Perhaps they were all sincere. But perhaps one of them concealed a tormented soul, frightened to death at the thought of the bulky form roaming these streets at night.
Maigret passed in front of his hotel without going in. Through the windows he could see Inspector Machère, holding forth in the middle of a group that included the landlord. It looked like the fourth or fifth round of drinks. The landlord had just bought his.
Machère, very animated, was waving his arms around and must have been saying:
‘These detective chief inspectors who come from Paris have notions of themselves …’
And they were talking about the Flemings! They were tearing them to shreds!
At the end of a narrow street there was quite a spacious square. On one corner, a café with a white frontage and three well-lit windows: Café de la Mairie.
A noise that welcomed you as soon as you opened the door. A zinc counter. Tables. Card-players at red baize tables. Smoke from pipes and cigarettes and a sharp smell of stale beer.
‘Two beers, two!’
The sound of counters on the marble tabletop near the cash register. The waiter’s white apron.
‘Over here!’
Maigret sat down at the first table he came to, and first saw Gérard Piedboeuf in one of the tarnished mirrors in the bar. He was very animated, like Machère. He stopped short as he saw Maigret, and his foot must have touched those of his companions.
One male companion, two female. There were four of them at the same table. The young people were the same age. The women were probably lowly factory girls.
They all fell silent. Even the card-players at the other tables called out their points in an undertone, and their eyes were fixed on the new arrival.
‘A beer!’
Maigret lit his pipe, and put his dripping bowler hat down on the brown moleskin banquette.
‘One beer, just one!’
And Gérard Piedboeuf assumed an ironic and contemptuous smile and muttered under his breath:
‘The friend of the Flemings …’
He had been drinking too. His pupils were too shiny. His purple lips offset the pallor of his complexion. It was clear that he was very excited. He was playing to the gallery. He was trying to find something to say to shock his lady companions.
‘You realize, Ninie, when you’re rich you won’t have to worry about the police any more …’
His friend gave him a nudge to make him shut up, but it only made him more worked up.
‘What? Aren’t we allowed to say what we want any more? … I repeat that the police are at the disposal of the rich, but as soon as you’re poor …’
He was pale. Basically he had frightened himself with his words, but he wanted to preserve the halo that his attitude gave him.
Maigret removed the foam that covered his glass and took a great gulp of beer. The card-players could be heard murmuring, to break the silence:
‘A flush …’
‘Four jacks …’
‘Your deal!’
‘I’ll cut!’
And the two little factory workers who didn’t dare to turn and look at the inspector arranged themselves so that they could see him in the mirror.
‘You would think it was a crime to be French in France! Particularly if you’re poor as well …’
At the till, the landlord frowned and turned towards Maigret, who didn’t look at him, hoping to indicate to him that the young man was drunk.
‘Spades! … And spades again! … Eh? You weren’t expecting that …’
‘People who have made their fortune by smuggling!’ Gérard went on, keen to be heard by the whole bar. ‘Everyone in Givet knows! Before the war it was cigars and lace … Now, since alcohol is forbidden in Belgium, they serve genever to the Flemish sailors … Which allows their son to become a lawyer … Ha ha! He’ll need it, to defend himself! …’
And Maigret stayed alone at his table, the focus of all the customers’ attention. He hadn’t taken off his overcoat. His shoulders were glistening with rain.
The landlord became agitated, foreseeing trouble, and approached the inspector:
‘Please ignore him … He’s been drinking … And the grief …’
‘Let’s go, Gérard!’ the little woman beside the young man murmured anxiously.
‘So that he thinks I’m scared of him?’
He still had his back to Maigret. Each could see the other only in the mirrors.
Now the other customers were only playing for the sake of appearances, and forgetting to mark the points on their tiles.
‘A brandy, please! … Time for a drink! …’
The landlord almost refused but didn’t dare, given that Maigret was still pretending not to notice him.
‘It’s a complete outrage! … That’s what it is! … These people take our daughters and kill them as soon as they’ve had enough of them … And the police …’
Maigret imagined old Piedboeuf, in his dyed uniform, doing the rounds of the workshops by the light of his hurricane lamp, coming back to his nice warm corner to eat his potatoes.
Opposite, the Piedboeuf house: the midwife must have put the child to bed and was waiting for her own bedtime, reading or doing some knitting.
Then, further off, the Flemish grocery, old Peeters being woken and led to his bedroom. Madame Peeters lowering the shutters, Anna, all by herself, undressing in her room …
And the barges slumbering in the current that stretched the moorings, made the rudders creak and the dinghies collide …
‘Another beer!’
Maigret’s voice was calm. He smoked slowly, blowing puffs of smoke towards the ceiling.
‘You’ll all have noticed that he’s taunting me! … Because he is taunting me …’
The landlord was desperate and had run out of ideas. A scandal was erupting.
For, at those last words, Gérard had got to his feet and was standing in front of Maigret at last. His features were drawn, his lips contorted in anger.
