‘I would rather not go back there with you.’
‘Do you want to leave first?’
‘Yes. Are you sure you won’t say anything to Marcel?’
Maigret nodded. The boy hesitated, touched his cap politely, began walking towards the meadows and soon broke into a run.
At the seashore at last, the inspector forgot to look at it and watched the figure moving away on the road.
He set out in turn, stopped to fill his pipe, blew his nose, grumbled unintelligibly, and anyone seeing him walk slowly on his way would doubtless have wondered why he was shaking his head every now and then.
By the time he passed the cemetery, the grave-diggers had finished covering Léonie Birard’s coffin with yellowish earth, and thanks to the fresh bouquets and floral wreaths, her plot could be seen from a long way off.
7. The Doctor’s Forbearance
The women had gone home and, save for a few who lived at distant farms, they had probably already changed out of their black dresses and good shoes. As for the men, they remained, as on a country-fair day, spilling out of Louis’ inn on to the pavement and into the courtyard, where they could be seen setting their bottles on a window ledge or an old iron table that had spent the winter there.
From the pitch of the voices, the laughter, the slow clumsiness of the gestures, it was clear that they had had a lot to drink, and someone, whose face Maigret could not see, was relieving himself behind the hedge.
Thérèse, bustling about, had found a moment to hand him a glass and a carafe. Only a few steps inside, he was now surrounded by conversations and caught sight of the doctor in the kitchen, but there were too many people in the way for the inspector to get to him just then.
‘I’d never have thought we’d be planting her in the ground,’ an old man was saying, nodding his head.
There were three of them, of about the same age. All three were certainly over seventy-five and in their corner they were standing in front of the sign on the white wall posting the laws regarding public drunkenness and the sale of alcoholic beverages. Dressed in starched shirts and their black Sunday suits, they had to stand more stiffly than usual, which gave them a certain solemnity.
It was strange to discover, in their wrinkled and deeply creased faces, that when they looked at one another, their eyes took on a naive, childish expression. Each one was holding a glass. The tallest of the three, with magnificent white hair and a silky moustache, was swaying slightly and whenever he wanted to say something would place a finger on the shoulder of one of his companions.
Why did Maigret imagine them suddenly in the courtyard of the school? In their laughter and the glances they exchanged, they were still schoolboys. They had gone to classes together. Later, they had taken the same girls into the fields and attended one another’s weddings, the funerals of their parents, the weddings of their children and the baptisms of their grandchildren.
‘She might almost have been my sister, because my father always told me that he’d tumbled her mother in the haystack time and again. She was a hell of a female, it seems, and her husband was a cuckold his whole life.’
Didn’t that just sum up the village? Behind Maigret, in another group, someone was holding forth.
‘When he sold me that there cow, I told him: “Listen, Victor. I know you’re a thief. But don’t forget that we did our military service together in Montpellier, and that one evening …” ’
Louis, who hadn’t had time to change, had simply taken off his jacket. Maigret made his way along slowly, remembering that the doctor had invited him to lunch at home that day. Had Bresselles forgotten?
The doctor was holding a glass, like everyone else, but was keeping his head and trying to reason with the butcher, Marcellin, who was the drunkest man of all and apparently quite agitated. It was difficult, at that distance, to work out exactly what was happening. From what Maigret heard, Marcellin seemed to be railing against somebody, trying to push away the little doctor and get into the front room.
‘I’m telling you I’m going to tell him!’
‘Calm down, Marcellin. You’re drunk.’
‘I’ve got no right to be drunk, is it?’
‘What did I tell you the last time you came for a check-up?’
‘I don’t give a damn!’
‘If you keep this up, the next funeral will be yours.’
‘I won’t be spied on. I’m a free man.’
The wine was not doing him any favours. His face was white, with an unhealthy pink at the cheeks and eyelids. He could no longer control his movements. His voice was thickening.
‘You hear me, sawbones? I can’t stand spies. Well, what’s he doing here, if not …’
It was Maigret he was looking at, back there, and towards whom he was attempting to rush to tell him exactly what he thought. Two or three other men were watching him and laughing.
Someone held out a glass, which the doctor seized first and poured out on the floor.
‘Don’t you see he’s had enough, Firmin?’
Until then, there had been no arguments, no altercations. Basically, they all knew one another too well to fight, and each man knew exactly who was the strongest. Maigret avoided getting any closer, pretending not to notice what was going on so as not to aggravate the butcher. He kept an eye on the group, however, and witnessed a scene he found not a little surprising.
The deputy mayor, Théo, tall and flabby, with his perpetually mocking eyes, now joined the others, brandishing a glass of not wine but a Pernod so dark it must have had quite a kick.
He spoke briefly and quietly to the doctor, then handed the glass to the butcher while placing a hand on his shoulder. He talked to him, too, and Marcellin at first appeared to struggle and be about to shove him away.
Finally, he grabbed the glass, which he drained in one go, and almost immediately his gaze grew muddled, dull. He tried again to point a threatening finger at the inspector, but his arm had grown too heavy. Then, as if he had just knocked him out, Théo pushed him towards the stairs, where, after a few steps up, he had to heave him on to his shoulder.
