Maigret and the Old People Read online

  ‘Never. Since his retirement he had followed a strict routine, and adopted a more or less invariable timetable. I could show you his letters from the last few years … You would see that the first phrases are often: “Good morning, Isi … I greet you, as I do every morning, because a new day is beginning, while I am beginning my monotonous little round …”

  ‘That was what he called his orderly days, which allowed no room for unpredictability.

  ‘Unless I receive a letter by mail this evening … But no! It was Jaquette who posted them in the morning when she went to buy croissants. If she had put one in the box today, she would have told me on the phone …’

  ‘What do you think of her?’

  ‘She was very devoted to us, to Armand and me. When he broke his arm, in Switzerland, it was she who wrote to his dictation, and when later on he had an operation, she sent me a letter every day to keep me up to date.’

  ‘You don’t think she was jealous?’

  She smiled again, and Maigret had trouble getting used to it. He was surprised by such calm and serenity, when he had expected a more or less dramatic exchange.

  It was as if death didn’t have the same meaning as it did elsewhere, as if Isabelle lived on equal terms with it, as if it were part of the normal course of life.

  ‘She was jealous, but the way a dog is jealous of its master.’

  He hesitated to ask certain questions, to approach certain subjects, and she was the one who put them on the table with disarming simplicity.

  ‘If in the past she had been jealous in a different way, as a woman, it was of his mistresses, not of me.’

  ‘Do you think she was his mistress too?’

  ‘She certainly was.’

  ‘Did he write to tell you?’

  ‘He hid nothing from me, not even the humiliating things that men are reluctant to confide in their wives about. He wrote to me, for example, not many years ago:

  ‘ “Jaquette is nervous today. This evening I will have to give her her pleasure …” ’

  She seemed to be amused by Maigret’s astonishment.

  ‘Does that surprise you? And yet it’s so natural.’

  ‘You weren’t jealous either?’

  ‘Not of that. My only fear was that he would meet a woman who could take my place in his thoughts. Keep telling me what happened, inspector. Do we know nothing about his visitor?’

  ‘Only that the first shot he fired was from a high-calibre weapon, probably a 7.65 automatic.’

  ‘Where was Armand struck?’

  ‘In the head. The pathologist says the death was instantaneous. The body slipped to the carpet, at the foot of the armchair. Then the murderer fired three more shots.’

  ‘Why, if he was dead?’

  ‘We don’t know. Had the murderer gone mad? Was he in a state of rage that made him lose his mind? It’s hard to answer that question at this point. In the Court of Assizes, a murderer who tears in to his victim, who delivers a certain number of stab wounds, for example, is often accused of cruelty. And yet, on the basis of my experience and that of my colleagues, it is almost always the shy ones – I don’t dare to say sensitive men – who act that way. They panic, they refuse to see their victims suffer and lose their heads …’

  ‘Do you think that was the case?’

  ‘Unless it’s an act of revenge, of hatred bottled up for a long time, which is more unusual.’

  He was starting to feel at ease with this old woman, who could say and hear anything.

  ‘What would contradict this version is that it then occurred to the murderer to pick up the cartridge cases. They must have been scattered around the room, at a certain distance. He didn’t miss a single one and he left no fingerprints. I still have one question, particularly after what you’ve told me about your relationship with Jaquette. After finding the body this morning, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to her to call you, and she went not to the police station but to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.’

  ‘I think I can explain that. Immediately after my husband’s death, the telephone started ringing almost without interruption. People we barely knew wanted information about the funeral, or to express their condolences to me. My son, exasperated, decided to disconnect the telephone.’

  ‘So Jaquette might have tried to call you?’

  ‘That’s quite likely. And if she didn’t come straight away to let me know, it was because she would have found it difficult to approach me on the day of the funeral.’

  ‘Were you aware of the Count of Saint-Hilaire having any enemies?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘In his letters, did he ever talk to you about his nephew?’

  ‘Have you seen Alain?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘Nothing. He went to see Maître Aubonnet. The will is being read tomorrow, and the notary will have to contact you because your presence will be required.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Are you familiar with the terms of the will?’

  ‘Armand planned to leave me his furniture and personal objects, so that if he passed away before me I would still have a sense of having been his wife.’

  ‘Do you accept this legacy?’

  ‘It’s his will, isn’t it? Mine too. If he hadn’t died I would have become the Countess of Saint-Hilaire once my mourning was over. That was always agreed between us.’

  ‘Was your husband aware of this plan?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And your son and daughter-in-law?’

  ‘Not just them, our friends as well. I repeat, we had nothing to hide. Now I’m going to be obliged, because of the name that I still bear, to live in this big house rather than move, as I have so often dreamed, to Rue Saint-Dominique. Armand’s apartment will not be reconstructed here. I probably won’t live for very long, but, little though it is, I will live in his surroundings as if I were his widow.’

  Maigret was irritated by a phenomenon that was occurring within him. He found that he was fascinated by this woman, who was so different from everything he had known before. And not just by her, but by the legend that she and Saint-Hilaire had created, and in which they had lived.

