Maigret 53 Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses Page 3
‘Our father is still chair of the board of directors.’
‘But who was actually running it?’
‘My brother.’
‘What about you?’
‘I deal with handling and distribution.’
‘Did your brother lose his wife a long time ago?’
‘Eight years.’
‘Are you familiar with his private life?’
‘He’s always lived here, with us.’
‘Nonetheless, I imagine that he had a personal life outside the house, didn’t he – friends, girlfriends, relationships?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘You told the chief inspector that a wallet is missing.’
He nodded.
‘How much money would there have been in it?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘A large amount?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Was your brother in the habit of keeping, say, hundreds of thousands of francs in his room?’
‘I don’t believe so.’
‘Did he handle the firm’s money?’
‘With the book-keeper.’
‘Where’s the book-keeper?’
‘I suppose he’s downstairs.’
‘Where was the money put when it came in?’
‘In the bank.’
‘Every day?’
‘Money doesn’t come in every day.’
Maigret forced himself to remain calm, courteous, under the young magistrate’s indifferent gaze.
‘Oh come on, there was some money somewhere, wasn’t there?’
‘In the safe.’
‘Where’s the safe?’
‘On the ground floor, in my brother’s office.’
‘Was it tampered with last night?’
‘No.’
‘Have you checked?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think that your brother’s murderer broke in intending to rob him?’
‘Yes.’
‘A complete stranger?’
‘I assume so.’
‘How many people does the factory employ?’
‘At the moment around twenty. There was a time when we had over a hundred men and women working for us.’
‘Do you know them all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you suspect anyone?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t hear anything last night, even though your room is only a few metres from your brother Léonard’s, is that correct?’
‘Not a thing.’
‘Are you a heavy sleeper?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Heavy enough not to be disturbed by a shot fired less than ten paces away?’
‘I don’t know.’
At that moment they heard a rumbling, and the entire house, despite its thick walls, seemed to shake a little. Maigret and the examining magistrate looked at one another.
‘Is that a train?’
‘Yes. The track goes right by here.’
‘Are there many trains at night?’
‘I haven’t counted. About forty, I suppose, mainly long goods trains.’
There was a knock at the door. It was Janvier, motioning to Maigret that he had something to tell him.
‘Come in. Let’s hear it.’
‘There’s a ladder lying in the courtyard, a few metres from the wall. I’ve found a window-sill with marks from the uprights.’
‘Which window?’
‘The one in the hall, next to here. The window looks out on to the courtyard. The ladder must have been put up recently. There’s a broken windowpane they smeared with soap first.’
‘Were you aware of this, Monsieur Lachaume?’
‘I’d noticed.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I haven’t had the chance.’
‘Where was this ladder usually?’
‘Leaning against the warehouse on the left in the courtyard.’
‘Was it there yesterday evening?’
‘It should be, as a rule.’
‘Do you mind?’
Maigret left the room, partly to see for himself, partly to stretch his legs, and took the opportunity to fill a pipe. The hallway at the top of the stairs was lit by two windows, one looking on to the river and the other, in the opposite wall, on to the courtyard. One of the panes in the latter window was broken, and bits of glass could be seen on the floor.
He opened both sashes, noticed two lighter marks on the grey stone corresponding to the uprights of a ladder.
In the courtyard, as Janvier had reported, a ladder was lying on the cobbles. The tall chimney was smoking slightly. In a building to the left, women could be seen bent over a long table.
He was going back to join the others when he heard a noise and saw a woman in a blue dressing gown who had just opened her bedroom door.
‘Could I ask you to come to the living room for a moment, madame?’
She seemed to hesitate, tying the belt of her dressing gown, then finally came towards him. She was young. She hadn’t put on any make-up yet, and her face was slightly shiny.
‘Go in, please.’
Turning to Armand Lachaume, he said:
‘I imagine this is your wife, is it?’
‘Yes.’
The married couple didn’t look at each other.
‘Sit down, madame.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Am I right in saying you didn’t hear anything last night either?’
‘I take a sleeping pill every night before going to bed.’
‘When did you find out that your brother-in-law was dead?’
She stared into space for a moment as if she was thinking.
‘I didn’t check the time.’
‘Where were you?’
‘In my room.’
‘Is that your husband’s as well?’
Another hesitation.
‘No.’
‘Your room is in the corridor, almost directly opposite your brother-in-law’s, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. There are two rooms on the right of the corridor, my husband’s and mine.’
‘How long have you slept in separate bedrooms?’
Armand Lachaume coughed, turned towards the examining magistrate, who was still standing, and said in a hesitant voice, the voice of a shy person forced to make an effort:
‘I wonder if the detective chief inspector has the right to ask us these questions concerning our private life. My brother was killed last night by a burglar and so far the only thing anyone appears to be concerned about is our comings and goings.’
