The Madman of Bergerac

by Georges Simenon

  His wife entered, so flustered herself that she did not notice the state of excitement to which Maigret had worked himself up.

  “We must call in another doctor at once. A real one . . . It’s simply monstrous. It’s a crime . . . And to think ...”

  She looked at her husband as though to make sure he was safe and sound.

  “No one’s ever qualified under the name of Jacques Rivaud. He simply isn’t a doctor! . . . Every register has been searched . . . And now we’re getting to the bottom of it—that temperature of yours that wouldn’t go down. Of course the wound wouldn’t heal! . . .”

  “I know,” said Maigret to himself triumphantly. “I’m sure of it. It was to meet somebody.”

  The telephone rang. The landlord’s voice saying:

  “Monsieur Duhourceau asks if he can come up.”

  8

  A COLLECTOR OF BOOKS

  The minute that elapsed before the prosecutor appeared saw a complete change in Maigret’s features. His face became dull and resigned, like that of any other invalid who is sick to death of lying in bed.

  This change in his expression seemed even to affect the room. It too looked dull. A commonplace and dreary hotel bedroom, devoid of personality. It wasn’t even tidy. The bed had not been made since the morning, the bedside table was cluttered with medicine, glasses, and spoons, and Madame Maigret’s hat was still lying where she had thrown it down on the table.

  The latter had just lit the spirit lamp to make an infusion, and that didn’t add to the dignity of the room either. One could hardly say it looked sordid: yet it was not far off.

  Two or three sharp little knocks on the door. Madame Maigret opened it, and once again the prosecutor unthinkingly handed her his hat and stick.

  “Good evening, inspector,” he said, coming toward the bed.

  He didn’t seem embarrassed. On the contrary, his manner was more like that of a man who has pulled himself thoroughly together to accomplish some task.

  “Good evening, monsieur le procureur. Won’t you sit down?”

  For the first time, Maigret noticed a smile on the prosecutor’s forbidding face. Just a little one at the corners of the mouth. It had, of course, been put there on purpose.

  “I must confess I’ve been feeling a bit guilty about you . . . That surprises you, does it? . . . I couldn’t help reproaching myself for having been rather curt with you . . . Though you must admit that your own manner is sometimes rather—disconcerting . . .”

  Sitting with both hands spread out on his knees, he leant forward toward Maigret, who stared back at him with bovine eyes, devoid of thought.

  “So I thought I’d look in to let you know how we were getting on . . .”

  Certainly Maigret was listening, but he would have been hard put to it to repeat a single word of what was said to him. What he was really concentrating on was the face in front of him, which he studied detail by detail.

  A very fair complexion, almost too fair, set off by the gray hair . . . Monsieur Duhourceau was certainly not troubled by his liver. Nor was he either gouty or apoplectic . . .

  What would be the weak spot in his constitution? For after all you didn’t reach the age of sixty-five without having a weak spot.

  “Arteriosclerosis,” answered Maigret to himself.

  And he glanced at the thin fingers, the hands with their silky skin, the veins standing out and looking as hard as glass . . .

  A small man, dry, highly strung, intelligent, and irascible.

  “And morally? Isn’t there a weak spot there too?”

  Of course there was. For in spite of all the prosecutor’s dignity and arrogance, there was something vague, evasive, and shamefaced about him.

  Meanwhile he was talking:

  “In two or three days at the outside we’ll have the case finished and filed. The facts speak for themselves . . . We must keep to the point. How Samuel dodged execution and had somebody else buried in his place—that’s for the Algiers people to go into. That is, if they think it worthwhile . . . I don’t for a moment suppose they will . . .”

  There were moments when his voice wavered ever so slightly. They were when he looked into Maigret’s eyes for some response, only to come up against that empty, bovine stare. He didn’t know quite how to take it. Was the inspector listening? Was he being ironical?

