Maigret has scruples, p.12
Maigret Has Scruples, page 12
He picked Janin out at random.
‘Will you stay for a minute in my office with these ladies?’
And, turning towards them:
‘Sit down, please. I suppose you haven’t had any coffee?’
Jenny did not reply. Madame Marton shook her head.
Ostentatiously, Maigret went to the door, locked it from the inside, and put the key in his pocket.
‘You’d be well advised to sit down,’ he repeated, ‘because you’ll be here for some time.’
He went into the other office.
‘Baron! Telephone the Brasserie Dauphine, will you. Tell them to send up a big pot of coffee. Black coffee… Three cups and some croissants… ’
After which, he dropped into a chair near the window, picked up another telephone, and asked to be put through to the Public Prosecutor. The latter could only just have got up and was doubtless busy dressing or having his breakfast. However, it was not a servant who answered, but he himself.
‘Maigret here, sir. Marton is dead… The man I spoke to you about yesterday morning… No, I’m at the Quai des Orfèvres… I’ve left an inspector at the Avenue de Châtillon — Lapointe… Dr Paul has been notified… Criminal Records too, yes… I don’t know… I’ve got the two women in my office… ’
He spoke in a low voice, although the communicating door between the two rooms was shut.
‘I don’t think I can go over there this morning… I’m going to send another inspector to relieve Lapointe… ’
He wore a rather guilty expression. When the conversation was over, he looked at his watch, and decided to wait for Janvier, who would not be long now and who was familiar with the case, to send him to the scene of the crime.
After passing his hand over his cheeks, he asked the third inspector, Bonfils, who was busy writing his report on the night’s minor incidents:
‘Will you go to my cupboard and get my razor, shaving-brush, and towel?’
He preferred not to do this himself in front of the two women. With his shaving-kit in his hand, he went down the corridor and into the cloakroom, where he took his jacket off and shaved. He took his time over it, as if to put off the moment when he would have to do what remained to be done. After washing his face in cold water, he rejoined his colleagues and, in addition, the waiter from the Brasserie Dauphine, who did not know where to put his tray.
‘In my office… This way… ’
He picked up the telephone again and this time it was to his wife that he spoke.
‘I’m going to have a busy morning. I don’t know yet whether I’ll be able to come home for lunch.’
Because of his tired voice, she anxiously asked:
‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’
What could he say in reply?
‘Don’t worry. I’m going to have my breakfast.’
Finally he gave instructions to Bonfils:
‘When Janvier arrives, tell him to come and see me.’
He went into his office, which the waiter was just leaving, and released Janin. Then, still as if he were acting in slow motion, or as if he were in a dream, he poured coffee into the three cups.
‘Sugar?’ he asked, addressing Gisèle Marton first.
‘Two lumps.’
He handed her her cup, and the plate of croissants, but she gave a sign that she did not want anything to eat.
‘Sugar?’
The sister-in-law shook her head. She did not eat anything either, and he was the only one to nibble, without any appetite, at a croissant that was still warm.
The day had dawned, but it was not bright enough yet to turn out the lights. Twice, Jenny had opened her mouth to ask a question and both times a look from the chief-inspector had robbed her of any desire to speak.
The moment had come. Maigret, who had poured himself out a second cup of coffee, was slowly filling a pipe chosen from among those scattered about on his desk.
Standing up, he looked at each of the women in turn.
‘I think I’ll begin with you,’ he murmured, stopping at Madame Marton.
Jenny gave a slight start, once again, tried to say something.
‘As for you, I’d like you to wait in another room with one of my inspectors.’
He called Janin back.
‘You’ll take this lady into the green office and you’ll stay with her until I call you.’
This was not the first time this had happened. They were used to it.
‘Right, Chief.’
‘Janvier still isn’t there?’
‘I think I heard his voice in the corridor.’
‘Tell him to come here straight away.’
Janin went off with the sister-in-law. A moment later, Janvier came in, and stopped short in surprise at the sight of Madame Marton sitting in a chair, a cup of coffee in her hand.
‘Marton is dead,’ said Maigret. ‘Lapointe is on the spot. He’s spent the night outside and you’d do well to go and relieve him.’
‘No instructions, Chief?’
‘Lapointe will pass them on to you. If you take a car, you’ll still get there before the Parquet.’
‘You won’t be coming?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Both doors were finally shut and there was nobody left in the office but Maigret and Madame Marton. It seemed as if she had been waiting for this particular moment and, while he remained silent in front of her, drawing on his pipe, she slowly came back to life, emerging little by little from her torpor, or rather from her rigidity.
It was strange to see her face becoming human once more, her complexion colouring slightly, her eyes expressing something other than expectation.
‘You think I’ve poisoned him, don’t you?’
