The Judge's House Read online

  Silence fell. Again the distant moan of the foghorn could be heard. There were boats out at sea. Fishermen were lifting nets heaving with fish up on deck. Had Hulot managed to make his phone call? If he had, the unbearable Méjat, with his brilliantined hair, must be getting hastily dressed right now. Did he have yet another conquest in his bed, as he liked to boast?

  ‘Well,’ Maigret sighed, drowsy from the heat, ‘I don’t think this is going to be an easy matter!’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of, too. Given the situation, I mean since the man was dead, it would have been preferable …’

  He didn’t finish his sentence, but looked towards the windows. The ebb tide would have carried him away, and nobody would have been any the wiser! Maigret started to move, shifted one leg, then the other, until at last he was able to get out of the excessively deep armchair; it looked as if his head might touch the beams.

  ‘Shall we go and have a look at him anyway?’

  He couldn’t help admiring this low room, where it was so pleasant to spend time, where everything was so precisely in its place. He looked up at the ceiling: who was this girl who was locked up for the night?

  ‘We could take him into the laundry,’ the judge suggested. ‘It’s at the end of the passage.’

  Now they were both trying to avoid getting themselves dirty. They were no longer out in the wet night. They had become civilized men again.

  The laundry was vast, covered in red tiles. There was still linen drying on iron wires.

  ‘Do you have a pair of scissors?’ Maigret grunted, touching the two sacks. Coal-black water oozed out.

  The judge couldn’t find any scissors but came back with a kitchen knife. The fire was out. It was cold. Their wet fingers were turning red.

  The most extraordinary thing about all this was that it wasn’t tragic. The judge showed no horror at the prospect of seeing again the face of the man he had sewn into the sacks. Maigret was wearing his stubbornest, grouchiest expression, but the truth was that he was basking almost voluptuously in this investigation that had fallen into his lap, right here in Luçon, where he had been exiled. He was like a seal that had been juggling in circuses and now found itself back in the icy seas of the North!

  How long had it been since he had last entered a house, as he had done earlier, and sniffed about, come and gone, heavily, patiently, until the souls of both people and things no longer held any secrets for him?

  And that Didine with her Hulot! And that son waiting for his father, at midnight, sitting on the stairs!

  Now for the other man! The victim! What would emerge from these filthy sacks?

  For a moment, it was almost comical. You expect all kinds of things, but what real life throws up is always more bizarre. So it was that now, when the upper sack was removed, the face they uncovered was completely black. Because of the coal, of course!

  It was only natural, but for a moment the two men looked at each other, and both had the same idea; for a split second, they had the absurd impression that they were in the presence of a negro.

  ‘Do you have a towel and a little water?’

  The tap made a racket. When the noise ceased, Maigret listened out. Another noise could be heard outside, that of a car engine. A door slammed. A bell rang loudly in the passage. Méjat didn’t do things quietly!

  ‘Where’s the detective chief inspector?’

  He saw him standing there. Méjat had a red nose and a lock of hair hanging askew.

  ‘Did I get here fast enough? Shall I keep the taxi, chief? Is there really a body? Where’s the crazy old lady?’

  He had brought with him, on his person and in the folds of his clothes, some of the cold damp air from outside and also a crudity that altered the quality of the atmosphere. Now it was less muted, less muffled. Méjat, with his strong Toulouse accent, wasn’t sensitive to nuances.

  ‘Have you identified him, chief?’

  ‘Not at all!’

  Maigret was surprised at his own words, words that belonged to the past, words he had often repeated in the old days when he was floundering in a complicated case, and fools like Méjat …

  ‘He received quite a blow to the head!’

  The judge looked at Maigret, Maigret looked at him, and both were thinking the same thing, regretting the almost intimate peace of a little earlier. As for Méjat, he was looking through the dead man’s pockets and, of course, finding nothing.

  ‘How old do you think he is, chief? I’d say about forty … Are there any labels on his clothes? … Do you want me to strip him?’

