Maigret and the Old Lady Read online

  ‘“Have you heard what’s happened at La Bicoque?” I asked him.

  ‘“I’ve been told.”

  ‘“Do you have any information that might help our investigation?”

  ‘“None whatsoever.”

  ‘He was very cold, distant. That was when I asked if he planned to leave Étretat and he replied as I’ve told you. Now, if you don’t need me this evening, I’m going back to Le Havre to write my report. I promised my wife I’d have dinner with her if I could, because we have friends over.’

  He had left his car outside the hotel and Maigret walked back with him through quiet streets. From time to time, as they rounded a bend, they had a view of the sea.

  ‘Aren’t you a little concerned that Arlette will be staying at her mother’s tonight and the two women will be alone in the house?’

  He was visibly preoccupied and, perhaps because Maigret was so calm, he felt that the latter was taking things lightly.

  As the sun grew redder and the roofs of the houses appeared to be on fire, the sea took on an icy green colour and the world to the east of the setting sun seemed frozen in a surreal eternity.

  ‘What time would you like me to be here tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Not before nine. Perhaps you could telephone the Police Judiciaire for me to find out everything you can about Arlette Sudre and her husband. I’d also like to know what kind of life Charles Besson leads when he’s in Paris and, while you’re about it, ask if they have anything on Théo. Try and speak to Lucas. I don’t like telephoning about these things from here.’

  Most of the passers-by turned round to look at them and people watched them through the shop windows. Maigret didn’t know how he was going to spend the evening yet, or how he would go about the investigation. From time to time he repeated mechanically to himself:

  ‘Young Rose is dead.’

  She was the only person about whom he knew nothing yet, other than that she had been plump and buxom.

  ‘By the way,’ he asked Castaing, who was pressing the starter, ‘she must have had some personal belongings in her room at Valentine’s. What’s happened to them?’

  ‘Her parents stuffed them into her suitcase and took it away.’

  ‘Did you ask to see them?’

  ‘I didn’t dare. If you go and see them, you’ll understand why. They weren’t exactly friendly. They stare at you suspiciously and they look at one another before grunting a reply.’

  ‘I’ll probably go over there tomorrow.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Charles Besson paid you a visit, since he took it upon himself to pester the minister to have you put in charge of the case!’

  Castaing set off in his little car on the road to Le Havre, while Maigret, before going into his hotel, headed for the casino, whose terrace overlooked the beach. It was automatic. He was obeying that sort of impulse that prompts city dwellers, when they are by the sea, to sit and watch the sunset.

  And all Étretat’s remaining bathers were there, girls in pastel dresses, a few elderly ladies, looking out for the famous green ray that would shoot up as the red globe sank beneath the horizon.

  Maigret gazed at the sky until his eyes ached but he didn’t see the green ray. He went into the bar, where a familiar voice hailed him:

  ‘What will it be, inspector?’

  ‘Well, well! Charlie!’

  A barman he had met in an establishment in Rue Daunou in Paris and whom he was surprised to find here.

  ‘I was sure they’d send you to handle this case. What do you reckon?’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I think the old lady had a very narrow escape and the skivvy was unlucky.’

  Maigret drank a Calvados, because he was in Normandy and he had started out on it. Charlie served other customers. Théo Besson came and sat on one of the high stools and unfolded a Paris newspaper which he had probably gone to buy at the station.

  Apart from a few little clouds that were still pink, the world outside had lost all its colour, the infinite vastness of the sky forming a lid over the infinite sea.

  ‘Young Rose is dead.’

  Dead from having drunk medicine that wasn’t prescribed for her and which she did not need.

  He lingered a little longer, feeling sluggish from the Calvados, then he made his way back to his hotel, whose façade was a chalky white in the twilight. He walked past the pot plants on the steps and followed the red carpet to the reception counter where he intended to collect his key. The manager leaned towards him and said confidentially:

  ‘There’s a lady who’s been waiting for you for some time.’

  And he looked over towards the red-velvet armchairs in a corner of the lobby.

  ‘I told her I didn’t know when you’d be back, and she said she’d wait. She’s …’

  He muttered a name so quietly that Maigret couldn’t hear. But, turning round, he recognized Arlette Sudre who, just then, rose from her chair.

  He was more conscious of her elegance than he had been when they’d passed each other that afternoon, perhaps because she was the only person in town clothes, and she was wearing a very Parisian hat as if she were on her way to an afternoon tryst in the wealthy Madeleine district.

  He walked towards her, feeling a little awkward.

  ‘I’m the person you’re waiting for, I believe? Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  ‘As you know, I am Arlette Sudre.’

  He nodded to indicate that he did know. Then they were both silent for a moment. She looked about her to make him understand that it was difficult to talk there in the lobby, where an elderly couple were staring at them and straining to listen to their conversation.

