Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses Read online

  There were at least six of them in the big room that morning, which was a lot for a Monday.

  ‘What’s the latest on the Monk?’ he asked first when he had sat back down at his desk.

  ‘The admission formalities are all done.’

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘Very good. We had a bit of a chat. You know what I found out, chief? Deep down, he’s pretty happy someone shopped him, even if it was his wife. He didn’t come right out with it, but I gathered that he would have been more put out if we had caught him off our own bat, or because he’d slipped up.’

  It was almost refreshing after the Lachaume household. Maigret wasn’t surprised. He had observed genuine professional pride in men like the Monk before.

  ‘You couldn’t say he’s thrilled to be going to prison, or to know that his wife snitched on him so that she could spin out love’s sweet dream with someone else. But he’s not resisting; there’s no talk about getting his revenge when he comes out. When he stripped off to be measured, he gave me a funny look and whispered:

  ‘ “You’ve got to be a silly b*** to get married when you look as ropey as I do!” ’

  Maigret had called Lucas in to give him instructions.

  ‘Ring Corbeil. Ask the Flying Squad to go to the mill and see if the Notre-Dame has arrived. If it isn’t there yet, they’ll find it by the last lock. The barge was moored at Ivry port last night, directly opposite the Lachaumes’. There was a little party on board, which went on very late. It’s possible that someone noticed lights in the house or comings and goings. Other bargees were at the party, and I’d like to know their names, their boat’s name and where we might find them. Got that?’

  ‘Yes, chief.’

  ‘That’s all, son.’

  Janvier had come back.

  ‘What about me, what shall I do?’

  It was the worst moment in any investigation, when Maigret had no real idea what lines of inquiry to pursue.

  ‘Ring Paul, who should have finished the post-mortem by now. He may have some new information to give you before he sends off his report. Then go up to the laboratory, see if they’ve found out anything.’

  Maigret was left alone with his pipes. He chose one, the oldest, and slowly filled it as he watched the rain running down the windows.

  ‘Three hundred million!’ he muttered, picturing the dilapidated house on Quai de la Gare, the little stove in the living room, the old, once-beautiful furniture covered in motley fabrics, the icy radiators, the vast ballroom on the ground floor, the library and billiard room where he expected to see ghosts drifting about.

  He also pictured the slightly crooked face of Armand Lachaume, who was clearly a weak person, maybe even a coward, and seemed to have lived his whole life in his brother’s shadow.

  ‘Who’s free in here?’ he asked, from the doorway of the inspectors’ room.

  Torrence stood up first, like at school.

  ‘Come into my office, Torrence. Take a seat. I want you to take statements at Quai de la Gare in Ivry. I’d rather you didn’t actually go in the house, or the workshops or offices. I imagine that at midday the staff go out for lunch, or at least some of them. So talk to them then, get as much out of them as you can, in particular about the following questions:

  ‘1: Do the Lachaumes have a car, and, if so, what make is it?

  ‘2: Who usually drives it, and did it go out last night?

  ‘3: Is it common for Paulette Lachaume to have dinner in town? Do we know who with? And do we have any idea of what she does afterwards?

  ‘4: How did she get on with her husband? For what it’s worth, you should know that they slept in separate bedrooms.

  ‘5: What was her relationship like with her brother-in-law?

  ‘Have you got all that? One last thing: I wouldn’t mind knowing who Léonard Lachaume’s wife was. She died about eight years ago. Her maiden name … Her family … Was she rich … What did she die of …’

  The burly figure of Torrence phlegmatically noted all this down in his notebook.

  ‘I think that’s it. Naturally it’s urgent.’

  ‘I’m on my way, chief.’

  Had he forgotten anything? If the examining magistrate and the lawyer hadn’t been there, he would have hung around Quai de la Gare longer and asked various questions himself, face to face. He would also have liked, if only out of curiosity, to have a look at Armand Lachaume’s and his wife’s bedrooms, especially the latter’s.

  Did this heiress of three hundred million live in the same crumbling decay as the rest of the family?

  It was almost midday, and he had promised to speak to Angelot, the examining magistrate. He called him on the telephone.

  ‘Maigret here. I’m reporting in, as you requested. I don’t have anything important to pass on, except that Paulette Lachaume is the daughter of an animal hides dealer called Zuber, who left her at least three hundred million.’

  There was a silence on the other end of the line, then the young magistrate’s measured tones:

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘All but. I’ll have confirmation in a moment.’

  ‘Has she had this money for a long time?’

  ‘About a year, if my information’s correct. When the doctors wrote him off, Zuber made a donation inter vivos to his daughter so he’d pay as little tax as possible.’

  ‘Paulette Lachaume is married under the convention of separate assets, isn’t she?’

  ‘That’s what we were told this morning. I haven’t checked.’

  ‘Thank you. Carry on keeping me posted like this. Anything else?’

  ‘My men are busy with routine jobs.’

  He had hardly put the receiver down before he picked it up again.

  ‘Get me Maître Radel, please.’

  He was told that the lawyer wasn’t in the office but that he was expected for lunch.

  ‘Ring the Lachaumes’ house, Quai de la Gare. He might still be there.’

