‘Which has lasted for how long?’
‘A little less than a year … Marie isn’t interested … There have been embarrassing moments …’
His eye fixed at last on a single point. Maigret followed it and noticed, behind him, the priest, who had just come out of the church. He had a sense that those two glances had met, that the priest was just as embarrassed as the Count of Saint-Fiacre.
The inspector was about to call out to him. But with awkward haste the priest had already addressed a brief word of greeting to the two men and gone inside the presbytery, as if escaping.
‘He doesn’t look like a country priest …’
Maurice didn’t reply. Through the lit window the priest could be seen sitting over his breakfast, and the housekeeper bringing him a steaming pot of coffee.
Some children, with bags on their backs, were starting to make their way towards the school. The surface of the Notre-Dame pond was assuming the colours of a looking-glass.
‘What arrangements have you made for …’ Maigret began.
And the other man replied, far too quickly:
‘For what?’
‘For the funeral … Did someone sit vigil in the room of the departed?’
‘No! It was briefly discussed … Gautier said people didn’t do that any more …’
The sound of a two-stroke engine was heard coming from the chateau courtyard. A few moments later a motorbike passed along the road, heading towards Moulins. Maigret recognized Gautier’s son, whom he had seen the previous day. He was wearing a beige mackintosh and a checked cap.
Maurice de Saint-Fiacre didn’t know what attitude to assume. He didn’t dare get back into his car. And he had nothing to say to the inspector.
‘Did Gautier find the forty thousand francs?’
‘No … Yes … that is …’
Maigret looked at him curiously, surprised to see him so agitated.
‘Did he find them, yes or no? I had a sense, yesterday, that he wasn’t happy about the idea. Because in spite of everything, in spite of the debts and mortgages, you’ll be able to raise much more money than that …’
But no! Maurice didn’t reply! He looked distraught, for no apparent reason. And the words he uttered bore no relation to what had gone before.
‘Tell me honestly, inspector … Do you suspect me?’
‘Of what?’
‘You know … I need to know …’
‘I have no more reason to suspect you than anyone else …’ Maigret replied evasively.
And his companion pounced on the assertion.
‘Thank you! … Well, that’s what you have to tell people … You understand? … Otherwise my position isn’t tenable …’
‘Which bank does your cheque have to be presented at?’
‘The Comptoir d’Escompte …’
A woman was walking towards the public laundry, pushing a barrow that carried two baskets of linen. The priest, in his house, paced back and forth, reading his breviary, but the inspector had a sense that he was darting anxious glances at the two men.
‘I’ll join you at the chateau.’
‘Now?’
‘In a moment, yes.’
It was quite plain: Maurice de Saint-Fiacre wasn’t at all happy with that. He got into his car like a condemned man. And behind the windows of the presbytery the priest could be seen watching him leave.
At the very least Maigret wanted to go and put on a collar. Just as he arrived outside the inn, Jean Métayer was coming out of the grocer’s shop. He had merely put a coat on over his pyjamas. He looked triumphantly at the inspector.
‘Phone call?’
And the young man replied sharply, ‘My lawyer will be here at ten to nine.’
He was sure of himself. He sent back some boiled eggs which hadn’t been cooked for long enough and tapped out a march on the table with his fingertips.
From the skylight of his room, where he had gone to get dressed, Maigret could see the courtyard of the chateau, the racing car and Maurice de Saint-Fiacre, who looked as if he didn’t know what to do. Was he preparing to walk towards the village?
The inspector got a move on. A few minutes later he himself was on his way to the chateau. They met about a hundred metres from the church.
‘Where were you going?’ Maigret asked.
‘Nowhere! I don’t know …’
‘Maybe to pray at the church?’
And those words were enough to turn his companion pale, as if they had a terrible, mysterious significance.
Maurice de Saint-Fiacre was not built for stress. Superficially, he was a tall, strong young man, athletic and perfectly healthy.
But looking closer you saw that he was soft. His muscles, beneath a layer of fat, seemed to have hardly any energy. He had probably spent a sleepless night, and he looked thoroughly deflated.
‘I assume you’ve had the announcements printed?’
‘No.’
‘But … the family … the local aristocrats …’
The young man lost his temper.
‘They wouldn’t come! You know that very well! Once they would have done! When my father was still alive … During the hunting season, there would be up to thirty guests at the chateau at once, for weeks …’
Nobody knew that better than Maigret, who, during the hunting season had, without his parents’ knowledge, loved to wear the white shirt of a beater!
‘Since …’
And Maurice waved a hand to suggest: ‘Insolvency … junk …’
The whole of Berry must have been talking about the mad old woman who was frittering away the last years of her life with so-called secretaries! And farms being sold one after the other! And sons behaving like idiots in Paris!
‘Do you think the funeral might happen tomorrow? … You understand? … It would be better to get this business over and done with as soon as possible …’
A dung cart passed slowly along, and its wide wheels seemed to crush the pebbles in the road. Day had broken, a day greyer than the previous one, but not as windy. In the distance Maigret saw Gautier, who was crossing the courtyard and about to head in his direction.
