Maigret: The Shadow in the Courtyard (1987) (14 page)

“There’s a postscript.” the Inspector muttered to himself.

This postscript was preceded by a note:

Strictly confidential
.

We have reason to believe that Madame Couchet, née Dormoy, is also prepared to contest the will. Furthermore, we have made inquiries concerning the third legatee, Nine Moinard. This person is a woman of questionable respectability, who has hitherto taken no steps to claim her rights. Seeing that she is at present without means, it appears to us that the most expedient plan is to offer her some sum by way of compensation. For our part, we would estimate such a sum at twenty thousand francs, which is likely to attract a person in Mademoiselle Moinard’s position. We await your decision on this matter
.

Maigret’s pipe had gone out. Slowly, he refolded the paper and slipped it into his wallet.

Around him, utter silence reigned. Martin was holding his breath. His wife, lying on the bed with her fixed stare, looked as if she were already dead.

“Two million five hundred thousand francs…” muttered the Inspector. “Less the twenty thousand to be given Nine so that she should prove accommodating…It’s true that Madame Couchet will probably pay half of that…”

He was convinced that a smile of triumph, barely perceptible and yet eloquent, passed over the woman’s lips.

“It’s quite a sum…Tell me, Martin…”

The latter started, tried to stand on the defensive.

“How much do you expect to get? I’m not referring to money…I’m talking about your sentence…Robbery…Murder…Perhaps they’ll prove premeditation…What’s your guess? No question of acquittal, of course, since it’s not a crime of passion…Oh, if only your wife had renewed relations with her former husband…But that wasn’t the case…A question of money, pure and simple…Ten years? Twenty years? D’you want my opinion?”

“Notice that one can never forecast the average judge’s decision…”

“All the same, there are precedents…Well, one may say that as a general rule, while they’re indulgent about crimes of passion, they show the utmost severity when money’s the motive…”

He seemed to be talking for the sake of talking, to gain time.

“It’s quite understandable. They are middle–class people themselves, businessmen…They think they’ve got nothing to fear as regards mistresses: either they’ve got none, or they’re sure of them…But they’ve got everything to fear from thieves…Twenty years? Well, no…I’d be more inclined to say the death penalty…”

Martin had stopped moving now. He looked even more ghastly than his wife. He was forced to cling to the doorpost for support.

“Only Madame Martin will be a rich woman…She’s reacbed an age when one knows how to enjoy life and wealth…”

He went closer to the window.

“Except that this window…This is the stumbling-block. They won’t fail to point out that from here, everything could have been seen…Everything, you hear…And that’s a serious matter…Because it might involve the question of complicity…Now in the Code there’s a small item that debars the murderer, even if he’s acquitted, from inheriting from his victim…Not only the murderer…His accomplices…You see why this window’s so important…”

It was no longer merely silence that reigned around him. It was something more absolute, more disturbing, almost unreal: a total absence of life.

And then a sudden question:

“Tell me, Martin. What did you do with the gun?”

Something living stirred in the passage: old Mathilde, evidently, with her moon face, her flabby stomach under a check apron.

The shrill voice of the concierge, in the courtyard:

“Madame Martin…It’s from Dufayel’s…” Maigret sat down in an easy chair which groaned, but did not collapse immediately.

The Drawing on the Wall

“A
nswer me…That gun…”

He followed Martin’s gaze and noticed that Madame Martin, whose eyes were still fixed on the ceiling, was moving her fingers against the wall.

Poor Martin was making incredible efforts to understand what she was trying to tell him. He was growing impatient. He could see that Maigret was waiting.

“I…”

What could be the meaning of that square, or trapezium, that she was tracing with her skinny finger?

“Well?”

At that moment, Maigret felt really sorry for him. It must have been a terrible minute. Martin was gasping with impatience.

“I threw it into the Seine…”

The die was cast. As the Inspector drew the revolver from his pocket and laid it on the table, Madame Martin sat bolt upright in her bed, looking like a fury.

“Well,
I
eventually found it in the dustbin…” said Maigret.

