The Judge's House Page 2

  ‘Is that the judge’s house I can see?’ he asked the maid.

  There was light at a dormer window which probably lit the stairs. They tried to persuade him to use the dining room, which was reserved for summer guests, but he preferred the main room. He was served oysters, mussels, shrimp, fish and a leg of lamb, while the men talked among themselves, in a strong accent, about things to do with the sea, especially concerning mussels. Maigret understood none of it.

  ‘Have you had any visitors lately?’

  ‘Not for a week … Or rather, the day before yesterday … No, it was the day before that … Someone got off the bus. He dropped in to tell us he’d be coming for dinner, but we didn’t see him again …’

  Maigret kept bumping into things: rails, baskets, steel ropes, crates, oyster shells. The whole seashore was crammed with the sheds where the mussel farmers kept their equipment. A kind of wooden village without inhabitants. A wailing every two minutes: the foghorn from the Baleines headland on the Ile de Ré, so he had been told, on the other side of the straits.

  There were also vague intermittent lights in the sky: the beams from two or three lighthouses disappearing into the mist.

  The murmur of water in motion. The waves pushing back the current from the little river, swelling it, and soon – at 10.51, the old woman had said – the tide would be high. In spite of the rain, two lovers stood right up against one of the sheds, lips together, not speaking, not moving.

  He looked for the bridge, an interminable wooden bridge, barely wide enough to let a car pass. He made out masts, boats bobbing on the waves. Turning, he could see the lights of the hotel he had just left, then two other lights, a hundred metres further on, those of the judge’s house.

  ‘Is that you, inspector?’

  He gave a start. He had almost bumped into a man, whose eyes he now saw squinting at him from close quarters.

  ‘Justin Hulot. My wife told me … I’ve already been here for an hour, in case he took it into his head to …’

  The rain was cold. Icy air rose from the water of the harbour. Pulleys squeaked, invisible things lived their nocturnal lives.

  ‘Let me bring you up to date. When I went up the ladder at three o’clock, the body was still there. At four o’clock, I decided I’d like to see it once again before nightfall … Well, it wasn’t there any more. He must have taken it down. I suppose he’s keeping it ready behind the door so as to save time when the moment comes … I wonder how he’s going to carry it. The judge is shorter and thinner than me. About the same height and weight as my wife … The other man, though … Shhh! …’

  Someone passed in the darkness. The planks of the bridge shook one after the other. When the danger was over, Hulot resumed:

  ‘On the other side of the bridge is La Faute. Not even a hamlet. Mostly small villas for people who come here in the summer. You’ll be able to see it when it’s light … I found out something that may be of interest. On the night of the card game, Albert went to see his father … Careful! …’

  It was the lovers this time, who had climbed on to the bridge and were now leaning on the parapet and watching the river flow by in the darkness. Maigret’s feet were cold. Water had seeped into his shoes. He noticed that Hulot was wearing rubber boots.

  ‘It’s a 108 tide. At six in the morning, you’ll see them all going to the mussel fields …’

  He was speaking in a low voice, as if in church. It was at once unnerving and a little grotesque. From time to time, Maigret wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off in Luçon, playing cards at the Café Français with the owner, Dr Jamet, Bourdeuille the ironmonger, and senile old Memimot, who always sat behind them and shook his head at every hand.

  ‘My wife is watching the back of the house …’

  So the old lady was still involved, was she?

  ‘You never know. In case he might have got the car out and had the idea of taking the body further away …’

  The body! The body! … Was there really a body in all this?

  Three pipes … Four pipes … From time to time the door of the hotel opened and closed, and footsteps could be heard moving away, voices. Then the lights went out. A rowing boat passed beneath the bridge.

  ‘That’s old Bariteau on his way to laying his eel nets. He won’t be back for another two hours.’

  How could old Bariteau see his way in all this blackness? God knows. You sensed the presence of the sea, very close, just at the end of the narrows. You could breathe it in. It was swelling, irresistibly invading the straits.