‘I tell you that he’s only come here to annoy us! … Look at him! … He’s laughing at us, because I’ve had a drink … Or rather because we haven’t got any money …’
Maigret didn’t move. It was insane! He was as motionless as the marble of his table. He had his hand on his glass. He was still smoking.
‘Diamonds trumps!’ said someone optimistically, in the hope of creating a diversion.
And then Gérard took the cards from the card-players’ table and threw them across the room.
Suddenly half the customers were on their feet, not daring to come forwards, but ready to intervene.
Maigret sat where he was. Maigret smoked.
‘But look at him! He’s taunting us! He knows my sister was murdered …’
The landlord didn’t know where to put himself. The two little women at Gérard’s table looked at each other anxiously, and had already measured the distance they were from the door.
‘He doesn’t dare say anything! You’ll notice that he doesn’t dare open his mouth! He’s scared! Yes, he’s scared that the truth will come out!’
‘I swear to you that he’s been drinking!’ the landlord cried, seeing Maigret get to his feet.
Too late! Of all of them, it was probably Gérard who was the most frightened.
That dark, wet mass coming towards him …
He moved his hand briefly towards his pocket, and that movement was accompanied by a loud scream from a woman.
The young man was drawing a revolver. But Maigret caught it in mid-air with his hand. At the same time, he stuck his foot out and sent Gérard sprawling.
At most, one customer out of three knew what was happening. And yet now they had all got to their feet. The revolver was in Maigret’s hand. Gérard got back to his feet, with a fierce expression on his face, humiliated by his defeat.
And while the inspector put the gun in his pocket, with a gesture as calm as it was natural, the young man panted:
‘So are you go
ing to arrest me, then?’
He wasn’t standing up yet. He was pulling himself up with his hands. It was pitiful.
‘Go to bed!’ Maigret said slowly.
As Gérard seemed not to understand, he added:
‘Open the door!’
There was a gust of fresh air in the stifling atmosphere. Maigret held Gérard’s shoulder and pushed him towards the pavement.
‘Go to bed!’
And the door closed again. There was one person fewer in the bar: Gérard Piedboeuf.
‘He’s blind drunk!’ muttered Maigret, sitting back in front of the beer he had just begun.
The customers didn’t know what they were supposed to do. Some of them had sat down in their seats again. Others were hesitating.
Then Maigret, after taking a sip of beer, sighed:
‘It doesn’t matter!’
Then, turning to his neighbour, who didn’t know what was going on, he added:
‘You were saying that diamonds were trumps …’
6. The Hammer
Maigret had decided to sleep in, less out of laziness than for want of anything better to do. It was about ten o’clock when he had an unpleasant awakening.
First of all there was a violent knocking at his door, which he hated more than anything. Then, his senses still befuddled, he made out the rattle of rain on the balcony.
‘Who is it?’
‘Machère.’
He called out his name as if he were making a triumphant bugle call.
‘Come in! Go and open the curtains …’
And Maigret, still in bed, saw the dull light of a filthy day flowing in. Downstairs, a fisherwoman was negotiating with the hotel landlord.
‘Some news! It came in this morning with the first post …’
‘Just a moment! Would you please call downstairs for them to bring me up my breakfast, because there’s no service bell …’
And without leaving his bed, Maigret lit a pipe that lay ready filled within his reach.
‘News about whom?’
‘About Germaine Piedboeuf.’
‘Dead?’
‘Dead as can be!’
Machère announced this with delight, taking a letter from his pocket, four large-format pages decorated with administrative stamps.
Issued by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Huy to the Ministry of the Interior in Brussels.
Issued by the Ministry of the Interior to the Sûreté in Paris.
Issued by the Sûreté to the Flying Squad in Nancy.
Issued to Inspector Machère, in Givet …
‘Keep it short, will you?’
‘Well, in a few words, she was pulled from the Meuse in Huy, about a hundred kilometres from here. Five days ago … They didn’t immediately connect it with the request for information that I’d made to the Belgian police … But I’ll read it to you …’
‘Can I come in?’
It was the chambermaid with coffee and croissants. When she had left, Machère continued:
‘“This twenty-sixth of January, in the year nineteen …”’
‘No, old man! Get straight to the point …’
‘Well! It seems almost certain that she was murdered. It’s not just conjecture, it’s a material fact … Listen: “The body, as far as one can judge, must have been in the water for between three weeks and a month … Her state of …”’
‘Keep it short!’ grunted Maigret, who was eating.
‘“… decomposition …”’
‘I know! The conclusions! And most of all, no description!’
‘There’s a whole page …’
‘Of what?’
‘Of description … Well, if you say so … It doesn’t come to a definitive conclusion … And yet one thing is certain: it’s that Germaine Piedboeuf was dead long before she was put in the water … The doctor says: “two or three days before …”’
Maigret was still dipping his croissant in his coffee, eating and looking at the rectangle of the window, and Machère thought he wasn’t listening to him.
‘Aren’t you interested in this?’
‘Go on.’
