“Lamb cutlets in cream sauce. I have to avoid heavy food.”
“Tell me—have you been to Paris recently?”
Madame Maigret looked up sharply, surprised at the bluntness of the question. As for Leduc, his face clouded and he looked at his friend reproachfully.
“What do you mean? . . . You know very well that . . .”
“Of course!”
Maigret knew very well that . . . But he studied Leduc’s profile with its little reddish mustache. Then he looked down at his feet, shod in heavy shooting boots.
“Between ourselves, what facilities are there in this part of the world for enjoying the charms of the fair sex?”
“Really!” protested Madame Maigret. “You’re letting your tongue run away with you.”
“Not at all. It’s a most important question. In the country they don’t have all the amenities of the town . . . How old is your cook?”
“Sixty-five! So you see . . .”
“No young blood about the place?”
What made it so awkward was the seriousness with which Maigret put the questions, for they were the kind of questions that are usually proffered in a playful, bantering tone.
“No little shepherdess, for instance?”
“There’s only the cook’s niece who comes from time to time to lend her a hand.”
“Sixteen? . . . Eighteen?”
“Nineteen. But really . . . !”
“I see!”
Leduc fidgeted, while Madame Maigret, even more embarrassed than he, withdrew to the darkest corner of the room.
“You’re being abominably tactless,” she said.
“So that’s that!” said Maigret doggedly. For a moment the cross-examination appeared to be over, but after a short silence he grunted:
“Duhourceau’s a bachelor, I understand. How does he manage?”
“There’s no mistaking you come from Paris. You speak of these things as if they were the most ordinary matters. Do you think the prosecutor relates his peccadiloes to everyone he meets?”
“No. But as everything gets round sooner or later, you’re bound to have heard.”
“I only know what people say.”
“There you are!”
“They say he goes once or twice a week to Bordeaux, where he . . .”
Maigret had not once taken his eyes off his friend’s face, and a queer smile floated on his lips. He had known another Leduc, and a much more outspoken one. None of these hesitations and country-town embarrassments.
“Do you know what you ought to do? After all, as you’ve been in the police yourself, they’d give you plenty of rope . . . Start a little investigation, and see if you can find out who was away from Bergerac last Tuesday. But wait a moment—the people I’m most interested in are Dr. Rivaud, the prosecutor, the police inspector, you, and . . .”
Leduc jumped up from his seat. He looked at his straw hat like a man who is thinking of cramming it on his head and walking out of the room.
“A joke’s all very well,” he said, “but this one’s gone far enough. I really don’t know what’s come over you. Since you’ve been wounded you . . . you haven’t been yourself at all . . . Are you seriously suggesting that, in a little place like this where the least thing will set tongues wagging . . . that I should take it upon myself to start nosing into the doings of the public prosecutor? And the police inspector? I haven’t the smallest right to do so . . . As for your insinuations about myself . . .”
“Sit down, Leduc.”
“I haven’t much time.”
“Sit down, I tell you. Just listen to me and you’ll understand. Here in Bergerac is a man who in ordinary life seems perfectly normal and probably exercises some profession, a man who now and again in a fit of madness . . .”
“And you don’t hesitate to put me down on the list of possibles! Don’t think I didn’t see the point of your questions just now. You wanted to know if I had a mistress. Why? Because a man who’s unsatisfied is more likely than another to . . .”
He was really angry. He had turned quite red and his eyes were glowing.
“The local police have taken the case in hand. It’s nothing whatever to do with me. And if you want to get mixed up in . . .”
“. . . in something that is no business of mine! . . . Perhaps you’re right, but just imagine that, in two or three days, or four, or five, that little nineteen-year-old of yours is found dead with a needle through her heart.”
But Leduc had had enough. This time he really did cram the straw hat onto his head. And he strutted out of the room, shutting the door rather forcefully behind him.
Madame Maigret, waiting for this moment, came up to the bedside. She looked worried, even anxious.
“What on earth has he done to you that you should treat him like that? I’ve rarely seen you so disagreeable. One might almost think you really suspected him.”
“Don’t you worry. He’ll soon be back—you’ll see—and he’ll be tumbling over himself trying to make it up. Then I’ll ask you to go and have lunch with him at La Ribaudière.”
“Me?
But . . .”
“Now, be an angel and fill me a pipe. And these pillows are slipping down again . . .”
Half an hour later, when the doctor came to see him, Maigret smiled benignly. He greeted Rivaud cordially.
“What did he say to you?”
“Who?”
“My friend Leduc. He’s rather bothered about me, and I wouldn’t mind betting he asked you to check my state of mind. No, doctor, I’m not at all mad, but ...”
He got no farther, however, as a thermometer was thrust into his mouth. While his temperature was being taken, Dr. Rivaud removed the dressing. The wound was slow in healing.
“You move about too much. There you are! Over a hundred and two. I don’t need to ask you if you’ve been smoking. The air’s thick with it.”
“You ought to forbid it altogether,” said Madame Maigret.
But her husband interrupted her:
“Can you tell me at what intervals our madman’s crimes were committed?”
“Let me see . . . The first was a month ago. The second a week later. While the one that miscarried was the following Friday, and ...”
