Maigret Gets Angry

PENGUIN CLASSICS

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Guardian

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Madame Maigret sat shelling peas in the warm
shade, the blue of her apron and the green of the pea pods making rich splashes of colour. Her
hands were never still, even though it was two o'clock in the afternoon on the hottest day
of a sweltering August. She was keeping an eye on her husband as if he were a babe-in-arms.
Madame Maigret was anxious:

‘I bet you're already getting
up.'

And yet the deck chair in which Maigret lay
hadn't creaked, nor had the former detective chief inspector of the Police Judiciaire let
out the faintest sigh.

Probably because she knew him so well, she had
seen his face shiny with sweat quiver imperceptibly. She was right, he was about to get up. But
he forced himself to remain horizontal out of a sort of human respect.

This was the second summer they were spending in
their house in Meung-sur-Loire since he had retired. Maigret had ensconced himself contentedly
in the comfortable canvas chair, puffing away gently at his pipe. He savoured the coolness of
the air around him all the more since only two metres away, on the other side of the boundary
between shade and sunshine, it was an inferno buzzing with flies.

The peas tumbled into the enamel basin at a
regular
rhythm. Sitting with her knees apart, Madame
Maigret had an apronful, and there were two big basketfuls picked that morning for bottling.

What Maigret loved most about his house was this
spot where they were sitting, a place that had no name, a sort of partially roofed courtyard
between the kitchen and the garden which they had gradually furnished, even putting in an oven
and a dresser, and where they ate most of their meals. Slightly reminiscent of a Spanish patio,
it was paved with red floor tiles that gave the shadows a very special character.

Maigret held out for a good five minutes, maybe a
little longer, gazing through his half-closed eyelids at the vegetable garden that seemed to be
steaming under a blistering sun. Then, setting aside all human respect, he got up.

‘Now what are you going to do?'

Off-guard in this domestic intimacy, his
expression was that of a sulking child caught misbehaving.

‘I'm sure the aubergines are covered
in Colorado beetles again,' he grumbled, ‘and that's because of
your
lettuces …'

This little battle over the lettuces had been
going on for a month. Since Madame Maigret had put her lettuce seedlings in the gaps between the
aubergine plants.

‘It's a pity to waste the
space,' she had said.

At that point, he had not protested, because he
hadn't realized that Colorado beetles love aubergine leaves even more than potatoes. But
he couldn't spray them with an arsenic mixture because of the lettuces.

And ten times a day, Maigret, wearing his huge
straw
hat, would go and bend over the pale-green
leaves, as he was doing now, turning them over gently to pick off the little striped insects. He
kept them in his left hand until it was full, and then he tossed them into the bonfire, looking
disgruntled and darting a defiant glance at his wife.

‘If you hadn't planted those lettuces
…'

The fact was that since he had retired she
hadn't seen him sit still for an hour in his famous deck chair, which he had triumphantly
brought back from the Bazar de l'Hôtel-de-Ville swearing that he would have memorable
siestas in it.

There he was, in the heat of the sun, barefoot in
his wooden clogs, his blue linen trousers riding down his hips, making them look like an
elephant's hindquarters, and a farmer's shirt with an intricate pattern that was
open at the neck, revealing his hairy chest.

He heard the sound of the door knocker echoing
through the dark, empty rooms of the house like a bell in a convent. Someone was at the front
door, and, as always when there was an unexpected visitor, Madame Maigret became flustered. She
looked at him from a distance as if to seek his guidance.

She lifted up her apron, which formed a huge
pouch, wondered what to do with her peas, then finally untied the strings, because she would
never go and open the door looking unkempt.

The knocker clanged again, twice, three times,
imperiously, angrily, from the sound of it. Maigret thought he could make out the gentle purr of
a car engine through the quivering of the air. He continued to tend his aubergines
while his wife tidied her grey hair in front of a
fragment of mirror.

She had barely disappeared inside the dark house
when the little green door in the garden wall that led on to the lane, and was used only by
people they knew, opened. An elderly lady in mourning appeared in the doorway, so stiff, so
severe, and at the same time so comical that he would recall the sight of her for a long
time.

She stood there for only a moment, and then, with
a brisk, decisive step that belied her great age, she marched straight towards Maigret.

‘I say, gardener … There's no
point telling me that your master's not at home … I know for a fact that he is
here.'

She was tall and thin, with a crinkled face caked
in a thick layer of powder streaked with sweat. The most striking thing about her was her
extraordinarily lively eyes of an intense black.

‘Go at once and tell him that Bernadette
Amorelle has come a hundred kilometres to talk to him.'

She certainly hadn't had the patience to
linger at the front door. She would not be kept waiting! As she said, she had asked the
neighbours and had not been deterred by the closed shutters.

Had someone told her about the little garden
door? It wouldn't have mattered, she was capable of finding it for herself. And now she
was walking towards the shady courtyard where Madame Maigret had just reappeared.

‘Kindly tell Detective Chief Inspector
Maigret …'

Madame Maigret was baffled. Her husband followed
with a lumbering tread, an amused twinkle in his
eye. It was he who said:

‘If you would like to trouble yourself to
come in.'

‘He's having a nap, I'll wager.
Is he still as fat?'

‘Do you know him well?'

‘What business is it of yours? Go and tell
him that Bernadette Amorelle is here and never mind anything else.'

She had second thoughts, rummaged in her bag, an
outmoded kind, a black velvet reticule with a silver clasp, the sort that was fashionable around
1900.

