It would have been hard to design a calmer, more harmonious interior. It was lavish without being oppressive, with nothing to arrest the eye, and the light itself had a quality that could be savoured like a good wine, like certain sparkling spring mornings. The drawing rooms, whose armchairs looked as if they had been vacated only a few moments earlier, boasted huge bay windows.
A wide staircase with a wrought-iron banister led to the upper floors. The doctor started to make his way upstairs.
‘If you would like to follow me into my study …’
He didn’t take the trouble to conceal a certain smugness. There was a barely perceptible glint of pride in his eyes.
They went upstairs, without hurrying, and then a slight incident occurred. A door opened above their heads. For Maigret, it was just a door, since he was not familiar with the layout of the rooms, but the doctor had already recognized the sound of that particular door. He frowned. They heard footsteps on the stair carpet, beyond the first bend. They were light, faltering steps, the steps of someone who was no more familiar with the house than Maigret.
The person coming down must have heard them and leaned over the banister. They looked up, and saw a girl’s small head. Their eyes met, only for a second, and there was panic in the eyes of the visitor who dithered, as if she was about to go back upstairs to avoid them.
Instead, she suddenly darted forwards and they saw all of her on the landing, a tall, skinny girl of around fourteen, whose legs were too spindly, wearing a slightly faded cotton frock. Why was Maigret particularly struck by a little coloured-bead bag which she clutched nervously?
She seemed to be calculating her move, assessing how much room she had to pass them, and then she made a dash for it. Keeping her face averted and staying close to the wall, she slipped past them, raced down the stairs and almost banged into the front door, groping frantically for the door knob, as in a nightmare when you are being pursued by danger and you run into a blank wall.
The doctor swung round at the same time as Maigret. The door opened, an oblong of brighter light appeared and swallowed up the girl.
That was all. It was nothing. Bellamy looked up again. Wondered whether someone was on the landing watching them. He was taken aback, vexed, anxious perhaps?
Maigret could sense that there was something unforeseen, something inexplicable about this encounter.
Bellamy resumed his ascent. Now they could see the door the girl had come out of, but it was shut. They walked past it, down a wide corridor, and Bellamy pushed open another door much further along.
‘Come in, monsieur. Make yourself comfortable. It goes without saying that if you feel hot, you may remove your jacket.’
They were in a vast study lined with books. As they entered, they were dazzled by the sun pouring in through the three big bay windows. Bellamy, with a movement that must have been habitual, lowered the venetian blinds and the light softened and was transformed into a golden dust.
Above the fireplace was a magnificent portrait of a woman, an oil painting, and there was a photograph of the same woman in a silver frame on the desk.
The doctor picked up the intercom and waited for a few moments.
‘Is that you, Mother? You don’t need me?’
A piercing voice came out of the receiver, and because it was so loud, the speech was garbled and Maigret was unable to catch a single word.
‘I’m busy at the moment, yes. Would you send Francis to me?’
They were silent until the arrival of the butler in a white linen jacket.
‘I shan’t ask you if you’d like a whisky … Or a port either, no doubt? … Would you like a glass of dry Pouilly? … A bottle of Pouilly, Francis … The usual for me …’
He glanced quickly at some envelopes lying on his desk, without opening them.
‘Would you excuse me for a moment?’
He left the room on the heels of the butler. Was it to ask him about the girl they had met on the stairs? Was he going into the room on the landing and would he, on his return, call the woman in the photograph and the portrait?
Chief Inspector Mansuy had not been exaggerating. Even among the crowds in the street, it would have been impossible not to notice her. And yet the most striking thing about her was an extraordinary simplicity. Her demeanour was calm, modest. She seemed shy, scared of people staring at her. Her initial instinct must be fear of everything that was new or unfamiliar.
She had big, light-blue, almost violet eyes and a childlike face, and yet she was very much a woman, and you could imagine a curvaceous figure, and soft, fragrant flesh.
‘Forgive me for leaving you alone …’
Bellamy, who had caught his guest contemplating the photograph, pretended not to notice. However, opening a drawer, he said:
‘Her sister was very different, as you will see.’
He riffled through some photographs and held one out to Maigret. And it was indeed a completely different face, a young brunette with an elongated face and irregular features. She wore a high-necked dress, without jewellery, which gave her a sober, austere look.
‘They’re not at all alike, are they? You have probably already been told that they are not from the same father and it is very possible, it is likely … Admit, monsieur, that you would have come to see me sooner or later … I don’t know what pretext you would have found … For my part, I confess that, these events notwithstanding, I wanted to have a chat with you …’
It was curious: his cordiality was so natural, so unaffected, that it was arid. He never took the trouble to smile. The rattle of glasses could be heard on the other side of the door, and Francis brought in a tray with a misted bottle, whisky, ice and glasses.
