Maigret and the Toy Village Read online

  Jules Lapie had never been a seaman, but had been employed as bookkeeper by a firm in Fecamp, a ship chandler, supplier of sails, rope, winches, and all kinds of ships’ stores and provisions.

  A bachelor, thickset, persnickety almost to the point of mania, a colorless man, with a brother who was a ship’s carpenter.

  One morning, Jules Lapie, then about forty, went aboard the Sainte-Thérèse, a three-masted schooner due to sail that same day for Chile, to oversee the loading of a cargo of phosphates. Lapie’s duties were prosaic enough. It was his task to check that nothing was missing from the consignment as ordered, and to receive payment from the captain.

  What precisely had gone wrong? The sailors of Fecamp were never backward in making fun of the persnickety bookkeeper who always seemed so ill at ease when compelled by his duties to set foot on board a ship. Drinks were poured and glasses clinked, as was the custom. He was plied with drink, though God knows what manner of drink it was to make him so very, very drunk.

  Be that as it may, when, at high tide, the Sainte-Thérèse glided out between the piers of the little harbor of that small port in Normandy, Jules Lapie, who everyone believed, or pretended to believe, had gone ashore, was huddled, dead drunk and snoring, in a corner of the hold.

  They battened down the hatches. It was not until they had been two days out at sea that they found him. The captain refused to turn back, to deviate from his course, and thus it came about that Lapie, who in those days still had both his legs, found himself aboard a ship bound for Cape Horn.

  This episode was to cost him a leg, when he was thrown through a skylight during a fight.

  Years later, he was to be killed by a revolver shot, one Monday in spring, having been lured away from his tomato plants, while Félicie was out getting her supplies from Mélanie Chochoi’s brand-new grocery.

  “Shall we go downstairs?” murmured Maigret, with a sigh.

  The house was so peaceful, so pleasant to be in, with its dollhouse cleanliness and its wholesome smells. The dining room, on the right, had been transformed into a mortuary chapel. The Chief Superintendent opened the door a crack.

  The shutters were closed, and the room was in darkness except for the thin slivers of light showing through the slats. The coffin was lying on the table, which was covered with a cloth. Beside it was a bowl of holy water, with a sprig of rosemary in it.

  Félicie stood waiting for him at the kitchen door.

  “In other words, you know nothing, you saw nothing, you haven’t the remotest idea who your employer—sorry! Jules Lapie—could possibly have been entertaining during your absence.”

  She met his glance unwaveringly, but said nothing.

  “And you are quite sure that, when you returned, there was only one glass on the garden table?”

  “I saw only one… But if you say there were two…”

  “Did Lapie have many visitors?”

  Maigret sat down next to the stove, reflecting that a drink would be most welcome, preferably a glass of that vin rosé mentioned by Félicie. He had seen the barrel down there in the cool, dark cellar. The sun was rising higher in the sky, and, in its heat, the morning dew was gradually evaporating.

  “He didn’t welcome callers.”

  Quite a character, this fellow, whose whole life must have been turned upside down by that trip around the Horn! On his return to Fecamp, where, in spite of the loss of his leg, his strange adventure was viewed with some mirth, he withdrew still further into himself, and devoted his energy to a prolonged lawsuit against the owners of the Sainte-Thérèse. He claimed that, since he had been detained aboard against his will, the shipping company was at fault, and was therefore liable to pay compensation. He set the highest possible value on his amputated leg, won his case, and was awarded substantial damages.

  The people of Fecamp thought him a figure of fun. He shunned them and, having come to hate the sea, moved inland, and was one of the first to succumb to the lure of the dazzling prospects held out by the developer of Jeanneville.

  He engaged a girl whom he had known as a child in Fecamp to come and keep house for him.

  “How long have you lived in this house?”

  “Seven years.”

  “You are now twenty-four… so you were seventeen when…”

  Allowing his thoughts to drift at will, he suddenly asked:

  “Have you got a steady boyfriend?”

