Once again, young Forlacroix disappeared. This time he was absent for longer, and Maigret started to get worried. At last he opened the door with his foot. He was heavily laden. He had a mattress folded in two on his head and some blankets and a pillow under his arm. Marcel helped him. They even displayed an unexpected concern for cleanliness. Before laying the mattress on the ground, Airaud went to fetch an old stable broom from a corner and gave the beaten-earth floor a bit of a sweep.
Hulot had got rid of the dog and come back to his post, where he was waiting patiently.
‘Aren’t you arresting them?’ Didine whispered again, shivering.
Airaud took off his oilskin jacket and sat down on the floor to remove his boots. You could see him get rid of his socks and rub his swollen feet for a long time, with a strange kind of solicitude. Albert asked him a question. Was he offering him hot water to bathe his feet? Maigret would have sworn he was. Marcel stretched one more time and finally lay down full-length on the mattress with such a loud sigh you had the impression you could hear it from outside.
Albert Forlacroix took the stable lantern, glanced around him and frowned as he looked at the window. Had he forgotten about it? No, he was making sure! He knew it looked out on nothing but the marshes.
A curious gesture … A pat on his companion’s shock of hair … Huge and heavy, carrying his lantern at arm’s length, he walked away and closed the door behind him …
‘Can we get out this way?’ Maigret asked Didine after drawing her aside. She pointed to a low wall dividing Forlacroix’s yard.
Leaving Hulot on guard, he again waded through oyster shells, dustbins and shards of broken glass, abandoned Didine in the street and walked to the police station.
When he had dispatched a gendarme to take Hulot’s place, he went out into the street once again. Didine was still there, with her sack half full of grass and her sickle. He had the feeling she was looking at him with a sardonic air.
‘So what do you think? It seems to me that without old Didine … How many of your gendarmes did you send off to track him down? … Gendarmes! …’ She laughed scornfully. ‘But me! Nobody bothers to come and see me, even though I could …’
‘Go home!’ he advised her. ‘Tonight. Or tomorrow.’
‘Or on Trinity Sunday!’ she said, without any illusions. ‘Come, Justin. I bet they’ll still find a way not to put them in prison …’
The gendarme outside Albert Forlacroix’s house was no longer in his patch of shadow, but in the middle of the street.
‘Has he come out?’ Maigret asked.
‘There … You see that figure after the third street lamp? … That’s him … He’s just going into the hotel …’
Maigret followed him in a few minutes later. The game of cards was still going on. Méjat, as was to be expected, was discussing all the hands.
‘I tell you that as long as you make an indirect call … At last, inspector … If I play hearts when …’
Albert Forlacroix was sitting all alone at a long table where there was enough room for ten people. He was following the game from a distance. Thérèse had placed a bottle of white wine in front of him, but he was in no hurry to drink it.
‘Damn!’ Maigret grunted, remembering the wine drawn from the barrel, the potatoes, the sausages.
‘Do you want your seat back, chief?’
‘Not now … Carry on …’
He hadn’t taken his overcoat off. He was in two minds as he watched Albert, who sat there with his big legs stretched in front of him.
Did he feel up to it? Did he have the will for it? If he started, he’d have to see it through, come what may. The wall clock hadn’t advanced. He looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock. Thérèse was laying the table.
Should he eat first? Or should he …
‘Give me a half-bottle of white wine, Thérèse!’ he ordered.
He was sure, though, that it was nothing like the white wine the others had drunk!
Albert Forlacroix was watching him pensively.
‘Tell me, Méjat …’
‘Yes, chief … Sorry … I forgot to call my tierce.’
‘It’s fine!’
‘Did you see the butcher?’
‘He’s just been in. I asked him the question. He doesn’t remember. He claims he’d remember if anyone had asked for a good cut of meat at that hour.’
He was going round in circles. He was still in two minds. He went down the two steps that separated him from the kitchen and lifted the lids of the saucepans.
