Through the frame of a door he observed the aquarium-like room, in which there were only three people, two of whom must have been there for the Vice Squad: one was a little pimp who stank of Place Pigalle and the other a voluptuous prostitute who had the ease of a regular customer.
They both cast glances at another woman who was waiting, and whose simple but faultless elegance seemed out of place there.
Maigret took his time before reaching the glazed door, which he opened.
‘Madame Marton?’
He had noticed the crocodile-skin bag that matched her shoes, the austere suit under a beaver-fur coat.
She got to her feet with exactly the degree of confusion that one might expect of someone who has never had dealings with the police and who suddenly finds herself in front of one of its most important representatives.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret?’
The two others, who clearly knew each other, exchanged glances. Maigret brought the lady into his office and showed her to the armchair where her husband had sat that morning.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you like this …’
She took off her right glove, which was made of soft suede, and crossed her legs.
‘I imagine you can guess why I’m here?’
She was the one who went on the attack, and Maigret didn’t like that, so he refrained from replying.
‘I’m sure you too will talk to me about professional confidentiality …’
He was particularly struck by the ‘you too’. Did it mean that she had gone to see Doctor Steiner?
It wasn’t only her manners that surprised him.
Her husband was certainly not a bad person, and he seemed to earn an honest living. Madame Marton was of a different class. There was nothing fake, nothing vulgar about her elegance, or indeed her confidence.
Even in the waiting room he had noticed the perfect cut of her shoes and her luxurious handbag. Her gloves were of a similar quality, as was the rest of her outfit. Nothing aggressive, nothing studied. Nothing overly obvious. Everything she wore came from excellent fashion houses.
She too seemed to be in her forties, but the forties peculiar to those Parisian women who look after themselves, and both her voice and her attitudes suggested someone at ease everywhere and in all circumstances.
Was there, in fact, a flaw? He thought he was aware of one, a tiny discordant note, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. It was an impression more than something he had observed.
‘I think, inspector, that we will gain some time if I talk to you frankly. Besides, it would be presumptuous to try and get around a man like you.’
He remained impassive, and either his impassivity didn’t trouble her or she had amazing self-control.
‘I know my husband came to see you this morning.’
At last Maigret opened his mouth, hoping to disconcert her.
‘He told you that?’ he asked.
‘No. I saw him entering this building and realized that you were the one he was coming to see. He takes an avid interest in all your cases. For years he’s been talking about you with great enthusiasm at every opportunity.’
‘You mean to say you’ve been following your husband?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted simply.
There was a short and slightly embarrassed silence.
‘Does that surprise you, having seen and heard him?’
‘Do you know what he said to me?’
‘I can guess quite easily. We’ve been married for twelve years, and I know Xavier. He is the most honest, the most courageous, the most winning man in the world. You probably know that he didn’t know his parents and was brought up in care?’
He nodded vaguely.
‘He was brought up on a farm, in the Sologne, where if he ever managed to get hold of any books they tore them from his hands and burned them. In spite of that he managed to get where he is today and, in my view, he is a long way from having the position he deserves. I’m constantly surprised by the breadth of his knowledge. He has read everything. He knows about everything. And of course, he is exploited. He breaks his back at work. Six months before the holidays he is already preparing for the Christmas season, and it’s exhausting for him.’
She had opened her handbag and hesitated to take out a silver cigarette case.
‘You may smoke,’ he said.
‘Thank you. I have this bad habit. I smoke much too much. I hope my presence won’t stop you from lighting your pipe?’
He could make out fine crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, but rather than ageing her, they added to her charm. Her greyish blue eyes had the sparkling sweetness of someone slightly short-sighted.
‘We must seem ridiculous to you, the two of us, my husband and I, coming to see you one by one as if going to confession. And there is something of that in it. I’ve been worried about my husband for some time. He is overworked, anxious and has periods of absolute exhaustion during which he doesn’t address a word to me.’
Maigret wished that Pardon could have been there, because he might have been able to draw some conclusions.
‘As long ago as October … yes, in early October … I told him he was suffering from nervous exhaustion and that he should consult a doctor …’
‘Were you the one who talked to him about nervous exhaustion?’
‘Yes. Shouldn’t I have?’
‘Go on.’
‘I kept a very close eye on him. He began by complaining about one of his heads of department whom he has never liked. But for the first time he talked about a kind of conspiracy. Then he took against a young salesman …’
‘For what reason?’
‘It sounds ridiculous, but I understand Xavier’s reactions a little. I’m not exaggerating if I say that he is the best train-set specialist in the whole of France. I hope that doesn’t make you smile? You don’t, for example, mock someone who spends his life designing bras or slimming girdles.’
For some reason he asked:
‘Do you deal with bras or girdles?’
