And “them” in Louis’s mind meant a number of people who had conspired not to talk, and who did not want any trouble, people who wanted to let sleeping dogs lie.
In one sense, one could say that Maigret had sided with the small group of rebels. He had had a drink with them at the Trois Mules. He had disowned the Nauds when he declared he was not working for them and whenever Louis doubted his word, he was sorely tempted to give him proof of his loyalty.
And yet Louis had been right to look at the superintendent suspiciously when he left him, for he had an inkling what would happen when his companion became the enemy’s guest once again. That was why he had tried his best to escort Maigret all the way to the Nauds’ front door, to bolster him up and caution him not to give in.
“I’ll be at the Trois Mules all evening, if you need me…”
He would wait in vain. Now that he was back in this cozy, bourgeois drawing-room, Maigret felt almost ashamed of himself for having wandered through the streets with a youngster and for having been snubbed by everyone he had persisted in questioning.
There was a portrait on the wall which Maigret had not noticed the night before, a portrait of Bréjon the examining magistrate, who seemed to be staring down at the superintendent as if to say: “Don’t forget the purpose of your visit.”
He looked at Louise Naud’s fingers as she sewed and was hypnotized by their nervousness. Her face remained almost serene, but her fingers revealed a fear which bordered on panic.
“What do you think of our doctor?” asked the talkative old lady. “He’s a real character, isn’t he? You Parisians are wrong in thinking no one of interest lives in the country. If you were to stay here for two months, no more…Louise, isn’t your husband coming back?”
“He telephoned a short while ago to say he will be late. He’s been called to La Roche-sur-Yon. He asked me to apologize on his behalf, superintendent…”
“I owe you an apology, too, for not having come back for lunch.”
“Geneviève! Would you give the superintendent an apéritif…”
“Well, children, I must be going.”
“Stay to dinner, maman. Etienne will take you home in the car when he gets back.”
“I won’t hear of it, my child. I don’t need anyone to drive me home.”
Her daughter helped her tie the ribbons of a small black bonnet which sat jauntily on her head and gave her galoshes to wear over her shoes.
“Would you like me to have the horse harnessed for you?”
“Time enough for that the day of my funeral. Goodbye, superintendent. If you’re passing my house again, come in and see me. Goodnight, Louise. Goodnight, Vièvre…”
And suddenly the door was closed once more and a great feeling of emptiness prevailed. Maigret now understood why they tried to make old Tine stay. Now that she had gone, an oppressive, uneasy silence fell over the room and one sensed an aura of fear. Louise Naud’s fingers ran increasingly rapidly over her work, while the young girl desperately tried to find an excuse to leave the room but did not dare.
Was it not an incredible thought that although Albert Retailleau was dead, although he had been discovered one morning, cut to pieces on the railway line, his son was living in this room at this very moment, in the form of a creature that would come into the world in a few months’ time?
When Maigret turned towards the young girl, she did not look away. On the contrary, she stood up straight and looked Maigret squarely in the eye, as if to say:
“No, you did not dream it. I came into your bedroom last night and I wasn’t sleepwalking. What I told you then is the truth. You see I am not ashamed of it. I am not mad. Albert was my lover and I am expecting his child…”
Albert, the son of Madame Retailleau, a woman who had stood up for her rights so bravely after her husband’s death, Albert, Louis’s young and faithful friend, used to creep into this house at night without anyone knowing. And Geneviève would take him into her room, the one at the end of the right wing of the house.
“Will you excuse me, ladies. I should like to go for a short walk round the stableyards, if you have no objection, that is…”
“May I come with you?”
“You’ll catch cold, Geneviève.”
“No, I won’t, maman. I’ll wrap up warmly.”
She went into the kitchen to fetch a hurricane lamp which she brought back lit. In the hall, Maigret helped her on with her cape.
“What would you like to see?” she asked in a low voice.
“Let’s go into the yard.”
“We can go out this way. There’s no point in going right around the house…Mind the steps…”
Lights were on in the stables whose doors were open, but the fog was so thick that one could not see anything.
“Your room is the one directly above us, isn’t it?”
“Yes…I know what you are getting at…He didn’t come in through the door, naturally…Come with me…You see this ladder…It’s always left here…He just had to push it a few yards…”
“Which is your parents’ room?”
“Three windows along.”
“And the other two windows?”
“One is the spare bedroom, where Alban slept last night. The other is a room which hasn’t been used since my little sister died, and maman has the key.”
She was cold; she tried not to show it in order not to look as if she wanted to end the conversation.
“Your mother and father never suspected anything?”
“No.”
“Had this affair been going on for some time?”
She answered at once.
“Three and a half months.”
“Was Retailleau aware of the consequences of these meetings?”
“Yes.”
“What did he intend to do?”
“He was going to tell my parents everything and marry me.”
“Why was he angry, that last evening?”
Maigret looked at her closely, trying his best to glimpse the expression on her face through the fog. The ensuing silence betrayed the young girl’s amazement.
