Maigret and the Spinster (16 page)

“How did you like the food, Monsieur Maigret?” asked the forthright Mélanie, who treated all her customers, some of whom were celebrities, with motherly familiarity. “You remember that recipe I wrote out for Madame Maigret? Has she tried it yet?”

The Chief Superintendent was not listening. After putting his change in his trouser pocket he did not even take out his hand, but sat staring at the proprietress’s apron in a state of suspended animation.

At long last, he said:

“What I couldn’t make out was why Cécile was killed…Do you see, Monsieur Spencer? Everything else could be explained…It was easy…But Cécile is dead, and…Sorry, Mélanie. Thanks for the lunch. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Even if my friend remembers nothing else, I’m sure it will provide him with a topic of conversation when he goes back to Philadelphia.”

He was in a highly nervous state. As they walked along the street he said not a word, and when at last they reached the corner of Avenue d’Orléans, he waved down a taxi.

“Quai des Orfèvres, and hurry!”

They were almost halfway there when he changed his mind.

“Take us to the Gare du Nord first…Inter-City arrivals…It’s later than I thought…”

Was it perhaps due to the
coq au vin,
the Beaujolais, Mélanie’s homemade coffee-cream cake, and Desire’s Armagnac? At any rate, whatever the reason, Spencer Oats was looking at his preoccupied companion with a good deal of affection. In the past few hours, it seemed to him, he had been witnessing a series of metamorphoses. The Chief Superintendent, huddled in his overcoat, his bowler hat on the back of his head and his pipe clenched between his teeth, had been actually living the lives of all the characters, the perverted, the miserly, the pitiful, in the drama that it was his responsibility to resolve.

“It may be that, at this very moment, his wife is in labor…”

His cheeks were flushed, as if he himself were the anxious husband. Maigret was right there on the train, flanked by two guards, in Gerard’s place. He was beside Berthe, watching over Gerard’s wife.

He was in the house in Bourg-la-Reine, resting his feet on old Juliette’s tapestry stool, or on the floor below, in the apartment from which Monsieur Charles could hear everything that went on overhead.

Every now and then, when they were held up at a busy crossroads by the white baton of a traffic policeman in a cape, Maigret would catch sight of the moonlike face of an electric clock and, haunted by a sense of time lost, would rise half out of his seat, as if to lighten the driver’s load and enable him to cover the ground more quickly.

They reached the Gare du Nord just in the nick of time. In fact, they very nearly didn’t make it. A crowd of spectators. A policeman was shouting:

“Move along there!”

Then they caught sight of a thin young man in handcuffs, pushed jerkily forward by two policemen, like a horse between the shafts. His trousers were spattered with mud, his raincoat torn. And this feverish, petulant youth, Gérard, no doubt seemed to the bystanders the very incarnation of the thwarted criminal!

His lips trembled when he saw the Chief Superintendent.

“You think you’re very clever, I’m sure…”

Maigret showed his badge to the two policemen and ushered them into the waiting taxi.

They got in with alacrity. They were in a lather. They had been on edge throughout the train journey for fear that their charge might take it into his head to jump out onto the line.

“I don’t suppose anyone has bothered to inquire after my wife!”

And big tears trickled from between his swollen eyelids which he was unable to wipe away because of the handcuffs.

W
here have you come from?”

“Feignes, Chief Superintendent.”

“You could catch the five-seven train back…unless you’d prefer to spend the night in Paris? Let’s have your expense sheets, boys.”

Maigret stopped the taxi on the corner of Rue La Fayette. It was such a squally day that people were having difficulty in holding their umbrellas upright. At the sight of a taxi full of police, the passers-by stopped and stared. The Chief Superintendent spread the expense sheets on his knee and signed them. The two policemen got out and disappeared into a bar. Maigret slid back the glass panel and, in an undertone, murmured something to the driver; then, as soon as the taxi was in motion again, he took a small key from his pocket and relieved Gérard Pardon of his handcuffs.

“I expect you to behave yourself, if you don’t mind…A few dozen blameless citizens like you, and we would have to treble the personnel of the Police Judiciaire.”

Gérard gave a start. He had been gazing out at the streets of Paris as if he had not set eyes on them for years. Now, he turned his permanently mistrustful gaze upon the Chief Superintendent.