  ‘Go ahead! Strip him!’

  Maigret filled a pipe and started to walk up and down the laundry, talking to himself in a low voice.

  ‘I’ll have to phone the public prosecutor in La Roche-sur-Yon … I wonder what he’ll decide.’

  And the judge, standing there in front of him, uttered gravely, not realizing how comical he sounded:

  ‘It would be a disaster if they put me in prison.’

  ‘Come now, Judge Forlacroix,’ Maigret burst out, unable to stop himself. ‘Don’t you think it’s a disaster for this man to have lost his life and to be lying here on these tiles? Don’t you think it’s a disaster for a wife, children perhaps, to be wondering what’s become of him? And that it would have been even more of a disaster never to find out, because someone else preferred not to complicate his life?’

  He wasn’t even grateful! He had been given a wonderful armagnac, a log fire as penetrating as balm, an hour of gentle bliss, and here he was turning against his host, becoming once again the implacable Maigret of Quai des Orfèvres.

  The mild Monsieur Forlacroix’s only response was a reproachful look.

  ‘There’s a label in the jacket!’ Méjat cried triumphantly. ‘Let’s see now … Pa … Pa … Pana …’

  ‘Panama!’ Maigret grunted, snatching the garment from his hands. ‘That’s going to make things easier for us, isn’t it? A man who wears clothes made in the Republic of Panama! Why not China?’

  The uppers of the shoes had to be cut in order to take them off. It was again Méjat who saw to this, and this young man who dressed so sharply, and was so happy to play the ladykiller, performed his task as naturally as he would have written a report, with the names circled, as he was in the habit of doing.

  ‘The shoes are from Paris, Boulevard des Capucines.The heels are already a bit scuffed. In my opinion, they’ve been worn for at least a month. What do you think he could have been, chief? A Frenchman? … I think he was a Frenchman. A fairly well-to-do sort, who didn’t work with his hands … Look at his hands.’

  Neither of them gave a thought to the taxi waiting outside, or to the driver pacing up and down to warm himself. Abruptly, the door flew open. A man appeared at the end of the passage, as tall and broad as Maigret, wearing thigh-length rubber boots. On his head he had a sailor’s sou’wester. His upper body was encased in an oilskin jacket beneath which he was obviously wearing a few thick sweaters.

  He advanced, heavy and suspicious. He looked first Maigret, then Méjat up and down, bent over the body and finally stared at the judge.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he snapped, almost threateningly.

  Forlacroix turned to Maigret.

  ‘My son …’ he said. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d explain to him …’

  And with that, he quickly left the laundry with little mouse-like steps and went back to the low room where he had first received the inspector.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the young man repeated, this time addressing Maigret. ‘Who is this? Who killed him? You’re police, aren’t you? When I saw a car outside the house …’

  It was already five o’clock in the morning! Albert Forlacroix had been on his way to the mussel fields when he had spotted the taxi.

  ‘The driver told me he’d brought an inspector from Luçon.’

  And suddenly, with a frown:

  ‘My sister … What has he done to my sister?’

  He was so anxio
us that Maigret had a kind of shock. Could it be that … While he and Forlacroix had sat there in soft armchairs, in front of the crackling logs …

  ‘I’d like to see your sister, as it happens,’ he said in a changed voice. ‘Do you have a key to her room?’

  The other man merely shrugged his massive shoulders.

  ‘Méjat … Wait down here.’

  Their steps made a noise on the stairs, then in the long corridor, which turned several corners.

  ‘It’s here … Could you stand back?’

  And Albert Forlacroix lunged at the door.

  3. The Airaud Trail

  It was an extraordinary moment, and Maigret would never forget the taste of it. First the late-night weariness, and that smell of wet wool. That unknown corridor that seemed to go on for ever. Again they heard the foghorn. Just as Albert Forlacroix launched himself at the door, Maigret looked towards the stairs and saw the judge, who had walked up without making a noise. Behind him, still in the stairwell, Méjat’s face …

  The door yielded, and his impetus carried Albert right into the middle of the room.

