‘I’ll be careful not to, madame … The Le Cloaguens don’t have a maid, but I assume, judging by the size of their apartment, they have one or two maids’ rooms?’
‘Yes, on the seventh floor. They’ve got two …’
‘May I ask you to come up with us?’
‘Only if I can turn the gas down under my stew, otherwise it’ll be burned when I come back down again …’
Janvier, looking glum, stands up to let them pass. The concierge turns round, overawed by the gravity of what is being enacted.
‘They were going to put a lift in, but then they saw it wasn’t possible seeing as how the stairwell isn’t wide enough …’
Up here the layout changes. A long corridor with varnished walls. Numbered doors. Daylight enters only through a fanlight.
‘These are their rooms: 13 and 14 … Last year, they tried to rent them out but they were asking too much for what they are … Wait a minute … My master-key should work in these locks …’
Lucas, who has followed them, begins to feel apprehensive. The first room, where a musty smell catches the throat, contains only a folding bedstead, two old wobbly chairs and a chest full of odd volumes.
‘It’s what you might call abandoned,’ said the concierge.
A similar disappointment in the second room. What was the inspector hoping to find? There’s nothing except the same kind of jumble which every family drags around with them, a terrestrial globe, a seamstress’s dummy, more books, especially medical books, and piles of fly-blown anatomical plates, with brown foxing.
‘Empty! As you see!’
‘Empty …’ says Maigret, repeating the word, like an echo.
And yet he cannot bring himself to abandon the narrow corridor which leads nowhere.
‘One other thing, madame. Why is there a ladder over the stairwell?’
‘They might as well take it away, for all the use it gets. As you see, above the last three rooms there is a sort of loft. Certain tenants are allowed use of it to store the large trunks that they don’t know what to do with. To get to the loft, you need a ladder …’
Maigret nods to Lucas, who goes off meekly to get it.
‘Shall I go up, sir?’
‘No.’
Maigret will climb up himself, and Lucas is a little scared.
‘Listen, sir, it would be better if you …’
He holds out his revolver, which the inspector takes with a shrug of the shoulders.
When he is on the second rung and the whole ladder starts shaking under his weight, he changes his mind and steps off it again.
‘He can’t be dead,’ he mutters.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I defy two women to hoist an inert body up this ladder.’
He looks up, the way an adult calls to a child who is stuck up a tree.
‘Le Cloaguen! …’ he cries. ‘Le Cloaguen! …’
Silence. The concierge, alarmed, puts one hand over her bosom and stands ready for anything.
‘Listen, Lucas, I hate ladders and I would be glad if you shinned up this one. It’s not solid enough for me …’
A few more moments of silence.
‘Shall I go up?’
A faint scraping sound. Someone up there has moved, someone who has brushed against some resonant object, probably an empty trunk. Then a leg appears, a foot feeling for a rung, and finally a man wearing a greenish overcoat climbs down the ladder.
No one could possibly imagine Maigret’s feeling of triumphant exultation at this moment. Or rather, there is one man, Lucas, who glances across at his chief and would swear he can see tears brimming in his eyes.
Maigret has worked all this out by himself, without any clues it might be said, or more accurately by using clues which everyone else has missed, and in particular by drawing on his amazing intuition, his frightening ability to put himself in the shoes of other people.
‘You’ve been lucky, Le Cloaguen! …’
The old man shows no sign of fear now. He stands there, almost indifferent, like a man who has fought to the bitter end and has become resigned to his fate. His only reaction is a sigh which perhaps is actually more a sigh of relief.
‘If we hadn’t come, I really think you’d have starved to death …’
The man clearly misconstrues the meaning of the words for, after a moment’s hesitation, he stammers:
‘Have you arrested them?’
He is covered with dust. In the loft, there is not enough room for a man to stand up in.
‘Have you arrested them?’
