Cécile is Dead

by Georges Simenon

  Finally sitting down himself and choosing a pipe larger than the others from those on his desk, Maigret turned to Gérard and began.

  ‘What exactly did you drink in your aunt’s apartment? Wait … I’ll jog your memory. You had no financial resources left at all, right? You knew that your wife could give birth at any time now, and there weren’t even any baby clothes ready for the child. You were in the habit of getting money from your sister Cécile … oh, come on, you needn’t bother to lower your head. Unfortunately, Cécile could supply only very small sums taken from the housekeeping money, because your aunt didn’t part with her funds easily … usually you watched for your sister in the street, but that evening you went up the stairs, got into the apartment and hid in Cécile’s room while she was attending to Madame Boynet … is all that correct?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely correct.’

  ‘When your aunt was in the dining room eating her dinner, your sister came into the kitchen. The door between her room and the kitchen was ajar, and you told her that you needed money at any price …’

  ‘I told her I was at the end of my tether, and rather than see my wife …’

  ‘Exactly. Not only was Cécile sorry for you, you also frightened her … It was a kind of emotional blackmail …’

  ‘I’d decided to kill myself …’

  ‘After killing your wife, you idiot!’

  ‘I swear, inspector, I’d have done it. It was already three days since …’

  ‘Oh, be quiet. Your sister couldn’t talk to you at that moment, because of the risk that the old woman might overhear … Cécile looked after your aunt as usual, sat and ate with her. No doubt she asked her for money, and I suppose your aunt refused? When Madame Boynet had gone to bed, as I assume she did, it was too late for you to leave the building; the front door giving access to the street was closed. You’d have had to ask for the cord that would open it, but the concierge could have mentioned that to your aunt, the owner of the building. So Cécile took you something to eat in her room … what was it?’

  ‘Bread and cheese.’

  ‘And what did you drink?’

  ‘First a glass of wine …’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes, a cup of the tisane that Cécile drank every evening. She suffered from stomach trouble. She told me to drink it instead … I was crying, I was terribly upset, and I felt like vomiting.’

  ‘So Cécile got you to sleep in her bed …’

  ‘Yes. I talked to her about Hélène for a little while, and then – I don’t know how it happened, but I fell asleep.’

  Maigret exchanged an eloquent glance with the American.

  ‘You went to sleep because you had drunk the tisane meant for your sister. On evenings when your aunt was going to be visited by Monsieur Charles, she put a strong dose of bromide into it. And everything followed naturally on from that apparently insignificant chance event … if Cécile had drunk the tisane, as might have been expected, no doubt your aunt would still be alive, and in that case so would your sister.’

  Maigret got to his feet, went over to the window and stood there with his back to his office, as if he were talking to himself.

  ‘Cécile, sitting in an armchair so as to let you have her bed, can’t get to sleep, and for very good reasons. Old Madame Boynet waits for the time of her meeting, puts on her dressing gown and her stockings and, sure that no one will hear her, goes to wait by the door for Monsieur Charles. All it took was for you to have an upset stomach, and for the wrong person to drink that tisane, and then … then the two accomplices …’

  ‘Why do you say accomplices?’ cried the young man, who had turned pale.

  ‘Weren’t they accomplices? Come along, let me continue … I think it’s rather too warm in here now …’

  He went over to open a door into a neighbouring office.

  ‘The two accomplices, as I was saying, are in the sitting room, where a single night-light is on … Cécile, who has heard a sound, slips into the hall or the dining room, where she can overhear them without being seen. They are talking in low voices about their business, which is not of a very edifying nature. The brothel in Béziers … the brothel here in Paris in Rue d’Antin. I can imagine poor Cécile’s state of mind. It must have taken her some time to understand what kind of business they were discussing. Then Monsieur Charles hands the fifty thousand francs over to his old friend … She closes the desk but keeps the money in her hand … She takes the former lawyer to the door. She bolts it after him and goes back to her bedroom with a sigh of satisfaction. It has been a good day. Her nest egg has grown again. She opens the tapestry-covered footstool that does duty as her safe, and Cécile, with her eye to the keyhole, sees all those wads of banknotes. As for you, you’re still asleep … Think hard before you reply to this question. Were you woken by any unusual noise?’

