Maigret has scruples, p.4
Maigret Has Scruples, page 4
‘I must apologize for bothering you like this… ’
She took off her right glove, which was made of soft suède, and crossed her legs.
‘I suppose you can guess why I’m here?’
It was she who was attacking and Maigret did not like that. Accordingly he refrained from answering.
‘Doubtless you too are going to talk to me about professional secrecy… ’
He noticed particularly the you too. Did that mean that she had been to see Dr Steiner?
It was not only by her attitude that Madame Marton surprised him.
The husband, it was true, was not at all bad-looking, and he presumably made a decent living. Madame Marton belonged none the less to a different class. Her elegance had nothing forced, nothing vulgar about it. Nor had her self-assurance.
Already, in the waiting-room, he had noticed the perfect cut of her shoes and the richness of her handbag. Her gloves were not of inferior quality, nor was the rest of what she was wearing. Nothing aggressive, nothing obvious. No showiness. Everything she was wearing had come from excellent shops.
She too looked about forty, that special forty peculiar to Parisian women who take care of their appearance and, in her voice as in her behaviour, she gave the impression of someone who is at ease everywhere and under all circumstances.
Was there really a flaw? He thought he could sense one, a very small discordant note, but he was incapable of putting his finger on it. It was an impression rather than something he had observed.
‘I think, Chief-Inspector, that it would save time if I spoke frankly to you. In any case it would be presumptuous to try any artful tricks with a man like you.’
He remained impassive, but this impassivity did not worry her, or else she had marvellous self-control.
‘I know that my husband came to see you this morning.’
He finally opened his mouth, hoping to startle her.
‘Did he tell you so?’ he asked.
‘No. I saw him entering this building and I realized that it was you he had come to see. He takes a passionate interest in all your cases. For years he has spoken enthusiastically about you on every possible occasion.’
‘You mean to say that you followed your husband?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted simply.
There was a short and rather embarrassed silence.
‘Does that surprise you, after seeing and hearing him?’
‘Do you also know what he said to me?’
‘I can easily guess. We’ve been married now for twelve years and I know Xavier well. He’s the most honest, the most courageous, the most likeable person imaginable. You probably know that he never knew his parents and that he was brought up by the Board of Guardians?’
He gave a slight nod of the head.
‘He was brought up on a farm in Sologne, where they snatched out of his hands and burnt any books that he managed to get hold of. He has none the less arrived where he is now and, in my opinion, he’s a long way from having the job he deserves. For my part, I’m constantly surprised by the extent of his knowledge. He has read everything. He knows about everything. And, of course, people take advantage of him. He kills himself over his work. Six months before Christmas he’s already getting ready for the festive season, and the season, for him, is exhausting.’
She had opened her handbag, and was hesitating whether to take out a silver cigarette-case.
‘You may smoke,’ he said.
‘Thank you. It’s a bad habit of mine. I smoke far too much. I hope my presence isn’t preventing you from lighting your pipe?’
He could make out some fine crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyelids, but, instead of making her look older, this lent her an added charm. Her grey-blue eyes had the gentle sparkle that comes from short sight.
‘We must seem ridiculous to you, the two of us, I mean my husband, and I, coming here in turn as if we were coming to confession. It’s rather like that, when you come to think of it. For months, I’ve been concerned about my husband. He’s over-worked and worried, with periods of utter despondency during which he doesn’t say a word to me.’
Maigret would have liked Pardon to be present, for perhaps the doctor would have been able to make something out of this.
‘Already in October… yes, at the beginning of October… I told him that he was getting neurotic and that he ought to go and see a doctor… ’
‘It was you who mentioned neurosis to him?’
‘Yes. Shouldn’t I have done so?’
‘Go on.’
‘I watched him a great deal. He began by complaining about one of his superiors whom he has never liked. But, for the first time, he spoke of a sort of conspiracy. Then he started going for a young salesman… ’
‘What about?’
‘This sounds ridiculous, but to a certain extent I understand Xavier’s reactions. I’m not exaggerating when I say that he is, in France, the greatest specialist in electric trains. I hope that doesn’t make you smile? People don’t make fun of someone who, for instance, spends his life designing brassières and corsets?’
Why did he ask:
‘Do you have something to do with brassières and corsets?’
She laughed.
‘I sell them. But I wasn’t talking about myself. As I was saying, the new salesman started watching my husband, worming his little tricks out of him, designing circuits… In short, he gave him the impression that he was out to take his place…I only really began worrying when I saw that Xavier’s suspicions were extending to me… ’
‘What did he suspect you of?’
‘I imagine he has told you. It all began one evening when, looking at me closely, he murmured:
‘ “You’d make a beautiful widow, wouldn’t you?”
‘That word often came up again in conversation. For example:
‘ “All women are made to be widows. Besides, statistics prove…”
‘You see the theme. From there to telling me that, without him, I should have a more brilliant career, that he was the only obstacle to my success… ’
She did not falter, despite the expressionless gaze which Maigret deliberately brought to bear on her.