  ‘I presume you would like to speak to me in private. Unfortunately this isn’t Quai des Orfèvres and I don’t see where …’

  He cast around. He couldn’t invite her up to his room. The waitresses were laying the tables in the dining room, which seated 200 people, but where there were only around twenty diners.

  ‘Perhaps the easiest thing would be if you had a bite to eat with me? I could choose a secluded table.’

  She was more at ease than he was. She accepted his suggestion naturally, without thanking him, and followed him into the almost deserted dining room.

  ‘May we have dinner?’ he asked the waitress.

  ‘In a few minutes. You can sit down if you like. Dinner for two?’

  ‘Just a minute. May we have something to drink?’

  He turned questioningly to Arlette.

  ‘Martini,’ she said half-heartedly.

  ‘Two martinis.’

  He still felt embarrassed, and it was not solely because the previous Sunday a man had spent part of the night in Arlette’s room. She was the classic example of the pretty woman with whom a lucky man has an intimate dinner, eyeing the people coming in for fear of seeing someone he knows. And Maigret was going to have dinner with her here.

  She sat gazing coolly at him, unforthcoming, as if it was up to him to speak and not her.

  ‘So, you’re back from Paris!’ he said, growing tired of waiting.

  ‘You must have guessed why?’

  She was probably prettier than her mother had ever been, but, unlike Valentine, she did nothing to make herself agreeable. She remained aloof, and there was no warmth in her eyes.

  ‘If you don’t know yet, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Do you mean Hervé?’

  Their martinis arrived and she dipped her lips in hers, took a handkerchief out of her black suede handbag and automatically grabbed a lipstick, but didn’t use it.

  ‘What are you planning to do?’ she asked, looking him straight in the eyes.

  ‘I don’t understand your question.’

  ‘I don’t have a lot of experience in these matters, but I do read the newspapers. When an accident like the one last Sunday night happens, the police usually poke around in the private lives of everyone involved, and it’s barely better being innocent than guilty. Sin
ce I am married and I’m very fond of my husband, I am asking you what you intend to do.’

  ‘About the handkerchief?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Your husband doesn’t know?’

  He saw her lip tremble, with impatience or anger, and she said:

  ‘You sound like my mother.’

  ‘Because your mother thought that perhaps your husband knew about your extra-marital life?’

  She gave a scornful little snigger.

  ‘You choose your words carefully, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll be blunt, if you prefer. From what you’ve just said your mother thought your husband turned a blind eye.’

  ‘She didn’t think it, she said so.’

  ‘As I don’t know him from Adam or from Eve, I haven’t had the opportunity to form an opinion. Now …’

  She was still staring at him, and he felt an urge to provoke her:

  ‘Well, you can only blame yourself if someone gets that idea. You’re thirty-eight, aren’t you? You’ve been married since the age of twenty. I find it hard to believe that your fling last Sunday was the first of its kind.’

  She shot back:

  ‘True, it’s not the first.’

  ‘You only had one night to spend at your mother’s, and still you felt the need to bring your lover into the house.’

  ‘Perhaps we don’t often get the chance to spend the night together?’

  ‘I’m not judging, I’m observing. Which is why I thought your husband knew.’

  ‘He didn’t and he still doesn’t. That’s the reason I came back after leaving in a hurry.’

  ‘Why did you leave at midday on Monday?’

  ‘I didn’t know what’d happened to Hervé after he left the house when Rose started groaning. I didn’t know what my husband would do when he heard the news. I wanted to avoid him coming here.’

  ‘I understand. And once back in Paris, were you worried?’

  ‘Yes. I telephoned Charles, who told me you were in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘Did you find that reassuring?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘May I serve, sir? Madame?’

  He nodded and they stopped talking until the soup was on the table.

  ‘Will my husband find out?’

  ‘It’s unlikely. Not unless he has to.’

  ‘Do you suspect me of attempting to poison my mother?’

  Her spoon was poised in mid-air, and he looked at her with a mixture of astonishment and a hint of admiration.

  ‘Why do you ask me that?’

  ‘Because I was the only person in the house who could have put poison in the glass. Or, to be exact, I was the only person still in the house when it happened.’

  ‘You mean that Mimi could have done it before she left?’

  ‘Mimi or Charles, or even Théo. Only, inevitably, everyone thinks of me.’

  ‘Why inevitably?’

  ‘Because everyone is convinced that I don’t love my mother.’

  ‘And is it true?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Would you mind very much if I asked you a few questions? Mind you, this is off the record. You’re the one who came to see me.’

  ‘You would have questioned me sooner or later, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘It’s possible, and even probable.’

  The elderly couple were sitting three tables away, and at another table was a middle-aged woman gazing dotingly at her eighteen-year-old son, fussing over him as if he were a child. Bursts of loud laughter came from a table of girls, in waves so it seemed.

  Maigret and his companion spoke in hushed tones as they ate, outwardly calm, indifferent.

  ‘Have you not loved your mother for a long time?’

  ‘Since the day I realized that she’d never loved me, that I’d been an accident and she felt that I’d ruined her life.’