He took his time. It was not the first time that he had refrained, as he had done that morning, from asking questions as soon as a crime was discovered. It is often preferable not to have people speaking too soon, whether they are suspects or witnesses, for if, right at the beginning, they have made a statement, they often stick to it later for fear of being accused of lying.
He had deliberately given them, both of them, time to think, time to decide on their attitude and the statements they would make.
‘I don’t think anything,’ he murmured at last. ‘You will have noticed that I haven’t called in the stenographer. I shan’t take any notes of what you say to me. Just tell me what happened.’
He knew that his composure, the simple way in which he spoke to her, puzzled her.
‘Begin, for example, with yesterday evening.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything.’
It was embarrassing. She wondered where to begin her story and in spite of everything he gave her a little help.
‘You came home… ’
‘As I do every night, of course.’
‘At what time?’
‘Eight o’clock. After closing the shop, I had an apéritif in a bar in the rue Castiglione.’
‘With Monsieur Harris?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then?’
‘My husband had come home before me. My sister was in too. We sat down at table.’
‘It was your sister who’d cooked the dinner?’
‘As usual.’
‘You eat downstairs, in the living-room which serves your husband as a workshop and a bedroom at the same time?’
‘Several months ago, he decided to sleep there.’
‘How many months ago?’
She did some mental arithmetic. Her lips moved.
‘Eight months,’ she said in the end.
‘What did you eat?’
‘First of all, soup… The same as the day before… Jenny always makes enough soup for two days — Then ham and salad, cheese and pears… ’
‘Coffee?’
‘We never drink coffee in the evening.’
‘You didn’t notice anything unusual?’
She hesitated, looking him straight in the eye.
‘That depends on what you call unusual. I don’t quite know what to tell you, because I suspect that there are certain things you know better than I do. The proof of that is that there was an inspector at the door. Before sitting down to dinner, I went upstairs to take my coat off and get into slippers. That was how I found out that my sister had been out and that she’d only just got back.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Because I opened the door of her room and saw some shoes of hers that were still wet. Her coat was damp too.’
‘Why did you go into her room?’
‘Just to make sure that she’d been out.’
‘Why?’
Still not averting her eyes, she replied:
‘So as to know.’
‘Jenny cleared the table?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s always she who clears away?’
‘She insists on paying her share by doing the housework.’
‘She does the washing-up too?’
‘Sometimes my husband gives her a hand.’
‘Not you?’
‘No.’
‘Go on.’
‘She made some herbal tea, as she did every evening. It was she who got us into the habit of drinking herbal tea, at night.’
‘Lime-blossom? Camomile?’
‘No. Chinese anise. My sister has a sluggish liver. Since she came back from the States, she’s had a cup of Chinese anise every night, and my husband wanted to try it, and then I copied him. You know how it is… ’
‘She brought in the cups on a tray?’
‘Yes.’
‘With the teapot?’
‘No. She filled the cups in the kitchen and then came and put the tray on the table.’
‘What was your husband doing just then?’
‘He was trying to get a station on the radio.’
‘So that, if I remember the room correctly, he had his back to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘I’d just opened a magazine.’
‘Near the table?’
‘Yes.’
‘And your sister?’
‘She went back to the kitchen to start the washing-up. I know what you’re getting at, but I’ll tell you the truth all the same. I didn’t put anything in the cups, either in my husband’s or in the others. I just took a precaution which I’ve been taking for some time whenever possible.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Unobtrusively turning the tray so that the cup which is meant for me becomes my husband’s or my sister’s.’
‘And, last night, your cup became…?’
‘My husband’s.’
He drank it?’
‘Yes. He picked it up and then put it on the radio… ’
‘You didn’t at any moment leave the room? There couldn’t have been another substitution?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that for nearly two hours.’
‘And what conclusion have you reached?’
‘Before my sister brought the tray in, my husband went to the kitchen. Jenny will probably deny it, but it’s the truth.’
‘What did he go there for?’
‘Ostensibly to see whether his spectacles were there. He wears spectacles for reading. He needs them too to see the control panel of the radio. From the studio, you can hear everything that is said in the kitchen. He didn’t speak to my sister, came back almost immediately, and found his spectacles by the electric train.’
‘It was because of this visit to the kitchen that you changed the cups round?’
‘Possibly. Not necessarily. As I’ve just told you, I often did it.’
‘Because you were afraid of his poisoning you?’
She looked at him without answering.
‘What happened next?’
‘Nothing different from any other evening. My sister came and drank her tea and went back to the kitchen. Xavier listened to a programme on the radio while he repaired a little electric motor he meant to use for something or other.’
‘And you went on reading?’
‘For an hour or two. It was about ten o’clock when I went upstairs.’
