Maigret is Afraid Page 4

  ‘He would consider that petty bourgeois. They each have their own apartment, on different floors. Isabelle is on the first floor, and Hubert occupies the ground-floor wing that overlooks the courtyard. Alain’s household is on the second floor, and the aunt, Lucile, has two garret rooms on the third. When the daughter and her husband are there . . .’

  ‘Are they here now?’

  ‘No. They’re expected in a few days’ time.’

  ‘How many servants?’

  ‘A couple, who have been with them for twenty or thirty years, plus two fairly young maids.’

  ‘Where do they sleep?’

  ‘In the other downstairs wing. You’ll see the house. It’s almost a castle.’

  ‘With a back entrance?’

  ‘There’s a door in the courtyard wall, which opens into an alley.’

  ‘So anyone can enter or leave unseen!’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘You didn’t check?’

  This was excruciating for Chabot and, because he felt he was in the wrong, he raised his voice, growing almost furious.

  ‘You sound like some of the locals. If I’d gone and questioned the servants when I had no evidence, not the slightest clue, the entire town would have been convinced that either Hubert Vernoux or his son was guilty.’

  ‘His son?’

  ‘Him too, absolutely! Because, given that he doesn’t work and dabbles in psychiatry, there are some who think he’s mad. He’s not a regular at the two cafés, doesn’t play snooker or belote, and doesn’t chase girls. He will sometimes stop in the street and stare at someone through his glasses which magnify his eyes. He’s loathed enough for—’

  ‘Are you defending him?’

  ‘No. I want to keep a cool head and that’s not always easy in a small town. I try to be fair. I too thought the first murder was perhaps a family matter. I examined the question from every angle. I was puzzled by the fact that there was no theft and that Robert de Courçon didn’t put up a struggle. And I would probably have taken certain steps if—’

  ‘Just a second. You didn’t ask the police to follow Hubert Vernoux and his son?’

  ‘You can do that in Paris, but not here. Everyone knows our four poor police officers. As for the Poitiers inspectors, people spotted them before they had even got out of their car! It is rare to find more than ten people in the street at any one time. And you want to follow someone under these conditions without their noticing?’

  Abruptly, he calmed down.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m talking so loudly that I’ll wake my mother. It’s just that I wanted to make you understand my position. Until there’s evidence to the contrary, the Vernoux are innocent. I’d swear they are. The second murder, two days after the first, was almost the proof. Hubert Vernoux might have been driven to kill his brother-in-law, to hit him in a moment of anger. But he had no reason to go off to the end of Rue des Loges and slaughter the widow Gibon, whom he probably doesn’t even know.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘A former midwife whose long-dead husband was a police officer. She lived alone, half-crippled, in a three-roomed house.

  ‘Not only is there the old Gibon woman, but, tonight, Gobillard. Now, the Vernoux did know him, as did the whole of Fontenay. In every French town, there’s at least one drunkard like him who’s a sort of local character.

  ‘If you can give me one single reason to kill a man like that . . .’

  ‘Supposing he saw something?’

  ‘What about the widow Gibon, who never left her house? Might she have seen something too? Might she have come to Rue Rabelais after ten o’clock at night, and witnessed the murder through the window? No, you see. I know all about crime investigation methods. I didn’t attend the Bordeaux congress and I may not be au fait with the latest scientific discoveries, but I believe I know my job and carry it out conscientiously. The three victims were from completely different social milieus and there is no connection between them. All three were killed in the same way, and, from the wounds, it would seem with the same weapon. All three were attacked from the front, which suggests their suspicions weren’t aroused. If it is a madman, it’s not one who waves his arms around or raves, which would have made them get out of his way. So it’s what I’d call a lucid madman, who follows a particular behaviour pattern and is astute enough to take precautions.’

  ‘Alain Vernoux didn’t give much of an explanation as to why he was out in the pouring rain this evening.’

  ‘He said he was going to see a friend on the other side of the Champ-de-Mars.’

  ‘He didn’t give a name.’

  ‘Because there’s no need. I know he often visits a certain Georges Vassal, who’s a bachelor and an old school friend. Even without that detail, I wouldn’t have been surprised.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’s even more interested in the case than I am, for personal reasons. I wouldn’t venture to say that he suspects his father, but I’m tempted. A few weeks ago he talked to me about him and the family flaws—’

  ‘Just like that, out of the blue?’

  ‘No. He’d come back from La Roche-sur-Yon and was telling me about a case he’d studied. That of a man in his early sixties who had always behaved normally, but suddenly became insane the day he had to pay the dowry he’d promised his daughter. People didn’t notice right away.’

  ‘In other words, you think Alain Vernoux wandered around Fontenay during the night in search of the murderer?’

  The investigating magistrate grew indignant again.

  ‘I would think he’s better qualified to recognize a madman in the street than our valiant police officers who are combing the town, or than you or I.’

  Maigret said nothing.

  It was gone midnight.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay here?’

  ‘My luggage is at the hotel.’

  ‘Will I see you tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ll be at the law courts. You know where they are?’

  ‘Rue Rabelais, aren’t they?’

