My dear Maigret,
Miss Anna Peeters has been recommended to me by my brother-in-law, who has known her for about ten years. She is a very responsible young woman, who will tell you of her misfortunes herself. Do what you can for her …
‘Do you live in Nancy?’
‘No, in Givet!’
‘But the letter …’
‘I went to Nancy on purpose, before coming to Paris. I knew my cousin knew someone important in the police force …’
She wasn’t an ordinary supplicant. She didn’t lower her eyes. There was nothing humble about her bearing. She spoke frankly, looking straight ahead, as if to claim what was rightfully hers.
‘If you don’t agree to look at our case, my parents and I will be lost, and it will be the most hateful miscarriage of justice …’
Maigret had taken some notes to sum up her account of things. Quite a muddled family history.
The Peeters family, who owned a grocer’s shop on the Belgian border … Three children: Anna, who helped them with the business, Maria, who was a teacher, and Joseph, a law student in Nancy …
Joseph had had a child by a young local girl … The child was three years old … But the girl had suddenly disappeared, and the Peeters family were accused of killing or kidnapping her.
Maigret didn’t have to get involved in any of that. A colleague in Nancy was on the case. He had sent him a telegram, and received his categorical reply:
Peeters family v guilty. Stop. Arrest imminent.
That had made his mind up. He arrived in Givet without a mission, without an official title. And, from the station he fell under the wing of Anna, whom he never grew tired of observing.
The current was violent. The flood formed noisy cascades by each pier of the bridge, and dragged whole trees along.
The wind, which swept through the Meuse valley, blew against the direction of the river, lifting the water to unexpected heights and creating real waves.
It was three in the afternoon. The first hints of night falling.
There were gusts of wind in the almost deserted streets. The few passersby walked quickly, and Anna wasn’t the only one blowing her nose.
‘See this alleyway on the left …’
Anna paused discreetly for a moment, pointing almost imperceptibly at the second house in the sidestreet. A poor-looking, single-storey house. There was already a light on – a paraffin lamp – at one window.
‘That’s where she lives!’
‘Who?’
‘Her! Germaine Piedboeuf … The girl who …’
‘The one your brother had a child with?’
‘If the child is his! It hasn’t even been proved. Look!’
In a doorway a couple could be seen: a hatless girl, probably a little factory worker, and the back of a man who was hugging her.
‘Is that her?’
‘No, because she’s disappeared … But she’s the same kind of girl … You understand? She made my brother believe …’
‘Doesn’t the child look like him?’
She replied crisply:
‘He looks like his mother. Come on! These people are always watching from behind their curtains …’
‘Does she have a family?’
‘Her father, who is a night watchman at the factory, and her brother Gérard …’
The little house, and particularly the window lit by the paraffin lamp, were now etched in the inspector’s memory.
‘Do you know Givet?’
‘I once passed through without stopping.’
An endless quay, very wide, with mooring posts every twenty metres for the barges. Some warehouses. A low building with a flag flying on it.
‘French customs … Our house is further away, near Belgian customs …’
The water was lapping so furiously that the barges were bumping against one another. Untethered horses were grazing the sparse grass.
‘You see that light? That’s where we live.’
A customs officer watched them passing without a word. In a group of sailors, someone started speaking Flemish.
‘What are they saying?’
She hesitated to reply, and averted her head for the first time.
‘That we’ll never know the truth!’
And she walked more quickly, against the wind, her back bent to offer less resistance to the wind.
Now they were outside the town. This was the realm of the river, of boats, of customs, of charterers. Here and there an electric light was lit, in the middle of the wind. On a barge, washing flapping on a line. Children playing in the mud.
‘Your colleague came to our house again and told us on behalf of the examining magistrate that we were to place ourselves at the disposal of the forces of law and order … It’s the fourth time everything has been searched, even the water-tank …’
They were almost there. The Flemish house was becoming more clearly visible. It was a building of a considerable size, beside the river, in the place where the boats were most concentrated. There was no other house nearby. The only building in sight, a hundred metres away, was the Belgian customs house, flanked by a traffic light.
‘If you would care to come in …’
On the glass panes of the door there were transparent stickers advertising brass-cleaning creams. A bell rang.
