
And Maigret came to his rescue:
‘It would be best to do as he asks.’
They still had to go along the corridor, past a white door, Maigret bringing up the rear.
Bellamy walked with rapid steps and, instead of pausing, he speeded up as he passed his wife’s door. He did not even look at it. He walked straight ahead, down the stairs and stopped, surprised himself, in front of the coat stand on which there were several of his hats.
He was wearing navy blue. He selected a pearl-grey hat and was unable to decide whether to take some gloves.
Francis had rushed up to open the door.
It was the most ordinary of departures, as if he were setting out for a stroll. A huge oblong of sunlight fell on the hall floor, making the pale marble gleam. The house had an indefinable smell of cleanliness and comfort.
In the doorway, Philippe Bellamy paused, hesitant. The magistrate’s taxi was parked by the kerb. People were walking past. Snatches of conversation could be heard.
‘Are you coming with us, Monsieur Maigret?’
Maigret shook his head.
Then the doctor delved into his pocket. Wordlessly, without looking at Maigret, he held something out to him and rapidly covered the few metres to the car.
You could tell that the magistrate, finally rid of Maigret, was preparing, as he settled into the seat, to rail against this whole business.
The engine was running. The car glided over the asphalt. A face appeared fleetingly, just as it was about to turn off, two feverish eyes stared at the person who had remained behind.
Francis, seeing Maigret standing on the doorstep, did not dare shut the door again. And in fact Maigret did go back into the house, looking at the little key that Bellamy had slipped into his hand, the key to the room with closed curtains where the air quivered with the regular breathing of a slumbering woman.
1.
‘Let me stop you there, madame …’
After minutes of patient effort, Maigret finally managed to interrupt his visitor’s flow.
‘You are now telling me that your daughter is slowly poisoning you …’
‘It’s true …’
‘But a moment ago, you said, no less categorically, that it was your son-in-law who deliberately lay in wait in the corridor for the chambermaid to pass so that he could slip poison into either your coffee or one of your many varieties of herbal tea …’
‘Quite true …’
‘Even so …’ – he consulted, or pretended to consult, the notes he had taken of this interview, which had been going on for more than an hour – ‘when you began, you told me that your daughter and her husband hate each other …’
‘That is also true, inspector.’
‘But they are agreed that they want to do away with you?’
‘No, not at all! Don’t you see, they are both trying to poison me separately?’
‘What about your niece, Rita?’
‘Also separately …’
It was February. The weather was mild and sunny with the occasional cloud plump with showers which brought sudden rains down out of the sky. But three times since his visitor had been in his office, Maigret had poked his stove, the last remaining stove in the Police Judiciaire building, which he had had to fight so hard to keep when central heating had been installed throughout Quai des Orfèvres.
The woman was probably roasting in her mink coat, under the silk of her black dress, under the accumulation of jewels which decorated her all over – ears, throat, wrists and bosom – making her look like a gypsy. And it was also of a gypsy that she made you think, not of a grand lady, with her violent make-up which had formed into a crust and was now beginning to run.
‘So that makes three people in all who are intending to poison you.’
‘Not intending … They’ve already started …’
‘And you claim that they’re all acting independently of each other …’
‘I’m not claiming anything, I am sure of it.’
She spoke with the same Romanian accent as a famous Boulevard actress and with the same sudden passionate outbursts which set her quivering.
‘I am not mad … Read this … I assume you’ve heard of Professor Touchard? … He’s the one they always call as an expert witness in all the important trials …’
She had thought of everything. She had even consulted the most famous psychiatrist in Paris and requested him to supply a document certifying that she was in her right mind!
There was nothing he could do but listen to her patiently and, to keep her happy, jot down a few notes from time to time on his pad. She had arranged her visit through a government minister who had personally phoned the commissioner of the Police Judiciaire. Her husband, who had died a few weeks earlier, had been a councillor of state. She lived in Rue de Presbourg in one of those enormous stone-built mansions which front Place de l’Étoile.
‘As for my son-in-law, this is how he carries on … I’ve looked carefully into it … I’ve been watching him for months …’
‘So he began when your husband was still alive?’
She handed him a plan, which she had drawn with great care, of the first floor of the house.