‘You know the rest. He’s convinced that I’ve decided to get rid of him. At table, he’s apt to exchange his glass for mine, without concealing what he’s doing, gazing at me on the contrary with a mocking expression. Before eating, he waits until I’ve swallowed the first mouthful. Sometimes, when I come home after him, I find him hunting about all over the kitchen.
‘I don’t know what Dr Steiner said to him… ’
‘Did you go there with him?’
‘No. Xavier told me that he was going to go and see him. Again, it was a sort of challenge on his part. He said to me:
‘“I know that you’re trying to convince me that I’m going mad. Oh, you’re going about it very cleverly, drop by drop, so to speak. But we shall see what a specialist has to say about it.” ’
‘Did he tell you the result of the consultation?’
‘He told me nothing, but, since then — it was about a month ago — he has been looking at me with an air of ironical superiority. I don’t know if you can understand what I mean. Like a man who has a secret and who’s gloating over it. He follows me with his eyes. All the time I have the impression that he’s thinking:
‘ “Go on, my girl! Do what you like. You won’t succeed, because I know what you’re up to…” ’
Maigret sucked his pipe and said:
‘So this morning you followed him. Are you in the habit of following him?’
‘Not every day, no, because I have my own work too. Usually, we set off together, at half past eight, from the Avenue de Châtillon, and we take the same bus as far as the rue des Pyramides. Then I go to the shop, in the rue Saint-Honoré while he carries on along the rue de Rivoli as far as the Magasins du Louvre. Well, for some time, as I’ve already mentioned, I think, your name has been cropping up fairly frequently in conversation. Two days ago, he said to me, in a voice that was sardonic and threatening at the same time:
‘ “Whatever you do, however cunning you are, there will be somebody who will know all about it.” ’
She added:
‘I realized that it was you he meant. Yesterday, already, I followed him as far as the Louvre and stayed for some time watching the staff entrance, to make sure that he didn’t come out again. This morning, I did the same… ’
‘And you followed him here?’
She said yes, openly, and bent forward to stub out her cigarette in the glass ash-tray.
‘I’ve tried to give you some idea of the situation. Now, I am ready to answer your questions.’
Only her hands, folded on top of the crocodile handbag, betrayed a certain nervousness.
* * *
Chapter 3
« ^ »
If, that morning, he had been dull-witted and absent-minded when faced with the electric-train salesman, it had been an. involuntary dullness, something more akin to torpor, to a sort of somnolence. Contact, in fact, had not been established; or to be more precise, it had been established too late.
At present, with Madame Marton, it was his professional dullness that he had recovered, the dullness which he had assumed long ago, when he was still shy, in order to mislead the people he had to talk to, and which had become an almost unconscious reflex.
She did not seem to be impressed by it and went on looking at him in the way a child looks at a big bear which does not frighten him, but which he watches none the less out of the corner of his eye.
Wasn’t it she who, so far, had conducted the conversation, ending up with a remark which Maigret had rarely heard in this office of his:
‘Now, I await your questions… ’
He made her wait for some time, deliberately letting the silence deepen, pulling at his pipe, and finally saying with the air of someone who does not quite know what he is doing:
‘Exactly why have you come to tell me all this?’
And that did indeed throw her off her balance. She began:
But… ’
She fluttered her eyelashes like a short-sighted person, failed to think of anything else to say, and gave a little smile to suggest that the answer was obvious.
He went on, as if he attached no importance to the matter, as if he were a civil servant doing a routine duty?
‘Are you asking us to have your husband certified?’
This time, her face immediately flushed scarlet, her eyes blazed, and her lips quivered with anger.
‘I don’t remember saying anything which would entitle you to… ’
The thrust had gone so deep that she made as if to get up and bring the conversation to an end.
‘Sit down, please. Compose yourself. I don’t see why such a perfectly natural question should upset you like that. In point of fact, what did you come here to tell me? Don’t forget that here we are at Police Headquarters, where our business is with crimes and misdemeanours, either trying to arrest the culprits, or, more rarely, trying to prevent the crimes themselves. First of all, you told me that, for several months, your husband has seemed to be getting neurotic… ’
‘I said… ’
‘You said neurotic. And his behaviour worried you so much that you sent him to see a neurologist… ’
‘I advised him… ’
‘Let us say you advised him to consult a neurologist. Did you expect the neurologist to say that he ought to be certified?’
Her features drawn, her voice changed, she retorted: ‘I expected him to look after my husband.’
‘Good. I suppose he did?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You rang up Dr Steiner, or you went to see him, and he took refuge behind his oath of professional secrecy.’
She was looking at him with unremitting attention, her nerves keyed up, as if to guess what the next attack was going to be.
‘Since his visit to the doctor, has your husband been taking any medicine?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
*Has his behaviour altered?’
