Maigret and the Old Lady Read online

  ‘Earlier I was told she was well loved in Étretat.’

  ‘Yport isn’t Étretat. And young Rose, as she was called here, is dead.’

  ‘So the old lady was at the funeral?’

  ‘Yes, in the front pew. Some people call her the Chatelaine, possibly because she once had a chateau in the Orne, or in Sologne, I can’t recall. Have you met her?’

  ‘She came to Paris to see me.’

  ‘She told me she was going to Paris, but I didn’t know that it was to see you. What do you make of her?’

  ‘Nothing for the time being.’

  ‘She was once colossally wealthy. For years she had her Paris mansion in Avenue d’Iéna, her chateau and her yacht, while La Bicoque was just a pied-à-terre.

  ‘She’d come here in a big chauffeur-driven limousine, and another car followed behind with the luggage. She caused a stir on Sundays when she attended mass, sitting in the front row (she still has her pew in the church), and she would hand out fistfuls of money. If someone was in need, people would say: “Go and see Valentine.”

  ‘Many still call her by her first name, especially the old folk.

  ‘This morning she arrived in Yport by taxi, alighting with all the airs and graces of her past grandeur. It was as if she were the one conducting the funeral. She brought a huge wreath, which completely dwarfed the others.

  ‘I may be mistaken, but I had the impression that the Trochus were annoyed and were giving her filthy looks. She insisted on shaking the hand of each member of the family and the father held his out reluctantly, refusing to look her in the eye. One of the sons, Henri, the eldest, quite simply turned his back on her.’

  ‘Did Madame Besson’s daughter accompany her?’

  ‘She went back to Paris on Monday on the afternoon train. I had no authority to stop her. You must already have realized that I’m out of my depth. But I do think we’ll need to question her again.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Like her mother must have been at her age, in other words at thirty-eight. She looks twenty-five. She’s petite and slim, very pretty, with huge eyes that nearly always have an expression of childlike innocence. All the same, on Sunday night a man, who wasn’t her husband, slept in her room at La Bicoque.’

  ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘No, I found out, but too late to ask her about it. I’ll have to tell you all about it in detail. This case is a lot more complicated than it seems, and I’ve had to write everything down. May I?’

  He took from his pocket a stylish red leather-bound notebook which bore little resemblance to the laundress’s pad that Maigret normally used.

  ‘We received a call at Le Havre at seven o’clock on Monday morning, and I found a memo on my desk when I arrived at eight. I took the Simca and arrived here just after nine. Charles Besson was getting out of a car just in front of me.’

  ‘Does he live in Fécamp?’

  ‘He has a house, and his family lives there all year round; but since being elected he spends part of his time in Paris, where he has an apartment on Boulevard Raspail. He was here all of last Sunday with his family, in other words his wife and their four children.’

  ‘He’s not Valentine’s son, is he?’

  ‘Valentine doesn’t have any sons, only a daughter, Arlette, the one I told you about and who’s married to a Parisian dentist.’

  ‘Was the dentist here too on Sunday?’

  ‘No. Arlette came alone. It was her mother’s birthday. Apparently it’s a family tradition to visit her on her birthday. When I asked her which train she had taken, she told me the morning train, the same one that you took.

  ‘But she wasn’t telling the truth, as you’ll see. The first thing I did on Monday, as soon as the body had been taken to Le Havre, was to examine every room in the house. That was some job, because although it’s small and charming, the place is full of nooks and crannies, fragile items of furniture and knick-knacks.

  ‘Apart from Valentine’s bedroom and the maid’s room, both on the first floor, there is only one guest room, on the ground floor, which Arlette was staying in. When I moved the bedside table I found a man’s handkerchief, and I had the feeling that the young woman, who was watching me work, suddenly became distraught. She snatched it out of my hands, saying: “I’ve taken one of my husband’s handkerchiefs again!”

  ‘I don’t know why, but it was only that evening that I recalled the embroidered monogram, an “H”. Arlette had just left. I’d offered to drive her to the station in my car, and I watched her buy her ticket at the window.