“I asked you…”
“I heard what you said.”
“Well!”
“I don’t understand. Why do you say he was angry…”
And her hands trembled like her mother’s, thereby causing the lantern to shake.
“Nothing out of the ordinary happened between you that night?”
“No, nothing.”
“Did Albert leave by the window as usual?”
“Yes…There was a moon…I saw him go over to the back of the yard where he could jump over the little wall on to the road.”
“What time was it?”
“About half past twelve.”
“Did he usually stay for such a short time?”
“What do you mean?”
She was playing for time. Behind a window, not far from where they were standing, they could see the old cook moving about.
“He arrived at about midnight. I imagine he usually stayed longer…You didn’t have a fight?”
“Why should we have had a fight?”
“I don’t know…I’m just asking…”
“No…”
“When was he to speak to your parents?”
“Soon…We were waiting for a suitable moment…”
“Try to remember accurately…Are you sure there were no lights on in the house that night? You heard no noise? There was no one skulking in the yard?”
“I didn’t see anything…I swear to you, superintendent, I know nothing…Maybe you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth…I’ll never, do you hear, never tell my father what I told you last night…I shall leave. I don’t yet know what I’ll do…”
“Why did you tell me?”
“I don’t know…I was frightened…I thought you would find out everything and tell my parents…”
“Shall we go back? You’re shivering.”
“You won’t say anything?�
��
He did not know what to say. He did not want to be bound by a promise. He muttered:
“Trust me.”
Was he, too, “one of them,” to use Louis’s phrase? Oh! Now he understood perfectly what the youngster meant. Albert Retailleau was dead and buried. A certain number of people in Saint-Aubin, the majority in fact, thought that since it was impossible to bring the young man back to life, the wisest course of action was to treat the subject as closed.
To be “one of them” was to belong to that tribe. Even Albert’s mother was “one of them” since she had not appeared to understand why anyone should wish to investigate her son’s death.
And those who had not subscribed to this view at the outset had been brought to heel one after the other. Désiré wished he had never found the cap. What cap? He now had money to drink his fill and could send a money order for five hundred francs to his good-for-nothing son.
Josaphat, the postman, could not remember having seen a wad of thousand franc notes in the soup tureen.
Etienne Naud was embarrassed that his brother-in-law should have thought of sending someone like Maigret, a man bent on discovering the truth.
But what was the truth? And who stood to gain by discovering the truth? What good would it do?
The small group of men in the Trois Mules, a carpenter, a plowman and a youngster called Louis Fillou whose father had already proved to be strong-willed, were the only ones to weave stories round the affair.
“Aren’t you hungry, superintendent?” asked Madame Naud, as Maigret came into the drawing-room. “Where is my daughter?”
“She was in the hall just now. I expect she has gone up to her room for a minute.”
The atmosphere for the next quarter of an hour was gloomy indeed. Maigret and Louise Naud were now alone in the old-fashioned, stuffy drawing room. From time to time a log toppled over and sent sparks flying into the grate. The single lamp with its pink shade shed a soft glow over the furniture. Familiar sounds coming from the kitchen occasionally broke the silence. They could hear the stove being filled with coal, a saucepan being moved, an earthenware plate being put on the table.
Maigret sensed that Louise Naud would have liked to talk. She was possessed by a demon who was pushing her to say…To say what? She was in considerable difficulty. Sometimes she would open her mouth, as if she had decided to speak, and Maigret would be afraid of what she was going to say.
She said nothing. Her chest tightened in a nervous spasm and her shoulders shook for a second. She went on with her embroidery, making tiny stitches, as if weighed down by this cloak of silence and stillness which formed such a barrier between them.
Did she know that Retailleau and her daughter…
“Do you mind if I smoke, madame?”
She gave a start. Perhaps she had been afraid he was going to say something else. She stammered:
“Please do…Make yourself at home…”
Then she sat up straight and listened for a sound.
“Oh, my goodness…”
Oh, my goodness what? She was merely waiting for her husband to return, waiting for someone to come and end the torment of this tête-à-tête.
And then Maigret began to feel sorry for her. What was to stop him getting up and saying:
“I think your brother made a mistake in asking me to come here. There is nothing I can do. This whole affair is none of my business and, if you don’t mind, I’ll take the next train back to Paris. I am most grateful to you for your hospitality.”
He recalled Louis’s pale face, his fiery eyes, the rueful smile on his lips. Above all, he pictured Cavre with his briefcase under his arm, Cavre who after all these years had suddenly been given the chance to get the better of his loathsome ex-boss. For Cavre hated him, there was no doubt about that. Admittedly, he hated everyone, but he hated Maigret in particular, for Maigret was his alter ego, a successful version of his own self.
Cavre had doubtless been up to all sorts of shady tricks ever since he got off the train the night before and was nearly mistaken by Naud for Maigret himself.
