Sister Aurélie was in on the secret. As soon as Monsieur 6 called, instead of answering, she would transfer the call to the visitors’ room and Maigret would be astonished to hear his wife’s voice on the other end of the line.
The wheelchair was in position fifteen minutes early. But at eleven thirty Sister Marie des Anges insisted on taking the patient back to her room.
By midday, a disappointed Madame Maigret was back in bed and the nun tried to cheer her up, without success, while a triumphant smile hovered on Mademoiselle Rinquet’s pursed lips.
‘There are two gentlemen waiting for you. They say they’re friends of yours. As they’re in a hurry, they’ve already ordered lunch. They asked me for two rooms, but I don’t have any vacancies.’
And Monsieur Léonard almost begged:
‘You will have a little aperitif, won’t you?’
The two men eating at Maigret’s table were Piéchaud and Boivert, the Flying Squad inspectors, who had both worked with him. They rose as one, their napkins in their hands.
‘Excuse us, chief … We’ve just got time for a bite before the prosecutor gets here.’
‘I thought he was supposed be here at eleven?’
‘He would have been if they’d been able to find the examining magistrate, but he was in the country … The people he was having lunch with don’t have a telephone and we had to call the town hall, who sent the local policeman … In short, they’ll all be here in an hour … Will you be joining us?’
Someone – perhaps Mansuy? – must have talked to them about Maigret’s behaviour, for they exchanged knowing looks.
‘Joining you for what?’
‘You’re on holiday, of course, we know that … Don’t we, Boivert?’
One was around thirty, the other thirty-five. They were experienced policemen, both of them. Men who knew their job, as they said at Quai des Orfèvres. Piéchaud, the older one, had almost been killed during the arrest of a Pole, and his right cheek bore the scar of a bullet wound.
Maigret sat down, distracted, and unfolded his napkin. He helped himself to the hors-d’oeuvre, only half listening to what his companions were saying.
‘You already know that the girl wasn’t raped? … At first glance, that’s what it looked like … The crime of a sadist … That’s what they told us at Poitiers. The local police have arrested a good half-dozen vagrants … It’s incredible how many there are in the area … Only, if it had been that simple, you wouldn’t have been on to the case since the day before, right?’
They were determined to worm it out of him.
‘As far as we’re concerned, we’d like nothing better than to work with you … Neither Boivert nor I know the town … In other words …’
Faced with Maigret’s silence, Piéchaud was stumped.
‘It’s as you wish! … But surely, as the gentlemen from the prosecutor’s office know you’re here … I’d be surprised if they didn’t insist on seeing you …’
‘I am on holiday,’ repeated Maigret, pouring himself a drink.
‘Of course …’
‘If I find anything out, I’ll let you know …’
‘You have always been on the level …’
He almost smiled. It was a very brief sunny interval. The clouds gathered over his brow again immediately. He wasn’t hungry. He felt out of sorts, as if sickening for flu.
‘In any case, if you want someone watched, or anything at all …’
‘Thank you very much.’
‘We’ve got to be off … It’s time …’
In the corridor, Monsieur Léonard pointed out a little hotel where they might perhaps have a chance of getting a room. They exchanged glances again and, in the doorway, Piéchaud, the eldest, said:
‘The chief’s not exactly a bundle of laughs!’
6.
Maigret rang the hospital doorbell even though the time was not quite two thirty; he didn’t take his watch from his pocket and didn’t listen out for the sound of the bells ringing.
Sister Aurélie looked at him in almost reproachful surprise and was reluctant to pick up her telephone. He gave her a perfunctory smile which only flitted across his frowning, rather stubborn expression for a split second.
‘I haven’t come to see my wife,’ he stated. ‘I should like to speak with the mother superior first.’
‘Are you sure, Monsieur 6, that it is the mother superior you need to see? It’s the bursar sister who deals with all matters concerning the patients and the hospital in general, as well as any complaints …’
‘Would you kindly inform the mother superior that Detective Chief Inspector Maigret wishes to speak to her?’
Sister Aurélie decided not to argue and, while she telephoned, he stared at the overly smooth walls, the too highly polished stairs, with a sort of resentment.
‘Someone will come to fetch you,’ said the nun.
‘Thank you very much.’
He paced up and down the entrance hall, his hands behind his back, furious in advance at the thought he would be kept waiting. On turning round, he was utterly flabbergasted to see before him a nun he did not know waiting for him.
‘Would you like to follow me, monsieur?’
Not up the stairs. At the back of the entrance hall, they went through a nail-studded oak door into another realm, even more cocoon-like, more silent than the hospital. The nuns must be wearing felt- or rubber-soled shoes, for their footsteps were completely silent. Twice, as they made their way through a maze of corridors, he looked over his shoulder on hearing behind him the vague swish of voluminous robes, the sway of rosaries, perhaps the air being displaced. The nuns sweeping around made him think of bats.
