Maigret and the Tall Woman

by Georges Simenon

  ‘So it was your mother?’

  ‘Not my mother either. She was in her room.’

  ‘While you were having a discussion with your wife?’

  ‘There was no discussion.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You see, Serre, I have searched hard for a reason why Maria might have wanted to settle accounts with you and threaten you.’

  ‘She didn’t threaten me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t state that too categorically, as you might regret it later on. You will be trying to convince me or the jurors that your life or your mother’s life was at stake.’

  Serre gave an ironic smile. He was tired, his posture was slumped, his shoulders were hunched around his neck, but he had lost nothing of his self-possession. His cheeks were blue with stubble. The sky outside the window was less dark now, and the air in the room had grown cooler.

  Maigret felt the cold first and went to close the window.

  ‘It wasn’t in your interest to have a corpse on your hands. I mean a corpse that no one could be allowed to see. Do you follow me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When your first wife died, the circumstances were such that you could call Doctor Dutilleux to write the death certificate.

  ‘That’s how Maria was meant to die, apparently from natural causes. She too had a heart condition. What worked for one should have worked for the other.

  ‘But there was a snag.

  ‘Do you see now what I am getting at?’

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘And you didn’t dispose of her body along with her luggage and the burglar’s tools?’

  ‘There was no burglar.’

  ‘I will probably be introducing him to you in a few hours.’

  ‘You’ve found him?’

  There was a hint of worry in his voice.

  ‘We found his fingerprints in your study. You took great care to wipe all the surfaces, but there is always somewhere that you miss. He is a repeat offender, a safe specialist well known to the police: Alfred Jussiaume, known as Sad Freddie. He told his wife what he had seen. She is currently sitting in the waiting room outside with your mother. As for Jussiaume, he is in Rouen and has no further need to hide.

  ‘We already have the concierge, who saw you take your car out of the garage. We also have the man from the hardware shop who sold you a second windowpane at eight o’clock on Wednesday morning.

  ‘Criminal Records will verify that your car has been cleaned since then.

  ‘That is a lot of circumstantial evidence, no?

  ‘Once we find the body and the luggage, my work will be complete.

  ‘So perhaps you might consider explaining why, instead of what we might call a legitimate corpse, you were lumbered with a body that you had to get rid of as a matter of urgency.

  ‘There was some hitch.

  ‘What was it, Serre?’

  The man took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his lips and brow but didn’t open his mouth to speak.

  ‘It is half past three. I’m beginning to get fed up. Are you still refusing to speak?’

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Maigret as he got up. ‘It pains me to torment an old woman, but I have no choice but to question your mother.’

  He was expecting a protest, or some sort of reaction at least. The dentist didn’t turn a hair. Maigret even thought that he looked relieved, that his nerves relaxed.

  ‘Over to you, Janvier. I am going to try the mother.’

  And he intended to! But he couldn’t do this straight away, because Vacher had just arrived in a state of excitement, with a package in his hand.

  ‘I found it, chief! It took a while, but I think I’ve got it.’

  He undid the bundle of newspaper to reveal some bits of brick and some reddish dust.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Quai de Billancourt, opposite Ile Seguin. If I’d started downstream rather than upstream, I’d have been back hours ago. I covered all the unloading docks. Only Billancourt had a barge deliver a cargo of bricks recently.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last Monday. The boat left on Tuesday around midday. The bricks are still stacked there, and some kids must have been playing on them and broken a few. There is red dust scattered over a large part of the dock. Shall I take it up to Moers?’

  ‘I’ll take it myself.’

  As he passed the waiting room, he looked at the two women, who weren’t talking. From their attitudes it seemed as if things had turned a little frosty between them.

  Maigret went into the laboratory, where Moers had just brewed some coffee, a cup of which came his way.

  ‘Do you have the brick sample? Can you make a comparison?’

  The colour was the same, the grain almost identical. Moers used a microscope and a projector.

  ‘Is it a match?’

  ‘Very likely. In any case, it comes from the same region. I’ll need about half an hour to an hour to do the analysis.’

  It was too late to search the Seine. It would be sunrise before the river police would be able to send a diver down. Then, if they found Maria’s body, or just the suitcases and the toolbox, the circle would be closed.

  ‘Hello! River police? Maigret here.’

  He still seemed to be in a bad mood.

  ‘I’d like you to search the Seine as soon as possible, Quai de Billancourt, at the spot where some bricks have been unloaded recently.’

  ‘An hour from now it will be daylight.’

  What was stopping him from waiting? A jury wouldn’t need any more evidence to convict Guillaume Serre, who would continue to deny everything.

  Ignoring the stenographer, who was looking at him, Maigret drank a whole measure straight from the bottle, wiped his mouth, went out into the corridor and threw open the door to the waiting room.

  Ernestine thought it was her he had come for and sat up. Madame Serre didn’t move.

  It was the latter whom he addressed:

  ‘Would you come with me for a moment?’

  He had a corridor of empty offices to choose from. He opened a door at random, closed the window.

