Maigret and the Spinster (9 page)

“Have you so much as asked that phony Monfils where he was on the night of the murder? I’m quite sure you haven’t, because he is…”

“I intend to put that very question to him this afternoon…”

“In that case, you can also ask him if it isn’t true that my sisters and I have been cheated of our rights from start to finish.”

He pointed to a somewhat faded enlargement of a photograph of a woman.

“That’s my mother,” he declaimed. “Cécile was very like her…Not only in looks, but in character. You wouldn’t understand their sort of humility, their dread of stepping out of line, of taking more than their due…their unwholesome craving for self-sacrifice. That was what my poor sister was like, and she was a slave all her life. That’s true, Berthe, isn’t it?”

“Quite true,” agreed the girl. “Aunt Juliette treated her like a servant.”

“What the Chief Superintendent doesn’t realize…”

Maigret had difficulty in suppressing a smile, for there was one thing that this seething young man could not see, and that was that he himself suffered from an inferiority complex. But this sense of inferiority irked him so much that, in order to shake it off, he went to the other extreme and adopted an aggressive and defiant posture.

“My mother was the older sister. She was forty-eight when my aunt met Boynet, who was a wealthy man. After their parents died, the two daughters lived together in Fontenay, on the income they inherited jointly. Now, what happened was this. In order to marry Boynet, my aunt had to have a dowry, so she got my mother to agree to give up her share of the inheritance. Everyone in the family knows that, and, unless he is a liar, Monfils will confirm it. So you see, it was thanks to my mother that Aunt Juliette was able to make such a good match.”

“‘
I’ll make it up to you one day…you can rest assured that I’ll never forget…After I’m married…
”

“Not a penny! After she was married, she looked down on her sister as being too poor to be introduced to her grand new friends, so my poor mother had to go to work in a shop in Fontenay. She married one of the supervisors in the store. He was already in poor health. And she had to go on working…”

“Then we were born, and the most that my aunt could be persuaded to do was to stand godmother to Cécile. And do you know what she sent her for her First Communion? A hundred francs. And she with a husband who already owned at least ten apartment buildings.”

“‘
You have nothing to fear, Emilie,
’ she wrote to my mother. ‘
If any thing should happen to you, I will take care of the children.
’ ”

“First, my father died and, not long after, my mother. By then, Aunt Juliette was a widow, and she had recently moved to this apartment, though she occupied the whole floor in those days.”

“It was our cousin Monfils who brought us from Fontenay…You wouldn’t remember, Berthe…you were too young.”

“‘
Good God! How skinny they are
!’ exclaimed Aunt Juliette when she saw us. ‘
You’d think my poor sister had starved them…
’ ”

“She was critical of everything about us, our outer clothes and underwear, our worn shoes, our manners…”

“As for Cécile, who was nearly grown up, she treated her like a servant from the start. She wanted to send me to trade school, saying that the poor should earn a living with their hands. If I came home with a tear in my trousers, I would never hear the end of it. I was an ungrateful brat, I didn’t appreciate all that she was doing for me and my sisters…Mark her words, I would come to a wretched end…”

“Cécile suffered in silence. The maid was fired. Why should she keep a servant, with my sister there to do all the work?…Would you like to see the sort of clothes she made us wear?”

He went across to a cabinet and got a photograph of all three of them. Cécile was in black, as Maigret had known her, her hair unbecomingly drawn back into a tight knot; Berthe, plump as a puppy, in a dress too long for a child of her age; and Gérard, aged fourteen or fifteen, wearing a suit that had certainly not been made to measure.

“I decided to enlist in the army, and she never sent me so much as a five-franc piece to tide me over till the end of the month…My buddies used to get parcels from home, cigarettes and things. All my life, I’ve had to look on at what other people had.”

“How old were you when you ceased to live with your aunt?” Maigret asked, turning to the girl.

“Sixteen,” she replied. “I applied all on my own for a job in a department store. They asked me my age, and I said I was eighteen.”

