Cécile is Dead

by Georges Simenon

  ‘As a young girl, still bearing her maiden name of Cazenove, Juliette was already Dandurand’s mistress in Fontenay-le-Comte, and it was the talk of the little town … Mâitre Dandurand, as he was then, had not yet been found guilty in a case concerning the abuse of minors. He was much younger at that time, and I can imagine that he had some attractions … but all the same Juliette, a member of a family without financial means, did not turn down the chance of a good marriage in the person of Joseph Boynet, and to make sure of it, nor did she hesitate to sacrifice her sister by persuading her to combine her own dowry with Juliette’s.

  ‘I don’t know what she expected of Paris and life in a building contractor’s household. But there she was in Bourg-la-Reine with a jealous husband, living a life devoid of luxury and brilliance.

  ‘Years passed, and meanwhile her former lover Dandurand was growing older in Fontenay, although his passion for young girls, and then for very young girls, was as strong as ever.

  ‘I’ll skip the next bit, shall I? Two years in prison … not such a big deal, all things considered.

  ‘Then, one fine day, there he is in Paris, living in Rue Delambre in furnished accommodation, for ever debarred not only from the registers of his profession but from the world of decent people.

  ‘Where do they meet again? It doesn’t really matter. Anyway, they become lovers once more. And they begin to feel that the husband is in the way.

  ‘Particularly in Juliette’s way, I feel sure of that … perhaps she is the first to have the idea of getting rid of a husband who prevents her from living as she would like.

  ‘Her lover advises her, as his letters show.’

  ‘The letters that I’m challenging you to produce,’ interrupted the lawyer, looking through his file.

  ‘The letters that I shall not be producing, because they caused your client to commit another crime, yes, that’s right.’

  ‘In that case …’ Maître Planchard made a grand gesture, as if he were in court, sweeping the air with the wide sleeves of his black gown.

  ‘Patience, my dear sir … The husband finally dies. He ate and drank to excess, and he also overworked, so the doctor feels sure that a heart attack carried him off. And it is then …’

  Maigret paused, looked at Monsieur Charles, then at Spencer Oats, and gave the hint of a smile steeped in irony.

  ‘It is then that our Juliette changes almost overnight into an obsessive old woman. Perhaps the man who was her accomplice still attracts her, but he also frightens her … She trusts no one and nothing, because now she knows how easily people can die. She becomes a miser … Monsieur Charles moves into the same building, indeed into the apartment just below hers, but she has become careful of her reputation and doesn’t see him except outside the house. Two nieces and a nephew land on her out of nowhere … Later, her legs prevent her from going out, and so that she can see her accomplice by night she takes the precaution of sending Cécile to sleep by administering a strong bromide … If Cécile had not had such a delicate stomach, if she hadn’t drunk a tisane every night, who knows what …

  ‘Madame Boynet kept her old letters locked in the desk in the sitting room. Dandurand makes lucrative if unedifying investments for her. Yesterday’s lover has become an avaricious, powerless old woman, and here we are in the presence of a particularly unpleasant kind of substitute family. She manages to put off the nephew and one of the nieces … good riddance! But poor Cécile, born with the soul of either a slave or a saint, clings on.’

  ‘May I ask you a question, inspector?’ It was the lawyer. ‘On what do you base your …’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a moment, Maître Planchard. Meanwhile, I’ll ask you to try to follow me … So love has changed to avarice. One passion chases out another. It takes a chance incident, almost an accident … It takes a tisane drunk by the wrong person to set off the tragedy …

  ‘Down in his apartment, Dandurand has heard everything. He knows that above his head two young people are no longer in the dark … He knows that Cécile has decided to come here to the Police Judiciaire and tell me everything, bringing the documents …

  ‘Can he go up to the fifth floor in the middle of the night, knock on the door and prevent … Well, you can’t have slept very well, Dandurand!’

  Dandurand didn’t bat an eyelid. On the contrary, for a moment a smile, yet again, stretched his cold lips.

