‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘First, because I’m the teacher and the secretary at the town hall.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You’ve been away from country life for a long time. They’ve all got money. They’re farmers or mussel-farmers. You know the mussel-farms?’
‘The ones along the coast?’
‘Yes. We’re right in the heart of the mussel-farm and oyster-bed region. Everyone owns at least a bit of one. There’s big money in it. They’re rich. Almost everyone has a car or a small van. Well, do you know how many of them pay taxes on this income?’
‘Not too many, I dare say?’
‘Not a one! In the village, only the doctor and I pay taxes. Naturally, I’m the one they call a loafer. The way they see it, they’re the ones who pay me. When I complain that the children are skipping school, they tell me to mind my own business. And when I insisted that my students greet me properly in the street, they thought I was putting on airs.’
‘Tell me about the Léonie Birard case.’
‘You’ll really listen?’
The look in his eyes brightened with this renewed hope. He forced himself to sit, tried to speak calmly, although his voice still quavered with ill-contained emotion.
‘You would have to understand the layout of the village. Here, it’s hard to explain. As in almost every village, the school is behind the village hall. That’s also where I live, on the other side of the courtyard, and I have a scrap of kitchen garden. The weather on the day before yesterday, Tuesday, was about the same as it is today, a true spring day, and it was a neap tide.’
‘Is that important?’
‘During neap tides, meaning when the tides are at their weakest, no one goes out to the mussels or the oysters. You understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Beyond the school courtyard are gardens and the backs of several houses, including Léonie Birard’s.’
‘How old was she?’
‘Sixty-six. As village hall secretary, I know everyone’s exact age.’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s been eight years since she retired. She became almost a complete invalid, no longer leaving her house, where she walked with a cane. A spiteful woman.’
‘Spiteful in what way?’
‘She hated the whole world.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. She was never married. She had a niece who lived with her for a long time and who married Julien, the tinsmith, who is the village officer as well.’
On another day, these stories might have bored Maigret. That morning, with sunlight bringing a spring warmth through his window, with his pipe that had a fresh taste to it, he listened, smiling vaguely, to the words that reminded him of a different village, where there were also dramas involving the postmistress, the teacher, the village officer.
‘The two women no longer see each other, because Léonie didn’t want her niece to marry. She doesn’t see Dr Bresselles, either, whom she accuses of trying to poison her with his drugs.’
‘He tried to poison her?’
‘Of course not! That’s to show you what kind of woman she is, or rather, was. Back when she was the postmistress, she used to listen to phone conversations, read postcards, so she knew everyone’s secrets. It wasn’t hard for her to set people one against the other. Most quarrels amongst families or neighbours sprang up because of her.’
‘So she wasn’t well liked.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘In that case …’
Maigret seemed to be saying that, clearly, the death of a universally detested woman simplified things, leaving everyone free to rejoice.
‘Except that, they don’t like me, either.’
‘Because of what you’ve told me?’
‘That and the rest of it. I’m not a local. I was born in Paris, Rue Caulaincourt, in the eighteenth arrondissement, and my wife is from Rue Lamarck.’
‘Does your wife live with you in Saint-André?’
‘We live together, with our son, who is thirteen.’
‘Does he go to your school?’
‘There is only one.’
‘Do his classmates resent him for being the teacher’s son?’
Maigret knew about that as well. He remembered it from his own childhood. The tenant farmers’ sons resented him for being the son of the estate manager, who collected their fathers’ rent payments.
‘I don’t show him any favouritism, I swear to you. I even suspect him of intentionally doing less well than he could in school.’
The man had gradually calmed down. You no longer sensed the same fear in his eyes. He was not a madman inventing a story to make himself interesting.
‘Léonie Birard had chosen me as her bête noire.’
‘For no reason?’
‘She’d claim that I egged the children on against her. I state categorically, inspector, that this is not true. On the contrary, I have always tried to make them behave like well-brought-up children. She was very fat, enormous, even. It seems that she wore a wig. And she had a beard: a real moustache and black hairs on her chin. That’s enough to stir the children up, you understand? Along with the fact that she would fly into a fury over nothing, like seeing a child’s face glued to her window, for example, sticking out his tongue. She would get up from her armchair and shake her cane threateningly. That amused them. It was one of their favourite distractions: going to send old mother Birard into a rage.’
Hadn’t there been, in his village as well, an old woman like that? In his day, it was the woman who owned the fabric shop, old Mother Tatin, whose cat they all tormented.
‘Perhaps I’m boring you with these details, but they have their importance. There were more serious incidents, windows the kids broke at the old woman’s house, rubbish they threw inside. She went to complain, I don’t know how many times, at the police station in La Rochelle. The lieutenant came to find me, to get the names of the guilty ones.’
‘Did you provide them?’
‘I told him they were all more or less involved and that, if she stopped playing the scarecrow and brandishing her cane, they would probably lose interest.’
‘What happened on Tuesday?’