She laughed.
‘I sell them. But this isn’t about me. So the new salesman started observing my husband, learning his little tricks, designing circuits … In short, he gave him the impression that he was trying to take his place … I only really started worrying when I saw that Xavier’s fears also extended to me …’
‘What did he suspect you of?’
‘I suppose he told you. It started one evening when, looking at me very intently, he murmured, “You would make a lovely widow, wouldn’t you?”
‘He would often bring that word up in conversation. For example: “All women are made to be widows. Besides, the statistics show …”
‘You see the theme. He went on to tell me that without him I would have a wonderful life, that he was the only obstacle to my social rise …’
She didn’t flinch, in spite of the blank stare that Maigret was deliberately giving her.
‘You know the rest. He convinced himself that I had decided to get rid of him. At the dinner table he would sometimes swap my glass for his, without hiding it, in fact staring at me with a mocking look. Before he ate, he would wait for me to swallow the first mouthful. Sometimes, when I came home after him, I would find him searching every corner of the kitchen.
‘I don’t know what Doctor Steiner could have said to him …’
‘Did you go with him to see the doctor?’
‘No. Xavier announced to me that he was going to see him. That was another act of defiance on his part. He said to me, “I know you’re trying to persuade me that I’m going mad. Oh! You’re doing it cleverly, drop by drop, in some way. Let’s see what a specialist says.” ’
‘Did he tell you the result of the consultation?’
‘He never said anything to me, but since then, and it’s be
en about a month now, he’s been looking at me with defensive irony. I don’t know if you understand what I mean by that. Like a man who has a secret and delights in it. He watches after me. I always have the sense that he’s thinking, “Go on, my girl! Do whatever you like. You’ll never attain your goal, because I’m on to you …” ’
Maigret drew on his pipe and asked:
‘And you followed him this morning. Are you in the habit of following him?’
‘Not every day, no, because I’ve got a job as well. Usually we leave together, at eight thirty, along Avenue de Châtillon, and we take the same bus to Rue des Pyramides. Then I go to the shop on Rue Saint-Honoré, while he continues down Rue de Rivoli to the Magasins du Louvre. And yet, for some time – I’ve told you, I think – your name has come up quite often in the conversation. Two days ago he said to me, in a voice that was both sardonic and menacing: “Whatever you do, however clever you are, someone will know.” ’
She added:
‘I understood that you were the one he was alluding to. Even yesterday I followed him to the Magasins du Louvre and stayed there for a certain amount of time keeping watch on the staff entrance, to check that he didn’t come out again. This morning I did the same thing …’
‘And you followed him all the way here?’
She said yes, quite frankly, and leaned forward to stub out her cigarette in the glass ashtray.
‘I’ve tried to give you an idea of the situation. Now I’m ready to answer your questions.’
Only her hands, clutching her crocodile-skin handbag, betrayed a certain nervousness.
3. The Younger Sister from America
In the morning, when he had seemed apathetic and distracted with the train-set salesman, it had been an involuntary apathy which had more to do with drowsiness, a kind of somnolence. Contact had not been established, in short; or more precisely, it had been established too late.
Now, with Madame Marton, he had rediscovered his professional apathy, the one that he had adopted in the past when he was still shy, to disconcert his interlocutors, and which had become an almost unconscious reflex.
She didn’t seem impressed and went on looking at him as a child might at a big bear which it doesn’t exactly fear, but still keeps checking out of the corner of its eye.
Wasn’t she the one who had guided the conversation, finishing with a phrase that Maigret had rarely heard uttered in this office:
‘Now, I’m waiting for your questions …’
He made her wait for a certain amount of time, allowing silence to settle, deliberately, drawing on his pipe, and at last saying with the air of someone who doesn’t really know what he is getting at:
‘Why exactly did you come to tell me all this?’
And that threw her, in fact. She began:
‘But …’
She fluttered her eyelashes, as short-sighted people do, found nothing else to say and smiled faintly to indicate that the answer was obvious.
He went on, like a man who doesn’t attach any importance to the matter, a functionary who is just getting on with his job:
‘Are you asking for your husband to be committed?’
This time her face turned instantly purple, her eyes glittered, and her lip trembled with rage.
‘I don’t think I’ve said anything that would lead you …’
The blow had struck home, and she began rising to her feet to bring the conversation to an end.
‘Sit down, please. Calm down. I don’t see why this very natural question should upset you so much. In short, what did you come to tell me? Don’t forget that this is the Police Judiciaire, where we deal with crimes and misdemeanours, either to arrest those responsible or, more rarely, to prevent them from happening. First of all, you told me that for some months your husband has seemed to be afflicted with nervous exhaustion …’
‘I said …’
‘You said: nervous exhaustion. And his behaviour worried you so much that you sent him to a neurologist …’
‘I advised him …’
‘Let’s say that you advised him to consult a neurologist. Did you expect that he would recommend that your husband be committed?’