  ‘Please, sit down.’

  He started circling the room, casting a surly look at the old woman.

  ‘I don’t like giving bad news,’ he eventually growled. ‘Especially not to someone of your age. Have you ever been ill, Madame Serre?’

  ‘Apart from a bout of seasickness when we crossed the Channel, I have never had need of a doctor.’

  ‘And of course you don’t have a heart condition?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your son does, though, doesn’t he?’

  ‘He has always had a slightly enlarged heart.’

  ‘He killed his wife!’ he said, lifting his head and staring her straight in the face.

  ‘Did he tell you that?’

  He hated having recourse to the old trick of the false confession.

  ‘He continues to deny it, but it won’t do him any good. We have proof.’

  ‘That he killed her?’

  ‘That he shot Maria in his study.’

  She hadn’t moved. Her expression had somewhat frozen, she seemed to be holding her breath, but she was showing no other signs of emotion.

  ‘What proof do you have?’

  ‘We have found the spot where his wife’s body was thrown into the Seine, along with her luggage and the burglar’s tools.’

  ‘Ah!’

  She didn’t add anything. She just waited, hands clasped on her dark dress.

  ‘Your son refuses to claim he was acting in self-defence. He’s making a mistake, because I am convinced that, when his wife came into his study, she did so with malicious intent.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking you.’

  ‘I know nothing.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I’ve told you: in my room.’

  ‘An
d you didn’t hear anything?’

  ‘Not a thing. Just the door closing. Then the sound of the car engine out in the street.’

  ‘The taxi?’

  ‘I presume it was a taxi, since my daughter-in-law had talked of going to find one.’

  ‘So you’re not sure? It could have been a private car?’

  ‘I didn’t see it.’

  ‘Could it have been your son’s car?’

  ‘He told me that he hadn’t taken it out.’

  ‘Are you aware that there are discrepancies between the answers you are giving now and the statement you made when you came to see me out of the blue?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were sure that your daughter-in-law had left in a taxi.’

  ‘I still think she did.’

  ‘But you aren’t certain. Nor are you certain that there was no attempted break-in.’

  ‘I saw no trace of it.’

  ‘What time did you get up on Wednesday morning?’

  ‘Around six thirty.’

  ‘Did you go into the study?’

  ‘Not straight away. I made some coffee.’

  ‘You didn’t go in to open the windows?’

  ‘Yes, I think I did.’

  ‘Before your son came down?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘You won’t confirm that?’

  ‘Put yourself in my place, Monsieur Maigret. For the last two days I haven’t known whether I’m coming or going. I’ve been asked all sorts of questions. I’ve been sitting out in that waiting room for God knows how long. I’m tired. I’m doing all I can just to keep going.’

  ‘Why did you come here tonight?’

  ‘Any mother would follow her son under these circumstances, wouldn’t she? I’ve always been by his side. He might need me.’

  ‘Would you follow him all the way to prison?’

  ‘I don’t understand. I don’t think that—’

  ‘Let me put it another way: if I charged your son, would you take some of the responsibility for his actions?’

  ‘But he hasn’t done anything!’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Why would he have killed his wife?’

  ‘You’re avoiding the question. Are you absolutely certain that he didn’t kill her?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘Is it possible that he could have done?’

  ‘He had no reason to.’

  ‘He did it,’ he said harshly, staring her in the face.

  It was as if she were in suspended animation. Then she said:

  ‘Ah!’

  She opened her bag and took out her handkerchief. Her eyes were dry. She wasn’t crying. She settled for wiping her mouth with it.

  ‘Could I have a glass of water?’

  He had to look round for a moment, as the office wasn’t as familiar to him as his own.

  ‘As soon as the public prosecutor arrives for work at the Palais de Justice your son will be charged. I can tell you now that he hasn’t the slightest chance of getting off.’

  ‘You mean he—’

  ‘He will pay with his head.’

  She didn’t faint, but sat rigidly in her chair, her eyes fixed ahead of her.

  ‘His first wife’s body will be exhumed. You are no doubt aware that traces of certain poisons can be lifted even from a skeleton.’

  ‘Why would he have killed both of them? It defies belief. It’s simply not true, inspector. I don’t know why you are saying these things to me but I refuse to believe you. Let me speak to him face to face and I will get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘Did you spend the whole of Tuesday in your room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you come downstairs at any point?’

  ‘No. Why would I have come downstairs, since that woman was leaving us at last?’

  Maigret pressed his head against the window for a while, then went into the office next door, grabbed the bottle and drank the equivalent of three or four small glasses.

  When he came back he had the heavy tread and stubborn look of Guillaume Serre himself.

  9.

  In which Maigret is not proud of his work but nevertheless derives satisfaction from saving someone’s life

  He was sitting in someone else’s chair, both elbows on the table, his chunkiest pipe in his mouth, staring at this woman he had once compared to a mother superior.

  ‘Your son, Madame Serre, killed neither his first wife nor his second wife,’ he said, enunciating each syllable clearly.

