The Judge's House Read online

  He looked at the electric lamp, which only gave out a yellowish light.

  ‘Find me a forty candle-power bulb, Méjat … Hello? The inn at Pont du Brault? … I’d like to ask you for some information, madame … No, this isn’t the brewery … Have you seen a little motor-boat this afternoon? … Yes, from L’Aiguillon … You say he’s moored outside your place? … A bicycle? … Hello, are you still there? … He had a glass of wine? … You don’t know where he went? … Towards Marans? … Thank you, madame … Yes … If he comes back … Call the town hall of L’Aiguillon immediately …’

  He ran to the door. In the gathering dark, he had just spotted the lieutenant of gendarmes getting ready to go back to Luçon.

  ‘Lieutenant! Will you come in for a moment? … I assume you know Pont du Brault? What’s it like?’

  ‘It’s all the way over there in the marshes. A canal leads from the end of the bay to Marans, ten kilometres inland. You’re lucky to come across a cabin every three kilometres.’

  ‘Will you have your men search the region? I need to find a man named Marcel Airaud, a tall fellow, one metre eighty, a solid fisherman type, who’s not exactly inconspicuous. He sailed from here in his boat and left it moored near the inn at Brault. He took a bicycle …’

  ‘And you think …’

  ‘It’s too soon to think anything, lieutenant. Can I count on you?’

  Would he go to see Didine before or after dinner? He went before. Night had fallen. Pulleys were starting to creak again, and the beams from two lighthouses crossed.

  A twisted vine ran along the wall. The door and shutters were painted green.

  ‘Come in, inspector. I was wondering if I’d done anything to you …’

  The cat jumped off a wicker armchair. Hulot stood up from his corner and respectfully removed a long meerschaum pipe from his mouth.

  ‘Please sit down, inspector. You will have a drink, won’t you? Justin! Get the glasses from the cupboard.’

  She wiped them. There was an oilcloth on the table and a very tall bed in a corner, covered in a huge red eiderdown.

  ‘Give the inspector the armchair … No, I insist! With all that’s been happening, I let my fire go out. You can keep your hat on.’

  She was talking for the sake of talking, but it was obvious she was thinking about something and knew perfectly well where she was aiming. She didn’t resume her seat. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, which were constantly moving. And, since Maigret was doing nothing to help her, she had no choice but to ask, out of the blue:

  ‘Did you find the child?’

  What did she mean? Was there a child in this case?

  ‘I didn’t think anybody would mention him to you. People around here don’t talk much, especially not to strangers. In a while, maybe, when they’re used to you …

  ‘But as I said to Hulot, I’m on your side.

  ‘I saw you questioning Thérèse …’

  How had she seen that? Was she spying on Maigret through the curtains? She was quite capable of that! She and her husband must be keeping track of the inspector and staying posted about everything he did.

  ‘Old people like us, who have nothing to do, have time to think, you understand? Another glass? … I insist! It never did anybody any harm … Not you, Justin. You know perfectly well you can’t take it.’

  And she moved the bottle away from her husband.

  ‘How old do you think Thérèse is? From the look of her, you’d think she’s just a kid, but she must be about twenty-three. Even twenty-four wouldn’t surprise me. Well, ever since the age of sixteen, she’s been running after Marcel. Yes, I saw him talking to you as well! Built like he is, and with property, two houses that belong to him, and the mussel fields and everything, he has no trouble finding girls. Thérèse is quite common. In the summer, her mother sells mussels and oysters door to door around the villas on the other side of the estuary.

  ‘All the same, she landed him! Everyone noticed, three years ago, how big she was getting.

  ‘But these people have their pride. She left, supposedly to work in the city. When she came back a few months later, I swear she’d lost weight!

  ‘And I know where she goes every month, when she has her two days off. She goes to Luçon, where she put her child in the care of a level-crossing keeper.

  ‘What do you think of that?’