‘You haven’t forgotten my invitation, have you?’
The doctor, who had joined Maigret, was sighing with relief and said almost the same thing as the old man in the corner.
‘They’ve planted her in the ground! Are you coming?’
They both made their way out to the pavement and walked a few paces along.
‘Within three months, it will be Marcellin’s turn. I keep telling him: “Marcellin, if you don’t stop drinking, you’ll croak!”
‘He’s reached the point where he’s stopped eating.’
‘He’s ill?’
‘They’re all ill in his family. He’s a sad case.’
‘Did Théo go up to put him to bed?’
‘We had to get rid of him somehow.’
He opened his door. The house smelled of good cooking.
‘You’ll have an aperitif?’
‘I’d rather not.’
The smell of wine had been so strong in Louis’ inn that simply breathing the air could have made a man drunk.
‘Did you attend the funeral?’
‘At a distance.’
‘I looked for you coming out of the cemetery, but didn’t see you. Is lunch ready, Armande?’
‘In five minutes.’
Only two places were set. Just like a priest’s servant, the doctor’s sister preferred not to sit at the table. She must have eaten standing in her kitchen, between two courses.
‘Sit down. What do you think of it?’
‘Of what?’
‘Nothing. Everything. She had a first-rate funeral!’
‘The teacher is still in prison,’ grumbled Maigret.
‘They had to put someone there.’
‘I’d like to ask you a question, doctor. Among all those people at the funeral, do you think there were many who believe that Gastin killed Léonie Birard?’
‘A few of them, surely. Th
ere are people who’ll believe anything.’
‘And the rest?’
The doctor did not immediately grasp Maigret’s point.
‘Let’s say that a tenth of the population is convinced that the teacher fired the gun,’ began the inspector.
‘That’s about right.’
‘The other nine-tenths have their own ideas.’
‘No doubt about that.’
‘Whom do they suspect?’
‘It depends. In my opinion, each of them suspects more or less sincerely the person they’d most like to be guilty.’
‘And no one is talking about it?’
‘They must be, among themselves.’
‘Have you heard of any suspicions along those lines?’
The ironic look the doctor gave him might almost have come from Théo.
‘They don’t tell me that sort of thing.’
‘Yet knowing or believing that the teacher is not guilty, it doesn’t bother them that he’s in prison.’
‘Certainly not. Gastin is not from the village. They feel that if the lieutenant and the examining magistrate have judged it wise to arrest him, that’s their business. That’s what they’re both paid to do.’
‘They’d let him be convicted?’
‘Without batting an eye. If it were one of theirs, then that would be a different story. Are you beginning to understand? Once a guilty culprit is required, it might as well be a stranger.’
‘Do they think the Sellier boy is sincere?’
‘Marcel is a good boy.’
‘He lied.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘I wonder why.’
‘Perhaps because he thought they were going to accuse his father. Don’t forget, his mother is the old Birard woman’s niece, and she’ll be the heir.’
‘I thought the postmistress had always claimed that her niece would not get a thing.’
The doctor looked a touch uneasy. His sister brought in the appetizers.
‘Were you at the funeral?’ Maigret asked her.
‘Armande never goes to funerals.’
They began to eat in silence. It was Maigret who first spoke again, as if talking to himself.
‘It was not Tuesday, but Monday, that Marcel Sellier saw the teacher leave the tool shed.’
‘He has admitted it?’
‘I haven’t asked him yet, but I’m almost certain of it. On Monday, before school, Gastin worked in his garden. When he crossed the courtyard sometime that morning, he noticed a hoe lying around and went to put it away. On Tuesday evening, after the discovery of the body, Marcel said nothing and was not yet thinking of accusing his teacher.
‘Later, he had an idea, or overheard something in conversation that made up his mind to it.
‘He did not lie completely. Women and children specialize in these half-lies. He did not make anything up, simply moved a real event one day later.’
‘That’s rather funny!’
‘I would bet he’s trying to persuade himself that it really was Tuesday when he saw the teacher come out of the shed. He can’t manage it, obviously, so he must have gone to confession.’
‘Why don’t you ask the priest?’
‘Because if he were to answer me, it would indirectly betray the secrets of the confessional. The priest won’t do that. I was thinking of asking the neighbours, the people in the cooperative, among others, if they had seen Marcel enter the church at a time when there was no service, but now I know that he goes there through the courtyard.’
The leg of lamb was perfection, and the beans meltingly tender. The doctor had brought out a vintage bottle. Outside, they could hear a muffled noise, the sound of conversation on the square and in the courtyard of the inn.
Did the doctor realize that Maigret was only talking to try out his ideas on an audience? He was circling around the same subject, lazily, without ever getting to the essential point.
‘In the end, I don’t think Marcel lied to deflect any suspicion from his father.’
The inspector had the feeling, at that moment, that Bresselles knew more than he wanted to say.
‘Really?’
