Cécile is Dead

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Those gentlemen say there’s a will, Maigret,’ the commissioner had said, ‘and when I tell them that the apartment has been searched, they won’t listen.’

  They bore Maigret a grudge, they bore Monfils a grudge, they bore Juliette a grudge. In short, all gathered together for the funeral considered that they had been robbed, first and foremost Gérard Pardon, who didn’t talk to anyone and seemed more nervous than ever.

  Poverty had prevented him from wearing full mourning, and he had no overcoat on, only an old khaki raincoat with a black armband on one sleeve.

  His sister Berthe stood beside him, worrying because he was so agitated. She was a plump girl, pretty and stylish, and she had not thought it necessary to exchange her cherry-red hat for one of a darker colour.

  Monsieur Dandurand was also present, among four or five expensively clad gentlemen whose fingers were laden with rings and who had arrived in a flashy car with a twelve-cylinder engine. The Siveschi family were there too, except for the mother, who wasn’t up and dressed yet. Madame Piéchaud the grocer had left Madame Benoit in charge of her shop for a moment, giving her time to go upstairs and sprinkle the coffins with holy water.

  The funeral director, who was nervous because there was to be another burial at eleven o’clock, was not standing with any of these distinct groups, but was trying in vain to find out who officially represented the family. He was particularly anxious about the photographers. ‘Not yet, please, gentlemen. At least wait until everyone is here!’

  It would be terrible if the papers were to print a picture of such a disorganized funeral procession!

  Someone pointed out Maigret, who didn’t seem to notice. As the biers with the two coffins were being brought downstairs, he touched the shoulder of Gérard Pardon, who jumped.

  ‘Give me a moment, will you?’ he whispered, drawing the young man aside.

  ‘What do you want this time?’

  ‘Your wife must have told you that I visited her yesterday when you were out.’

  ‘Are you telling me that you searched our lodgings?’ He laughed; it was a nervous, painful little snigger. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

  When the inspector said, ‘Yes,’ Gérard looked at him in alarm.

  ‘You see, at a moment when your wife’s back was turned, my attention was attracted by a pot plant. I’m a bit of a gardener in my spare time, and something about that plant pot didn’t look quite natural to me. Sure enough, this is what I found in the soil, which had been freshly turned over.’

  And he showed the young man a small key held in the hollow of his hand – a key that would open the front door of Juliette Boynet’s apartment.

  ‘Strange, isn’t it?’ he went on. ‘Such a coincidence … Back in my office a little later, I found a locksmith waiting for me, a locksmith who lives and works only a hundred metres from here. He wanted to tell me that he had made a similar key hardly two weeks ago.’

  ‘So what does that prove?’

  Gérard was trembling, looking desperately round as if in search of aid, and his glance fell on his sister’s coffin as the black-clad men were hoisting it into the hearse.

  ‘Are you going to arrest me?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Well, if you questioned the locksmith you must know who gave me that key.’

  Cécile had given it to him; the locksmith’s statement left no doubt about that.

  ‘On Monday 25 September,’ he had said, ‘a young woman of about thirty came to my workshop with a Yale key to the front door of an apartment, asking me to make her a copy of it. I asked her to leave me the key as a model, but she said she needed it because it was the only key to that lock she had, so I took an imprint. She came back for the second key next day and paid me twelve francs seventy-five. It was only when I read in the newspapers about Cécile Pardon, who had just been murdered, and particularly when I remembered her slight squint, that I …’

  The funeral procession was setting off; the master of ceremonies hurried over to Gérard, gesticulating, and Maigret said in an undertone, ‘We can talk about this later.’

  Gérard and his sister Berthe were placed right behind the hearses, but they had not gone ten metres before the Monfils family, competing with them for precedence, moved up to walk beside the brother and sister.

  The Boynets and Machepieds, who were not going to any trouble to pretend they felt deep grief, followed more discreetly, discussing the inheritance, and after them came Monsieur Dandurand, with the gentlemen who wore such large rings, one of whom brought up the rear of the procession, driving their car.

