He looked at his watch which he had left on the bedside table. It was half past five. He listened carefully and decided that either it had stopped raining or the rain had turned into a fine, silent drizzle.
Admittedly, he had eaten and drunk well the previous evening, but he had not drunk too much. And yet this morning he felt as if he had drunk a great deal. As he took various things out of his dressing-case, he looked with heavy, swollen eyes at his unmade bed and in particular at that chair beside it.
He was convinced it had not been a dream: Geneviève Naud had come into his room. She had come in without knocking. She had positioned herself on that chair, sitting bolt upright without touching the back of it. At first, as he stared at her in sheer amazement, he had thought she was deranged. In reality, however, Maigret was infinitely more disturbed than she was. For he had never been in such a delicate situation. Never before had a young girl who was ready to pour out her heart stationed herself at his bedside, with him in bed in his nightshirt, his hair ruffled by the pillow and his lips moist with spittle.
He had muttered something like:
“If you’ll turn the other way for a moment, I’ll get up and put some clothes on…”
“It doesn’t matter…I have only a few words to say to you…I am pregnant by Albert Retailleau…If my father finds out I’ll kill myself and no one will stop me…”
He could not bring himself to look at her while he was lying in bed. She paused for a moment, as if expecting Maigret to react to her pronouncement, then rose to her feet, listened at the door and said as she left the room:
“Do as you wish. I am in your hands.”
Even now, he could scarcely believe all this had happened and the thought that he had lain prostrate like a dummy throughout the proceedings humiliated him. He was not vain in the way men can be, and yet he was ashamed that a young girl had caught him in bed with his face still bloated by sleep. And the girl’s attitude to it all was even more annoying, for she had hardly glanced at him. She had not pleaded with him, as he might have expected, she had not thrown herself at his feet, she had not wept.
He recalled her face, its regular features making her look a little like her father. He could not have said if she was beautiful but she had left him with an impression of completeness and poise which even her insane overture had not dispelled.
“I am pregnant by Albert Retailleau…If my father finds out I’ll kill myself and no one will stop me…”
Maigret finished dressing and mechanically lit his first pipe of the day. He then opened the door and, failing to find the light switch, groped his way down the corridor. He went down the stairs but could not see a light on anywhere, even though he could hear someone stoking the stove. He made his way to where the noise was coming from and saw a shaft of yellow light beneath a door in the dining-room. He tapped gently on the door, opened it and found himself in the kitchen.
Etienne Naud was sitting at one end of the table, his elbows resting on the light wood, and tucking into a bowl of soup. An elderly cook in a blue apron was sending showers of white-hot cinders into the ash bucket as she raked the stove.
Maigret saw the startled look on Naud’s face as he came in and realized he was annoyed at having been caught unawares in the kitchen having his breakfast like a farm worker.
“Up already, superintendent? I keep to the old country habits, you know. No matter what time I go to bed, I’m always up at five in the morning. I hope I didn’t wake you?”
What was the point of telling him that it had been the sound of the lavatory flushing that had woken him up?
“I won’t offer you a bowl of soup, for I presume you…”
“But I’d love some…”
“Léontine…”
“Yes, monsieur, I heard…I’ll have it ready in a moment…”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Quite well. But at one point I thought I heard footsteps in the passageway…”
Maigret brought this up in order to find out whether Naud had pounced on his daughter after she had left his room, but the look of astonishment on his face seemed genuine enough.
“When?…During the evening?…I didn’t hear anything. Admittedly, it takes a lot to rouse me from my sleep early on in the night. It was probably our friend Alban getting up to go to the lavatory. What do you think of him, incidentally? A likeable fellow, isn’t he? Far more cultured than he actually appears to be…He’s read countless books, you know…He knows the lot, and that’s about it. Pity he didn’t have better luck with his wife…”
“He was married, then?”
Having thought Groult-Cotelle to be the archetypal bachelor living in the provinces, Maigret viewed this snippet of information somewhat suspiciously. He felt as if they had hidden something from him, as if they had deliberately tried to mislead him.
“Indeed he was, and he still is, what’s more. He has two children, a girl and a boy. The elder of the two must be twelve or thirteen now…”
“Does his wife live with him?”
“No. She lives on the CÔte d’Azur. It’s rather a sad story and no one ever talks about it round here. She came from a very good family, though…She was a Deharme…Yes, like the general…She’s his niece. A rather eccentric woman who could never grasp the fact that she was living in Saint-Aubin and not in Paris. She scandalized the neighborhood on several occasions and then, one winter, moved to Nice, ostensibly to escape the bitter cold here, but of course she never came back. She lives there with her children…And she’s not living alone, needless to say…”
“Did her husband not ask for a divorce?”
“That’s not done in these parts.”
“Which of them has the money?”
Etienne Naud looked at him disapprovingly, for it was obvious he did not want to go into any details.
“She is undoubtedly a very rich woman…”
The cook had sat down at the table to grind the coffee in an old-fashioned coffee mill with a large copper top.