  She frowned, surprised, but there was no joy in her look.

  ‘Nor did he kill his father,’ he added.

  ‘What . . .?’

  ‘Shush! . . . If I may, we can tidy this matter up once and for all. We won’t worry about proof for now – that will come in due course.

  ‘We won’t get too hung up on the case of your husband either. I am almost certain your first daughter-in-law was poisoned. I’ll go further. I am convinced that it wasn’t arsenic or any of the other toxic poisons traditionally used in these cases.

  ‘I should mention in passing, Madame Serre, that poisonings are, nine times out of ten, the work of women.

  ‘Your first daughter-in-law, like your second, suffered from a heart condition. As did your husband.

  ‘Certain drugs that are harmless to a person in good health can be life-threatening to a person with heart problems. I am wondering if the key to the puzzle is in one of the letters that Maria wrote to her friend. She spoke of a journey you made with your husband to England and emphasized that you were all so seasick that the ship’s doctor had to be called.

  ‘What is prescribed in cases like this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe. Usually they give atropine in one form or another. Too large a dose of atropine can be fatal to a person with a bad heart.’

  ‘You mean that my husband—’

  ‘We’ll come back to that, even if it turns out to be impossible to prove. In his later years your husband led a dissolute life and spent a great deal of his fortune. You have always lived in fear of penury, Madame Serre.’

  ‘Not on my own behalf, but my son’s. That doesn’t mean that I would have—’

  ‘Later, your son got married. There was another woman living in your house, a woman who, at a stroke, bore the same name and had the same rights as you.’

  She pursed her lips.

  ‘This woman, who also had a weak heart, was rich, richer than your son, richer than all the Serres put together.’

  ‘Are you saying that I poisoned her, having poisoned my own husband?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She gave a little forced laugh.

  ‘And no doubt I poisoned my second daughter-in-law too?’

  ‘She left, demoralized, having tried in vain to live in a household in which she was perpetually an outsider. She probably took her money with her. By chance, she also had a weak heart.

  ‘You see, from the start I have been wondering why her body disappeared. If she had simply been poisoned, all you needed to do was to call a doctor, who, given Maria’s medical history, would have diagnosed a heart attack. Perhaps this attack was meant to occur later, in the taxi, at the station or on the train.’

  ‘You seem very sure of yourself, Monsieur Maigret.’

  ‘I know that some event took place that forced your son to shoot his wife. Perhaps Maria, as she was about to go to find a taxi or, as is more likely, to telephone to order one, started to experience certain symptoms.

  ‘She knew both of you well, having lived with you for two and a half years. She had read a lot on a wide range of subjects, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she had picked up some medical knowledge.

  ‘Realizing that she had been poisoned, she went into your son’s study, and you were there.’

  ‘How can you be so sure that I was there?’

  ‘Because it was you that she blamed – fatally for her, as it turned out. If you had b
een in your room, she would have come upstairs.

  ‘I don’t know whether she threatened you with her revolver or whether she simply reached out for the telephone in order to inform the police . . .

  ‘You had no other option than to shoot her.’

  ‘And, according to you, it was I who—’

  ‘No. I’ve already said that it was probably your son who fired; if you like, he did your dirty work for you.’

  A smudge of dawn was mingling with the light of the lamps, and in it their features seemed more deeply etched. The telephone rang loudly.

  ‘Is that you, chief? I’ve completed the analysis. It’s almost certain that the brick dust taken from the car comes from Billancourt.’

  ‘You can go to bed now, my friend. Your work is done.’

  He got up again and began circling the room.

  ‘Your son, Madame Serre, has taken all the blame on himself. I see no way to dissuade him. If he has managed to hold his tongue all through this night, he will be able to do so right to the end. Unless . . .’

  ‘Unless . . .?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was thinking out loud. Two years ago I had a man as tough as him in my office. For fifteen hours we didn’t get a word out of him.’

  He gave the window a violent tug, as if he was in a rage.

  ‘It took us twenty-seven and a half hours to break him down.’

  ‘Did he talk?’

  ‘He told us everything, without pausing for breath, spilled his guts.’

  ‘I didn’t poison anyone.’

  ‘It’s not you I need the answer from.’

  ‘My son?’

  ‘Yes. He is convinced that you did what you did only for his sake, half out of a fear of seeing him left without resources, half out of jealousy.’

  He had to restrain himself from giving her a slap, despite her age, because an involuntary smile had crept across the old woman’s mouth.

  ‘But that’s not true!’ he asserted.

  He came up close to her, stared into her eyes, his breath on her face, and barked:

  ‘It’s not for his sake that you are afraid of poverty, but yours! It’s not for his sake that you killed. The real reason you are here tonight is that you were scared that he would tell all.’

  She tried to recoil, to sit back in her chair, because Maigret’s face was right in hers, hard and menacing.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if he goes to prison, or even if he is executed, as long as you escape scot free. You are sure that you have many more years to live, sitting in your house, counting your money . . .’