To his right, at the other end of the terrace, Maigret had already spotted old Gassin, who, elbows on a round table, which was too small, was busy writing a letter.
People were coming back from some gala or other for they were walking almost in a procession and raising clouds of dust. No one noticed that two men in the crowd had stopped or heard one of them ask as he put his hand in his pocket:
‘Could this be called self-defence?’
Ducrau was not joking. He could not take his eyes off the old man, who occasionally looked up to think about what he was going to write next but appeared oblivious to his surroundings.
Maigret did not answer. He merely signalled to Lucas and started walking towards the lock while Ducrau followed him reluctantly.
‘Did you hear what I asked?’
The motor-boat was finally under way, gliding over the water, leaving a wake of eddying arabesques.
‘Here I am, sir.’
It was Lucas who stared down at the water just as the others were doing.
‘Is he armed?’
‘No. I searched his room. There was no revolver there. And he didn’t stop off anywhere on his way here.’
‘Has he spotted you?’
‘I don’t think so. He’s too busy with his own thoughts.’
‘Make good and sure you get that letter. Off you go!’
‘You still haven’t answered,’ Ducrau said insistently as they set off again.
‘And you heard: he’s not armed.’
They continued walking, and the white mansion kept getting closer.
‘So in short,’ said Ducrau sarcastically, ‘we’ve both got our own guardian angel. It would be better if you stayed for dinner. And also if you accepted a bed for the night …’
He opened the gate. His wife, his daughter and his son-in-law were on the terrace, drinking tea. The chauffeur was mending an inner tube which lay on the gravel of the courtyard like a large, assertively red wreath.
They were ensconced in wicker chairs at a table on which there were bottles and glasses. They had not joined the rest of the family on the terrace. Instead, they had stayed in the courtyard, near the door to the drawing room, which, at their backs, was already being invaded by shadows. The streetlamps of Samois had been turned on much too early for in this light they were no more than splashes of white, while the Sunday crowd was thinning and being absorbed by the railway station.
‘Do you think,’ said Maigret in his calmest voice, ‘that a man who has killed another man and is worried for his own safety will hesitate for long about killing another man and, if needs be, a third?’
Ducrau was smoking an enormous meerschaum pipe with a long cherry-wood mouthpiece and had to support the bowl in his hand. He stared at his companion, and it was some time before he said quietly:
‘What are you driving at?’
‘Nothing special. I’m thinking that here we are sitting out on a lovely Sunday evening. The cognac is good. Our pipes are drawing well. Meanwhile old Gassin must be on to his aperitifs by now. Come Wednesday evening, all that’s bothering us will have ceased to be a concern. The problem will have been solved.’
He spoke in a dreamy voice while on the terrace above them Decharme struck a match, whose flame danced briefly against the pale sky.
‘So you see, what I’m wondering is, who won’t be around then?’
Ducrau gave a start, which he could not hide. He preferred not to try.
‘You have an ominous way of putting it!’
‘Where were you last Sunday?’
‘Here. We come every Sunday.’
‘And your son?’
Ducrau’s features hardened. He said:
‘He was here too. He spent a couple of hours trying to make the wireless work. It hasn’t been any better since.’
‘And now he’s dead and buried. Bébert is dead. This why I’m thinking about this chair and who’ll be sitting in it next Sunday.’
They could not see each other clearly. The smell of the two pipes spread across the courtyard. Ducrau jumped when someone got off a bicycle just outside the gate and it was from a distance that he called:
‘What do you want?’
‘It’s for Monsieur Maigret.’
It was a local boy, and he poked a letter for the inspector through the bars of the gate.
‘A man gave me this for you near the tobacconist’s.’
‘I know. Thanks.’
Ducrau had not moved. The ladies were going inside because they were getting cold, and it was obvious that Decharme, lingering by the balustrade, was in two minds about whether or not to join the other two men as he would dearly have liked to.
Maigret tore open the first envelope with his name on it and inside found the letter which Gassin had been writing a little earlier. It was addressed to ‘Madame Emma Chatereau, Café des Maraîchers, Larzicourt (Haute-Marne)’.
‘We could put the light on in the drawing room,’ muttered Ducrau, who did not dare to ask any questions.
‘I can still see well enough.’
The paper was the kind supplied in a bar, the ink was purple, the writing was very small to begin with and twice as big by the end:
Dear Emma,
I’m writing to let you know that I am well and I hope that this finds you likewise. But I want to tell you that if anything happens to me I’d like to be buried at home, near our mother, not at Charenton as I said before. So you must not go on paying for that plot there. About the money in the savings bank, you’ll find the pass-books and all the papers in the drawer of the dresser. It’s all for you. You’ll finally be able to have that extra storey built on. As for everything else, no problem, because I know what I have to do.
Your ever loving brother
Maigret, still standing, looked up from the small sheet of paper and scrutinized Ducrau who was pretending to be thinking of something else and went on puffing at his pipe.
