‘ . . . I naturally wondered if there was a connection with the case. It came back to me in the middle of the afternoon. I was busy. I nearly sent one of my men, then I said to myself that I’d drop in to see her on the off-chance on my way to dinner.’
‘Did you go?’
‘I found out that you had seen her before I did.’
Féron bowed his head, like a man loath to make an accusation.
‘Did she tell you?’
‘Not right away. At first she refused to open the door to me and I had to take drastic steps.’
‘Did you threaten her?’
‘I told her it could cost her dearly to play that game. She let me in. I noticed her black eye and asked her who had given it to her. For over half an hour she sat there as tight as a clam, watching me with contempt. That’s when I decided to take her down to the station, where it’s easier to get people to talk.’
Maigret had a weight on his shoulders, not only because of what had happened to Louise Sabati, but because of the chief inspector’s attitude. Despite his hesitations, his apparent humility, deep down Féron was very proud of what he had done.
It was clear he had blithely attacked this simple girl who had no means of defence. Even though he himself was probably from a lower-class background, he had lashed out at one of his own people.
Nearly everything he was saying now, in a voice that was growing increasingly confident, was painful to hear.
‘Given that she hasn’t worked for more than eight months now, she is officially without means, and that’s the first thing I pointed out to her. And, since she regularly entertains a man, that classes her as a prostitute. She got it. She was frightened. She resisted for a long time. I don’t know how you managed it, but eventually she told me everything she’d told you.’
‘What was that?’
‘Her relationship with Alain Vernoux, his behaviour, his fits of blind rage and beating her up.’
‘Did she spend the night in the cells?’
‘I let her go this morning. It did her good.’
‘Did she sign her statement?’
‘I wouldn’t have let her leave if she hadn’t.’
Chabot gave his friend a reproving look.
‘I knew nothing of all this,’ he muttered.
He must have told them that already. Maigret hadn’t talked to him about his visit to the barracks neighbourhood, and now the magistrate must be thinking that this omission, which put him in a tricky situation, was a betrayal.
Maigret remained outwardly calm. His gaze lighted on the puny inspector who seemed to be expecting praise.
‘I presume you have drawn conclusions from this business?’
‘In any case it shows Doctor Vernoux in a new light. Early this morning, I questioned the neighbours, who confirmed that on almost every one of his visits, there’d been violent scenes in the room, and on several occasions they’d nearly called the police.’
‘Why didn’t they?’
‘Most likely because they thought it was none of their business.’
No! If the neighbours didn’t raise the alarm, it was because they were getting their own back on the Sabati girl, who had nothing to do all day long. And, probably, the harder Alain hit her, the happier they were.
They could have been the sisters of the feeble Inspector Féron.
‘What became of her?’
‘I ordered her to go home and remain at the disposal of the investigating magistrate.’
Now Chabot cleared his throat.
‘It is undeniable that this morning’s two revelations put Alain Vernoux in a difficult situation.’
‘What did he do last night, after he left me?’
It was Féron who replied:
‘He returned home. I’m in touch with the vigilance committee. Since I couldn’t prevent this committee from being established, I prefer to be assured of its collaboration. Vernoux went straight back home.’
‘Is he in the habit of attending the ten-thirty mass?’
This time Chabot replied:
‘He doesn’t go to mass at all. He’s the only one in his family who doesn’t.’
‘Did he go out this morning?’
Féron gave a vague wave of his hand.
‘I don’t think so. At half past nine, nothing had been reported to me yet.’
The prosecutor finally spoke, sounding like a man who was beginning to weary of the whole business.
‘All this is getting us nowhere. What we need to know is whether we have sufficient evidence against Alain Vernoux to arrest him.’
He stared hard at the magistrate.
‘Over to you, Chabot. That’s your responsibility.’
Chabot was looking at Maigret, whose expression was solemn and neutral.
Then, instead of a reply, the investigating magistrate made a speech.
‘The situation is this. For one reason or another, public opinion pointed to Alain Vernoux from the first murder, that of his uncle Robert de Courçon. I still wonder what people based their accusations on. Alain Vernoux is not well liked. His family is more or less loathed. I have received some twenty anonymous letters naming the house in Rue Rabelais and accusing me of making allowances for the wealthy whose society I keep.
‘The other two murders did not allay these suspicions, on the contrary. For a long time, some people have considered Alain Vernoux to be “different from everyone else”.’
Féron broke in:
‘The Sabati girl’s statement—’
‘—is damning for him, as is that of Chalus, now that the weapon has been found. Three murders in one week is a lot. It is natural for the townspeople to be worried and to seek to protect themselves. Until now, I’ve been reluctant to act, judging the evidence insufficient. It is indeed a huge responsibility, as the prosecutor pointed out. Once under arrest, a man of Vernoux’s character, even if guilty, will remain silent.’
He caught a smile on Maigret’s lips that was not without irony or bitterness, turned red and lost his train of thought.