“Do you know what I think, doctor? . . . That there’s a good chance another body will be found in the next day or two. If not, it means the chap feels he’s being watched. But if there is another ...”
“Well?”
“It might enable us to eliminate some people. Suppose, for instance, you were in this room at the moment the crime was committed. That would put you out of the running straight away. Suppose the prosecutor was at Bordeaux, the police inspector in Paris, the landlord downstairs in his kitchen, and Leduc anywhere you like . . .”
The surgeon stared hard at his patient.
“You seem to have restricted the range of possibilities already.”
“Probabilities.”
“It’s all the same. You confine the suspects to the handful of people you’ve come in contact with.”
“Not even as many as that. I’ve left out the clerk . . . My list is, in fact, restricted to the people who’ve been to see me here in the hotel and who could inadvertently have dropped a railway ticket. As a matter of fact, where were you last Tuesday?”
“Last Tuesday?”
Taken aback, the doctor groped in his memory. He was still quite a young man, active and ambitious. His movements were decisive. Altogether he cut a very good figure.
“I think . . . wait a moment . . . Yes, I drove over to La Rochelle for . . .”
He broke off, bridling at the sight of the amused expression on Maigret’s face.
“Is this an interrogation? In that case I warn you . . .”
“Take it easy, doctor. Don’t forget that I’ve nothing to do the whole day long. And I’m used to living in a whirl of activity. So I’ve invented a little game to keep my mind busy. It’s called ‘Madman’ . . . And you’ll admit that there’s not
hing to prevent a doctor being a madman, or a madman a doctor. It’s even said that all mental specialists are their own patients. Nor is there anything to prevent a public prosecutor . . . ?”
He heard the doctor whisper to Madame Maigret:
“He hasn’t been drinking, has he?”
As soon as they were alone together, she came over to her husband’s bedside, her brow heavy with reproaches.
“Don’t you see what you’re doing? . . . I simply can’t make you out. You’re carrying on exactly as if you wanted everybody to believe you were the madman yourself . . . The doctor didn’t say anything—he’s too polite—but I could see . . . And now what are you smiling about?”
“Nothing. The sunshine. Those red and green stripes on the wallpaper. The women chattering in the marketplace. That little lemon yellow car that looks like some huge insect . . . and then the smell of foie gras . . . Only, of course—somewhere or other—there’s a madman . . . There! Look at that girl. Little pear-shaped breasts and calves as stout as any mountaineer’s. Why shouldn’t the madman choose her next?”
Madame Maigret looked into his eyes and she could see he was not joking any longer. On the contrary, he was speaking with intense seriousness. There was even a note of real trouble in his voice. He took hold of her hand before going on:
“You see, I don’t think it’s over. And I don’t want . . . I don’t want that fine young girl to pass under my window next time in a hearse, followed by a lot of people in black . . . Yes, there’s a madman about. A man who laughs and talks, who comes and goes . . .”
Maigret’s eyes were half-closed now. In a coaxing voice he murmured:
“Give me a pipe all the same.”
4
MAIGRET’S RECEPTION
Maigret had chosen nine o’clock in the morning because it was his favorite time of the day. He loved the quality of morning sunshine, loved the sounds that made the start of a day’s activity—doors opening and shutting, the early traffic in the street, the footfalls on the pavements—sounds that would steadily increase in volume to their midday climax.
Through his window he could see on a plane tree one of the notices he had had posted up in various parts of the town:
At 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning, at the Hôtel d’ Angleterre, Inspector Maigret will give 100 francs reward to anyone giving information concerning the murders that have recently been committed in the neighborhood of Bergerac, apparently by some demented person.
“Shall I stay?” asked Madame Maigret, who, even in a hotel, found almost as much to keep her busy as she did in her own house.
“Yes, you can stay.”
“I’m not particularly anxious to. But in any case I don’t expect anyone will come.”
Maigret smiled. Half past eight had struck only a moment before, yet, as he lit his pipe, he muttered:
“Here’s one already.”
It was the familiar sound of the old Ford, which they recognized as soon as it came over the bridge.
“Why didn’t Leduc come yesterday?”
“Because of our little exchange. We don’t see eye to eye about the Madman of Bergerac, but that won’t prevent his being here in a moment.”
“Who? The madman?”
“Leduc. But maybe the madman too. Or possibly several madmen. In fact there’s every chance. A notice like the one I’ve had put up exerts a fatal attraction on every unbalanced or overimaginative person . . . Come in, Leduc.”
The latter hadn’t even had time to knock. There was a somewhat contrite look on his face.
“You couldn’t come yesterday?”
“No. Do forgive me . . . Good morning, Madame Maigret . . . A pipe burst and I had to fetch a plumber . . . Feeling better?”
“Fine, thanks, except for my back, which is stiff as a poker. Have you seen my notice?”
“What notice?”
He was lying, and Maigret was on the point of chaffing him about it. In the end, however, he decided to be merciful.
“Give my wife your hat, and come and sit down. I’m holding a reception here shortly, and I’ve even invited the madman himself.”
There was a knock at the door, though no steps had been heard entering the hotel. It was the landlord.