‘Bad news?’
‘It’s the letter Gassin was writing earlier.’
Ducrau kept control of himself, crossed then uncrossed his legs, watched his son-in-law from a distance and finally, making every effort not to betray his impatience, said:
‘May I read it?’
‘No.’
Maigret folded the letter then slipped it into his wallet. Without particularly wanting to, he caught himself several times glancing at the gate, behind which there was only a gulf of blackness.
‘Who is it addressed to?’
‘His sister.’
‘Emma? Whatever became of her? She lived on her brother’s boat for a while, and I think I must have been in love with her once. But she married a schoolteacher in the Haute-Marne, and I believe he died shortly afterwards.’
‘She runs an inn in the village where she lives.’
‘It’s getting really cold, wouldn’t you say? Would you mind if we went in?’
Ducrau switched the light on in the drawing room, shut the door, began closing the shutters, then changed his mind.
‘May I know what Gassin wrote to his sister?’
‘No.’
‘Should I be afraid?’
‘You know the answer to that better than I do.’
Ducrau smiled and wandered round the room, not knowing where to put himself, while Maigret, very much at home, went out into the garden and returned with the bottle of cognac and their glasses.
‘Suppose there are these two men,’ he said, serving himself a drink, ‘one who has already killed and as a result could find himself locked up for the rest of his life, or worse, and the other who never harmed a fly. They circle each other like fighting cocks: which, in your opinion, is the more dangerous?’
The only response was an even more leaden smile.
‘All that’s left now is to find out who hanged Bébert. What do you reckon, Ducrau?’
Maigret was still friendly, but there was a new gravity in every word, every syllable he uttered, as if every one of them was heavy with meaning.
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Ducrau had finally opted to settle into an armchair, his short legs straight out and his pipe resting on his chest. His position gave him a triple chin, and his half-closed lids were like shutters over his eyes.
‘Do you know what simple question that sort of thinking finally leads to? It is this: who took advantage of Aline’s simple-mindedness one day and left her expecting a baby?’
This time, his companion leaped to his feet like a shot, his cheeks turning red.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Well, it wasn’t you, of course. It wasn’t Gassin either, because he’s always believed he was her father. It wasn’t your son Jean, who had strong feelings for her and who, as it happens …’
‘Who did what? What are you getting at?’
‘Nothing bad. I’ve had inquiries made about him. Tell me, Ducrau, after you had your first daughter by your wife, didn’t you get ill?’
The only response was a grunt, and Maigret saw a back turned towards him.
‘It could be the explanation. The fact is that Aline is simple-minded. As for your son, he was a sickly child, highly strung and so sensitive that he was given to having hysterical episodes. According to his friends, who joked about it, he wasn’t much of a man. Hence the emotional but utterly pure friendship between him and Aline.’
‘What are you driving at?’
‘At this: if Bébert was killed it was because he was the one who took advantage of her. The Golden Fleece is often tied up at Charenton for weeks on end. Gassin spent every evening in bars. The assistant lock-keeper was a loner and as he prowled round the barges he spotted Aline one evening …’
‘Shut your mouth!’
Ducrau’s neck flushed deep red, and he hurled his pipe into a corner of the room.
‘Is it true?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Maybe he didn’t even have to use force because she’s not aware of her actions. And nobody knows! Until the day Aline gave birth … There were three men close to Aline … Who do you think, Ducrau, that Gassin suspects?’
‘Me!’ came the reply.
As he spoke he gave a start, walked heavily to the door and flung it open, revealing his daughter. He raised his hand. She screamed. But instead of hitting her, he simply slammed the door in her face.
‘What else is there?’
He bore down on Maigret like a lion in an arena.
‘I noticed that Aline was afraid of you, even more than afraid. Gassin must have thought the same thing. So when he caught you prowling around her …’
‘Oh, yes, and what else is there?’
‘Why couldn’t somebody else have thought the same thing, especially since he knew all about your inability to keep your hands off women?’
‘Who? Out with it!’
‘Your son …’
‘What about him?’
They heard the sound of footsteps and voices coming from the room above. It was a tearful Berthe telling her mother and her husband about what had happened. Shortly after this, the maid came in, looking scared.
‘What is it?’
‘Madame is asking if you’ll go up.’
He could not bring himself to answer. This was too much! Instead, he poured himself a full glass of cognac, which he drank off in one.
‘You were saying?’
‘I was saying that at least three people believe that you are a deeply unpleasant man. Aline locks herself up in her cabin when she sees you coming and cries when your name is mentioned. Her father keeps his eye on you and is only waiting for tangible proof to take his revenge. Then there’s your son. He puts himself through hell the way only very neurotic people can. Didn’t he say something at one point about becoming a monk?’
‘Six months ago. But who told you?’
‘It doesn’t matter. You crushed him. You stifled him. The only happiness he had in life was during those three months he spent recuperating on the Golden Fleece.’