  ‘Early in the morning, when the concierge is busy with the dustbins out in the yard, brother and sister come downstairs … Through the door that he has opened just a crack, Dandurand sees them pass. If only Cécile had been alone! But you don’t attack two people at once.

  ‘Out in the street they separate. Dandurand follows Cécile into the fog, hoping that he can manage to snatch the bag containing the documentary evidence of guilt while she is on her way.

  ‘The tram isn’t a good place for that. From the Pont Saint-Michel to the Police Judiciaire, no good chance turns up.

  ‘And now she is on the stairs … What can save Monsieur Charles at this point?

  ‘Just one thing: the time. It isn’t quite eight in the morning yet. I am still at home. That day, for no reason, or perhaps to savour the first fog of the winter, I decide to walk to work, while Cécile is waiting for me in what we call the Aquarium.

  ‘Dandurand prowls round …’

  ‘Excuse me, inspector.’ It was the lawyer again. ‘But once more I must return to my question: do you have evidence, do you have witnesses?’

  ‘I have before my eyes, Maître Planchard, the list of all those who turned up at the Police Judiciaire that morning, and I have just ticked at least three names on that list … You ought to understand me, since you are to some extent in the same line of business. It would be too compromising for Dandurand to come upstairs and speak to Cécile himself. She knows everything and wouldn’t for the world follow him.

  ‘But suppose someone from the underworld comes by, from that underworld of which Monsieur Charles has become one of the luminaries …

  ‘And suppose he accosts his acquaintance … “Listen, in that waiting room there’s a girl who mustn’t see the inspector today … She doesn’t know you. I badly need you to say something to her.”

  ‘Don’t forget that Dandurand knows the corridors of Quai des Orfèvres and the Palais de Justice as well as we do.

  ‘“Find a pretext to get me on the other side of that glazed door …”

  ‘Gentlemen, there is no other way things could have happened, and so … The accomplice doesn’t know he’s taking part in a crime, or he might hesitate, and I feel sure that at the moment he isn’t very proud of himself … However, this drama is played out.

  ‘“You wanted to see Detective Chief Inspector Maigret?”

  ‘I have just passed by … Cécile is waiting. She confidently follows her improvised guide. And once past the glazed door … Admit it, Dandurand, it happened like that, because it couldn’t have happened in any other way!

  ‘She is terrified by the sight of you … The door of the broom cupboard is close … you push her, she resists … Before snatching the bag that she is defending, you strike her, and then …’

  ‘I’m still waiting to hear the evidence, inspector.’

  The lawyer, who had been making copious notes, lost none of his composure. Lawyers are not staking their own lives in court.

  After giving his transatlantic colleague a very small sign, Maigret murmured, ‘Suppose I were to replace witnesses by a letter?’

  ‘A letter from the man who took the aforesaid Cécile to my client?’

  ‘A letter from your client himself, my dear Maître Planchard.’

  Dandurand was hard as steel.

  ‘I’m waiting for you to let me see it,’ murmured the lawyer.

  ‘And I,’ sighed Maigret, ‘am waiting for it to be found.’

  ‘Which means that all this is …’

  ‘Just a set of assumptions, yes, I admit that. … All the same, there was a very good rea
son for Monsieur Charles to go into Juliette’s bedroom when I wasn’t with him … Specialists have been searching that room since midday. I don’t know whether you’ve ever had to study the mentality of old ladies? They are the most distrustful creatures in the world. If she kept most of her letters in the sitting-room desk, then you may well think that …’

  Monsieur Dandurand laughed. Everyone looked at him.

  To be honest, at that moment Maigret was close to thinking that he had lost the game. He was clinging to a single cause for hope. Hadn’t Juliette Boynet said, in one of her letters to Monfils, that if anything happened to her …

  The inspector had staked everything on this one throw of the dice. He wasn’t yet ready to believe that in the few minutes Dandurand had spent alone in that bedroom he …

  And didn’t the fact that he had gone into the room, had opened the tapestry footstool and touched the bundles of banknotes without taking them, even if it meant leaving his fingerprints on them, didn’t it mean that he was looking for something that mattered more to him?

  Had the old woman been stupid enough to leave the final document in the apartment?

