The Saint-Fiacre Affair

by Georges Simenon; Translated by Shaun Whiteside

  ‘Inspector! I should warn you that …’ the estate manager panted.

  The priest had averted his head. He was suffering, but didn’t have the strength to intervene. Everyone was exhausted, and Métayer poured himself a drink, anything at all, his throat was so dry.

  ‘Where are they going?’ the lawyer asked.

  They could be heard walking along the corridor, whose tiles rang out under their footsteps. And Gautier’s heavy breathing could be heard as well.

  ‘You knew everything!’ Maigret said to the estate manager slowly, in a very low voice. ‘You agreed, you and your son! You already had the farms, the mortgages … But Jean Métayer was still dangerous … Getting the countess out of the way … And at the same time getting rid of the gigolo who was under suspicion …’

  A cry of pain. The doctor went into the corridor to see what was happening.

  ‘Nothing!’ he said. ‘That rogue doesn’t want to go upstairs, so he’s being helped along …’

  ‘It’s revolting! … It’s a crime! … What’s he going to do? …’ cried the young man’s father, dashing to the door.

  Maigret followed him, along with the doctor. They reached the bottom of the stairs just as the two others got to the door of the room where the body was laid out.

  And Saint-Fiacre’s voice was heard:

  ‘Go in!’

  ‘I can’t … I …’

  ‘Go in!’

  A dull thud. Another punch.

  Old Gautier ran up the stairs, followed by Maigret and Bouchardon. All three of them reached the top just as the door closed again, and no one moved.

  At first not a sound came from behind the heavy oak door. Gautier held his breath and pulled a face in the darkness.

  A simple ray of light, under the door.

  ‘On your knees!’

  A pause. Hoarse breathing.

  ‘Faster! … On your knees! … And now, ask forgiveness! …’

  Another very long silence. A cry of pain. This time it was not a punch that the murderer was dealt, but a kick right in the face.

  ‘Sor … sorry …’

  ‘Is that all? … Is that all you can find to say? … Remember that she was the one who paid for your studies …’

  ‘Sorry!’

  ‘Remember that she was still alive three days ago.’

  ‘Sorry!’

  ‘Remember, you utter little scoundrel, that you used to climb into her bed …’

  ‘Sorry! … Sorry! …’

  ‘Better than that! … Come on, then! … Tell her you’re a wretched insect … Repeat …’

  ‘I am …’

  ‘On your knees, I said! … Do you need a rug?’

  ‘Ow! … I …’

  ‘Plead for forgiveness …’

  And suddenly these replies, separated by long silences, were followed by a series of loud noises. Saint-Fiacre could contain himself no longer. There were a number of thuds against the parquet floor.

  Maigret opened the door a chink. Maurice de Saint-Fiacre was holding the back of Gautier’s neck and banging his head against the floor.

  At the sight of the inspector he let go, dabbed his forehead and stood up to his full height.

  ‘It’s done! …’ he panted.

  He noticed the estate manager and frowned.

  ‘Don’t you feel the need to plead for forgiveness as well?’

  And the old man was so frightened that he fell to his knees.

  In the faint light from the two candles, all that could be seen of the dead woman was her nose, which looked larger than usual, and her joined hands, clutching a rosary.

  ‘Get out!’

  The count pushed Émile Gautier outside and closed the door. And the group went back downstairs.

  Émile Gautier was bleeding. He couldn’t find his handkerchief. The doctor passed him his own.

  For it was a horrible sight: a tormented, bloodstained face; a nose that was little more than a tumour, the upper lip split.

  And yet the ugliest, the most odious thing about it was the eyes, with their evasive gaze.

  Maurice de Saint-Fiacre, standing very straight like a master of the house who knows what he has to do, strode across the long ground-floor corridor and opened the door, receiving a gust of icy air.

  ‘Clear off! …’ he growled, turning towards the father and the son.

  But just as Émile was leaving, he instinctively grabbed him.