‘My bedroom is marked A … B is the bedroom of my daughter and her husband … But for some time Gaston has not been sleeping in that room …’
The phone – at last! – which offered Maigret a moment’s respite.
‘Hello? … Who is on the line? …’
Normally the officer on the police switchboard did not put through any but the most urgent calls.
‘I’m sorry, sir … It’s a man. He won’t give his name but is very insistent. Says he must absolutely talk to you … He swears it’s a mat
ter of life and death …’
‘And he wants to speak to me personally?’
‘Yes … Shall I put him through?’
Maigret heard a voice saying anxiously:
‘Hello? … Is that you? …’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, yes …’
‘I’m sorry about this … My name wouldn’t mean anything to you … You don’t know me, but you used to know my wife, Nine … Hello? … I’ve got to tell you it all very quickly because any time now something might happen that …’
Maigret’s first reaction was to think: ‘Oh God, not another lunatic! It must be the day for them …’
He had observed that lunatics came in waves, as if they were affected by the phases of the moon. He made a mental note that later he would consult a calendar.
‘My first thought was to come and see you … I walked past Quai des Orfèvres but didn’t dare go in because he was right behind me … I think he would have had no hesitation in shooting me …’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Hang on. I’m quite close. Just across from your office. A minute ago I could see your window. Quai des Grands-Augustins. There’s a small bar, you’ll know it, it’s called Aux Caves du Beaujolais. I’m calling from the phone booth there … Hello? … Can you hear me? …’
It was 11.30 in the morning, and Maigret automatically jotted the time down in his notepad, then the name of the bar …
‘I’ve thought of every conceivable solution … I approached a policeman on Place du Châtelet …’
‘When?’
‘Half an hour ago. One of the men was very close. It was the small, dark one. There are several of them, they work in relays. I’m not sure if I could recognize them all. But I know the small dark man is one of them …’
Then silence.
‘Hello?’ said Maigret.
The silence continued for several moments, then the voice came again:
‘Sorry. I heard someone coming into the bar and thought it was him. I opened the door an inch but it was only a delivery man … Hello? …’
‘What did you say to the policeman?’
‘That some men had been following me since last night … No, actually since yesterday afternoon … And that they must be waiting for an opportunity to kill me … I asked him to arrest the one who was standing behind me …’
‘And he refused?’
‘He asked me to point the man out, and when I turned round to do so I couldn’t see him. So he didn’t believe me. I made the most of the opportunity and ran down into the Métro. I jumped on the first train and then jumped off it again just before the doors closed, as it was about to leave. I walked along all the passages. I came out opposite the department store, Bazar de l’Hôtel-de-Ville and walked through all the shops too …’
He must have been walking very briskly, even running, because his breathing was still rapid and wheezy.
‘What I’m asking is for you to send a plainclothes officer to me right away. Here, in the Caves du Beaujolais. He mustn’t speak to me. He must act all casual. I’ll leave. I’m pretty sure the man tailing me will follow. He can then be arrested, and I’ll come to see you and explain everything …’
‘Hello?’
‘I said I …’
Then nothing. Confused sounds.
‘Hello? … Hello? …’
But there was no one at the other end of the line.
When she saw Maigret hang up, the old woman who was being poisoned resumed imperturbably: ‘As I was saying …’
‘Excuse me for a moment, would you?’
He went to the door which communicated with the office occupied by the inspectors.
‘Janvier, put your hat on and run over to Quai des Grands-Augustins. There’s a small bar there, Aux Caves du Beaujolais it’s called. Ask if the man who just used the phone is still there.’
He lifted the receiver of his phone.
‘Get me the Caves du Beaujolais …’
As he did so, he looked out of the window. On the opposite bank of the Seine, where Quai des Grands-Augustins rises to the level of Pont Saint-Michel, he had a clear view of the narrow front of a bar which catered mostly for regulars. He had occasionally stopped there to drink a beer at the counter. He remembered that there was a step down to go in, that it was cool inside and that the landlord always wore a cellar man’s black apron.
A lorry parked outside the bar blocked his view of the door. Pedestrians passed by on the pavement.
‘You see, inspector …’
‘One moment, madame, please …’
Still looking out, he very carefully filled his pipe.
