The Madman of Bergerac

by Georges Simenon

  “Don’t you think that girl exaggerates? If you ask me, she’s out to make herself interesting. She’d say anything for the sake of being listened to. And I wouldn’t mind betting she was never attacked at all . . .”

  “Nor would I.”

  “And the same goes for Françoise. She’s not strong. A powerful man would get her down with one hand—and yet she says she drove him off.”

  “You’re quite right.”

  “I’ll go farther. If this sort of thing goes on another week, we’ll have such a jumble of truth and lies being told that we shan’t know whether to believe anybody. These stories work on people’s minds, and from thinking things they come to believe they’re true . . . There’s Monsieur Dohourceau being painted in the most lurid colors. It’ll be the police inspector’s turn next—they’ll be saying he cheats on his wife . . . And as for you, heaven knows what they’re saying about you already. It won’t be long before I have to stick my marriage lines up on the wall if I’m not to pass for your mistress . . .”

  An affectionate smile spread over Maigret’s face as he looked at her. She was quite incensed. All these complications were rather upsetting.

  “And to crown it all, a doctor who isn’t a doctor! . . .”

  “Who knows?”

  “What do you mean ‘who knows’? Haven’t I telephoned to every university in France?”

  “Could you give me my infusion?”

  “That’s one thing that won’t do you any harm! It’s my prescription, not that imposter’s.”

  As he drank, he kept her hand in his. It was warm in the room. A thin plume of steam hissed out of the radiator in a regular rhythm, like a cat purring. Downstairs, dinner was finished, and the guests were starting to play games of billiards and backgammon.

  “A good infusion gives a man heart.”

  “Yes, dear . . . a good infusion.”

  He kissed her hand, the tenderness of the gesture disguised by his air of irony.

  “If all goes well we’ll be out of the woods in two or three days.”

  “And as soon as you are—I know you—you’ll only be plunging into another.”

  9

  THE KIDNAPPING OF AN OLD-TIME ARTISTE

  It tickled Maigret to see the sulky look that came into Leduc’s face.

  “What do you want me to do?” grumbled the latter. “What do you mean by a delicate mission?”

  “A mission that only you can fulfill. Come on! There’s no need to look so glum about it. I’m not going to ask you to burgle the prosecutor’s house, nor even Dr. Rivaud’s.”

  Maigret held out a Bordeaux newspaper, pointing to a small advertisement:

  A certain Madame Beausoleil, formerly of Algiers, now believed in Bordeaux, is urgently requested to present herself at once at the following address, where she will learn of something to her advantage. Maigret, Notary, Hôtel d’ Angleterre, Bergerac.

  Leduc did not smile. The sulky expression only deepened.

  “And you want me to play the notary?”

  His voice expressed such intense distaste that Madame Maigret, at the other end of the room, burst out laughing.

  “Oh, no. I’m the notary. The notice is appearing this morning in a dozen papers of the Bordeaux district as well as in the chief Paris dailies.”

  “Why Bordeaux?”

  “Never mind that. How many trains a day arrive from Bordeaux?”

  “Three or four, I think. Perhaps more.”

  “Well, look here! It’s a nice bright day. Not too hot. Not too cold. Is there a café opposite the station? Your mission is to go and meet each train as it comes in, until Madame Beausoleil appears.”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “Nor do I. I couldn’t even tell you whether she’s tall or short. But I fancy you will be able to spot her all right. She’ll be anything from forty-five to sixty, vulgar, and probably showy. The chances are she’s stout.”

  “The advertisement tells her to come to the hotel. So I don’t see why I . . .”

  “Quite so. Quite so. Only I have an idea there’ll be somebody else at the station who’ll try to stop the good lady coming. See? Understand the mission? Bring her all the same. Use your winning ways.”

  Maigret had never seen the station, but lying in front of him was a picture postcard of it. The platform was in a blaze of sun, but even in the shadow you could make out the stationmaster’s office and the lamp room.