  Maigret was sure that he heard a sob issuing from the count’s throat. He struck out again, convulsively, and shouted:

  ‘Scoundrel! … Scoundrel! …’

  The inspector had only to touch his shoulder. Saint-Fiacre regained control of himself, literally threw the body down the steps and closed the door.

  Not so fast that they couldn’t hear the old man’s voice:

  ‘Émile … Where are you? …’

  The priest was praying, elbows on the sideboard. In a corner, Métayer and his lawyer stood motionless, their eyes fixed on the door.

  Maurice de Saint-Fiacre came in, head held high.

  ‘Gentlemen …’ he began.

  But he couldn’t speak, choked as he was by emotion. He was utterly exhausted.

  He shook the doctor’s hand, and Maigret’s, as if to indicate that it was time for them to leave. Then, turning towards Métayer and his companion, he waited.

  The two men seemed not to understand. Or else they were paralysed by terror.

  To show them the way he nodded his head and snapped his fingers.

  Nothing else!

  But in fact there was something! The lawyer looked for his hat, and Saint-Fiacre groaned:

  ‘Faster! …’

  Behind a door, Maigret heard a murmur, and he guessed that it must be the servants, trying to guess what was happening in the chateau.

  He put on his heavy overcoat. He felt the need to shake Saint-Fiacre’s hand once more.

  The door was open. Outside, the night was clear, cold and cloudless. The poplars stood out against a sky bathed in moonlight. Footsteps echoed somewhere far away, and there was light in the windows of the estate manager’s house.

  ‘No, Father, you can stay …’

  And Maurice de Saint-Fiacre’s voice continued in the echoing corridor:

  ‘Now, if you aren’t too tired, let us go and sit vigil for my mother …’

  11. The Two-Note Whistle

  ‘Please don’t think ill of me for paying you so little attention, Monsieur Maigret … But with the funeral and everything …’

  And poor Marie Tatin busied herself, getting whole cases of bottles of beer and lemonade ready.

  ‘Especially when people who have come a long way are going to want their lunch …’

  All the fields were white with frost, and the blades of grass broke under their feet. Every quarter of an hour the bells of the little church sounded the death knell.

  The hearse had arrived at dawn, and the undertakers had settled themselves at the inn, in a semi-circle around the fireplace.

  ‘I’m surprised the estate manager isn’t at home!’ Marie Tatin had said to them. ‘He must be at the chateau, with Monsieur Maurice …’

  And already the first villagers were arriving in their Sunday best.

  Maigret was finishing his breakfast when he looked out the window and saw the altar boy arriving, his mother holding him by the hand. But his mother didn’t walk him all the way to the inn. She stopped on the corner, where she thought no one could see her, and pushed her son on ahead, as if to give him the necessary propulsion to reach Marie Tatin’s inn.

  When Ernest stepped inside, he looked very confident. As confident as a child at a prize-giving ceremony, reciting a poem he has been rehearsing for three months.

  ‘Is the inspector here?’

  Just as he was asking Marie Tatin that question, he spotted Maigret and walked towards him, both hands in his pockets, one of them fiddling with something.

  ‘I came to …’

  ‘Sho
w me your whistle.’

  Ernest immediately stepped back, looked away and muttered, ‘What whistle?’

  ‘The one you’ve got in your pocket … Have you wanted a boy-scout whistle for a long time? …’

  The boy took it mechanically from his pocket and set it down on the table.

  ‘And now tell me your little story.’

  A suspicious glance, then a faint shrug. Because Ernest was already crafty. His eyes clearly said: ‘Too bad! I’ve got the whistle! I’m going to tell you what I was ordered to say …’

  And he recited:

  ‘It’s about the missal … I didn’t tell you everything the other day because you scared me … But Mum wants me to tell the truth … They came and asked me for the missal just before high mass …’

  But he was red in the face and suddenly picked the whistle up as if he was afraid of seeing it confiscated because of his lie.

