Of one thing Maigret was sure. There was a secret.
What could it be? The public prosecutor was hiding something too. Whatever it was, it was something very complicated and obscure.
“Tell me, doctor—was Madame Rivaud your patient? Is that how you came to know her?”
The surgeon shot a swift glance at his wife.
“I may as well tell you at once that that is of no importance whatever. And now, if you don’t mind, I’ll drive my wife home, and . . .”
“Obviously . . .”
“Obviously what?”
“Nothing . . . I beg your pardon . . . I hardly realized I was speaking out loud.” And then Maigret went on: “This is a strange business, doctor. Very strange. And alarming. The deeper I get into it the more alarming I find it . . . Your sister-in-law must have had a nasty scare. It was marvelous how she managed to pull herself together so quickly. She’s plucky.”
Rivaud stood there uneasily, waiting for Maigret to go on, the latter watching him narrowly. Wasn’t he thinking that the detective knew a good deal more than he pretended?
At last Maigret actually felt he was making headway. But in a moment all the theories he had so laboriously constructed were dashed to the ground.
It began with a gendarme cycling across the place du Marché toward the public prosecutor’s office, which he entered. An instant later the telephone rang. Maigret took it.
“Hallo! . . . This is the hospital . . . Is Dr. Rivaud there? . . .”
The doctor took the receiver nervously from Maigret’s hand. He listened, thunderstruck, then slowly replaced it, staring vacantly before him.
“They’ve found him,” he said at last.
“Who?”
“The man . . . Or rather his corpse . . . In the Moulin-Neuf Wood.”
Madame Rivaud’s glance flitted from one to the other of the two men.
“They’re asking me to do the postmortem. But ...”
An idea seemed to strike him. It was now his turn to look suspiciously at Maigret.
“When you were shot the other night in the wood . . . you fired back . . . naturally?”
“I didn’t have time to.”
But now another idea struck the doctor. He passed his hand in bewilderment across his forehead.
“They think the man’s been dead several days. In that case . . . this morning . . . how could Françoise . . . ?”
Then, turning to his wife, he said:
“Come on.”
She followed him dutifully, and a minute later their car drove off. Monsieur Duhourceau must have telephoned for a taxi, for an empty one drew up and waited at his door. The gendarme who had brought him the news reappeared and cycled off. After this morning’s air of curiosity, the town was now gripped by a more feverish mood.
It was quite a stream of people that poured into the street leading to Moulin-Neuf, including the landlord of the Hôtel d’ Angleterre.
But there was Maigret glued to his bed, with a back that was stiff from being always in the same position, staring ponderously out on to the sun-bathed marketplace.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
As Madame Maigret came in, she could only see her husband’s profile, but that was enough. She knew very well he was out of humor. Nor was she long to guess the cause of it. She came to the bed, and without another word picked up his pipe and began filling it.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” she said when it was lit. “Now, listen to me and I’ll try and tell you all about it. I was there when they found the body, and the gendarmes let me come quite close.”
Maigret still stared out of the window. It wasn’t the place du Marché, however, that he really saw, but other images that were imprinted on his retina.
“The wood is on a slope at that point. There are oaks alongside the road, then pine trees behind. People were arriving all the time, some by car, some on foot. They’d called out the gendarmes from all the villages around, so as to have the wood completely surrounded . . . The police from here advanced slowly, accompanied by the old farmer from the Moulin-Neuf, who was holding a service revolver. The gendarmes didn’t dare say a word . . . I believe he would have shot the killer . . .”
In his mind Maigret conjured up the wood—the earth covered with pine needles and mottled with patches of light and shade, the gendarmes’ uniforms showing between the trees.
“Then we heard a shout, and there was a boy standing, pointing to something at the foot of a tree.”
“Patent-leather boots?”
“Yes. And thick gray socks, hand-knitted. I looked specially, as I thought of what you’d told me.”
“How old?”
“About fifty. It’s hard to say. He was lying face downward . . . and when they raised the head I simply couldn’t help looking away. You understand. He’d been lying there for a good week—at least that’s what they were saying . . . I waited until they covered his head with a cloth. It seems that no one recognizes him, so he appears to be a stranger.”
“Was he wounded?”
“A huge hole in the side of his head.”
“What are they doing now?”
“They’re chiefly busy keeping back the crowd, which is getting thicker every moment. They’ve sent for the prosecutor and Dr. Rivaud. After they’ve seen the body on the spot, they’ll move it to the hospital for the postmortem.”
The place du Marché was emptier than Maigret had ever seen it. The only creature who seemed quite happy to be there was a little coffee-colored dog that basked in the sun, unconcerned.
Twelve struck with slow strokes. A crowd of working men and women streamed out of a printing works in one of the side streets, most of them on bicycles. With one accord they turned toward Moulin-Neuf.
“How was he dressed?”
“In black. At least the overcoat was. But I really can’t say very much. It wasn’t a pleasant sight to stare at.”
She felt sick at the thought of it. But that didn’t prevent her saying:
“Would you like me to go back?”