  ‘A bit higher up than the Vernoux’s house. First of all you’ll see the prison gates, then a rather ugly building. My office is at the end of the corridor, near the prosecutor’s.’

  ‘Good night, old friend.’

  ‘I haven’t been a very good host.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘You must understand my frame of mind. It’s the kind of case that can turn the entire town against me.’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Are you making fun of me?’

  ‘I assure you I’m not.’

  And he wasn’t. Rather, Maigret felt a kind of sadness, as he always did when a little of the past evaporated. In the hall, as he put on his sodden overcoat, he inhaled the smell of the house, which he had always found so fragrant, but which now seemed stale to him.

  Chabot had lost most of his hair and his balding head was pointed like that of some birds.

  ‘I’ll walk you back . . .’

  He didn’t want to. He was merely being polite.

  ‘Not on your life!’

  Maigret joked rather pathetically, in order to say something and leave on a cheerful note:

  ‘I can swim!’

  After which, turning up his coat collar, he stepped out into the squall. Julien Chabot stood on the doorstep for a while, in the rectangle of jaundiced light, then closed the door behind him and Maigret had the feeling that he was the only person out and about.

  3. The School Teacher Who Never Slept

  The streets looked more depressing in the daylight than at night because the rain had dirtied everything, leaving dark trails on the façades, whose colours had become unsightly. Huge drops were still splashing from the cornices and the electricity cables, and sometimes from the dripping sky, which was still menacing and seemed to be gathering strength for a fresh onslaught.

  Maigret, having risen late, hadn’t had the heart to go
downstairs for breakfast. Grumpy, with no appetite, all he wanted was two or three cups of black coffee. Despite Chabot’s brandy, he thought he still had in his mouth the aftertaste of the overly sweet white wine he had drunk in Bordeaux.

  He pressed a little bell dangling by the bed. The chambermaid in a black dress and white apron who answered his call gave him such a strange look that he checked that he was decently dressed.

  ‘Do you really not want any warm croissants? A man like you needs to eat in the morning.’

  ‘Just coffee, my dear. A big pot of coffee.’

  She spotted the suit that Maigret had hung up to dry over the radiator and grabbed it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going to give it an iron.’

  ‘No, thank you, there’s no point.’

  She took it away regardless.

  From her appearance, he would have sworn that she was usually on the surly side.

  Twice, while he was washing and dressing, she came and disturbed him, once to make sure he had some soap, and then to bring him another pot of coffee that he hadn’t requested. Then she brought back the suit, dried and ironed. She was thin and flat-chested, with a rather sickly look to her, but was probably as tough as nails.

  He reckoned she must have seen his name downstairs on the registration card and was an avid reader of the crime pages.

  It was 9.30. He lazed around in protest against he didn’t know what, against what he vaguely felt to be a conspiracy of fate.

  As he descended the red-carpeted stairs, a handyman who was on his way up greeted him with a respectful:

  ‘Good morning, Monsieur Maigret.’

  It all made sense when he reached the lobby, where he found the Ouest-Éclair with his photo on the front page spread on a pedestal table.

  It was the photo taken when he had been leaning over Gobillard’s body. A double headline screamed over three columns:

  INSPECTOR MAIGRET INVESTIGATES THE FONTENAY MURDERS

  RABBIT-FUR SELLER IS THIRD VICTIM

  Before he’d had the time to skim through the article, the hotel manager was rushing towards him as eagerly as the chambermaid.

  ‘I hope you slept well and that number seventeen didn’t disturb you?’

  ‘What’s number seventeen?’

  ‘A travelling salesman who had too much to drink last night and made a lot of noise. We moved him to another room so he wouldn’t wake you.’

  Maigret hadn’t heard a thing.

  ‘By the way, Lomel, the reporter from the Ouest-Éclair, came by this morning to see you. When I told him you were still in bed, he said it wasn’t urgent and that he’d catch you later at the law courts. There’s also a letter for you.’

  A cheap envelope, the sort that are sold in general stores in packets of six, all different colours. This one was a greenish hue. As he opened it, Maigret noticed that outside half a dozen people had their faces pressed to the glass door, between the potted palm trees.

  Dont be dicieved by them rich folk.

  The people waiting on the pavement, including two women dressed as market stallholders, stood aside to let him through and there was something trusting, friendly, in the way they gazed at him – not so much out of curiosity or because he was famous, but as if they were counting on him. One of the women said, without daring to venture closer:

  ‘You’ll find him, you will, Monsieur Maigret!’

  And a young man who looked like a delivery boy kept pace with him on the other side of the road so as to get a better look at him.

  Women standing on their doorsteps discussing the latest murder broke off to gaze after him. A group came out of the Café de la Poste and, in their eyes too, he read friendliness. People seemed to want to encourage him.

  He walked past Chabot’s house, where Rose was shaking dust-cloths out of the first-floor window, and didn’t stop but crossed Place Viète and continued up Rue Rabelais where, to his left, rose a huge mansion with a coat of arms on the pediment which must have been the Vernoux family home. There was no sign of life behind the closed windows. Opposite, a little house with fastened shutters, also old, was probably the one where Robert de Courçon’s solitary life had ended.

