Old Mathilde’s door moved.
‘Give me the key.’
‘But—’
‘Open it yourself.’
A profound silence. The click of the lock. Then they saw the tidy dining room, every object in its rightful place.
Martin hesitated for a long time before saying out loud, ‘It’s me! … And the detective chief inspector—’
Someone moved in the bed in the adjacent bedroom. Martin closed the door behind them and groaned, ‘We shouldn’t have … She’s not in any way to blame, is she? And in her condition—’
He didn’t dare enter the bedroom. To maintain his composure, he picked up his suitcases and placed them on two chairs.
‘Shall I make some coffee?’
Maigret knocked on the bedroom door.
‘May I come in?’
No reply. He pushed open the door and received the full force of Madame Martin’s stare. She was in bed, motionless, curling pins in her hair.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you … I’ve brought home your husband, who made the mistake of panicking.’
Martin was behind him. He could sense him, but he couldn’t see him.
Footsteps could be heard in the courtyard, and voices, chiefly women’s voices: the office and laboratory staff arriving. It was one minute to nine.
A muffled cry from the madwoman next door. Medication on the bedside table.
‘Are you feeling worse?’
He knew very well that she wouldn’t answer, that despite everything, she would maintain the same staunch reserve.
She seemed afraid of saying a word, a single one. As if one word could unleash disaster!
She had grown thinner and her complexion had become duller. But her eyes, on the other hand, those strange grey pupils, had a fiery, wilful life of their own.
Martin entered, his legs weak. His entire demeanour was apologetic, as if asking for forgiveness.
The icy grey eyes swivelled slowly to look at him, so piercingly that he looked away, stammering, ‘It was at Jeumont station … One more minute and I’d have been in Belgium.’
Words, sentences, noise were needed, to fill the void that could be sensed around each individual. A void that was tangible, to the point that voices echoed as in a tunnel or a cave.
But no one spoke. They struggled to articulate a few syllables, with anxious glances, then silence fell in the implacable manner of a fog.
And yet something was happening. Something slow, insidious: a hand slid beneath the blanket and in an imperceptible movement inched its way up to the pillow.
Madame Martin’s thin, clammy hand. Maigret, while looking elsewhere, followed its progress, waiting for the moment when that hand would finally reach its goal.
‘Isn’t the doctor supposed to be coming this morning?’
‘I don’t know … Is anyone looking after me? I’m lying here like an animal left to die.’
But her eyes became brighter because her hand finally touched the object she was seeking.
A barely audible rustle of paper.
Maigret took a step forward and seized Madame Martin’s wrist. She seemed to have no strength, almost no life. Even so, from one moment to the next, she displayed an unimaginable vigour.
She refused to let go of whatever she was holding. Sitting up in bed, she fought back furiously. She raised her hand to her mouth. With her teeth she tore the sheet of white paper she was clutching.
‘Let me go! Let me go or I’ll scream! … And you? Are you just going to stand there?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector … I beg you,’ groaned Martin.
He was listening out. He was afraid the residents would come running. He didn’t dare step in.
‘Beast! Filthy beast! Hitting a woman!’
No, Maigret wasn’t hitting her. He simply held her wrist in his grip, squeezing a little hard perhaps, to stop the woman from destroying the document.
‘Aren’t you ashamed! A dying woman—’
A woman who displayed an energy the like of which Maigret had rarely encountered in his career in the police! His bowler hat fell on to the bed. She suddenly bit the inspector’s wrist.
But she could not keep her nerves so tensed for long, and he managed to prise her fingers open; she gave a howl of pain.
Now she was crying, crying without tears, crying out of vexation, out of rage, perhaps also to strike a pose?
‘And you just stood there and let him—’
Maigret’s back was too broad for the narrow bedroom. He seemed to fill the entire space, blocking out the light.
He went over to the fireplace, smoothed out the sheet of paper with bits missing, and ran his eyes over a typed text on letterhead paper.
Laval and Piollet
of the Paris bar
Counsels in chambers
Solicitors
On the right, in red: Re Couchet vs. Martin. Advice of 18 November.
Two pages of dense, single-spaced typing. Maigret only read fragments, in a quiet voice, while typewriters could be heard clattering in the offices of Doctor Rivière’s Serums.
In view of the law of …
Given that Roger Couchet’s death occurred subsequent to that of his father …
… that no will can deprive a legitimate son of his rightful share …
… that the second marriage of the testator to Madame Dormoy was under the joint estate system …
… that Roger Couchet’s natural heir is his mother …
… have the honour of confirming that you are entitled to claim half of Raymond Couchet’s estate, including both movable and immovable assets … which, according to the specific information we have received and subject to adjustment for errors or omissions, we value at around five million, the establishment known as ‘Doctor Rivière’s Serums’ itself being estimated at three million …
… We remain at your service to take any steps necessary to nullify the will and …
Confirm that of the sums recovered we will retain a commission of ten per cent (10%) for costs …
Madame Martin had stopped crying. She was lying down again and her frosty gaze was once more directed at the ceiling.