He glimpsed a chapel with artificial flowers on the altar. Then he was shown into a visitors’ room where black chairs with crimson velvet seats lined the walls.
‘Our Reverend Mother will be with you right away …’
Again that swishing of skirts, the clicking of rosary beads, the air being displaced by winged cornettes.
‘Monsieur …?’
He shuddered, because the other nuns had only been mere nuns, whereas this one, even though she wore the same habit and, like the others, kept her hands hidden inside her wide sleeves, was a woman, a woman whose age and social milieu he could have fathomed.
Tall and slim, classy, she directed the calm gaze of her grey eyes at him.
‘I haven’t come to see you about my wife, Sister …’
He suspected he should have said Reverend Mother or something like that, but those words stuck in his throat.
‘I wish to speak to Sister Marie des Anges for a few moments …’
Whereas he had thought she would be taken aback, she looked at him with the same imperturbable calm, and he was already beginning to detest her.
‘You know, monsieur, that the rules—’
‘Forgive me, Sister, but there’s no question of rules today.’
He turned slightly red, because he had been the first to lose his composure.
‘I was about to say that the rules,’ she continued, ‘only permit you to meet one of our sisters in the presence of another sister.’
‘Even if I came with a warrant from an examining magistrate?’
He had promised himself that he’d be diplomatic, but this tall, bourgeois woman in a cornet irritated him, although he didn’t know why. Or rather yes, he did know. As he spoke with the mother superior, the ‘gentlemen’ from the prosecutor’s office were stomping around the Duffieux family’s little house with the inspectors. They had done nothing either, other than work all their lives and count every sou. Their young dau
ghter had been murdered in her bed and, instead of leaving them to their grief, the police had questioned them without compunction about the most private aspects of their lives, while nosey onlookers glued their faces to the windows and journalists subjected them to the continual bombardment of magnesium flashguns. So?
‘Sister Marie des Anges is very young, monsieur, very easily upset.’
He merely shrugged.
‘I’ll send for her.’
She left the room and said a few words to a nun who must have been standing outside the door, for she was back almost immediately.
‘I was expecting your visit. Sister Marie des Anges confessed to me yesterday. She committed a very serious infraction of the rules in writing that note to you without talking to me about it.’
He was stunned, disconcerted, on learning that the mother superior knew about the note.
‘It is by chance, accidentally if you like, that she kept watch for an hour or two in room 15. She is not yet used to seriously ill patients and she was deeply affected by the girl’s delirium.’
Warily, Maigret asked:
‘Do you know Doctor Bellamy?’
‘I know him.’
‘I mean, do you know him purely as a doctor, or have you met him socially?’
Because they must both belong to the same world.
‘I only know him as a doctor. I am from Bordeaux. Since you request it, Sister Marie des Anges will repeat to you herself, verbatim, as I shall order her to do …’
She was the one, not him, giving the orders!
‘… the words that she heard, or thought she heard. It is pointless harassing her with questions to refresh her memory. I have already done that. The words you will hear are no different from those spoken by many patients who are delirious. I fear, however, that someone who is unaware of this might be tempted to attach too much importance to them. Sister Marie des Anges rashly shouldered a terrible responsibility. In listening to her, you will take on another and I pray God to inspire you with wisdom and caution.’
There was a swishing in the corridor.
‘Come in, Sister. I authorize you to repeat to Monsieur Maigret the words that you confided to me.’
‘You may stay,’ Maigret decided abruptly.
And, blushing, Sister Marie des Anges looked from one to the other.
‘She was in a coma,’ she stammered. ‘Then once, while I was on duty, she was struggling as if to sit up, then she clutched my arm shouting:
‘“Have they …”’
She faltered, seeking further approval from the mother superior. Maigret continued to look disgruntled.
‘“… Have they arrested him? … They mustn’t arrest him … Do you hear? … I don’t want … I don’t want …”’
She broke off again. Maigret guessed that the most important part was yet to come and the mother superior came to her aid. It was she who said:
‘Go on. You know that I wrote down the words you repeated to me and I will report them to the inspector if he so wishes.’
‘She added:
‘“You mustn’t believe her … She’s the monster …”’
‘Is that all?’
‘That’s all I could understand at the time. There are even some words I’m not certain about.’
And yet she had not got everything off her chest. Maigret realized it from the questioning look that Sister Marie des Anges gave the mother superior.
‘At other moments, did you catch any other words?’
‘Yes … but they made no sense … She talked about a silver knife …’
‘Are you sure about those two words?’
‘Yes, because she said them several times … She also said: “I touched it …”
‘And she gave a great shudder.’
‘Is that all, Sister?’
Calmly, in a gentle but firm voice, the mother superior said:
‘You may go, Sister.’