“You are lucky. It has stopped raining. But my brother-in-law really ought to have told you to bring some boots. After all, he comes from this part of the world and knows it well. We are right in the middle of the fenland and even have to use a boat in summer as well as winter to reach some of my farms. They’re known as cabanes here, by the way…But talking of my brother-in-law, I feel rather embarrassed he had the nerve to ask a man of your standing to…”
The question Maigret kept asking himself, the question that had been constantly on his mind ever since his arrival the previous evening was: were the Nauds decent people who had nothing to hide and who were doing their utmost to make their guest from Paris feel at home, or was he in fact an unwelcome intruder whom Bréjon had deposited in their midst in a most inconsiderate fashion and whose presence this disconcerted couple could well have done without?
He decided to try an experiment.
“Not many people get off the train at Saint-Aubin,” he commented as he ate his soup. “I think only two of us did yesterday, apart from the old peasant woman wearing a bonnet.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“Does the man who got off the train with me live around here?”
Etienne Naud hesitated before replying. Why? Maigret was looking at him so intently that he was covered in confusion.
“I’d never seen him before,” he answered hurriedly. “You must have seen me dithering as to which one of you to approach…”
Maigret tried another tactic:
“I wonder what he has come here for, or rather who asked him to come.”
“Do you know him?”
“He’s a private detective. I’ll have to find out where he is and what he is up to this morning. He presumably checked in at one or other of the inns you mentioned yesterday…”
“I’ll take you into town shortly in the pony trap.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather walk if you don’t mind, and then I’ll be free to come and go as I like…”
Something had just occurred to him. Supposing Naud had been counting on him to sleep soundly so that he could leave early for the village and meet Inspector Cavre?
Anything was possible here, and the superintendent even began to wonder if the young girl’s appearance in his room had not been part of a plot which the whole family had planned.
A moment later, he dismissed such thoughts as foolish.
“I hope your daughter isn’t seriously ill?”
“No…Well, if you really want the truth, I don’t think she is any more ill than I am. In spite of all we’ve done, she has got wind of what is being said in the neighborhood. She’s a proud young woman. All young women are. I’m sure that’s the reason she has insisted on staying in her room for the past three days. And maybe your arrival has made her feel rather ashamed…”
“Ashamed, is she!” thought Maigret, as he recalled her brief appearance in his room the night before.
“We can talk in front of Léontine,” Naud went on. “She’s known me from childhood. She’s been with the family for…for how many years, Léontine?”
“Ever since I took my first communion, monsieur…”
“A little more soup? No?…To continue, I’m in a most awkward position and I sometimes think my brother-in-law tackled the case in the wrong way. I know you’ll say he knows far more about such matters than I do, that’s his job…but maybe he has forgotten what it’s like in our part of the world now that he lives in Paris…”
It was hard to believe he was not speaking sincerely, for he seemed to want to talk over what was on his mind. He sat there with his legs stretched out, filling his pipe, while Maigret finished his breakfast. The kitchen smelt of the freshly made coffee and the two men enjoyed the warm atmosphere of the room. Outside, in the darkness of the courtyard, the stable hand was whistling softly as he groomed one of the horses.
“I’ll tell you straight…From time to time, rumors about someone or other are spread round the town…this time, it’s a serious matter, I know. But I still wonder whether it would not be wiser to disregard the accusation…You agreed to do what my brother-in-law asked…You have done us the honor of coming…Everyone knows you are here by now, that’s certain. Tongues are already wagging. No doubt you intend to question some people and that is bound to stir their imaginations even more…So that’s why I really do wonder, quite sincerely, whether we are going about this whole business in the right way…Are you sure you have had enough to eat?…If you don’t mind the cold, I’ll be glad to show you around. I go on a tour of inspection every morning.”
Maigret was putting on his overcoat as the maid came downstairs, for she got up an hour later than the old cook. The two men went into the cold, damp courtyard and spent an hour going from one stable to another. Meanwhile, churns of milk were being loaded on to a small truck.
Some cows were going off to market in a nearby town that very day and cattle drovers in dark overalls were rounding them up. At the end of the yard was a small office with a little round stove, a table, account books and various pigeon holes inside. Sitting at the table was a farmhand wearing the same sort of boots as his boss.
“Will you excuse me a moment?”
Madame Naud was getting up now, for there was a light on in her room on the second floor. The other rooms remained in darkness which meant that Groult-Cotelle and the young girl were still fast asleep. The maid was cleaning the dining room.
Men and animals could be seen moving about in the dim light of the courtyard and outhouses, and Maigret could hear the engine of the milk truck running in the background.