  It was unexpected. It was like nothing that might have been foreseen.

  The room was lit by a bedside lamp with a finely gathered pink silk shade. A young girl lay on a Louis XVI bed. She was in an almost seated position, because she had lifted herself on one elbow, and, in the movement she had made to look towards the door, a swollen, heavy breast had escaped from her nightdress.

  Maigret could not have said if she was beautiful. Was the face too broad perhaps, the forehead too low, the nose childish? But her lips were as full as a ripe fruit, and her eyes were huge.

  Had she switched the lamp on when she had heard noises in the corridor? Had she been asleep? It was impossible to know. She didn’t seem very surprised. And yet she could see the great bulk of Maigret in the doorway and her brother standing in his rubber boots in the middle of the room.

  All she did was murmur in a calm voice:

  ‘What’s the matter, Albert?

  Her father had not come in, but he had approached the door and had heard. Maigret was embarrassed, unable to take his eyes off that breast, and Albert had noticed. Not that he paid any attention. He looked suspiciously about the room then went and opened a door.

  Was it intuition? Maigret felt sure this door led to the famous fruitery, and he stepped forwards.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked.

  No reply, just a nasty look. Then suddenly Albert Forlacroix bent down. On the floor, both in the bedroom and in the fruitery, there were footprints. A man’s shoes had left thin rings of mud, and the mud wasn’t completely dry.

  ‘Who is it?’

  Albert walked to the window of the fruitery. It was half-open, letting cold air filter in.

  Maigret returned to the bedroom to find the girl in the same position, her breast still bare. So there had been a man in this room, in this bed, during the night, perhaps when Maigret was already in the house …

  Albert strode across the room. Maigret followed him. The judge, waiting in the corridor, murmured:

  ‘I won’t be able to lock the door again …’

  His son shrugged and, ignoring everyone, started down the stairs, with Maigret at his heels.

  ‘Méjat!’

  ‘Yes, chief …’

  ‘Keep an eye on the house … From the outside.’

  He took his coat off the hook and grabbed his hat. It wasn’t light yet, but the harbour was bustling, and voices and various noises could be heard from all sides.

  ‘You didn’t answer me just now. Do you know who the man is?’

  Pretending not to see Hulot, who had been waiting for him, Maigret walked right past him, leaving the former customs officer quite crestfallen.

  As for Albert, he was in no hurry to speak. A strange young man!

  ‘Can I go and harvest my mussels? Or do you intend to arrest me?’

  ‘You can harvest your mussels. Unless you have something to tell me. Like the name of the man whose prints you found in your sister’s room.’

  Suddenly Albert stopped and put his hand on Maigret’s shoulder. They had reached the edge of the water. The land fell away rapidly, uncovering an expanse of brownish, swollen mud. Men, women in trousers, all of them in rubber boots, were loading empty baskets into flat boats that were then pushed out with the help of poles.

  ‘The man? Let’s see … It’s him over there …’

  A young man almost as tall and strong as Albert, dressed just like him, was helping an old woman into his boat and then immediately cast off from the shore.

  ‘His name’s Airaud … Marcel Airaud.’

  With that, Albert opened the door of one of the sheds and came out again with a pile of baskets.

  The maid at the Hôtel du Port was already up and was washing down the tiled floor when Maigret returned.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she said, surprised. ‘Didn’t you sleep in your bed?’

  He sat down by the stove and asked for coffee, bread, sausage and cheese. Only then, comfortably wedged into his wall seat, did he ask as he chewed:

  ‘Do you know a man named Airaud?’

  ‘Marcel?’ she replied, so quickly that Maigret looked at her with rather more attention.

  ‘Marcel Airaud, yes.’

  ‘He’s a local lad. Why do you ask me about him?’

  It would have been difficult for her to pretend that this particular young man was of no interest to her.

