Cécile is Dead (18 page)

‘And don't do anything silly,
will you?'

The car had stopped, and Gérard, dazed and
perhaps still suspicious, hesitated.

‘Oh, go on, you stupid
idiot!'

During the following ten minutes, Maigret
smoked his pipe without saying a word, and at the moment when Pardon reappeared on the
threshold of the building into
which Maigret
had sent him, mopping his eyes, the inspector contented himself with a glance at Spencer
Oats.

‘Quai des Orfèvres, driver … come to
think of it, Gérard, when did you last eat?'

‘
They
gave me a sandwich in
the train, but I'm not hungry … I'm thirsty rather than hungry. The … I
…'

His throat felt so tight that he had
difficulty articulating his words.

They stopped once again, outside a bar, and
Maigret himself had no objection to drinking a beer, by way of helping down the coq au
vin and above all the mocha gâteau.

Ten minutes later, he was adding all the
fuel to his stove that it would take, and he switched on the desk lamp with the green
shade.

‘Sit down and take off that raincoat;
it's soaked. Sit in front of the stove to get your trousers dry … how on earth can
anyone get into such a state?'

It was not yet fully dark outside. The
garlands of lights marking out the course of the Seine could be seen through the window.
The Police Judiciaire was at its busiest at this time of day; you could hear doors
opening and closing, footsteps hurrying along the corridor, telephones ringing and the
constant clicking of typewriters.

‘Torrence! I had a list of all the
people who came to the Police Judiciaire on the morning of 7 October drawn up. Go and
find it for me, please.'

Finally sitting down himself and choosing a
pipe larger than the others from those on his desk, Maigret turned to Gérard and
began.

‘What exactly
did you drink in your aunt's apartment? Wait … I'll jog your memory. You had
no financial resources left at all, right? You knew that your wife could give birth at
any time now, and there weren't even any baby clothes ready for the child. You
were in the habit of getting money from your sister Cécile … oh, come on, you
needn't bother to lower your head. Unfortunately, Cécile could supply only very
small sums taken from the housekeeping money, because your aunt didn't part with
her funds easily … usually you watched for your sister in the street, but that evening
you went up the stairs, got into the apartment and hid in Cécile's room while she
was attending to Madame Boynet … is all that correct?'

‘Yes, absolutely correct.'

‘When your aunt was in the dining room
eating her dinner, your sister came into the kitchen. The door between her room and the
kitchen was ajar, and you told her that you needed money at any price …'

‘I told her I was at the end of my
tether, and rather than see my wife …'

‘Exactly. Not only was Cécile sorry
for you,
you also frightened her … It was a kind of emotional blackmail
…
'

‘I'd decided to kill myself
…'

‘After killing your wife, you
idiot!'

‘I swear, inspector, I'd have
done it. It was already three days since …'

‘Oh, be quiet. Your sister
couldn't talk to you at that moment, because of the risk that the old woman might
overhear … Cécile looked after your aunt as usual, sat and
ate with her. No doubt she asked her for money, and I
suppose your aunt refused? When Madame Boynet had gone to bed, as I assume she did, it
was too late for you to leave the building; the front door giving access to the street
was closed. You'd have had to ask for the cord that would open it, but the
concierge could have mentioned that to your aunt, the owner of the building. So Cécile
took you something to eat in her room … what was it?'

‘Bread and cheese.'

‘And what did you drink?'

‘First a glass of wine …'

‘Anything else?'

‘Yes, a cup of the tisane that Cécile
drank every evening. She suffered from stomach trouble. She told me to drink it instead
… I was crying, I was terribly upset, and I felt like vomiting.'

‘So Cécile got you to sleep in her bed
…'

‘Yes. I talked to her about Hélène for
a little while, and then – I don't know how it happened, but I fell
asleep.'

Maigret exchanged an eloquent glance with
the American.

‘You went to sleep because you had
drunk the tisane meant for your sister. On evenings when your aunt was going to be
visited by Monsieur Charles, she put a strong dose of bromide into it. And everything
followed naturally on from that apparently insignificant chance event … if Cécile had
drunk the tisane, as might have been expected, no doubt your aunt would still be alive,
and in that case so would your sister.'

Maigret got to his feet, went over to the
window and
stood there with his back to his
office, as if he were talking to himself.

‘Cécile, sitting in an armchair so as
to let you have her bed, can't get to sleep, and for very good reasons. Old Madame
Boynet waits for the time of her meeting, puts on her dressing gown and her stockings
and, sure that no one will hear her, goes to wait by the door for Monsieur Charles. All
it took was for you to have an upset stomach, and for the wrong person to drink that
tisane, and then … then the two accomplices …'

‘Why do you say
accomplices
?' cried the young man, who had turned pale.

‘Weren't they accomplices? Come
along, let me continue … I think it's rather too warm in here now …'

He went over to open a door into a
neighbouring office.

‘The two accomplices, as I was saying,
are in the sitting room, where a single night-light is on … Cécile, who has heard a
sound, slips into the hall or the dining room, where she can overhear them without being
seen. They are talking in low voices about their business, which is not of a very
edifying nature. The brothel in Béziers … the brothel here in Paris in Rue
d'Antin. I can imagine poor Cécile's state of mind. It must have taken her
some time to understand what kind of business they were discussing. Then Monsieur
Charles hands the fifty thousand francs over to his old friend … She closes the desk but
keeps the money in her hand … She takes the former lawyer to the door. She bolts it
after him and goes back to her bedroom with a sigh of satisfaction. It has been a good
day. Her nest egg has grown again. She opens the tapestry-covered footstool
that does duty as her safe, and Cécile,
with her eye to the keyhole, sees all those wads of banknotes. As for you, you're
still asleep … Think hard before you reply to this question.
Were you woken by any
unusual noise
?'