‘There’s the detailed account of the post-mortem … Do you want me to …? No? … Well! Let me tell you the most interesting part … The skull of the corpse had been completely shattered, the doctors are fairly sure that death was due to this fracture, produced with a blunt instrument, like a hammer or a lump of iron …’
Maigret put one leg out of bed, then the other, and looked at himself in the mirror before beginning to soap his cheeks with his shaving brush. As he was shaving, Inspector Machère reread the typed report that he was holding.
‘Don’t you think that’s extraordinary? Not the hammer blow? I’m talking about the fact that the body wasn’t thrown into the water until two or three days after death … I will have to pay the Flemings another visit …’
‘Do you have the list of clothes that Germaine Piedboeuf was wearing?’
‘Yes … Wait … Black buckled shoes, quite badly worn … Black stockings … Poor-quality pink underwear … Black serge dress, no brand …’
‘Is that all? No coat?’
‘Hang on! You’re quite right …’
‘It was the third of January … It was raining … It was cold …’
Machère’s face darkened. He grunted without explaining himself:
‘Obviously!’
‘Obviously what?’
‘She didn’t get on well enough with the Peeters that they would invite her to make herself at home … On the other hand, I don’t see why the murderer would have taken off her coat … Or else he would have undressed her completely to make identification more difficult …’
Maigret washed himself very noisily, even splashing Machère, although he was in the middle of the room.
‘Have the Piedboeufs been told?’
‘Not yet … I thought you might take charge of that …’
‘Not at all! I’m not on duty! Pretend you’re on your own, old man!’
And he looked for the button of his collar, finished dressing and pushed Machère towards the door.
‘I need to go out … See you later …’
He didn’t know where he was going. He went out for the sake of it, or rather to immerse himself in the atmosphere of the town. By chance he stopped in front of a brass plaque that announced:
Doctor Van de Weert
Consultations from ten o’clock until midday
A few minutes later he was led past the three patients sitting in the waiting room and found himself in the presence of a small man with the pink skin of a child and hair the same white as Madame Peeters.
‘Nothing unpleasant, I hope?’
He rubbed his hands as he spoke. He exuded hearty optimism from every pore.
‘My daughter told me you’d agreed to …’
‘First of all I would like to ask you a question. How much strength would it take to smash a woman’s skull with a hammer blow?’
The bafflement of the little man, whose belly was crossed by a fat watch chain, and who wore a jacket that had seen better days, was a delight.
‘A skull? … How should I know? … I’ve never had the occasion, in Givet …’
‘Do you think, for example, that a woman might be capable …’
He panicked, he gesticulated.
‘A woman? … But this is madness! … A woman would never think of …’
‘Are you a widower, Monsieur Van de Weert?’
‘For twenty years! Luckily my daughter …’
‘What do you think of Joseph Peeters?’
‘But … he’s an excellent fellow! … I would rather he had chosen medicine, because he would have taken over my practice … But, of course, since he’s good at law … It is a remarkable subject …’
‘From the health point of view?’
‘Very good! Very good! A bit tired from working doggedly, and by his growth …’
‘The Peeters have no def
ect?’
‘A defect?’
So great was his stupefaction, he might never have heard of such a thing.
‘You are incredible, inspector! I don’t understand! You’ve seen my cousin. She’s built to live for a century …’
‘Your daughter too?’
‘She’s more delicate … She takes after her mother … But allow me to offer you a cigar …’
A true Fleming like the ones one sees in the posters advertising a brand of genever, a Fleming with full lips and clear eyes, proclaiming the simplicity of his soul.
‘In the end, Mademoiselle Marguerite had to marry her cousin.’
His face darkened slightly.
‘Sooner or later, of course! … Had it not been for that unfortunate affair …’
As far as he was concerned, it was only unfortunate!
‘They just didn’t grasp that the best thing to do was to accept a small sum for the child and, if possible, to move to a different town … I think it’s the brother in particular who has a poor character …’
No! You couldn’t hold it against him! He was sincere! Naive by virtue of his sincerity!
‘Not to mention the fact that there’s no evidence that the child is Joseph’s … He would have been far better off in a sanatorium, with his mother …’
‘So your daughter was waiting …’
And Van de Weert smiled.
‘She has loved him since she was fourteen or fifteen … Isn’t that lovely? … Was I supposed to stand in their way? … Do you have a light? … If you ask my opinion, there isn’t even anything to get worked up about … The young woman, who was always a little manhunter, has followed a new boyfriend somewhere or other … And her brother took advantage of the fact to try and make himself some money …’
He didn’t ask Maigret’s advice. He was sure that his opinion was right. He listened out for vague sounds from the waiting room, where his clients were bound to be getting impatient.
Then Maigret, calmly, and with the same innocent expression as the doctor, asked one last question:
‘Do you think that Mademoiselle Marguerite is her cousin’s mistress?’
Perhaps Van de Weert was on the point of losing his temper. His forehead turned red. But what prevailed was sadness in the face of such incomprehension.
The Flemish House Page 6