‘I shan’t tell you that you may smoke your pipe. That goes without saying. Perhaps I should have waited until the funeral to invite you. It takes place tomorrow, as you know. As you also know, the body isn’t in the house.’
He took his watch out of his pocket, and Maigret understood. It was around this time that the autopsy was due to take place.
‘I was very fond of my sister-in-law. Or rather, I considered her to be my own sister. When she came to this house, she was thirteen and had plaits down her back.’
Maigret was reminded of the girl they had met on the stairs, and Bellamy, who guessed his thoughts, frowned slightly, displaying the tiniest hint of impatience.
‘Forgive me for not drinking the same as you. To your good health! … Lili was a highly strung child, inquisitive, a little wild, and crazy about music. If you are interested, later on I’ll show you what we called – what she herself called – her sanctuary.’
He drank the whisky slowly, set down his glass and went and sat at the desk, which in no way resembled a work desk, and indicated an armchair where Maigret should sit.
He did not allow Maigret the chance to take the initiative, which neither vexed Maigret nor made him feel humiliated. A fly on the wall would have found him awkward, self-conscious. His gaze was dull, his movements heavy, while the doctor, on the other hand, was not taken in.
‘You are on holiday, so I’ve been told. I’ve seen you a few times watching our games of bridge, which have become a vital need for most of us. As far as I’m concerned, it’s practically the only moment in the day that I spend outside this house, and I consider this habit as necessary for my health. Which reminds me, forgive me for not inquiring after your wife. She is in the hands of our best surgeon. Bertrand is a friend of mine.’
He hadn’t been insincere when he’d said that he had been taking an interest in Maigret from the start.
‘You have also become acquainted with the atmosphere of our hospit
al and with our nuns.’
The ghost of a smile. He was picturing a clumsy Maigret among the nuns with their muffled tread.
There was a tricky obstacle to overcome. He still had to explain this spontaneous invitation, his anxiety to dispel any prejudices that this detective chief inspector might have been harbouring against him.
Did he suspect the note from Sister Marie des Anges?
‘You have probably spent time in a little town like ours before. Mind you, I love the place and won’t speak ill of it. If I am here, it is because I wanted to be …’
He gazed around affectionately at the surroundings he had created for himself. When his gaze rested on the venetian blinds letting in streaks of light, Maigret guessed that he was thinking of the sea with its sails and its seagulls, which he could see from his study in the morning, while he savoured the quality of the air and the subtlest fragrances from the moment he opened his eyes.
‘I love the peace and quiet … I love my house …’
As he also loved his books with their beautiful bindings, the curios dotted around the room that awaited the caress of his fingers.
‘I could quite easily have become antisocial, and perhaps that is why I force myself to play bridge every day. It sounds straightforward and natural, doesn’t it? Each person’s life sounds straightforward until an event occurs and then people scrutinize us, no longer as ourselves, but in relation to that event. I think that is why I invited you to come. I didn’t think twice about it at the time. I saw you looking at me several times. May I ask you a personal question? What was your training?’
It was Maigret’s turn to appear more docile than the most docile of his ‘customers’.
‘I dreamed of being a doctor and I did my first three years of medicine. My father’s death put an end to my studies and I joined the police by chance.’
He was not afraid that Bellamy would be shocked by the word in this refined, bourgeois atmosphere.
‘I was going to say to you,’ replied Bellamy, ‘that your eyes always seem to be searching for a diagnosis. For the last two days, a lot of people have been staring at me with curiosity, some with involuntary alarm. Oh yes! I can feel it. I don’t think I am liked, because I am not bothered about endearing myself to people. Did you know that that is generally what people are the least willing to forgive their fellow human beings? That is probably why so few men have the courage to live their lives without worrying what people think of them.
‘I wasn’t worried, two days ago. And I’m still not worried now. But I did feel the need to explain myself to you …’
As if he were afraid of having betrayed a certain vulnerability or a weakness, he added hastily, with a faint smile that Maigret was beginning to recognize:
‘Perhaps I was simply trying to avoid complications? I realized that you were intrigued, that you wanted to know, that you would try to find out at all costs. Some men put off irksome things until later and others deal with them straight away. I am one of the latter.’
‘And I am a very irksome “thing”, aren’t I?’
‘Not terribly. You don’t know me. You don’t know the town. Anything that people tell you is likely to be twisted and you don’t like that, admit it, you are only happy when you feel the truth in your bones.’
He seized the portrait of his sister-in-law and looked at it.
‘I was very fond of that girl, but I repeat that my feelings for her were purely fraternal. I am aware that things are often otherwise. A man can easily be in love with two sisters, especially if they are both living under his roof. That is not the case and, besides, Lili was not in love with me. I’ll go further. I was exactly the opposite of what she loved. She found me cold and cynical. She often said that I had no heart.