‘It is a matter of deciding whether it would be best to arrest him now or to wait until . . .’
Maigret couldn’t help muttering under his breath:
‘Well, no one had any qualms about arresting the Sabati girl and holding her overnight!’
Chabot heard him, opened his mouth to reply, most likely to retort that it wasn’t the same thing, but thought better of it at the last minute.
‘This morning, because of the Sunday sunshine, because of mass, we are witnessing a sort of truce. But, already at this hour, over an aperitif in the cafés, people are bound to be talking again. Those out for a stroll will deliberately walk past the Vernoux’s residence. They know we played bridge there last night and that Inspector Maigret was with me. It’s hard to get them to understand—’
‘Are you going to arrest him?’ asked the prosecutor, rising to his feet, judging that the dithering had gone on long enough.
‘I’m afraid that there might be an incident towards evening that could have serious consequences. It would take very little, a kid throwing a stone at the windows, a drunkard shouting abuse outside the house. Given the current mood—’
‘Are you going to arrest him?’
The prosecutor looked around for his hat, couldn’t find it. The Féron said to him in a servile tone:
‘You left it in your office. I’ll go and fetch it for you.’
And Chabot, turning towards Maigret, grunted:
‘What do you think?’
‘Nothing.’
‘In my shoes, what would—?’
‘I’m not in your shoes.’
‘Do you think the doctor is mad?’
‘It depends what you call mad.’
‘That he killed?’
Maigret did not reply but started looking for his hat too.
‘Wait a minute. I need to talk to you. First of all, I have to put an end to this. Too bad if I’m wrong.’
He opened the
right-hand drawer and took out a printed form, which he started to complete while Chabiron shot Maigret a glance that was even more disdainful.
Chabiron and the puny chief inspector had won. The form was a bench warrant. Chabot wavered for a second before signing and stamping it.
Then he wondered which of the two men to give it to. There had never been a case of an arrest like this in Fontenay.
‘I suppose . . .’
Finally:
‘Actually, both of you go. As discreetly as possible, to avoid any protests. You’d better take a car.’
‘I have mine,’ said Chabiron.
It was an unpleasant moment. Fleetingly, it seemed as if each of them was a little ashamed. Perhaps not so much because they doubted the doctor’s guilt, of which they were almost certain, but because they knew, deep in their hearts, that they were acting chiefly out of fear of public opinion.
‘Keep me posted,’ said the prosecutor, who was the first to leave, adding: ‘If I’m not at home, call me at my parents-in-law’s’.
He was going to spend the rest of the Sunday with his family. Then Féron and Chabiron left, the carefully folded warrant in the short inspector’s wallet.
Chabiron retraced his steps after glancing out of the corridor window to ask:
‘What about the press?’
‘Don’t say anything to them now. Head for the centre of town first. Tell them that I’ll have an announcement to make in half an hour and they’ll stay put.’
‘Shall we bring him here?’
‘Take him straight to the prison. If the crowd tries to lynch him, it will be easier to protect him there.’
All that took time. They were finally alone. Chabot was not proud of himself.
‘What do you think?’ he finally asked. ‘Do you think I’m making a mistake?’
‘I am afraid,’ admitted Maigret who was smoking his pipe gloomily.
‘Of what?’
He did not reply.
‘In all conscience, I couldn’t do otherwise.’
‘I know. That’s not what I’m thinking about.’
‘What are you thinking about?’
He did not want to admit that it was the attitude of the little inspector towards Louise Sabati that he found hard to stomach.
Chabot looked at his watch.
‘In half an hour it will be over. We’ll be able to go and question him.’
Maigret still said nothing, appearing to pursue who-knows-what mysterious thoughts.
‘Why didn’t you talk to me about it last night?’
‘About the Sabati girl?’
‘Yes.’
‘To avoid what has happened.’
‘It happened regardless.’
‘Yes. I hadn’t foreseen that Féron would take an interest in her.’
‘Do you have the letter?’
‘What letter?’
‘The anonymous letter I received about her and which I gave you. Now I have to put it in the file.’
Maigret rummaged in his pockets and found it, crumpled, still damp from the previous day’s rain, and dropped it on to the desk.
‘Would you have a look and see if the journalists followed them?’
He went and peered out of the window. The reporters and photographers were still there, with an air of expectancy.
‘Have you got the right time?’
‘Five past twelve.’
They hadn’t heard the bells chime midday. With all the doors closed, it was as if they were in a cellar where no ray of sunshine penetrated.
‘I wonder how he’ll react. I also wonder what his father—’
The telephone rang. Chabot was so startled that he sat there for a moment without picking it up, and mumbled eventually, gazing at Maigret:
‘Hello . . .’
His forehead furrowed, his eyebrows knitted:
‘Are you certain?’
Maigret heard shouting at the other end of the line, but was unable to make out what was being said. It was Chabiron who was speaking.
‘Have you searched the house? Where are you now? Good. Stay there. I . . .’