‘Early in the afternoon, at around one thirty, Maria, a Polish cleaning lady with five children, went as she did every day to old lady Birard’s. The windows were open, and I could hear her cries from the school, the things she says in Polish every time she becomes upset. Maria, whose full name is Maria Smelker, arrived in the village at sixteen as a hired farm girl and has never married. Her children are from different fathers. People say that at least two belong to the deputy mayor. That one hates me, too, but that’s a different story. I’ll tell you about that later.’
‘So, Tuesday, at around one thirty, Maria called for help?’
‘Yes. I didn’t leave the classroom because I heard other people rushing to the old woman’s house. Shortly afterwards, I saw the doctor’s small car go by.’
‘Didn’t you go and see for yourself?’
‘No. There are now some who reproach me for that, claiming that I didn’t bother to go over because I already knew what the others had found.’
‘I suppose that you could not leave your class?’
‘I could have. Sometimes I leave the room for a moment to go and sign papers in the village hall office. I could also have called my wife over.’
‘Is she a teacher?’
‘She was.’
‘In the country?’
‘No. We both taught for seven years in Courbevoie, near Paris. It was when I asked to be posted to the countryside that she handed in her resignation.’
‘Why did you leave Courbevoie?’
‘Because of my wife’s health.’
The subject bothered him. He was answering more guardedly.
‘So, you did not summon your wife, as you sometimes do, and you remained with your pupils.’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened next?’
‘For more than an hour, there was a huge commotion. The village is usually quite calm. Sounds can easily be heard in the distance. The hammering stopped over at Marchandon’s smithy. People were calling to one another over the garden hedges. You know how it goes when something like this happens. I closed our windows to keep the class from getting all excited.’
‘From the school windows, can you see into Léonie Birard’s house?’
‘From one of the windows, yes.’
‘What did you see?’
‘First, the village officer, which really struck me, because he was not on speaking terms with his wife’s aunt. And I saw Théo, the deputy mayor, who must have been half-drunk, as he usually is after ten in the morning. I also caught a glimpse of the doctor, other neighbours, all of them milling around in one room and looking down at the floor. Later, the gendarmerielieutenant arrived from La Rochelle with two of his men. But I only learned about it when he knocked on the classroom door, and he’d already had time to question a lot of people.’
‘Did he accuse you of having killed Léonie Birard?’
Gastin glanced reproachfully at the inspector as if to say, ‘You know perfectly well that isn’t how such things go.’
And in a slightly flat voice, he explained, ‘I saw straight off that he was looking at me in a strange way. The first question he asked me was, “Do you own a rifle, Gastin?”
‘I told him that I didn’t, but that my son, Jean-Paul, had one. That’s another complicated story. You must know how that goes with children. One fine morning, you see someone come to class with marbles and the next day, all the boys are playing marbles, every pocket bulges with them. Another day, someone pulls out a kite, and kites are the new fashion for weeks.
‘Well, last autumn, I no longer remember which boy brought out a .22 rifle and began shooting at sparrows. A month later, there were half a dozen rifles like that around. My son wanted one for Christmas. I saw no need to deny him one …’
Even the rifle brought back memories for Maigret, except that his rifle, at the time, had been an air-gun, and the pellets had merely ruffled the birds’ feathers.
‘I told the lieutenant that as far as I knew, the rifle ought to be in Jean-Paul’s room. He sent one of his men to make sure. I should have asked my son. I didn’t think of it. As it happened, the gun wasn’t there: he’d left it in the shed in the kitchen garden, where I keep the wheelbarrow and tools.’
‘Léonie Birard was killed with a .22 rifle?’
‘That’s the most extraordinary thing. And that’s not all. The lieutenant then asked me if I had left my classroom that morning, and unfortunately, I said no.’
‘Had you left it?’
‘For about ten minutes, a little after break time. When someone asks you a question like that, you don’t really think about it. Playtime is over at ten o’clock. Then, maybe five minutes later, Piedboeuf, the farmer from Gros-Chêne, arrived to ask me to sign a document he needed to receive his pension, because he’s a disabled veteran. I usually have the municipal seal in my classroom. That morning, I didn’t have it and I took the farmer to the office. My pupils seemed quiet. Since my wife is not well, I then crossed the courtyard to find out if she needed anything.’
‘Is your wife in poor health?’
‘It’s mostly her nerves. All in all, I was gone for ten or fifteen minutes, more like ten than fifteen.’
‘Did you hear anything?’
‘I remember that Marchandon was shoeing a horse, because I could hear the hammer blows on the anvil, and the air smelled of burnt horn. The forge is next to the church, almost opposite the school.’
‘That’s when Léonie Birard was supposedly killed?’
‘Yes. Someone, from one of the gardens or windows, seems to have shot at her while she was in her kitchen, which opens on to the back area.’
‘It was a .22 bullet that killed her?’
‘That’s what is most surprising. The bullet wouldn’t ordinarily have hurt her much, fired from that distance. Well, it just happened to have entered her left eye and smashed into the inside of her skull.’
‘Are you a good shot?’