‘What have you made us for dinner?’ he asked the hotelier’s wife.
‘Calves’ liver à la bourgeoise. I hope you like it? I didn’t think of asking you.’
That made up his mind for him. He hated calves’ liver in all its forms.
‘Méjat, when you’ve finished, come over to the town hall … Is the fire on?’
‘It was earlier.’
At last, he went and stood in front of Albert Forlacroix. ‘How about you and me having a little chat? Not here. In my office. I hope you’ve had dinner?’
Albert stood up without a word.
‘Let’s go, then.’
And the two of them set off into the night.
9. The ‘Singing Session’
Someone from Quai des Orfèvres, a Lucas or a Janvier, wouldn’t have needed to watch Maigret for a long time to understand. Even his back spoke volumes! Had it grown rounder? Were his shoulders sagging? Whatever the case, if they had seen that back looming in the long corridor of the Police Judiciaire, and if Maigret had shown a man into his office without a word, the inspectors would have looked at each other.
‘Hmm! There’s a witness who knows when he goes in …’
And they wouldn’t have been surprised if, two or three hours later, they had seen a waiter from the Brasserie Dauphine bringing sandwiches and beer.
Here, there was nobody to watch Maigret and his companion as they walked in the darkness of the street.
‘Would you mind waiting a second?’
Maigret walked into the little grocery, which was full of strange smells, and bought some shag and matches.
‘Give me a packet of blue cigarettes, too … Two packets! …’
He could see the sweets he had liked most when he was a child, all stuck together in a jar, but he didn’t dare buy any. As they walked, Albert Forlacroix remained silent, visibly trying to look as detached as possible.
The gate, the courtyard of the town hall, then, in the office, a blast of warm air, the stove glowing red in the dark.
‘Come in, Forlacroix. Make yourself at home.’
Maigret switched on the lights, took off his hat and coat, refilled the stove, walked around the room two or three times, and as he did so, a kind of glimmer of anxiety could be seen passing over his face. He came and went, glanced here and there, moved objects about, smoked and muttered, as if expecting something that hadn’t yet come.
And that something was the feeling of being at ease in his own skin, as he usually put it, glad to avoid the word ‘inspiration’.
‘Sit down. You can smoke.’
He waited for Forlacroix to do what many country people do: take a cigarette directly from an open packet in his jacket pocket. He lit it for him, then, before sitting down in his turn, remembered the window of that shed; he glanced at the window here in the town hall, thought of closing the shutter but couldn’t get the pane open, and finally contented himself with lowering the dusty blind.
‘Well, now!’ he sighed, sitting down with evident satisfaction. ‘What do you have to say for yourself, Forlacroix?’
The ‘singing session’, as they called it at Quai des Orfèvres, was about to begin. Albert was suspicious. His body tilted backwards a little because his legs were too long for his chair. He looked at Maigret with no attempt to hide his resentment.
‘Was it you who sent for my mother?’ he asked after a moment’s silence.
So he had seen her, either when she h
ad got out of the car or when she had got back in. He had also seen the Dutchman, Horace Van Usschen.
‘Your mother’s testimony was indispensable,’ Maigret replied. ‘She’s in La Roche-sur-Yon right now. I assume she’ll be staying there for a few days. Maybe you’ll go and see her?’
As he looked at the young man, he was thinking:
‘Your hatred for your father, or the man who passes for your father, is only equalled by your irrational adoration for your mother.’
Then suddenly, without transition:
‘The last time you spoke to her, she confirmed to you that Forlacroix wasn’t your father, didn’t she?’
‘I already knew!’ Albert muttered, staring at his boots.
‘For quite a long time, I bet … Let’s see! How old were you when you made that discovery? It must have been painful for you, wasn’t it?’
‘On the contrary!’
‘Did you already hate Judge Forlacroix before you knew?’
‘I certainly didn’t love him!’