“That’s done…I was just leaving a few instructions…I’ll be leaving by car for the market shortly as I have to meet some other farmers…If I had time and thought you would be interested, I would tell you how the estate is run. I have ordinary dairy cattle on my other farms, as we supply the local dairy with milk, but here we rear the finest thoroughbreds, most of which we sell abroad…I even send some to South America…But for the moment, I am entirely at your service…It will be daylight in an hour. If you need the car…or if you have any questions you would like to ask me…I want you to feel at ease…You must treat this as your home…”
His face bore a cheerful expression as he spoke, but his smile faded when Maigret merely answered:
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way…”
The road surface was spongy, as if water from the canal on the left had soaked the ground beneath. The railway embankment ran along the right-hand side of the road. About a kilometer further on, a glaring light could be seen which was obviously the one in the station, for there were green and red signals nearby.
Maigret looked back towards the house and saw that there were lights on in two other windows on the second floor. This brought Alban Groult-Cotelle into his mind and he began to wonder why he had been so put out to discover he was married.
The sky was brightening. One of the first houses Maigret caught sight of as he turned to the left by the station and approached the village bore the sign of the Lion d’Or. The lights were on on the first floor and he went inside. He found himself in a long, low room where everything was brown—the walls, the beams on the ceiling, the long polished tables and the benches with no backs. At the very end of the room was a kitchen range which was not yet alight. A woman of indeterminate age was crouched over a log burning slowly in the hearth and waiting for the coffee to heat. She turned around for a moment to look at the stranger, but said nothing. Maigret sat down in the dim light of a very dusty lamp.
“I’d like to sample the local brandy!” he said, shaking his overcoat which the damp dawn had showered with grayish beads of moisture.
The woman did not reply and he thought she had not heard. She went on stirring the saucepan of rather uninviting coffee with her spoon and when it was to her liking she poured some into a cup, put it on a tray and walked towards the staircase.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” she said.
Maigret suspected that the coffee was for Cadaver, and was proved right when a few seconds later, he noticed the detective’s coat hanging on the coat rack.
Footsteps sounded above Maigret’s head. He could hear voices but could not make out what was being said. Five minutes went by. Then five more minutes. Every now and then Maigret rapped a coin on the wooden table, but nothing happened.
At last, a quarter of an hour later, the woman came downstairs again and spoke even less amicably than before.
“What did you say you wanted?”
“A glass of the local brandy.”
“I haven’t any.”
“You’ve no brandy?”
“I’ve cognac, but no local brandy.”
“Then give me a cognac.”
She gave him a glass that had such a thick bottom that there was hardly any room for the drink.
“Tell me, madame, I believe a friend of mine arrived here last night?”
“How am I to know if he’s your friend?”
“Has he just got up?”
“I have one visitor and I have just given him his coffee.”
“If he’s the man I know, I bet he asked you lots of questions, didn’t he?”
The glasses left by the previous evening’s customers had made round, wet marks on many of the tables and the woman began to wipe them with a duster.
“Albert Retailleau spent the evening here the day before he died, didn’t he?”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
“He was a good lad, I believe. Someone told me he played cards that evening. Is belote the favorite game in this part of the world?”
“No, we play coinchée.”
“So he played coinchée with his friends. He lived with his mother, didn’t he? A good woman, unless I’m mistaken.”
“Hmm!”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. You’re the one who’s doing all the talking and I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
Up
stairs, Inspector Cavre was getting dressed.
“Does she live far from here?”
“At the end of the street, in a small yard. It’s the house with three stone steps.”
“Do you happen to know if my friend Cavre—the man who’s lodging here with you—has been to see her yet?”
“And how do you think he could have been to see her when he’s only just getting up?”
“Is he staying here long?”
“I haven’t asked him.”
She opened the windows and pushed back the shutters. A milky-white light filtered into the room, for day had already broken.
“Do you think Retailleau was drunk that night?”
The woman suddenly became aggressive and snapped back:
“No more drunk than you are, drinking cognac at eight in the morning!”
“How much do I owe you?”
“Two francs.”
The Trois Mules, a rather more modern-looking inn, was just opposite, but the superintendent did not think he would gain anything by going inside. A blacksmith was lighting the fire in his forge. A woman standing on her doorstep was throwing a bucket of dirty water into the street. A bell, the sound of which reminded Maigret of his childhood, tinkled lightly and a boy wearing clogs came out of the baker’s with a loaf of bread under his arm.
Curtains parted as he made his way down the street. A hand wiped the condensation from a window and a wrinkled old face with eyes that were ringed with red like Inspector Cavre’s peered through the windowpane. On the right stood the church. It was built of gray stone and covered with slates that looked black and shiny after the heavy rain. A very thin woman of about fifty, in deep mourning and holding herself very erect, came out of the church with a prayerbook covered in black cloth in her hand.
Maigret stood idly for a moment in a corner of the little square by a board marked “School” which had doubtless been put up to caution motorists. He followed the woman with his eyes. The moment he saw her disappear into a kind of blind alley at the end of the street, he guessed at once that it was Madame Retailleau. Since Cavre had not yet visited her, he quickened his step.
Inspector Cadaver Page 3
