The Flemish House (13 page)

At the Café des Mariniers, they
didn't yet know whether a tug whose arrival they were expecting would agree to
leave the same day with a train of boats, so the bargemen were there all day,
occasionally popping outside to look at the swollen river.

It was nearly midday when Gérard
Piedboeuf came out of his house, in his Sunday suit, wearing yellow shoes, a
light-coloured felt hat and gloves. He passed very close by Maigret. His first
thought was not to talk to him, not even to greet him.

But he couldn't resist his desire
to show off, or reveal the depths of his thoughts.

‘I bother you, don't I? How
you must hate me!'

He had circles under his eyes. Since his
angry outburst in the Café de la Mairie, he had been living in a state of
anxiety.

Maigret shrugged and turned his back on
him. And he saw the midwife putting the child in a pram and pushing it towards the
centre of town.

There was no sign of Machère. It was
only shortly before one o'clock that Maigret met him, at the Café de la
Mairie, in fact. Gérard was at another table, with his two companions and his friend
from the other evening.

As for Machère, he was surrounded by
three men whom the inspector thought he had seen before.

‘The deputy mayor … The chief
inspector of police … His secretary …' said Machère by way of
introduction.

They were all in their Sunday suits and
drinking pastis. Judging by the saucers on the table, they had had three drinks
each. Machère seemed unusually confident.

‘I was telling these gentlemen
that the investigation is nearly over … Now it depends mostly on the Belgian police
… I'm surprised I haven't yet had a telegram from Brussels telling me
that the bargeman has been arrested …'

‘They don't deliver
telegrams on Sundays after eleven o'clock in the morning!' said the
deputy mayor. ‘Unless you go to the post office in person … What can we get
you, Detective Chief Inspector? Did you know that people have been talking about you
a lot around here?'

‘I'm delighted!'

‘I mean they've been saying
bad things. They see your attitude as …'

‘A beer, please! Make it a cold
one!'

‘You drink beer at this time of
day?'

Marguerite was passing along the street,
and you could tell by her bearing that she was the elegant young woman of the town
and that she knew all eyes were on her.

‘What's annoying is that
these sex crimes … Heavens! There haven't been any in Givet for ten years …
Last time, it was a Polish workman who …'

‘You'll forgive me,
gentlemen …'

And Maigret hurried outside and in the
main street he met Anna Peeters and her brother, who were walking with their heads
held high, as if to defy suspicion.

‘I would like to come and see you
this afternoon, as I said I would yesterday …'

‘At about what time?'

‘Half past three … Does that
suit?'

And he came back all alone, looking
grumpy, to his hotel, where he ate at an isolated table.

‘Get me Paris on the
phone.'

‘It doesn't work after
eleven o'clock on Sundays.'

‘Too bad!'

As he had his lunch, he read a little
local newspaper, and a headline amused him:

The Mystery of Givet Deepens

For him, there was no mystery.

‘Bring me some beans!' he
called to the waiter.

Of all the little Sunday family rituals,
the one that struck Maigret the most was their carrying old Peeters' wicker
armchair from the kitchen to the drawing room.

In the week, the place of the armchair,
and consequently of the old man, was beside the stove. Even if they were receiving
people in the dining room, old Peeters didn't appear.

But there was a Sunday place, near the
window overlooking the courtyard. The meerschaum pipe with its long cherry-wood stem
was on the window-sill, near a jar of tobacco.

In a smaller armchair, a leather one, in
front of the coal-nut fire, Dr Van de Weert sat with his chubby legs crossed.

As he read the report from the Belgian
legal doctor, he constantly nodded, with approval, with amazement, making tiny
gestures to himself.

At last he held out the report to
Maigret. Marguerite, who was between them, tried to take it.

‘No! Not you …' Van de Weert
broke in.

‘I'm sure you'll be
more interested in this!' Maigret said, passing the pages to Joseph
Peeters.

They were all around the table: Joseph
and Marguerite, Anna and her mother, who got up every now and again to check on the
coffee.

In the Belgian way, the doctor was
drinking Burgundy and smoking a cigar, whose lit end he constantly waved about under
his chin.

On the kitchen table, Maigret had seen
half a dozen tarts.

‘A good report, obviously … For
example, it doesn't say whether … whether …'

He looked at his daughter with
embarrassment.

‘You understand what I mean … it
doesn't say whether …'

‘Whether there was a rape!'
Maigret said abruptly.

And he nearly burst out laughing at the
sight of the scandalized face of the doctor, who didn't imagine that such
words could be uttered.

‘It would have been interesting to
know, because in similar cases … For example, in 1911 …'

He went on talking, telling, with
respectable euphemisms, the story of some affair or other. But Maigret wasn't
listening. He was watching Joseph Peeters read the document.

Now in the bluntest terms it gave a
minute description of the corpse of Germaine Piedboeuf when it was pulled from the
Meuse.

Joseph was pale. He had pinched
nostrils, something he had in common with his sister Maria.

It looked as if he was about to stop
reading and give the papers to Maigret. But it didn't happen. He carried on to
the end. As he turned the page, Anna, who had been leaning over his shoulder, halted
him:

‘Wait …'

She had another three lines to read. Then
together they both started the following page, which began with:

… the wound in the cranium was
such that it has been impossible to find the slightest trace of brain …

‘Would you take your glass,
inspector? I'm about to lay the table …'

And Madame Peeters set down the ashtray,
the cigars and the bottle of genever on the mantelpiece, and spread a
hand-embroidered cloth on the table.

