Admittedly the office was rather muffled, and just a tad solemn, but he wasn’t kept waiting and was ushered almost immediately into an enormous room where a man barely forty-five years of age got up to welcome him.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret … I’ve come to see you about one of your clients, the Count of Saint-Hilaire …’
And the man replied with a smile:
‘In that case it’s not me you want to speak to but my father. I’ll just see if he’s free right now.’
Monsieur Aubonnet the younger went into another room and stayed there for a while.
‘If you’d like to come through, Monsieur Maigret …’
This time, of course, the inspector found himself in the presence of a real old man, who wasn’t even in particularly good shape. Aubonnet Senior sat, eyelids twitching, in the depths of a high-backed armchair, wearing the irritable expression of a man who has just been dragged from his afternoon nap.
‘Speak quite loudly,’ the son advised as he withdrew.
Maître Aubonnet must once have been very fat. He had kept a certain paunch, but his body was soft, with wrinkles everywhere. One foot wore a shoe, the other, with a swollen ankle, a felt slipper.
‘I suppose you’ve come to talk to me about my poor friend?’
His mouth was soft too, and the syllables that issued from it formed a kind of mush. On the other hand, Maigret didn’t need to ask him questions to unleash his chatter.
‘Just imagine, Saint-Hilaire and I met at Stanislas … How long ago is that? … Wait … I’m seventy-seven. So that’s sixty years since we were in Upper Sixth together. He was destined for the diplomatic corps. My dream was to join the Cadre Noir de Saumur … There were still horses in those days. The cavalry weren’t motorized … Do you know that I’ve never in my life had the opportunity to ride horses? All because I was an only son and had to take over my father’s practice …’
Maigret didn’t ask him if his father lived in the same house.
‘Saint-Hilaire, from school onwards, was someone who enjoyed life, but he was quite a rare kind of bon viveur, elegant to his fingertips …’
‘I assume he left his will in your hands.’
‘His nephew, young Mazeron, asked me the same question just now. I reassured him …’
‘Does the nephew inherit all his possessions?’
‘Not all of them, no. I know the will by heart, because it was drafted with my own hand.’
‘A long time ago?’
‘The last one dates from about ten years ago.’
‘Were the previous wills different?’
‘Only in terms of details. I wasn’t able to show the document to the nephew, given that all interested parties have to be present.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Broadly speaking, Alain Mazeron inherits the building on Rue Saint-Dominique and, in general, the fortune, which isn’t very large. Jaquette Larrieu, the housekeeper, receives a lifelong pension, which will allow her to end her days in comfort. As to the furniture, knick-knacks, paintings, personal objects, Saint-Hilaire leaves them to an old friend …’
‘Isabelle de V—.’
‘I can see that you are well informed.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘Quite well. I was better acquainted with her husband, who was a client of mine.’
Wasn’t it quite surprising to see the two men choosing the same notary?
‘Weren’t they afraid of bumping into each other in your practice?’
‘It never happened. Probably they never thought about it, and I wonder if it would really have been awkward for them. You see, they were made, if not to be friends, then at least to esteem one another, because they were both men of honour, and also men of taste.’
These seemed to be words from a bygone era! It was a long time, in fact, since Maigret had heard the expression man of honour.
The old notary, in his armchair, laughed silently at a fleeting thought.
‘Men of taste, yes!’ he repeated mischievously. ‘One might add that in one aspect of life their tastes were identical … Now that they are dead, I don’t think I’ll be breaking client confidentiality if I tell you this, particularly since you too are obliged to remain silent on the matter. A notary is almost always a confidant … Saint-Hilaire was also an old friend who came to tell me of his escapades … For almost a year, he and the prince had the same mistress, a pretty girl with an opulent bosom, who acted in I can’t remember which revue on the Boulevards … They didn’t know … Each one had his day …’
The old man gave Maigret a bawdy look.
‘Those people know how to live … For several years I have barely attended to my practice, where my elder son has taken my place. But I come down to my office every day, and continue to serve my former clients.’
‘Did Saint-Hilaire have friends?’
‘The situation with his friends is the same as with the clients I’m talking to you about. At our age, you see people dying one after another. I think that by the end I was the last one he visited. He had kept a good pair of legs and still took his walk every day. Sometimes he came up to see me, to sit where you are sitting …’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘About the old days, of course, particularly the time spent at Stanislas. I could still tell you most of the names of our fellow pupils. It’s astonishing, the number who had outstanding careers. One of our classmates, not the most intelligent, was president of the Council I don’t know how many times and only died last year. Another is a member of the Academy, in a military capacity …’
‘Had Saint-Hilaire made any enemies?’
‘How would he have done that? In his professional life he never ran up against anyone, as is so often the case these days. He obtained his positions by waiting patiently for his turn. And in his memoirs he never settled any scores, which explains why so few people read them …’
‘And among the Prince of V—’s family?’
The notary looked at him with surprise.
