The Judge's House Read online

  ‘67A, Rue Coulaincourt … And step on it …’

  On the way, Maigret flicks through the list of clairvoyants and fortune-tellers which had been drawn up the evening before. He had ordered a discreet watch to be kept on them … Of course, Mademoiselle Jeanne’s name is not on it! …

  ‘Faster!’

  And now this clown Mascouvin asks timidly:

  ‘Is she dead?’

  For a moment, Maigret wonders if he is as simple-minded as he looks. He’ll find out sooner or later!

  ‘Gun?’ whispers Lucas.

  ‘Knife.’

  There is no need to look at the numbers on the houses. Just opposite Place Constantin-Pecqueur, a small crowd identifies the house where the crime has just occurred.

  ‘Shall I wait for you?’ stammers Mascouvin.

  ‘Come inside with us … Come along! Keep up!’

  The uniformed policemen give way to let Maigret and Sergeant Lucas through.

  ‘Fifth floor. On your right.’

  No lift. The house is clean, quite comfortable. Tenants out on the landings, all as it should be. On the fifth floor, the police chief in charge of the eighteenth arrondissement precinct holds out his hand to Maigret.

  ‘Come in … It’s only just happened … Stroke of luck that we were informed so soon, as you’ll see.’

  They walk into virtually full sunlight. The small living room has a bay window, now wide open, which leads out to a balcony with a view over the city. The room is daintily stylish, hushed, with light-coloured curtains, Louis XVI armchairs, tasteful curios and knick-knacks. A local doctor straightens up.

  ‘There’s nothing I can do … The second thrust of the knife was the one that killed her …’

  The room is too small for the number of people now in it. After filling his pipe, Maigret takes off his jacket and reveals a pair of mauve braces which his wife bought for him the previous week. The police chief smiles at the sight of the braces, which, even more extravagantly, are made of silk. Maigret scowls.

  ‘So? … What have you got? … I haven’t got all day …’

  ‘Well. I haven’t had time to gather much information, not least because the concierge isn’t the chatty sort. You have to dig words out of her, like pulling teeth … A Mademoiselle Jeanne, real name Marie Picard, born Bayeux …’

  Maigret has raised the sheet which has been thrown over the body. Fine-looking woman, and no mistake. Fortyish. Well upholstered, well groomed, hair blonde but maybe not naturally so?

  ‘She wasn’t registered as a medium and didn’t advertise. But she had regular customers, most of them quite well-heeled apparently, who used to come here to consult her …’

  ‘How many clients did she see this afternoon?’

  ‘The concierge, Madame Baffoin, Eugénie Baffoin, doesn’t know. She reckons it’s none of her business. Says not all concierges are as nosy as they are made out to be. At a few minutes after five, this lady here …’

  A small, brisk woman, also middle-aged, gets to her feet. The hat she is wearing is a touch ridiculous. She explains:

  ‘I knew Mademoiselle Jeanne. She used to come down to Morsang sometimes for a few days. Do you know Morsang? … It’s on the Seine, just upstream from Corbeil, where the dam is … I run the inn there, the Beau Pigeon … Isidore had been out fishing, he caught some fine tench, and since I was coming to Paris anyway, I thought …’

  The tench, wrapped in green leaves, still fresh, are there, in a basket.

  ‘Well, I knew she’d be pleased, for she did like her fish …’

  ‘Had you known Mademoiselle Jeanne long?’

  ‘Maybe five years or so? … One time she stayed with us for a month …’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘What do you take her for? … Anyway, I popped in here while I was doing my shopping … The door wasn’t shut … Being as it was half open, I called: “Mademoiselle Jeanne! … It’s just me, Madame Roy …” Then, since there was no answer, I came in … She was sitting at that little table, bent over. Tell the truth, I thought she was sleeping … I put my hand out to shake her and …’

  So at about seven minutes past five, Mademoiselle Jeanne, a clairvoyant, was already dead from two stab wounds in the back.

  ‘Has the weapon been found?’ asks Maigret, turning to the police chief.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any furniture broken?’

  ‘Nothing … No signs of a struggle … It doesn’t seem as if the murderer went into the bedroom … This way …’

  He opens a door. The bedroom is as cheerful as the living room. A genuine boudoir, all light colours. The nest of a flirtatious woman who likes her comfort.

  ‘And you say the concierge …’

  ‘Claims she doesn’t know anything … Madame Roy went down to the bar next door to phone us. We found her waiting downstairs, by the door. There’s just one detail … Hold on, here’s the locksmith I sent for … In here, please … Open this door, would you?’

  Maigret happens to look up and sees Mascouvin sitting on the edge of his chair. The clerk from Proud and Drouin says:

  ‘I feel as if my heart’s giving out, inspector …’

  ‘That’s too bad!’

  Later, when the people from the prosecutor’s office and the specialist team from Criminal Records show up, it will get a lot worse! If only Maigret had time for a beer in the Café Manière!

  ‘As you can see,’ the police chief is telling him, ‘the apartment has this living room, a rustic-style dining room there, the bedroom, a box-room and …’

  He nods towards a door where the locksmith is at work.

  ‘I assume it’s the kitchen …’

  A master-key turns in the lock. The door opens.

  ‘Huh! … What are you doing in there? … Who are you? …’

  It’s so unexpected it’s almost comic. In a small, spotlessly neat kitchenette, where no plates or dirty glasses have been left lying about, what is revealed but an old man perched on the edge of the table, solemnly waiting.

  ‘Speak up! … What are you doing here?’