  Maigret’s mind wandered, he couldn’t have said why. He thought of the recent merger of the Police Judiciaire and the Sûreté Générale and of certain points of friction that … Luçon! He had been sent to Luçon, where …

  ‘Look …’

  Hulot gripped his arm nervously.

  No, it really was unbelievable! The idea that these two old people … That ladder held by Didine … The naval binoculars … And those calculations of tides! …

  ‘The lights have been switched off.’

  What was so extraordinary, at this hour, about seeing all the lights go out in the judge’s house?

  ‘Come. We can’t see well enough …’

  All the same, Maigret found himself walking on tiptoe in order not to shake the planks of the bridge. That siren lowing like a hoarse cow …

  The water had almost reached the wooden sheds. A foot struck a broken basket.

  ‘Shhh!’

  And then they saw the door of the judge’s house open.

  A short, sprightly man appeared in the doorway, looked left and right and went back into the passage. A moment later, the improbable happened. The little man reappeared, bent over, gripping a long object that he started dragging through the mud.

  It must have been heavy. After four metres, he stopped to catch his breath. The front door of the house had been left open. The sea was still twenty or thirty metres away.

  ‘Oof …’

  They sensed that ‘oof’, sensed the physical effort he must be making. The rain was still falling. Hulot’s hand trembled convulsively on Maigret’s thick sleeve.

  ‘You see!’

  Oh, yes! It had happened just as the old woman had said, just as the former customs officer had predicted. That little man was clearly Judge Forlacroix. And what he was dragging in the mud was definitely the lifeless body of a man!

  2. ‘Hold on a Minute …’

  What gave the scene a somewhat ghostly character was that the judge didn’t know. He thought he was alone in the emptiness of the night. From time to time, the halo of the lighthouse brushed over him, and they were able to make out an old gabardine, a felt hat. Maigret even noticed that he had kept a cigarette between his lips, although the rain must have extinguished it by now.

  There were now only four metres between them. Maigret and Hulot were standing near a kind of sentry box. They didn’t even think of hiding. The only reason the judge didn’t see them was quite simply because he didn’t turn his head in their direction. He was having a lot of difficulty. The burden he was dragging had come up against a rope stretched across the embankment, some twenty centimetres above the ground, and had to be carried across. He went about it clumsily, obviously unused to manual labour. It was clear, too, that he was hot, because he wiped his forehead with his hand.

  It was then that Maigret, without choosing his moment, without thinking exactly what he had to do, simply said:

  ‘Hold on a minute …’

  The judge turned his head and saw the two men: Maigret enormous, the customs officer tiny. It was too dark to make out any particular expression on his face. A few seconds went by, seeming quite long. Then a voice – a little shaky, perhaps? – was heard:

  ‘I’m sorry! Who are you?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  He had stepped forwards, but still couldn’t see much of the face. His feet almost touched the body, which seemed to be wrapped in sacks. At such a momen
t, why did the judge react by saying in a tone of surprise tinged with respect:

  ‘Maigret from the Police Judiciaire?’

  People were asleep in the surrounding houses. Old Bariteau, somewhere in the rustling darkness, was looking for holes in the seabed to place his eel nets.

  ‘Maybe it’s for the best.’

  It was the judge speaking again.

  ‘Would you like to come inside?’

  He took a few steps, as if forgetting his package. There was such an oppressive calm around them that they had the impression they were living in slow motion.

  ‘Perhaps it would be more convenient to take the body back indoors?’ the judge suggested, reluctantly.

  And he bent down. Maigret helped him. They did not close the door behind them. Hulot stood there in the doorway, and Forlacroix, who had not recognized him, was wondering if he was going to make his mind up to come in.

  ‘Thanks a lot, Hulot!’ Maigret said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I’d prefer it if you didn’t say anything. Do you have a telephone, Monsieur Forlacroix?’

  ‘Yes, but we aren’t connected after nine o’clock in the evening.’