A shadow of a smile crossed Angelot’s lips.
‘I assume that Detective Chief Inspector Maigret is questioning you in your capacity as witnesses.’
‘I do not like my wife being bothered and I want her to be left out of all this.’
It was the anger of a shy man, someone who rarely expressed himself, and his cheeks had gone pink.
Maigret quietly resumed:
‘Who was considered the head of the family until now, Monsieur Lachaume?’
‘Which family?’
‘Let’s say everyone living in the house.’
‘That’s our concern. Don’t answer any more questions, Paulette.’
Maigret noticed that he addressed her formally, but that was customary in certain circles, often an affectation.
‘At this rate, any moment now you’re going to start badgering my father and mother. Then the workforce, the staff …’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘I don’t know your exact rights …’
‘I can tell you,’ the magistrate volunteered.
‘No. I’d rather our lawyer was here. I assume I’m allowed to call him?’
The examining magistrate hesitated before replying:
‘There’s no law against your lawyer being present. But I would point out once more that you and the members of your family are being questioned as witnesses and th
at it is not customary, in these circumstances, to call on …’
‘We won’t say anything until he’s here.’
‘As you wish.’
‘I’m going to call him.’
‘Where’s the telephone?’
‘In the dining room.’
This was the adjoining room. As he opened the door, they caught a glimpse of the old couple, who had sat down in front of a fireplace in which two spindly logs were burning. Anticipating another invasion, they made as if to get up to withdraw elsewhere, but Armand Lachaume closed the door behind him.
‘Your husband appears very shaken, madame.’
She gave Maigret a hard look.
‘It’s understandable, isn’t it?’
‘The two brothers weren’t twins, were they?’
‘There’s a seven-year age difference between them.’
They had the same features, though; even their moustaches were identical: thin and drooping. A murmur of voices could be heard in the next room. The magistrate showed no sign of impatience or eagerness to sit down.
‘You have no suspicions, no ideas of your own …’
‘My husband told you that we wouldn’t answer any questions unless our lawyer was present.’
‘Who is that?’
‘Ask my husband.’
‘Does your husband have any other siblings?’
She looked at him in silence. And yet she seemed to be cut from a different cloth to the rest of the family. Under other circumstances you sensed she would have been pretty, desirable; that there was a secret vitality in her that she was forced to keep in check.
It was unexpected finding her in this house, whereeverything was so removed from time and life.
Armand Lachaume reappeared. They caught another glimpse of the old couple sitting in front of the fire like wax dummies.
‘He’ll be here in a few minutes.’
He gave a start as several people’s footsteps were heard on the stairs. Maigret reassured him.
‘They’ve come to fetch the body,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, but the examining magistrate will tell you that it’s regulations. The body has to be moved to the Forensic Institute for the post-mortem.’
The strange thing was that he couldn’t sense any grief, just a weird dejection, a sort of dazed anxiety.
Maigret had often found himself in situations like this in his career, forced to intrude upon the private life of a family in which a crime had been committed.
But he had never had such a sense of unreality.
And, for good measure, an examining magistrate of a younger generation had to complicate matters by dogging his every step.
‘I’ll go and see those gentlemen,’ he muttered. ‘I need to give some instructions …’
They didn’t need instructions or advice. The men who were out there with the stretcher knew their job. Maigret just watched them get on with it, lifting up the sheet covering the dead man’s face for a moment at one point to have another look at him.
Then he noticed a side door in the bedroom. He opened it and discovered a dusty, messy room which must have been Léonard Lachaume’s private office.
Janvier was in there, hunched over a piece of furniture. He gave a start.
‘Oh, it’s you, chief …’
He was opening the drawers of an antique writing desk one by one.
‘Have you found anything?’
‘No. I don’t like this business with the ladder.’
Maigret didn’t either. He hadn’t had a chance to give the house and the surroundings a once-over yet, but something about this ladder still struck him as incongruous.
‘You understand,’ Janvier went on. ‘There’s a glass door just under the window with the broken pane. The door opens on to the entrance passage, from where you’d have a clear run straight up here. You wouldn’t even need to break any glass because the door’s already got a broken pane that’s been replaced with cardboard. Why lug a very heavy ladder across the courtyard and …’
‘I know.’
‘Is he going to stick around to the bitter end?’
He was obviously the examining magistrate.
‘No idea. Possibly.’
This time they both gave a start because someone was standing in the doorway, a small old woman, almost a hunchback, who was looking at them with dark, indignant eyes.