And then the hoarse voice of the sick woman:

“There…D’you understand now? Are you pleased with yourself? You’ve missed your chance, once again, as you’ve missed all your chances…As if you’d done it on purpose, for fear of going to prison…But you’ll go to prison all the same…For the robbery was
your
job…The three hundred and sixty notes that Monsieur threw into the Seine…”

She was terrifying. It was clear that she had held herself back too long. The reaction was savage. And her excitement was so intense that sometimes several words rose to her lips at the same time, and she uttered the syllables confusedly…

Martin hung his head. His part was played. His wife’s accusation was true, he had failed lamentably.

“…Monsieur takes it into his head to be a thief, but he leaves his glove on the table…”

All Madame Martin’s grievances were going to pour forth, pell-mell.

Behind him, Maigret heard the meek voice of the man in the buff overcoat.

“For months she’d been showing me the office through the window, and Couchet going off to the toilet…And she blamed me for making her life a misery, and for being incapable of providing for a wife…I went down there…”

“Did you tell her you were going?”

“No. But she knew quite well I was. She was at the window…”

“And you saw, from a distance, that your husband had left his glove behind, Madame Martin?”

“As if he’d left his visiting card. He might have done it on purpose to infuriate me…”

“You took your revolver and you went down there…Couchet came in while you were in the office…He thought it was you who had robbed him…”

“He wanted to have me arrested. Yes, indeed that’s what he wanted to do. As if it wasn’t thanks to me that he’d grown rich…Who was it that looked after him in the early days, when he barely made enough to live on dry bread? And men are all the same…He even reproached me for living in the house where he had his office…He accused me of sharing in the money he gave my son…”

“And you fired?”

“He’d already lifted the telephone to call the police.”

“You went along to the dustbins. Under pretext of looking for a lost spoon you buried the revolver in the rubbish…Who did you meet then? ”

She spat out:

“The old fool from the first floor…”

“Nobody else? I thought your son had come…He had no more money…”

“And so what? ”

“He’d not come to see you, but his father, isn’t that so? Only you couldn’t let him go into the office, where he would have discovered the body…You were in the courtyard, both of you…What did you tell Roger?”

“To go away…You cannot understand a mother’s feelings…”

“And he went off…Your husband came back…Nothing was said…Am I right? Martin was thinking about the notes he had finally thrown into the Seine, since at heart the poor fellow’s not a bad sort…”

“The poor fellow’s not a bad sort.” repeated Madame Martin with unexpected fury. “Ha. Ha…And what about me? Me, who’ve always been unlucky…”

“Martin doesn’t know who’s done the murder…He goes to bed. A whole day goes by without anything being said…But, the following night, you get up to hunt through the clothes he’s taken off…You look in vain for the notes…He watches you. You question him. And then comes the storm of rage that old Mathilde overheard from behind the door…You’ve committed a murder for nothing. That idiot Martin has thrown away the notes…A whole fortune in the Seine, just for lack of guts…It makes you ill…You become feverish…While Martin, not knowing that you were the murderer, goes off to tell the news to Roger…”

“And Roger understands. He’d seen you in the courtyard…You’d prevented him from going further…He knows you well…”

“He believes I suspect him…He imagines he’s going to be arrested, accused…And he cannot defend himself without accusing his mother…”

“He wasn’t a very attractive young man, maybe…But there’s surely some excuse for his way of life…He’s sick of it all…sick of the women he goes to bed with, of drugs, of his wasted life in Montmartre and, on top of everything, of this family melodrama, of which he alone can guess all the motives…”

“He jumps out of the window.”

Martin was leaning against the wall, his face in his folded arms. But his wife was staring fixedly at the Inspector, as if she were just waiting for the moment to interrupt his story and attack in her turn.