‘All this of course is no proof that the accident was indeed an accident, but …’
Maigret listened to him while continuing to think about the girl on the stairs. There was no doubt that Doctor Bellamy had been shocked by her presence in the house. Initially, he had been taken aback. He had looked at her as if she were a stranger and was visibly wondering what she was doing in his home.
Afterwards, when all of her had appeared on the landing, he had known who she was, Maigret had read it in his eyes.
He probably knew at that moment whom she had come to see.
The household was no doubt unaccustomed to seeing new faces. Hadn’t Chief Inspector Mansuy spoken of the jealousy of the doctor who, when he went out, even simply to play bridge, left his wife under the supervision of his mother?
But someone had come. And immediately Bellamy had telephoned the elderly lady. If the girl had been visiting her, presumably she would have told him straight away, although her son would have avoided asking her about it in front of Maigret.
As far as Maigret could tell, she hadn’t mentioned the matter. And then Bellamy had left the room and headed towards the door on the landing.
What had the doctor just said?
‘All this of course is no proof that the accident was indeed an accident, but …’
And Maigret replied, almost without thinking:
‘I’m sure you never had any intention of killing your sister-in-law …’
If the nuance did not escape the doctor, he refrained from commenting on it.
‘Others are, and will be, less positive than you. For my part, I wanted to open the door of this house to you. It will remain open to you. I hope that you’ll see that there are no secrets here. Would you like to have a look around my sister-in-law’s apartment? You’ll be able to meet my mother, who must be up there right now.’
He drained his glass and gave the visitor time to finish his. Then he opened a door and they walked through a second, more private, library where there was a green divan. Another door and, still facing the sea, they entered a very soberly decorated room, verging on the austere, where most of the space was taken up by a grand piano. On the walls were photographs of composers. Few armchairs, almost no fabrics, a plain carpet.
‘This was her realm,’ said the doctor, walking towards a half-open door.
He added, speaking to someone who was invisible:
‘Mother, I’d like to introduce the famous Chief Inspector Maigret to you.’
A sort of groan came from the adjacent room; a tiny, very fat woman dressed in black from head to toe appeared, leaning on a walking stick with an ivory knob. Her expression was wary, not particularly affable. She looked the intruder up and down and merely said:
‘Monsieur …’
‘I apologize for disturbing you today, madame, but your son insisted that I accompany him home.’
She glowered at the doctor, who explained with his faint smile:
‘Monsieur Maigret is on holiday at Les Sables d’Olonne. He is someone I have always wanted to meet and, since he’ll be leaving us sooner or later, I was afraid of missing him. We were talking about Lili and I was keen to show him what we call her sanctuary.’
‘It’s very untidy,’ she grumbled.
All the same, she allowed them in and Maigret found himself in a bedroom that was almost as bare, almost as unfeminine as the music room, despite the clothes that had been taken out of a wardrobe and were heaped on the bed. Among other things, there was a black velvet toque with no trimmings, without a splash of colour, that must have been part of a sort of uniform for the girl.
There was not a single photograph on the walls, or on the furniture, nothing that suggested family life.
‘These are the surroundings she loved. She had no friends, male or female. Once a week she would spend a day in Nantes where she would have a lesson with her teacher. When there w
as an interesting concert in the region, I would drive her to it. Let us go down this way …’
Maigret bowed to the elderly lady and followed his host down a spiral staircase. They were back on the ground floor, in a sort of glass conservatory that opened on to a very well-maintained garden where a few magnificent trees provided shade. To the right, a vast, airy kitchen could be glimpsed.
‘Do you sometimes regret having gone into the police?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not. I wondered several times when I was looking at you.’
They walked through the drawing rooms and Doctor Bellamy opened the front door.
‘I have noticed, in any case, that you haven’t asked me a single question.’
‘What would be the point?’
And Maigret re-lit his pipe, which he had put out with his thumb on entering the girl’s apartment.
As he took leave of his guest, Bellamy was a little ill at ease. Had this visit disappointed him? Did Maigret’s silence now make him somewhat anxious?
Not once had the doctor mentioned his wife and there had been no question of introducing her to Maigret.
‘I hope, monsieur, that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again.’
‘So do I,’ muttered Maigret as he walked off.
Maigret was almost pleased with himself. He puffed on his pipe as he made his way towards the town centre. Then he looked at the time and retraced his steps, picking up his walk where he should have been at that hour, passing familiar landmarks: the port, the billowing sails, the smell of tarmac and heating oil, the boats gliding down the channel and mooring in front of the fish market.
Only he turned around to look at every girl he passed and stared into every open doorway, in the hope of catching sight of the girl from the staircase.
She had not been wearing the local costume of short, black-silk skirts like most of the fishermen’s daughters or the women who worked in the sardine canneries. And yet she was of a very humble background. Her dress had been faded, her black woollen stockings darned and her little coloured-bead bag came from a bazaar or local fair.
Maigret's Holiday Page 5
