Cécile is Dead (10 page)

‘“I'll make it up to you
one day,” she said. “You can be sure I'll never forget this. Once
I'm married …”

‘But nothing of the sort happened.
Once she was married she didn't think her sister good enough to visit her in the
new surroundings where she lived now, and my poor mother went to work in a shop in
Fontenay. She married the department manager there – he was already in bad health, and
she went on working.

‘Then we were born, and my aunt only
grudgingly agreed to be Cécile's godmother. Do you know how much she sent her as a
First Communion present? A hundred francs! When her husband was already the owner of a
dozen apartment buildings.

‘“Never fear, Émilie,” she
wrote to my mother. “If anything bad happens to you I'll look after the
children.”

‘My father was
the first to die, and my mother followed him soon. Aunt Juliette was a widow by then and
had just gone to live in this apartment, but at that time she occupied the whole fifth
floor.

‘It was her cousin Monfils who brought
us here from Fontenay. You were too young at the time to remember that, Berthe.

‘“Oh, my goodness, how thin they
are!” Aunt Juliette cried when she saw us. “Anyone would think my poor
sister didn't give them anything to eat.”

‘Then she started criticizing
everything about us: our clothes, our underwear, our shoes – she said they were too good
for us – our manners …

‘Cécile, already in her teens, was
treated like a domestic servant from the first. As for me, my aunt was going to
apprentice me to some trade or other, on the grounds that the poor ought to be manual
workers. If I came home with my trousers torn I never heard the end of it. I was
ungrateful, I didn't realize how much was being done for me and my sisters, I was
sure to come to a bad end.

‘Cécile suffered without a word of
protest. The maid was dismissed, because my sister could do all the work. Would you like
to see how we were dressed?'

He went to find a photograph standing on a
piece of furniture. It showed the three siblings: Cécile in black looking as Maigret had
known her, with her hair pulled back in a plain style; Berthe, young and chubby in a
dress too long for her age; and Gérard, aged fourteen or fifteen, in a suit that had
certainly not been made for him.

‘When I decided to join the army, my
aunt didn't send
me so much as a
five-franc piece at the end of the month. My comrades got parcels, cigarettes … All my
life I've been seeing other people do well.'

‘How old were you when you left your
aunt's household, mademoiselle?' asked Maigret, turning to the girl.

‘Sixteen,' she replied. ‘I
went off on my own to ask a large store for a job. They wanted to know my age, so I told
them I was eighteen.'

‘When I got married,' Gérard
said, taking up his story again, ‘my aunt sent me a silver cake slice. One day,
when we were very hard up, I wanted to sell it, and it fetched thirty francs. Cécile got
hardly enough to eat, yet our aunt was a rich woman. And now that she's dead
it's me you blame.'

He was a pathetic sight, such was his
bitterness and resentment.

‘Were you ever tempted to do away with
your aunt?' asked Maigret, in a calm tone that made the girl start with
surprise.

‘If I say yes, you'll come to
the conclusion that I strangled her, won't you? Well, yes, I often wanted to, but
I'm afraid I didn't feel brave enough, so now you can think whatever you
like. Arrest me if you want to – that will be only one more injustice.'

Berthe looked at the time on her little
wristwatch. ‘Do you need me any longer, inspector?'

‘Why do you ask?'

‘It's midday, and I was going to
meet my friend. He'll be waiting for me opposite the store.' She still
seemed virginal, even in speaking of her lover. ‘You have my address: 22 Rue
Ordener. I'm nearly always at home after
seven in the evening. What are you going to do with Gérard?
He's always been like this; just take no notice. Do you need money, Gérard? Give
Hélène my love, and tell her I'll come and see her tomorrow or the day after
tomorrow. The store said I could have three days off.'

‘So this is what we've come
to,' concluded Gérard. ‘Her friend is a married man! If my poor mother knew
…'

‘Tell me, why did Cécile give you that
key?'