  The elderly gent stares in bewilderment at the two men who are challenging him and finds nothing to say. The oddest thing is that in the middle of August he is enveloped in a greenish overcoat. His cheeks are hidden by an ill-kempt beard. He looks away, his shoulders droop.

  ‘How long have you been here, in this kitchen?’

  He concentrates, as if he hasn’t quite understood, then takes out his pocket-watch and opens the front.

  ‘Forty minutes,’ he says eventually.

  ‘So that means you were here at five o’clock?’

  ‘I got here before that …’

  ‘Were you here when the crime was committed?’

  ‘What crime?’

  He is hard of hearing and leans his head towards his interrogator the way deaf people do.

  ‘You mean you don’t know that …’

  The sheet over the corpse is lifted. The old man stares in amazement and stands rooted to the spot.

  ‘Well?’

  He does not answer. He wipes his eyes. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s crying, for Maigret has already observed that his eyes were watery to start with.

  ‘What were you doing in the kitchen?’

  He stares at them again. It’s as if words have no meaning for him.

  ‘How is it that you were locked inside the kitchen?’ he is asked again. ‘The key wasn’t on the inside. It isn’t outside either …’

  ‘I don’t know …’ he whispers quietly, like a child who’s afraid of getting the stick.

  ‘What don’t you know?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Have you got any papers?’

  He searches through his pockets, awkwardly, wipes his eyes again, sniffles, and finally hands over a wallet with initials on it picked out in silver. The police chief and Maigret exchange looks.

  Is this old man really senile or is he acting a role and doing it to perfection? Fro
m the wallet, Maigret takes out an identity card and reads it aloud.

  ‘Octave Le Cloaguen, retired ship’s doctor, age: sixty-eight, 13, Boulevard des Batignolles, Paris.’

  ‘Clear the room!’ Maigret barks suddenly.

  Joseph Mascouvin gets meekly to his feet.

  ‘Not you … Stay here, dammit! … And sit down!’

  It is literally stifling for the ten or fifteen people in this doll-sized flat.

  ‘You sit down too, Monsieur Le Cloaguen! … And you can begin by telling me what you were doing in this house.’

  Le Cloaguen gives a start. He has heard the sound of the words but has not understood their meaning. Maigret repeats his question and is obliged to shout.

  ‘Oh, yes! … Sorry … I’d come …’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To see her …’ he stammered, motioning to the body under the sheet.

  ‘You wanted to know what the future has in store for you?’

  No reply.

  ‘Tell me, were you, yes or no, one of her clients? …’

  ‘Yes … I’d come …’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘I was sitting here … Yes, on this gilt chair … Someone knocked on the door … Like this …’

  He goes to the door. It seems possible that he intends to run off. But no, it’s only to knock in a particular, jerky way.

  ‘Then, she said …’

  ‘All right, tell us … What did she say?’

  ‘She said: “Quick, in here!” … and she pushed me into the kitchen …’

  ‘Was she the one who locked you in?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Nothing … I sat on the table … The window was open … I looked out into the street …’

  ‘After that?’

  ‘After that, nothing … A lot of people came … I didn’t think I should show my face …’

  He speaks quietly, slowly, almost ruefully and then suddenly asks a very unexpected question:

  ‘You wouldn’t have any tobacco on you?’

  ‘Cigarette?’

  ‘Tobacco.’

  ‘You smoke a pipe?’

  Maigret holds out his pouch. Le Cloaguen takes a twist of tobacco and puts it in his mouth with visible satisfaction.

  ‘There’s no point telling my wife …’

  Meanwhile, Lucas has been searching the flat. Maigret knows exactly what he is looking for.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Nothing, sir … The key to the kitchen isn’t anywhere here … I also asked an officer to go down and take a look around in the street, in case it was thrown out of the window …’

  Maigret sums up, for the benefit of Le Cloaguen:

  ‘So in short, you say you got here just before five to consult the clairvoyant. At two or three minutes to five, someone knocked on the door in a distinctive way, and Mademoiselle Jeanne pushed you into the kitchen … Have I got that right? … You looked out at the street, then you heard voices and you didn’t move a muscle … You didn’t even look through the keyhole.’

  ‘No … I thought she was entertaining visitors …’

  ‘You’ve been before?’

  ‘Every week.’

  ‘Over a long period?’

  ‘Very long.’

  Gaga or not gaga?

  There is great excitement in the neighbourhood. More than 200 people have collected in the street below by the time the vehicles bringing the prosecutor’s people arrive. Outside are sunshine, bright colours, café terraces where it is very pleasant to sit in front of a cold beer. Maigret puts his jacket back on because the important gentlemen are coming up the stairs.

  ‘Ah! It’s you, detective chief inspector,’ says the deputy public prosecutor. ‘Am I to understand that we have an interesting case here?’

  ‘Yes, apart from the fact that so far I’m having to deal with two lunatics!’ Maigret mutters to himself.

  First the moron Mascouvin, who never takes his eyes off Maigret’s bulky figure! And then there’s this old man who chews tobacco and sniffles!

  More cars arrive. This time, it’s the journalists.

  ‘Listen, Lucas … Get these two characters out of here … I’ll be back at headquarters in half an hour.’

  It is then that Mascouvin comes out with a priceless remark.

  After shaking his head and looking for his hat all round the living room, which is now a mess, he murmurs with the seriousness with which he does everything:

  ‘You do realize, inspector,’ he observes, ‘that it was Picpus who killed the clairvoyant!’

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