The man was silent, head bowed. Sounds of plates and cutlery could be heard. Apparently Véronique wasn’t listening.
‘How long have you known her?’
Sainval struggled to answer, still debating whether to lie or not. It was Véronique who broke the silence. She had been following the conversation after all.
‘It’s my fault, Monsieur Maigret. I know now. I’ve been a silly little fool, I should have expected this would happen …’
She had been crying in the kitchen, not much but enough for her eyes to be red. She was holding a handkerchief, and her nose was still wet.
‘I answered your question earlier, the first time you came around, without realizing. Do you remember that a month and a half, or two months, ago, I thought I recognized my sister-in-law at the club? Jacques picked me up that night, as he often does. I don’t know why I told him about her because I’d never told him anything about my family before then. I can’t remember exactly how it came up. I think I said:
‘ “My brother would get a surprise if he knew the sort of places his wife goes to!”
‘Something like that … Jacques asked me what my brother did, and it was my idea of a joke to say:
‘ “Makes wafers.”
‘We were in such a good mood, walking along arm in arm in the night.
‘ “Is he a pastry chef?”
‘ “Not exactly. Haven’t you heard of Lachaume wafers?”
‘That didn’t ring any bells, so I added:
‘ “His wife is worth at least two hundred million, maybe more.”
‘Do you understand now?’
Maigret understood but he needed details.
‘Did he ask you about your sister-in-law?’
‘Not straight away. That came later, the odd question here and there, as if it was of no importance …’
‘Had you both started thinking about marriage?’
‘A few weeks before, pretty seriously.’
‘Was it still up for discussion?’
‘I thought we’d decided.’
Sainval muttered, with what he intended to be an air of conviction:
‘I didn’t change my mind.’
‘So why did you set about getting to know my sister-in-law?’
‘Out of curiosity … No particular reason … For a start, she’s married … So …’
‘So what?’
‘There was nothing in it for me …’
‘Do you mind?’ interrupted Maigret. ‘I’d like to ask a few more specific questions. Tell me, Monsieur Sainval, when and where did you meet Paulette Lachaume?’
‘Do you want the exact date?’
‘It’s not essential.’
‘It was a Thursday, about four weeks ago, in a tea room on Rue Royale.’
‘You go to tea rooms now, do you?’ Véronique burst out laughing.
She wasn’t under any illusions any more. She wasn’t hoping against hope. She knew it was over and didn’t resent her lover; she just blamed herself.
‘I don’t think you found yourself there by accident,’ insisted Maigret. ‘You followed her. Probably from her home. How long had you been watching her?’
‘That was the second day.’
‘In other words, with a view to making her acquaintance, you were keeping watch that afternoon in your car on Quai de la Gare.’
He didn’t deny it.
‘Paulette came out, probably in her blue Pontiac, and you followed her.’
‘She left the car on Place Vendôme and did some shopping in Rue Saint-Honoré.’
‘Did you talk to her in the tea room?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she seem surprised?’
‘Very.’
‘You inferred from this that she wasn’t used to male attention?’
It all fitted together.
‘When did you take her to your place?’
‘It wasn’t my place,’ he protested.
‘A furnished room?’
‘No. A friend lent me his apartment.’
Véronique cut in again sarcastically:
‘Do you see, Monsieur Maigret? Rue de Ponthieu was more than good enough for me. But for a woman with several hundred million somewhere more prestigious was required. Where was it, Jacques?’
‘An Englishman’s apartment, you don’t know him, on Ile Saint-Louis.’
‘Did she often meet you there?’
‘Fairly often.’
‘Every day?’
‘Only at the end.’
‘In the afternoon?’
‘In the evenings too sometimes.’
‘Yesterday, for instance?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened yesterday evening?’
‘Nothing in particular.’
‘What did you talk about?’
Véronique, again:
‘You think they did a lot of talking?’
‘Answer, Sainval.’
‘Have you questioned her?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Are you going to?’
‘Tomorrow morning, in the examining magistrate’s office.’
‘I didn’t kill her brother-in-law. Besides, I had no reason to.’
He was silent for a moment, looking even more preoccupied, then added in a low voice:
‘Nor did she.’
‘Did you ever see Léonard Lachaume?’
‘I saw him leave the house once while I was waiting in the street.’
‘Did he see you too?’
‘No.’
‘Where did you have dinner yesterday with Paulette?’
‘In a restaurant in Palais-Royal. You can check. We had a table on the mezzanine.’
‘I know it!’ cut in Véronique. ‘It’s called Chez Marcel. He’s taken me there too. We had a table on the mezzanine, probably the same one, in the left-hand corner. Is that right, Jacques?’
He didn’t answer.
‘When you left Quai de la Gare, did you notice another car following you?’
‘No. It was raining. I didn’t even look in the rear-view mirror.’
‘Did you go to the apartment on Ile Saint-Louis after dinner?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then did you drive Paulette home?’
‘No. She insisted on taking a taxi.’
‘Why?’
‘Because a red car is more noticeable on the empty street at night.’
‘Was she very afraid of being seen with you?’