“When I got married,” Gérard went on, “my aunt sent me a silver cake slicer…Later, when I was desperate for money, I sold it, and all I could get for it was thirty francs. Cécile barely got enough to eat, and yet our aunt was a rich woman. And now that she’s dead, I’m the one who’s being made to suffer. You’re the same as all the rest.”

It was painful to look at him, he was so eaten up with bitterness and resentment.

“Were you never tempted to kill your aunt?” asked Maigret, so matter-of-factly that it gave the girl a start.

“If I said ‘yes,’ that would be as good as telling you I strangled her, wouldn’t it? Well, yes, I often wished her dead. Unfortunately, I’m too much of a coward…Well, there it is, you can think what you like. Arrest me, if that’s what you want, it will only be the last of many injustices.”

Berthe glanced at the little wrist watch she was wearing.

“Can I be of any further use to you, Chief Superintendent?”

“Why do you ask?”

“It is lunchtime. My friend will be waiting for me outside the store.”

This reference to her lover did not detract from her air of virginal innocence.

“You have my address: Twenty-two Rue Ordener. I’m nearly always at home in the evenings after seven, except when we go out to see a movie…What are you going to do with Gérard? He always carries on like this. You mustn’t take him too seriously. Are you all right for money, Gérard? Give Hélène a kiss from me. Tell her I’ll drop by and see her tomorrow or the day after. They’ve given me three days off at the store.”

On her way to the door, she turned and smiled at the two men before going out.

“And this is what we’ve come down to,” concluded Gérard. “Her boy friend is a married man! If my poor mother…”

“Tell me, why did Cécile give you this key?”

“You really want to know? I’ll tell you, but you’re not going to like it. She gave it to me because the police weren’t doing their job! Because, when a poor person goes to them for help, they won’t even listen! Cécile went to see you several times, even you wouldn’t dare deny that. She told you that she was frightened, that there was something going on in this apartment that she didn’t understand. And what did you do? You made fun of her. You sent along an absurd little sergeant a couple of times, who did nothing but pace up and down outside the house. When Cécile, by then convinced beyond any doubt that someone was getting into the sitting room at night, called on you again, she could sense that the whole department was having a good laugh at her expense. So much so that the inspectors took it in relays to go and peer at her in the waiting room.”

Maigret listened with bowed head.

“It was then that she had a key cut. She asked me…”

“Sorry to interrupt! Where did you and your sister use to meet?”

“In the street! When I needed to see her…”

“To ask her for money?”

“Yes! To ask her for money, that’s right. I daresay you’re very pleased with yourself for having found that out! She did, in fact, occasionally slip me a few francs. It was never very much, just what she was able to scrape together, as they say, out of the housekeeping. I used to wait for her at the corner, when I knew she would be going out to do her shopping!…Does that satisfy you? I’m only too happy to oblige!…She gave me the key about ten days ago. She asked me to check on the apartment from time to time at night, to try and find out what was going on…”

“And did you?”

“No…I couldn’t, on account of my wife. The doctor feared a premature confinement. I intended to look into it later.”

“How would you have got into the building?”

“Cécile had thought of everything. Every evening at seven o’clock, the concierge goes upstairs with the mail. She always stops for a few minutes to chat with the Deséglises. They’re the third-floor tenants in the apartment on the left. All I had to do was to slip in then…”

“What about your aunt?”

“Oh, what the hell! I know every word I say will be used against me. It’s all too easy. Well, then, here goes. My aunt suffered from pains in the legs, and, every evening at about that time, she had hot air massage, which apparently relieved the pain. My sister used an electric dryer, like those one sees at the hairdresser’s. They make quite a lot of noise…All I had to do was let myself in with my key and go and hide under Cécile’s bed. Are you satisfied? And now, if you don’t mind, I’m hungry and my wife is expecting me home. You’ve scared her enough already, going to see her like that. If I’m not back soon, she’ll think…So, unless you intend to arrest me here and now, I’ll thank you to let me go. As for her money, which is ours by right, we’ll see whether…”

He turned his head away, but not soon enough to prevent Maigret from seeing the tears of rage that were running down his cheeks.

“You are at liberty to go,” said the Chief Superintendent.

