Cécile is Dead (15 page)

‘The commissioner of the Police
Judiciaire suggested that you might perhaps let me sit in on …'

And not for the first time! Too bad for the
American!

‘I know that you're
investigating the case at Bourg-la-Reine, and I've read everything the newspapers
have to say about it … Do you know who's guilty of the murder yet?'

‘At least I know someone who
isn't guilty of it but all the same … Let me ask you a question in my own turn,
Monsieur Spencer. A man believes that he is a suspect, thinking whether rightly or
wrongly that the police have evidence against him. His wife is expecting a baby any time
now. He turns up at his sister's lodgings, asking her for all the money she has …
His sister gives him a hundred and thirty francs. What does he do with that
sum?'

And Maigret pushed yesterday's evening
paper over to the American. It was the one that had published the photograph of Maigret
himself placing his hand on Gérard Pardon's shoulder.

‘Is that the boy?'

‘That's
him, yes. Working from this office last night, I sent out his description to all the
police forces in France, and the frontiers are being watched. A hundred and thirty
francs …'

‘You think he's
innocent?'

‘I'm convinced that he
didn't kill either his aunt or his sister. Now if he'd asked for that sum of
money before nightfall yesterday, I might have thought he wanted to buy a revolver and
commit suicide …'

‘But if he didn't commit the
murders?'

‘Exactly, Monsieur Spencer.
That's what I was getting at. There are innocents who have the soul of a guilty
man, and guilty men who have the soul of an innocent … Fortunately, when his sister gave
him that hundred and thirty francs, the gunsmiths had shut up shop for the night. So I
assume he was trying to get away. In that case, how far can you go on a hundred and
thirty francs? No further than Belgium …'

He picked up his phone and asked for
Criminal Records.

‘Hello … Maigret here. Who's
this on the line? … Oh, it's you, Jaminet … Can you take another man with you, and
bring your cameras … Yes. Wait for me downstairs in a taxi.' And he added, to the
American, ‘We may be about to make an arrest.'

‘You've discovered the
murderer?'

‘Possibly, but I'm not certain.
To tell you the truth, I'm inclined to think that … Will you wait for me here a
minute, Monsieur Spencer?'

Maigret made for the Palais de Justice,
taking the notorious short cut through the door that should have been
bricked up so long ago … and but for which Cécile might not
have been murdered. It was just so useful … All very well for people to have been saying
so for ten years, twenty years …

The inspector knocked on the door of the
examining magistrate's office, but said he wouldn't sit down.

‘I've only got a moment;
there's someone waiting for me. I wanted to ask how awkward it would make things
for you if I were to arrest a man who may be innocent? He's not a nice character,
by the way, he's served a sentence on a vice charge and he won't have the
nerve to complain …'

‘Well, in that case … give me the
name, and I'll make a note of it.'

‘Charles Dandurand.'

Ten minutes later, Maigret and Spencer Oats
joined the two specialists from Criminal Records in the taxi waiting on Quai des
Orfèvres. A little after ten, the car stopped in Bourg-la-Reine, where the misty,
drizzling rain made Juliette Boynet's apartment building look like a half-faded
old photograph.

‘Wait for me on the fifth-floor
landing,' the inspector told the other two police officers.

He rang Dandurand's bell. The door was
opened by Berger, who hadn't slept and whose eyelids were heavy with weariness.
‘I suppose you haven't brought anything to eat?' he asked.

Monsieur Charles had taken off his
detachable collar. He looked crumpled, like a man who has slept in his clothes, and he
still wore his old kid slippers on his feet.

‘I assume …' he began.

‘Don't
assume anything, Monsieur Dandurand, because you'd almost certainly be wrong. In
accordance with the warrant signed by the examining magistrate this morning, I am
arresting you.'

‘Oh.'

‘Are you surprised?'

‘No, I just feel it will make trouble
for you.'

‘Do you want to say anything before we
set off for La Santé?'