Maigret frowned and was about to object. With the same calm, she signalled to him to keep quiet and went over and shut the door herself.
‘The rest, which is of no interest by the way, I prefer to tell you myself. I cannot take it upon myself to force one of my youngest sisters to speak of certain things in the presence of a man. I don’t know whether you have ever had the occasion to sit with patients who are raving.’
She dared ask this of Maigret, who had thirty years in the Police Judiciaire behind him!
‘What I wish to emphasize is that sometimes there is a total change of personality. A doctor will explain it to you better than I. The fact is that several times foul language escaped the lips of this young woman, that you will forgive me for not repeating.’
‘Did Sister Marie des Anges say these words to you?’
‘It was my duty to hear her confession.’
‘I presume that these words allude to sexual matters?’
‘Most of them. I would add that they are words that cannot be found in the dictionary.’
He hesitated, and ended up bowing his head.
‘Thank you very much,’ he stuttered.
And, as if she were pardoning his earlier attitude, she spoke in a gentler tone to say:
‘I expect that now you wish to see our dear patient who, from what I have heard, was disappointed not to receive your usual telephone call. To think that she had got out of bed and was thrilled to be answering in person.’
‘Thank you very much,’ he repeated as she preceded him down the long corridor.
The studded door opened and closed again behind him. He was shut out. He found himself back in the hospital which, in comparison with the convent proper, felt like a vulgar, noisy place.
It wasn’t Sister Marie des Anges but Sister Aldegonde who was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. Madame Maigret looked at him with some apprehension, without daring to ask him any questions.
‘Please forgive me,’ he said. ‘I was very busy this morning.’
‘I know.’
‘What do you know?’
‘It’s only just occurred to me. I presume you went to the funeral? Did you see our wreath?’
To think that it was his wife who was asking him that question! Two weeks in hospital had been enough to change her.
‘You know, I’m a lot better—’
‘And you got out of bed, yes.’
‘Who told you?’
He did not dare mention the mother superior. He was impatient to get away. He didn’t like the way Madame Maigret was looking at him. He tried hard to talk about everyday things in a cheerful voice.
Never had the thirty minutes seemed so long, especially since Sister Marie des Anges didn’t relieve the tedium with her usual flitting in and out. When it was time for him to leave and he leaned over his wife to kiss her, she whispered:
‘Are you busy with number 15?’
She had guessed, of course! She added with a hint of reproach, but without hope:
‘You were so happy to have a holiday at last! Will you telephone me tomorrow?’
He had to turn back to say goodbye to Mademoiselle Rinquet, whom he had forgotten. An extraordinary thing, he walked all the way across town without stopping at a single bar. It was from his hotel that he telephoned:
‘Hello! … I’d like to speak to Doctor Bellamy, please … Hello! … Is that you, doctor? … Forgive me for disturbing you … I wouldn’t expect to find you at the café today … I would like, however, to have a conversation with you, at whatever time suits you best … Hello! … Sorry? … Right away? … Thank you … I’ll be at your house in ten minutes …’
Again, he forgot to greet Mo
nsieur Léonard, who hung around him with the expression of a dog wondering why his master doesn’t stroke him any more.
‘Supposing the gentlemen ask me where you are?’ he ventured.
‘Tell them that you have no idea.’
He walked with great strides, his teeth clenched around the stem of his pipe. It was Francis who opened the door to him, and winked as he said:
‘You’re expected upstairs.’
The black drapes, candles and flowers were all gone. The house had returned to normal and only the smell of the chapel of rest lingered in the air. Maigret followed the butler up the thick stair carpet. Francis opened a door, that of the study, and, before seeing anything, Maigret caught a whiff of cigar smoke.
Two men were in the room, in an atmosphere of perfect privacy. One, standing, was Doctor Bellamy, sharp and precise, without the slightest hint of disquiet in his expression or in his voice.
‘My dear Alain,’ he said, with perhaps the slightest note of irony aimed at the visitor, ‘I am delighted to introduce Chief Inspector Maigret, whom you were so keen to meet … Monsieur Maigret, may I introduce my old friend Alain de Folletier, examining magistrate at La Roche-sur-Yon …’
The man was tall, slightly rotund, and ruddy-faced. He was wearing a russet-coloured jacket, jodhpurs and fawn boots. He was the one smoking a cigar from the box lying open on the desk, beside the liqueur glasses.
‘Delighted to meet you, inspector … I don’t have to tell you why I am here today … Embarrassed, incidentally, to be in riding dress. I had taken a day off and gone riding with friends who live in the country … No one was able to get hold of me on the telephone and the prosecutor urged me to come at once, as I was …’
The doctor invited Maigret to sit in one of the leather armchairs and offered him a cigar.
‘Chartreuse or Armagnac?’
He replied without thinking:
‘Armagnac.’
Maigret's Holiday Page 10