He was being cautious, weighing his words, like a peasant at the fair, and, whatever his feelings, he was avoiding flying off the handle, perhaps because he knew his own temper.
‘How old were you when …?’
‘About sixteen. I was at high school in Luçon. I was taken out for several days. My father, I mean Forlacroix, had brought a famous doctor from Paris. I thought at first it was for my sister, but it was for me too.’
‘Was your sister already … different?’
‘She wasn’t quite like anybody else.’
‘And you?’
Albert gave a shudder and looked Maigret in the eyes. ‘Nobody ever told me I was abnormal. At school I was an excellent pupil. The doctor examined me for hours, took samples, did tests. The judge stood over him all the time, anxious and overexcited, talking about things I didn’t understand. Or rather, he talked about blood types, A, B. For several days, he waited impatiently for the test results, and when the paper arrived, with a letterhead from a laboratory in Paris, he looked at me coldly, with a kind of frozen smile, as if at last freed of a great weight …’
Albert was speaking slowly, still weighing his words.
‘I questioned the older boys at school. I found out that a child always has the same blood type as its parents, and that in some countries this is admitted in court as evidence of paternity. Well, my blood wasn’t the same type as my father’s …’
He said this almost triumphantly.
‘I thought of running away, but I didn’t have any money. I’d have liked to join my mother, but I didn’t have her address, and the judge clammed up whenever she was mentioned. I finished school. I did my military service. When I was discharged, I decided to live like the people around here …’
‘Your temperament was more suited to strong physical activity, wasn’t it? But tell me, why stay in the same village as the judge?’
‘Because of my sister. I rented a house and started to work at the mussel fields. I went to see the judge and asked him to give me my sister …’
‘And of course he refused!’
‘Why do you say “of course”?’
Again, there was suspicion in his eyes.
‘Because the judge seems to love his daughter!’
‘Or hate her!’ Albert muttered between his teeth.
‘Do you think so?’
‘In any case, he hated me.’
He suddenly stood up.
‘What does all this have to do with your case? You’ve been trying to make me talk, haven’t you?’
He searched in his pocket but couldn’t find a cigarette. Maigret held out the packet he had bought specially.
‘Sit down, Forlacroix.’
‘Has the judge confessed?’
‘Confessed what?’
‘You know perfectly well what I’m talking about.’
‘He confessed to an old crime … He caught your mother with a man, back in Versailles, and killed the man …’
‘Oh!’
‘Tell me, Forlacroix …’
A silence. A heavy look from Maigret.
‘Were you friends with Marcel Airaud?’
Silence again. As usual, the mayor had left some bottles of wine on the table, and Maigret now poured himself a glass.
‘What difference does that make?’
‘No difference. Not a big one, anyway. You’re about the same age. He’s a mussel farmer, like you. You must have met at the mussel fields, at dances, whatever. I’m talking about the time when he wasn’t yet climbing in through the window to see your sister.’
‘We were friends, yes.’
‘You live alone, don’t you? It’s quite unusual, at your age, such a liking for solitude. Your house is quite big.’
‘A woman comes in every day to do the cleaning.’
‘I know. And what about your meals? Don’t tell me you do your own cooking?’
Sombre-eyed, Albert Forlacroix was wondering what Maigret was getting at.
‘Sometimes. I’m not a big eater. A slice of ham, eggs. Some oysters before the meal. Occasionally I eat at the Hôtel du Port.’
‘Strange …’
‘What’s strange?’
‘Nothing! … You! … Basically, you live in L’Aiguillon the same way you’d live if you were in the middle of nowhere. Haven’t you ever thought of getting married?’
‘No.’
‘And your friend Airaud?’
‘He isn’t my friend.’
‘He isn’t your friend any more, that’s true … Did the two of you fall out when rumours started circulating that he sometimes spent the night with your sister?’