  Clearing his voice, he went on:

  “Anyhow, this Samuel, who may have been none too sane in Africa, escapes and comes to France, where he definitely becomes insane. There are plenty of indications. It’s a type of case that’s frequently met with, as Dr. Rivaud will tell you. In the course of his fits of mania he commits the two murders. In the train he thinks you are after him. He fires at you and brings you down, but finally, in a fit of madness, he shoots himself . . .”

  With an airy sweep of the hand, he added:

  “The fact that no revolver was found by his side doesn’t bother me in the least. There are dozens of cases on record in which the same thing’s happened. Somebody has passed and picked it up—a vagrant perhaps, or a child—and never said a word about it. Too scared to come forward. Sometimes it’s ten or twenty years afterward that the whole story comes to light . . . The important thing in this case was to make sure the gun was fired close to the head. The postmortem leaves no doubt on that point. There, in a few words, you have . . .”

  Maigret for his part was asking himself:

  “What is his vice?”

  Not drink. Not gambling. And strangely enough, Maigret was tempted to add: not women.

  Avarice? That seemed much nearer the mark. It needed no effort at all to picture Monsieur Duhourceau, having locked every door, opening the safe and laying its contents out on the table—bundles of notes, bags of gold coins, bonds . . .

  All in all, he gave the impression of a solitary person. Gambling is a sociable vice, women too. So is drink, nearly always . . .

  “Have you ever been in Algiers, Monsieur Duhourceau?”

  “Me?”

  When a man says “me” like that, you can bet your boots he’s trying to gain time.

  “Why do you ask me that? Do I look like a colonial? No, I’ve never set foot in Algiers. In fact, I’ve never crossed the Mediterranean. My longest journey was a trip to the Norwegian fjords. That was in 1923 . . .”

  “Of course . . . I really don’t know what made me ask the question. Stupid of me. Perhaps it’s this wound of mine. You’ve no idea how much it’s run me down . . .”

  It was an old trick of Maigret’s to rattle along unconcernedly, jumping abruptly from one subject to another. His listener would suspect a trap, and, making a great effort not to give anything away, would end by getting all hot and bothered and losing the thread of his own ideas.

  “It’s left me pretty weak. That’s what I was saying to the doctor. By the way, who does the cooking at their place?”

  “The . . . ?”

  Maigret didn’t give him time to reply.

  “If it’s one of the two sisters, it’s certainly not Françoise. It’s easier to see her driving a high-powered car than standing over the kitchen range stirring a soup . . . Would you mind passing me that glass of water?”

  Maigret raised himself on an elbow and drank from the glass, but so clumsily that he dropped it and spilt the contents over Monsieur Duhourceau’s legs.

  “I’m so sorry. I really don’t know what’s the matter with me. Fortunately it won’t leave a mark.” And turning to his wife: “Bring a cloth, will you?”

  Monsieur Duhourceau was furious. The water had gone right through his trousers and must be trickling down his calf.

  “Don’t bother, madame,” he said, pulling out his handkerchief. “As you husband says, it won’t leave a mark. So it doesn’t matter in the least.”

  The words were charged with sarcasm.

  This little incident, coming on top of Maigret’s none too tactful ramblings, had put the prosecutor thoroughly out of countenance. The engaging manner he had adop
ted at the start had completely evaporated.

  He was standing now, but he did not go, as he had not yet said all he had come to say. With an effort he regained his self-possession, but there was precious little cordiality in his voice as he asked:

  “For your part, inspector, what are your intentions?”

  “The same as ever.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “To arrest the murderer, of course. And after that . . . Well, if there’s any time left, I’ll have a peep at that La Ribaudière, where I ought to have been spending this last week or more.”

  Monsieur Duhourceau went white with rage. What? He had taken the trouble to pay this friendly call, to explain things patiently. He had been treating Maigret almost deferentially.

  And the latter had first poured a glass of water down his legs—and what’s more, done it on purpose (the prosecutor felt sure of that)—and then had the cheek to say:

  “I’ll arrest the murderer.”

