Maigret's Secret Read online

  He himself had studied for a career in the State Audit Office, and it was only when he had failed the entrance exam that he had become a magistrate.

  He was very much a product of his background, a slave to its customs, its rules for living, even its language.

  One might have expected his hands-on experience at the Palais de Justice would have given him a more nuanced view of humanity, but that wasn’t the case, and in the end he invariably adopted the default viewpoint of his social milieu.

  In his eyes, Josset was, if not a born criminal, definitely the guilty type. Hadn’t he risen under false pretences to a class that was not his own, firstly through an illicit affair, then by an unsuitable marriage? Didn’t his affair with Annette and his promise to marry her simply confirm that view?

  On the other hand, the young woman’s father, Martin Duché, who had chosen to take his own life rather than face disgrace, was a man after Coméliau’s own flinty heart. He was the epitome of the traditional honest servant: modest, self-effacing, inconsolable after the death of his wife.

  That he had been drinking on the evening of Rue Caulaincourt was a matter of no importance to Coméliau. To Maigret, it was a telling detail.

  Maigret would have sworn that Annette’s father had been ill for a long time, and that his condition was probably incurable.

  And wasn’t his so-called dignity based on nothing more than pride?

  He had returned to Fontenay feeling somewhat queasy and ashamed, deep down, about the way he had behaved the previous evening. Then, far from finding peace and quiet, he was no sooner off the train before he was accosted by a journalist and a photographer.

  That bothered Maigret, as did the attitude of Doctor Liorant. He promised himself he would revisit this, try to flush the matter out into the open, even though his hands were tied.

  His men had traipsed all over Paris, checking facts, and Maigret himself had established a chronology of Josset’s movements on the night of the crime, though he didn’t realize yet how important that chronology would turn out to be.

  In his sole interrogation at police headquarters Josset had claimed that, after he left Rue Caulaincourt around 8.30, he had driven around at random before stopping at a bar in the vicinity of Place de la République.

  They had located the bar, La Bonne Chope, Boulevard du Temple, where one of the waiters remembered him. As there was a customer who turned up every evening on the dot of nine and he hadn’t yet arrived, Josset’s arrival in Rue du Temple could be pinned down to between 8.45 and nine o’clock. That all added up.

  At the Select on the Champs-Élysées it was even easier, as the barman, Jean, had known the drug manufacturer for years.

  ‘He came in at nine and ordered a whisky.’

  ‘Was that what he normally drank?’

  ‘No, his usual tipple was champagne. When he walked in I even reached for the ice bucket, where we always have a bottle chilling.’

  ‘Did anything strike you about his behaviour?’

  ‘He downed his drink in one go and handed me his glass for a refill. He didn’t talk but just looked straight ahead. I asked him:

  ‘ “Everything OK, Monsieur Josset?”

  ‘ “Not so good,” he replied.

  ‘He said something about some meal that had disagreed with him, and I offered him some bicarbonate of soda.

  ‘He turned it down and had a third drink before he left, still looking like he had something on his mind.’

  The details still matched.

  In Josset’s own account, he had then headed off towards Rue Lopert, where he had arrived at 10.05.

  Torrence had questioned everyone in the street. At this time of day most of the buildings had their shutters closed. A neighbour had come home at 10.15 and not noticed anything.

  ‘Were there any cars parked outside the Josset building?’

  ‘I think so. The big one was there, at least.’

  ‘And the small one?’

  ‘I couldn’t say.’

  ‘Did you notice any lights on in the building?’

  ‘I believe so … but I couldn’t swear to it.’

  Only the owner of the house opposite was certain, so certain that Torrence had repeated the questions three or four times and written down the replies word for word.

  This was one François Lalinde, aged seventy-six, a former colonial administrator, now retired for a number of years. No longer in good health, prone to recurrent bouts of fever, he never left his house, where he lived with a coloured maid he had brought back from Africa, whom he called Julie.

  He stated that, as was his custom, he hadn’t gone to bed before four o’clock in the morning and had spent the early part of the night in his armchair near the window.

  He had shown Torrence the chair. It was on the first floor, in a room that served as a bedroom, library, living room and junk room all in one. It was the only room in the house he really occupied, and he more or less never left it, except to go to the adjacent bathroom.

  He was a bad-tempered, impatient man who didn’t tolerate being contradicted.

  ‘Do you know your neighbours opposite?’

  ‘By sight, inspector, by sight!’

  He kept grinning, and there was something menacing in the way he smiled.

  ‘Those people have chosen to live their lives in full view of everyone. They don’t even have the basic decency to have shutters on their windows.’

  He made it clear that he knew a lot more than he was letting on.

  ‘A crazy way to live!’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Both of them. The woman as well as the man … The servants aren’t any better.’

  ‘Did you see Josset come home on Tuesday evening?’

  ‘How could I not see him, since I was sitting in front of the window?’

  ‘Did you do anything except look at what was happening in the street?’

  ‘I read. Every time I heard a noise it gave me a start. I hate noise, especially the noise of cars.’

  ‘Did you hear any cars pull up outside the Josset house?’