This old woman, with her tales of poison, would waste his entire morning for him, if not more. She had brought with her reams of paper, plans, certificates, even analyses of various kinds of foodstuffs which she must have ordered from her own pharmacist.
‘I’ve always been a mistrustful sort of person, you know …’
She gave off a powerful, nauseating perfume which had invaded the office and had managed to get the better of the wholesome smell of pipe smoke.
‘Hello? … Haven’t you got that number I asked you for yet?’
‘I’m calling it, sir. I haven’t stopped calling it. The number is constantly engaged. Unless someone forgot to put the receiver back on the hook …’
Moments later, Janvier, not wearing a jacket, crossed the bridge in an ungainly lope and went into the bar. The lorry decided to drive off, but Maigret still could not see inside the bar as it was too dark. A few more moments elapsed, then the phone rang …
‘There, sir. I’ve got that number for you. It’s ringing now.’
‘Hello? … Who is this? Is that you, Janvier? … The phone was off the hook? … Well?’
‘Yes, there was a shortish man here phoning …’
‘Did you see him?’
‘No. He’d gone by the time I got here. Apparently he kept looking out through the window of the booth and opening the door …’
‘Anything else?’
‘A customer walked in, and the first thing he did was look towards the phone booth. Then he ordered a brandy at the counter. As soon as the man in the booth saw him, he broke off his conversation.’
‘Did both of them leave?’
‘Yes, one behind the other.’
‘Try to get the landlord to give you as detailed a description as possible of both men … Hello? And while you’re at it come back via Place du Châtelet. Question all the officers on duty. Try and find out if one of them, about three-quarters of an hour ago, was approached by the same shortish man who asked him to arrest someone who was following him.’
When he hung up, the old woman looked at him with satisfaction and evident approval, as though she were about to award him a very good mark:
‘Now that’s exactly how I understand policemen operate. You don’t waste any time. You think of everything.’
He sat down again with a sigh. He had been about to open the window because he was beginning to suffocate in his overheated office, but he did not want to miss any opportunity of cutting short the visit of this woman who had been recommended by the minister.
Aubain-Vasconcelos. That was her name. It would remain engraved on his memory, even if he never saw her again. Did she die in the days immediately following? Probably not. He would have heard about it. Perhaps she had been locked away? Perhaps she had felt let down by the official police and had instead turned to a private detective agency? Or perhaps she had woken up next morning with some other fixation?
Be that as it may, he was stuck there for another hour li
stening to her talking about all the people in that vast mansion in Rue de Presbourg – where life could not have been much fun – who were feeding her poison at all hours of the day.
At noon he was at long last able to open his window. Then, pipe between his teeth, he walked into the commissioner’s office.
‘Did you get rid of her gently?’
‘As gently as could be.’
‘I gather that in her day she was one of the most beautiful women in Europe. I knew her husband slightly, the mildest, dullest, most boring man imaginable. Are you going out, Maigret?’
He hesitated. The streets were beginning to smell of spring. Tables and chairs had been brought out on to the terrace of the Brasserie Dauphine and the commissioner’s question was an invitation to stroll down for a pre-prandial drink.
‘I think I’d better stay here. I got a very odd phone call this morning.’
He was about to explain when the phone rang. The commissioner answered then passed him the receiver.
‘It’s for you.’
Maigret recognized the voice immediately. It sounded even more frightened than before.
‘Hello! We were interrupted earlier. He came in. He could have heard through the door of the phone booth. I was scared …’
‘Where are you now?’
‘In the Tabac des Vosges, on the corner of Place des Vosges and Rue des Francs-Bourgeois. I tried to give him the slip. I don’t know if I managed to. But I swear I’m not mistaken, that he really is out to kill me. It would take too long to explain. I thought the others wouldn’t take me seriously, but that you …’
‘Hello?’
‘He’s here … I … Sorry …’
The commissioner stared at Maigret, who was wearing his irritated look.
‘Something wrong?’
‘I don’t know. This is a very strange business. Do you mind if …?’
He picked up another phone.
‘Get me the Tabac des Vosges at once … The owner, yes …’
Then, to the commissioner:
‘Provided this time he didn’t forget to hang up.’
The phone rang almost straight away.
Maigret's Holiday Page 17