  It tickled Maigret to think of poor Leduc in his straw hat, pacing up and down that sunny platform waiting for the train, then rushing up to elderly ladies to ask them if their name was Beausoleil.

  “I’m counting on you.”

  “Very well . . . Since it’s all arranged . . .”

  He walked off sorrowfully. He couldn’t get his car to start, and had to crank it a long time before it spluttered into action.

  A little later Dr. Rivaud’s assistant arrived, bowing profusely to Madame Maigret and then to her husband. A ginger-headed young man, shy and bony, who tripped over every piece of furniture and apologized with a running fire of beg-your-pardons and excuse-me’s.

  “Excuse me! Might I have a little hot water?”

  And as he nearly bowled over the bedside table:

  “I’m so sorry . . . I beg your pardon . . .”

  As he dressed the wound he kept on saying:

  “You’ll tell me if I’m hurting you . . . Just a moment. Excuse me . . . Could you lift yourself a little higher in the bed? . . . Thank you. Thank you. That’s splendid.”

  Meanwhile Maigret smiled to think of Leduc parking the old Ford outside the station.

  “Is Dr. Rivaud very busy?”

  “Very busy, yes. He always is.”

  “A very active man, I dare say.”

  “Extremely so. In fact he’s extraordinary . . . Am I hurting you? . . . Thank you . . . He begins at seven in the morning with the free consultations. Then there’s his private clinic. And then the hospital . . . He never leaves anything important to me. Always wants to see to it himself.”

  “I suppose it’s never crossed your mind that he might not be qualified?”

  The young man nearly choked, then decided that Maigret was only pulling his leg.

  “You’re joking . . . My chief is not merely a doctor, he’s a great doctor. If he set up in Paris he’d be famous in no time.”

  The young man was absolutely sincere. His words rang with an admiration that made no reserves.

  “Do you know where he qualified?”

  “Montpellier, I think. In fact, I’m practically sure. I’ve heard him speak of the professors there. After that he was in Paris, where he was assistant to Dr. Martel.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “There’s a picture hanging in his consulting room—a photograph of Dr. Martel surrounded by his pupils.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “I beg your pardon, but did you really think he wasn’t qualified?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “You can take it from me: he’s a great man. I’ve only one reproach to make, and that is that he works too hard. At the rate he’s going he’ll wear himself out. Sometimes you can see it’s telling on him. His nerves seem on edge.”

  “Lately?”

  “From time to time . . . You see how he only let me take over your case when he was sure your wound had healed properly. And yours wasn’t a very serious case. Most surgeons would have passed it on to their assistants from day one . . .”

  “Is he very much liked by his colleagues?”

  “They all admire him.”

  “I asked if they liked him.”

  “Yes . . . I think so . . . There’s no reason why they shouldn’t.”

  All the same, the tone had changed. Admiration was not the same thing as affection, and the assistant’s voice showed it.

  “Have you often been to his house?”

  “Never. But I see him every day in the hospital.”

  “So you don’t
know his family? . . .”

  The wound had been examined and the bandages were being replaced—Maigret knew the routine by heart now. The blinds were down, shutting out the sun, but every sound that was made in the place du Marché floated into the room.

  “He has a beautiful sister-in-law.”

  The young medico went on bandaging, pretending not to have heard.

  “He goes to Bordeaux now and again, I suppose?”

  “He’s called there sometimes. If he liked, he’d be called much farther afield than that. To Nice, Paris, and even abroad.”

  “Really? But he is still quite young.”

  “In a surgeon that’s an asset. A lot of people don’t like to have the older men operating on them.”

  That was all. The job was finished. The assistant washed his hands, couldn’t find a towel, and stammered some reply to Madame Maigret’s apology.

  Here were some fresh features to be added to Dr. Rivaud’s portrait. Among his colleagues he appeared to pass for a really remarkable surgeon. A man of boundless energy.