“What makes you say ‘blameless’?”

Maigret had difficulty in suppressing a smile.

“You’re surely not telling me that you are guilty?”

“If you believed I was innocent, why did you have me arrested?”

“If you really are innocent, why did you run away? Why did you bolt like a frightened horse at the sight of a couple of policemen? And why did you go to ground in a little cubbyhole which could hardly have been conducive to comfort?”

Spencer Oats, leaning back in his seat, was blissfully digesting his lunch. He was smiling faintly, as people do when, after a good dinner, they are sitting in a theater, indulgently watching the twists and turns of an exciting play. The light inside the taxi was greenish, as though filtered through the frosted glass panes of a lantern.

Through the cab windows everything looked distorted, the people, the buildings, and the umbrellas colliding at strange angles. Sometimes, when the traffic was held up, they could see a bus, with all its passengers in frozen attitudes like waxworks.

“Look, my boy. I know who killed your aunt.”

“Not really!”

“I know who killed your aunt, and I will prove it to you shortly.”

“It’s impossible…” protested Gérard stubbornly, shaking his head. “No one could possibly know…”

“Except you, do you mean?
And yet I’m as sure as I am of anything that you slept through it all
!”

This really did shake Cécile’s brother. He looked at Maigret in horrified amazement, as if he could not believe his ears.

“There! You see…”

“But…Where are we going?”

Everything was shrouded in a Scotch mist, and Pardon had only just realized that they were near Place de la Bastille. Because of the one-way system, the driver was approaching Place des Vosges by way of Rue Saint-Antoine.

“Now, just you listen to me. There is a reward of twenty thousand francs for information leading to the apprehension of the killer. For reasons which don’t concern you, the Police Judiciaire want no part of that money.”

“But…you must know that I…”

“Just you keep your mouth shut! To the best of my knowledge, your wife is still at home, and your sister Berthe is with her.”

“As you appear to have some objection to the Maternity Ward, here is something on account, which you can set against the twenty thousand francs you will be receiving shortly. Go on up! Be as quick as you can. We’ll wait for you in the cab. What clinic did you have in mind when you asked Cécile for the money?”

“Saint Joseph’s…”

“Very well, Berthe can take your wife there now, and you can join them later on!”

The American looked from one to the other in some bewilderment.

“Don’t do anything foolish, now!”

The taxi had stopped, but Gérard, dazed and perhaps still a little mistrustful, hesitated.

“Be off with you, you silly fool!”

For the next ten minutes, Maigret smoked his pipe in silence; and when, presently, Pardon reappeared, wiping his eyes, he merely exchanged glances with Spencer Oats.

“Quai des Orfèvres, driver…By the way, Gérard, when did you last have anything to eat?”

“
They
gave me a sandwich on the train…But really, I’m not hungry. I
am
thirsty, though. The…I…”

He was so overcome that he could hardly speak.

They stopped once again outside a bar. Maigret was thankful for the chance to order a glass of beer to help him digest the
coq au vin,
not to mention the coffee-cream cake.

Ten minutes later, he was stuffing his stove with all the fuel it could take. After he had lit it and switched on the green-shaded table lamp on his desk, he said to Gérard:

“Sit down…Take off your raincoat, it’s soaking…Come nearer the fire. Your trousers will soon be dry. You must have been out of your mind to get yourself into such a state!”

It was not yet quite dark. Through the window could be seen strings of faintly glimmering lights all along the banks of the Seine. It was the busiest time of the day at police headquarters. Doors could be heard opening and shutting, footsteps hurried to and fro in the corridor, telephones rang, typewriters chattered.

“Torrence! That list you made out for me of all visitors to this building on the morning of the seventh of October, bring it here, will you…”

At long last, Maigret sat down, picked up the biggest of the many pipes ranged on his desk, and began:

“What did you have to drink that night, at your aunt’s apartment?…Wait…let me help you…You were at the end of your tether, weren’t you? You knew that your child was due any moment, and you hadn’t so much as a stitch of clothing for it. You were in the habit of going to your sister Cécile for money…Come now! You needn’t look so sheepish…Unfortunately, Cécile hadn’t much to give, only what she could save out of the housekeeping, and her allowance was far from generous. As a rule, you waited for your sister outside in the street. But that night you went upstairs and let yourself into the apartment. You hid in Cécile’s bedroom while she was elsewhere attending to Madame Boynet…Am I right so far?”

