A human figure suddenly appeared on the road as if from nowhere. A man holding his jacket over his head moved out of the way as the pony trap came nearer.
“Good evening, Fabien!” cried out Etienne Naud in the same way as he had hailed the station master, like a country squire who calls everyone by his Christian name, a man who knows everyone in the neighborhood.
But where the devil could Cavre be? Try as he might to put the matter out of his mind, Maigret could think of nothing else.
“Is there a hotel in Saint-Aubin?” he asked.
His companion roared with laughter.
“There’s no question of your staying in a hotel! We have plenty of room at home. Your room is ready. We’ve arranged to have dinner an hour later than usual as I thought you wouldn’t have had anything to eat on your journey. I hope you were wise enough not to have dinner at the station buffet in Niort? We live very simply, however…”
Maigret could not have cared less how they lived or what sort of welcome he received. He had Cavre on the brain.
“I’d like to know if the man who got out of the train with me…”
“I don’t know who he was,” Etienne Naud hurriedly declared.
Why did he reply in such a fashion? It was not the answer to Maigret’s question.
“I’d like to know if he’ll have managed to find somewhere to stay…”
“Indeed! I don’t know what my brother-in-law has been telling you about this part of the world. Now that he’s living in Paris he probably looks upon Saint-Aubin as an insignificant little hamlet. But, my dear chap, it is almost a small town. You haven’t seen any of it yet because the station is a little way from the center. There are two excellent inns, the Lion d’Or, run by Monsieur Taponnier, old François as everyone calls him, and just opposite there’s the HÔtel des Trois Mules…Well! We’re nearly home…That light you can see…Yes…That’s our humble dwelling…”
Needless to say, the tone of voice in which he spoke made it abundantly clear that it was a large house and, sure enough, it was a large, low, solid-looking building with the lights on in four windows on the ground floor. Outside, in the middle of the façade, an electric lamp shone like a star and gave light to any visitor.
Behind the house, there was presumably a large courtyard with stables around the edge so that one would occasionally catch the warm, sweet smell of the horses within. A farmhand rushed up immediately to lead in the horse and trap, the door of the house opened and a maid came forward to take the traveler’s luggage.
“Here we are, then! It’s not very far, you see…At the time the house was built, no one foresaw unfortunately that the railway line would one day pass virtually beneath our windows. You get used to it, admittedly, and in fact there are very few trains, but…Do come in…Give me your coat…”
At that precise moment, Maigret was thinking:
“He has talked non-stop.”
And then he could not think at all for a moment because too many thoughts were assailing him and a totally new atmosphere was closing in on him in an ever tighter net.
The passageway was wide and paved with gray tiles, its walls paneled in dark wood up to a height of about six feet. The electric light was enclosed in a lantern of colored glass. A large oak staircase with a red stair carpet and heavy, well-polished banisters led up to the second floor. A pleasing aroma of wax polish, of casseroles simmering in the kitchen pervaded the whole house and Maigret caught a whiff of something else too, that bitter-sweet smell which for him was the very essence of the country.
But the most remarkable feature of the house was its stillness, a stillness which seemed to be eternal. It was as if the furniture and every object in this house had remained in the same place for generations, as if the occupants themselves, as they went in and out of the rooms, were observing special rites which hurled defiance at anything unforeseen.
“Would you like to go up to your room for a moment before we eat? It’s a family occasion, you understand. We shan’t stand on ceremony…”
The master of the house pushed open a door and two people rose to their feet simultaneously. Maigret was ushered into a warm, homely drawing-room.
“This is Superintendent Maigret…My wife…”
She had the same deferential air about her as her brother Bréjon, the examining magistrate, the same courteousness so characteristic of a sound bourgeois up-bringing, but for a second Maigret thought he detected something harder, sharper in her countenance.
“I am appalled my brother has asked you to come all this way in weather like this…”
As if the rain made any difference to the journey or was of any importance in the circumstances!
“May I introduce you to a friend of ours, superintendent: Alban Groult-Cotelle. I expect my brother-in-law mentioned his name to you…”
Had the examining magistrate mentioned him? Perhaps he had. Maigret had been so preoccupied thinking about the green ribbed lampshade!
“How do you do, superintendent. I’m a great admirer of yours…”
Maigret was tempted to reply:
“Well, I’m not of yours.”
For he could not abide people like Groult-Cotelle.
“Would you like to serve the porto, Louise?”
The glasses were on a table in the drawing-room which was softly lit with few, if any, sharp lines. The chairs were old, most of them upholstered; the rugs were all in neutral or faded colors. A cat lay stretched out on the hearth in front of the log fire.
“Do sit down…Our neighbor Groult-Cotelle is having dinner with us…”
Whenever his name was mentioned, Groult-Cotelle would bow pretentiously, like a nobleman among commoners who takes it upon himself to behave as if he were in a salon.
“They insist on laying a place at their table for an old recluse like me…”
A recluse, yes, and probably a bachelor too. One could not say why one sensed this, but one sensed it all the same. He was stuck-up, a good-for-nothing who was well satisfied with his peculiar notions and eccentric behavior.