  At first glance it was as absurd as a fairy story or the instructive tales in children’s books.

  Here, in her presence, he was surprised to find himself believing in them. He adopted their way of seeing and feeling, rather in the way that at his aunt’s convent he had walked on tiptoe and talked in a low voice, filled with unction and piety.

  Then, all of a sudden, he saw her with another eye, the eye of the man from Quai des Orfèvres, and he was filled with revulsion.

  Weren’t they playing with him? Hadn’t these people – Jaquette, Alain Mazeron, his wife with the tight trousers, Isabelle, and even Aubonnet, the notary – reached an agreement with each other?

  There was a dead man, a real corpse with an open skull and a gaping belly. That assumed a murderer, and it wasn’t just someone off the street who had entered the former ambassador’s flat and killed him at close range before he could become suspicious and try to defend himself.

  Over the years Maigret had learned that no one kills without a motive, without a serious motive. And even if in this instance the killer was a madman or a madwoman, they were a flesh-and-blood person who lived in the victim’s circle.

  Was Jaquette, with her aggressive suspicion, mad? Was Mazeron, whom his wife accused of mental cruelty, mad? Was it Isabelle who had lost some of her reason?

  Every time he thought that way, he wanted to change tack and start asking cruel questions, if only to break through this suave exterior that they all adopted as if by contagion.

  And every time he did, the princess disarmed and shamed him with a surprised, naive or even a mischievous expression.

  ‘In short, you have no idea of the person who might have had an interest in killing Saint-Hilaire?’

  ‘An interest, certainly not. You know as well
as I do the broad lines of the will.’

  ‘And if Alain Mazeron needed money?’

  ‘His uncle gave him money when he needed it, and he would in any case have left him his fortune.’

  ‘Did Mazeron know that?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. Once my husband was dead, Armand and I would have married, it’s true, but I wouldn’t have allowed my family to inherit his property.’

  ‘And Jaquette?’

  ‘She was aware that her old age was taken care of.’

  ‘And she was aware of your intention to go and live in Rue Saint-Dominique?’

  ‘She was looking forward to it.’

  Something within Maigret protested. All of this was false and inhuman.

  ‘And your son?’

  Surprised, she waited for him to clarify his point, and since Maigret remained silent she asked in turn:

  ‘How is my son involved in this case?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m searching. He is now the heir to the name.’

  ‘He would have been even if Armand had lived.’

  Obviously! But mightn’t he have thought it a step down for his mother to marry Saint-Hilaire?

  ‘Was your son here last night?’

  ‘No. He stayed with his wife and children in a hotel on Place Vendôme, where they usually stay when they come to Paris.’

  Maigret frowned and looked at the walls as if by staring through them he could measure the vastness of the building on the Rue de Varenne. Didn’t it contain a considerable number of empty rooms, of unoccupied apartments?

  ‘You mean that since he married he has never lived in this property?’

  ‘First of all, he is seldom in Paris, and never for long, because he can’t bear high society.’

  ‘His wife too?’

  ‘Yes. For the first years of their marriage they had an apartment in the house. And then they had one child, a second, a third …’

  ‘How many do they have?’

  ‘Six. The oldest is twenty, the youngest seven. This may shock you, but I can’t live with children. It’s a mistake to believe that all women are made to be mothers. I had Philippe because it was my duty. I looked after him as much as I had to. Years later, I couldn’t have endured the sound of shouting and running about in the house. My son knows that. So does his wife.’

  ‘They don’t hold it against you?’

  ‘They take me as I am, with my faults and foibles.’

  ‘Were you alone here last night?’

  ‘With the servants and two nuns keeping watch in the chapel of rest. Abbé Gauge, my spiritual adviser, who is also an old friend, stayed until ten o’clock.’

  ‘You told me just now that your son and his family were in the house right now.’

  ‘They are waiting to say goodbye to me, at least my daughter-in-law and the children. You must have seen their car in the courtyard. They are leaving for Normandy, apart from my son, who has to go with me to the notary tomorrow.’

  ‘Would you allow me to have a brief conversation with your son?’

  ‘Why not? I expected that question. I even thought that you would want to see the whole family, and that’s why I asked my daughter-in-law to delay her departure.’

  Was she being straightforward, or provocative? To return to the English doctor’s theory, would a schoolteacher have been better at untangling the truth than Maigret?

  He felt humbler than ever, more disarmed, amongst human beings whom he was attempting to judge.

  ‘Come this way.’

  She led him along the gallery and paused for a moment with her hand on the handle of a door, behind which voices could be heard.

  She opened it and said simply:

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret …’

  And, in a huge room, the inspector saw first of all a child eating a cake, then a little girl of about ten asking her mother for something in a low voice.

  Her mother was a tall blonde woman in her forties, with very pink skin, who looked like one of those robust Dutchwomen that one sees in prints and postcards.

  A thirteen-year-old boy was looking out of the window. The princess did her introductions, and Maigret registered the images one by one, with a view to reassembling them later like the pieces of a jigsaw.