“Is that so?” exclaimed the young man, with heavy irony. “So I’m not to be arrested just yet? You are too kind. How can I ever thank you…”

Gérard was not sure that he had caught the words aright, but as he made for the door he thought he heard Maigret say:

“Silly ass!”

Was Nouchi still hoping to succeed in seducing the Chief Superintendent? She was doing her best, at any rate, with a curious blend of cunning and artlessness. She even, as she sat down opposite him, went so far as to hitch her skirt well up above her bony knees.

“Where were you?” he asked, as grumpily as he knew how.

“In the street.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Talking to a friend…”

“Are you sure this was on the night of the murder?”

“It’s in my diary…Every night, I record the events of the day in my diary.”

Maigret reflected that he himself no doubt also featured in this crazy girl’s diary. Nouchi was one of those girls who fall in love with every man they see, the policeman on the beat, the neighbor whom they encounter every day at the same hour, the film star whom they have never met in the flesh, the notorious murderer, of whom they have only read. For the time being, Maigret was the star!

“I can’t tell you the name of my friend, because he’s a married man…”

Indeed? Well, Berthe, serene little Berthe, with her cherry-red hat, was also having an affair with a married man!

“So you were out in the street, not far from this building…Weren’t you afraid your parents might see you?”

“It wouldn’t bother my parents…They’re quite decent…”

“And you claim you saw Gérard Pardon entering the building?”

“He was dressed exactly as he was today, in the same raincoat and the same gray hat with the turned-down brim…He looked around, and then bolted inside.”

“What time was this?”

“Seven o’clock in the evening. I’m quite sure of that, because the postman had just made his last delivery.”

“Thank you very much.”

“It’s important, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“But surely, if Cécile’s brother was in the building that night…”

“Thank you, mademoiselle.”

“Isn’t there anything else you want to ask me?”

“No.”

She stood up. Still hopeful, she added:

“You can rely on me to help you all I can. I know all that goes on in this house…I could tell you…”

“Thanks.”

As he went to the door she brushed against him; he could feel the tension in her body.

“Won’t I have to go to police headquarters, to have my statement taken down in writing?”

“Not until you receive an official summons.”

“
Au revoir,
Chief Superintendent.”

“Good-by.”

And Maigret, having locked the door and put the key in his pocket, went down the stairs. Inspector Jourdan was still on guard outside the building. Maigret signaled to him to carry on, and went off in search of a taxi.

During the whole of lunch in his apartment on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, his wife could not get a word out of him. He sat with his elbows on the table, scattering breadcrumbs on the cloth and champing his food noisily. These were all ominous signs.

“You can’t blame yourself if this girl Cécile,” she ventured, addressing him by the formal
vous,
as she was apt to do at such times. Had anyone else been present just then, she would have referred to her husband as “the Chief Superintendent,” or even, though this was more unusual, as “Monsieur Maigret.”

Had he even noticed that he had just eaten a luscious
crime caramel
? No sooner had he wiped his mouth with his napkin than he was taking his overcoat, stiff as a soldier’s cape, from the stand. She could tell from his manner that there was nothing to be gained by asking him when he would be back.

“Hôtel du Centre, Boulevard Montparnasse,” he snapped at the taxi driver.

It was a quiet little hotel, mainly patronized by regulars from the provinces, who tended always to come to Paris on a particular day of the week. It smelled of veal in a savory sauce and fresh-baked cookies.

“Monsieur Monfils is expecting me.”

“He’s waiting for you in the conservatory.”

There really was a conservatory, or at least a glassed-in enclosure with a lot of greenery, a rockery, and a fountain.

Monsieur Monfils, still dressed in deep mourning, his nose red and running, was sitting in a wicker armchair with a handkerchief in his hand, smoking a cigar. With him was another man, whose face seemed familiar to Maigret.

“Allow me to introduce my legal adviser, Maître Leloup…It is Maître Leloup who will in future be looking after my interests in Paris.”

The lawyer was as fat as Monfils was thin, and there was an ample glass of brandy on a table within reach of his hand.