‘I’m trying, you see, to put myself in the place of the children. Since the beginning, I’ve had the impression that it’s all about the children, and the grown-ups have become involved in it only by accident.’
Looking the doctor full in the face, he added calmly, pointedly:
‘And I believe more and more that others know this as well.’
‘Perhaps, in that case, you will succeed in making them talk?’
‘Perhaps. It’s difficult, isn’t it?’
‘Very.’
Bresselles was making fun of him, still in the same way as the deputy mayor did.
‘I had, this morning, a long conversation with the Gastin boy.’
‘Did you go to their house?’
‘No. I spotted him watching the funeral over the cemetery wall and followed him all the way to the sea.’
‘Why was he going there?’
‘He was running away from me. At the same time, he was hoping I would catch him.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘That Marcel Sellier was standing not at the left-hand window, but at the one on the right. At most, Marcel could have seen Léonie Birard fall at the moment the bullet entered her eye, but he could not possibly have seen the teacher coming out of the shed.’
‘What do you conclude?’
‘That it was to shield someone that the Sellier boy decided to lie. Not right away. He took his time. The idea probably did not occur to him immediately.’
‘Why did he pick the teacher?’
‘First, because he was the most likely person. And also, as it happened, because he had seen him the day before, almost at the same time, coming out of the shed. Finally, perhaps because of Jean-Paul.’
‘Do you think he hates him?’
‘Mind you, doctor, I’m not affirming anything. I’m feeling my way. I’ve questioned the two children. This morning I watched some old men who were once children as well, in this very place. If the inhabitants of the village are so easily hostile to strangers, isn’t it because, without their knowing it, they envy them? They spend their entire existence in Saint-André, with the occasional trip to La Rochelle or the distraction of a wedding or a funeral.’
‘I see what you’re driving at.’
‘The teacher comes from Paris. In their eyes, he’s a learned man, who busies himself with their personal doings and intrudes on them with his advice. For a child, the teacher’s son has a little of the same prestige.’
‘Marcel lied because he hates Jean-Paul?’
‘Partly because he envies him. The strangest thing is that, for his part, Jean-Paul envies Marcel and his friends. He feels alone, different from the others, kept at a distance by them.’
‘Nevertheless, someone shot at the old Birard woman, and it couldn’t have been either of those two boys.’
‘That’s right.’
A home-made apple tart arrived, and the smell of coffee wafted in from the kitchen.
‘I’m beginning to feel that Théo knows the truth.’
‘Because he was in his garden?’
‘For that and other reasons. Yesterday evening, doctor, you told me gaily that they’re all a bunch of crooks.’
‘I was joking.’
‘Half-joking, isn’t that so? They all cheat, more or less, committing what you would call nasty little tricks. You have your blunt manner. You scold them on occasion. But in reality, you would not betray them. Am I right?’
‘The priest, according to you, would refuse to answer you if you were to question him about Marcel, and I think you’re right. Me, I’m their doctor. It’s somewhat the same thing. Do you know, inspector, that our lunch is beginning to resemble an interrogation? What do you prefer with your coffee? Brandy or calvados?’
‘Calvados.’
Bresselles went to fetch the bottle from an a
ntique cabinet and filled the glasses, still pleasant and cheerful, but with a slightly more serious look in his eyes.
‘Your health.’
‘I would like to talk to you about the accident,’ began Maigret, almost timidly.
‘What accident?’
The doctor’s question was simply to give himself time to think, for accidents were not that frequent in the village.
‘The motorbike accident.’
‘Has someone told you about it?’
‘I know only that Marcellin’s son was knocked down by a motorbike. When did it happen?’
‘A little more than a month ago, on a Saturday.’
‘Near Léonie Birard’s house?’
‘Not far from it. Maybe a hundred metres away.’
‘During the evening?’
‘A bit before dinner. It was dark. The two boys …’
‘Which boys?’
‘Marcel and Joseph, Marcellin’s son.’
‘Just the two of them?’
‘Yes. They were going home. A motorbike was coming from the seashore. No one knows exactly how it happened.’
‘Who was the motorcyclist?’
‘Hervé Jusseau, a mussel-farmer of about thirty who got married last year.’
‘He’d been drinking?’
‘He doesn’t drink. He was raised by his aunts, who are quite strict and who still live with the family.’
‘Was his headlamp on?’
‘The investigation showed that it was. The children must have been playing. Joseph tried to cross the road and was knocked down.’
‘Was his leg broken?’
‘In two places.’
‘Will he limp?’
‘No. In a week or two, it’ll be like new.’
‘He still can’t walk yet?’
‘No.’
‘Does the accident bring in something for Marcellin?’
‘The insurance will pay a certain sum, because Jusseau admitted that he was probably at fault.’
‘Do you think that he was?’
Visibly uncomfortable, the doctor decided to burst out laughing.
‘I’m beginning to understand what you call, at Quai des Orfèvres, sweating a witness. I would rather ’fess up. Isn’t that how you put it?’
He refilled the glasses.
Maigret Goes to School Page 11