  She looked at him, but did not answer.

  “I asked you if you had a steady boyfriend.”

  “My private life is no concern of yours.”

  “Does he visit you here?”

  “I don’t have to answer that.”

  She deserved a good slap, she really did. It was not the first time that Maigret had been tempted to administer one, or at least to take her by the shoulders and shake her.

  “No matter. I’ll soon find out.”

  “You won’t find anything out.”

  “Oh? That’s what you think, is it?”

  He pulled himself up. It was really too absurd. He was not going to demean himself by having an argument with this chit of a girl.

  “Are you sure you have nothing more to tell me? Think it over while there is still time.”

  “I’ve done all the thinking that’s necessary.”

  “Sure you’re not hiding something from me?”

  “If you’re as clever as they say, how could I hide anything from you?”

  “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “I wish you luck.”

  “What are you planning to do after Jules Lapie’s funeral? His family will be coming here, I presume.”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought.”

  “Will you be staying here?”

  “I might.”

  “Are you expecting to inherit his property?”

  “I think it’s very likely.”

  Maigret did not wholly succeed in controlling his irritation.

  “At all events, my dear, I want you to remember one thing. As long as I am investigating this case, I forbid you to leave the area without informing the police.”

  “Are you putting me under house arrest?”

  “No!”

  “And what if I should feel like going off somewhere?”

  “You will apply to me for permission.”

  “Do you think I killed him?”

  “My thoughts are my own, and I have no intention of sharing them with you.”

  He had had enough. He was furious, mainly for having allowed himself to get into such a state over a nonentity like Félicie. Twenty-four, was she? It seemed hardly possible. The way she was carrying on, one would take her for a youngster of twelve or thirteen, solemnly playing out some juvenile fantasy or other of her own.

  “Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.”

  “Oh, by the way, what are you having for lunch?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I won’t starve.”

  She could say that again! He could just see her, after he had gone, sitting down at the kitchen table, nibbling at whatever came to hand, and, at the same time, reading one of those paperback romances on sale in Madame Chochoi’s shop.

  Maigret was still furious. To be made a fool of in front of everyone, and, worse, to be made a fool of by a poisonous little shrew like Félicie!

  It was Thursday. The Lapie family had turned up in force. There was his brother, Ernest Lapie, the ship’s carpenter from Fecamp, an uncouth man with close-cropped, bristling hair and pockmarked face; his wife, a huge woman with a hairy upper lip; and a couple of children she herded along like geese in a field. Then there was a youth of nineteen, a nephew of the dead man, named Jacques Pétillon, who had come from Paris. He seemed nervous and sickly, and was viewed with suspicion by the Lapie contingent.

  There was as yet no cemetery in Jeanneville. The procession had set out for Orgeval, of which the new development was a suburb. Félicie created quite a sensation by appearing in a crepe veil. Where on earth could she have got hold of it? Maigret was to learn later that she had borrowed it from Mélanie Chochoi.

  Félicie, without waiting to be invited, took her place at the head of the procession. She walked, stiff as a ramrod, in front of the family, the very embodiment of grief, dabbing her eyes with a black-edged handkerchief, also no doubt borrowed from Mélanie, which she had sprayed with cheap eau de Cologne.

  Sergeant Lucas, who had spent the night in Jeanneville, was at Maigret’s side. Both were walking at the rear of the procession along the dusty road, listening to the larks singing in the clear sky.

  “She knows something, that’s for sure. She’s so sharp, she’ll cut herself one of these days…”

  Lucas nodded in agreement. The doors of the little church were left open throughout the service, so that the scents of springtime were even more pervasive than the incense. It was not far from the church to the graveside.

  After the ceremony, the family were to return to the cottage, to deal with the matter of the will.

  “Why did my brother have to make a will?” exclaimed Ernest Lapie in surprise. “We don’t go in for that kind of thing in our family.”