  Suppose Maître Leloup hadn’t sent that telegram to Monfils? Suppose Monfils had been out fishing, out hunting, anywhere but at home? Suppose …

  The telephone rang. Maigret positively pounced on it. ‘Hello? Yes … Ah well. Carry on.’

  When he hung up, Spencer Oats saw that there could be no other solution: the searches in the Bourg-la-Reine apartment building hadn’t come up with any results.

  ‘Allow me to point out, detective chief inspector, that …’

  ‘Point out anything you like. In the present situation …’

  ‘All your hypotheses are based on a letter that doesn’t exist, and in those circumstances, my client is legally entitled to …’

  The telephone again.

  ‘Hello? Good! … Three or four hours? … Yes, he’s here … I’ll send him round to you …’ And he turned to Gérard. ‘You’d better go and join your wife. It sounds to me as if you’ll soon be a proud father.’

  ‘Detective chief inspector, I will continue to point out …’

  Maigret looked at the lawyer without replying and winked at the American, who followed him out into the corridor.

  ‘I’m beginning to think,’ he began, ‘that this investigation, the one you wanted to take part in … Well, no doubt I’m going to look a fool, and you will go back to the United States with a pathetic opinion of my methods … although I’m sure, as I hope you understand, I’m sure that …’ And, abruptly changing the subject, Maigret said, ‘Oh, let’s go and have a beer, shall we?’

  He led his companion out, casting a gloomy glance as he passed at the Aquarium, where two or three people were waiting.

  They walked past the walls of the Palais de Justice and plunged into the warm calm of the Brasserie Dauphine, which smelled of beer drawn from the cask.

  ‘Two beers, please … big ’uns!’

  ‘What do you mean by “big ’uns”?’ asked the American.

  ‘Glasses for regular customers only – they hold a litre.’

  They went back, their stomachs pleasantly replete, by the same route.

  ‘I could have sworn …’ muttered Maigret. ‘Ah, well, too bad! If I have to begin all over again, so be it!’

  Spencer Oats felt as embarrassed as if he were trying to think up a brand new way of expressing condolences.

  ‘Do you understand? I know that psychologically I’m right … it’s impossible that …’

  ‘Suppose Dandurand found the letter ahead of you?’

  ‘A woman is always more cunning than her lover,’ pronounced Maigret. ‘And old Juliette …’

  He climbed the dusty staircase, where trails of moisture were shining. A man was waiting for them, dignified and self-important, with a briefcase under his arm.

  ‘Detective chief inspector, I hope you can explain to me …’ he began.

  Maigret’s dislike of Maître Leloup had vanished at once. He flung himself on the lawyer as if he were a long-lost friend with whom he was now reunited.

  ‘The telegram? Why didn’t he send it straight to me here? … Quick, let me see it …’

  ‘Here you are, but I don’t know that you’ll be able to make anything of it, and I’m even wondering whether, pending further information, I ought not to …’

  But Maigret had snatched it from Leloup’s hands.

  Tell Inspector Maigret only present received is photo of late aunt stop took frame apart just in case stop contains letter makes little sense but could be devastating to third party stop situation re inheritance completely changed since death of Joseph Boynet not natural so murderer and accomplice unable claim money stop am doing my duty but ask you entertain reservations your end stop will be in Paris this evening stop Étienne Monfils.

  ‘You don’t think my client …’ the lawyer began.

  ‘Your client finds himself in a no-win situation, Maître Leloup … I never even thought of that! If Joseph Boynet was killed by his wife and her lover, her fortune automatically reverts to the Boynets and the Machepieds.’

  ‘But …’

  The inspector wasn’t listening. He stood motionless in the middle of the monumental corridor of the Police Judiciaire, from which he could see the door of his office. Beside him was the glazed partition of the waiting room, where, one foggy morning …

  A baby being born somewhere would never know that the expenses of its birth would be paid for by certain gentlemen whose fingers were heavily laden with rings. At this time of day, they would be absorbed in the subtleties of a game of cards at Albert’s, the bar in Rue Blanche.