  There was an occasional gust of dank wind. Low, dark clouds rolled across a sky the colour of frosted glass, and drops of water fell from their edges. The wetness made the prison gates look even blacker. A dozen people were assembled outside the law courts, which were quite unimpressive, being less vast, in fact, than the Vernoux’s residence, albeit adorned with a peristyle and a flight of steps.

  Lomel, two cameras still slung over his shoulder, was the first to hurry over, and there wasn’t a trace of remorse on his chubby face or in his very light blue eyes.

  ‘Will you tell me your impressions before you talk to my fellow journalists from Paris?’

  And, because Maigret, disgruntled, was pointing at the newspaper poking out of his pocket, he smiled.

  ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘I thought I told you—’

  ‘Look, inspector. I have to do my job as a reporter. I knew you’d end up in charge of the case. I simply anticipated by a few hours.’

  ‘Next time, don’t anticipate.’

  ‘Are you going to see Chabot?’

  There were already two or three reporters from Paris among the group, and he had trouble shaking them off. There were also curious bystanders who seemed determined to spend the day watching the law courts.

  The corridors were gloomy. Lomel, who had appointed himself Maigret’s guide, walked ahead of him and showed him the way.

  ‘Follow me. It’s much more important for us than for the Paris papers! You must understand! “He” has been in his office since eight o’clock this morning. The prosecutor’s here too. Last night, they were looking for him everywhere, but he’d driven over to La Rochelle. Do you know the prosecutor?’

  Maigret, who had knocked and been bidden to enter, opened the door and closed it behind him, leaving the ginger-haired reporter in the corridor.

  Julien Chabot wasn’t alone. Doctor Alain Vernoux was sitting facing him in an armchair, and he rose to greet Maigret.

  ‘Slept well?’ asked the magistrate.

  ‘Not at all badly.’

  ‘I was annoyed with myself for my poor hospitality yesterday. You know Alain Vernoux. He dropped in to see me in passing.’

  It wasn’t true. Maigret would have sworn that the psychiatrist was waiting for him and even, perhaps, that this meeting had been contrived by the two men.

  Alain had removed his overcoat. He was wearing a crumpled coarse-wool suit that could have done with an iron. His tie was clumsily knotted. A yellow sweater poked out below his jacket. His shoes hadn’t been polished. Even like this, he still belonged to the same class as his father whose dress was so meticulous.

  Why did that make Maigret frown? One was too immaculate, all spruced up. The other, by contrast, affected a carelessness that a bank clerk, schoolmaster or a travelling salesman would not have permitted himself, but suits in that fabric could probably only be made by a bespoke tailor in Paris, or perhaps Bordeaux.

  There was a rather awkward silence. Maigret, who did nothing to help the two men, planted himself in front of the meagre log fire. On the mantelpiece stood the same black marble clock as the one in his office at Quai des Orfèvres. The police department must once have ordered them by the hundred if not the thousand. Maybe they were all twelve minutes slow, like Maigret’s?

  ‘Alain was just telling me some interesting things,’ Chabot muttered at length, his chin in his hand, in an attitude that made him look very much the investigating magistrate.

  ‘We were talking about criminal insanity—’

  Alain Vernoux broke in:

  ‘I didn’t say that these three murders are the work of a madman. I said that if they were the work of a madman . . .’

  ‘It boils down to the same thing.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Let us as
sume I was the one who said that everything seems to suggest we are dealing with a madman.’

  And, turning to Maigret:

  ‘We talked about this last night, you and I. The absence of a motive, in all three cases . . . The same method . . .’

  Then, to Vernoux:

  ‘Tell the detective chief inspector what you were explaining to me, would you?’

  ‘I’m no expert on the subject, but merely an amateur. I was expanding on a general idea. Most people think the insane always act as if they are insane, in other words illogically and irrationally. But as a matter of fact, it is often the contrary. The insane have their own logic. The challenge is to find out what that logic is.’

  Maigret looked at him with his big, slightly bleary morning eyes, but said nothing. He regretted not having stopped on the way for a drink that would have perked him up.

  The cramped office, where the smoke from his pipe was creating a haze and the short flames from the logs were dancing, seemed almost unreal to him, and the two men discussing insanity and watching him out of the corner of their eyes looked like waxworks. They weren’t for real either. They made gestures that they had been taught, spoke as they had been taught to speak.

  What could a Chabot know about what happened in the street? And, more to the point, inside the head of a man who kills?

  ‘It is that logic that I’ve been trying to fathom since the first murder.’

  ‘Since the first murder?’

  ‘Well, since the second. From the start, though, from when my uncle was killed, I thought it might be the act of a madman.’

  ‘And have you fathomed it out?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ve identified only a few elements of the problem, which might provide some clue.’

  ‘For instance?’

  ‘For instance, that he strikes from the front. It’s hard for me to put this simply. A man who wants to kill for the sake of killing, in other words to eliminate other living beings, but at the same time, doesn’t want to get caught, would choose the least risky means. But this one certainly doesn’t want to get caught, because he makes sure to leave no evidence. Are you with me?’

  ‘So far it’s not very difficult.’