  He was, which gave Maigret pause for thought.

  ‘There’s two or three little things I need to clear up, Maître Radel. Knowing you’d rather your clients weren’t bothered too much, I prefer to talk to you. First of all, what is the name of the Lachaumes’ family notary?’

  ‘One moment …’

  There was a fairly long silence, during which the lawyer must have carefully held his hand over the receiver.

  ‘Hello! Detective Chief Inspector Maigret? Are you still there? I don’t know what you’re after, but my clients have no objection to my telling you that it’s Maître Barbarin, Quai Voltaire.’

  ‘I assume that if Léonard Lachaume left a will, it was filed with Maître Barbarin?’

  ‘I assume so too, although I doubt there is one, as the family hasn’t mentioned it.’

  ‘Has Léonard Lachaume’s son … he’s called Jean-Paul, I think … come back from school?’

  ‘One moment please.’

  Another silence. The lawyer’s hand didn’t cover the phone as well this time, and Maigret heard a hum of voices.

  ‘He won’t be coming back. His uncle made the necessary arrangements over the telephone for him to stay at school.’

  ‘As a boarder?’

  ‘Until further notice, yes. His things are being sent over in a moment. Is that all you want to know?’

  ‘Will you ask Madame Lachaume – the younger one, of course – the name of her personal notary, the one who dealt with her father’s estate and probably her marriage contract as well.’

  This time the silence lasted so long that Maigret wondered if they hadn’t hung up at the other end. He heard the lawyer’s voice only once; he sounded angry and was saying vehemently:

  ‘Because I’m telling you …’

  Another silence. Were the Lachaumes digging their heels in? Was Radel trying to convince them that the police would find out what they wanted to know anyway? Who was arguing with the lawyer? Armand Lachaume? His wife? What about the old couple, who already looked lik
e family portraits, were they listening to the dispute?

  ‘Hello? … I’m sorry, detective chief inspector. We were interrupted, and I couldn’t deal with your question right away … The Zuber estate was wound up by his notary, Maître Léon Wurmster, in Rue de Rivoli … Did you get the name? Wurmster … Léon … I’m giving his first name because there’s a Georges Wurmster, who’s a notary in Passy. Maître Barbarin dealt with the marriage contract …’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Hello … Don’t hang up … I’m here to give you any other information you consider useful … Contrary to what you might think, my clients have no intention of hiding anything from the police … What would you like to know?’

  ‘First, the marriage contract …’

  ‘Separate assets.’

  ‘Solely?’

  ‘Madame Lachaume’s estate passes to her children, should she have any.’

  ‘And if not?’

  ‘To the surviving spouse.’

  ‘If I’m not mistaken, it comes to over three hundred million, doesn’t it?’

  ‘One moment.’

  The silence was relatively brief.

  ‘There’s a degree of exaggeration, but that figure is still broadly correct.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I thought there were other things you wanted to clear up …’

  ‘Not for the moment.’

  He called Maître Barbarin. It look quite a while to get through, because the notary was in a meeting.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret. I assume you already know that one of your clients, Léonard Lachaume, died last night?’

  Taken unawares, the notary replied:

  ‘I’ve just heard.’

  ‘By telephone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to breach client confidentiality, but I need to know if Léonard Lachaume left a will.’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘So he didn’t draft one in your presence or bring in any document of that sort to your office?’

  ‘No. I’m sure he won’t have gone to the trouble.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he didn’t have anything to leave, apart from some shares in Lachaume Biscuits, and they’re worthless.’

  ‘Don’t hang up yet, Maître Barbarin. I haven’t quite finished. Léonard Lachaume was a widower. Could you tell me the name of his wife?’

  ‘Marcelle Donat.’

  He hadn’t needed to consult his files.

  ‘What sort of family was she from?’

  ‘Have you heard of Donat and Moutier?’

  Maigret had often seen their names on hoardings and building sites. They were a big firm of civil engineering contractors.

  ‘Did she have a dowry?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Can you tell me how much?’

  ‘Not without a requisition from the examining magistrate.’

  ‘Fine … Given her family’s wealth, I imagine it was considerable?’

  Silence.

  ‘Were they married under the convention of separate assets?’

  ‘My answer is the same as before.’

  ‘Are you also unable to tell me what Madame Léonard Lachaume died of?’

  ‘The family will be able to give you a more precise answer about that than I can.’

  ‘Thank you, maître.’

  Something was emerging, although still only a backdrop. Most of the protagonists remained hazy, indistinct, with just the occasional clearer feature here and there.

  Within a few years of each other, the Lachaume sons – first Léonard, then Armand – had married rich heiresses. Their brides had entered the family bringing what were most probably substantial dowries, of which nothing seemed to be left.

  Weren’t these successive contributions the reason that the once-prosperous biscuit factory founded in 1817 was still in existence?

  It was true that the company was on the verge of collapse. Maigret wondered whether the packets of wafers with the cardboardy aftertaste were still to be found even in the deepest countryside, as they had been in his childhood.

  The old couple in the living room heated by a cast-iron stove hardly seemed to exist in their own right any more. Like the billiard table on the ground floor, or the crystal chandelier, they were merely witnesses to a vanished past.