  ‘No, it was my sister who …’

  ‘Wait. Your aunt is getting undressed … she has already taken off one stocking when Cécile, panic-stricken after your threats of suicide …’

  ‘I couldn’t have foreseen what would happen,’ groaned Gérard.

  ‘That’s what everyone says after the event … But however that may be, your sister suddenly rushes in to face the old woman, who takes fright … The sight of the banknotes, representing a positive fortune, gives her courage. She asks for money again … This time she isn’t begging. She almost threatens your aunt … Neither of the two women suspects that, one floor below them, Monsieur Charles, surprised and alarmed, can hear everything that is going on … I suppose that your aunt is calling your sister names – she believes that Cécile is indebted to her – once again she holds forth about all that she, Juliette, has done for her and the rest of your family. Perhaps she threatens to call for help?’

  ‘No … it wasn’t like that at all,’ said the young man slowly.

  ‘Then tell me about it!’

  ‘I don’t know exactly what time it was … I heard my name being spoken several times … it was very difficult for me to wake up and above all to understand. I felt dazed, as if I’d been drinking too much. Cécile was sitting on the edge of the bed …

  ‘“Gérard!” she cried. “Gérard! What’s wrong with you? You must listen to me.”

  ‘She was very calm, calmer than usual. I thought she must be feeling ill, because there were dark rings under her eyes, and her face was pale. She was speaking in a low voice, pronouncing her words distinctly.

  ‘“Gérard … I’ve just killed our aunt.”

  ‘Then she sat there without moving for a long time, staring at the floor.

  ‘I got up … I meant to rush into my aunt’s bedroom.

  ‘“No, stay here … You mustn’t …” she said.’

  ‘She was thinking of the fingerprints,’ said Maigret. He remembered the motionless figure of Cécile waiting for hours in the Aquarium.

  ‘That’s what she said … she told me how it had happened … Aunt Juliette was sitting on the edge of her bed. When she heard the noise, she had put her hand under the pillow where she kept her revolver overnight, because she was terrified of intruders …

  ‘“It’s you!” she said, when she recognized Cécile. “Is this your idea of sleeping? You’ve been spying on me, admit it!”

  ‘“Listen, aunt! I asked you just now for a little money for Gérard, or rather for his wife who’s about to have a baby …”

  ‘“Go back to bed …” said our aunt.

  ‘“You’re rich … I know that now! You must listen to me … Gérard will kill himself unless …”

  ‘“Oh, so your good-for-nothing brother is here, is he?”

  ‘My aunt tried to sit upright without letting go of the revolver … Cécile was so frightened that she took a couple of steps forward, seized one of my aunt’s arms and said …

  ‘“You must give me some money …”

  ‘My aunt fell back … she struggled, tried to catch hold of the revolver again, and it was then that my sister squ
eezed her neck …’

  ‘In cold blood,’ said Maigret. His voice was unexpectedly resonant.

  Yes, he had been wrong to imagine a stormy scene. Cécile had not lost control of herself. She was the worm who had finally turned. She had been resigned to her fate for years and years, without even realizing it, because humility came so naturally to her. In the end it hadn’t taken much – the sight of that mound of banknotes, the certainty that her aunt had been deceiving and exploiting her all along …

  ‘Go on, young man.’

  ‘We stayed like that for a long time, saying nothing … Cécile left me for a moment to go and make quite sure that Aunt Juliette was really dead …

  ‘Later, when she opened her mouth, it was to say, “We must tell the police.”’

  There was silence in Maigret’s office too, invaded as it was by dusk in the grey atmosphere. The green lampshade cast strange reflections that seemed to be engraved on the faces of those present. Maigret’s pipe crackled slightly.