‘I’ve already talked to you about the prince. He knew what was going on, of course, and he knew that Saint-Hilaire would keep his word. If it hadn’t been for the world, I’m sure that Armand would have had him over to Rue de Varenne, and that he might well have invited him to dinner.’
‘Was the son aware as well?’
‘Certainly.’
‘What sort of man is he?’
‘I don’t think he’s of the same calibre as his father. It’s true, I don’t know him as well. He seems more reserved, which might be explained by the difficulty in our time of bearing such a weighty name as his. He isn’t interested in high society. He isn’t seen often in Paris. He spends most of the year in Normandy, with his wife and children, looking after his farms and his horses …’
‘Have you seen him recently?’
‘I will see him tomorrow, as well as his mother, for the reading of the will, which means that I will probably have to deal with both estates on the same day.’
‘Has the princess called you this afternoon?’
‘Not yet. If she reads the paper, or if someone tells her the news, she will probably contact me. I still don’t understand why my old friend was murdered. If it had happened anywhere but at his home, I would even swear that it was a case of mistaken identity.’
‘I assume that Jaquette Larrieu was his mistress?’
‘That isn’t the word. Bear in mind that Saint-Hilaire never spoke of her to me. But I knew him. I knew Jaquette too, when she was young, and she was a very pretty girl. And yet Armand rarely let a pretty girl pass within range without trying his chances. He did it a little as an aesthete would, if you can understand that. Chances are, if the opportunity presented itself …’
‘Jaquette had no family?’
‘I wasn’t aware of one. If she had brothers and sisters, it’s a safe bet that they died a long time ago.’
‘Thank you …’
‘I assume you’re in a
hurry? Please know that I remain at your disposal. You too have the look of an honest man, and I hope you catch the rogue who has done this.’
Maigret still had the sense of being immersed in a past that had returned, a world that seemed to have vanished, and it was disconcerting to find himself back in the street, amidst the bustle of Paris, women shopping in tight trousers, bars with nickel-plated furniture, cars throbbing at the traffic lights.
He made for Rue Jacob, in vain, because on the door of the shop with the lowered shutters he found a black-edged sign announcing:
Closed due to bereavement.
He rang the bell several times without receiving an answer, then crossed to the other pavement to look at the first-floor windows. They were open, but there was not a sound to be heard. A woman with copper-coloured hair and a soft, full bosom emerged from the shadow of an art gallery.
‘If it’s about Monsieur Mazeron, he isn’t at home. I saw him leaving at about midday after closing the shutters.’
She didn’t know where he had gone.
‘He’s not very sociable …’
Maigret would visit Isabelle de V—, of course, but he was apprehensive about that visit and preferred to put it off until later, and to try to learn a little more about her first.
He had seldom been so perplexed by human beings. Would a psychiatrist, a teacher or a novelist, to quote the list in the Lancet, have been better placed to understand characters who had suddenly materialized from another century?
Only one thing was certain: Count Armand de Saint-Hilaire, a mild and inoffensive old man, and a man of honour, to use the notary’s phrase, had been murdered, in his home, by someone he didn’t suspect …
It was out of the question that it was an opportunistic, random crime, an anonymous and stupid one, first of all because nothing had disappeared, and then because the former ambassador was sitting peacefully at his desk when the first bullet, fired from close range, had struck him in the face.
Either he had gone to open the door to his visitor in person, or his visitor had a key to the apartment, even though Jaquette maintained that there were only two keys, hers and the count’s.
Maigret, still rolling quite confused thoughts around in his head, went into a bar, ordered a beer and shut himself in the telephone cabin.
‘Is that you, Moers? … Do you have the inventory in front of you? … Take a look and see if there’s any mention of a key … The key to the door of the flat, yes … What? … Yes? Where did they find it? … In his trouser pocket? Thank you … No news? No … I’ll go back to headquarters later on … If you have anything to tell me, call Janvier, who has stayed at Rue Saint-Dominique …’
They had found one of the two keys in the dead man’s pocket, and Jaquette also had hers, because she had used it to open the door in the morning when Maigret and the man from the Foreign Ministry had followed her into the ground-floor flat.
People aren’t killed without a motive. What was left, once theft had been ruled out? A crime of passion, among old people? A clash of interests?
Jaquette Larrieu was receiving a more than adequate lifelong pension, as the notary had informed him.
For his part, the nephew was inheriting the building and the bulk of the fortune.
As for Isabelle, it was hard to imagine that, with her husband only recently dead, the idea might have come to her …
No! No explanation was satisfactory, and the Foreign Ministry had categorically ruled out a political motive.
‘Rue de la Pompe!’ he said to the driver of a yellow taxi.
‘Certainly, inspector.’
He had long since stopped being flattered at being recognized like that. The concierge sent him to the fifth floor, where a small and quite pretty brunette first half opened the door and then led Maigret into a sun-drenched flat.
‘Excuse the chaos … I was making a dress for my daughter.’
She wore tight black silk trousers that clung to a well-rounded bottom.
‘I expect you’ve come about the crime, and I wonder what you’re hoping for from me.’