And it was then that a strange thing happened.
‘Will you excuse me? …’ the inspector said to his companion, setting off in the direction of the chateau.
He had barely walked a hundred metres when he turned round. Maurice de Saint-Fiacre was on the steps of the presbytery. He must have rung the doorbell. And yet, when he saw he had been spotted, he walked away quickly without waiting for a reply.
He didn’t know where to go. His whole bearing proved that he was terribly ill at ease. The inspector caught up with the estate manager, whom he had seen coming towards him and who was waiting for him with an arrogant look.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’d like a simple piece of information. Have you found the forty thousand francs the count needs?’
‘No! And I defy anyone to find it around here! Everyone knows what his signature is worth.’
‘And so? …’
‘He will manage as best he can! It has nothing to do with me!’
Saint-Fiacre turned on his heels. It looked as if he had a desperate urge to do something and that, for one reason or another, he couldn’t. Making up his mind, he strode towards the chateau and stopped near the two men.
‘Gautier! Come to the library so that I can issue you with instructions!’
He began to set off, then said, evidently with some considerable effort:
‘See you shortly, inspector.’
Passing in front of the presbytery, Maigret had the distinct sensation of being watched through the curtains. But he wasn’t sure because, since it was day, the lights were turned out.
A taxi was parked outside Marie Tatin’s inn. In the dining room, a man of about fifty, dressed to the nines, pinstriped trousers and a black silk-lined jacket, was sitting at Jean Métayer’s table.
When he saw the inspector come i
n, he rose eagerly to his feet, extending a hand.
‘I am told that you are a member of the Police Judiciaire … Allow me to introduce myself … Tallier, barrister-at-law, from the court at Bourges … Will you join us? …’
Jean Métayer had got to his feet, but his attitude demonstrated that he didn’t approve of his lawyer’s conviviality.
‘Innkeeper! … We’d like to order, please …’
And, in a conciliatory voice:
‘What would you like? Given how cold it is, I’d suggest hot rum for everybody? … Three hot rums, my girl …’
The girl in question was poor Marie Tatin, who wasn’t used to such manners.
‘I hope, detective chief inspector, that you will forgive my client. If I understand correctly, he has treated you with a degree of suspicion … But don’t forget that he is a boy from a good family, who is of good character, and who is outraged by the suspicions directed towards him … His bad mood yesterday, if I may say so, is the best proof of his absolute innocence …’
With a man such as this, there was no need to say a word. He answered his own questions, while performing suave hand gestures.
‘Of course, I’m still not au fait with all the details … If I understand correctly, the Countess of Saint-Fiacre died yesterday, during first mass, of a heart attack … On the other hand, a piece of paper has been found in her missal which suggests that her death was caused by a violent shock … Did the son of the victim – who happened to be nearby – register a complaint? … No! … And such a complaint would, in my opinion, be rejected … The criminal act – if we may speak of a criminal act – is not in fact sufficiently clear for legal proceedings to be instigated …
‘We are agreed, are we not? … No complaint! And hence no legal action.
‘Which is not to say that I don’t understand the inquiry that you are pursuing on a personal, unofficial basis …
‘My client will not tolerate being hounded in this way. He must be cleared of all suspicion …
‘Listen to me carefully … What, in the end, was his situation at the chateau? … That of an adopted child … The countess, left on her own, separated from a son who had left her with nothing but problems, was comforted by the devotion and uprightness of her secretary …
‘My client is no idler … He did not, as he might easily have done, lead a carefree life at the chateau … He worked … He looked for investments … He even looked into the latest inventions …
‘Would he have derived any benefit from the death of his benefactress? … Need I say anything more? … No! Am I not correct? …
‘And that, inspector, is what I want to help you establish …
‘I should add that I will be putting some necessary measures in place in tandem with the notary … Jean Métayer is a trusting young man … Never in his life would he have imagined such events taking place …
‘His belongings are at the chateau, along with the belongings of the late countess …
‘And yet, as of now, other people have turned up there, with the clear intention of getting their hands on …’
‘A few pairs of pyjamas and some old slippers!’ groaned Maigret as he got up from his chair.
‘Excuse me?’
Throughout the whole of the conversation, Jean Métayer had been writing things down in a little notebook. And it was he who calmed down his lawyer, who had in turn leaped to his feet.
‘Leave it! I knew straight away that the inspector would be against me! And I have since learned that he belonged indirectly to the chateau, where he was born in the days when his father was the estate manager of the Saint-Fiacres. I warned you … You were the one who wanted …’
The clock struck ten. Maigret calculated that Marie Vassiliev’s train would have arrived at the Gare de Lyon half an hour earlier.
‘You will excuse me!’ he said. ‘I will see you again in due course.’
‘But …’
He in turn stepped into the grocery opposite, whose bell rang. He waited a quarter of an hour for a call to be connected to Paris.
‘Is it true that you’re the son of the old estate manager?’
Maigret was exhausted, more than he would have been after ten normal investigations. He ached, both emotionally and physically.