Once more Maigret was alone. He saw the landlord crossing the marketplace. From the pavement the latter called out to him:
“You’ve heard the news, I suppose? . . . And to think I’ve got to come back and see to the lunch!”
Then silence, the clear sky above, the empty houses and the sunny marketplace.
It was not till an hour had passed that the sound of an approaching crowd was audible. The body was being taken to the hospital, escorted by half the population of Bergerac. The place du Marché was soon swarming. The hotel filled up, and the clink of glasses rose from the ground floor.
A timid knock on Maigret’s door. Leduc put his head in, hesitated, smiled a little awkwardly.
“May I come in?”
He sat down by the bed and lit his meerschaum pipe in silence. Then at last he sighed:
“Well, well! . . . So there we are!”
He was disconcerted, when Maigret turned toward him, to see the broad grin on his face. Still more when the latter said:
“Pleased?”
“But ...”
“Come, come? You all are. You, the doctor, the prosecutor, the police inspector—all of you delighted at the way I’ve been made a fool of. That troublesome detective from Paris! Thought he’d chuck his weight about, did he? Thought himself very clever! Worse still, other people began to think he might be. And some people began to be quite nervous about it ...”
“You admit . . . ?”
“That I was mistaken?”
“Well, they’ve found the man, haven’t they? And he corresponds to your description of the man in the train. I saw the body myself. A middle-aged man. Rather badly dressed, though respectably. There’s a bullet hole in the side of the head, and it seems to have been fired at close quarters.”
“Yes ...”
“So close that Monsieur Duhourceau and the police agree that everything points to suicide. They think it wa
s quite a week ago, perhaps immediately after he shot you.”
“They found a gun beside him, then?”
“No. That’s the only snag. There was a revolver in his pocket, and with only one cartridge fired.”
“The one that so nearly did for me.”
“That’s what they want to find out . . . Certainly, if it’s suicide, it goes a long way to clearing up the case. Realizing someone was after him, he felt the game was up, and . . .”
“And if it’s not suicide?”
“There are other possible explanations. He may have assaulted someone who was armed, someone who killed him quite properly in self-defense, but was nevertheless too frightened to say anything about it . . . It would be just like these country people.”
“And Françoise. What about her little adventure of this morning?”
“We hadn’t forgotten that. We think it might have been no more than a spiteful practical joke.”
“I see,” said Maigret, blowing a ring of smoke toward the ceiling. “What everyone wants is to get the case over and done with as speedily as possible.”
“It’s not that . . . But you must see that there’s really no point in dragging things on . . . now that . . .”
Maigret laughed out loud at his friend’s embarrassment.
“There’s still that second-class ticket I told you about. Somebody’ll have to find an explanation for that. How did it jump out of a dead man’s pocket into a passage of the Hôtel d’ Angleterre?”
Leduc stared stonily at the crimson carpet. After a long pause he said:
“Do you want some good advice?”
“To let the whole thing drop! That’s it, isn’t it? To set my mind on getting well and clear out of Bergerac as soon as I’m fit to travel . . .”
“And come and spend a few days with me at La Ribaudière, as you were intending to do in the first place. I’ve spoken to Dr. Rivaud about it, and he says that, with proper precautions, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be moved now.”
“What does the prosecutor say?”
“I don’t understand . . .”
“Oh, I’m sure he had something to say about it. Didn’t he say that this case had nothing to do with me, except insofar as I was a victim?”
Poor Leduc! He was trying so hard to put it nicely. He wanted to smooth down everybody. But Maigret was being as pigheaded as could be.
“You must realize that according to the regulations . . .” Then, suddenly plucking up his courage, he burst out:
“Listen to me, old chap. I may as well put it plainly. With that little comedy of yours this morning, you’ve succeeded in putting everybody’s back up. The prosecutor has dinner with the prefect every Thursday, and he says he’ll speak about you, so that you have your knuckles rapped by your superiors in Paris. What irritated them more than anything was the way you chucked those hundred-franc notes about. They say . . .”
“That I’m encouraging the dregs of the population to wag their tongues.”
“How do you know?”
“That I’m inciting them to sling mud at respectable people.”
Leduc relapsed into silence. Yes, that was exactly what they said, and what’s more, he couldn’t help agreeing with them. It was some time before he began again timidly:
“If only you had some real idea to work on, I’d feel differently about it, but . . .”
“But I haven’t . . . Or rather I’ve four or five. Two of them looked very promising this morning. Then all of a sudden they went up in smoke.”
“You see! . . . And there’s another thing. What possessed you to telephone to Madame Rivaud? You couldn’t have made a greater blunder. You’ve made Rivaud an enemy for life . . . He’s so jealous of her that few people can boast of having exchanged a word with her. He hardly lets her out of the house.”
“Yet Françoise is his mistress. Why should he be jealous of one but not of the other?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s true she goes about freely enough. Even drives about all alone in the car. Perhaps he makes a distinction between mistresses and wives. You never know . . . Anyhow, I heard him say to the prosecutor that your asking her here was gross bad manners, and that he was itching to teach you a lesson.”