And from the doorway, they were wrapped in warmth, an indefinable atmosphere, quiet and syrupy and dominated by smells. But what were the smells? There was a hint of cinnamon and a darker note of ground coffee. There was also a smell of paraffin, but with a whiff of genever.
An electric lightbulb, just one. Behind the dark-brown-painted wooden counter a white-haired woman in a black blouse was talking in Flemish to a barge woman. The latter was carrying a child in her arms.
‘Please come this way, inspector …’
Maigret had had time to see shelves filled with goods. He had particularly noticed, at the end of the counter, the part that had a zinc top, some bottles tipped with tin spouts, containing eau de vie.
He didn’t have time to stop. Another glass door, with a curtain. They passed through the kitchen. An old man was sitting in a wicker armchair, right against the stove.
‘This way …’
A colder corridor. Another door. And it was an unexpected room, half drawing room, half dining room, with a piano, a violin case, a carefully waxed parquet floor, comfortable furniture and reproductions of paintings on the walls.
‘Give me your coat.’
The table was laid: a tablecloth with a wide check, silver cutlery and fine china cups.
‘You’ll have something to drink, won’t you?’
Maigret’s coat was already in the corridor, and Anna came back in a white silk blouse that made her look even less girlish.
And yet she had a full figure. So why that lack of femininity? It was impossible to imagine her in love. Even harder to imagine a man in love with her.
Everything was prepared in advance. She brought in a steaming coffee pot. She filled three cups. After disappearing again, she came back with a rice tart.
‘Sit down, inspector … My mother is on her way …’
‘Are you the pianist?’
‘Me and my sister … But she has less time than I do. She marks homework in the evening.’
‘And the violin?’
‘My brother …’
‘Isn’t he in Givet?’
‘He’ll be here shortly … I told him you were coming …’
She sliced the tart. She served her guest, without asking him whether he wanted anything. Madame Peeters came in, her hands folded over her stomach, and with a shy smile of welcome on her face, a smile full of melancholy and resignation.
‘Anna told me you’d agreed …’
She was more Flemish than her daughter and still had a slight accent. But she had very fine features, and her surprisingly white hair gave her a certain nobility. She sat down on the edge of her chair, like a woman who is used to being disturbed.
‘You must be hungry, after your journey … As for myself, I haven’t had an appetite since …’
Maigret thought of the old man who was still in the kitchen. Why didn’t he come and have some tart as well? At that very moment, Madame Peeters said to her daughter:
‘Bring your father a piece …’
And, to Maigret:
‘He hardly ever leaves his armchair now. He barely knows what’s going on.’
Everything about the atmosphere was the opposite of a drama. It was as if the worst events could happen outside, without disturbing the peace and quiet of the Flemish house, in which there was not a speck of dust, not the slightest draught, no sound but the roar of the stove.
And Maigret asked, as he ate the heavy tart:
‘What day was it exactly?’
‘January the third. A Wednesday.’
‘It’s the twentieth now …’
‘Yes, we weren’t accused immediately …’
‘That girl … What did you say her name was?’
‘Germaine Piedboeuf. She came at about eight o’clock in the evening. She came into the shop, and it was my mother who received her.’
‘What did she want?’
Madame Peeters looked as if she was wiping a tear from her eyelid.
‘The same as ever. To complain that Joseph never went to see her, never got in touch … A boy who works so hard! It’s to his credit, I assure you, that he’s continuing his studies in spite of everything …’
‘Did she stay here for long?’
‘Perhaps five minutes. I had to tell her not to shout. The sailors could have heard her. Anna came and told her it would be a good idea for her to leave …’
‘And did she leave?’
‘Anna led her outside. I went back into the kitchen and cleared the table.’
‘And you haven’t seen her again since then?’
‘Never!’
‘No one around here has met her?’
‘They all say they haven’t!’
‘Did she threaten to commit suicide?’
‘No! Women of that kind never kill themselves. More coffee? A piece of cake? Anna made it.’
A new feature to be added to the image of Anna. She was sitting calmly on her chair. She watched the inspector as if their roles had been swapped, as if she belonged to the Quai des Orfèvres, and he to the Flemish house.
‘Do you remember what you did that evening?’
It was Anna who replied, with a sad smile.