  ‘When did you discover that?’

  ‘When I was still a little girl. But I shouldn’t only talk about myself. It’s fair to say that Mother has never loved anyone, not even me.’

  ‘Didn’t she love your father either?’

  ‘From the day he died there was no longer any mention of him. I defy you to find a single photograph of my father in the house. You were there earlier. You saw Mother’s bedroom. Did anything strike you about it?’

  He racked his memory and admitted:

  ‘No.’

  ‘It may be because you haven’t visited many houses belonging to old women. In most of them you’ll find hundreds of photographs on the walls and on the furniture.’

  She was right. And yet he remembered one portrait, a portrait of an elderly man, in a beautiful silver frame on her bedside table.

  ‘My stepfather,’ she replied to his protest. ‘First of all, she put it there mainly because of the frame. And then it’s true that he was the former owner of Juva products, which counts for something. And lastly, he spent half his life pandering to my mother’s every whim and giving her everything she possessed. Did you see any pictures of me? Or of my stepbrothers? Charles, for example, is obsessed with taking photographs of his children at every age and sending prints to the family. In my mother’s house all those photos are in a drawer, with pencil stubs, old letters, cotton reels and goodness knows what. But on the walls are photos of her, of her motor cars, her chateau, her yacht, her cats, especially her cats.’

  ‘I can see that you really don’t like her!’

  ‘I don’t think I even hold it against her any more.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. However, if someone tried to poison her—’

  ‘I’m sorry. You just said if.’

  ‘Let’s say it’s a manner of speaking. Mind you, with Mother, you never know.’

  ‘Are you insinuating that she could’ve pretended to have been poisoned?’

  ‘It’s true it wouldn’t make sense, especially as there was poison in the glass, and enough to kill, because poor Rose is dead.’

  ‘Did your stepbrothers and your sister-in-law share your … let’s say your indifference, if not your antipathy, to your mother?’

  ‘They don’t have the same reasons as me. Mimi doesn’t like her very much because she thinks that, had it not been for her, my stepfather wouldn’t have lost his fortune.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s certain that it was on her that he spent the most money and that she was the one he particularly wanted to impress.’

  ‘How did you get on with your stepfather?’

  ‘Almost immediately after her marriage Mother sent me off to a very exclusive, very expensive boarding school in Switzerland, on the pretext that my father had suffered from tuberculosis and that it was important to look after my lungs.’

  ‘Pretext?’

  ‘I’d never coughed in my life. It was just that the presence of an adolescent girl annoyed her. Perhaps she was jealous too.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Ferdinand tended to spoil me, pamper me. When I came back from Paris, at the age of seventeen, he began to hang around me insistently.’

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘No. Not straight away. I was eighteen and a half when it happened, one evening when I was getting ready to go to the theatre; he came into my room when I wasn’t completely dressed.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing. He lost his head and I slapped him. Then he fell at my feet and began to cry, begging me not to say anything to Mother, not to leave. He swore he’d had a moment of madness and that he’d never do it again.’

  She added coldly:

  ‘He was ridiculous, in tails, with his shirt front that’d popped out of his waistcoat. He had to get up quickly because the maid was coming in.’

  ‘Did you stay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you in love with someone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whom?’

  ‘Théo.’

  ‘And was he in love
with you?’

  ‘He didn’t take any notice of me. He had his bachelor pad on the ground floor, and I knew that although his father had forbidden it, he brought women home. I spent nights spying on him. There was one, a little dancer from the Théâtre du Châtelet, who, at one time, came almost every night. I hid in his apartment.’

  ‘And did you make a scene?’

  ‘I don’t know what I did exactly, but she left, furious, and I was left alone with Théo.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘He didn’t want to. I almost forced him.’

  She spoke in a low voice, in such a natural tone that it sounded somewhat unreal, especially in these surroundings for respectable holidaymakers, with the waitress in her black dress and white apron interrupting them from time to time.

  ‘And afterwards?’ he repeated.

  ‘There was no afterwards. We avoided one another.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He probably felt embarrassed.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Because I was sick of men.’

  ‘Is that why you married so hastily?’

  ‘I didn’t straight away. For more than a year I slept with all the men who came after me.’

  ‘Out of revulsion?’

  ‘Yes. You can’t understand.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I realized that things would end badly; I was disgusted, I wanted to put an end to it.’

  ‘By getting married?’

  ‘By trying to live like everyone else.’

  ‘And once married, you carried on?’

  She looked at him solemnly and said:

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a long silence, during which the girls at the other table could be heard laughing.

  ‘From the first year?’

  ‘From the first month.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because I can’t help it. Julien has never suspected, and I’d do anything to make sure he never finds out.’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘Too bad if it makes you laugh. Yes! In any case, he is the only man I respect. Do you have any other questions you want to ask?’

  ‘When I’ve taken in everything you’ve just told me, I probably will.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘Are you planning to spend the night at La Bicoque?’