  To be honest, he didn’t think anything of it yet. Thérèse and Marcel … So Thérèse had a hold over him …

  ‘I’m talking about three years ago, mind you! Since then Marcel has started spending his nights in the judge’s house. I suppose you already know that. There have been others before him … Maybe even after him … Only, I’m going to tell you what I think. With him, it wasn’t the same. The others took advantage of her. Men are like that …’

  A sly little look at her husband, who squinted even more and assumed an innocent air.

  ‘I’m sure Marcel was in love with her, and I bet that, if he’d been able, he would have married her, in spite of the fact that she’s not like other girls …

  ‘Now suppose Thérèse brought someone she knew from Luçon, a man capable of avenging her. It’s easy enough to get into the judge’s house. Look out here. It’s dark, but you can see the white of the terrace. Any man could climb up there. From there, you can get over the stone rim and into the fruitery. The window’s almost always half open. He may lock his daughter in, but it’s as if I was trying to keep water in my hand.’

  Maigret gave a start on becoming aware, suddenly, of the course of his own thoughts. For a few moments now, as he listened to the old woman’s voice droning on, hadn’t he started indulging in some absurd images, images that were still vague, of course, but which, if he wasn’t careful, might take on shape and form?

  ‘… It’s easy enough to get into the judge’s house …’

  He again saw old Didine in his office in Luçon, he heard her clear voice, the almost staggering precision with which she had described the drama even though she hadn’t even seen it!

  Her faultless reasoning … Her meticulous calculation of the tides … Work a professional policeman would have been proud of … And the two of them keeping an eye on the house, one watching the back, the other the front … Even down to the naval binoculars! …

  All the same, it was incredible. These ideas had to be dismissed; you only had to look at this room, a poor peasant room, with its bed, its eiderdown, the thick glasses on the oilcloth, Didine’s white bonnet …

  ‘So you didn’t know the judge when he moved here?’

  Something clicked. He was sure of it. A barely perceptible shock, a quivering of the muscles just under the skin.

  ‘It depends what you mean by that. I knew him when I was very small. I was born in the house opposite the town hall. The judge used to spend his holidays here with his cousin. When his cousin died, he inherited the house.’

  ‘Did he keep coming here after he was married?’

  ‘Not every year!’ she replied, suddenly laconic.

  ‘Did you meet his wife?’

  ‘I saw her, like everybody. A fine-looking woman!’

  ‘Unless I’m mistaken, you’re about the same age as Forlacroix, aren’t you?’

  ‘I must be a year younger than him.’

  ‘You went to live in Concarneau with your husband, and he settled in Versailles. When you came back to L’Aiguillon, he was in the house and was already a widower.’

  ‘He isn’t a widower,’ she said.

  This made Maigret sit up in his wicker armchair, which creaked as he did so.

  ‘His wife left him, but he isn’t a widower.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure he wasn’t a widower a month ago, because I saw her with my own eyes, as clear as I’m seeing you now. She got out of a car and knocked at his door. They stood there for a while in the passage, and then she left.’

  He half expected her to tell him the registration number of the car. That
would have been too good!

  ‘It’s your fault if you didn’t know all this before. Instead of running around all over the place without coming to see me and without saying a word to my husband. I can admit this now. He was quite discouraged. Isn’t that so, Justin? You can tell the inspector. He knows what it is to speak his mind, and that it’s those who have nothing to be ashamed of who are never at a loss for words … Have your drink, inspector. What else would you like to know? It isn’t that I’ve finished. The things I could tell you, we’d be here until tomorrow. But I have to wait for them to come back to me …’

  It was enough! Too much, even! This little old woman was as calculating as a devil!

  ‘It’s like the doctor. I don’t know if this is of any interest to you, but he’s the judge’s best friend. Have you seen his wife? A tall woman, a brunette, always heavily made-up, always with extravagant clothes. She has a daughter from her first marriage. You’ll see her. Not much to look at. And yet Dr Brénéol is crazy about her and is constantly driving her around without his wife. They go as far away as possible. Even so, someone from here, whose name I could tell you, saw them coming out of a hotel in La Rochelle.’

