Martin was leaning against the wall, his face in his folded arms. But his wife was staring fixedly at the Inspector, as if she were just waiting for the moment to interrupt his story and attack in her turn.
Then Maigret showed the letter from the two lawyers. “On my last visit, Martin was so frightened that he was about to confess his theft…But you were there…He could see you through the crack of the door…You made violent signs and he held his tongue… Wasn’t that what finally opened his eyes? He questions you…Yes, you killed Couchet. You shout it in his face. You killed Couchet because of him, to cover up his mistake, because of that glove left on Couchet’s desk. And because you killed him, you won’t inherit, in spite of the will…Oh, if only Martin were a man… He must go abroad…He’ll be thought guilty…The police won’t bother you and you’ll go and join him, with Couchet’s millions… Poor old Martin…”
And Maigret almost crushed the little fellow with a tremendous pat on the shoulder. He had kept his voice low. He let his words fall without stress.
“To have done so much for the sake of that money. Couchet’s death…Roger throwing himself out of the window…and to realize at the last minute that one’s not going to get it…You insisted on preparing Martin’s luggage yourself…Neatly packed suitcases…Enough linen for several months…”
“Stop.” implored Martin.
The madwoman howled. Maigret opened the door suddenly and old Mathilde nearly fell forward.
She fled, frightened by the Inspector’s tone, and for the first time she shut her door properly, turning the key in the lock.
Maigret cast a last glance into the room. Martin was too terrified to move. His wife, sitting up in bed, thin, her shoulder-blades protruding under her nightgown, followed the detective with her eyes.
She had suddenly become so grave, so calm, that they wondered anxiously what she was planning.
Maigret remembered certain glances during the scene that had just taken place, the way her lips had twitched. And just the same moment as Martin, he realized intuitively what was happening.
They could do nothing about it. It took place outside of them, like a bad dream.
Madame Martin was very, very thin. And her features became even more anguished. What was she looking at, in places where there was nothing but the ordinary objects of her bedroom?
What was she following so attentively through the room?
Her brow grew furrowed. Her temples were throbbing. Martin cried out:
“I’m frightened.”
Nothing had changed in the flat. A lorry made its way into the courtyard and the shrill voice of the concierge could be heard.
It seemed as if Madame Martin was making a tremendous effort, all alone, to climb an inaccessible mountain. Twice she gestured vaguely with her hand as though brushing away something from her face. At last she gulped, and then smiled like someone who has reached the goal:
“You’ll all end by coming to ask me for a little money…I shall tell my lawyer not to give you any…”
Martin shook from head to foot. He understood that this was no passing delirium brought on by fever.
She had definitely gone out of her mind.
“You can’t blame her. She’s never been quite like other people, has she?” he moaned.
He was waiting for the Inspector to agree with him.
“Poor old Martin…”
Martin was weeping. He had taken hold of his wife’s hand and was rubbing his face against it. She repulsed him. She was wearing a superior, scornful smile.
“Not more than five francs at a time…I’ve suffered enough in my time from…”
“I’ll go and telephone St Anne’s Hospital…” said Maigret.
“D’you think so? Must…must she be shut up?”
Force of habit? Martin was panicking at the thought of leaving his home, that atmosphere of daily nagging and bickering, that sordid life, that woman who, for the last time, was trying to think but who lay back, discouraged and defeated, heaving a great sigh and mumbling:
“Bring me the key…”
A few minutes later Maigret was crossing the crowded streets like a stranger. He had an appalling headache, a thing that rarely happened to him, and he went into a chemist’s shop to swallow an aspirin.
He saw nothing of what was going on around him. The noises in the street were intermingled with others, with voices particularly, that went on echoing in his head.
One picture haunted him more than the rest: Madame Martin getting up, picking her husband’s clothes off the floor, and hunting for the money. And Martin watching her from his bed.
The woman’s questioning look:
“I threw them into the Seine…”
It was from that moment that something had cracked. Or rather, she had always been slightly unhinged. Even when she was living in the confectioner’s shop at Meaux.
Only then it was not noticeable. She was a girl, and almost a pretty one. Nobody worried if her lips were too thin…
And Couchet married her.
“What would become of me if anything happened to you?”
Maigret had to wait, to cross the Boulevard Beaumarchais. For no reason, he thought of Nine.
“She’ll get nothing. Not a penny…” he murmured below his breath. “The will is sure to be declared invalid. And it’s Madame Couchet, née Dormoy…”
The Colonel had probably started proceedings. That was only natural. Madame Couchet would get it all. All those millions…
Madame Couchet was a lady, and would know how to live like one…
Maigret slowly climbed the stairs and opened the door of the flat in the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir.
“Guess who’s come?”
Madame Maigret was laying four places on the white tablecloth. On the sideboard, Maigret noticed a bottle of plum brandy.
“Your sister.”
It wasn’t hard to guess, since every time she came from Alsace she brought a bottle of fruit liqueur and a smoked ham.
“She’s gone to do a few errands with André…”
Her husband: a worthy fellow who ran a brickfield.
“You’re looking tired…I hope you’re not going out any more today, are you?”
Maigret did not go out again. At nine o’clock that evening he was playing Pope Joan with his sister and brother-in-law. The dining-room was redolent of plum brandy.
And Madame Maigret kept breaking into fits of laughter because she was no card-player and made the silliest mistakes imaginable.
“You’re sure you’ve not got a nine?”
“Yes, I have…”
“Well then, why don’t you play it?”
To Maigret, it was all as soothing as a warm bath. He had lost his headache.
He had stopped thinking about Madame Martin, who was being carried in an ambulance to St Anne’s Hospital, while her husband sobbed all by himself on the empty staircase.
EOF
Maigret: The Shadow in the Courtyard (1987) Page 12