Maigret Hesitates Read online

  ‘Did you know her?’

  He was looking at Maigret, astonished to see him so upset at the sight of a corpse.

  ‘Yes, I knew her,’ he said in a hoarse voice.

  And he hurried to the office at the far end, where a red-eyed Julien Baud loomed up in front of him. His breath smelled of alcohol. There was a bottle of cognac on the table. In his corner, René Tortu was holding his forehead in both hands.

  ‘Was it you who found her?’

  Maigret spontaneously adopted a gentle tone, because the tall Swiss suddenly looked like a little boy.

  ‘Yes, monsieur.’

  ‘Had you heard something? Did she cry out? Did she moan?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  It was difficult for him to speak. He couldn’t get rid of the knot in his throat, and tears streamed from his blue eyes.

  ‘Forgive me. This is the first time …’

  It was as if he had been waiting for this moment to start sobbing, and he took his handkerchief from his pocket.

  ‘I … I’m sorry … Just a minute.’

  He wept all the tears he had in him, standing in the middle of the room, looking taller than his one metre eighty. There was a sharp little noise. It was the tube of Maigret’s pipe breaking under the pressure of his jaw. The bowl fell to the floor, and he bent down, picked it up and stuffed it in his pocket.

  ‘I beg your pardon. I can’t help myself.’

  Baud caught his breath, wiped his eyes and glanced at the bottle of cognac, but didn’t dare touch it again.

  ‘She came in here about ten past nine to bring me some documents to collate. Actually, I can’t remember where I put them. It was the transcript of yesterday’s court session, with notes and references. I must have left them in her desk drawer … No, there they are! On my table.’

  Crumpled by a nervous hand.

  ‘She asked me to give them back to her as soon as I’d finished. I went to her office.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘I don’t know. I must have worked for about thirty minutes … I was feeling quite cheerful, quite happy. I really like working for her … I looked in and didn’t see her. Then I looked down …’

  It was Maigret who poured a little cognac for him into the glass, which must have been brought by Ferdinand.

  ‘Was she still breathing?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘The prosecutor’s office, chief …’

  ‘Did you hear anything, Monsieur Tortu?’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘Were you here all the time?’

  ‘No, I went to see Monsieur Parendon, and we spoke for about ten minutes about the case I was dealing with yesterday at the Palais.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘I didn’t look at my watch. About nine thirty.’

  ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘The same as usual.’

  ‘Was he alone?’

  ‘Mademoiselle Vague was with him.’

  ‘Did she leave when you arrived?’

  ‘A few moments later.’

  Maigret would happily have had a swig of cognac, too, but he didn’t dare. The formalities awaited him. They annoyed him, but, when it came down to it, it wasn’t a bad thing he would have to deal with them, because it forced him to break free of his nightmare.

  The prosecutor’s office had assigned Examining Magistrate Daumas, with whom he had worked several times, a pleasant, slightly shy man, probably in his forties, whose one defect was that he fussed over details. He was accompanied by Deputy Prosecutor De Claes, a tall, fair-haired man, very thin, dressed to the nines, who always held a pair of light-coloured gloves in his hand, winter and summer.

  ‘What do you think, Maigret? I hear you had an inspector in the building? Were you expecting something like this to happen?’

  Maigret shrugged and made a vague gesture.

  ‘It’s a long story. Yesterday and the day before, following some anonymous letters, I spent practically all my time in this apartment.’

  ‘Did the letters say who the victim was going to be?’

  ‘No, that’s just it. That’s why the murder was impossible to prevent. It would have needed an officer following each person here wherever they went in the apartment. Lapointe spent the night downstairs. This morning, Janvier came and relieved him.’

  Janvier was standing in a corner, head bowed. From the courtyard, they could hear the jet of water as the Peruvians’ chauffeur washed the Rolls.

  ‘By the way, Janvier, who told you?’

  ‘Ferdinand. He knew I was downstairs. I’d talked to him earlier.’