“That’s a happy thought!”
“What do you mean?”
“He has every opportunity. He dresses my wound twice a day.”
Maigret laughed a little too heartily for it to seem altogether on the right side of his face. He laughed like a man who knows he’s got himself in a mess, but who knows also that it’s too late to withdraw, and that the only thing left him is to put as good a face on it as possible.
“Aren’t you going to have lunch? I thought you said something about goose in aspic.”
He laughed again. There was a thrilling hand waiting to be played. There were places to go: the woods, the hospital, the Moulin-Neuf Farm, the doctor’s house, and the public prosecutor’s, so stern and shuttered-up, no doubt. Everywhere, in short. And there was goose in aspic and truffles to eat, and a whole town Maigret hadn’t ever seen!
But Maigret was forced to lie there, tied to his bed, with the same little scene in front of him the whole live-long day . . . And every time he made an incautious movement, he almost yelled with the pain. And he even had to have his pipes filled for him, and his wife took advantage of it to cut his smoking down . . .
“Well? What do you think about it? Will you come to my place?”
“I’d love to . . . But not till it’s all over.”
“But now that our madman’s dead . . .”
“Who knows? Run along and have your lunch, and if they ask you what I intend to do, say you don’t know . . . And now to work!”
He said it exactly as if he had some heavy manual job to perform, like kneading dough or heavy digging.
As a matter of fact, he had a lot of digging to do, but it was a rather different sort of excavation. It wasn’t spadefuls of earth that he had to turn over, but mental images, faces. Faces more than anything.
There was the prosecutor’s face with its mixture of fierceness and cold disdain. The doctor’s worried face. And the rather insipid features of his wife’s. What would he have been treating her for in the hospital at Algiers? . . . Françoise, slight, pretty, and eager . . . And Rosalie dreaming all night—to her young man’s despair. Were they already sleeping together? . . . That look of hers at Monsieur Duhourceau—was there something that had been hushed up? . . . And the man who had jumped from the moving train, only to shoot Maigret and die himself . . . Leduc and his housekeeper’s niece—it can easily land you in a mess, that sort of thing . . . The landlord of the Hôtel d’ Angleterre had already buried two wives and looked hefty enough to kill twenty . . .
Why did Françoise—or rather why was Dr. Rivaud jealous of his wife but not of her? Why was Leduc always beating about the bush? . . . Why? . . . Why? . . . Why? . . .
And now they wanted to ship Maigret off to La Ribaudière as quickly as possible.
He laughed once again, a fat contented laugh, and when Madame Maigret came into the room a quarter of an hour later, she found him blissfully asleep.
6
THE SEAL
Maigret was in the throes of a harassing dream. The heat was terrible and the low tide had laid bare an immense stretch of sand the color of ripe red corn. There was more sand than sea; in fact, there was hardly any sea at all. It must be out there somewhere, far away in the distance, but all that could be seen were little pools scattered here and there in the otherwise unbroken stretch of sand.
Was Maigret a seal? Perhaps not quite—but neither was he a whale. Probably something between the two. Some large animal, anyhow—a large round shiny lump lying on the sand.
He was all alone in that endless hot expanse. And it was absolutely necessary that he should by some means or other reach the sea, where at last he would be free.
Only he couldn’t move. He had flippers like a seal, but he
didn’t know how to use them. Besides, his whole body was stiff and heavy. If he did manage to raise himself a little, it was only to sink down again on to the burning sand.
Worse still, the sand was soft, and with every movement he sank in a little deeper.
At all costs he must reach the sea. Why was it he was so stiff and heavy? He had a vague idea some man had shot him. But he couldn’t remember clearly. He was a big, black, sweating, helpless lump.
When he opened his eyes he saw a bright rectangle of sunshine. It made him blink. Then he saw his wife having breakfast, at the same time keeping a watchful eye on him.
And from the look in her eye, he knew at once that something was amiss. He knew that look well: a grave, maternal, slightly worried look.
“Are you feeling bad?” she asked.
The next thing that struck him was that his head was very heavy.
“Why do you ask?”
“Why indeed? You’ve been heaving and groaning all night long.”
She came over to the bed to kiss him good morning.
“You’re looking rotten,” she went on. “I suppose you’ve been having nightmares.”
The word at once reminded him of the seal. What a funny dream! He was split between a vague disquiet and a desire to laugh. But he didn’t laugh. Sitting on the edge of his bed, Madame Maigret began talking gently, as though afraid of rubbing him up the wrong way.
“We really must come to a decision . . .”
“What decision?”
“Leduc and I were talking things over yesterday. There’s no doubt about it: you’d be much better off at his place. In restful surroundings you’d soon pull up.”
She didn’t dare look him in the face, and it didn’t take him a second to see what she was driving at.
“You too!” he muttered.
“What do you mean?”
“You think I’ve made a mistake. You think I’ll only make a hash of things and get into trouble over it.”
He spoke somewhat heatedly, and the effort brought sweat to his forehead and upper lip.
The Madman of Bergerac Page 6