‘No, only that you've made a
mistake.'

‘You still don't know what you
were doing yesterday in Juliette Boynet's bedroom, while I was making a telephone
call down here?'

A bitter smile crossed Dandurand's
unshaven face.

‘You stay with him, Berger. Tell him
to get dressed, and when he's ready take him to the cells at La Santé for the
formalities …'

He abruptly swung round, grabbed a girl
lurking behind him by her thin shoulders and growled, ‘As for you, Nouchi, if I
catch you following me round the place again, I'll …'

‘Ooh, what will you do to me?'
she asked in great excitement.

‘You'll find out, and it
won't be funny. Off you go!'

A little later he was opening the front door
of the fifth-floor apartment.

‘This is the place concerned, boys …
Careful, Monsieur Spencer, don't go into this room.'

‘It's all right, we've
already taken all the fingerprints in the apartment,' one of the photographers
pointed out.

‘Yes, the day
after the crime. And the only prints found in Juliette Boynet's bedroom were her
own and Cécile's. No prints left by a man, neither Gérard nor the disreputable
character we've just left. However, last night, while I was telephoning from his
study downstairs, he went into that bedroom. I'm sure of it because I heard him,
but I don't know what he was doing there. He must have had very good reasons for
risking something so compromising. I want you to find everything he touched … so get
down to work! Now you understand why I told you not to go in there, Monsieur
Spencer.'

The specialists set up their equipment and
began work. Hands in his pockets, Maigret was coming and going in the other rooms of the
apartment.

‘Not a very entertaining story, is
it?' he commented. ‘An avaricious old woman, obsessed with making money. A
young girl, or rather a woman not in her first youth and without many natural advantages
… Come downstairs with me for a moment, will you?'

They reached Monsieur Charles'
apartment just as the latter, in hat and overcoat, was about to leave with Inspector
Berger.

‘Don't worry about your
possessions, Monsieur Dandurand. I'll look after the key to your front door
myself. By the way, I suppose it won't take you long to find a lawyer to represent
your interests, and he'll soon turn up here.'

So saying, he closed the door and went not
into Dandurand's study this time, but into the former lawyer's bedroom.

‘Sit down, Monsieur Spencer … What do
you hear?'

‘Yes, I
understand … We can hear every word they say in the room above this one.'

‘Exactly! I don't know how they
construct modern buildings in America, but here they're no more soundproof than a
cigar box. Never mind what our colleagues are saying upstairs … concentrate on their
footsteps. Try to follow their movements …'

‘I'd say … Hmm, yes,
that's much more difficult.'

‘My own opinion precisely. Ah, hear
that? One of them has laid hands on a drawer … he's opening it. But could you say
what piece of furniture the drawer is in?'

‘That would be impossible.'

‘So we've established one thing.
In his own apartment, Dandurand could hear everything being said overhead … He could
follow, at least roughly, the comings and goings of visitors to Juliette Boynet. On the
other hand, as for the details … I just hope that young idiot Gérard hasn't thrown
himself into the Seine!'

‘Because he's
innocent!'

‘I told you that I thought so …
unfortunately, I'm not infallible. I also dwelt on the fact that an innocent man
can often react as if he were guilty … I hope Berthe has stayed with his wife. She could
be giving birth any moment now.'

Above them, the Criminal Records men were
dragging furniture over the floor.

‘If you were a miser, Monsieur Spencer
…'

‘We don't have any misers in
America … Being such a young nation, we haven't yet developed that fault, or shall
we say that trait?'

‘Then imagine
that you're an old woman, an old Frenchwoman … You own millions, but you live as
frugally as any ordinary pensioner …'

‘That's quite difficult for
me!'

‘Well, make an effort. Your only
pleasure in life is counting the banknotes representing your profits. This problem has
been haunting me for the last three days, because a man's life depends on it.
Depending on where exactly the money was invested, the name of the potential murderer
changes …'

‘I suppose …' the American
began.