  ‘It’s stupid, I know, but as I was getting back into the car, I was struck by the fact that she hadn’t bought a return ticket when she came. I went back into the waiting room and questioned the ticket collector.

  ‘“That lady arrived on the ten o’clock train on Sunday, didn’t she?”

  ‘“What lady?”

  ‘“The one I’ve just dropped off.”

  ‘“Madame Arlette? No, monsieur.”

  ‘“She didn’t arrive on Sunday?”

  ‘“She may have arrived on Sunday, but not on the train. It was me who collected the tickets and I’d have recognized her.”’

  Castaing looked at Maigret with some anxiety.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m going into unnecessary detail?’

  ‘Not at all. I need to familiarize myself.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘With everything – the station, Valentine, Arlette, the ticket collector, the Trochus. Only yesterday I knew nothing of all this.’

  ‘When I went back to La Bicoque, I asked Valentine her son-in-law’s name. He’s called Julien Sudre, so neither of his initials is an “H”. Her two stepsons are called Théo and Charles Besson. There’s only the gardener who works for her three days a week, whose name is Honoré; but first of all he wasn’t there on Sunday, and then I discovered that he only uses large handkerchiefs with a red leaf pattern.

  ‘Not knowing where to begin the investigation, I started questioning the local people, and that was how I found out from the newspaper seller that Arlette had arrived not by train but by car, a flashy green sports car.

  ‘Then it was easy. The owner of the sports car had reserved a room for Sunday night at the hotel I recommended to you.

  ‘He’s a certain Hervé Peyrot, who gave his profession as wine merchant on the hotel registration form. He lives in Paris, Quai des Grands-Augustins.’

  ‘Did he not sleep at the hotel?’

  ‘He stayed in the hotel bar until it closed, just before midnight, after which, instead of going up to his room he set off on foot, saying he wanted to see the sea. According to the night watchman, he didn’t come back until two thirty in the morning. I talked to the shoeshine boy and he told me that the soles of Peyrot’s shoes had red mud on them.

  ‘On the Tuesday morning I returned to La Bicoque and found footprints in a flower bed beneath the window of Arlette’s room.

  ‘What do you make of that?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘As for Théo Besson …’

  ‘Was he there too?’

  ‘Not during the night. You understand, don’t you, that the two Besson sons are the offspring of a first marriage and that Valentine isn’t their mother? I’ve sketched out the family tree if you’re interested.’

  ‘Not now, I’m hungry.’

  ‘In short, Théo Besson, who’s forty-eight and unmarried, has been on holiday in Étretat for the last two weeks.’

  ‘At his stepmother’s?’

  ‘No. He doesn’t see her. I think they fell out. He has a room at Les Roches Blanches, the hotel you can just see from here.’

  ‘So he didn’t go to La Bicoque?’

  ‘Hold on. When Charles Besson—’

  Poor Castaing sighed, despairing of being able to present a clear picture of the situation, especially since Maigret didn’t appear to be listening
.

  ‘On Sunday morning Charles Besson arrived at around eleven with his wife and four children. They have a car, a big, early-model Panhard. Arlette had got there before them. They all had lunch at La Bicoque. Then Charles Besson went down to the beach with his eldest two, a fifteen-year-old boy and a twelve-year-old girl, while the ladies chatted.’

  ‘Did he meet his brother?’

  ‘He did. I suspect that Charles Besson suggested going for a walk so he could go and have a drink at the casino. From what people say he’s fond of a tipple. He ran into Théo, whom he didn’t know was in Étretat, and insisted on inviting him back to La Bicoque. Théo eventually gave in. So the entire family was there for dinner, a cold meal comprising lobster and leg of lamb.’

  ‘No one was ill?’

  ‘No. Other than the family, there was only the maid. Charles Besson and his family left at around half past nine. A five-year-old kid, Claude, had been sleeping in Valentine’s bedroom, and, just before they got into the car, they had to give the baby a bottle. He’s only six months old and he was crying.’

  ‘What’s the name of Charles Besson’s wife?’

  ‘I imagine it’s Émilienne, she’s called Mimi.’