‘We have been asked about this so many times that we’ve had to remember the tiniest details. After coming home, I went up to my room to get some wool to knit with. When I came down, my sister was at the piano, in this room, and Marguerite had just arrived.’
‘Marguerite?’
‘Our cousin. The daughter of Dr Van de Weert. They live in Givet. I should tell you straight away, since you’ll find out anyway, that she’s Joseph’s fiancée.’
Madame Peeters got up with a sigh, because the bell had rung in the shop.
She could be heard speaking Flemish, in an almost playful voice, and weighing out beans or peas.
‘It was a source of great pain to my mother. It had been decided long since that Joseph and Marguerite would get married. They had got engaged at sixteen. But Joseph had to finish his studies. That was when that child came along.’
‘And in spite of that they expected to get married?’
‘No! Except that Marguerite didn’t want to marry anyone else. They still loved each other.’
‘Did Germaine Piedboeuf know that?’
‘Yes! But she was counting on getting married! So much so that my brother, to have a bit of peace, had promised he would. The wedding was to be held after his exams.’
And the bell in the shop rang. Madame Peeters tottered through the kitchen.
‘I was asking you what happened on the evening of the third.’
‘Yes. I was saying that when I came downstairs my sister and Marguerite were in this room. We played the piano until half past ten. My father had gone to bed at nine, as usual. My sister and I walked Marguerite to the bridge.’
‘And you didn’t meet anyone?’
‘No one. It was cold. We came back. The next day we didn’t suspect a thing. That afternoon people were saying that Germaine Piedboeuf had disappeared. It was only two days later that people thought of accusing us, because someone had seen her coming in here. The police chief called us in, then your colleague from Nancy. Apparently Monsieur Piedboeuf made a complaint. They searched the house, the cellar, the sheds, everything. They even dug up the garden.’
‘Wasn’t your brother in Givet on the third?’
‘No! He only comes on Saturdays, on his motorbike. Rarely on any other weekday. The whole town is against us, because we are Flemish and have some money.’
A note of pride in her voice. Or rather a superior degree of confidence.
‘You can’t imagine all the things they made up.’
Again the bell in the shop rang, then the sound of a young voice:
‘It’s me! Don’t disturb yourselves on my account …’
Hurried footsteps. A very feminine figure swept into the dining room, stopping abruptly in front of Maigret.
‘Oh! Excuse me. I didn’t know …’
‘Inspector Maigret, who’s come to help us. My cousin Marguerite.’
A little gloved hand in Maigret’s paw. And a nervous smile.
‘Anna told me you’d accepted …’
She was very elegant, more elegant than pretty. Her face was framed by blonde, slightly wavy hair.
‘I gather you were playing the piano.’
‘Yes. Music is my only love. Especially when I’m sad …’
And she smiled like one of the pretty girls on an advertising calendar. Lips in a pout, a veiled expression, her face leaning slightly forwards …
‘Maria isn’t back?’
‘No! Her train must be late.’
The fragile chair creaked when Maigret tried to cross his legs.
‘What time did you get here on the third?’
‘Half past eight. Perhaps a little earlier. We eat early. My father had friends for bridge.’
‘Was the weather the same as today?’
‘It was raining. It rained for a whole week.’
‘Was the Meuse already in spate?’
‘It was starting to be. But the barriers weren’t knocked over until the fifth or the sixth. There were still trains of barges on the water.’
‘A piece of cake, inspector? No? A cigar, then?’
Anna held out a box of Belgian cigars and murmured as if in apology:
‘It isn’t contraband. Part of the house is in Belgium and part in France.’
‘So your brother, at least, is completely ruled out because he was in Nancy.’
Anna said stubbornly:
‘Not even that! Because of a drunk who claims to have seen him riding his bike along the quay. He said that a fortnight later. As if he could remember! It was Gérard, Germaine Piedboeuf’s brother, who found him. There’s not much to do around here. So he spends his time looking for witnesses. Just think, they want to bring a civil case and claim 300,000 francs.’
‘Where’s the child?’
Madame Peeters could be heard hurrying into the shop, where the bell had rung. Anna put the cake on the side table and set the coffee pot down on the stove.
‘Their house!’
And the voice of a sailor ordering some genever burst from behind the partition wall.
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The Saint-Fiacre Affair Page 13