  ‘Frédéric, the oldest boy …’

  A lanky young man, fair-haired like his mother, bowed slightly without holding out his hand.

  ‘He too is destined for the diplomatic service.’

  There was a daughter, a fifteen-year-old, and a boy of twelve or thirteen.

  ‘Isn’t Philippe here?’

  ‘He went down to see if the car is ready.’

  There was a sense of life suspended, as if in a station waiting room.

  ‘Come this way, Monsieur Maigret.’

  They followed another corridor, at the end of which they met a tall man, who watched them coming with a bored expression on his face.

  ‘I was looking for you, Philippe. Inspector Maigret would like to talk to you for a moment. Where would you like to receive him?’

  Philippe held out his hand, apparently somewhat distracted, but curious enough to see a policeman at close quarters.

  ‘Anywhere. Here.’

  He pushed open a door leading into an office with red hangings, in which portraits of ancestors hung on the walls.

  ‘I will leave you, Monsieur Maigret, asking you to keep me informed. As soon as the body is brought back to Rue Saint-Dominique, be kind enough to let me know.’

  She disappeared, light and insubstantial.

  ‘You wanted to talk to me?’

  Whose office was it? Probably nobody’s, because there was nothing to indicate that anyone had ever worked there. Philippe de V—pointed to a chair and held out his cigarette case.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘You don’t smoke?’

  ‘Only a pipe.’

  ‘Me too, usually. But not in this house. My mother hates it.’

  There was a kind of ennui, or perhaps impatience, in his voice.

  ‘I assume you want to talk to me about Saint-Hilaire?’

  ‘You know he was murdered last night?’

  ‘My wife told me just now. It’s a curious coincidence, admit it.’

  ‘You mean that his death might have had some connection with your father’s?’

  ‘I don’t know. The papers are silent on the circumstances of the crime. I assume suicide is out of the question?’

  ‘Why would you ask that? Did the count have reasons to kill himself?’

  ‘I can’t think of any, but you never know what’s going on in people’s heads.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘My mother pointed him out to me when I was a child. I sometimes bumped into him later on.’

  ‘Did you talk to him?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Were you angry with him?’

  ‘Why would I have been?’

  The man seemed honestly surprised by the questions he was being asked. He too had the appearance of an honest man who had nothing to hide.

  ‘Throughout her life my mother devoted a kind of mystical love to him that never gave us reason to be ashamed. Besides, my father was the first to smile about it with a hint of tenderness.’

  ‘When did you get back from Normandy?’

  ‘Sunday afternoon. I had come on my own last week, after my father’s accident, and then left again, because he seemed to be in fine fettle. I was surprised on Sunday when my mother called me to say that he had died of an attack of uraemia.’

  ‘Did you travel with your family?’

  ‘No. My wife and children didn’t arrive until Monday. Except for my eldest son, of course, who is at the École Normale Supérieure.’

  ‘Did your mother talk to you about Saint-Hilaire?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Perhaps my question is ridiculous. Did she say at any point that she might marry the count?’

  ‘She didn’t need to talk to
me about it. I had been aware for a long time that if my father died before she did, that marriage would take place.’

  ‘You never shared your father’s society lifestyle?’

  He seemed surprised by all of this and reflected before answering.

  ‘I think I understand your point of view. You have seen photographs of my father and mother in magazines, when they went to some foreign court, or when they attended a grand wedding or a princely engagement party. Obviously I also attended some of these events when I was between eighteen and twenty-five. Let’s say twenty-five, more or less. After that I got married and went to live in the country. Have they told you that I graduated from Grignon agricultural college? My father gave me one of his properties, in Normandy, and we live there as a family. Is that what you wanted to know?’

  ‘You have no suspicions?’

  ‘About the murderer of Saint-Hilaire?’

  It seemed to Maigret that the man’s lip was trembling slightly, but he couldn’t have sworn.

  ‘No. Not what one could really call a suspicion.’

  ‘But you have had an idea?’

  ‘It wouldn’t stand up, and I would rather not talk about it.’

  ‘Were you thinking about someone whose life would be changed by your father’s death?’

  Philippe de V—, whose eyes had been lowered for a moment, looked up.

  ‘Let’s say that it’s passed through my mind, but I didn’t linger over it. I’ve heard so much about Jaquette and her devotion …’

  He seemed uneasy about the whole conversation.

  ‘I don’t want to rush you. I have to say goodbye to my family and I would like them to be home before nightfall.’

  ‘Will you stay in Paris for a few more days?’

  ‘Until tomorrow night.’

  ‘Place Vendôme?’

  ‘My mother told you that?’

  ‘Yes. To put my conscience at ease, I would like to ask you one more question and request that you don’t take umbrage. I was obliged to ask your mother too.’

  ‘Where I was last night, I assume? At what time?’

  ‘Let’s say between ten in the evening and midnight?’

  ‘That’s quite a long time. Wait! I had dinner here with my mother.’

  ‘Alone with her?’