  Yes, that’s what he’d said to him, to him, the public prosecutor, who had taken infinite pains to explain that there was no longer anybody to arrest. It sounded almost like a threat. The only thing to do now was to walk out and slam the door.

  But Monsieur Duhourceau didn’t. In fact, he even mustered some sort of a smile.

  “You’re very obstinate, inspector.”

  “Oh, you know . . . When you’re lying in bed all day with nothing to do . . . By the way, I wonder if you’d have any books to lend me?”

  Still jumping from subject to subject. Still putting out feelers. And this time he thought he saw a flicker of anxiety trouble the prosecutor’s eye.

  “I’ll send you some.”

  “Amusing ones. Nothing too serious.”

  “I must be going now.”

  “My wife will give you your hat and stick. Are you dining at home?”

  Maigret held out his hand, and the prosecutor had to shake it. The door shut, while Maigret lay back against his pillows, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling.

  “Do you really think . . . ?” began his wife.

  “Is Rosalie still working in the hotel?”

  “So far as I know. In fact, I think it was her I saw on the stairs just now.”

  “Fetch her.”

  “People will say . . .”

  “Never mind if they do.”

  While waiting for the maid, Maigret thought to himself:

  “Duhourceau’s afraid. He’s been afraid all along. Afraid I’ll discover the criminal. Afraid I’ll delve into his private life. Rivaud’s afraid too. So’s his wife.”

  What did they fear? And what had they to do with Samuel, the dealer in forged papers and wretched girls from Eastern Europe?

  The prosecutor was not a Jew. Rivaud could quite well be one, though it was by no means certain.

  The door opened, and Rosalie, wiping her big red hands on her coarse linen apron, was led into the room by Madame Maigret.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes. Come in and sit down.”

  “We’re not allowed to sit down in the visitors’ rooms.”

  The way in which she said it warned Maigret of a change. She was no longer the familiar chatterbox. She’d obviously had a ticking-off, perhaps she had even been threatened.

  “I only wanted to ask you a simple question. Have you ever worked at Monsieur Duhourceau’s?”

  “I was two years with him.”

  “I thought you might have been. As cook or house-maid?”

  “Housemaid.”

  “You went all over the house, polishing the floors, and dusting . . . ?”

  “I did the rooms . . .”

  “Exactly. You did the rooms. And in doing the rooms you must have found out a thing or two. How long ago was it?”

  “It’s a year last month that I left the place.”

  “So you were the same pretty girl you are now. Yes, yes, it’s no use pretending you’re not.”

  Maigret wasn’t laughing. He had an art all of his own of saying things like that quite gravely, in the most convincing manner. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t far from the truth, for Rosalie was a pleasant-looking girl. Her buxom figure had certainly attracted many an inquisitive hand.

  “Did the prosecutor sometimes watch you at work?”

  “What an idea! Perhaps you think I got him to carry my pails for me!”

  Rosalie was very scornful, but she softened at once as her eye lit on Madame Maigret, who was pottering about the room, tidying and brushing up the crumbs. She kept her eyes fixed on her, and at last she couldn’t help saying:

  “I’ll bring you a little hand-brush in the morning. There’s a spare one downstairs. That broom’s such a clumsy thing.”

  “Did he often have women visitors?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. Come on! Speak out. There’s nothing to be frightened of. Don’t forget I was on your side yesterday when the others wouldn’t believe you.”

  “It wouldn’t do anybody any good.”

  “What wouldn’t?”

  “If I did speak out. You see, there’s Albert—my fiancé. It would spoil his chances. He’s trying to get a government job. Besides, they might shut me up in a madhouse—just because I dream every night and talk about my dreams.”

  She was working herself up and only needed a little egging on.

  “So there was a lady visitor now and again?”

  “No, there wasn’t.”

  “Then, perhaps on his trips to Bordeaux.”