“Excuse me. I didn’t know you had a visitor . . . It’s about that notice.”
“You’ve something to tell me?”
“Me? Certainly not. If I’d had anything to tell you I wouldn’t have waited till you offered a reward. What I wanted to ask was whether we were to show up everybody who comes.”
“By all means.”
Maigret looked at the man with half-closed eyes. Screwing his eyes up was becoming quite a habit with him. Or was it merely that the sun was in his eyes?
“Yes. Show them all up.” And when the landlord had gone he turned to Leduc and went on:
“He’s a queer chap too. Strong as a bull and red as raw beef. One of those florid people who look as though they might burst at any moment.”
“Started life as a farm laborer somewhere round here. Then he married his employer, a woman of forty-five. He was no more than twenty.”
“And since then?”
“This is his third marriage. He is cursed. All his wives have died.”
“He’ll he back again presently.”
“Why?”
“Hanged if I know. But he’ll come all right—when everybody’s here. He’ll find some pretext or other. The prosecutor will be leaving home around now. As for the doctor, you can take it from me he’s dashing round the wards as fast as his legs will carry him. He won’t linger over his rounds this morning.”
Maigret had hardly finished his sentence when Monsieur Duhourceau emerged from a side street and toddled across the place du Marché.
“That makes three.”
“How do you reckon three?”
“The prosecutor, the landlord . . . and you.”
“Still on that tack? Look here, Maigret! . . .”
“Hush! Open the door to Monsieur Duhourceau. He can’t make up his mind to knock.”
“I’ll be back in an hour or two,” said Madame Maigret, who had put on her hat.
The prosecutor bowed ceremoniously to her as she crossed him at the doorway, then came forward to shake Maigret’s hand—without, however, looking him in the face.
“I heard about your experiment and I thought I’d better see you first. Of course it’s understood that you’re acting in a private capacity. Even so, I should like to have been consulted, considering this is a case that is being investigated officially.”
“Sit down, won’t you? Leduc, take the prosecutor’s hat and stick. I was just telling Leduc that the killer is bound to turn up . . . Ah! Here comes the inspector looking at his watch and wondering whether he’ll have a drink downstairs before coming up.”
It was the truth. They saw him enter the hotel, but it was not till ten minutes later that he knocked at the bedroom door. He was disconcerted to find the prosecutor there, and felt called upon to explain his presence . . .
“I thought it my duty to . . .”
“Naturally,” broke in Maigret cheerily. “We’ll be wanting another chair, Leduc. Perhaps you’ll find one in the room next door . . . I think I can see some of our customers gathering below. Only, no one wants to be the first.”
There were indeed three or four people wandering about in the place du Marché, throwing frequent glances in the direction of the hotel. In fact, they looked exactly as if they were summoning up their courage. All of them stared at the doctor’s car as it drew up at the entrance.
In spite of the spring sunshine, there was an atmosphere of nervousness. The surgeon, like the others, was disconcerted not to find Maigret alone.
“Quite a council of war!” he said, with none too pleasant a smile.
Maigret noticed that he was badly shaved, and his tie suggested hasty dressing.
“Do you think we might expect the examining magistrate?” asked Maigret.
&nb
sp; “He’s away for the day,” answered the inspector, “conducting an inquiry at Saintes.”
“Has he taken his clerk with him?”
“I don’t know if he took him along . . . No, wait . . . There he is coming out now. He lives just opposite in that house with the blue shutters.”
There were steps in the passage. Two or three people were approaching. Then the steps ceased and there were loud whisperings.
“Open the door, Leduc.”
The woman who entered was not one of the people who had been gathering in the place du Marché. She was one of the chambermaids of the hotel, the one who had had such a narrow escape from the madman’s hands. Following her was a shy, awkward young man with fair hair.
“This is my fiancé. He works in the garage . . . He didn’t like the idea of my coming here. He thinks the less said, the better.”
“Come right in, and your fiancé . . . And you too if you like.”
The last words were addressed to the landlord, who was standing in the passage, his chef’s cap in his hand.
“I just came up to see whether my maid . . .”
“Yes, come in. And what is your name, young lady?”
“Rosalie, monsieur. Only I don’t know whether I’d be entitled to the reward, seeing as I’ve told the police everything already.”
The fiancé stared angrily in front of him and muttered:
“Assuming it’s true . . .”
“Of course it’s true. Do you think I’d have invented it?”
“I suppose it’s true that a rich gentleman proposed to you! And that your mother was brought up by the gypsies!”
The girl was furious, but she wasn’t going to give in. A buxom peasant girl with firm flesh and brawny limbs. Her hair would go out of place when she moved about, like she had been in a battle. When she lifted her arms to smooth it down, she revealed the red hair in her moist armpits.
“I won’t take back a word of it . . . He came up behind me. I suddenly felt a hand slipping round under my chin. So I bit it for all I was worth. Wait a moment—there was a gold ring on one of the fingers . . .”
“You didn’t see him?”
“Not properly. He dashed off into the trees, so I only saw his back view. And I’d hardly had time to pick myself up and get my breath back.”
The Madman of Bergerac Page 4