  ‘And who came to find you?’

  ‘Monsieur Métayer … The secretary at the chateau …’

  ‘Come and sit next to me … Would you like some grenadine?’

  ‘Yes … With fizzy water …’

  ‘A grenadine with sparkling mineral water, please, Marie … And are you happy with your whistle? … Make it work …’

  The undertakers turned round at the sound of the whistle.

  ‘Your mother bought it for you, yesterday afternoon, isn’t that right?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘How much did they give your mother at the bank yesterday?’

  The little boy looked him in the eye. He wasn’t blushing any more, he was quite pale now. He glanced at the door to measure how far away from it he was.

  ‘Drink your grenadine … So it was Émile Gautier who saw you … He made you repeat your lesson …’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘He told you to accuse Jean Métayer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And, after a moment’s reflection:

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  Maigret forgot to reply. He was thinking. He was thinking that his role in this matter had consisted solely in supplying the last link, a tiny link that perfectly completed the circle.

  It was Jean Métayer that Gautier had wanted to incriminate. But the previous evening’s events had scuppered his plans. He had worked out that the dangerous man was not the secretary, but the Count of Saint-Fiacre.

  If everything had gone according to plan, he would have had to visit the little boy early in the morning to teach him a new lesson.

  You will say that it was the count who asked you for the missal …

  And now the boy repeated again:

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  Maigret didn’t have time to reply. The lawyer came downstairs and into the dining room, approached Maigret with his hand outstretched, with a hint of hesitation.

  ‘Did you sleep well, inspector? … Excuse me … I want to ask your advice, on behalf of my client … I have the most appalling headache …’

  He sat down, or rather slumped, on the bench.

  ‘The funeral’s fixed for ten o’clock …’

  He looked at the undertakers, then at the people passing in the road, waiting for the funeral to begin.

  ‘Between ourselves, do you believe that it’s Métayer’s duty to … Don’t get me wrong … We understand the situation, and it’s purely out of delicacy that …’

  ‘Please can I go now?’

  Maigret didn’t hear the boy. He was addressing the lawyer.

  ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet?’

  ‘Meaning that if we examine …’

  ‘A piece of advice: don’t examine anything at all!’

  ‘So in your view we’d be better off leaving without? …’

  Too late! Ernest, who had grabbed his whistle, was opening the door and making off as fast as his legs would carry him.

  ‘Legally we’re all in an excel—’

  ‘An excellent situation, yes!’

  ‘Isn’t that so? … It’s what I was just saying to …’

  ‘Did he sleep well?’

  ‘He didn’t even take his clothes off … He’s a very nervous boy, very sensitive, like lots of people of good family and …’

  But the undertakers pricked up their ears, got to their feet and paid for their drinks. Maigret got up too, unhooked his overcoat with the velvet collar and wiped his bowler hat with his sleeve.

  ‘You both have a chance to slip away during …’

  ‘During the funeral? … In that case, I’ll have to phone for a taxi.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  The priest in his surplice. Ernest and two other altar boys in their black robes. The cross carried by a priest from a neighbouring village, walking quickly because of the cold. And the liturgical chants that they delivered as they ran along the road.

  The villagers were grouped at the foot of the steps. It was impossible to see inside. At last the door opened, and the coffin appeared, carried by four men.

  Behind them, a tall silhouette. Maurice de Saint-Fiacre, standing very straight, his eyes red.

  He wasn’t wearing black. He was the only one not in mourning.

  And yet, when his eye drifted across the crowd from the top of the steps, there was a moment’s awkwardness.

  As he came out of the chateau there was no one beside him. And he followed the coffin all by himself …

  From his vantage point, Maigret noticed the estate manager’s house, which had been his, its doors and windows closed.

  The shutters of the chateau were closed as well. It was only in the kitchen that servants pressed their faces to the windows.

  A murmur of sacred chants, almost drowned by the sound of footsteps on the gravel.

  Bells pealing out.