  From the first the pace was much too fast, because of the horse with a mind of its own. On the other hand, when everyone had to turn left for the church, thus crossing the main road, there was a terrible shambles, and the traffic was held up for several minutes, including three trams one after another.

  Gérard’s wife had not come, heavily pregnant as she was. Her baby would be due in a week’s time at the most. Maigret had spent an hour with her the day before, in the couple’s lodgings: a two-roomed apartment in Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule, above a butcher’s shop.

  She must be barely twenty-three years old, and the resignation of a poverty-stricken housewife could already be seen on her face, which had lost the bloom of youth. You could tell that she was struggling to make those two rooms habitable, with insufficient financial means. A number of items must already have gone on their way to the pawnbroker’s, and Maigret noticed that the gas had been turned off.

  ‘Gérard has never had any luck,’ she sighed, without resentment. ‘Yet he’s such a nice man, and much more intelligent than many others who have good jobs. Perhaps he’s too intelligent?’

  Her name was Hélène. Her father worked in the indirect taxation office, and she dared not tell him the household’s real situation but let him think Gérard was working and the two of them were happy.

  ‘You found him a little embittered, I expect, but put yourself in his place. Everything has gone against him for so long. He chases round all day, answering the small ads … Oh, I hope at least you don’t suspect him, inspector. He could never do anything the least little bit dishonest … Maybe it’s because he’s over-scrupulous that he’s getting nowhere. You know, in his last job, when he was working for a firm selling vacuum cleaners, there was a theft, and Gérard suspected one of his colleagues, but he didn’t say anything. And when his boss started asking him questions, as if he were accusing him, Gérard left rather than give his colleague away … Oh yes, you can look round our lodgings. You won’t find anything interesting, only bills.’

  And there was the pot plant standing on the window-sill! Maigret had noticed that while the soil looked freshly turned, the geranium in the pot had died some time ago. So he took advantage of the moment when Hélène wasn’t looking …

  Now, with his hands in his pockets, he was walking along the pavement, to one side of the procession, which allowed him to smoke his pipe. Bringing up the rear, he saw the two Siveschi girls, Nouchi and Potsi, who were acting as if they were at a party and wanted to see everything there was to be seen. Madame With-All-Due-Respect had handed over her lodge to a woman neighbour for an hour (she was unaware that Maigret had stationed a police officer opposite the building). She was going to the church but not to the cemetery because of her stiff neck; she was afraid of draughts.

  Suddenly the column stopped, a halt that was not part of the programme. The mourners craned their necks and stood on tiptoe to see what was going on.

  Juliette Boynet and Cécile were out of luck. Another funeral procession, this one late while theirs was early, was coming out of a road intersecting their own and making for the church. The horses pawed the road with their hooves. Some of the men left the procession for a moment to go into a little café for a quick drink and were seen wiping their mouths as they came out again.

  Organ music was heard. Behind them, cars were driving along the Route Nationale 20. Inside the church,
the priest was giving the last congregation his blessing at high speed, and the double doors opened for the next funeral service.

  ‘Et ne nos inducas in tentationem …’

  The master of ceremonies, in his cocked hat, was walking up and down his procession, herding them like a sheepdog.

  ‘Sed libera nos a malo …’

  ‘Amen!’

  The new party of mourners went into the church before the last party had finished going out. There was room for only one of the coffins, Juliette Boynet’s, under the catafalque. Cécile’s was placed on the paving stones behind it, and the priest went on chanting.

  ‘Libera nos Domine …’

  Shoes shuffled on the floor, chairs were pushed back. Fresh air flooded in through the open door, beyond which the sunny street could be seen. Gérard, in the front row, kept turning his head. Was it Maigret he was looking for? Charles Dandurand’s companions were acting very correctly, putting 100-franc notes in the collection. Berthe, in her cherry-red hat, was keeping an eye on her brother as if she were afraid he would do something stupid.