  Maigret was on his feet now, as exhausted as if he had been for a long walk.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll be back. Thank you.’

  She must have thought there was now a conspiratorial closeness between them, because she held out her hand and signalled to her husband to do the same.

  ‘Don’t hesitate to come again. And above all, you can be sure I’m telling you nothing but the truth …’

  There was a lighted window in the judge’s house, the window of Lise’s room. Was she already in bed? He walked around the outside of the house. By now, the maids had left. Just the two of them within those walls …

  He entered the already familiar main room of the Hôtel du Port and was struck by the glance that Thérèse threw him. She was clearly anxious! Wasn’t she trying to see from his face if there had been any new developments?

  Méjat was leaning on the counter, having an aperitif with the hotelier.

  ‘Tell me, Thérèse, did you know that Marcel had to go to Marans?’

  ‘Marans?’ she repeated like someone on her guard, anxious not to betray herself.

  ‘Since you’re so close, I thought he might have told you …’

  ‘He has no reason to tell me what he’s doing …’

  ‘What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Soup, plaice and, if you like, a pork chop with cabbage …’

  ‘Let’s eat, Méjat!’

  The inspector had news for him. The victim, whose photograph had been shown to all the hoteliers in Luçon, hadn’t slept in that town. They would have to wait. Especially for the newspapers …

  ‘Aren’t you tired, chief?’

  ‘I’m going to bed as soon as I’ve eaten and I don’t plan to get up before eight o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  He was hungry. He managed to clear his mind of too many thoughts as he watched Thérèse come and go. She was fairly nondescript, and not in especially good health. The kind of little hotel maid you don’t usually notice, with her black dress, her black stockings, her white apron. The place was empty. The men were at home, having their dinner, and wouldn’t come back and spend an hour here until after they’d finished.

  The telephone rang. It was under the stairs. Thérèse answered.

  ‘Hello? … Yes … What do you …’

  ‘Is it for me?’ Maigret asked.

  She listened.

  ‘Yes … Yes … I don’t know … Nobody mentioned it …’

  ‘What is it?’ the hotelier asked, from the kitchen.

  Thérèse hurriedly put the receiver down. ‘Nothing … It was for me …’

  Maigret was already on the phone.

  ‘Hello? … Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, mademoiselle … Can you tell me where the call you just put through was from? … What? … Marans? … Ask for the exact number, yes … Call me back …’

  He went back to his table. Thérèse, looking quite pale, served him without saying a word. After a while, the phone rang again.

  ‘From a café? … The Café Arthur? … Put me through to the police station in Marans, mademoiselle … Hello? … Are you the sergeant? … Detective Chief Inspector Maigret … Go straight to the Café Arthur … Do you know it? … That’s good … A man has just made a phone call from there … Someone named Marcel Airaud … Take him to the station and inform me immediately …’

  A heavy silence. The pork chops. The cabbage. Thérèse coming and going without looking Maigret in the face.

  Half an hour passed. The phone.

  ‘Hello? … Yes? … Ah! … No … Wait for instructions … That’s right …’

  A pause. Thérèse still didn’t dare turn towards Maigret, whose big back could be seen under the stairs. The inspector made a move with his hand, as if hanging up, but continued talking:

  ‘He’s wounded? … Take him to the prison in Luçon anyway … Thank you … Goodnight, sergeant …’

  He returned heavily to his seat, sighed, wondered if he should have some cheese, winked at Méjat, then, taking advantage of the fact that Thérèse was in the kitchen, whispered:

  ‘The rascal vanished immediately after his phone call … I wonder what he could have said to her …’

  5. Someone Wants to Go to Prison

  Was it really cruel? Thérèse hated him, of course. Every now and again, she would throw him such a black look that Maigret was forced to smile, and then she no longer knew what to do: rush at him and scratch his face or smile in her turn.