Now Forlacroix’s unease was becoming visible. At first, despite his mistrust, he hadn’t attached too much importance to Maigret’s questions. Now it suddenly seemed to him as if a fine net was closing in around him. Where was the inspector going with all this? Maigret poured him a drink and pushed the packet of cigarettes in his direction.
‘Drink. Smoke. Make yourself at home … We may be here for some time.’
Then Forlacroix swore to himself – and the thought could be read on his face:
‘I won’t say anything more! I won’t answer any more of his questions!’
Maigret took a little walk around the room and stood for a while gazing at the bust of La République.
‘Aren’t you hungry?’
‘No!’
‘Maybe you’ve already had dinner? But I’m starving, and I wish I’d thought of bringing a few potatoes …’
‘Oh, yes! Oh, yes! That startled you, didn’t it? Although, of course, you’re a cool customer, we know that.’
‘Anyway, Airaud and you, built as you both are, are rather like the two village roosters. All the girls must be after you.’
‘I’m not interested in girls.’
‘But Airaud is! He even gets them pregnant sometimes! When you found out he was your sister’s lover, you must have been indignant. I’m surprised there wasn’t more damage.’
‘We did fight …’
‘Several times, I assume? Because he just carried on. It’s quite puzzling. I don’t know him very well. You know him much better than me. Do you think Marcel was genuinely in love with your sister?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘At any rate, that’s what some people say. They say he intended to marry her and that he’d come to an agreement with the judge. If that had happened, you could have made it up between you, couldn’t you? He’d have been your brother-in-law. It’s a pity he ran away, because that doesn’t exactly strengthen his case. You might as well know, I have a summons out for him. If he wasn’t guilty, what reason could he have had to vanish like that and go to ground in the marshes?’
Cigarette followed cigarette. Every now and again, heavy footsteps could be heard on the path, people on their way to play cards at the Hôtel du Port.
And the ‘singing session’ went on. At times, Maigret turned to the wall, and an expression
of discouragement crossed his face. There had been many others who had stood up to his questions for hours, sly, cunning, giving as good as they got.
The most famous of these interrogations, at Quai des Orfèvres, had lasted twenty-seven hours, and three officers had taken turns, not leaving the man a minute’s respite.
But never before, perhaps, had he had such an inert mass to shift as Albert Forlacroix.
‘Marcel’s an only child, isn’t he? And his mother’s a widow, I think? Does she own any property? I ask that because, if he’s found guilty, the life of that poor woman …’
‘Don’t worry about her. She’s richer than most of the people in L’Aiguillon.’
‘Good for her! Because the more I think about it … Look, do you want me to tell you, just between ourselves, how things happened? … One moment, I have to make a phone call. I almost forgot, and that might have been serious … Hello, mademoiselle … It’s me, yes … I owe you a lot of chocolates … No, that’s true, you prefer marrons glacés … Anyway, my debt keeps getting bigger and bigger … The office is closed, I know … All the same, do you think you could get me Nantes? … The flying squad, yes … Thank you, mademoiselle …’
Come on! He mustn’t slacken. He had to keep Forlacroix on tenterhooks.
‘At first, he only wanted to have a bit of fun, which is quite understandable at his age. He didn’t really care that your sister wasn’t exactly like anyone else. Then he fell in love with her. He envisaged the possibility of marrying her. Didn’t he talk to you about it at that point?’
‘We didn’t talk!’
‘I forgot! Though since he went to see your father, he could have gone to see you, too, to tell you that it wasn’t the way you thought, that his intentions were honourable. But if you tell me he didn’t … Hello? … Yes! … Maigret here … Look, I’d like you to do me a favour … Do you have the address of Dr Janin’s maid? … Good! Listen … It’s a bit irregular … She must agree of her own free will, otherwise I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to have her summoned by the examining magistrate … I’d like you to bring her here … Tonight, yes … It’s no more than twenty kilometres … Where? … I’ll probably be at the town hall … No, don’t tell her anything! … Thank you!’
The Judge's House Page 10