  What was Monsieur Charles thinking of as he talked privately to his lawyer under the discreet surveillance of the mild-mannered Inspector Torrence?

  ‘Not so stupid after all!’ He jumped at the sound of his own voice, and so did Spencer Oats and Maître Leloup, who weren’t expecting it.

  ‘Sorry, I was thinking about the photograph trick,’ he apologized. ‘The old woman knew her cousin, and she knew provincial life … Well, come on, gentlemen, let’s get down to work.’

  And he gave a snort before beginning to question everyone who had visited the Police Judiciaire on the morning of the crime.

  It was one in the morning when a little pimp abandoned both his extinguished cigarette end and all attempts to deny his involvement. ‘All right, I only wanted to do someone a favour, and I’m the one who’s been done! What am I looking at, inspector? Two years?’

  Madame Maigret had already phoned three times.

  ‘Hello? No … don’t wait up for me. I could be home rather late.’

  He suddenly felt he could fancy some sauerkraut with all the trimmings in a brasserie in Montmartre or Montparnasse. Then he and his American friend took each other on from bar to bar. And what with one thing leading to another, from one beer to the next, the whole night passed by. Well, Spencer Oats had to have some stories to tell back home in Philadelphia, didn’t he?

  And never mind the fact that he, Maigret, owed Monfils for the idea of taking the photograph frame apart …

  l. Prosper Donge’s Tyre

  A car door slamming. That was always the first noise of the day. The engine still running outside. Charlotte was presumably shaking the driver’s hand. Then the taxi drove away. Footsteps. The key in the lock and the click of a light switch.

  A match was struck in the kitchen, and the gas stove made a phjfft sound as it came on.

  Slowly, like someone who has spent all night standing up, Charlotte climbed the overly new staircase. She came noiselessly into the bedroom. Another light switch. A bulb came on, with a pink handkerchief over it as a lampshade and wooden tassels at the four corners of the handkerchief.

  Prosper Donge had not opened his eyes. Charlotte looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror as she undressed. When she got down to her girdle and brassiere, she sighed. She was as fat and pink as a Rubens, but she was
obsessive about squeezing herself in. Once naked, she rubbed the flesh where there were marks.

  She had an unpleasant way of getting into bed, kneeling on it first, which made the base tilt to one side.

  ‘Your turn, Prosper!’

  He got up. She quickly huddled into the warm hollow he had left behind, pulled the blankets up to her eyes and stopped moving.

  ‘Is it raining?’ he asked as he flushed the toilet.

  A vague grunt. It didn’t matter. The water for shaving was ice cold. Trains could be heard passing.

  Prosper Donge got dressed. From time to time, Charlotte sighed, because she couldn’t get to sleep while the light was on. He had one hand already on the doorknob and was stretching his right arm towards the light switch when he heard a thick voice:

  ‘Don’t forget to go and pay the instalment for the wireless.’

  On the kitchen stove, the coffee was hot, too hot. He drank it standing up. Then, like all those who make the same gestures at the same time every day, he wrapped a knitted scarf around his neck and put on his coat and cap.

  Finally, he took his bicycle, which was in the passage, and pushed it outside.

  Invariably, at that hour, he was greeted by a breath of cold, damp air, and there was wetness on the cobbles, even though it hadn’t rained; the people asleep behind the closed shutters would probably know only a warm, sunny day.

  The street, lined with detached houses and little gardens, sloped steeply downwards. Sometimes, between two trees, the lights of Paris could be glimpsed, as if at the bottom of a chasm.

  It was no longer night, but it wasn’t yet day. The air was mauve. The lights were coming on in a few windows, and Prosper Donge braked before he got to the level crossing, which was closed. He had to get across through the gates.

  After the Pont de Saint-Cloud, he turned left. A tugboat followed by its string of barges was whistling furiously, asking for the lock gate to be opened.

  The Bois de Boulogne … The lakes reflecting a paler sky, with swans waking up …

  Just as he reached Porte Dauphine, the ground suddenly felt harder beneath Donge’s wheels. He went a few more metres, then got off and had a look. His rear tyre was flat.