  Was he ambitious? In the ordinary way one would have taken it for granted. Yet, if he was, why did he bury himself in a place like Bergerac?

  “I can’t make head or tail of it: can you?” said Madame Maigret as soon as they were alone.

  “Put up the blind, will you? . . . One thing’s certain anyhow. He must be a real doctor. It’s not so difficult to impose upon patients in general practice, but he works in a hospital with colleagues and assistants . . .”

  “But if the universities say he isn’t qualified . . . ?”

  “One thing at a time . . . For the moment I’m thinking of Leduc, and wondering how he’s going to tackle Madame Beausoleil. She may prove rather a handful . . . Didn’t you hear a train just now? If it’s from Bordeaux, there’s a chance of their showing up at any moment.”

  “What do you expect Madame Beausoleil to tell you?”

  “You’ll see . . . Throw me the matches, will you?”

  He was very much better. His temperature was rarely over ninety-nine and the stiffness in his right arm had practically disappeared. The most encouraging sign of all was his inability to keep still in bed. Every minute he was fidgeting, stretching, turning over, or rearranging his pillows.

  “I think you ought to ring up a few people.”

  “Who?”

  “I want to know the whereabouts of the chief people I’m interested in. Begin with the prosecutor. And as soon as you hear his voice, hang up.”

  It was done. Madame Maigret did the talking while he stared out onto the place du Marché, puffing away at his pipe.

  “He’s at home.”

  “Now the hospital. Ask for Rivaud.”

  They heard his voice answering: so that disposed of him.

  “And now for his house.

  “If Françoise answers, ask for Madame Rivaud. And if Madame Rivaud answers, ask for Françoise.”

  It was the elder sister who answered. She said Françoise was out, but could she take a message?

  Maigret made a sign that meant:

  “Hang up.”

  So there were three people who’d spend half the morning wondering who had rung them up.

  Five minutes later the hotel omnibus came from the station, depositing three travelers and their luggage at the entrance below. Then a postman passed on a bicycle with the mailbag over his shoulder.

  And finally the hooting of the well-known horn, followed by the Ford. Maigret could see there was somebody beside Leduc, and he thought there was a third person sitting behind.

  He wasn’t wrong. Leduc emerged first, looking anxiously round him, poor man: as though afraid he was making a fool of himself. Then he helped out his front-seat passenger, a stout lady who almost fell into his arms.

  Meanwhile a girl had already leapt out from the back. Instinctively she looked up, to throw a venomous look in the direction of Maigret’s window.

  It was Françoise, dressed in a smartly tailored suit of tender green.

  “May I stay?” asked Madame Maigret.

  “Why not? . . . Open the door for them. Here they are.”

  A noise—one might almost say a row—approaching from the staircase. Heavy breathing from the stout lady, who came into the room mopping her brow.

  “Where’s this notary who isn’t a notary?”

  The voice was certainly vulgar. And not only the voice. She might have been hardly more than forty-five. In any case, she had not yet renounced her claims to beauty, for she was made up like any actress.

  A fair woman, abundant in bosom—and elsewhere. Her lips were full and lacking in firmness.

  Looking at her, Maigret’s first impression was that he had already seen her. Of course he had—over and over again! For she was the very embodiment of a type he knew well, a type that was now becoming rare—the old-time chanteuse de café-concert. A heart-shaped mouth. A narrow waist. A saucy, challenging eye. And those milk-white shoulders, disclosed to the maximum. That little swing and swagger in the walk, and that way of looking at you as though across the footlights.

  “Madame Beausoleil?” asked Maigret gallantly. “Please take a chair . . . And you too, mademoiselle . . .”

  Françoise did not accept the invitation. Her nerves were as taut as a harp string.

  “I warn you I shall complain,” she said. “It’s unheard of . . .”

  Leduc remained by the door, standing so piteously that it was easy to see things hadn’t gone any too smoothly.

  “Calm yourself, mademoiselle. And forgive me for having wanted to see your mother.”

