‘If you don’t mind,’ she stammered.
She extended her hand once more, which he brushed and found cold. The three men stepped through the French windows on to the terrace.
‘Cigars and brandy, Jean,’ ordered the master of the house.
And turning to Maigret, he asked point-blank:
‘Are you married?’
‘Yes.’
‘Children?’
‘I have not had that good fortune.’
A curling of Malik’s lip that did not escape Jean-Claude, but which didn’t shock him.
‘Sit down and have a cigar!’
Jean had brought out several boxes, Havana and Manila cigars, several decanters of spirits too, of various shapes.
‘The youngest one, you see, is like his grandmother. There’s not a hint of Malik about him.’
One thing that hindered the conversation, that irked Maigret, was that he couldn’t reconcile himself to the overly familiar tone of his former schoolmate.
‘So, Monsieur Malik, did you catch him?’ he asked hesitantly.
And Malik misinterpreted his formality. It was fatal. There was a glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes. He clearly thought that the former chief inspector was intimidated by his wealth and did not dare call him by his first name.
‘You can call me Ernest,’ he said condescendingly, rolling a cigar between his long, manicured fingers. ‘We were schoolmates after all … No, I didn’t catch him and I had no intention of doing so.’
He was lying. It was enough to have seen the way he had raced out of the room.
‘I simply wanted to know where he was going … He’s very highly strung, as sensitive as a girl.
‘When I left the room for a moment, earlier, I went up to his room to scold him. I was quite harsh with him and I’m always worried …’
Did he read in Maigret’s eyes that he was thinking of Monita, making a connection with the girl who had drowned and who was also highly strung? Probably, because he hastened to add:
‘Oh! It’s not what you think. He loves himself too much to do that! But he does run away sometimes. Once, he went missing for a week and was found by chance on a building site where he had just been hired.’
The eldest boy listened with indifference. He was on his father’s side, that was obvious. He had a deep contempt for this brother they were talking about and who took after his grandmother.
‘As I knew he had no pocket money, I followed him and I’m relieved … He simply went to see old Bernadette and is probably crying on her shoulder as we speak.’
Darkness was falling, and Maigret had the impression that Malik was less concerned about his own facial expressions. His features hardened, his gaze became even sharper, without that irony that tempered its fierceness a little.
‘Are you absolutely sure about sleeping at Jeanne’s? I could send a servant to go and collect your luggage.’
This insistence displeased Maigret, who interpreted it as a threat. Perhaps he was wrong? Perhaps it was his ill temper counselling him?
‘I’ll go and sleep at L’Ange,’ he said.
‘Will you accept my invitation for tomorrow? You’ll meet some interesting people here. There aren’t many of us. Six houses in total, including the former chateau across the river. But there are some real characters!’
And on that note, a shot was heard coming from the direction of the river. Maigret didn’t have a chance to react before his companion explained:
‘Old Groux shooting woodpigeon. An eccentric whom you’ll meet tomorrow. He owns that entire hill that you can see – or would be able to see if it weren’t dark – on the opposite side of the river. He knows I want to buy it, and for twenty years he’s been refusing to sell, even though he hasn’t got a cent to his name.’
Why had his voice dropped, like someone who is suddenly struck by a new idea mid-sentence?
‘Can you find your way back? Jean-Claude will see you to the gate. Will you lock up, Jean-Claude? Follow the towpath and after two hundred metres take the little woodland path that goes straight to L’Ange … If you like stories, you’ll have your fill, because old Jeanne, who suffers from insomnia, is probably already watching out for you and will give you your money’s worth, especially if you sympathize with her woes and take pity on her many ailments.’
He drained his glass and stood up, signalling that the evening was over.
‘See you tomorrow, around midday. I’m counting on you.’
He held out a strong, dry hand.
‘It’s funny bumping into one another after so many years … Good night, my friend.’
A slightly patronizing, distant ‘goodnight, my friend’.
Already, as Maigret descended the steps accompanied by the eldest son, Malik had vanished inside the house.
There was no moon and the night had grown quite dark. As Maigret walked along the towpath, he heard the slow, repetitive plashing of a pair of oars. A voice hissed:
‘Stop!’
The noise ceased, giving way to another, that of a casting net being thrown over the side. Poachers, most likely.
He continued on his way, smoking his pipe, his hands stuffed in his pockets, annoyed with himself and with the others and wondering, in short, what he was doing there instead of being at home.
He passed the wall enclosing the Amorelles’ garden. As he walked past the gate, he noticed a light at one of the windows. Now on his left were dark bushes among which, a little further on, he would find the path leading to old Jeanne’s place.
Suddenly, there was a sharp snap followed immediately by a faint noise on the ground a few metres ahead of him. He froze, nervous, even though it sounded like the shot earlier, when Malik had told him about an old eccentric who spent his evenings hunting woodpigeon.