With her features more pinched and her voice changed, she replied:
‘I expected him to treat my husband.’
‘Fine. And I assume he did?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You called Doctor Steiner, or you went to see him, and he withdrew behind patient confidentiality.’
She was looking at him steadily, her nerves tense, as if to guess what his next attack might be.
‘Since his visit to the doctor, has your husband been taking medication?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Has his attitude changed?’
‘He still seems just as depressed as before.’
‘Depressed, but not agitated?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t see what you’re trying to get at.’
‘What are you afraid of?’
This time it was she who took her time, wondering where the question was leading.
‘Are you asking me if I am afraid of my husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m afraid for him. I’m not afraid of him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, whatever happens, I’m capable of defending myself.’
‘Then let me return to my initial question. Why did you come and see me this afternoon?’
‘Because he came to see you this morning.’
The two of them weren’t following the same logic. Or perhaps she didn’t want to follow the same logic as Maigret.
‘You knew what he was going to say to me?’
‘If I had known, I …’
She bit her lip. Was she about to say: ‘I shouldn’t have bothered’?
Maigret didn’t have time to think about it, because the phone rang on his desk. He picked it up.
‘Hello, chief! Janvier here … I’m in the office next door. They told me who you had there, and I preferred not to show my face … I’d like to talk to you for a moment …’
‘I’m coming …’
He got to his feet and apologized.
‘Will you excuse me? They need me on another matter. I won’t be long.’
In the inspectors’ office he said to Lucas:
‘Go into the corridor, and if she tries to leave as her husband did, hold her back.’
He closed the connecting door again. Torrence had sent for a glass of beer and, mechanically, Maigret drank it with satisfaction.
‘Any news?’
‘I went over there. You know Avenue de Châtillon. You would almost think you were in the provinces, even though you’re not far from Avenue d’Orléans. Number 17, where they live, is a new building, six floors, yellow brick. Most of the tenants are office workers and salespeople.
‘You must be able to hear everything from one apartment to the next, and there are children on all the floors.
‘The Martons don’t live in the building as such. It stands on the site of a town-house which has since been demolished. The courtyard was left, with a tree in the middle and, at the end, a two-storey house.
‘An external staircase leads to the first floor, where there are only two bedrooms and a study.
‘Eighteen years ago, when Xavier Marton, still a bachelor, first rented this accommodation, the ground floor, with its completely glazed façade, was a carpenter’s workshop.
‘Then the carpenter left. Marton rented the ground floor and turned it into a pleasant room, half workshop, half living room.
‘The overall effect is unexpected, pretty and amusing. It isn’t a flat like any other. At first I suggested a life insurance policy to the concierge. She listened to my patter without interrupting me, then told me that she d
idn’t need one because eventually she would have her pension. I asked her about any tenants who might be open to the idea of becoming clients. She told me a number of names.
‘ “They all pay National Insurance,” she added. “You won’t have much luck …”
‘ “Don’t you have a Monsieur Marton?”
‘ “At the end of the courtyard, yes … Maybe them …? They earn a good living … Last year they bought a car … Try them …”
‘ “Will I find anyone there?”
‘ “I think so.”
‘You see, chief, it wasn’t all that difficult. I rang at the workshop door. A young woman opened it.
‘ “Madame Marton?” I asked.
‘ “No, my sister won’t be back until about seven.” ’
Maigret had frowned.
‘What’s the sister like?’
‘The sort of woman who turns men’s heads in the street. As for me …’
‘Were you impressed?’
‘Hard to describe. I’d say she’s thirty-five at most. It’s not so much that she’s pretty, or dazzling. Neither was I struck by her elegance, because she was wearing a little black linen dress and her hair was untidy – like a woman who’s doing her housework. Except …’
‘Except?’
‘It’s just that there’s something very feminine, very touching about her. She seems very gentle, slightly frightened by life, and that’s the kind of woman that a man wants to protect. Do you see what I mean? Her body is also very feminine, very …’
He blushed at Maigret’s amused smile.
‘Did you stay with her for a long time?’
‘About ten minutes. I talked about insurance at first. She told me that her brother-in-law and her sister had both signed up for a major insurance policy about a year ago …’
‘Did she tell you the exact sum?’
‘No. I just know that it’s with the Mutuelle. She added that she herself didn’t need insurance, because she already had a pension. Along one of the walls there is a table, with a complicated electric train, near a workbench. I told her I had just bought a train set for my son. That allowed me to stay for longer. She asked me if I had bought the train set from the Magasins du Louvre, and I said I had.
Maigret's Doubts (Inspector Maigret) Page 4