Martin stood in the doorway, more disconcerted than ever, not knowing what to do with his hands, his eyes, his entire body.
‘There’s a postscript!’ muttered Maigret to himself.
The postscript was preceded by the words: Strictly confidential.
It is our belief that Madame Couchet, née Dormoy, is also minded to contest the will.
Furthermore, we have made enquiries about the third beneficiary, Nine Moinard. She is a woman of dubious reputation, who has not yet taken any steps to claim her due.
Given that she is currently without any resources, it seems to us that the most expeditious solution would be to offer her a sum of money as compensation.
We would suggest the sum of twenty thousand francs, which is likely to delight a person in Mlle Moinard’s situation.
We await your decision on this matter.
Maigret had allowed his pipe to go out. He slowly folded the document and slipped it into his wallet.
Around him, all was absolute silence. Martin seemed to be holding his breath. His wife, on the bed, staring fixedly, already looked like a corpse.
‘Two million, five hundred thousand francs,’ murmured the chief inspector. ‘Minus the twenty thousand francs to be given to Nine to ensure she would be accommodating … It’s true that Madame Couchet will probably contribute half—’
He was certain that a triumphant smile, faint but eloquent, hovered on the woman’s lips.
‘That’s a hefty sum! … I say, Martin—’
Martin gave a start, tried to put himself on the defensive.
‘What do you expect to receive? … I’m not talking about money … I’m talking about your sentence … Theft … Murder … Perhaps they’ll establish that there was premeditation … In your opinion? … No acquittal, naturally, since it wasn’t a crime of
passion … Oh! If only your wife had resumed relations with her former husband … but that is not the case … A question of money, purely of money … Ten years? … Twenty years? … Do you want to know what I think? … Mind you, it’s never possible to guess at the decisions of jurors … Although there have been precedents … Well, we can say that in general, while they tend to be lenient when it comes to crimes of passion, they are extremely harsh in cases involving personal gain …’
It was as if he were talking for the sake of talking, playing for time.
‘That’s understandable! They are petty bourgeois, traders … They believe they have nothing to fear from mistresses they don’t have or who they trust … but they have a lot to fear from thieves … Twenty years? … Well, no! … I reckon it’ll be the guillotine—’
Martin didn’t budge. He was now even more ashen-faced than his wife. He had to hold on to the door frame for support.
‘Except that Madame Martin will be rich … She’s at the age when a person knows how to enjoy life and wealth—’
He walked over to the window.
‘Unless this window … This is the stumbling block … It is bound to be pointed out that everything could be seen from here … Everything, you hear! And that is serious! … Because that would make her an accessory … And in fact, the criminal code states that accessories to a murder are prohibited from being beneficiaries of the victim’s will. It’s not only the murderer, but the accomplices too … You see now how important this window is—’
It was no longer silence that was surrounding him, it was something more absolute, more worrying, almost unreal: a total absence of any life.
And suddenly, a question, ‘Tell me, Martin! What did you do with the gun?’
A rustle in the corridor: old Mathilde, of course, with her moon face and her soft belly under her gingham apron.
The concierge’s shrill voice in the courtyard.
‘Madame Martin! … It’s the Dufayel man!’
Maigret sat in a wing chair that wobbled but didn’t break straight away.
11. The Drawing on the Wall
‘Answer me! The gun—’
He followed Martin’s gaze and noticed that Madame Martin, who was still staring at the ceiling, was moving her fingers against the wall.
Poor Martin was making desperate efforts to understand what she meant. He grew impatient. He could see that Maigret was waiting.
‘I—’
What could that square or trapeze that she was outlining with her thin finger mean?
‘Well?’
At that moment, Maigret truly pitied him. This must be terrible for him. Martin was gasping with impatience.
‘I threw it in the Seine.’
The die was cast! As the chief inspector pulled the gun out of his pocket and placed it on the table, Madame Martin sat up in bed, fuming.
‘I did eventually find it in the dustbin,’ said Maigret.
And then the feverish woman hissed, ‘There! Do you understand now? Are you happy? You missed your chance, once again, as you always have done! Anyone would think you did it on purpose, for fear of going to prison … but you’ll go to prison anyway! Because you were the thief! The 360 notes that monsieur threw into the Seine—’
She was terrifying. It was clear that she had bottled everything up inside her for too long. The release was violent. And she was so carried away that sometimes several words reached her lips at the same time and tumbled over each other.
Martin bowed his head. His part was over. As his wife said, he had failed miserably.
‘… Monsieur takes it into his head to steal, but he leaves his glove on the table—’
All Madame Martin’s resentment was going to burst out, messily, chaotically.
Behind him Maigret heard the voice of the man with the putty-coloured overcoat.
‘For months she’d been pointing at the office to me through the window, Couchet, who was always going to the toilet … and she rebuked me for making her so miserable, for being incapable of feeding a wife … I went down there—’
‘Did you tell her that you were going?’
‘No! But she knew. She was at the window.’
‘And from a distance you saw the glove that your husband had left behind, Madame Martin?’