  He could imagine the brother and sister, crushed by their stupor in the silent apartment, at the top of the large building beside the main road. Below them, in his own room, Monsieur Charles, panic-stricken, listening to the faintest murmur …

  ‘“If I leave now …”’

  And Maigret thought of Cécile looking at her brother. The police would never believe that Gérard had nothing to do with the crime. They sat there in pain, huddling together as if tired after a long race.

  Should she go and ask for the cord to open the front door? The concierge wouldn’t fail to look through her peephole to see who was being let out of the building at such an hour. All the clocks in the apartment struck, one by one. Every time, the brother and sister shivered.

  ‘“Listen, Gérard … Tomorrow I’ll go to see Detective Chief Inspector Maigret. I’ll tell him all about it … You must take advantage of the moment when the concierge goes out to the dustbins to get away from here and go home …”’

  It was a strange kind of vigil! They were as cut off from the rest of the world as those emigrants that can be seen sitting on the ground, surrounded by their bundles, in the waiting rooms of railway stations or on the decks of ships.

  ‘Which of you,’ asked Maigret, relighting his pipe, ‘thought of opening the desk and looking at the papers inside it?’

  ‘It was Cécile … much later. She had just made us two cups of coffee, because I was still feeling numb … We were in the kitchen, and suddenly she murmured: “So long as that man doesn’t come back.” And she added, “But all the same I told the inspector that someone was coming into this apartment by night. He wouldn’t believe me, but now …”’

  Maigret looked at the rectangle of the window and clenched his teeth on the stem of his pipe.

  ‘And she said: “God knows whether, when we’re separated …”’

  So Cécile had calmly suggested taking the papers out of the desk. She didn’t for a moment think of running away with the money, or taking some of it for her brother, who needed money so much.

  ‘Did you read those documents?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘Yes.’

  At that moment Maigret went over to the door that he had opened slightly a little earlier.

  ‘You might be more comfortable in here, Monsieur Dandurand … From this point on, I think my questions will be mainly addressed to you.’

  For Monsieur Charles was installed in the next room, with an inspector guarding him. He made a remarkable entrance. His collar and tie had been removed, and even his shoelaces. It was two days since he had shaved. His wrists were handcuffed together in front of him.

  ‘You can stand, can’t you?’ Maigret asked him. ‘Not too tired?’

  Gérard had jumped to his feet, suspecting a trap. ‘What the …?’

  ‘Calm down, Pardon … and carry on with your story. I wanted Monsieur Dandurand to hear it. Right, so you were sitting beside the desk, you and your sister, examining those papers. A number of them were business paperwork: receipts, leases, statements of accounts …’

  ‘There were letters as well.’ As Gérard said that, he looked at the former lawyer as if, in spite of the handcuffs, he feared a blow.

  ‘Love letters, am I right?’ asked Maigret.

  At this, Dandurand raised his voice.

  ‘Just a moment! May I ask if this is some kind of confrontation?’

  ‘Exactly as you say, Monsieur Dandurand.’

  ‘In that case I want, I insist on having my lawyer present, as I am legally entitled to request.’

  ‘His name, please?’

  ‘Maître Planchard.’

  ‘Torrence! Torrence!’ Maigret called. ‘Will you telephone Maître Planchard, please? Or rather, wait … at this time of day he’s probably in court in the Palais …’

  ‘He’s making a plea in Courtroom 11,’ said Monsieur Charles.

  ‘Go off to Courtroom 11, then, and bring him back to me … or if the case he’s involved in isn’t over, get him to ask for an adjournment. Give my name.’

  For nearly thirty minutes silence reigned in Maigret’s office; the slightest movement broke the absolute calm like a pebble thrown into a pond.

  ‘Sit down, Maître Planchard. I won’t conceal it from you that I’m probably going to ask the examining magistrate to have your client arraigned on a charge of premeditated murder … We’re listening, Pardon. You were speaking of love letters just now. If I’m not mistaken, those letters must date from about fifteen years ago.’

  ‘I don’t know. They weren’t dated.’