  ‘Yes, and I gave a jump, as always. I regard noise as a personal assault.’

  ‘So you heard Monsieur Josset’s car arrive, and then, no doubt, the car door being closed?’

  ‘The car door, yes, that’s right, young man.’

  ‘Did you look outside?’

  ‘I did, and I saw him returning home.’

  ‘Did you have a wristwatch?’

  ‘No. There is a clock on the wall just opposite my chair, as you can verify for yourself. It never loses more than three minutes a month.’

  ‘What time was it?’

  ‘Ten forty-five.’

  Torrence, like all of Maigret’s team, had read the transcript of Josset’s interrogation and had insisted:

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t five past ten?’

  ‘I’m certain. I am always very precise, have been all my life.’

  ‘In the evening or during the night, do you ever fall asleep in your chair?’

  This time, Monsieur Lalinde lost his temper, and poor Torrence had an almighty struggle to get him to calm down again. The old man would not allow himself to be contradicted, especially on this subject, as he took great pride in being a man who never slept.

  ‘You recognized Monsieur Josset?’

  ‘Who else could it have been?’

  ‘I asked you if you recognized him.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Could you make out his face?’

  ‘There’s a streetlamp nearby, and there was a full moon.’

  ‘At this moment were there any lights on inside the house?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Not even in the maid’s room?’

  ‘The maid had gone to bed half an hour earlier.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I saw her close her window, and the light went out straight afterwards.’

  ‘What time?’

&nb
sp; ‘A quarter past ten.’

  ‘Did Monsieur Josset turn on a light on the ground floor?’

  ‘I’m sure he did.’

  ‘Do you remember seeing the ground floor lit up after he went in?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Then it was just the same as normal. The ground floor went dark and the lights came on on the first floor.’

  ‘In which room?’

  Both Josset’s room and his wife’s room looked on to the street: Josset’s on the right, Christine’s on the left.

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Could you see anything going on inside the house?’

  ‘No. That was of no interest to me.’

  ‘Could you see through the curtains?’

  ‘Only a shadow whenever someone walked between a lamp and the window.’

  ‘You didn’t look even for a short while?’

  ‘I buried my nose in my book.’

  ‘Until when?’

  ‘Until I heard the door across the street open and close again.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Eleven forty.’

  ‘Did you hear a car engine?’

  ‘No. The man set off on foot towards the Auteuil church, carrying a suitcase.’

  ‘Were there any lights on in the house?’

  ‘No.’

  Hitherto, they had been using the chronology Josset had supplied to Maigret. From now onwards there was no shortage of witnesses. They had located the driver of the 403 which was parked in front of the Auteuil church, a man called Brugnali.

  ‘The customer hired me at half past midnight. I noted down the route in my logbook. He was carrying a suitcase, and I took him to Avenue Marceau.’

  ‘How was he?’

  ‘Completely drunk and he reeked of booze. Because he had a case with him, I asked him which station he wanted.’

  In Avenue Marceau, Josset paid his fare and headed towards a large town-house which had a brass plate to the left of the door.

  They had also found the second taxi, the one Josset had taken when he left his office.

  The cabaret he had visited at 1.30 was a small bar called Le Parc aux Cerfs. The doorman and the barman remembered him.

  ‘He didn’t want a table. He seemed a bit surprised to find himself here, and his jaw dropped when he saw Ninouche doing her striptease. Ninouche was just getting to the end of her first show, so I can be sure what time it was. He drank a whisky and bought one for Marina, one of our hostesses, but didn’t pay her any attention.’

  During this time, the taxi-driver was outside, talking to another driver who was working in cahoots with the doorman to stop him parking there.

  ‘Go and get your money, and I’ll take your customer when he comes out.’

  But Josset’s arrival had put an end to the argument, and the same taxi in which he had left his case took him back to Rue Lopert. Even though he was familiar with the neighbourhood, the driver had managed to do a whole circuit before Josset had shown him the best route.

  ‘It was around one forty-five, maybe one fifty, when I dropped him off.’

  ‘How was he?’

  ‘Drunker than on the way there.’

  Lalinde, the former colonial administrator, corroborated the time of return. The lights were turned on once again.

  ‘On the ground floor?’

  ‘Of course. Then on the first floor.’

  ‘In both rooms?’

  ‘And in the bathroom, which has a frosted-glass window.’

  ‘Did Josset go out again?’

  ‘At two thirty, turning out the lights when he left.’

  ‘Did he take his car?’

  ‘No. And this time he headed for Rue Chardon-Lagache with a package under his arm.’

  ‘What size of package?’

  ‘Quite big, more long than wide.’

  ‘Thirty, forty centimetres in length?’

  ‘I’d say nearer forty.’

  ‘How wide?’

  ‘I’d say about twenty.’

  ‘Didn’t you go to bed then?’

  ‘No. I was still awake at three forty-eight exactly when a police van came to a screeching halt and a half-dozen police officers jumped out and went inside the house.’

  ‘If I’ve got this right, during the whole evening and night you never left your chair?’