‘You went first?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was your sister doing then?’
‘She was making my husband’s bed.’
‘You were in the habit of leaving them alone together?’
‘Why not? What difference could it make?’
‘You think they took the opportunity to kiss each other?’
‘If they did, it’s all the same to me.’
‘Have you any reason to believe that your husband was your sister’s lover?’
‘I don’t know if they were lovers. I doubt it. He behaved like a boy of seventeen with her.’
‘Why did you say “I doubt it” just now?’
She did not reply immediately. Maigret’s gaze was insistent. Finally she answered his question with another question.
‘Why do you think we haven’t any children?’
‘Because you didn’t want any.’
‘That’s what he told you, isn’t it? And it’s probably what he told his colleagues. A man doesn’t like to admit that he’s impotent.’
‘That was the case, was it?’
She nodded, not without a certain weariness.
‘Look here, Chief-Inspector, there are still a lot of things you don’t know. Xavier gave you his version of our life. When I came to see you, I didn’t bother to go into details. Things happened last night which I don’t understand and I know that, when I tell you about them, you won’t believe me.’
He did not hurry her. He wanted, on the contrary, to give her plenty of time to speak, and even to weigh her words.
‘I heard the doctor, this morning, saying that Xavier had been poisoned. That may be true. But so had I.’
He could not help giving a start, and looking at her more closely.
‘You had been poisoned?’
He remembered something which made him feel inclined to believe her: the stains, already dry, on the porcelain of the lavatory and on the tiling.
‘I woke up about the middle of the night with horrible burning pains in the stomach. When I got up, I was surprised to feel light-headed and weak in the legs. I made a dash for the bathroom and I stuck two fingers into my mouth to make myself sick. I’m sorry if this isn’t very pleasant. It was like fire, with an after-taste that I would recognize among a thousand others.’
‘Did you call your sister, or your husband?’
‘No. They may have heard me, because I pulled the chain several times. Twice, I washed my stomach out, and both times I brought up a liquid which left the same aftertaste.’
‘You didn’t think of calling a doctor?’
‘What for? Seeing that I’d tackled it in time… ’
‘You went back to bed?’
‘Yes.’
‘You weren’t tempted to go downstairs?’
‘I just listened. I heard Xavier tossing about in his bed as if he were sleeping badly.’
‘You realize that it was his cup you drank?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You still maintain that you changed the cups round on the tray?’
‘Yes.’
‘And, afterwards, you didn’t let the tray out of your sight? Your husband, or your sister, couldn’t have effected another substitution?’
‘My sister was in the kitchen.’
‘So your husband must have taken the cup that was meant for you?’
‘It looks like it.’
‘Which amounts to saying that it was your sister who tried to poison your husband?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Or else, seeing that your husband was poisoned as well, that she tried to poison both of you?’
She said again:
‘I don’t know.’
They looked at each other for a long time. In the end, it was Maigret who broke contact and went and planted himself in front of the window where, looking at the Seine flowing by in the rain, he filled another pipe.
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^
Pressing his forehead against the cold window-pane, as he used to do when he was a child, and keeping it there until the skin turned white and he felt pins and needles in his head, Maigret, without realizing it, followed the movements of two workmen who, on the other side of the Seine, were working on some scaffolding.
When he turned round, his face wore an expression of resignation and, making for his desk and sitting down at it again, he said, taking care not to look at Gisèle Marton:
‘Have you anything else to tell me?’
She did not hesitate for long and, when she spoke, he could not help looking up, for in calm, measured tones, without either defiance or despondency, she said:
‘I saw Xavier die.’
Did she know what sort of impression she made on the chief-inspector? Did she realize that she inspired in him an involuntary, almost professional admiration? He could not remember seeing, in this office where so many people had appeared in turn, a being possessed of such lucidity and sang-froid. He could not remember either anybody so detached.
It was impossible to detect in her the slightest human vibration. There was not a single flaw in her make-up.
With his elbows on his blotting-pad, he sighed:
‘Fire away.’
‘I had gone back to bed and I was finding it hard to get to sleep again. I was trying to understand, without any success, what had happened. I no longer had any clear idea of the passage of time. You know how it is. You get the impression of following a continuous line of thought, but, in reality, there are gaps. I must have dozed off several times. Once or twice, I seemed to hear a noise downstairs, the noise my husband made turning over suddenly in his bed. At least that’s what I thought.
‘Once, I’m sure, I caught the sound of a groan and I said to myself that he was having nightmares. It wasn’t the first time he’d talked and struggled in his sleep. He’d told me that, as a boy, he used to walk in his sleep, and he did that several times with me.’
She continued to choose her words carefully, without any more emotion than if she had been telling a story.