Asked after what Maigret has said, does not the question mean:
‘If what you say is true, that I’d have starved to death, it must be because my wife and daughter are not in the house, since they were supposed to bring me something to eat.’
This is how Lucas understands the words and he gives his chief a look full of admiration.
‘No, I haven’t arrested them yet.’
The old man doesn’t understand.
‘You shall see for yourself … Come along! …’
They make their way down the stairs. On the third floor, they see Janvier sitting on a stair just by the door. He leaps to his feet.
‘Now do you understand, Le Cloaguen? … They wouldn’t have dared bring you anything to eat, would they? That’s why I was forced to act today. But I would really have preferred to hang fire!’
A sound like scampering mice comes from behind the door. Maigret rings the bell and turns to the concierge.
‘You can go back to your lodge, madame. I am most grateful to you … As you see, everything has gone very smoothly …’
The door half opens. A pointed nose. A pointed face. The sharp eyes of Madame Le Cloaguen. A screech.
‘You found him! … Where was he? …’
‘Come in Lucas! Come on in, Janvier! You can come in too, my dear fellow …’
Le Cloaguen gives a start on hearing the friendly expression which Maigret has called him by for the first time. He gives every appearance of liking it, that it relaxes him.
‘See, I won’t even be asking you to recite the rule governing the use of the past participle …’
Now it is the woman’s turn to jump. She turns to the inspector as if she has just been bitten by an animal.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing more, madame, than what I say … Lucas, don’t let her out of your sight! Janvier, go and fetch the daughter and watch her every move. No need to bother about the old boy … That’s right, friend, you’ll behave yourself from now on, won’t you?’
The strangest thing of all is the look of gratitude that the old man gives him.
‘Can I take my overcoat off?’ he asks.
‘Of course you can … It doesn’t matter any more …’
Even so, Maigret is intrigued by the manoeuvre. It is as if he is expecting some extraordinary revelation. It proves less momentous than he thought. Once the thick coat has been removed, it becomes clear that one shoulder must be heavily padded because it now emerges that the old man has one shoulder higher than the other.
Meanwhile, Lucas and Janvier cannot understand the jubilation of their chief, who knocks out his pipe on the carpet and refills another – the cold pipe he always keeps with him in reserve.
All six of them are in the drawing room with the dark furniture and green plush curtains, where the noise of Paris percolates through to them. They remain perfectly still, like the wax figures in the Musée Grévin, all save for the jerky movements of Madame Le Cloaguen’s ringed hands.
The sound of heavy but hurried footsteps on the stairs. A man pauses uncertainly outside the door. Calmly, Maigret opens it.
‘Phone, sir … Saint-Raphaël …’
The owner of the small café-restaurant is disconcerted by the frozen figures which peer at him in bewilderment. Maigret follows him back to the door.
‘Listen here …’
He takes his time. He looks straight into the eyes
of Madame Le Cloaguen.
‘The first one of you who moves …’
And he gleefully taps his revolver pocket.
‘I won’t be long! …’
8. Madame Le Cloaguen’s Revenge
From the public’s point of view, it was far from being one of Maigret’s most high-profile investigations, for the papers, having first stirred the pot vigorously, suddenly lost interest in the Rue Coulaincourt clairvoyant. At Quai des Orfèvres, on the other hand, every detail of the case and even certain comments, true or false, remain etched in people’s memories and have become part of the lore of the place.
And so too did the storm which, around five that afternoon, burst over Paris, after a month of drought and heat.
‘Never saw a storm like it in the whole of my life!’ Sergeant Lucas again declares. ‘Just imagine, there we were, in the drawing room with the green curtains, Janvier and me on the one side and the two women and the old man on the other …’
It is perhaps twenty minutes since Maigret went out hard on the heels of the owner of the café-restaurant on the other side of the road, and already Madame Le Cloaguen, becoming impatient, stands up and takes up a position by the window, one hand on the curtain in, surely, the same spot as when she watched the inspectors who had been put there to watch the house.