It was the maid the chief inspector had talked about. Her gaze travelled from the two men to the open drawers, the spread-out papers. With a visible effort to keep from heaping abuse on them, she finally muttered:
‘They’re waiting for Detective Chief Inspector Maigret in the living room.’
Janvier asked in a low voice:
‘Shall I carry on, chief?’
‘At this point, I don’t know what’s best any more. Do what you like.’
He followed the hunchbacked woman, who was waiting for him. She opened the door of the living room, where a new character was in attendance. He introduced himself:
‘Maître Radel …’
Was he going to talk about himself in the third person?
‘Pleased to meet you, maître.’
Another youngster. Not as young as the magistrate, but still, totally unlike the grubby, canny old hand Maigret would have expected to encounter in this mansion from another era. Radel was barely over thirty-five, and almost as neatly turned out as the examining magistrate.
‘Gentlemen, I only know what Monsieur Armand Lachaume has seen fit to tell me on the telephone and I want before anything else to apologize for the way my client has reacted. If you were to put yourself in his shoes, perhaps you’d understand. I’m here more as a friend than a lawyer, to clear up any possible misunderstanding. Armand Lachaume is in poor health. The death of his brother, who was the heart and soul of this house, has shaken him badly, and it is hardly surprising, being unfamiliar with the police’s methods, that he baulked at certain questions.’
Maigret gave a resigned sigh and relit his pipe which had gone out.
‘I will therefore be sitting in on such questioning as you decide to conduct, as he has requested, but I should stress that my presence does not suggest anything defensive in the family’s attitude …’
He turned to the examining magistrate, then to Maigret.
‘Who do you wish to question?’
‘Madame Lachaume,’ said Maigret, indicating the young woman.
‘All I ask is that you do not lose sight of the fact that Madame Lachaume is as shaken as her husband.’
‘I’d like to question everyone separately,’ Maigret continued.
The husband frowned. Maître Radel spoke to him in a low voice, after which he reluctantly left the room.
‘As far as you know, madame, had your brother-in-law received any threatening letters recently?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Would he have told you?’
‘I presume so.’
‘You or other members of the family?’
‘He would have told us all.’
‘His parents as well?’
‘Possibly not, given their age.’
‘So, he would have talked about it to your husband and yourself …’
‘That seems normal to me.’
‘Did the two brothers have a close, trusting relationship?’
‘Very close, very trusting.’
‘What about you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘What sort of relationship did you have with your brother-in-law exactly?’
‘Forgive me for interrupting,’ said Maître Radel, ‘but phrased like that the question could appear tendentious. I assume, Monsieur Maigret, that you are not intending to insinuate …’
‘I am not insinuating anything at all. I am simply asking if Madame Lachaume and her brother-in-law were on friendly terms.’
‘Certainly,’ she replied.
‘Affectionate?’
‘Like any family, I suppose.’
‘
When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Well … this morning …’
‘You mean that you saw him dead in his room this morning?’
She nodded.
‘When was the last time you saw him alive?’
‘Yesterday evening.’
‘What time?’
Involuntarily she gave the lawyer a brief look.
‘It must have been around eleven thirty.’
‘Where was that?’
‘In the corridor.’
‘The corridor your bedroom and his are on?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you coming from the living room?’
‘No.’
‘Had you been with your husband?’
‘No. I’d gone out on my own.’
‘Had your husband stayed at home?’
‘Yes. He doesn’t go out much. Especially since he almost died from pleurisy. His health has always been delicate and …’
‘When did you go out?’
She asked the lawyer:
‘Do I have to answer?’
‘I’d advise it, even though these questions are only about your private life and quite obviously have no connection with the tragic events.’
‘I went out around six o’clock.’
‘In the evening?’
‘Well, not six o’clock in the morning, obviously.’
‘Perhaps your lawyer will allow you to say what you did until eleven thirty …’
‘I had dinner in town.’
‘On your own?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘And then?’
‘I went to the cinema.’
‘Nearby?’
‘On the Champs-Élysées. When I got back, there weren’t any lights on in the house, or at least not on the river side. I went upstairs, started down the corridor and saw my brother-in-law’s door open.’
‘Was he waiting for you?’
‘I can’t think why he would have been. He used to read until very late in the little office next to his bedroom.’
‘Did he come out of the office?’
‘No, his bedroom.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘A dressing gown. Pyjamas and a dressing gown. He said: “Oh, it’s you, Paulette …”
‘Then I said, “Good night, Léonard.”
‘ “Good night …” he said. And that was it.’
‘Then each of you went back into your rooms?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you talk to your husband?’
‘I didn’t have anything to say to him.’
‘Are your rooms communicating?’