‘He still seems to me to be just as depressed as before.*
‘Depressed, but not excited?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t see what you’re driving at.*
‘What are you afraid of?’
This time, it was she who took her time, asking herself what the question referred to.
‘Are you asking me whether I’m afraid of my husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m afraid for him. I’m not afraid of him.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because, whatever happens, I’m capable of defending myself.’
‘In that case, I come back to what I asked you at the beginning. Why did you come to see me this afternoon?’
‘Because he came to see you this morning.’
They did not reason the same way, the two of them. Or was it that she did not want to reason the same way as the chief-inspector?
‘Did you know what he was going to tell me?’
‘If I’d known that, I… ’
She bit her lip. Wasn’t she going on to say:
‘… I wouldn’t have had to bother.’
Maigret did not have time to think about it, for the telephone on his desk started ringing. He picked up the receiver.
‘Hullo, Chief… Janvier here… I’m in the office next door… They told me who you were with and I thought it best not to show my face… I’d like to talk to you for a moment… ’
‘I’m coming.’
He got up and apologized.
‘Will you excuse me? Someone needs to see me about other business. I shan’t be long.’
In the inspectors’ office he said to Lucas:
‘Go into the corridor and, if she tries to get away like her husband, stop her.’
He had shut the communicating door. Torrence had had a glass of beer sent up and, automatically, Maigret drank it with relish.
‘You’ve got some news?’
‘I’ve been over there. You know, the Avenue de Châtillon. You might think yourself in the provinces, for all that the Avenue d’Orléans is so close. No. 17, where they live, is a new block of flats, with seven storeys, in yellow brick, and the tenants are mostly office workers and commercial travellers.
‘You must be able to hear everything that’s going on in the next flat, and there are kids on every floor.
‘The Martons don’t live in the apartment-house proper. Where it stands there used to be a sort of big private house which has been demolished. The court-yard is still there, with a tree in the middle and, at the far end, a two-floored cottage.
‘An outside staircase goes up to the first floor, where there are only two bedrooms and a bathroom.
‘Eighteen years ago, when Xavier Marton, who was still a bachelor, rented this place, the ground floor, which has a glass front, was a carpenter’s workshop.
‘Later, the carpenter disappeared. Marton rented the ground floor and turned it into an attractive room, half studio, half living-room.
‘The over-all effect is unusual, stylish, amusing. It isn’t an ordinary house. I started by offering a life-assurance policy to the concierge, who listened to my patter without interrupting me, only to tell me at the end that she didn’t need one because she would have her old-age pension one day. I asked if there were any tenants who might be interested. She mentioned a few names.
‘ “They’re all in social insurance schemes,” she added. “You haven’t got much hope…”
‘ “Haven’t you got a Monsieur Marton?”
‘ “At the far end of the courtyard, yes… Perhaps they might… They make a decent living… Last year they bought a car… Yes, try them…”
‘ “Will there be anybody at home?”
‘ “I think so.”
‘As you can see, Chief, it wasn’t too difficult. I rang at the studio door. A youngish woman answered the bell.
‘ “Madame Marton?” I asked.
‘ “No. My sister won’t be back till about seven.” ’
Maigret had started frowning.
‘What’s the sister like?’
‘A woman men are bound to turn round and look at in the street. Speaking for myself… ’
‘You were impressed?’
‘She’s difficult to describe. I should say she was about thirty-five at the outside. It isn’t that she’s pretty, or striking. I wasn’t impressed by her elegance, either, because she was wearing a little black woollen dress and her hair was untidy — like any woman doing the housework. Only… ’
‘Only?’
‘Well, there’s something very feminine about her, something touching. You feel that she’s very sweet, a little frightened by life, and that’s the kind of woman a man wants to protect. You known what I mean? Her figure too is very feminine, very… ’
He blushed at Maigret’s smile of amusement.
‘Did you stay with her for long?’
‘Ten minutes or so. I talked about insurance to begin with. She replied that her brother-in-law and her sister had both taken out heavy insurance policies about a year ago… ’
‘She didn’t specify the amount?’
‘No. All I know is that it was with the Mutual. She added that, for her part, she doesn’t need any insurance, because she has a pension. Alongside one of the walls there’s a table, with a complicated electric train on it, close to a work-bench. I said that I’d just bought my son an electric train. That enabled me to stay there longer. She asked if I’d bought the train at the Magasins du Louvre and I said yes.
‘ “In that case, it must have been my brother-in-law who served you…” ’
‘That’s all?’ asked Maigret. .
‘Just about. I saw two or three shopkeepers, but I didn’t dare to be too precise. The Martons seem to be well thought of in the district and to pay their bills promptly.’
Only now did Maigret notice that it was Torrence’s glass he had emptied.
‘I beg your pardon, old man. Have another one sent up at my expense… ’
He added:
‘And one for me. I’ll come and drink it when I’ve finished with this customer of mine.’