A gust of wind sweeps along Boulevard des Batignolles, raises swirls of dust as high as the windows on the third floor and tugs at café awnings. Suddenly the deluge breaks in a hissing roar; a moving tide flows over pavements while pedestrians can be seen scurrying this way and that and taxi-boats plough through the stream, spraying moustaches of water.
Madame Le Cloaguen’s face, pressed hard against the window, is the only one to emerge distinctly from the semi-darkness that fills the room. Lucas is thinking of all the men unfortunate to marry such women, when she whirls round on him in a fury and, pointing to the boulevard, snaps:
‘Where’s he going?’
For Maigret has just come out of the small drivers’ café-restaurant. Turning up the collar of his jacket, he is heading off quickly towards Place Clichy, clearly in search of a taxi.
At this point, the wife comes out with one of the remarks which will become classics at the Police Judiciaire:
‘I hope he hasn’t forgotten us!’
It’s the first incident of note – a somewhat comic incident – in that memorable wait. Lucas, determined to be like Maigret in every respect, tranquilly fills his pipe, becomes aware that the old man is watching him, remembers that he chews tobacco and hands him his pouch …
‘I must go to the smallest room …’ breathes the old man with pale eyes. ‘If you want to come with me …’
Of course he will! Lucas escorts him and even prevents him shutting the door.
‘Would you like to come to my room for a moment?’
There, at the back of a cupboard, he extracts an old pipe with a broken stem from a worn-down shoe.
‘Don’t you see? … They can’t say anything now! … Pass me back your pouch, will you?’
He is determined that it should happen in the drawing room, in full view of the two women. Taking his time, he fills his pipe, strikes a match on the box which the sergeant hands him.
Madame Le Cloaguen has reached the end of her patience.
‘I really don’t see why we are being kept waiting …’
Her frustrations, however, are only just beginning. The minutes tick by, and the room is slowly filled with a smell of old pipe. A shutter bangs against the front wall of the house, the rain hisses, pedestrians are still running through the streets or seeking shelter under carriage entrances, and then, just an hour later, a taxi pulls up outside, someone gets out, the feet of two people are heard on the stairs, and the electric bell rings. Janvier gets up and opens the door. It’s the examining magistrate.
‘Oh, it’s you, sir! … Do come in … No, he isn’t here … He went across the street to phone, then he ran off in the direction of Place Clichy …’
The examining magistrate, who is accompanied by a tall, gaunt officer of the court, sits down after acknowledging both women with an embarrassed nod, for he has not been put in the picture. Maigret hasn’t told him anything but merely phoned through, asking him to go to Boulevard des Batignolles with his court officer.
The room, normally gloomy, has become positively crepuscular, and from time to time a brighter flash of lightning makes everyone jump. There they all are, cheek by jowl, stiff and unmoving as if they were sitting in a railway compartment, as silent as they would be in a doctor’s waiting room. They watch each other. Lucas offers his tobacco pouch to the old man, who has smoked one pipe and now, with childish delight, sets about filling another.
Janvier looks at his watch, and his gesture will be the only movement, repeated by the magistrate or the court officer, to disturb the stillness.
Seven o’clock … Half past … Then suddenly the voice of Octave Le Cloaguen, still a little intimidated … It is to Lucas that he turns, as if the magistrate is too great a personage for him.
‘There’s some port in the sideboard … But she’s got the key …’
Her eyes are full of hate. Without saying a word, Madame Le Cloaguen looks in her handbag for a key and places it on the small round table.
‘A glass of port, madame?’
‘No thank you …’
But the daughter, the more upset of the two, murmurs:
‘I think I would, very much, just a drop …’
The situation has not changed at eight o’clock, when Lucas decides to switch on the light, for no one can see anything at all. Lucas is hungry. So is Janvier. The bell rings, and this time the sergeant opens it and is the first to hear Maigret’s voice on the landing.