  ‘One moment, Hulot. Can you go and find someone at the post office? Ask to be put through to number 23, in Luçon. It’s a hotel. Ask to speak to Inspector Méjat and tell him to come and join me as soon as possible.’

  There! Now it was just the two of them, face to face in the passage, and the judge had switched on the light. He took off his hat, which was dripping with water, and his raincoat. The mysteries of the night had faded. What appeared in the light was a short, thin man with regular features, his face haloed by fine long blond and grey hair that looked like a wig.

  He looked at his dirty hands, then at his burden. Maigret now noticed that the body had been wrapped in two coal sacks, one for the head and chest, the other for the legs. The two sacks had been clumsily tied together with string.

  ‘Do you want to see him straight away?’

  ‘Who is he?’ Maigret asked.

  ‘I have no idea. Take your coat off and come this way, please …’

  He wiped his hands with his handkerchief, opened a door, switched on another light, and they found themselves on the threshold of a vast room, at the far end of which logs crackled in a fireplace.

  At that moment, nothing could have been a greater surprise to Maigret than the pleasant warmth of this room, its brightness, its harmonious layout. Oak beams gave the impression that the ceiling was very low. They even had to descend two steps to enter. The floor was made up of white flagstones, over which two or three rugs had been thrown. And the white walls were lined with nothing but bookshelves, containing thousands of books.

  ‘Please sit down, inspector … I seem to recall that you like heat …’

  More books on an antique table. Two armchairs by the fire. Hard to believe that behind the door, sewn into two coal sacks …

  ‘It’s really lucky for me that I’m dealing with a man like you. I’m a little puzzled, though. I thought you were in Paris and …’

  ‘I’ve been transferred to Luçon.’

  ‘All the better for me. I’m sure it would have been hard to make myself understood by an ordinary police officer … Do you mind if I …?’

  From a Renaissance chest, he took a silver tray, a bottle and some crystal glasses, and these objects, artfully lit, glittered magnificently. There was an atmosphere of refinement and comfort about it all …

  ‘Please have a glass of armagnac. By the way – it’s only just occurred to me – how did that ugly, one-eyed old customs officer come to be involved in …’

  It was only now, at this precise moment, that Maigret became fully aware of the situation. He literally saw himself, sitting comfortably in his armchair, his legs stretched towards the fire, warming his glass of armagnac in the hollow of his hand. He realized that it wasn’t he who was talking, asking questions, but this short, thin, calm man, the same man who, only a few minutes earlier, had been dragging a dead body to the sea.

  ‘Forgive me, Monsieur Forlacroix, but perhaps I could take the opportunity to ask you a few questions.’

  The judge turned to him with a mixture of surprise and reproach, his eyes blue as forget-me-nots. He seemed to be saying:

  ‘Why? I thought you were a different kind of person … Well, as you wish …’

  But he said nothing. He bent his head slightly, politely, the better to listen. It was a gesture he made often, and which indicated that he was a little hard of hearing.

  ‘You told me earlier that you don’t know that … that man …’

  My God, how hard it was! How difficult the simplest things became when you had let yourself sink into such a state of bliss!

  ‘I don’t know him from Adam, I assure you.’

  ‘In that case, why …’

  Come on! It had to be done! Maigret all but closed his eyes, as if swallowing a bitter pill.

  ‘Why did you kill him?’

  He looked. And saw again the same surprised, reproving expression on the judge’s face.

  ‘But I didn’t kill him, inspector! Come now! Why would I have killed someone I don’t know, someone I never saw alive? I know it may be difficult to accept, but I’m sure a man like you will believe me.’

  The most remarkable thing was that Maigret already believed him! It was as if he were under a spell in this silent house where nothing could be heard but the crackling of the logs and where, during the silences, you were aware of the distant murmur of the sea.

  ‘If you so wish, I’ll tell you exactly what happened. A little more armagnac? An old friend of mine, who used to be public prosecutor in Versailles, sends it to me from his chateau in the Gers.’

  ‘You lived in Versailles too, didn’t you?’