  A triumphant smile from Maître Planchard, who was already acting as if he were in court. Here Maigret turned to Spencer Oats. ‘You’ll remember our visit to that unattractive town hall in Bourg-la-Reine?’

  And then, looking at Gérard again, ‘What did the letters say? One moment … we must first establish an important point. Am I correct in thinking that in view of the gravity of their contents, your sister decided to bring them to me at the same time as handing herself in as a prisoner? And she put them in her bag, along with all the business papers that the two of you found in the desk?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct.’

  ‘In that case,’ said the lawyer, addressing himself to Maigret, ‘I must ask you to produce those documents.’

  ‘Wait a moment, please, Maître Planchard.’ And Maigret saw a smile hovering round Monsieur Charles’ lips. ‘I wouldn’t rejoice too soon, Dandurand. I’m well aware that you returned to your apartment in possession of that correspondence, which was so compromising that you destroyed it. But don’t forget that you took advantage of a phone call that removed me from your vicinity in order to go into Madame Boynet’s bedroom … Very well, young Gérard, we’re listening. Tell us first how those letters began …’

  ‘With the words “My darling”.’

  All of a sudden Maigret seemed to be amused. ‘I’ll interrupt you again, just for long enough to tell my American colleague, who may be getting an unfortunate idea of amorous relationships in France, that at the time when those letters were written, Madame Boynet was fifteen years younger … she may not have been in the first flush of youth, but nor was she the scarecrow with a walking-stick of recent years … How many letters were there, Gérard?’

  ‘About thirty. Most of them were just notes … “Tomorrow, you know where” … “Kisses, your …”’

  ‘They were signed?’

  ‘With the letter C.’

  Monsieur Charles, who had not been invited to sit down, never took his eyes off the young man. His face was ashen, but he was still far from losing his self-assurance.

  ‘A letter of the alphabet proves nothing,’ objected Maître Planchard. ‘If those notes are to appear as evidence, I shall have to call on an expert graphologist.’

  ‘They won’t be appearing as evidence – not those notes, anyway. We’re listening, Gérard. I expect some of the notes were longer?’

  ‘Yes, four or five real letters.’

  ‘
Tell us what you remember about them.’

  ‘I do remember that one of them said: “Be brave, you will soon be delivered, and we shall be left in peace at last.”’

  Here Maître Planchard laughed heartily. ‘Delivered? The lady was pregnant, then?’

  ‘No, sir. The lady was torn between a husband and a lover. That letter was written by the lover.’

  ‘So the husband was ill?’

  ‘That’s what you will have to establish. Go on, young man.’

  Thrown off balance by all the eyes turned on him, Gérard stammered, ‘I do remember another passage. “You see that he hasn’t noticed anything, so be patient. It will be better for us not to meet during the next few days … As for the actual dosage, we must count on a minimum of two weeks. Going any faster would be dangerous …”’

  ‘I don’t follow this,’ said Maître Planchard, coughing.

  ‘I’m sorry about that on your account, sir.’

  ‘And don’t forget that I shall be waiting for the documents concerned to be produced. Allow me to say that I think it very imprudent of you to bank on …’

  Here Maigret said smoothly and quietly, ‘If you insist, I shall call for the exhumation of the late Joseph Boynet, and an examination of what is left of him after fifteen years … You are probably aware, Maître Planchard, that most poisons, in particular those that can be administered in small doses, like arsenic, can be traced long after …’

  But here Torrence interrupted him, placing on his desk the list of those who had come to see the Police Judiciaire on the morning of the day when Cécile was murdered.

  12.

  ‘You must be tired of standing, Dandurand … Get him a chair, Torrence. I saw Monsieur Charles looking a little unsteady on his feet a few moments ago.’

  ‘You are wrong, inspector. I am still waiting to hear the smallest shred of evidence that …’

  ‘Oh, come on, show a little patience! Your lawyer, Maître Planchard, never knew old Juliette, so it may be useful to give him a brief description of her … may I, Maître Planchard?’

  The lawyer made a vague gesture and lit a cigarette.