  Two pairs of eyes met: the count’s and Maigret’s.

  Was the inspector mistaken? It seemed to him that the shadow of a smile hovered on Maurice de Saint-Fiacre’s lips. Not the smile of a sceptical Parisian, or the smile of a ruined family.

  A serene, confident smile …

  During mass, everyone could hear the blaring horn of a taxi: a little scoundrel fleeing with a lawyer whose brain was dulled by a hangover.

  1. Anna Peeters

  When Maigret got off the train at Givet station the first person he saw, right opposite his compartment, was Anna Peeters.

  It was as if she had predicted that he would stop at this precise spot on the platform! She didn’t seem either surprised or proud of the fact. She was just as he had seen her in Paris, as she must always have been, dressed in a gunmetal suit and black shoes, wearing a hat whose shape or even colour it was impossible to remember afterwards.

  Here, in the wind that swept the platform, where only a few passengers were now walking, she looked taller, a little stouter. Her nose was red, and she was holding a handkerchief rolled up in a ball.

  ‘I was sure you would come, inspector …’

  Was she sure of herself, or sure of him? She didn’t smile as she greeted him. She was already asking him questions:

  ‘Do you have any other luggage?’

  No! Maigret had only his bellows case, in coarse mellowed leather, and he carried it himself, in spite of its weight.

  The only people to leave the train were third-class passengers, who had already disappeared. The girl held out her platform ticket to the ticket collector, who looked at her insistently.

  Outside, she went on without fuss:

  ‘At first I thought of getting a room ready for you at home. Then I thought it through. In the end I imagine it’s better for you to stay at a hotel. So I’ve booked the best room at the Hôtel de la Meuse.’

  They had walked barely a hundred metres along the little streets of Givet, and already everyone was turning to look at them. Maigret walked heavily, dragging his suitcase along at his side. He tried to notice everything: the people, the houses, and particularly his companion.

  ‘What’s that noise?�
� he asked her, hearing a sound that he couldn’t identify.

  ‘The Meuse in spate, slapping against the piers of the bridge. Boat transport has been suspended for three weeks now.’

  Emerging from a sidestreet, they suddenly came upon the river. It was broad. Its banks were indistinct. In places the brown waters spread into the meadows. Elsewhere, a boathouse emerged from the water.

  It held at least a hundred barges, tugs and dredgers, pressed tightly against one another, forming a huge block.

  ‘Here’s your hotel. It isn’t very cosy. Do you want to stop and take a bath?’

  It was baffling! Maigret couldn’t define the sensation that he felt. Never, he was sure, had a woman ever aroused his curiosity as much as this one; she stayed calm and unsmiling, made no attempt to look pretty and sometimes dabbed her nose with her handkerchief.

  She must have been between twenty-five and thirty. A lot taller than the average, she was solidly built, with a bone structure that stripped her features of all grace.

  The clothes of a lower-middle-class woman, extremely sober. A calm, almost distinguished reserve.

  She treated him like a guest. She was at home. She thought of everything.

  ‘I have no reason to take a bath.’

  ‘In that case, will you come straight to the house? Give your suitcase to the porter. Porter! Take this suitcase to room 3. The gentleman will be back shortly.’

  And Maigret thought, as he looked at her from the corner of his eye: ‘I must look like an idiot!’

  For there was nothing of the little boy about him. Even though she wasn’t exactly frail, he was twice as wide as she was, and his big overcoat made him look as if he was carved from stone.

  ‘Aren’t you tired?’

  ‘Not at all!’

  ‘In that case, I can already tell you the first few bits of information on the way …’

  She had already given him the first bits of information in Paris! One fine day when he got to his office, he had found this strange woman who had been waiting for him for two or three hours, and whom the office boy had been unable to send away.

  ‘It’s personal!’ she had announced as he questioned her in front of two police inspectors.

  And once they were alone she had handed him a letter. Maigret had recognized the handwriting of one of his wife’s cousins, who lived in Nancy.