‘As if he were leaving a calling card! Anyone would think he did it on purpose to annoy me—’
‘You picked up your gun and you went there … Couchet returned while you were in the office … He thought it was you who had stolen—’
‘He wanted to have me arrested! That’s what he wanted to do! As if it weren’t thanks to me that he’d become rich! … Who’d looked after him, in the early days, when he barely earned enough to eat bread without any butter? … All men are the same! … He even reprimanded me for living in the building where he had his offices. He accused me of sharing the money he gave my son.’
‘And you shot him?’
‘He had already picked up the telephone to call the police!’
‘You headed for the dustbins. Saying you were looking for a silver spoon, you hid the gun in the rubbish. Who did you bump into then?’
She spat, ‘That stupid old man from the first floor.’
‘Nobody else? I thought your son came by. He was out of money.’
‘So what?’
‘He hadn’t come to see you, but his father, isn’t that right? Only you couldn’t allow him to go into the office, where he would have discovered the body. You were both in the courtyard. What did you say to Roger?’
‘I told him to go away. You can’t understand a mother’s heart.’
‘And he left. Your husband came home. Neither of you mentioned anything … Is that right? … Martin was thinking of the notes he’d ended up throwing into the Seine, because deep down he’s a poor devil of a good man.’
‘Poor devil of a good man!’ echoed Madame Martin with an unexpected fury. ‘Ha! Ha! And what about me? I’ve always been unhappy—’
‘Martin doesn’t know who has killed … He goes to bed. A day goes by without you saying anything … But the following night you get up to search the clothes he’s taken off … You look for the money in vain … He watches you … You question him … And it’s the outburst of anger that old Mathilde overheard behind the door … You’ve killed for nothing! That idiot Martin has thrown the money away! He has thrown a fortune in the Seine, for lack of guts! It makes you ill … You go down with a fever … And Martin, who is unaware that you are the killer, goes and tells Roger the news. And Roger realizes the truth. He saw you in the courtyard … You stopped him from going into the office. He knows you. He thinks I suspect him. He imagines that he’ll be arrested, accused … and he can’t defend himself without accusing his mother … Perhaps he’s not a very nice boy … But there are probably good reasons why he ended up living as he did. He’s full of loathing … loathing for the women he sleeps with, loathing for the drugs, for Montmartre where he hangs around, and, above all, for this family tragedy in which he alone is aware of all the motives. He jumps out of the window!’
Martin was leaning against the wall, his face buried in his folded arms. But his wife gazed fixedly at the inspector, as if she were just waiting for the right time to interrupt his account, and attack him back.
Then Maigret produced the lawyers’ written advice.
‘During my last visit, Martin was so panic-stricken that he was about to confess his theft … but you were there … He could see you through the doorway … You frantically signalled to him and he held his tongue. Is that not what finally opened his eyes? He questioned you. Yes, you had killed! You screamed in his face! You killed because of him, to make up for his mistake, because of that glove left on the desk! And, because you have killed, you won’t even inherit, despite the will! Oh! If only Martin were a man! Let him go abroad. People will believe he’s guilty. The police will go away and you’ll go and join him with the millions. Poor old Martin!’
And Maigret almo
st crushed the man with a formidable clap on the shoulder. He spoke in a muted voice. He let the words fall without insisting.
‘To have done all that for the money! Couchet’s death, Roger throwing himself out of the window, and then to realize at the last minute that you won’t get it! You’d rather pack Martin’s bags yourself. Neatly arranged suitcases. Months’ worth of underwear—’
‘Stop!’ begged Martin.
The madwoman screamed. Maigret flung open the door and old Mathilde almost tumbled into the room!
She fled, terrified at the inspector’s tone of voice, and for the first time she shut her door properly and turned the key in the lock.
Maigret glanced around the room one last time. Martin didn’t dare move. His thin wife sitting up in bed, her shoulder blades prominent beneath her nightshirt, followed the police officer with her eyes.
She was so serious, so calm all of a sudden, that Maigret wondered, anxiously, what she had up her sleeve.
He remembered certain looks, during the earlier scene, certain movements of her lips. And he intuited, at exactly the same time as Martin, what was happening.
There were unable to stop her. The whole thing happened independently of them, like a nightmare.
Madame Martin was very, very thin. And her features became even more tormented. What was she staring at, in places where there was nothing but the usual bedroom objects?
What was she watching attentively moving around the room?
Her forehead furrowed. Her temples throbbed. Martin cried, ‘I’m scared!’
Nothing had changed in the apartment. A lorry drove into the courtyard and they could hear the concierge’s shrill voice.
It was as though Madame Martin was making a huge effort, all alone, to scale an impossible mountain. Twice her hand made a movement as if to swat something away from her face. Finally, she swallowed her saliva and smiled like someone who has reached their goal, ‘All the same, you’ll all come and ask me for money. I’m going to tell my lawyer not to give you any.’
Martin was twitching from head to toe. He realized that this was no passing delirium caused by her fever.
She had lost her mind, permanently!
The Shadow Puppet Page 11