‘People think so, because they saw me shooting targets this winter with my son. I did that maybe three or four times. Other than that, I’ve never handled a rifle except at a fair.’
‘Didn’t the lieutenant believe you?’
‘He didn’t come right out and accuse me, but he seemed surprised that I hadn’t admitted leaving the classroom. Then, while I wasn’t there, he questioned the children. He didn’t tell me about the results of his interrogation. He went back to La Rochelle. The next day, meaning yesterday, he set himself up in my office at the village hall, with Théo, the deputy mayor, beside him.’
‘Where were you meanwhile?’
‘I was teaching. Out of thirty-two pupils, only eight showed up. Twice, I was summoned to answer the same questions, and the second time they had me sign my statement. They questioned my wife as well. They asked me how long I had stayed with her. They asked my son about the rifle.’
‘But they did not arrest you.’
‘They did not arrest me yesterday. I am convinced that they would have today had I remained in Saint-André. At nightfall, stones were thrown at our house. My wife was very upset about it.’
‘You left by yourself, leaving her there, your wife, with your son?’
‘Yes. I think they won’t dare do anything to them. While if I am arrested, they won’t give me a chance to defend myself. Once locked up, I won’t be able to communicate with the outside any more. No one will believe me. They’ll do what they like with me.’
His brow was once again wet with perspiration, and he clasped his fingers together so fiercely that the circulation was cut off.
‘Perhaps I was wrong? I thought, if I told you everything, you might agree to come and discover the truth. I am not offering you money. I know that isn’t what interests you. I swear to you, inspector, that I did not kill Léonie Birard.’
Maigret reached for the phone, with a hesitant hand, and finally picked up the receiver.
‘What is the name of your gendarmerie lieutenant?’
‘Daniélou.’
‘Hello! Place a call to the gendarmerie in La Rochelle. If Lieutenant Daniélou is not there, see if you can find him at the village hall of Saint-André-sur-Mer. Put him through to me in Lucas’ office.’
Maigret hung up, lit a pipe and went over to stand in front of the window. He pretended to pay no more attention to the teacher, who had opened his mouth a few times to thank him but had found nothing to say.
The yellow glint in the air was gradually overtaking the blue, while the façades across the Seine were turning a creamy colour and the sun was reflecting somewhere off the panes of a mansard window.
‘Chief, are you the one who asked for Saint-André-sur-Mer?’
‘Yes, Lucas. Stay here for a moment.’
Maigret went into the office next door.
‘Lieutenant Daniélou? Maigret here, from the Police Judiciaire in Paris. It seems you’re looking for someone?’
The officer at the other end of the line could not get over it.
‘How did you know that already?’
‘We’re talking about the teacher?’
‘Yes. I was wrong to trust him. I never imagined that he would try to escape. He took the train for Paris yesterday evening and …’
‘Are you pressing charges against him?’
‘Very serious ones. And with the damaging testimony of at least one witness, received this morning.’
‘From whom?’
‘From one of his pupils.’
‘Did he see something?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘The teacher coming out of his tool shed on Tuesday morning, at around ten twenty. And it was at a quarter past ten that the deputy mayor heard a rifle shot.’
‘Have you app
lied for an arrest warrant from the examining magistrate?
‘I was just about to go to La Rochelle to do that when you called me. How did you hear the news? Have the newspapers …?’
‘I haven’t read the papers. Joseph Gastin is in my office.’
There was a short silence.
‘Ah,’ said the lieutenant.
After which he no doubt wanted to ask a question. He did not. Maigret, for his part, was not sure what to say. He had made no decision. If the sunshine hadn’t been what it was that morning; if, shortly before, the inspector had not been moved by the memory of Fourras, of oysters and white wine; if Maigret had not been unable to take even three days’ holiday during the past ten months; if …
‘Hello! Are you still on the line?’
‘Yes. What do you intend to do with him?’
‘Bring him back to you.’
‘Personally?’
This was said without enthusiasm, which made the inspector smile.
‘Mind you, I would not allow myself to intervene in any way whatsoever in your investigation.’
‘You don’t believe he’s …’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps he is guilty. Perhaps he is not. In any case I am returning him to you.’
‘Thank you. I will be at the station.’
Back in his office, Maigret found Lucas observing the teacher in a curious way.
‘Give me a moment more. I’ll have to clear this upstairs.’
His work would allow him to take a few days off. When he returned, it was to ask Gastin:
‘Is there an inn, at Saint-André?’
‘The Bon Coin, yes, run by Louis Paumelle. The food is good there, but the rooms don’t have running water.’
‘You’re leaving, chief?’
‘Get my wife on the line.’
All this was so unexpected that poor Gastin, thrown completely off balance, did not yet dare to be delighted.
‘What did he say to you?’
‘He will probably arrest you as soon as we arrive at the station.’
‘But … you’re coming with me? …’
Maigret nodded, taking the receiver Lucas held out to him.
‘Hello? Will you pack me a small suitcase with some underwear and my toiletries? … Yes … Yes … I don’t know … Perhaps three or four days …’
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