The fact that he was not a count or a marquis, that he did not even have a “de” in front of his name, must have been a considerable source of annoyance. All the same, he did have an affected Christian name, Alban, which he so liked to hear, and an equally pretentious double-barreled surname to go with it.
He was a tall, lean man of about forty and he obviously thought this leanness gave him an aristocratic bearing. The dusty look he had about him, in spite of the care with which he dressed, his dull face and bald forehead gave Maigret the impression he did not have a wife. His clothes were elegant, subtle and unusual in color; seeming never to have been new, they did not look as if they would ever become old or threadbare either. The garments he wore were part of his character and never changed. Whenever Maigret met him subsequently, he would always be wearing the same greenish colored jacket, very much in the style of the country gentleman, and the same horseshoe tiepin on a white ribbed cotton tie.
“I hope the journey wasn’t too tiring, superintendent?” inquired Louise Bréjon, as she handed him a glass of porto.
And Maigret, firmly seated in an armchair that sagged beneath his weight, much to the distress of the mistress of the house, was prey to so many different emotions that his mind became rather blunted and for part of the evening his hosts must have thought him somewhat slow-witted.
First of all, there was the house, which was the very prototype of the house he had dreamed of so often, with its comforting walls round which hung air as thick as solid matter. The framed portraits reminded him of the examining magistrate’s lengthy discourse about the Nauds, the Bréjons, the La Noues, for the Bréjons were connected with the La Noues through their mother. One would have liked to imagine that all these serious-looking and rather stiff faces were one’s own ancestors.
Judging from the smells coming from the kitchen, an elaborate meal was about to be served. Someone was carefully laying the table in the dining-room next d
oor, for the clinking of china and cut glass could be heard. In the stable, the farmhand was rubbing down the mare and two long rows of reddish-brown cows were chewing the cud in their stalls.
The house embodied the peace of God, order and virtue, and at the same time was the very expression of the petty habits and faults of simple families living encompassed lives.
Etienne Naud, tall and broad-shouldered, with a ruddy complexion and goggle eyes, looked cordially round him as if to say:
“Look at me!…Sincere…kind…”
The good-natured giant. The perfect master of the house. The perfect father. The man who cried out from his pony trap:
“Good evening, Pierre…Good evening, Fabien…”
His wife smiled shyly in the shadow of the huge fellow, as if to apologize for his taking up so much space.
“Will you forgive me for a moment, superintendent…”
Of course. He had been expecting it. The charming mistress of the house always goes into the kitchen to have a last look at the preparations for dinner.
Even Alban Groult-Cotelle was predictable. Looking as if he had just stepped out of an engraving, he was the very picture of the more refined, the better-bred, the more intelligent friend, indeed the epitome of the old family friend with his faintly condescending airs.
“You see…” was written all over his face. “They’re decent people, perfect neighbors…You can’t talk philosophy with them, but apart from that, they make you feel very much at home and you’ll see their Burgundy is genuine enough and their brandy worth praising…”
“Dinner is served, madame…”
“Would you like to sit on my right, superintendent?…”
But where was the note of anxiety in all this? For the examining magistrate had certainly been very concerned when he sent for Maigret.
“You see,” he insisted, “I know my brother-in-law, just as I know my sister and niece. Anyway, you’ll see them for yourself…But all this doesn’t alter the fact that this odious accusation is increasing in substance day by day, to the point of forcing the Department of the Public Prosecutor to investigate the matter. My father was the notary in Saint-Aubin for forty years, having taken over the practice from his father…They’ll show you our family house in the middle of the town…I have got to the stage where I ask myself how such a blind hatred could have arisen in so short a time. It is steadily gaining ground and is threatening to wreck the lives of innocent people…My sister has never been very robust…She’s highly-strung and suffers from insomnia. The slightest problem upsets her.”
But one would never have guessed that the people present were involved in such a drama. Everything led one to believe that Maigret had merely been asked to a good dinner and a game of bridge. While the skylarks were being served, the superintendent’s hosts explained at great length how the peasants from the fens caught them at night by dragging nets over the meadows.
But why was their daughter not there?
“My niece, Geneviève,” the examining magistrate had said, “is a perfect young lady, the like of which you only read about in novels now…”
This was not, however, what the person or persons writing the anonymous letters thought, nor for that matter what most of the locals thought, for it was Geneviève they were accusing, after all.
Maigret was still puzzled by the story he had heard from Bréjon, for it was so out of keeping with the scene before him! Rumor had it that Albert Retailleau, the young man found dead on the railway line, was Geneviève’s lover. It was even said that he came to her house two or three times a week and spent the night in her room.
Albert had no money. He was barely twenty years old. His father had worked in the Saint-Aubin dairy and had died as a result of a boiler exploding. His mother lived on a pension which the dairy had been obliged to give her in recompense.
“Albert Retailleau did not commit suicide,” declared his friends. “He enjoyed the pleasures of life too much. And even if he had been drunk, as is claimed to be the case, he would not have been so stupid as to cross the railway line when a train was coming.”
The body had been found more than five hundred yards away from the Nauds’ house, about halfway between it and the station.