‘Get to the point!’
He mopped his face and poured himself more cognac.
‘That’s all. At least I’ve explained why he committed suicide.’
‘I’d like to know how.’
‘When he learned that you’d been attacked and pushed off the barge into the water in the middle of the night, he had no doubt who’d done it: Aline, who had rebelled, and had perhaps been assaulted …’
‘Why couldn’t he have talked to me about it?’
‘Did he ever talk to you? Does your daughter talk to you? Since he was not allowed to take up a monastic life and believed himself to be entirely worthless, he wanted at least to make one grand gesture in his life. It’s the sort of dreams adolescents in attic rooms have all the time. Fortunately, they don’t always put them into practice. Your son did. He saved Aline! He took the blame! You might not be able to understand it, but any youngster of a certain age would!’
‘What about you? How did you work it out?’
‘Oh, I’m not the only one. You have to realize that while Gassin was crawling from one bar to the next, drunk to the world and not speaking to anyone, he was struggling with this same problem. Last night, he didn’t sleep on the boat. He left Aline by herself. He took a room overlooking the barge.’
Suddenly Ducrau got to his feet and lifted the curtain, but he could see nothing because of the brightness of the light in the drawing room.
‘Did you hear a noise?’
‘No.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Maigret baldly. ‘When two men are going to fight, people try to separate them. But the law does not allow me to step in when two men are getting ready to kill each other. It only allows me to arrest a murderer.’
Ducrau craned forward.
‘To do that, you need proof!’
‘Meaning?’
‘Nothing! As of midnight on Wednesday, I won’t be in the police any more. You reminded me of that fact earlier on. You wouldn’t happen to have any black tobacco, would you?’
He helped himself from a stone jar which Ducrau pointed out to him and, after filling his pipe, he replenished his pouch. There was a knock at the door. It was Decharme, who came in without waiting for an answer.
‘Sorry to interrupt. My wife has asked me to present her excuses for not coming down to dinner. She’s a little unwell. It’s her “condition” …’
He made no move to leave, looked round for somewhere to sit and was surprised to see the cognac glasses.
‘Wouldn’t you rather have aperitifs instead?’
By some miracle, Ducrau did not jump down his throat, indeed he didn’t even seem to notice that he was there. He had picked his pipe up off the carpet. It had not shattered. There was only a white scuff-mark on the meerschaum bowl, and he rubbed it with a finger he had wetted with saliva.
‘Is my wife upstairs?’
‘She’s just come down. She’s in the kitchen.’
‘Would you excuse me a moment, inspector …?’
Ducrau looked as if he were expecting that the inspector would not excuse him. It didn’t happen.
‘He’s an odd character!’ sighed Maigret when the door had closed.
Decharme, who was very uncomfortable in the armchair into which he had folded his long body but did not dare get up out of it, gave a little cough and murmured:
‘He can be strange at times, as you’ve probably noticed. Actually, he has good moments as well as bad ones.’
Maigret, again behaving as if he were at home, closed the curtains but left a small gap through which at intervals he looked out at the courtyard.
‘It takes a lot of patience.’
‘And you have enough!’
‘Take now, for instance. My position is rather delicate. I have a commission, as you know. It’s obvious the Army cannot be dragged into certain matters, certain tragic events which …’
‘Which …?’ prompted Maigret who was in no mood to show mercy.
‘I don’t know. I’d
like your advice. Like me, you serve the public good. Now your presence here, combined with certain rumours …’
‘What rumours?’
‘I’m not sure. But let us suppose … This is very hard for me … We’re just supposing, right? Suppose that a man in a certain profession is put in a position … a position …’
‘Would you like a cognac?’
‘No thanks. I never drink spirits.’
Despite the interruption, he stuck to his guns. He had made up his mind to see this through and was not making it up as he went along. He had his little speech all ready.
‘When an officer has failed in his duty, it is traditional that it falls to his comrades to let him know where his honour lies and they leave him alone with a revolver. It avoids scandalous public comment …’
‘Who do you have in mind?’
‘No one in particular. But I cannot help but be worried. I came to ask you once and for all either to reassure me or to say if we must expect to …’
But he had no intention of being any more explicit. He rose to his feet, feeling relieved. He smiled as he waited for the reply.
‘Are you asking me if your father-in-law is a murderer and if I’m going to arrest him?’
He had given no hint that he had been concerned for one moment by the absence of Ducrau, who now returned, his face looking fresher and his hair damp at the temples like a man who has just washed his face.
‘We’ll ask him.’
Maigret was drawing deep on his pipe, holding his glass of cognac in one hand and studiously avoiding looking at Decharme, who had blenched but did not dare say a word.
‘Ah, Ducrau, your son-in-law has been asking me if I think you’re a murderer and if I’m planning to arrest you.’
They must have heard him from upstairs because the sound of footsteps above their heads stopped dead. Despite his composure, Ducrau stopped breathing.
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