Her children were still reading.
Marguerite looked at them enviously. As for the doctor, he had noticed that no one
was listening to him and was smoking in silence.

At the end of the second page, Joseph
Peeters was pale, with a dark hollow on each side of his nose and perspiration on
his temples. He forgot to turn the page and Anna had to do it, before reading on to
the end alone.

Marguerite took the opportunity to get
up and touch the young man's shoulder.

‘Poor Joseph! You shouldn't
have … Believe me. Go and get a breath of fresh air …'

Maigret saw an opportunity.

‘That's an idea! I need to
stretch my legs too …'

A little later they were both on the
quay, bare-headed. It had stopped raining. A few anglers were making use of the
tiniest free spaces between the barges. From the other side of the bridge there came
the constant noise of a cinema.

Nervously, Peeters lit a cigarette, gazing
vacantly at the receding surface of the water.

‘It does something to you,
doesn't it? … Forgive my question … Do you still expect to marry
Marguerite?'

The silence lasted for a long time.
Joseph avoided turning towards Maigret, who could only see his profile. At last he
looked at the shop door, decorated with transparent advertisements, then the bridge,
then the Meuse again.

‘I don't know …'

‘But you loved her …'

‘Why did you make me read that
report?'

And he ran his hand over his forehead.
When he took it back it was wet, in spite of the cold air.

‘Was Germaine much less
pretty?'

‘Be quiet … I don't know …
I've heard it said so often that Marguerite is beautiful, that she's
fine, intelligent, well brought-up …'

‘And now?'

‘I don't know …'

He didn't want to speak. He only
articulated the words reluctantly, because he couldn't fall completely silent.
He had torn the paper of his cigarette.

‘Has she agreed to get married, in
spite of your son?'

‘She wants to adopt
him.'

His features didn't move. But he
seemed ill with disgust, or with weariness. He observed Maigret from the corner of
his eye, afraid that he might start asking him new questions.

‘Everyone seems to think
there's a wedding on the way. Is Marguerite your lover?'

He muttered, in a very low voice:

‘No.'

‘Didn't she want
to?'

‘It wasn't her, it was me …
I didn't even think about it … You can't possibly understand
…'

And suddenly, in a furious voice:

‘I have to marry her! I have to,
and that's all there is to it!'

The two men still weren't looking
at each other. Maigret, who didn't have his overcoat with him, started to feel
the cold.

At that moment the door to the shop
opened. There was the sound of the bell, familiar to Maigret. Then
Marguerite's voice, too sweet, too caressing.

‘Joseph! What are you
doing?'

Peeters' eyes met Maigret's.
It was almost as if he was saying, ‘That's all there is to
it!'

While Marguerite went on:

‘You're going to catch cold
… Everyone's sitting at the table … What's wrong? You're pale
…'

A pause, to look at the corner of the
little street where, invisible from the grocery, the Piedboeufs' house
stood.

Anna sliced the tarts.

Madame Peeters didn't speak much,
as if she had realized her inferiority. On the other hand, as soon as one of her
children spoke, she showed her approval by smiling or nodding her head.

‘You'll forgive my
indiscretion, inspector … I may be about to say something stupid …'

And she set down a big slice of rice tart
on Maigret's plate.

‘I … I heard they'd found
some things on board the
Étoile Polaire
, and that the bargeman was on the
run … He came here a few times … I had to throw him out, first because he wanted
everything on credit, then because he was drunk from dawn till dusk … But
that's not what I wanted to say … If he's on the run, it's because
he's guilty … And in that case the investigation's over, isn't
it?'

Anna ate indifferently, without looking
at Maigret. Marguerite said to Joseph:

‘A small piece … Please! Do it for
me …'

And Maigret, with his mouth full, spoke
to Madame Peeters:

‘I could tell you if I was in
charge of the inquiry, which isn't the case … Don't forget that
it's your daughter who asked me to come here to try and prove your innocence
…'

Van de Weert was restless in his chair,
like a man who wants to speak and who isn't allowed to get a word in
edgeways.

‘But in the end …'

‘Inspector Machère remains master
of the situation.'

‘But in the end, detective chief
inspector, there is a hierarchy … He's just an inspector and you are
…'

‘Here I'm nothing … Look! If
I were to question one of you, you would have the right not to reply. I went on
board the barge because the bargeman wanted me to … It was chance that led me to
discover the
crime weapon, as well as the little coat that the
victim wore …'

‘But …'

‘But nothing! We're going to
try to arrest the man. It may even have happened by now! Except that he's
capable of defending himself. For example, he might say that he found that piece of
clothing and that hammer, and that he kept them without knowing what they
represented … He might also say that he fled because he was frightened. He's
already had some run-ins with the law. He knows it'll be harder for him to be
believed than it will for someone else …'

‘That doesn't hold
water!'

‘An accusation hardly ever holds
water, any more than the defence. Other people might be accused … Do you know what I
found out this afternoon? That Gérard, Germaine's brother, hasn't known
for a month how he'll get out of the fix he finds himself in … He has debts
everywhere … Worse than that! He was persuaded to take money from the till and,
until the sum has been paid back, half his wages are being held back every month
…'