There was nothing wrong in that, but it was now rumored that the boy’s cap had been found in the reeds along the edge of the canal, much nearer the Nauds’ house.
There was yet another, even more doubtful story in circulation. It seemed that someone had visited Madame Retailleau, the mother of the boy, a week after her son’s death, and had apparently seen her hurriedly hide a wad of 1,000-franc notes. She had never been known to have such a large sum of money before.
“It is a pity, superintendent, that you have made your first visit to our part of the world in wintertime…It is so pretty around here in the summer that the district is known as ‘Green Venice’…You’ll have some more of the pullet, won’t you?”
And Cavre? What was Inspector Cavre up to in Saint-Aubin?
Everyone ate and drank too much. It was too hot in the dining-room. Sluggishly, they all returned to the drawing-room and sat around the crackling log fire.
“I insist…I know you’re particularly fond of your pipe, but you must have a cigar…”
Were they trying to lull him to sleep? But that was a ridiculous thought. They were decent sorts. That was all there was to it. The examining magistrate in Paris must have exaggerated the situation. And Alban Groult-Cotelle was nothing but a stuck-up fool, one of those dandyish good-for-nothings to be found in any country district.
“You must be tired after your journey…Just say when you want to go to bed…”
That meant that nothing was going to be said that night. Perhaps because Groult-Cotelle was there? Or because Naud preferred not to say anything in front of his wife?
“Do you take coffee at night?…No?…No tisane either?…Please forgive me if I go up now, but our daughter hasn’t been very well for the past two or three days and I must go and see if she needs anything…Young girls are always rather delicate, aren’t they, especially in a climate like ours…”
The three men sat around the fire smoking and talking of this and that. They even began discussing local politics, for apparently there was a new mayor who was acting counter to the wishes of all respectable members of the community and who…
“Well gentlemen,” grunted Maigret finally, half-pleasantly, half-crossly, “if you will excuse me, I think I’ll go up to bed now…”
“You must sleep the night here, too, Alban…I’m not going to let you go home in this terrible weather…”
They went upstairs. Maigret’s room was at the end of the passageway. Its walls were covered in yellow cloth and brought back many childhood memories.
“Have you everything you need?…I forgot…Let me show you the bathroom.”
Maigret shook hands with the two men, then undressed and got into bed. As he lay there half-asleep, he thought he heard noises, the distant murmur of voices somewhere in the house, but soon, when all the lights were out, these sounds died away.
He fell asleep. Or he thought he did. The sinister face of Cavre, that most unhappy of men, kept creeping into his unconscious, and then he dreamt that the rosy-cheeked maid who served the dinner was bringing him his breakfast.
The door half-opened. He was sure he heard the door open gently. He sat up in bed and groped for the switch to the light bulb in the tulip-shaped opal glass covering attached to the wall above the bedhead. The light went on and Maigret saw standing in front of him a young girl with a brown wool coat over her nightdress.
“Ssh…” she whispered. “I just had to speak to you. Don’t make a noise…”
And, like a sleepwalker, she sat down on a chair and stared into space.
2
THE GIRL IN THE NIGHTDRESS
It was a weary night for Maigret, and yet not without its enjoyment. He slept without sleeping. He dreamed without dreaming, or in other words he was well awar
e he was dreaming and deliberately prolonged his dreams, being conscious all the time of noises from the real world.
For example, the sound of the mare kicking her hooves against the stable wall was real enough, but the other images that flitted through Maigret’s mind, as he lay in bed perspiring heavily, were tricks of the imagination. He conjured up a picture of the dim light in a stable, the horse’s rump, the rack half full of hay; he imagined the rain still falling in the courtyard with figures splashing their way through black puddles of water and lastly he saw, from the outside, the house in which he was staying.
It was a kind of double vision. He was in his bed. He was keenly savoring its warmth and the delicious country smell of the mattress which became even more pungent as it grew moist with Maigret’s sweat. But at the same time he was in the whole house. Who knows if, at one moment in his dream, he did not even become the house itself?
Throughout the night, he was conscious of the cows moving about in their stalls, and from four in the morning onwards he heard the footsteps of a farmhand crossing the courtyard and the sound of the latch being lifted: what prevented him from actually seeing the man, by the light of a hurricane lamp, as he sat on a three-legged stool drawing milk into white metal buckets?
He must have fallen into a deep sleep again, for he woke up with a start at the sound of the lavatory flushing. It was such a sudden, violent noise that it gave him rather a fright. But immediately afterwards he was back to his old tricks and imagined the master of the house coming out of the bathroom with his braces round his thighs and going silently back to his room. Madame Naud was asleep, or pretending to be, with her face to the wall. Etienne Naud had left the room in darkness except for the small wall light above the dressing-table. He started to shave, his fingers numbed by the icy water. His skin was pink, taut and glossy.
Then he sat down in an armchair to pull on his boots. Just as he was leaving the room, a sound came from beneath the blankets. What was his wife saying to him? He bent over her and murmured something in a low voice. He closed the door noiselessly behind him and tiptoed down the stairs. At this point, Maigret jumped out of bed and switched on the light, for he had had enough of these spellbinding nocturnal activities.
Inspector Cadaver Page 2