  ‘Who said she was my mother?”

  Madame Beausoleil was quite out of her depth. Bewildered, she looked from Françoise, tense with fury, to the placid-faced invalid in bed.

  “I took it for granted,” said the latter. “The fact that you went to see her at the station . . .”

  “Mademoiselle wanted to stop her mother coming,” sighed Leduc, staring at the carpet.

  “Oh! And what did you do?”

  It was Françoise who answered:

  “He threatened us. He even said something about a warrant as if we were thieves. If he’s got a warrant, let him show it. Otherwise . . .”

  Her hand was stretched toward the telephone. There was not much doubt about it: Leduc had somewhat overstepped his rights. And he wasn’t proud of it at all.

  “I had to say something,” he muttered. “They were on the point of making a scene.”

  “One moment, mademoiselle,” asked Maigret. “Who are you going to ring up?”

  “The prosecutor.”

  “Sit down . . . Mind you, you’re quite free to telephone if you want to, but perhaps it would be better for everybody if you weren’t in too much of a hurry.”

  “Maman, I forbid you to answer.”

  “I can’t understand a word of this. What I’d like to know is: are you a notary or a policeman?”

  “A policeman.”

  She smiled, as much as to say:

  “In that case . . .”

  It wasn’t hard to guess she’d had dealings with the police before, and that she preserved a respect, or at least a fear, of that institution.

  “But I can’t see why . . . why I . . .”

  “You have nothing to fear, madame. You’ll understand in a moment. I’ve merely a few questions to ask you.”

  “Then there’s no legacy?”

  “I don’t know that yet.”

  “It’s disgusting,” snarled Françoise. “Don’t answer, maman.”

  She couldn’t keep still. She had sat down after all, but was now on her feet again. With her fingernails she was fraying the edge of her handkerchief, throwing a baneful glance at Leduc from time to time.

  “I take it that you’re an artiste lyrique by profession?”

  He knew very well that those two little words would go straight to her heart.

  “Yes, monsieur. I sang at the Olympia at the time of ...”

  �
�I seem to remember your name . . . Beausoleil . . . Yvonne isn’t it?”

  “Joséphine Beausoleil . . . But the doctors recommended a warmer climate, and I went on tour in Italy. Turkey, Syria, and Egypt ...”

  At the time of the cafés-chantants. He could easily picture her on one of the little stages they had in those resorts that had been so fashionable in Paris and elsewhere, frequented by all the swells and the officers from the town . . . And after singing her song she would come down from the stage, and go round the tables carrying a tray, finally joining the company at one of them and drinking champagne . . .

  “You fetched up in Algiers?”

  “Yes. I’d had my first daughter in Cairo.”

  Françoise looked as though at any moment she might go into a fit of hysterics or throw herself at Maigret and scratch his eyes out.

  “Of unknown father?”

  “Nothing of the kind! I knew him very well. An English officer attached to the . . .”

  “While your second girl, Françoise, was perhaps born in Algiers?”

  “Yes. And that was the end of my theatrical career . . . I was ill for quite a long time, and though I got over it, I never recovered my voice.”

  “So then?”

  “Her father looked after me, right up to the day he was recalled to France . . . You see, he was in the customs . . .”

  It was all just what Maigret had imagined. Now he could piece together the lives of the mother and her two daughters in Algiers. Still good-looking, she had a number of male friends. The two girls were growing up . . . Wouldn’t they naturally follow their mother’s career?

  “I wanted them to be dancers. That’s a much less thankless job than singing. Particularly abroad. Germaine had begun to take lessons with an old friend of mine who had settled out there . . .”

  “But she fell ill?”

  “Did she tell you that? . . . As a matter of fact, she’d never been very strong. That’s what comes of traveling so much when you’re tiny. At least I always put it down to that. You see, I’d never leave her with anybody else. I had a little hammock for her, and I used to sling it between the luggage racks . . .”