  ‘Is he a mussel farmer? Married?’

  ‘Not at all!’

  ‘Is he engaged?’

  ‘Why do you ask me that?’

  ‘No reason. I got the impression he’s been hanging around the judge’s daughter …’

  ‘First of all, it’s not true!’ she cried through clenched teeth. ‘Others, maybe! And they don’t need to hang around, or stand on ceremony, because if you really want to know, that girl’s a … a …’

  She looked for the worst swear word she could find, but in the end it was quite an innocuous expression that fell from her lips:

  ‘… a good-for-nothing! Everybody knows that. If her brother had had to keep beating up the men who visit her in her room …’

  ‘Are there many of them?’

  ‘Almost all! And the time she ran away to Poitiers, where they found her in a real state! … If anyone’s been trying to convince you that she and Marcel …’

  ‘Could I have a little more coffee, please? One more question: the man who came by bus on Tuesday … What time did he arrive?’

  ‘It was the four-thirty bus.’

  ‘Did he leave straight away?’

  ‘He said he’d be back for dinner. He set off in the direction of the bridge, I think. It was already dark.’

  ‘Would you recognize him if you were shown his photograph?’

  ‘Maybe …’

  ‘All right! I’m going to bed.’

  She looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘Let’s see, now. It’s six o’clock. Wake me up at eight, with some very strong coffee. Can I rely on you, young lady? You’re not angry at me because of Marcel?’

  ‘Why should I care about that?’

  He slept soundly. It was a great gift of his, being able to sleep anywhere, at any time, and forget his worries from one second to the next.

  And when the maid, whose name was Thérèse, woke him with piping-hot coffee, a pleasant surprise awaited him. Everything had changed. Sunlight was coming in through the window. The hubbub of life filled the room, a commotion made up of a thousand noises from all sides.

  ‘Would you be so kind as to bring me up some soap, my dear? If they sell safety razors locally, buy me one, and a shaving brush.’

  As he waited, he leaned out of the window and drank in the cold air, as delicious as spring water. So this was the harbour that had seemed so dark and clammy last night? That was the judge’s house? And the sheds on the shore …

  Everything gave him a
delighted sense of astonishment. The sheds, for example, were brightly painted, in white, blue and green. The judge’s house was all white, covered in delicate pink tiles.

  It was a very old house, which must have undergone a lot of changes over the centuries. It was a surprise, for example, to discover, next to the window of the fruitery, quite a vast terrace surrounded by a balustrade with an enormous green porcelain pot at each corner.

  Below, beyond the garden, another house, also white, no upper floor, probably just two rooms, with a little garden and a fence, a ladder propped against an apple tree. Wasn’t that Didine, in her white bonnet, standing in the doorway, her hands on her belly, looking in Maigret’s direction?

  The mussel farmers were already coming back. Twenty boats, thirty boats, strange flat craft called acons, had moored at the dock, and baskets and baskets of blueish mussels were being hoisted into big lorries with spluttering engines.

  ‘I could only find a cheap throwaway razor for three francs fifty, but the shopkeeper says …’

  The throwaway razor would have to do! Maigret wasn’t sleepy any more. He was as fresh as if he had spent all night in his bed. A little glass of white wine downstairs before he went out? Why not?

  ‘Would you like me to polish your shoes?’

  Of course! No more mud! Everything clean! He couldn’t help smiling when he spotted Inspector Méjat in the distance, looking like a wet cockerel drying its feathers in the sun.

  ‘Nothing new, my friend?’

  ‘Nothing, chief. Two women arrived, an old one and a young one. The maids, I assume … Look.’

  The three ground-floor windows were open. They were the windows of the library, where Maigret and the judge had spent part of the night by the fire. An old woman in a white bonnet was shaking the rugs, and a fine golden dust rose into the sun.

  ‘What about the judge?’

  ‘No sign of him. Or the girl … Oh, God, there’s that oddball who’s been bending my ear all morning.’