‘If you really want to know,
I'll tell you. Too bad for you! She gave it to me because the police don't
do their job properly! Because when poor people turn to the police they don't even
get a hearing! Cécile went to see you several times – I'm sure you won't
dare to deny it. She told you she was frightened, she told you there were things that
she didn't understand going on in the apartment. And what did you do? You laughed
at her. You twice sent a useless junior officer who did nothing but walk past the
building. And when Cécile went back to your office because she was sure there had been
someone in this sitting room during the night, she felt that everyone in the Police
Judiciaire was laughing at her … to the point where a succession of inspectors walked
past the waiting room just to get a closer look at her.'

Maigret had lowered his head.

‘That's when she ordered the
spare key. She asked me …'

‘Excuse me, wait a minute. Where were
you in the habit of meeting your sister?'

‘In the street! When I needed to see
her …'

‘To ask her for money?'

‘Yes, exactly,
to ask her for money! Anyone would think you were pleased to have worked that out! She
really did manage to give me a few francs, never very much, that she'd scraped
together out of the housekeeping money. I used to wait for her on the corner of the road
at the time when she went shopping. Is that what you wanted to know? There you are,
then! It's about ten days ago that she gave me the key. She asked me to come to
the apartment now and then by night and try to find out what was going on.'

‘And did you?'

‘I hadn't done it yet, because
of my wife. The doctor is afraid the baby may be premature. I promised Cécile to come
after …'

‘How would you have got through the
front door of the building?'

‘Cécile had thought of everything. The
concierge comes upstairs with the post at seven every evening. She never fails to spend
a few minutes with the Deséglise family – they rent the apartment on the second floor on
the left. So I had only to come in at that moment.'

‘And what about your aunt?'

‘If she saw me, that would be just too
bad! I know that whatever I say, you'll turn it against me! It's only too
easy. Well, my aunt's legs gave her trouble, and at about that time every evening
she got Cécile to give them a hot air massage, using the kind of electric dryer you find
in hairdressers' salons. They make quite a lot of noise. All I'd have had to
do was let myself into the apartment with my key and hide under Cécile's bed. Are
you happy? Now I must admit that I'm quite hungry and my wife will be
expecting me back. You frightened her with
that visit of yours, and if I don't get back soon she'll be thinking … So
either you arrest me, or I'll ask for your permission to go home. As for the
inheritance, which is ours by right, we'll see whether …'

Here he turned his head aside, but not
quickly enough to keep Maigret from seeing the tears of fury coming to his eyes.

‘You can go,' said the
inspector.

‘Really?' inquired the young man
sarcastically. ‘You're not arresting me yet? That's too kind of you. I
don't know how to thank you.'

Gérard wasn't sure he had heard
correctly, but he thought that as he reached the door Maigret remarked, shrugging his
shoulders, ‘Little idiot!'

Did Nouchi still nourish hopes of seducing
the inspector? She was certainly doing her best to give that impression, with a curious
mixture of cunning and naivety. As she sat down in front of him, she even took care to
raise her skirt above her angular knees.

‘Where were you?' he asked,
gruffly.

‘Out in the street.'

‘And what were you doing in the
street?'

‘Talking to a friend.'

‘Are you sure this was the day before
the crime was committed?'

‘It's in my notebook. Every
evening I write what I did in the day down in my notebook.'

Maigret reflected that he himself must
feature in this
deranged girl's peculiar
notebook. Nouchi was the kind of girl to fall in love with anyone, from the police
officer on the corner, to a neighbour who comes by at the same time every day, to a film
star whom she has seen only on the screen, or a famous murderer. At the moment Maigret
topped the ratings!

‘I can't tell you my
friend's name, because he's married.'

Well, well, just like Berthe! Calm and
composed Berthe with her cherry-red hat also had a lover who was a married man!

‘And you were in the street, near this
building … Weren't you afraid of being seen by your parents?'

‘My parents take no notice of that …
They're what you'd call
laid back
.'

‘And you say you saw Gérard Pardon
entering the building.'