All was silent. But there had been someone, not far from him, probably on the Amorelles’ wall, someone who had shot with a rifle and who had not been firing in the air, at some woodpigeon sitting on a branch, but towards the ground, towards Maigret as he walked past.
He scowled, a mix of ill temper and satisfaction. He clenched his fists, furious, and yet he felt relieved. He preferred this.
‘Scoundrel!’ he grumbled softly.
There was no point in looking for his attacker, in rushing after him as Malik had done earlier. He wouldn’t find anything in the dark and he might trip and fall stupidly into a hole.
He kept going, his hands still in his pockets, his pipe between his teeth. His pace did not falter for an instant, his burly frame and deliberately slow tread displaying his contempt.
He reached L’Ange a few minutes later without being used as a target again.
3. Family Portrait in the Drawing Room
It was 9.30 and Maigret was not up yet. For some time now the noises from outside had been filtering in through the wide-open window – the clucking of the hens scratching around in the muck in a courtyard, a dog’s chain rattling, the insistent hooting of the tug-boats and the more muffled throbbing of the barge engines.
Maigret had a hangover, and even what he would have called a stinking hangover. Now he knew the secret of old Jeanne, the owner of L’Ange. The previous evening when he’d got back, she’d still been in the dining room, sitting by the clock with the copper pendulum. Malik had been right to warn him that she would be waiting up for him. But it was probably not so much that she wanted to talk, but to drink.
‘She can knock it back, all right!’ he said to himself, still half-asleep. He didn’t dare wake up too abruptly for fear of the thumping headache he
knew lay in wait for him.
He should have realized immediately. He had known other women like Jeanne who, after the change of life, have lost all interest in their appearance and drag themselves around, miserable, moaning and groaning, their face shiny and their hair greasy, complaining of every ailment under the sun.
‘I’d love a little drink,’ he’d said, sitting down beside her, or rather straddling a chair. ‘What about you, Madame Jeanne? … What can I pour you?’
‘Nothing, monsieur. I’d better not drink. Everything’s bad for me.’
‘A tiny liqueur?’
‘All right, just to keep you company … A Kummel, then. Would you like to pour one for yourself? … The bottles are on the shelf. My legs are very swollen this evening.’
So Kummel was her tipple, that was all. And he too had drunk the caraway-flavoured liqueur out of politeness. He still felt nauseous. He swore he would never touch another drop of Kummel as long as he lived.
How many little glasses had she surreptitiously drained? She talked, in her complaining voice at first, and then becoming more animated. From time to time, looking elsewhere, she would grab the bottle and pour herself a glass. Until Maigret caught on and found himself refilling his glass every ten minutes.
Strange evening. The maid had long since gone to bed. The cat was curled up in Madame Jeanne’s lap, the pendulum swung to and fro behind the glass door of the grandfather clock, and the woman talked, first of all about Marius, her deceased husband, and then about herself, a girl from a good family who had followed Marius and missed out on marrying an officer who had since become a general.
‘He came here with his wife and children, three years ago now, a few days before Marius died. He didn’t recognize me.’
About Bernadette Amorelle:
‘They say she’s mad, but it isn’t true. It’s just that she’s got a peculiar nature. Her husband was a great brute. It was he who founded the big Seine quarries.’
Madame Jeanne was no fool.
‘I know why you’ve come here, now … Everyone knows … I think you’re wasting your time.’
She was talking about the Maliks, Ernest and Charles.
‘You haven’t seen Charles yet? You’ll meet him … and his wife, the youngest of the Amorelle girls, Mademoiselle Aimée as she used to be called. You’ll meet them. We are a tiny village, aren’t we? Not even a hamlet. And yet strange things happen here. Yes, Mademoiselle Monita was found at the weir.’
No, she, Madame Jeanne, didn’t know anything. Can one ever know what goes on inside a young girl’s head?
She drank, Maigret drank, listened to her chatter and refilled the glasses, feeling as if he had been bewitched, and saying from time to time:
‘I’m keeping you up.’
‘Oh you don’t need to worry about me. I don’t sleep very much, with all my aches and pains! But if you’re tired …’
He stayed a while longer. And, when they each went up separate staircases, he had heard a clatter as Madame Jeanne fell down the stairs.
She couldn’t be up yet. He resolved to get out of bed and to go into the bathroom, first to drink, to drink great gulps of cold water, then to wash off his sweat smelling of alcohol, of Kummel. No! Never again would he touch a glass of Kummel.
Well well! Someone had just arrived at the inn. He could hear the maid’s voice saying:
‘He’s still asleep, I tell you …’
He leaned out of the window and saw a maid in a black dress and white apron talking to Raymonde.
‘Is it for me?’ he asked.
And looking up, the maid said:
‘You can see perfectly well that he’s not asleep!’