  ‘Mimi,’ Maigret repeated gravely, as if learning a lesson by heart.

  ‘She’s a strapping brunette of around forty.’

  ‘Strapping brunette, right! They drove off in their Panhard at around nine.’

  ‘That’s right. Théo stayed a few minutes longer, and then only the three women were left in the house.’

  ‘Valentine, her daughter Arlette and young Rose.’

  ‘Correct. Young Rose did the washing-up in the kitchen while the mother and daughter chatted in the living room.’

  ‘Are all the bedrooms upstairs?’

  ‘Except the guest room, as I told you, which is downstairs, with windows overlooking the garden. You’ll see. It’s like a doll’s house, with tiny little rooms.’

  ‘Arlette didn’t go upstairs to her mother’s room?’

  ‘They went up together at around ten, because the old lady wanted to show her daughter a dress she’d just had made.’

  ‘Did they both come back downstairs?’

  ‘Yes. Then Valentine went up again to retire, followed, a few minutes later, by young Rose. She usually helped her mistress get into bed and gave her her medicine.’

  ‘Was it she who prepared it?’

  ‘No. Valentine put the drops in the glass of water beforehand.’

  ‘Arlette didn’t go back upstairs?’

  ‘No. It was around eleven thirty when young Rose went to bed too.’

  ‘And it was around two o’clock that she began to groan.’

  ‘That’s the time given by Arlette and her mother.’

  ‘And, in your opinion, between midnight and two o’clock, there was a man in Arlette’s bedroom, a man with whom she had driven from Paris. Do you happen to know how Théo spent his evening?’

  ‘I haven’t had the time to investigate yet. I confess I hadn’t thought of it.’

  ‘How about some lunch?’

  ‘With pleasure.’

  ‘Do you think I could have mussels?’

  ‘Possibly, but I wouldn’t count on it. I’m beginning to know the menu by heart.’

  ‘This morning, did you go into Rose’s parents’ house?’

  ‘Only into the front room, which had been turned into a chapel of rest.’

  ‘Do you know if they have a good portrait of her?’

  ‘I can ask them.’

  ‘Do so. As many photographs as you can find, even as a child, at all ages. How old was she, by the way?’

  ‘Twenty-two or twenty-three. I didn’t write the report and—’

  ‘I gather she’d been with the old lady for a very long time.’

  ‘For seven years. She started working for her when she was very young, when Ferdinand Besson was still alive. She was a strong, buxom girl with a ruddy complexion.’

  ‘She’d never been ill?’

  ‘Doctor Jolly didn’t mention anything. I think he’d have told me if she had.’

  ‘I’d like to know whether she had any sweethearts, or a lover.’

  ‘That did occur to me. Apparently not. She was very hardworking, she practically never went out.’

  ‘Because she wasn’t allowed out?’

  ‘I think, but I could be wrong, that Valentine kept her on a tight rein and was reluctant to allow her any time off.’

  All this time they’d been walking along the seafront. Maigret had been gazing constantly at the sea and hadn’t thought about it for a moment.

  It was already over. He had experienced a familiar little thrill that morning, in Bréauté-Beuzeville. The toy train had brought back memories of past holidays.

  Now he no longer noticed the women’s pastel bathing costumes, the children crouching among the pebbles; he was oblivious to the kelp’s salty tang.

  He had barely bothered to find out if there’d be mussels for lunch!

  He was there, his head filled with new names which he tried to file away in his memory as he would have done in his office at Quai des Orfèvres. He and Castaing sat down at a table with a white cloth and gladioli in an imitation crystal fluted vase.

  Maybe it was a sign that he was growing old? He craned to catch another glimpse of the white-crested waves, and it saddened him not to feel the slightest excitement.

  ‘Were there a lot of people at the funeral?’

  ‘The whole of Yport was there, as well as people who’d come from Étretat, Les Loges, Vaucottes, and the fishermen from Fécamp.’

  Maigret recalled country funerals, had the impression he caught a whiff of Calvados and said very gravely:

  ‘The men will all be drunk tonight.’