  “According to Félicie…”

  “Félicie! Félicie! I’m sick of the sound of her name.”

  Involuntarily, Maigret shrugged.

  And there she was, shouldering her way to the front, making sure of being the first to throw a spadeful of earth on the coffin. And having done so, she left the graveside in floods of tears, walking so fast that it seemed she was almost bound to trip and fall.

  “Stay with her, Lucas.”

  She walked and walked at a very brisk pace, taking advantage of the twists and turns of the streets and lanes of Orgeval. Lucas followed, barely fifty yards behind h
er, but eventually, coming out into a more or less deserted street, he saw the back of a delivery truck disappearing around a corner, and realized that he had lost her.

  He went into the nearest café.

  “Tell me… that truck that’s just driven off…”

  “Yes… It belongs to the car mechanic, Louvet. He just looked in for a quick one…”

  “Did he give a lift to anyone?”

  “I don’t know… I don’t think so… I didn’t see him leave.”

  “Do you know where he’s bound for?”

  “Paris. He always goes there on Thursdays.”

  Lucas hurried over to the post office, which, by a lucky chance, was just across the street.

  “Hello… Yes… Lucas speaking… This is urgent… A delivery truck, rather battered… Hang on a minute…”

  He turned to the postmistress.

  “Do you happen to know the license number of Monsieur Louvet’s truck?”

  “No… but I do remember that the last figure is an eight.”

  “Hello… The last figure is eight. A young woman dressed in mourning… Hello… Don’t hang up… No, I don’t want her arrested. Just followed… understand?… You’ll be hearing further from the Chief Superintendent himself.”

  He returned to join Maigret, who was walking alone behind the family on the Orgeval-Jeanneville road.

  “She got away.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She must have jumped into the delivery truck as soon as it stopped… By the time I turned the corner, it was too late. I called the Quai des Orfèvres. They’re putting out an all-points alert. They’re keeping watch on all roads into Paris.”

  So, Félicie had vanished! Without fuss, in broad daylight, under the very noses of Maigret and his most trusted assistant! She had vanished, in spite of that voluminous mourning veil, which made her conspicuous a mile off.

  The family mourners kept looking back at the two policemen, wondering where on earth Félicie could have got to. She had taken the front-door key with her. They had to go in through the garden. Maigret opened the dining-room shutters. The table was still covered with a sheet, the sprig of rosemary had been left lying there, and the whole place smelled of candle grease.

  “I could do with a drink,” said Ernest Lapie, sighing. “Etienne! Julie! Keep off the flower beds! There must be some wine somewhere.”

  “In the cellar,” Maigret told him.

  Lapie’s wife had gone to Mélanie’s shop to buy some cookies for the children, and, while she was about it, she got enough for everyone.

  “My brother had no reason whatsoever to make a will, Chief Superintendent. I realize that he was eccentric… He was unsociable, to say the least, and didn’t bother to keep in touch… All the same…”

  Maigret was rummaging through the drawers of the little desk that stood in a corner of the room. He took out several bundles of bills and receipts neatly fastened together, and there underneath lay an old gray wallet. It contained nothing but a single buff envelope.

  To be opened after my death.

  “Well, gentlemen, this is what we are looking for, I think.”

  I, Jules Lapie, the undersigned, being sound in mind and body, do hereby declare, in the presence of Ernest Forrentin and François Lepape, both residing in Jeanneville, in the district of Orgeval…

  As Maigret read on, his voice took on a graver tone.

  “Félicie was right!” he said, when he had finished. “It is she who inherits the house and all its contents.”

  The relatives were quite simply thunderstruck. The will contained one phrase that they would not readily forget:

  Having regard to the attitude that my brother and his wife saw fit to adopt at the time of my accident…

  “All I said was that I couldn’t see the point of moving heaven and earth just because…” expostulated Ernest Lapie.