  ‘Pater noster …’

  Everyone jumped, because a news agency photographer had had no compunction about using a magnesium flash.

  Maigret, buttoned up in his big overcoat with its velvet collar, his shoulder against a stone pillar, was moving his lips as if in prayer. Perhaps he was indeed praying for poor Cécile, who had waited so long for him in the Aquarium at the police headquarters on Quai des Orfèvres?

  For the last three days he had been inclined to snap at anyone who ventured to speak to him as he walked along the corridor of the Police Judiciaire building, a bulky, almost threatening figure, mulling over angry thoughts as he chewed the stem of his pipe.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ the commissioner had asked him the day before.

  His only reply had been a glance so heavy with meaning that it signified more than any verbal response.

  ‘Don’t worry, old friend,’ said his boss. ‘Once you begin to unravel the case …’

  The stained glass windows showing the four evangelists were set aflame by the sunlight, and Maigret, for no real reason, fixed his gaze on St Luke in particular, whom the artist had shown with a brown, square-cut beard.

  ‘Et ne nos inducas in tentationem …’

  Was another party of mourners waiting outside, making the priest rattle off his absolution so fast? The horse that wasn’t used to funeral ceremonies kept whinnying, and the sound echoed under the vaulted roof like a cheerful call to life.

  Why, without telling her aunt, had Cécile ordered a second key to the door of the apartment two weeks earlier? And had she given that key to her brother? Because if so …

  He could still see her, sitting motionless in the waiting room, her handbag on her lap, capable of staying there for hours in the same position.

  Maigret remembered saying, ‘Either she followed someone she knew, someone she trusted, or she was made to think that she was being taken to see me …’

  Her brother?

  Troubled, the inspector looked away from Gérard, who was staring at him, and whom Berthe was trying to calm down with her hand on his arm.

  ‘This way, gentlemen. Hurry up, please.’

  There was a great commotion at the cemetery too. The mourners had soon crossed the part of it full of family vaults and stone tombs. They reached the new plots, clay rectangles with wooden crosses above them. The hearses could get no further here. The two coffins were carried on biers, and had to go in Indian file along the narrow paths.

  ‘When may I see you, inspector?’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘At the Hôtel du Centre, on Boulevard Montparnasse.’

  It was Monfils, who had caught hold of Maigret in passing.

  ‘I’m sure I can be there later today.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather I came to your office?’

  ‘I don’t know when I’ll be there.’

  And Maigret went over to Berthe, who had been briefly separated from her brother by the crowd.

  ‘I don’t think you should leave him alone,’ he told her. ‘He’s in a very agitated state of mind. Try to get him to go home with you, and I’ll see him there.’

  She lowered her lashes to show her consent. She was pretty, and her plump little figure dispelled any ideas of tragic drama.

  ‘Tell me, inspector …’

  Maigret turned, to see one of the men who had accompanied Dandurand.

  ‘Could we have a few words with you? There’s a quiet bistro at the way out of the cemetery.’

  A deacon, followed by a choirboy who looked as if he were galloping as fast as his little legs would carry him and impeded by the black cassock, from which heavy, hobnailed shoes emerged, leaned over the grave, moved his lips, turned the pages of his missal and threw the first spadeful of earth into the pit that had been dug. Gérard and the Monfils cousin were both putting out a hand, ready to throw in the next. Heads came between them and Maigret, preventing him from seeing who won the day.

  Suddenly the gathering broke up. Nouchi, in passing, stared boldly at the inspector. She looked on the point of asking for his autograph, as if he were a film star.

  When Maigret opened the door of the bistro that stood next to the depot where the tombstones were stored, Monsieur Dandurand’s friends, already sitting round a table, all rose together.

  ‘Forgive me for troubling you … what will you drink, inspector? Waiter! The same for the inspector, please.’

  Charles Dandurand was there, clean-shaven and grey, as grey as the tombstones.

  ‘Sit down, inspector. We would have gone to your office, but perhaps this is a better place.’