Frazzled, Chabot wiped his hand over his head.
‘I’ll call you back in a moment.’
When he hung up, Maigret merely said one word.
‘Gone?’
‘Were you expecting it?’
And, since he did not reply:
‘He went home last night after leaving you, that we know. He spent the night in his room. Early this morning, he had a cup of coffee brought up.’
‘And the papers.’
‘There aren’t any papers on Sunday.’
‘Who did he talk to?’
‘I don’t know yet. Féron and Chabiron are still at the house questioning the servants. A little after ten o’clock, the entire family except Alain went to mass in the car, driven by the manservant.’
‘I saw them.’
‘On their return, no one was worried about the doctor. It is a household where, apart from Saturday evenings, everyone leads their own separate life. When my two men arrived, a maid went upstairs to inform Alain. He wasn’t in his apartment. They called him all over the house. Do you think he ran away?’
‘What does the man on guard duty outside say?’
‘Féron questioned him. The doctor reportedly went out shortly after the rest of the family and walked into town.’
‘Didn’t anyone follow him? I thought—’
‘I had given instructions for him to be followed. I don’t know, maybe the police thought it was unnecessary on a Sunday morning. If we don’t lay our hands on him, people will say I deliberately gave him time to get away.’
‘They definitely will.’
‘There are no trains before five o’clock this afternoon. Alain doesn’t have a car.’
‘So he can’t be far away.’
‘Do you think?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he were found at his mistress’s. Normally he only slips out to see her in the evening, under cover of the dark. But he hasn’t been for three days.’
Maigret did not add that Alain knew he paid her a visit.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked the investigating magistrate.
‘Nothing. I’m afraid, that’s all. You’d do better to send them over there.’
Chabot telephoned. After which the two of them sat facing one another, in silence, in the chambers where spring had not yet arrived, the glow from the green lampshade making them look sickly.
7. Louise’s Treasure
While they were waiting, Maigret suddenly had the disconcerting impression that he was looking at his friend under a magnifying glass. Chabot seemed even older, more subdued than when he had arrived two days earlier. There was just enough life in him, enough energy, enough personality to live the life he led, but when he was unexpectedly required to put in an extra effort, as was the case now, he went to pieces, ashamed of his inertia.
But Maigret was convinced it was not a question of age. He must always have been like that. It was Maigret who had been wrong, in the past, in the days when they were students and he had envied his friend. Then, he had seen Chabot as the embodiment of the happy adolescent. In Fontenay, a mother who fussed over him welcomed him in a comfortable house where things seemed solid and permanent. He knew he would inherit two or three farms in addition to this house, and he was given enough money every month to lend some to his friends.
Thirty years had passed and Chabot had become what he was destined to become. And today, he was the one turning to Maigret for help.
The minutes went by. The magistrate pretended to flick through a file, but his eyes were not following the typewritten lines. The telephone remained obstinately silent.
He drew his watch out of his pocket.
‘It doesn’t take five minutes to drive there. Or to drive back. They should . . .’
It was 12.15. The two police officers needed a few minutes to go and look around the house.
‘If h
e doesn’t confess, and if in two or three days I haven’t found incontrovertible evidence, I’ll have no option but to put in for early retirement.’
He had acted out of fear of the majority of the townsfolk. But now he was frightened of the reactions of the Vernoux family and their ilk.
‘Twenty past twelve. What on earth are they doing?’
At 12.25, he got up, too anxious to sit still.
‘Don’t you have a car?’ Maigret asked.
He looked embarrassed.
‘I used to have one that I drove on Sundays to take my mother for a spin in the country.’
It was funny hearing someone who lived in a town where cows grazed 500 metres from the main square talking about the country.
‘Now that my mother only goes out to attend Sunday mass, what would I do with a car?’
Perhaps he had become tight-fisted? It was likely. Not necessarily through any fault of his. When a person has a small fortune, as he did, they are inevitably afraid of losing it.
Since his arrival in Fontenay, Maigret had had the impression that he understood things he had never thought about before, and he built up a picture of a small town that was different from how he had previously imagined it.
‘There’s bound to be some news.’
The two police officers had been gone more than twenty minutes. It wouldn’t take long to search Louise Sabati’s two-roomed lodging. Alain Vernoux was not the sort of man to escape through the window and it was hard to envisage a manhunt in the streets of the barracks neighbourhood.
There was a moment of hope when they heard a car engine approaching and the magistrate remained stock-still in expectation, but the car continued up the hill without stopping.
‘I don’t understand.’
He pulled on his long fingers covered in blond hairs, darting brief glances at Maigret as if begging for reassurance, but Maigret remained resolutely expressionless.
When, shortly after 12.30, the telephone rang at last, Chabot literally threw himself at the instrument.
‘Hello!’ he bawled.
But he was immediately disappointed. It was a woman calling, a woman who sounded unused to making phone calls. She was shouting so loudly that Maigret could hear her from the other side of the room.
Maigret is Afraid Page 10