  They heard heavy footsteps in the corridor. It was the technicians arriving with their equipment. A short, very round man had somehow got mixed up with them and he now looked at the people gathered in the room, wondering whom to address.

  ‘Dr Martin,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m sorry I’m so late, I was with a patient, and it took her a long time to get dressed.’

  He saw the body, opened his case and knelt on the wooden floor. He was the least upset of all of them.

  ‘She’s dead, of course.’

  ‘Did she die immediately?’

  ‘She probably survived for a few seconds, let’s say thirty or forty. With her throat cut, there was no way she could cry out.’

  He indicated an object partly hidden by the table: the sharp, pointed scalpel that Maigret had noticed the day before. It was now stuck in a pool of thick blood.

  Maigret couldn’t stop himself from looking at the woman’s face, her glasses knocked sideways, her staring blue eyes.

  ‘Would you mind closing her eyes, doctor?’

  He hadn’t often been so shaken by the sight of a corpse, except when he was starting out.

  As the doctor was about to obey, Moers pulled him by the sleeve.

  ‘The photographs,’ he said.

  ‘That’s true. No, don’t do anything.’

  It was up to him to stop looking. They still had to wait for the pathologist. Dr Martin, who was very quick despite his paunch, asked:

  ‘May I go, gentlemen?’

  Then, looking at them in turn, he finally addressed Maigret.

  ‘You’re Inspector Maigret, aren’t you? I wonder if I should go and see Monsieur Parendon. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘In his office, I assume.’

  ‘Does he know what’s happened? Has he seen her?’

  ‘Probably.’

  Actually, nobody knew anything specific. There was a sense of incoherence in the air. A photographer was setting up a huge camera on a tripod while a grey-haired man was taking measurements on the floor and the examining magistrate’s clerk was scribbling in a notebook.

  Lucas and Torrence, who hadn’t yet received any instructions, were standing in the corridor.

  ‘What do you think I should do?’

  ‘Go and see him if you think he might need you.’

  Dr Martin had just got to the door when Maigret called him back.

  ‘I’ll probably have some questions to ask you during the day. Will you be in?’

  ‘Except from eleven to one, when I have my clinic at the hospital.’

  He took a large watch from his pocket, seemed unpleasantly surprised and walked away quickly.

  Examining Magistrate Daumas coughed.

  ‘I assume, Maigret, that you’d rather I left you to work in peace? I’d just like to know if you suspect anyone.’

  ‘No … Yes … Frankly, sir, I don’t know. This case isn’t like most others, and I’m rather at sea.’

  ‘Do you need me any more?’ Lambilliote asked.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Maigret replied distractedly.

  He couldn’t wait for them all to go. The office gradually emptied. Occasionally a flash went off, even though the room was already bright. Two men were taking fingerprints of the dead woman, doing their job like carpenters or locksmiths.

  Maigret slipped discreetly out of the room, made a sign to Luc
as and Torrence to wait for him and went into the office at the far end, where Tortu was answering the phone while Baud sat with his elbows on his table, staring straight ahead.

  He was drunk. The level of the cognac in the bottle had gone down by a good three fingers. Maigret grabbed it and shamelessly, because it really was necessary, poured some for himself into Baud’s glass.

  He was working like a sleepwalker, stopping occasionally, gaze fixed, afraid of forgetting something essential. He absently shook hands with the pathologist, whose real work would only begin at the Forensic Institute.

  The men from the mortuary were already there with a stretcher, and he cast one last glance at the almond-green dress which should have marked a joyful spring day.

  ‘Janvier, I’ll leave you to deal with the parents. Their address should be in the office at the far end. Or look in her handbag. Anyway, do what you have to do.’

  He led his other two colleagues towards the cloakroom.

  ‘I want the two of you to make a plan of the apartment, question the staff, note down where each person was between nine fifteen and ten o’clock. Also note down what everyone saw, all their movements.’