‘Yes, he was wearing the same clothes
as today, that raincoat and his grey hat with the brim turned down. He looked round, and
then he hurried into the corridor …'

‘What time was it?'

‘Seven in the evening. I'm sure
of that, because the postman had just gone by on the last of the day's
rounds.'

‘Thank you.'

‘It's important, isn't
it?'

‘I can't really tell.'

‘But if Cécile's brother was in
the house that evening …'

‘Thank you, mademoiselle.'

‘Don't you want to ask me
anything else?'

‘No.'

She was obviously still hopeful and made no
move to
get to her feet. ‘You can count
on me to help you. I know this building really well. I could tell you …'

‘No, thank you.'

He was making for the door, and she brushed
past him on her way. Her muscles were as taut as violin strings. ‘Shouldn't
I come to your office so that my statement can be put on record?'

‘Not until we ask you to do
so.'

‘Goodbye then, inspector.'

‘Goodbye.'

And Maigret went downstairs, with the key
safely put away in his pocket. Inspector Jourdan was still at his post on the pavement.
Maigret signalled to him to stay where he was and looked for a taxi.

His wife couldn't get a word out of
him while he was having lunch at home in Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. He propped his elbows
on the table, left breadcrumbs on the tablecloth and ate noisily – all of them bad
signs.

Madame Maigret ventured to point out,
‘It's not your fault about that girl Cécile.' At such moments she
addressed him formally. Indeed, she had even been known to speak of him to third parties
as ‘the detective chief inspector', or alternatively, but rarely, to say,
‘I'll ask Monsieur Maigret' about this or that.

Did he even notice that he was eating a
delicious crème caramel? As soon as he had wiped his mouth on his napkin, he took his
overcoat, which was as stiff as a military greatcoat, off its hook. She could tell just
by looking at him that it was useless to ask what time he would be home in the
evening.

‘Hôtel du
Centre, Boulevard Montparnasse,' he told the driver as he got into a taxi.

The hotel was a quiet one, catering for
regular guests from the provinces, almost all of whom visited Paris on certain fixed
days. There was a smell of veal casserole and biscuits in the air.

‘Monsieur Monfils, please,' he
asked.

‘He's waiting for you in the
conservatory, sir.'

For the hotel had a conservatory, or anyway
a room with large windows, containing a rockery and indoor plants. Monsieur Monfils,
still in his mourning garb, a handkerchief in his hand, his nostrils pink and moist, was
seated in a rattan chair and smoking a cigar, in the company of a man whom Maigret had
met before, or so he thought.

‘Let me introduce my lawyer, Maître
Leloup. He will be representing my interests in Paris from now on.'

The lawyer was as stout as Monfils was thin
and had a glass of something that looked good on the table in front of him.

‘Good day, inspector,' he said.
‘Do sit down. My client …'

‘Excuse me,' Maigret
interrupted, ‘but I didn't know that Monsieur Monfils already needed a
lawyer.'

‘I'm a commercial lawyer,
inspector. We find ourselves facing a situation that, to say the least of it, is
unclear, and until the will comes to light …'

‘Who's to say that there
is
a will?'

‘Why, obviously! A well-to-do woman, a
woman with her head screwed on like Madame Boynet, née Cazenove, can't have failed
to …'

But at this moment
Madame Monfils and the five Monfils sons made their way into the conservatory, the boys
still in order of height.

‘I'm sorry to interrupt,'
said their mother, with a polite smile, ‘but we're leaving, Henri.
We've just got enough time to get to the station. Goodbye, inspector. Goodbye,
Maître Leloup. You won't be staying in Paris too long, Henri, will you?'

The children said goodbye to their father in
turn. The bellhop was waiting with their luggage. Finally, when his family had left,
Henri Monfils poured himself a glass of brandy and, after pouring another for Maigret
without asking him, he began, ‘I thought it my duty, inspector, and in particular
my duty to my family, to call on the services of a lawyer, who will be in touch with you
henceforward, and who …'