“Quite right…”

“When your aunt was settled at the dining-room table and ready for her dinner, Cécile went into the kitchen. You opened the bedroom door and told her that you had to have some money
at all costs.
”

“I told her I was at the end of my tether, and rather than see my wife…”

“Right…Not only did you play on Cécile’s sympathy, you went further,
you frightened her…It was a sort of emotional blackmail.
”

“I had made up my mind to kill myself.”

“After having killed your wife!…Idiot!”

“I swear to you, Chief Superintendent, I would have done it…For three whole days before that, I…”

“Shut up…Your sister couldn’t discuss the matter with you then, in case the old woman should overhear. She served the meal as usual…She ate with her aunt…No doubt she asked the old woman for the money, and was refused? By the time Madame Boynet was safely in bed—I presume she did go to bed?—it was too late for you to leave the house, as by that time the street door was locked. You would have had to ask the concierge to let you out, and she might have reported it to her employer. Presumably Cécile brought food to you in the bedroom? What did you have to eat?”

“Bread and cheese.”

“Did you have anything to drink?”

“A glass of wine, to start with…”

“Anything else?”

“Cécile always had a cup of herb tea at night, because she had a delicate stomach. There was a full cup there ready for her. She suggested that I should drink it. I had been crying. I was feeling very low, and I thought I was going to be sick…”

“And Cécile gave up her bed to you?”

“Yes…We talked a little while longer about Hélène…Then, I can’t think why, I fell asleep…”

Maigret looked at the American as if to say: I told you so.

“You fell asleep because you drank the herb tea intended for your sister, to which your aunt, as always when she was expecting a visit from Monsieur Charles, had added a massive dose of bromide…Everything that followed occurred as a result of this seemingly trivial mischance. If Cécile had drunk the herb tea as intended, your aunt would almost certainly still be alive, in which case your sister…”

Maigret got up and went to the window. He stood there with his back to the room and murmured, as if to himself:

“Cécile, having given up her bed to you, sits in an armchair…She can’t to sleep, and for a very good reason…Old Madame Boynet, as the appointed time approaches, gets up, puts on her dressing gown and stockings and, confident that there is no one to hear her, goes to the door to wait for Monsieur Charles. It was all because you were feeling sick, and therefore drank the herb tea intended for Cécile, that the two schemers…”

“What do you mean by that?” exclaimed the young man, turning pale.

“Isn’t that what they were? Come now, let me finish…It’s getting very hot in here…”

He went across and opened a door leading to another office.

“As I was saying, the two schemers are in the sitting room, which is lit only by a single table lamp. Cécile, hearing noises, creeps into the passage or the dining room and listens unseen. They talk in low voices of their unsavory business affairs…about the house in Béziers…and the one on Rue d’Antin…I can just imagine poor Cécile’s face when, at long last, it dawned on her what sort of places they were. Monsieur Charles hands over the fifty thousand francs to his former mistress. She relocks the bureau, but retains the money in her hand. She sees the former lawyer to the door, and bolts it behind him. Breathing a sigh of satisfaction, she returns to her bedroom. A good night’s work…a substantial addition to her savings. She raises the lid of the tapestry stool which she uses as a strongbox, and Cécile, her eye glued to the keyhole, sees the thick bundles of thousand-franc bills. As for you, you are still sound asleep…
Were you awakened by any untoward sounds
? Think carefully now.”

“No…it was my sister who…”

“Hold on.…Your aunt is undressing…She has already taken off one stocking when Cécile, driven frantic by your threats of suicide…”

“I couldn’t have foreseen…” wailed Gérard.

“That’s what they always say afterward…But be that as it may, your sister bursts into the room, much to the alarm of the old woman. The sight of all that money, a fortune no less, gives Cécile courage. She repeats her request for money. She is not pleading now, she is almost threatening…
What neither of the two women suspects is that, in the apartment below, Monsieur Charles is listening, in astonishment and alarm, to every word they say.
I can guess your aunt’s reaction. No doubt she tongue-lashed her niece, whom she considered to be so much in her debt, and reminded her yet again of all she had done for her and her family. Possibly she may even have threatened to call for help?”