  In view of the conduct of my nephew, Jacques Pétillon…

  The sickly young man from Paris wore the hangdog expression of an undistinguished schoolboy on Prize Day.

  All to no avail. Félicie was the heir. And Félicie, for God knows what reason, had vanished.

  * * *

  2

  In the Métro

  Maigret, with his hands in his trouser pockets, stood facing the bamboo coatrack in the entryway, with its lozenge-shaped mirror beneath the pegs. The sight of his face reflected in this mirror might well have brought a smile to his lips, for he was reminded of a shamefaced child longing to gratify an unreasonable whim. Yet Maigret did not smile, but, after some hesitation, stretched out his hand, seized the wide-brimmed straw hat that was hanging from one of the pegs, and put it on his head.

  Well, well! Old Peg Leg had had an even bigger head than the Chief Superintendent, who always had difficulty finding a hat large enough to fit him. Deep in thought, still wearing the straw hat, he went into the dining room, to take another look at the photograph of Jules Lapie that he had found in a drawer.

  Once, on being asked to comment on Maigret’s methods by a visiting criminologist, the Chief Commissioner of the Police Judiciaire had replied, with an enigmatic smile:

  “Maigret? How can I put it? He settles into a case as if it were a pair of comfortable old slippers.”

  Today, it would not have taken much to induce the Chief Superintendent to step not into the victim’s slippers so much as into his clogs. For there they stood, inside the door on the right, obviously just where they were supposed to be. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. Except for the absence of Félicie, Maigret would have been prepared to believe that life was going on just as usual in the house, that he himself was Lapie, on the point of making his slow way into the garden, to finish pricking out his row of tomatoes.

  Behind the freshly painted cottages that could be seen from the garden, the sky was filled with the glorious colors of sunset. Ernest Lapie, the dead man’s brother, had sent his family back to Fecamp, announcing that he himself was proposing to spend the night in Poissy. The others, the neighbors and the few farm workers from Orgeval who had attended the funeral, had doubtless returned to their homes, or dropped into the Anneau d’Or, the local inn, for a drink.

  Sergeant Lucas was also at the inn, Maigret having instructed him to take his suitcase there, and to stay within reach of the telephone, pending further news from Paris.

  Peg Leg had had a huge head, a square jaw, thick gray eyebrows, and gray bristles all over his face, since it was his habit to shave only once a week. He had been mean with money. One only had to glance through his bills. It was obvious that, as far as he was concerned, every penny counted. His brother had admitted:

  “To be sure, he was careful…”

  And in Normandy, when one man says of another that he is “careful”…

  It was a mild evening. The sky was visibly changing from rose to violet. Fresh breezes were blowing in from the countryside, and Maigret, his pipe clenched between his teeth, caught himself stooping a little, as Lapie had done. More than that, as he made for the cellar, he found that he was dragging his left leg. He turned on the tap of the barrel of vin rosé, rinsed the glass, and helped himself. At this hour, Félicie would normally be at work in the kitchen, and the smell of simmering stew would no doubt be drifting out into the garden. This surely was the time of day for watering the plants. He could see people out with their watering cans in the neighboring gardens. Dusk was spreading through the rooms of Cape Horn, where, no doubt, in the old man’s time, the lighting of the lamps was delayed until the last possible moment.

  Why had he been killed? Maigret could not help reflecting that he, too, would one day retire to a little house in the country, with a garden, a broad-brimmed straw hat…

  Theft could not have been the motive, since, according to his brother, Peg Leg possessed almost nothing apart from the quarterly payment of his famous damages. A savings-bank book had been found in the house, along with an envelope containing two thousand francs, and a few premium bonds. His gold watch had also been found.

  Oh, well! They would have to look elsewhere. But first, he would have to dig deeper into the old man’s character. He had been grumpy, churlish, taciturn, persnickety. A loner. The smallest disruption of his settled habits must have infuriated him. He had never even entertained the thought of marriage and a family, and, as far as was known, had never had a love affair of any description.