  ‘That’s fairly likely!’ conceded Castaing, slightly taken aback by the famous inspector’s train of thought.

  There were no mussels on the menu, and so they had an hors-d’œuvre of canned sardines and celeriac remoulade.

  2. Valentine’s Early Life

  He pushed open the unlocked gate and, seeing no bell, walked into the garden. He had never seen such a profusion of plants in a space so confined. The flowering shrubs were so close together that they created the impression of a jungle and in the tiniest space between them sprang dahlias, lupins, chrysanthemums and other flowers that Maigret recognized only from brightly coloured illustrations on seed packets in shop windows; and it looked as if the old lady had used every single packet.

  The house whose slate roof he had glimpsed from the road was no longer visible above the greenery. The path zigzagged and, at one point, he must have turned right instead of left, because after a few steps he found himself in a courtyard with big pink flagstones on to which opened the kitchen and the laundry.

  He saw a sturdy country woman dressed in black, with a few streaks of grey in her dark hair, her flesh and her eyes hard, beating a mattress. Around her, in the open air, stood a jumble of bedroom furniture, a bedside table with its drawer open, curtains and blankets hanging from a washing line, a straw-bottomed chair and a dismantled bed.

  The woman looked at him without stopping her work.

  ‘Is Madame Besson at home?’

  She merely indicated the leaded windows surrounded by Virginia creeper; as he approached he could see Valentine in her sitting room. Unaware of his presence, since she wasn’t expecting him to arrive via the courtyard, she was visibly preparing to receive him. Having placed a silver tray with a crystal decanter and glasses on a pedestal table, she stood back to gauge the effect, then looked at herself and tidied her hair in front of an antique mirror with a carved frame.

  ‘Just knock,’ said the country woman brusquely.

  He hadn’t noticed that one of the windows was in fact a casement door, and he knocked on it. Valentine turned round, surprised, and immediately produced a smile.

  ‘I knew you’d come, but I had hoped to greet you at the main door, so to speak,
although the term is a bit grand for this house.’

  Right away, she made the same impression on him as she had in Paris. She was so animated, so sparkling that she had the air of a woman who was still young, very young even, disguised as an old lady for an amateur theatre production. And yet she wasn’t trying to make herself look younger. On the contrary, the cut of her black silk dress, her hairstyle, the broad velvet choker that she wore round her neck were all typical of her age.

  And, looking at her close up, he could see the delicate wrinkles, the withering of the neck, a certain dryness of her hands that left no doubt.

  ‘Would you like to give me your hat, inspector, and see if there’s an armchair that’s the right size for you? You probably feel awkward in my doll’s house, don’t you?’

  The charming thing about her was perhaps that she always seemed to be laughing at herself.

  ‘You must have been told, or you will be, that I’m neurotic, and it’s true that I’ve got all sorts of obsessions. You can’t imagine how busy obsessions keep you when you live alone. Why don’t you try that armchair over there, by the window? And do please smoke your pipe. My husband smoked cigars from dawn till dusk, and nothing permeates the house like cigar smoke. Between you and me, I don’t think he really liked it. He only began smoking cigars very late, when he was well over forty, when Juva cream became famous.’

  And hastily, as if to excuse her unkind comment:

  ‘We all have our weaknesses. I imagine you had coffee at the hotel? Perhaps you’ll allow me to offer you a Calvados that’s over thirty years old?’

  He had realized that it was her eyes as much as her vivacity that made her appear so young. They were of a blue that was paler than the September sky over the sea and still had an expression of surprise, of wonderment, the look of an Alice in Wonderland.

  ‘I’ll have a drop too, to keep you company, as long as you’re not shocked. You see that I make no secret of my little vices. You’ll find the house all topsy-turvy. I’m only just back from the funeral of poor young Rose. I found it very difficult to persuade Madame Leroy to come and give me a hand. You’ve probably guessed that it’s the furniture from Rose’s room you saw outside. I have a horror of death, inspector, and of everything associated with it. Until the house has been cleaned from top to bottom and aired for a few days I feel as though the stench of death will linger in the air.’