  ‘Not until four thirty, when I went to bed.’

  ‘Did you hear anything after that?’

  ‘The sound of cars coming and going.’

  Here, too, the various accounts matched up, as Josset had arrived at the Auteuil police station around three thirty, and they had sent the van to Rue Lopert a few minutes later, just as he was starting to make his statement.

  Maigret had passed on this report to Coméliau. A little later, the magistrate had asked him to drop by his chambers, where he was alone.

  ‘Have you read this?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did anything strike you about it?’

  ‘One detail, which I hope to discuss with you later.’

  ‘What strikes me is that Josset told the truth about most things – things not directly related to the crime itself. His chronology is spot on for most of the night.

  ‘But where he makes out that he went back at five past ten at the latest, Monsieur Lalinde saw him arrive at ten forty-five.

  ‘So he wasn’t asleep on the ground floor, as he claims.

  ‘He was up on the first floor at ten forty-five, and the lights were on in both rooms.

  ‘Note that this time corresponds to what Doctor Paul considers the likely time of the crime. What do you say to that?’

  ‘I’d simply like to make an observation. According to Torrence, throughout his interview Monsieur Lalinde chain-smoked very black cigars, those small Italian cigars that are commonly known as coffin nails.’

  ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with—’

  ‘I assume he smokes at night too, sitting in his chair. If so, then it is almost certain he would feel the need to have a drink.’

  ‘He may have had something to hand.’

  ‘Probably. He is seventy-six, according to the report.’

  The magistrate still wasn’t following his drift.

  ‘I just wonder,’ Maigret continued, ‘whether at any point he felt the need to empty his bladder … Older gentlemen usually …’

  ‘He claims that he didn’t leave his chair, and all indications suggest he is entirely trustworthy.’

  ‘As well as pig-headed, someone who always has to be right.’

  ‘He knew Josset only by sight. He would have no reason to …’

  Nevertheless, Maigret would have liked to question Monsieur Lalinde’s doctor. It was the second time he had wanted to call on a medical witness.

  ‘You are forgetting patient confidentiality.’

  ‘I’m not forgetting it at all, unfortunately.’

  ‘And you are also overlooking the fact that Josset has every reason to lie.’

  Duché’s suicide in Fontenay-le-Comte had definitively turned the tide of public opinion against Adrien Josset. It was all over the newspapers. They printed photographs of Annette sobbing as she boarded the train to Fontenay.

  ‘Poor Papa! If only I’d known …’

  They had interviewed the staff at the sub-préfecture and the shop owners in Fontenay-le-Comte, all of whom sang the praises of the town clerk.

  ‘An honourable man of the utmost integrity. Racked with sorrow since the death of his wife, he simply couldn’t bear the disgrace …’

  In response to the reporters’ questions, Maître Lenain acted like a man about to mount a stunning comeback:

  ‘Be patient! The investigation is only beginning.’

  ‘Do you have any new evidence?’

  ‘I am reserving it for my good friend, Examining Magistrate Coméliau.’

  He announced the day and the hour when all would be revealed, stoking their curiosity, so that w
hen the time came to, in his own words, drop the bombshell, there were so many reporters and photographers crammed into the corridors of the Palais de Justice that they had to call in extra guards to control the throng.

  They were kept in suspense for three hours, during which four men were sequestered in the chambers of the examining magistrate: Adrien Josset, who had had the photographers all over him when he arrived, Maître Lenain, who had been just as popular with the cameramen, Coméliau and his clerk.

  Maigret was in his office at Quai des Orfèvres, taking care of some paperwork.

  Two hours after the audience, he was given the newspapers. They had more or less all plumped for the same headline:

  JOSSET ACCUSES!

  With a range of different subtitles:

  JOSSET, BACK TO THE WALL, GOES ON THE ATTACK

  And:

  THE DEFENCE’S DESPERATE LAST THROW OF THE DICE

  Coméliau, as was his wont, had refused to make any statement and remained ensconced in his chambers.

  Lenain, as was his wont, had not only read out a written statement to the journalists, but, once his client had been led away by two policemen, had held what was to all intents and purposes a press conference in the corridors of the Palais.

  The statement was short and sweet:

  Until now, Adrien Josset, who stands accused of the murder of his wife, has maintained a chivalrous silence concerning her private life and secret behaviour.

  Seeing as the case is about to be passed on to the Grand Jury, he has reluctantly decided, on the advice of his counsel, to raise a corner of this veil of secrecy. As a result, the investigation will take a new direction.

  It will reveal that any one of a number of people could have killed Christine Josset, about whom little has been said to date, so concerted has been the effort to condemn her husband.

  Maigret would have liked to know what had led up to this decision, to be informed about the conversations that had taken place between the two men, the lawyer and his client, in his cell at the Santé prison.

  It reminded him a little of the scene in Rue Caulaincourt. Annette’s father had come in and had hardly said a word. He had simply asked:

  ‘What are you planning to do?’

  And straight away, Josset, who hid behind Monsieur Jules when it came to letting an employee go, had promised to divorce his wife in order to marry the girl.