‘Are your children not here?’
‘My elder daughter is in England, to learn the language. She is living with a family as an au pair, and the younger one is working. It’s for her that I’m …’
She pointed to a light, colourful piece of fabric on the table, from which she was cutting a dress.
‘I assume you’ve seen my husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did he react?’
‘How long is it since you last saw him?’
‘Almost three years.’
‘And the Count of Saint-Hilaire?’
‘The last time he came up here was shortly before Christmas. He brought gifts for my daughters. He never forgot. Even when he was posted abroad and they were still quite small, he didn’t forget Christmas and sent them a little something. That’s how they ended up with dolls from all over the world. You can still see them in their bedroom.’
She was no more than forty and still very attractive.
‘Is it true what the papers say? That he was murdered?’
‘Tell me about your husband.’
Her face immediately hardened.
‘What do you want me to tell you?’
‘Was it a loving marriage? If I’m not mistaken, he’s much older than you.’
‘Only by ten years. He’s never looked young.’
‘Did you love him?’
‘I don’t know. I lived alone with my father, who was an embittered person. He saw himself as a great misunderstood artist, and it pained him to have to earn his living by restoring pictures. I worked in a shop on the Grands Boulevards. I met Alain. Would you like something to drink?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve just had a beer. Go on …’
‘Perhaps I was attracted by his air of mystery. He wasn’t like the others, he didn’t speak much, and what he said was always interesting. We got married and immediately had a daughter.’
‘You lived on Rue Jacob?’
‘Yes. I liked that street too, and our little first-floor flat. At the time Saint-Hilaire was still an ambassador, in Washington if I remember correctly. He came to see us on leave once, then he had us to his house in Rue Saint-Dominique. I was very impressed by him.’
‘What was his relationship with your husband?’
‘I don’t know how to put it. He was a man who seemed to treat everyone with kindness. He seemed surprised that I was his nephew’s wife.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t think I understood until much later, and even now I’m not sure. He must have known Alain better than I thought, better than I did at the time, at any rate …’
She broke off, as if worried by what she had just said.
‘I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m speaking like this out of rancour, because my husband and I are separated now. And in any case I was the one who left.’
‘And no one tried to stop you?’
The furniture here was modern, the walls pale, and Maigret glimpsed a white and tidy kitchen. Familiar sounds rose from the street, while the greenery of the Bois de Boulogne spread out not far away.
‘I assume you don’t suspect Alain?’
‘To be perfectly frank, I don’t yet suspect anyone, but I wouldn’t automatically rule out any possibility.’
‘I’m sure you’re barking up the wrong tree. In my view, Alain is an unhappy person who was never able to fit in and never will. Isn’t it surprising that, leaving my father because he was an embittered man, I married a man even more embittered than he was? I only realized much later. In short, I have never seen him satisfied, and now I find myself wondering if he has ever smiled.
‘He worries about everything, his health and his business, what people think about him, about the opinion of his neighbours and his clients …
‘He thinks everyone is against him.
‘It’s hard to explain. Don’t laugh at what I’m about to
say. When I lived with him, I felt as if I could hear him thinking from dawn till dusk, an irritating stream of thought like the ticking of an alarm clock. He came and went in silence, suddenly looking at me as if his eyes had turned inwards, to a place that I was unable to reach. Is he still as pale as before?’
‘He’s pale, yes.’
‘He already was when I met him and he remained so in the country, by the sea. An almost artificial pallor …
‘And he never let anything show. There was no way of getting through to him … Over the years we slept in the same bed, and sometimes, when I woke up, I would look at him as if he was a stranger.
‘He was cruel …’
She tried to find the right word.
‘I’m probably exaggerating. He thought he was right, he wanted to be right at all costs. It was a mania of his. He was right down to the smallest details, and that’s what made me speak of cruelty. I noticed it most of all when we had children. He looked at them the way he looked at me and others, with cold lucidity. If they did something silly, I tried to defend them.
‘ “At their age, Alain …”
‘ “There’s no reason why they should get used to cheating.”
‘It was one of his favourite words. Cheating! Little acts of cheating! Little acts of cowardice!
‘He brought that same intransigence into the tiniest details of daily live.
‘ “Why did you buy fish?”
‘I was trying to explain that …
‘ “I said veal.”
‘When I went shopping …
‘He would repeat, obstinately:
‘ “I said veal and you didn’t need to go and buy fish.” ’
She broke off once more.
‘Am I talking too much? I’m not saying stupid things?’
‘Go on.’
‘I’ve finished. After years, I thought I understood what the Americans understand by mental cruelty and why, over there, it has become a cause of divorce. There are teachers who, without raising their voices, rule over their classes with a kind of terror.
‘With Alain my daughters and I were suffocating, and we didn’t even have the consolation of seeing him going off to his office. He was downstairs, beneath our feet, from dawn till dusk, coming up ten times a day to study our actions and our movements with a frosty eye.
Maigret and the Old People Page 6