Where was the clock which was going tick-tock? Maigret looked round for it. He felt really uncomfortable and said to himself:
“Another five minutes and this poor woman’s nerves will get the better of her…She’ll make a clean breast of it…She can’t stand it any longer…She’s at the end of her tether…”
All he had to do was ask her one specific question. Hardly that! He would go up to her and look at her searchingly. Would she be able to restrain herself then?
But instead, he remained silent and even timidly picked up a magazine which was lying on a small round table to put her at her ease. It was a women’s magazine full of embroidery patterns.
Just as in a dentist’s waiting-room one reads things one would never read anywhere else, Maigret turned the pages and looked carefully at the pink and blue pictures, but the invisible chain which bound him to his hostess remained as tight as ever.
They were saved by the entry of the maid. She was rather a rough-looking country girl whose black dress and white apron merely accentuated her rugged, irregular features.
“Oh! Pardon…I didn’t know there was someone…”
“What is it, Marthe?”
“I wanted to know if I should lay the table or wait for monsieur…”
“Lay the table!”
“Will Monsieur Alban be here for dinner?”
“I don’t know. But lay his place as usual…”
What a relief to talk of everyday things, they were so simple and reassuring! She latched on to Alban as a topic of conversation.
“He came to lunch here today. It was he who answered the telephone when you rang…He leads such a lonely life! We consider him one of the family now…”
The maid’s appearance had given her a golden opportunity to escape and she made the most of it.
“Will you excuse me for a moment? You know what it’s like to be mistress of the house. There is always something to see to in the kitchen…I’ll ask the maid to tell my daughter to come down and keep you company…”
“Please don’t bother…”
“Besides…” She listened carefully to see if she could hear anything. “Yes…That must be my husband…”
A car drew up in front of the steps, but the engine went on running. They heard voices and Maigret wondered whether his host had brought someone back with him, but he was only giving instructions to a servant who had rushed outside on hearing the car.
Naud came into the drawing-room still wearing his suede coat. There was an anxious look in his eyes as he surveyed Maigret and his wife, astonished to find them alone together.
“Ah! You’re…”
“I was just saying to the superintendent, Etienne, that I would have to leave him for a minute and see to things in the kitchen…”
“Forgive me, superintendent…I am on the board of the regional agricultural authority and I had forgotten we had an important meeting today.”
He sneezed and poured himself a glass of porto, trying all the while to gauge what could have happened in his absence.
“Well, have you had a good day? I was told on the telephone you were too busy to come back for lunch…”
He, too, was afraid of being alone with the superintendent. He looked round at the armchairs in the drawing-room, as if to reproach them for being empty.
“Alban’s not here yet?” he said with a forced smile, turning towards the dining-room door which was still open.
And his wife answered from the kitchen:
“He came to lunch. He didn’t say whether he’d be here for dinner…”
“Where’s Geneviève?”
“She went up to her room.”
He did not dare sit down and settle himself in a chair. Maigret understood how he felt and almost came to share his anxiety. In order to feel strong, or in order not to tremble visibly, the three of them needed to be together, side by side, in an unbroken family circl
e.
Only then would the superintendent be able to sense the spirit of the house in normal times. The two men helped each other, for they talked of seemingly trivial things and the sound of their chatter reassured them both.
“Will you have a glass of porto?”
“I have just had one.”
“Well, have another…Now…Tell me what you’ve been doing…Or rather…For perhaps I am being indiscreet…”
“The cap has disappeared,” declared Maigret, his eyes on the carpet.
“Has it really? This famous cap was to be proof…And where was it…Mind you, I have always had my doubts as to whether it really existed…”
“A young lad called Louis Fillou claims it was in one of the drawers in his bedroom…”
“In Louis’s house? And you mean it was stolen this morning? Don’t you think that is rather odd?”
He stood there laughing, a tall, strong, sturdy figure of a man with a ruddy complexion. He was the owner of this house, the head of the family, and he had just taken part in administrative debates in La Roche-sur-Yon. He was Etienne Naud, Squire Naud as the locals would have said, the son of Sébastien Naud who was known and respected by everyone in the département.
But his laughter sounded shaky as he took a glass of port and looked round in vain for a member of his family to appear. At a time like this, he needed the support they always gave him. He would have liked them to be present, his wife, his daughter and even Alban, who had decided to stay away today of all days.
“Will you have a cigar?…No, are you sure?”
He walked around and around the room, as though to sit down would have been to fall into a trap, to play right into the hands of the formidable superintendent whom that idiotic brother-in-law of his had foisted on him. Etienne Naud felt doomed.
6
ALBAN GROULT COTELLE’S ALIBI
Before dinner that evening, an incident occurred which, though insignificant in itself, nonetheless gave Maigret food for thought. Etienne Naud had still not sat down, as though afraid of being even more at the mercy of the superintendent if he were once to remain still. They could hear voices in the dining room. Madame Naud was reprimanding the maid for not cleaning the silver properly. Geneviève had just come downstairs.
Inspector Cadaver Page 8