  ‘Almost my whole life. A charming town. The people there still seem to be living in the court of Louis XIV, and I think it would be difficult to find elsewhere a society that was more polite in the old sense of the term. We formed a little group that …’

  A gesture of the hand, as if to chase away pointless memories.

  ‘That’s of little importance … It was … Let’s see now, it was Tuesday …’

  ‘Tuesday the 10th,’ Maigret said. ‘You had friends over, if I’m not mistaken …’

  The judge smiled slightly. ‘I see you’re well informed. You were with Hulot earlier. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’d seen Didine. She knows what happens in my house better than I do …’

  A thought suddenly struck Maigret. He looked around, sensing that something was missing in this house.

  ‘Don’t you have a maid?’ he said, surprised.

  ‘Not a live-in one. An old woman and her daughter who live here in L’Aiguillon come every morning and leave again immediately after dinner … Anyway, on Tuesday, my friends came as they do every two weeks. Dr Brénéol, who lives one kilometre from here, his wife and Françoise …’

  ‘Françoise is Madame Brénéol’s daughter?’

  ‘That’s correct. From her first marriage. That’s of no importance, except for Brénéol …’

  And a slight smile hovered again over his lips.

  ‘The Marsacs, who live in Saint-Michel-en-l’Hermitage, arrived a little later … We played bridge.’

  ‘Was your daughter with you?’

  A moment’s hesitation. A touch more gravity in his gaze.

  ‘No, she was in bed.’

  ‘And tonight?’

  ‘She’s in bed …’

  ‘Didn’t she hear anything?’

  ‘No. I took care to make as little noise as possible … Anyway, on Tuesday, we finished about midnight.’

  ‘And you had another visitor,’ Maigret said, turning towards the fireplace. ‘Your son.’

  ‘Albert, yes. He only stayed a few minutes.’

  ‘Doesn’t your son live with you?’

  ‘He lives near the town hall. We don’t exactly have the same tastes. My son is a mu
ssel farmer … As I’m sure you’ve already been told, that’s the main activity around here.’

  ‘Would it be indiscreet of me to ask why your son paid you a visit in the middle of the night?’

  The judge stared at his glass, was silent for a moment, then finally said:

  ‘Yes!’

  And he waited.

  ‘Did your son go upstairs?’

  ‘That’s where he was when I saw him …’

  ‘I assume he went to say hello to his sister?’

  ‘No. He didn’t see her.’

  ‘How do you know?

  ‘Because, I might as well tell you straight away, given that you’ll hear it from other people, I’m in the habit of locking my daughter in her room at night … Let’s just say she’s a sleepwalker …’

  ‘Why did your son go upstairs?’

  ‘To wait for me, because I had friends downstairs. He was sitting on the top step. We had a short conversation …’

  ‘On the stairs?

  The judge nodded. Weren’t they starting to get into the realms of the implausible? Maigret swallowed the contents of his glass in one go, and Forlacroix refilled it.

  ‘I went downstairs to put the chain on the door. Then I went to bed, read a few pages and fell asleep almost immediately. The following morning, I went to the fruitery to get … To be honest, I find it hard to remember what I went there for. It’s a room we call the fruitery because it’s where we keep the fruit, but there’s actually a bit of everything there. A junk room, if you prefer … There was a man lying dead on the floor, a man I’d never seen before. His skull had been smashed in with what you people call a blunt instrument. I searched in his pockets … In a while, I’ll show you the objects I found there … But no wallet. Not a single paper that could identify him.’

  ‘What I don’t understand …’ Maigret began.

  ‘I know! That’s going to be the hardest thing to explain! I didn’t call the police. I kept the body in the house for three days. I was waiting for the tide to be favourable so that I could get rid of it at night, in secret, like a murderer … And yet, I’m telling you the honest truth, I didn’t kill the man. I had no reason to do so. I have absolutely no idea why he was in my house. I don’t know if he broke in while he was alive or if someone brought him here when he was already dead.’