‘Here,' she said, proffering a small
banknote.

‘Forgive me for not being able to accept,
Madame Amorelle, but I am former Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.'

Then she said something hilarious, which was to
go down in the annals of the Maigret household. Looking him up and down from his clogs to his
dishevelled hair – for he had removed his huge straw hat – she proclaimed:

‘As you wish …'

Poor Madame Maigret! She gesticulated to her
husband, but he didn't notice. She was trying to signal discreetly to him to take the
visitor into the sitting room. One doesn't entertain in a courtyard that serves as a
kitchen and everything else.

But Madame Amorelle had sat herself down in a
little rattan armchair where she was perfectly comfortable. It was she who, noticing Madame
Maigret's nervousness, said to her impatiently:

‘Let the inspector be!'

She all but asked Madame Maigret to leave them,
which is exactly what the latter did, because she
didn't dare continue with her task in the presence of the visitor, and she didn't
know where to put herself.

‘You recognize my name, don't you,
inspector?'

‘Amorelle, of the sand quarries and
tug-boats?'

‘Amorelle and Campois, yes.'

He had carried out an investigation in the Haute
Seine in the past, and all day long he had watched convoys of boats going past bearing the green
Amorelle and Campois triangle. When he was based at Quai des Orfèvres, he often used to
glimpse the offices of Amorelle and Campois, quarry and ship owners, on the Île St
Louis.

‘I have no time to waste and you must
understand me. Earlier, I took advantage of the fact that my son-in-law and daughter were at the
Maliks' to tell François to get the old Renault going … They don't
suspect anything … They probably won't be home before this evening … Do you
understand?'

‘No … Yes …'

What he did understand was that the elderly lady
had sneaked out, unbeknown to her family.

‘I assure you that if they were to find out
I was here—'

‘Excuse me, where were you?'

‘At Orsenne, of course,' she
answered, the way a queen of France might have said: ‘At Versailles!'

Didn't everyone know, shouldn't
everyone know, that Bernadette Amorelle, of Amorelle and Campois, lived at Orsenne, a little
hamlet on the banks of the Seine between Corbeil and the forest of Fontainebleau?

‘There's no point looking at me as if
you think I'm mad.
They'll probably try
and have you believe I am. I assure you it's not true.'

‘Forgive me, madame, but may I ask your
age?'

‘You may, young man. I'll be
eighty-two on the seventh of September … but my teeth are all my own, if that's what
you're looking at … And I'll probably outlive the lot of them …
I'd be very happy to see my son-in-law go to his grave.'

‘Would you like something to
drink?'

‘A glass of cold water, if you have
some.'

He poured it himself.

‘What time did you leave
Orsenne?'

‘At eleven thirty … As soon as
they'd gone … I had already asked François … François is the
gardener's boy, he's a good boy … I helped his mother bring him into the world
… None of the family knows that he can drive an automobile … One night when I
couldn't sleep – I should tell you, inspector, that I never sleep – I found
him trying his hand at driving the old Renault by moonlight. Does this interest you?'

‘It does indeed.'

‘It doesn't take much … The old
Renault, which wasn't even in the garage but in the stables, is a limousine that belonged
to my late husband … Since he died twenty years ago, it must be … Well, the boy
somehow managed to get it going and would take it for a spin on the road at night.'

‘Did he drive you here?'

‘He's waiting for me
outside.'

‘You haven't had lunch?'

‘I eat when I have time … I hate people who constantly
feel the need to eat.'

And she couldn't help darting a
disapproving look at Maigret's paunch.

‘Look how you're sweating. It's
none of my business … My husband, he also insisted on having his own way and he's
been gone for a long time … You've been retired for two years now, isn't that
so?'

‘Nearly two years, yes.'

‘So you're getting bored … You
will agree to my proposal, then. There's a train at five o'clock from Orléans.
I could drop you off at the station on my way back. Of course, it would be easier to drive you
all the way to Orsenne, but you would not go unnoticed and the whole thing would go
wrong.'

‘Forgive me, madame, but—'

‘I know you're going to protest. But
I absolutely need you to come and spend a few days at Orsenne. Fifty thousand if you're
successful. And, if you find nothing, let's say ten thousand plus your
expenses.'

She opened her bag and took out a wad of
notes.

‘There's an inn. There's no
chance of mistaking it as it's the only one. It's called L'Ange. You'll
be extremely uncomfortable there, since poor Jeanne is half-crazy. Another one I knew as a baby.
She might not want to put you up, but you'll find a way of winning her over, I'm
sure. Just start talking to her about ailments, and she'll be happy. She's convinced
she's got them all.'

Madame Maigret brought in a tray with some
coffee, and the elderly lady, indifferent to this gesture, rebuffed her:

‘What's this? Who told you to bring us coffee? Take it
away!'

She took her for the maid, as she had mistaken
Maigret for the gardener.

‘I could tell you lots of stories, but I
know your reputation and I know that you are clever enough to find things out for yourself.
Don't be taken in by my son-in-law, that's my only piece of advice. He has
hoodwinked everyone. He is polite, more so than anyone you've ever met. He's
sickeningly polite. But one day his head will roll—'

‘I'm sorry, madame—'

‘Stop saying sorry, inspector. I had a
granddaughter, just one, the daughter of this wretched Malik. My son-in-law is called Malik,
that too you should know. Charles Malik … My granddaughter, Monita, would have turned
eighteen next week—'

‘You mean she's dead?'