  The whole group of big bosses who met in the evenings at Albert’s bar was there, as calm as if they were round the green baize table of a board meeting.

  ‘To your good health! It’s hardly worth the trouble of giving you a sales talk, is it? Inspector Cassieux knows us, and he knows we’re on the level.’

  The car with the twelve-cylinder engine was standing at the door, with little boys admiring the chrome trim, which sparkled in the sun.

  ‘It’s about poor Juliette, of course. You’ll be aware that the law, on the pretext of morality, ignores the negotiations that take place in our line of business. We have to manage those for ourselves. Now, old Juliette had a stake in ten or so houses at least, leaving aside those in Béziers and Rue d’Antin, which belonged to her outright. Monsieur Charles will tell you that we have held a meeting here to discuss the best thing to do …’

  The others gravely nodded. Monsieur Charles’s pale, hairy hands were flat on the table.

  ‘The same again, waiter! Do you know what the interests concerned amount to, inspector? A little more than three thousand grand, that’s to say three million. Well, we don’t want to take risks. Apparently there’s no will. Monsieur Charles isn’t anxious to have any trouble. So we wanted to ask you what ought to be done. Two people have already been trying to find whatever there is to be found. First a man called Monfils; you saw him with his boys today. Then the girl’s brother, young Gérard. Both of them would like to lay hands on some cash. We’re not saying no, but we need to know who it belongs to. Well, that’s the situation. You can’t close down a profitable joint just because …’

  The speaker suddenly got to his feet and took the inspector by the sleeve. ‘Come this way for a moment, would you?’ And he led Maigret into another room.

  ‘I am what I am, of course. However, there’s one thing I can confirm, and my friends there will say so too: Monsieur Charles has always been on the level. The old lady’s certificates have disappeared, but we’re not the sort to quibble about signatures. I said three million; it may be more. With or without papers, no one’s going to touch it without your say-so.’

  ‘I’ll have to put this to my superior officers,’ remarked Maigret.

  ‘One moment … there’s something else I want to say, and this time my friends must
hear it too.’

  They returned to the other room.

  ‘Well, it’s like this, inspector. We have decided to make you an offer: we will offer twenty thousand to you for finding whatever nasty piece of work did old Juliette in. Are you happy with that? Is it enough? We’ve arranged everything, and Monsieur Charles will give you the cash.’

  The former lawyer thought that the moment had come for him to take a wallet stuffed with banknotes out of his pocket.

  ‘Not now,’ the inspector interrupted. ‘As I said, I must put this to my superiors. Waiter, my bill, please … Yes … excuse me, I insist!’

  And he paid for his drinks, while the spokesman for the group growled, ‘Just as you like, but we’d rather you didn’t!’

  Maigret left the bistro with the warmth of two aperitifs in his chest. He hadn’t gone ten steps before he stopped in his tracks.

  Gérard, looking more strung up than ever, was facing him, and his sister Berthe gave the inspector a look conveying that she had done her best to take him away with her, as he could see for himself, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  As for her brother, who had somehow got hold of drink and whose breath smelled of alcohol, he said in a truculent tone, his lips quivering, ‘Now then, inspector, I hope you’re going to give me an explanation.’

  The grave-diggers had left; other graves needed their attention, and there were still only a few spadefuls of yellowish clay on top of Cécile’s coffin.

  6.

  ‘In you go, my child!’

  It was not like Maigret, but without realizing it he felt the need to place his hand on the curve of Berthe Pardon’s shoulder. Many mature, middle-aged men habitually treated her like that, in a paternal manner, it wasn’t unusual. The inspector must have done it clumsily, for the girl turned to him in surprise, and while he was slightly embarrassed, Berthe seemed to be saying: You as well!

  Her brother had been the first to enter the apartment; the undertaker’s staff who had prepared it as a chapel of rest for the dead women had left only a little earlier, for Maigret and his companions had met them, with their equipment, at the foot of the stairs.