  Armand Lachaume seemed somehow hollow, a shadow or partly faded copy of his brother.

  And yet there’d been a miracle, which had gone on for years. Decrepit as it was, the house was still there; smoke was still rising from the tall chimney.

  The biscuit factory didn’t correspond to any need, any law of economics. It may have been prosperous, even famous, in the days of small businesses, but more modern corporations had long since taken over the market, which was now the preserve of, at most, two or three major brands.

  Logically, the biscuit factory on Quai de la Gare should have gone under a long time ago.

  Whose will had kept it going against all the odds?

  It was hard to believe that it was Félix Lachaume’s, that dignified, silent old man, who no longer seemed to be aware of what was going on around him.

  When had he been reduced to, at most, a sort of decorative feature?

  That only left Léonard. The fact that it was Léonard who had died partly explained the family’s disarray, their reticence, or rather their silence, the panic-stricken way they’d resorted to a lawyer.

  Wasn’t it conceivable that, until last night, it was Léonard who thought, who willed, for everybody?

  Even Paulette Lachaume?

  This was more confusing, and Maigret tried to picture the young woman as he had seen her that morning, her hair uncombed, wearing a nondescript-looking blue dressing gown.

  If anything surprised him, it was finding a young woman possessed of a certain vivacity, an animal vitality even, in that house, that family. He couldn’t have said if she was pretty, but he could have sworn she was desirable.

  He would have liked to see her room, that was for sure. He wondered if it was different from the rest of the house.

  He wondered too how Paulette had become involved in the first place, why she had married a man as colourless as Armand, whom she didn’t even share a bedroom with.

  There were other questions, so many questions, in fact, that he preferred to put off asking them until later.

  The telephone rang, and he picked up.

  ‘Maigret here …’

  It was Lucas.

  ‘I’ve got Corbeil on the line. They’ve already questioned the bargees. Shall I put them on?’

  He said yes and heard the voice of an inspector from the Corbeil Flying Squad.

  ‘I found the Notre-Dame at the lock, detective chief inspector. The skipper and his son have got terrible hangovers and don’t remember a great deal. They played music and sang almost all night, boozing and eating with a will.

  ‘Each of them went up on deck at some stage to empty his bladder into the Seine. They didn’t pay any attention to what was happening on the dock.

  ‘They did see lights in some of the windows of a big house, though, but they don’t know if it was the house directly opposite the barge or another one.

  ‘Their friends are called Van Cauwelaert and their boat is the Twee Gebroeders, which apparently means the Two Brothers. They’re Flemish. They must be unloading somewhere on the Canal Saint-Martin. I doubt they’ll be able to tell you much, because at least one of the brothers was so drunk that he had to be carried back on board.’

  ‘What time was that, roughly?’

  ‘Around four in the morning.’

  Maigret opened the door of the neighbouring office again. There were only three inspectors in there now.

  ‘Are you very busy, Bonfils?’

  ‘I’m finishing a report, it’s not urgent.’

  ‘Get off to the Canal Saint-Martin as quick as you can and try and find a Belgian barge called the Twee Gebroeders …’
r />   He gave him his instructions and went back into his office. He’d made up his mind to go to lunch when the phone rang again.

  ‘Janvier here, chief. I don’t have a lot of information yet, but I thought I should bring you up to date. As well as two little old vans they use for deliveries and a truck that’s been out of action for a few years, the Lachaumes have a car. It’s a blue Pontiac, registered in Paulette Lachaume’s name. Her husband doesn’t drive. I’m not sure if this is right, but people around here say he’s had epileptic fits.’

  ‘Did Léonard ever drive the Pontiac?’

  ‘Yes. He used it as much as his sister-in-law.’

  ‘What about last night?’

  ‘Paulette didn’t take the car. But it was at the front door around six o’clock, when she went out.’

  ‘Do you know if she took a taxi?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Probably. From what I’m told she isn’t the sort of woman to take the Métro or a bus.’

  ‘Did Léonard go out?’

  ‘Ivry’s inspectors are looking into it and questioning the other residents of the street. According to the men on duty, the blue car wasn’t at the front door at eight o’clock. One of them thinks he saw it come back around ten in the evening, but he was some distance from the house and he didn’t see it drive in.’

  ‘Who was at the wheel?’

  ‘He didn’t notice. He only remembers a blue Pontiac coming from town and heading towards the river.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘No. I’ve got the sister’s address. It wasn’t easy to find because she’s had five or six different ones over the last few years.’

  ‘Has she stayed in touch with her family?’

  ‘Apparently not. She lives in Rue François Premier now, 17a.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Do you want me to go over there?’

  Maigret hesitated, thinking of his lunch, his wife waiting for him at Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, then shrugged.

  ‘No. I’ll see to it. Carry on nosing around over there and ring in from time to time.’

  He was curious to meet the third of the Lachaume children. He expected she would be a change from the others, as she was the only one who had made her getaway from the house.

  He put on his overcoat, which was still wet, and debated whether to take one of the Police Judiciaire cars. Like Armand Lachaume, he didn’t drive, so he’d have to take somebody with him.