Sainval didn’t seem to know what Maigret was driving at, or, more exactly, was wondering what the catch was to his questions.
‘I suppose so. It’s pretty understandable.’
‘But I thought relations between her and her husband were cool, if anything, weren’t they?’
‘They hadn’t been intimate for years and they slept in separate bedrooms. Armand is ill.’
‘You’d already started calling him Armand, had you?’
‘I had to call him something.’
‘In a word, then, although you’d never set foot in the Lachaumes’ house, you considered yourself part of the family in a way, did you?’
Véronique interrupted again, going to the heart of the matter this time.
‘Listen you two, there’s no point playing cat and mouse. You both know what’s been going on. So do I, unfortunately, and I’m just a silly little fool.
‘Although he hangs around at Fouquet’s, Maxim’s and other high-toned places, Jacques has always lived from hand to mouth and doesn’t have anything to his name except his car, if he’s actually paid that off.
‘I’d noticed the unpaid tabs he had at bars and restaurants. When he met me, he thought that a girl my age who’s always worked must have some money set aside, and I made the mistake of bringing him here and telling him that I’d just bought my apartment.
‘It’s true. This is my home. I’m even getting a little house built by the Marne soon.
‘Well, he thought this was all wonderful, and althoug
h I didn’t ask him for anything, he started talking about marriage.
‘The only trouble was that I had the dumb idea of telling him about my sister-in-law and her millions …’
‘I’ve never taken money from a woman,’ Sainval said tonelessly.
‘That’s just what I mean. There was no point squeezing her for small amounts every now and then. Whereas by marrying her …’
‘She’s married …’
‘What’s divorce for? Admit that you talked about it, you two.’
He hesitated, not knowing which way to turn. Maigret had told him he was going to question Paulette the following day, hadn’t he?
‘I didn’t take her seriously. I’d tested the water, just out of curiosity …’
‘So, she was planning to get divorced. And she was careful not to be caught so she wouldn’t be the guilty party. Do you get the picture, Monsieur Maigret? … I don’t hold it against you that all this has come out. It’s not your fault. You were looking for something else. Sometimes when you’re hunting big game, you start a rabbit …
‘Jacquot, will you be a sweetheart and take your dressing gown and slippers and send me my things back … It’ll be time for me to go to work soon and I have to get dressed … Those ladies are waiting for me!’
She laughed, a brittle laugh that shook her large bosom.
‘That’ll teach me … But you’d be wrong to suspect Jacques of killing Léonard, detective chief inspector. For a start, I don’t see why he’d have done it. And then, between you and me, he only acts the tough guy … He would have chickened out before he climbed the wall … I’m sorry that I haven’t offered you anything to drink …’
Tears suddenly gushed from her eyes, catching her by surprise. It didn’t even occur to her to turn her head away. In a husky voice she said:
‘Off you go, you two … It’s high time I got dressed …’
She pushed them towards the corridor, the coat stand. On the landing Sainval turned around:
‘My dressing gown and slippers …?’
Rather than go and fetch them, she said:
‘I’ll put them in the post, go on … Don’t worry! No one else is going to be using them …’
The door closed behind them. Maigret would have sworn that he heard a sob, just one, then hurrying footsteps.
Sainval and he waited for the lift in silence. As he stepped in, the publicist muttered:
‘Do you realize what you’ve done?’
‘Do you?’ retorted Maigret, finally lighting his pipe.
That idiotic magistrate, who said he wanted to be involved in every stage of the investigation! Why? For the fun of it, maybe?
7
He dreamed about the investigation, like a child worrying about the exam he’s sitting the following day. And although Angelot may not have appeared at any stage, although he never saw his face, he was no less present in the background. It was a series of dreams, rather than just one, punctuated by spells of semi-consciousness, even lucidity, during which Maigret’s mind kept working.
It had got off to a fairly self-important start. Addressing the invisible examining magistrate, Maigret declared:
‘Right, I’ll show you my method …’
In his mind this was a sort of rehearsal. He said ‘method’ ironically, of course, because he had been repeating for thirty years that he didn’t have one. Still, he didn’t object to telling this insolently youthful magistrate what he thought.
Maigret was at Quai de la Gare, all alone in the rundown house that had become so insubstantial he could walk through its walls. But the décor was accurate in every last detail, including some details Maigret had forgotten while he was awake.
‘Here it is … For years this was where they spent their evenings …’
It was the living room, and Maigret was stoking the little cast-iron stove, which had a redder crack in it, like a scar. He arranged the protagonists about the room: the old parents like wooden cut-outs, Léonard, whom he tried to imagine alive and who gave a thin, bitter smile, Paulette, constantly jumping up, restlessly leafing through a magazines, saying she was going to bed before anyone else, and finally Armand, whom he imagined looking tired, taking some medicine or other.
‘You understand, this is crucial …’
He didn’t know what was crucial.
‘Evening after evening in here, for years … Jean-Paul has already gone to bed … Everyone except Paulette is thinking the same thing. Léonard and his brother exchange glances from time to time. Léonard has to do the talking, because he’s the eldest, and Armand isn’t brave enough …’
In the dream doing the talking meant asking Zuber’s daughter for money.