Then Maigret showed the letter from the two lawyers. “On my last visit, Martin was so frightened that he was about to confess his theft…But you were there…He could see you through the crack of the door…You made violent signs and he held his tongue… Wasn’t that what finally opened his eyes? He questions you…Yes, you killed Couchet. You shout it in his face. You killed Couchet because of him, to cover up his mistake, because of that glove left on Couchet’s desk. And because you killed him, you won’t inherit, in spite of the will…Oh, if only Martin were a man… He must go abroad…He’ll be thought guilty…The police won’t bother you and you’ll go and join him, with Couchet’s millions… Poor old Martin…”

And Maigret almost crushed the little fellow with a tremendous pat on the shoulder. He had kept his voice low. He let his words fall without stress.

“To have done so much for the sake of that money. Couchet’s death…Roger throwing himself out of the window…and to realize at the last minute that one’s not going to get it…You insisted on preparing Martin’s luggage yourself…Neatly packed suitcases…Enough linen for several months…”

“Stop.” implored Martin.

The madwoman howled. Maigret opened the door suddenly and old Mathilde nearly fell forward.

She fled, frightened by the Inspector’s tone, and for the first time she shut her door properly, turning the key in the lock.

Maigret cast a last glance into the room. Martin was too terrified to move. His wife, sitting up in bed, thin, her shoulder-blades protruding under her nightgown, followed the detective with her eyes.

She had suddenly become so grave, so calm, that they wondered anxiously what she was planning.

Maigret remembered certain glances during the scene that had just taken place, the way her lips had twitched. And just the same moment as Martin, he realized intuitively what was happening.

They could do nothing about it. It took place outside of them, like a bad dream.

Madame Martin was very, very thin. And her features became even more anguished. What was she looking at, in places where there was nothing but the ordinary objects of her bedroom?

What was she following so attentively through the room?

Her brow grew furrowed. Her temples were throbbing. Martin cried out:

“I’m frightened.”

Nothing had changed in the flat. A lorry made its way into the courtyard and the shrill voice of the concierge could be heard.

It seemed as if Madame Martin was making a tremendous effort, all alone, to climb an inaccessible mountain. Twice she gestured vaguely with her hand as though brushing away something from her face. At last she gulped, and then smiled like someone who has reached the goal:

“You’ll all end by coming to ask me for a little money…I shall tell my lawyer not to give you any…”

Martin shook from head to foot. He understood that this was no passing delirium brought on by fever.

She had definitely gone out of her mind.

“You can’t blame her. She’s never been quite like other people, has she?” he moaned.

He was waiting for the Inspector to agree with him.

“Poor old Martin…”

Martin was weeping. He had taken hold of his wife’s hand and was rubbing his face against it. She repulsed him. She was wearing a superior, scornful smile.

“Not more than five francs at a time…I’ve suffered enough in my time from…”

“I’ll go and telephone St Anne’s Hospital…” said Maigret.

“D’you think so? Must…must she be shut up?”

Force of habit? Martin was panicking at the thought of leaving his home, that atmosphere of daily nagging and bickering, that sordid life, that woman who, for the last time, was trying to think but who lay back, discouraged and defeated, heaving a great sigh and mumbling:

“Bring me the key…”

A few minutes later Maigret was crossing the crowded streets like a stranger. He had an appalling headache, a thing that rarely happened to him, and he went into a chemist’s shop to swallow an aspirin.

He saw nothing of what was going on around him. The noises in the street were intermingled with others, with voices particularly, that went on echoing in his head.

One picture haunted him more than the rest: Madame Martin getting up, picking her husband’s clothes off the floor, and hunting for the money. And Martin watching her from his bed.

The woman’s questioning look:

“
I threw them into the Seine
…”

It was from that moment that something had cracked. Or rather, she had always been slightly unhinged. Even when she was living in the confectioner’s shop at Meaux.

Only then it was not noticeable. She was a girl, and almost a pretty one. Nobody worried if her lips were too thin…

And Couchet married her.

“What would become of me if anything happened to you?”

Maigret had to wait, to cross the Boulevard Beaumarchais. For no reason, he thought of Nine.

“She’ll get nothing. Not a penny…” he murmured below his breath. “The will is sure to be declared invalid. And it’s Madame Couchet,
née
Dormoy…”

The Colonel had probably started proceedings. That was only natural. Madame Couchet would get it all. All those millions…