‘Paris speaking …’
‘Hello! … The Comptoir d’Escompte? … This is the Police Judiciaire … A piece of information please … Has a cheque signed Saint-Fiacre been presented this morning? … You say it was presented at nine o’clock? … So, insufficient funds … Hello! … Please don’t hang up, madam … You asked the bearer to present it a second time? … Excellent! … Ah! That’s what I wanted to know … A young woman, is that right? … A quarter of an hour ago? … And she paid in the forty thousand francs? … Thank you … Of course you can pay! … No! No! Nothing in particular … Given that the deposit has been made …’
And Maigret left the cabin with a weary sigh.
Maurice de Saint-Fiacre, during the night, had found the forty thousand francs and sent his mistress to Paris to deposit them at the bank!
Just as the inspector was leaving the grocer’s shop, he saw the priest leaving his house, clutching his breviary and heading towards the chateau.
Then he speeded up and almost ran to get to the door at the same time as the priest.
He missed him by less than a minute. By the time he reached the main courtyard the door was closing behind the priest. And when he rang the doorbell there were footsteps at the end of the corridor, near the library.
6. The Two Camps
‘Let me go and see if the count can …’
But the inspector didn’t give the butler time to finish his sentence. He stepped into the corridor and headed for the library. The butler heaved a sigh of resignation. There wasn’t even a way of keeping up appearances any more! People were treating the place like a hotel! It was chaos!
Maigret paused before opening the library door, but to no end, because he didn’t hear a sound. It was, in fact, what gave his entrance an impressive quality.
He knocked, thinking that the priest might be somewhere else. But a voice immediately rang out, clearly and firmly, in the absolute silence of the room:
‘Come in!’
Maigret pushed the door, which happened to catch on an air vent. The Count of Saint-Fiacre, who stood leaning against the gothic table, was looking at him.
Beside him, the priest was staring at the carpet, frozen, as if a single movement would have given him away.
What were they doing there, the two of them, not talking, not moving? It would have been less embarrassing to interrupt an emotional scene than to plunge into that silence, so deep that his voice seemed to trace concentric circles in it like a pebble in water.
Once again Maigret sensed Saint-Fiacre’s weariness. The priest looked ill at ease, and his fingers drummed against his breviary.
‘Forgive me for disturbing you …’
It sounded ironic, but it wasn’t deliberate. Does one disturb people when they are as inert as inanimate objects?
‘I have some news from the bank …’
The count’s eyes settled on the priest, and his gaze was harsh, almost furious.
The whole scene would play out in that rhythm. They were like chess-players thinking, foreheads resting on their hands, sitting in silence for a few minutes before moving a pawn and then relapsing into stillness.
But it wasn’t concentration that held them frozen like that. Maigret was certain that it was the fear of making a false move, or some kind of clumsy manoeuvre. The situation between them was ambiguous. And each of them advanced his pawn regretfully, always ready to move it back again.
‘I’ve come for the funeral instructions!’ the priest felt the need to say.
It wasn’t true! A bad move. So bad that the Count of Saint-Fiacre smiled.
‘I knew you would call the bank!’ he said. ‘And I will confess to you why I decided to take that course of action: it w
as to get rid of Marie Vassiliev, who didn’t want to leave the chateau … I let her believe that it was of vital importance …’
And in the eyes of the priest Maigret now read anxiety and reproach.
‘Poor wretch!’ he was doubtless thinking. ‘He’s tying himself up in knots! He’s falling into the trap. He’s lost …’
Silence. The scrape of a match and puffs of tobacco smoke that the inspector exhaled one by one as he questioned the count:
‘Did Gautier find the money?’
A brief moment’s hesitation.
‘No, inspector … I’m going to tell you that …’
The drama was being played out not on Saint-Fiacre’s face, but on the priest’s. The man was pale, his lips taut. He opted not to intervene.
‘Inspector, I …’
He couldn’t help it.
‘I would like you to suspend this conversation until we have had a private discussion on the matter …’
Maurice smiled as he had done a few moments before. It was cold in the room, too vast now that the fine books of the library had been removed from it. A fire had been prepared in the hearth. All that was needed was a match to be thrown on it.
‘Do you have a lighter or …’
And as he bent over the fireplace the priest gave Maigret a desolate, pleading look.
‘Now,’ the count said as he turned back towards the two men, ‘I’m going to explain the situation in a few words. For a reason that I do not know, the parish priest, with the best of intentions, is sure that it was I who … why mince words? … who killed my mother! … Because it is a crime, isn’t it? Even if it isn’t one that falls within the scope of the law …’
The priest didn’t move, but stood quivering and still as an animal that is aware of an imminent danger, a danger for which it is no match.
‘He must have been very devoted to my mother … He probably wanted to ensure that the chateau didn’t find itself at the centre of any kind of scandal … Yesterday evening, via the sacristan, he sent me forty thousand francs and a little note …’
And the priest’s expression said, beyond any possible doubt:
‘Wretch! You are destroying yourself with your own hands!’
The Saint-Fiacre Affair Page 6