‘What do you suppose?' asked
Maigret, almost aggressively.

‘If I were … as you describe her …
I'd want to have my money always within my reach.'

‘That's exactly what I thought …
But be careful. Although she wasn't in good health, Juliette Boynet could still
get around her apartment. She stayed in bed until about ten in the morning, when her
niece came in with her breakfast and the morning paper …'

‘Perhaps the money was hidden in her
bed? I believe it's usual in France for people to sew their savings into their
mattresses?'

‘Except that after ten in the morning,
Juliette moved to the sitting room and stayed there until evening. These last few weeks,
she had eight hundred thousand francs in thousand-franc notes in the apartment. That
amount of paper would take up quite a lot of space. Follow me closely … only two people
could know where the money was hidden. Her niece Cécile, who lived with the old
lady … her aunt kept all this from her, but
she might have found out by chance …'

‘I understand that Monsieur Dandurand
was the old woman's confidant?'

‘But not a close enough confidant for
her to reveal her hiding-place to him, believe me! A woman like Juliette Boynet would be
suspicious of her own guardian angel … However, as you confirm, sitting in this room,
anyone can hear what's going on overhead. Shall we go upstairs? If anyone calls me
here we'll hear the phone ringing.'

It was so damp outside that the banisters on
the staircase were sticky. One of the piano teacher's pupils was going through her
scales at length. The Hungarians were having an argument, and they could hear
Nouchi's piercing voice.

‘How's it going,
boys?'

‘This is remarkable, sir.'

‘What's remarkable?'

‘Are you sure the man wasn't
wearing rubber gloves?'

‘I can prove that.'

‘He walked over the rug … but so far
he doesn't seem to have touched anything, except the door handle. The only
fingerprints we've found are yours.'

A strong flashlight was connected to the
electric current. The photographic equipment changed the atmosphere of the room where
Juliette Boynet had lived for so long.

‘She used a walking-stick,
didn't she?' the American said suddenly.

Maigret turned his head as abruptly as if an
insect had stung him.

‘Wait a minute
… The thing that …'

What could the old woman have taken with her
from her bedroom to the sitting room, from the sitting room to her bedroom, keeping it
with her during meals in the dining room? Her walking-stick, of course. But you
can't hide eight hundred thousand-franc notes in a walking-stick, even a hollow
one!

The inspector's eyes went round the
room again.

‘What about that?' he suddenly
asked, pointing to a small and very low piece of furniture, covered with old tapestry, a
stool where Juliette Boynet could have rested her feet when she was sitting down.
‘Any prints there?'

‘No, sir.'

Maigret picked up the footstool and put it
on the bed. His fingers slipped over the copper nails holding the tapestry cover in
place, and he found that he could lift a kind of lid. In fact the footstool had been
designed to contain hot coals, and under the lid there was a rectangular copper
container.

There was a silence. Everyone was looking at
a package wrapped in old newspaper and lying inside the container.

‘Those eight hundred banknotes must be
in there,' said Maigret at last, relighting his pipe. ‘Look at that,
Monsieur Spencer … And don't mention this to your colleagues at the Institute of
Criminology, because I'd be ashamed of myself! I looked inside the mattress, the
base of the bed, I probed the walls, the floor, the chimney … and I didn't stop to
think that an old woman with swollen legs, dragging herself around with a walking-stick,
might have herself been followed from room to room by that
preposterous little footstool! Go carefully with that
newspaper! Have a good look at it, will you?'

And for ten minutes, oblivious to what was
going on around him, Maigret applied himself to rewinding all the clocks, setting off a
whole series of chimes.

‘Finished, sir,' said one of his
colleagues.

‘And the prints are on it, I
expect?'

‘Yes, they are. We've counted
eight hundred and ten notes.'

‘I need envelopes and sealing
wax.'

He saw the small fortune from the footstool
safely sealed and telephoned the public prosecutor's office to send a suitably
responsible person to take charge of it.