  Ferdinand was standing there, arms folded, waiting.

  ‘He’ll help you with the plan … Tell me, Ferdinand, I assume Madame Parendon is in her room?’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur Maigret.’

  ‘What was her reaction?’

  ‘She hasn’t had any reaction, monsieur. I don’t think she knows anything yet. As far as I know, she’s still asleep, and Lise didn’t dare take the responsibility of waking her.’

  ‘Hasn’t Monsieur Parendon been to see her either?’

  ‘Monsieur hasn’t left his office.’

  ‘So he hasn’t seen the body?’

  ‘I beg your pardon. He did actually come out briefly, when Monsieur Tortu went to tell him the news. He glanced into Mademoiselle Vague’s office and then went back to his.’

  The previous day, Maigret had been mistaken when, because his anonymous correspondent wrote so carefully, he had thought he should take the word strike literally.

  She hadn’t been struck. She hadn’t been shot either. She had had her throat cut.

  He had to stand aside to let the stretcher bearers pass. A few moments later, he was knocking at the monumental door of Parendon’s office. He heard no answer. True, the door was of thick oak. He turned the handle, opened one half of the double door and saw the lawyer in one of the leather armchairs.

  For a fraction of a second, he was afraid something might have happened to him, too, so hunched over was he, his chin on his chest, one flabby hand touching the rug.

  Maigret stepped forwards and sat down in an armchair opposite him, so that they were now face to face, a short distance from one another, as they had been for their first interview. On the shelves, the names of Lagache, Henri Ey, Ruyssen and other psychiatrists glittered in gold lettering on the bindings.

  He was surprised to hear a voice murmur:

  ‘What do you think, Monsieur Maigret?’

  The voice was distant, muffled. It was the voice of a devastated man, and Parendon barely made an effort to sit up and raise his head. As a result, his glasses fell to the floor, and without the thick lenses his eyes were those of a fearful child. He bent down with effort to pick them up and put them back on.

  ‘What are they doing?’ he asked, raising his white hand and pointing to his secretary’s office.

  ‘They’ve finished with the formalities.’

  ‘What about the … the body?’

  ‘It’s just been taken away.’

  ‘Don’t mind me … I’ll get a grip in a minute.’

  With his right hand, he mechanically felt his heart. Maigret watched him as fixedly as on the first day.

  He sat up now, took a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it over his face.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  His gaze moved to the part of the panelling that hid a small bar.

  ‘What about you?’

  Maigret took the opportunity to stand up and fetch two glasses and the bottle of old armagnac with which he was already familiar.

  ‘It wasn’t a joke,’ Parendon said slowly.

  And, although his voice had grown firmer, it was still strange, almost machine-like, toneless.

  ‘This puts you in a difficult position, doesn’t it?’

  And, as Maigret was still looking at him without replying, he added:

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘Two of my men are busy checking the whereabouts of everyone here between nine fifteen and ten o’clock.’

  ‘It was before ten o’clock.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Nine fifty. It was just nine fifty when Tortu came and told me.’

  He glanced at the bronze clock, which showed 11.35.

  ‘Have you been sitting in that armchair since then?’

  ‘I followed Tortu down the corridor, but I couldn’t bear the sight more than a few seconds … I came back here and … You’re right, I haven’t moved from this chair. I vaguely remember Martin, my doctor, coming in and speaking to me. I nodded, and he took my pulse and then left like a man in a hurry. He had to go to the hospital for his clinic. He must have thought I was drugged.’

  ‘Have you ever taken drugs?’

  ‘No, never … I can imagine the effect.’

  Outside, the trees rustled slightly, and they could hear the din of buses on Place Beauvau.

  ‘I would never have suspected …’

  He was speaking incoherently, without finishing his sentences. Maigret still hadn’t taken his eyes off him. He still had two pipes in his pocket, and he took out the one that wasn’t broken, filled it and drew a few big puffs as if to put his feet back on the ground.