She was holding a letter, an envelope with a black border, and she stated:
‘I’m to wait for a reply.’
Raymonde brought up the letter. He had put his trousers on, and his braces dangled against his thighs. It was already hot. A fine haze rose from the river.
Will you come and see me as soon as possible? It is best for you to follow my maid, who will show you the way to my apartment, otherwise you will not be allowed up. I know you are meeting them all at lunch time.
Bernadette Amorelle
He followed the maid, who was in her forties and very ugly, with the same beady eyes as her mistress. She did not utter a word and her body language seemed to be saying: ‘No point trying to get me to talk. I have my instructions and I won’t let myself be pushed around.’
They followed the wall, went through the gate and walked up the drive leading to the vast Amorelle residence. Birds were singing in all the trees. The gardener was pushing a wheelbarrow full of manure.
The house was less modern than that of Ernest Malik, less sumptuous, as if already dimmed by the mists of time.
‘This way …’
They did not enter through the big main door at the top of the steps, but through a little door in the east wing. They climbed a staircase whose walls were hung with nineteenth-century prints and had not yet reached the landing when a door opened and Madame Amorelle appeared, as erect, as imperious as on the previous day.
‘You took your time,’ she declared.
‘The gentleman wasn’t ready … I had to wait while he got dressed.’
‘This way, inspector. I would have thought that a man like you would be an early riser.’
It was her bedroom, a vast room, with three windows. The four-poster bed was already made. There were objects lying around on the furniture, giving the impression that the elderly lady lived her entire life in this room, which was her exclusive preserve, whose door she was reluctant to open.
‘Sit down. Please … I hate talking to someone who remains standing. You may smoke your pipe, if you need to. My husband smoked his pipe all day long. The smell is not as bad as cigar smoke … So, you had dinner at my son-in-law’s?’
Maigret might have found it amusing to hear himself being treated like a little boy, but that morning, his sense of humour had deserted him.
‘I did indeed have dinner with Ernest Malik,’ he said gruffly.
‘What did he tell you?’
‘That you were a mad old woman and that his son Georges-Henry was nearly as mad as you.’
‘Did you believe him?’
‘Then, when I was on my way back to L’Ange, someone, who probably deems my career has been long enough, took a pot-shot at me. I suppose that the young man was here?’
‘Which young man? … You mean Georges-Henry? I didn’t see him all evening.’
‘And yet his father claimed that he was sheltering here—’
‘If you take everything he says as gospel—’
‘You haven’t heard from him?’
‘Not at all, and I’d be very happy to. In short, what did you find out?’
Just then he looked at her and wondered, without knowing why, whether she really wanted him to have found out something.
‘You seem to be getting on famously with my son-in-law Ernest,’ she went on.
‘We were in the same class at school in Moulins, and he insists on calling me by my first name, as if we were still twelve years old.’
He was in a foul mood. His head hurt. His pipe tasted stale and he had been obliged to leave and follow the maid without drinking his coffee, because there was none ready at L’Ange.
He was beginning to tire of this family where people all spied on one another and nobody seemed to be speaking the truth.
‘I fear for Georges-Henry,’ she was murmuring now. ‘He was s
o fond of his cousin. I wouldn’t be surprised if there had been something between them.’
‘He’s sixteen.’
She looked him up and down.
‘And do you think that makes any difference? … I was never so much in love as I was at sixteen and, were I to have done something stupid, it is at that age that I would have done it. You’d do well to find Georges-Henry.’
And he, frosty, almost sarcastic:
‘Where do you suggest I look?’
‘That’s your job, not mine. I wonder why his father claimed he had seen him coming here. Malik knows very well that’s not true.’
Her voice betrayed a genuine concern. She paced up and down the room, but each time Maigret made to get to his feet, she repeated:
‘Sit down.’
She spoke as if to herself.
‘They’ve arranged a big luncheon today. Charles Malik and his wife will be there. They have also invited old Campois and that old stick-in-the-mud Groux. I received an invitation too, first thing this morning. I wonder if Georges-Henry will be back.’
‘You have nothing else to tell me, madame?’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Nothing. When you came to Meung yesterday, you hinted that you refused to believe that your granddaughter had died a natural death.’
She stared hard at him, without revealing anything of her thoughts.
‘And now that you’re here,’ she retorted with a note of anger, ‘are you going to tell me that you find what’s going on natural?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Well! Go ahead. Go to this luncheon.’
‘Will you be there?’
‘I don’t know. Keep your eyes and ears open. And, if you are as good as they say you are …’
She was displeased with him, that was clear. Was he not being flexible enough, respectful enough of her idiosyncrasies? Was she disappointed that he hadn’t uncovered anything yet?
She was on edge and anxious, despite her self-control. She headed for the door, thus dismissing him.
Maigret Gets Angry Page 4