  For more than an hour, he kept her dangling like a fish at the end of a line. Whatever she did – go in and out of the kitchen, try to eat at a corner of the table, respond when customers called her – she couldn’t escape Maigret’s tranquil gaze.

  Perhaps, when it came down to it, that gaze attracted her? Wasn’t this big, placid man, smoking his pipe and staring into space, more of a friend than an enemy?

  She kept going from one extreme to the other, from excessive nervousness to anger to a degree of kindness. Having cleared the table, she came and asked:

  ‘What will you have?’

  But, after serving the calvados, she was obliged to rush into the corridor. When she came back, her eyes were red, and she was blowing her nose.

  Men were playing cards, and she broke a glass as she served them. In the kitchen, she got up from the table without having eaten a thing.

  Finally, she spoke to the hotelier’s wife. From a distance, you couldn’t hear the voices, but you could guess from the way they held themselves. Thérèse looked as if she was ill and kept glancing up at the ceiling. The hotelier’s wife shrugged.

  ‘Go on, my girl!’

  Thérèse took off her apron and came to see if anything remained to be cleared, throwing Maigret an insistent look as she did so.

  ‘Before you go to bed, Méjat, make sure there’s one gendarme keeping guard in front of the judge’s house and one behind … Another watching young Forlacroix’s house …’

  He stood up and climbed the stairs, touching both the banisters and the wall. This whole part of the building was new. The wood was too bright, the walls rough, and you ended up with white on your clothes.

  Maigret went into his room and left his door open. After a few minutes, he gave a start of surprise, became almost irritated, then glanced into the corridor and smiled.

  The others below would still be there for an hour or two. Too bad if Méjat got ideas, hearing the chief inspector’s voice in the maid’s room! He went in. She was standing there, waiting for him. She had loosened the bun on the back of her neck and the dark mass of hair now framing her face made her features thinner and her nose more pointed, but also made her gaze less candid.

  Sitting on the edge of the iron bedstead, Maigret examined her at his leisure, and it was she who had to speak first. ‘I can tell you you’re wrong to hound Marcel … I know hi
m better than anyone …’

  She was searching for the right tone, like an actor, but couldn’t find it.

  ‘The proof of that is that we were supposed to be getting married this summer …’

  ‘Because of the child?’

  She didn’t show any surprise. ‘Because of the child and everything. Because we love each other. Is that so strange?’

  ‘What’s strange is that the child is now three years old, and you’re only now thinking of making it official … Look at me, Thérèse. I can assure you there’s no point in lying. What did Marcel ask you on the phone?’

  She looked at him for a long time, then heaved a sigh. ‘Too bad if I’m making a big mistake … He wanted to know if they’d found a paper in his pockets …’

  ‘Whose pockets?’

  ‘The dead man’s, I suppose!’

  ‘And that’s the question you answered no to?’

  ‘I think if they’d found something important I’d have heard about it … Just because Marcel asked me that doesn’t mean he killed … As I said before, we were supposed to be getting married …’

  ‘And yet he’s been seeing Lise Forlacroix in her room almost every night …’

  ‘He’s never loved her!’

  ‘An unusual way not to love someone!’

  ‘You know how men are. It isn’t love, it’s something else. He’s often talked about it. It’s a kind of vice, and he swore to me he’ll get over it …’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  With a sudden shudder, she turned hard and vulgar.

  ‘What gives you the right to say it isn’t true? Were you there? Is it also not true that I saw him coming out of the judge’s house, not through the window, but by the front door? And that the judge was being nice to him? And that he knew about everything … Who’s the decent one in all this? … I had a child, that’s true. But I don’t lure men to my room …’

  ‘Hold on a moment! When was it that you saw Marcel with the judge?’

  ‘Maybe a month ago … Wait … It was just before Christmas.’

  ‘And you say they looked as if they were getting along? What did Marcel say when you asked him to explain?’