Lachaumes was on the verge of collapse. Lachaumes, the oldest biscuit factory in Paris, an important institution, a cultural heirloom like those paintings that go to museums, a monument that had taken generations to create.
Meanwhile someone was sitting on a pile of money, of dirty money – so dirty that Monsieur Zuber was only too happy to marry his daughter off to a Lachaume so that she could become one of the great and good.
‘Do you understand?’ he asked, because an invisible Angelot was still watching him as he worked like this, without a safety net. It was hard work. Like in other dreams he had to pull himself up into thin air.
He mustn’t let the characters escape, evaporate.
The old couple say their goodnights, then Armand, so that the other two can be alone. It would be easier if she handed over a lump sum all at once, but she obstinately refuses to do that, possibly because her father, a canny old operator, had advised her not to before he died. Only small amounts to tide them over at the end of the month. So they constantly find themselves back at square one …
The Lachaumes must have lied at the beginning to convince her that it would only take a few million for business to be booming again, for the house to be a comfortable, cheerful home, the scene of constant dinner parties and get-togethers, like any self-respecting upper-middle-class household. Paulette believed it, then stopped.
So every month, another little chat with Léonard.
‘How much?’
And then each of them goes back to one of these bedrooms, one of these cells, and carries on brooding …
The corridor … the bedroom doors … the bathroom at the end, an old bathroom with brown stains on the enamel from the dripping tap …
The Lachaumes are used to it … Maybe, despite their millions, the Zubers didn’t use the bathroom in their house?
‘All this, you see, is what you’ve got to assimilate.’
Rapping out the syllables, he repeats:
‘As-sim-il-ate!’
Léonard in his office downstairs, Armand in his, opposite the book-keeper’s, the biscuits being packed in the warehouse, a ridiculous wisp of smoke rising from the tall chimney that looked like a factory chimney.
Paulette in her car …
Late afternoon the day before. The grocer in her shop. It’s a Sunday, but it was a public holiday the day before, and the local shopkeepers don’t like shutting two days in a row. Around six o’clock, the red Panhard with the shifty Sainval in a raincoat at the wheel. Léonard tailing it, in the blue Pontiac. The Palais-Royal. The restaurant …
Ideally he would have superimposed all the images, like in some photographs, and shown the Ivry police, his men Janvier and Lucas, all the inspectors questioning witnesses, a barge at Corbeil, another on the Saint-Martin canal, Paul dissecting muscles and internal organs, putting samples in test-tubes, the laboratory staff measuring, analysing, looking through microscopes, magnifying glasses …
Maigret gave an ironic smile.
‘What matters, though …’
He didn’t say what mattered out of modesty, but kept passing from room to room, stepping through the walls …
When Madame Maigret shook him, he was exhausted, as if he had spent the night on a train, and his neck was hurting again.
‘You were talking off
and on all night.’
‘What did I say?’
‘I couldn’t understand. The words were all jumbled up …’
She didn’t pursue it. He ate breakfast in silence, as if he’d forgotten that he was at home and that she was sitting across the table from him.
Jacques Sainval had seemed surprised the previous evening when he had told him he was free to go, on condition he didn’t leave Paris.
When he had got home, Maigret had telephoned Lapointe, who was on night duty all that week, and asked him to look up various things and put together a file.
It had stopped raining, but the sky was no clearer or more cheerful, and everyone on the bus was in a bad mood.
Maigret had asked to be woken earlier than usual, and the offices at Quai des Orfèvres were almost empty when he got in.
The first thing he saw, in pride of place, were the examining magistrate’s messages. He insisted that Maigret telephone him first thing, which, for someone from the public prosecutor’s office, meant nine a.m.
That left him plenty of time, and he began by studying the statistics Lapointe had put on his desk before going to bed. He didn’t take any notes, just remembered a few figures with an occasional smile of satisfaction, because he had essentially been on the right track.
Then he bent over the plan of the house at Ivry that Criminal Records had drawn up.
The diagram was accompanied by a bulky, meticulous report, as Criminal Records weren’t in the habit of omitting any detail, however small. It mentioned, for instance, an old, rusty, twisted wheel from a children’s bicycle that had been found in a corner of the yard.
Had it been part of Jean-Paul’s bicycle or, more likely, of a bicycle that Armand, or even Léonard, had once used? Or had someone in the neighbourhood got rid of it by chucking it over the wall rather than dump it in the Seine?
It was a significant detail, and there were many others like it, too many to remember.
He spent longest studying the inventory of the contents of Léonard’s bedroom.
Eight white shirts, six very worn, darned at the collar and cuffs … Six boxer shorts, mended … Ten pairs cotton socks, four pairs wool … Five striped pyjamas …
Everything was recorded, from how many handkerchiefs he had to the state of his comb, hairbrush and clothes brush, and there were sketches showing the position of each item. As in the previous night’s dream, Maigret tried to visualize the room by putting the various articles described in the inventory in their places.
Maigret 53 Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses Page 10