  “I don’t care two pins about his trips to Bordeaux.”

  “Come on, now! There’s a little bit of scandal somewhere isn’t there?”

  “And everybody knows about it . . . You can’t keep things dark forever. They’ve a way of coming out by themselves . . . It was a good two years ago . . . A parcel came from Paris, but when they came to look at it, the label was more than half gone and they couldn’t tell who it was for. And there was no sender’s name on it either . . .

  “They waited a week, thinking someone might turn up to claim it. And then they opened it . . . You’d never guess what they found . . .

  “Photographs. But not ordinary ones. Women with no clothes on . . . And not just women alone—couples too.

  “As you can imagine, everybody was guessing who had pictures of that sort sent them from Paris. I think they even called the police in.

  “And then, one day, another parcel came, just the same as the first one. Same paper, same string, same label as the bit that had been left before . . . Guess who it was addressed to! . . . Monsieur Duhourceau, if you please.”

  Maigret was not in the least surprised. Hadn’t he already decided that the prosecutor’s vice was a solitary one?

  So it wasn’t to count out his money that the prosecutor would lock his study door at night. In the fine but somber room on the first floor he would sit poring over naughty photographs and forbidden books.

  “Listen, Rosalie! Not a word you say here will ever be repeated. And now confess that when you heard what you’ve just told me, you went and had a look at the books in his study.”

  “Who told you so? . . . Well, since you know it already, I admit I did . . . A lot of the bookcases have doors to them with a sort of wire netting, and they’re always kept locked. Only, I once found one where the key had been left in the lock . . .”

  “What did you find?”

  “You know very well what I found. It was so awful that I had nightmares for a week and I couldn’t endure Albert coming anywhere near me.”

  Oho! Her relations with the fair young man were no longer a mystery.

  “Big books, weren’t they? Printed on good paper, with engravings?”

  “Yes . . . But they were all sorts . . . Terrible ones. Things you’d never think of . . .”

  Was that the sum total of Monsieur Duhourceau’s iniquity? If so, it was rather pitiful. A lonely old bachelor who occupied a high position and didn’t dare smile at a girl for fear of r
aising the devil.

  And the only consolation he could find was to become a collector in this murky backwater of art, filling his locked bookcases with licentious engravings, erotic photographs, and those books that the catalogues amiably describe as “works for connoisseurs.”

  No wonder he was afraid.

  Only it wasn’t easy to see what relation that could have with the two murders—still less with Samuel . . . Unless the latter had also dealt in naughty pictures.

  Maigret wondered.

  Meanwhile Rosalie stood awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the other, astonished herself at having said so much.

  “If your wife hadn’t been here I should never have dreamt of talking about such things.”

  “Did Dr. Rivaud often come to the house?”

  “Hardly ever. He used to telephone.”

  “Nor anyone of his family?”

  “No. Except, of course, for Mademoiselle Françoise the time she was acting as his secretary.”

  “Whose? The prosecutor’s?”

  “Yes. She brought her typewriter with her—a funny little thing that shut up in a box.”

  “What did she see to—his professional work?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t know anything about that. All I can tell you is that she’d work on one side of the big curtain that ran right across one end of the library and he on the other.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing! Don’t you go putting words into my mouth. All the time she was there I never saw a thing you could take exception to.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “Barely six months. After that she went off to her mother’s in Paris or Bordeaux, I’m not sure which.”

  “And Monsieur Duhourceau never overstepped the mark in his dealings with you?”

  “He’d have caught it, if he had!”

  “Well, Rosalie, thank you for what you’ve told me. Don’t be frightened. You won’t get into any trouble over it, and Albert will never know you came.”

  After shutting the door behind Rosalie, Madame Maigret sighed.

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear! To think an educated, intelligent man—and in such a position too ...”

  Madame Maigret was always astonished when she ran into anything that was ugly. It was impossible for her to imagine any more noxious instincts than those of a good wife whose only regret was to have had no children.