  ‘Suspected what?’

  ‘The point … The way … The importance … Yes, the importance, that’s the word, of the connections …’

  He again pointed towards his secretary’s office.

  ‘It’s so unexpected!’

  Would Maigret have felt surer of himself if he had absorbed all the works of psychiatry and psychology lined up on the shelves?

  He couldn’t remember having ever looked at a man with such intensity as he was doing now. He didn’t want to miss one movement, one muscular quiver of the face.

  ‘Had you thought it would be her?’

  ‘No,’ Maigret admitted.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You or your wife.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Apparently she’s asleep and doesn’t know yet.’

  Parendon frowned. He was making a great effort to concentrate.

  ‘She never left her room?’

  ‘Not according to Ferdinand.’

  ‘That’s not Ferdinand’s department.’

  ‘I know. One of my inspectors is probably questioning Lise right now.’

  Parendon was starting to grow agitated, as if something he hadn’t thought of before was suddenly nagging at him.

  ‘So are you going to arrest me? I mean, if my wife didn’t leave her room …’

  Had he thought it so obvious that Madame Parendon was the killer?

  ‘Well, are you?’

  ‘It’s too early to arrest anybody.’

  Parendon stood up, took a gulp of the armagnac and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

  ‘I don’t understand what’s going on any more, Maigret … I’m sorry — Monsieur Maigret,’ he corrected himself. ‘Did someone get into the apartment from outside?’

  He was becoming himself again. Life had returned to his eyes.

  ‘No. One of my men spent the night in the building, and another relieved him about eight this morning.’

  ‘We need to reread the letters,’ Parendon said in a low voice.

  ‘I reread them several times yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘There’s something that doesn’t hold together in all this. It’s as if things suddenly
happened that hadn’t been planned.’

  He sat down again, and Maigret pondered these words. He, too, when he had heard that Mademoiselle Vague was dead, had had the feeling it was a mistake.

  ‘You know, she was very, very … devoted to me.’

  ‘More than that,’ Maigret said.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yesterday she talked about you with genuine passion.’

  Parendon opened his eyes wide, incredulous, as if he couldn’t somehow convince himself that he had inspired such a feeling.

  ‘I had a long conversation with her while you were seeing the two shipowners.’

  ‘I know. She told me. What happened to the papers?’

  ‘Julien Baud had them in his hand when he discovered the body and rushed back to his office in a panic. They’re a bit crumpled.’

  ‘They’re very important. These people mustn’t be allowed to suffer because of what happens here.’

  ‘May I ask you a question, Monsieur Parendon?’

  ‘I’d been expecting it since you came in. It’s your duty to ask, of course, and even not to take me at my word. No, I didn’t kill Mademoiselle Vague … There are words I haven’t spoken often in my life, words I’ve almost erased from my vocabulary. Today, I’m going to use one of them, because it’s the only one that expresses the truth I’ve just discovered. I loved her, Monsieur Maigret.’

  He said this calmly, which made it all the more impressive. The rest was easier.

  ‘I thought I was merely fond of her. That’s in addition to the physical desire I felt, which I was almost ashamed of, because I have a daughter who’s almost the same age as her. There was something about Antoinette …’

  It was the first time Maigret had heard anyone use Mademoiselle Vague’s first name.

  ‘There was a kind of … what can I say? … a spontaneity I found refreshing … I mean, spontaneity isn’t something you see a lot of in this household. She brought it in from outside, like a gift, like someone bringing freshly cut flowers.’

  ‘Do you know what weapon was used for the murder?’

  ‘A knife, I assume?’

  ‘No, it was a kind of scalpel. I noticed it on your secretary’s desk yesterday. I was struck by it, because it isn’t the usual model. The blade is longer and sharper.’

  ‘Like all our office supplies, it comes from Roman’s Stationers.’

  ‘Did you buy it?’