‘Go in, madame …’
A small, elderly woman dressed very neatly, even smartly, in black, with a complexion that is surprisingly fresh for someone of her age, enters uncertainly. All these people sitting so motionless take her aback, and at first she sees only Madame Le Cloaguen. With both dark-gloved hands on her bag, which has a silver clasp, she takes two or three steps forwards and says in a voice which rankles with longstanding, unyielding animosities:
‘Good evening, Antoinette …’
Maigret’s clothes glint like a wet umbrella, and he leaves pools of water on the polished floor as he moves around. He does not explain. He merely gives a small nod to the magistrate and the court officer.
‘If this gentleman, who is very kind, had not insisted on me coming, after everything that’s happened …’
But then she half turns and at last catches sight of the old man. She opens her mouth to speak, to say hello, but nothing emerges from her mouth; she screws up her eyes, she opens her handbag with feverish haste and takes out a pair of spectacles.
She gives the impression of being nonplussed, that she feels she is the victim of a hoax. Her eyes seek out first Maigret, then Antoinette Le Cloaguen, and then again come to rest on the old man, who does not understand what is happening any more than she does.
‘That’s not Octave! … You know very well that he’s not my brother! … My God! … And there’s me, who always wondered …’
‘Take a seat, madame …’ says Maigret, who adds, turning to the examining magistrate: ‘I have the honour to introduce you to Madame Biron, née Catherine Le Cloaguen, a widowed lady whose existence has been revealed to me by the police at Saint-Raphaël. Do sit down, madame, there’s no need to worry about the priest, because we shan’t detain you for long …
‘I must tell you, sir, that Madame Biron, who was left almost penniless on the death of her husband – a strong, good man, who worked for Saint-Raphaël town council – Madame Biron, then, became housekeeper to an elderly priest who was virtually incapable of looking after himself … She cares for him with quite admirable dedication …
‘Now, Madame Biron, would you like to tell us about your brother, Octave?’
The two women try to catch each other’
s eye, and the priest’s housekeeper, taking her time, speaks in short sentences and the hushed tones of one who has spent a lot of time in churches:
‘Our parents weren’t well off. They were good people. It was only by scrimping and scraping, as the saying goes, that they managed to put my brother through medical school … He travelled the world. He was lucky enough to do a good turn for a very rich man who proved to be very grateful … At that point, he got married, and I must admit he was very generous to us …’
‘Just a moment … Do you mean that he used to send you money regularly?’
‘Not regularly. My late husband wouldn’t have accepted that. But he used every opportunity to help us out … Like the time I had my bad attack of bronchitis fifteen years ago, he arranged for me to stay in his villa in Saint-Raphaël, but I soon got the idea that I wasn’t wanted …’
Everyone present also gets the idea from the look she shoots at Madame Le Cloaguen.
‘My brother’s voice didn’t count for very much in his own house. I think he missed the time when he used to sail on the Company’s ships. He bought himself a little boat. His only interest was going out in it all by himself and fishing in the sea. That way, at least, he had some peace …’
‘Did they seem comfortably off in the villa?’
‘I think so. There were … let me think … two servants …’
‘So you’d say, on the whole, a way of life as befits an income of 200,000 francs?’
‘Perhaps, I suppose … Myself, I’ve never had 200,000 francs to spend …’
‘Was your brother in good health?’
‘Maybe a bit too florid in the face, but I don’t think he was ill … What’s happened to him?’
All eyes turn towards Madame Le Cloaguen, who purses her lips and maintains an angry silence.
‘Would your brother’s wife have stood to gain in any way by wanting to kill him?’
‘You never can tell. But I don’t think so, because the money would have gone on being paid only for as long as he was still alive …’
‘Do you have anything to add, Madame Le Cloaguen?’
At that moment, Maigret feels the weight of the most hate-filled look that has ever been turned on him. It is so baneful that he cannot repress a smile.
Signed, Picpus Page 10