‘No, it was my sister who …'

‘Wait. Your aunt is getting undressed
… she has already taken off one stocking when Cécile, panic-stricken after your threats
of suicide …'

‘I couldn't have foreseen what
would happen,' groaned Gérard.

‘That's what everyone says after
the event … But however that may be, your sister suddenly rushes in to face the old
woman, who takes fright … The sight of the banknotes, representing a positive fortune,
gives her courage. She asks for money again … This time she isn't begging. She
almost threatens your aunt …
Neither of the two women suspects that, one floor below
them, Monsieur Charles, surprised and alarmed, can hear everything that is going
on
… I suppose that your aunt is calling your sister names – she believes that
Cécile is indebted to her – once again she holds forth about all that she, Juliette, has
done for her and the rest of your family. Perhaps she threatens to call for
help?'

‘No … it wasn't like that at
all,' said the young man slowly.

‘Then tell me about it!'

‘I don't know exactly what time
it was … I heard my name being spoken several times … it was very difficult for me to
wake up and above all to understand. I felt dazed, as if I'd been drinking too
much. Cécile was sitting on the edge of the bed …

‘“Gérard!” she cried. “Gérard!
What's wrong with you? You must listen to me.”

‘She was very calm, calmer than usual.
I thought she must be feeling ill, because there were dark rings under her eyes, and her
face was pale. She was speaking in a low voice, pronouncing her words distinctly.

‘“Gérard … I've just
killed our aunt.”

‘Then she sat there without moving for
a long time, staring at the floor.

‘I got up … I meant to rush into my
aunt's bedroom.

‘“No, stay here … You
mustn't …” she said.'

‘She was thinking of the
fingerprints,' said Maigret. He remembered the motionless figure of Cécile waiting
for hours in the Aquarium.

‘That's what she said … she told
me how it had happened … Aunt Juliette was sitting on the edge of her bed. When she
heard the noise, she had put her hand under the pillow where she kept her revolver
overnight, because she was terrified of intruders …

‘“It's you!” she
said, when she recognized Cécile. “Is this your idea of sleeping? You've
been spying on me, admit it!”

‘“Listen, aunt! I asked you just
now for a little money for Gérard, or rather for his wife who's about to have a
baby …”

‘“Go back to bed …” said
our aunt.

‘“You're rich … I know
that now! You must listen to me … Gérard will kill himself unless …”

‘“Oh, so your good-for-nothing
brother is here, is he?”

‘My aunt tried to sit upright without
letting go of the
revolver … Cécile was so
frightened that she took a couple of steps forward, seized one of my aunt's arms
and said …

‘“You must give me some money
…”

‘My aunt fell back … she struggled,
tried to catch hold of the revolver again, and it was then that my sister squeezed her
neck …'

‘In cold blood,' said Maigret.
His voice was unexpectedly resonant.

Yes, he had been wrong to imagine a stormy
scene. Cécile had not lost control of herself. She was the worm who had finally turned.
She had been resigned to her fate for years and years, without even realizing it,
because humility came so naturally to her. In the end it hadn't taken much – the
sight of that mound of banknotes, the certainty that her aunt had been deceiving and
exploiting her all along …

‘Go on, young man.'

‘We stayed like that for a long time,
saying nothing … Cécile left me for a moment to go and make quite sure that Aunt
Juliette was really dead …

‘Later, when she opened her mouth, it
was to say, “We must tell the police.”'

There was silence in Maigret's office
too, invaded as it was by dusk in the grey atmosphere. The green lampshade cast strange
reflections that seemed to be engraved on the faces of those present. Maigret's
pipe crackled slightly.

He could imagine the brother and sister,
crushed by their stupor in the silent apartment, at the top of the large building beside
the main road. Below them, in his own
room,
Monsieur Charles, panic-stricken, listening to the faintest murmur …

‘“If I leave now
…”'

And Maigret thought of Cécile looking at her
brother. The police would never believe that Gérard had nothing to do with the crime.
They sat there in pain, huddling together as if tired after a long race.

Should she go and ask for the cord to open
the front door? The concierge wouldn't fail to look through her peephole to see
who was being let out of the building at such an hour. All the clocks in the apartment
struck, one by one. Every time, the brother and sister shivered.

‘“Listen, Gérard … Tomorrow
I'll go to see Detective Chief Inspector Maigret. I'll tell him all about it
… You must take advantage of the moment when the concierge goes out to the dustbins to
get away from here and go home …”'

It was a strange kind of vigil! They were as
cut off from the rest of the world as those emigrants that can be seen sitting on the
ground, surrounded by their bundles, in the waiting rooms of railway stations or on the
decks of ships.

‘Which of you,' asked Maigret,
relighting his pipe, ‘thought of opening the desk and looking at the papers inside
it?'

‘It was Cécile … much later. She had
just made us two cups of coffee, because I was still feeling numb … We were in the
kitchen, and suddenly she murmured: “So long as that man doesn't come
back.” And she added, “But all the same I told the inspector that someone
was coming into this apartment by night. He wouldn't believe me, but now
…”'

Maigret looked at
the rectangle of the window and clenched his teeth on the stem of his pipe.

‘And she said: “God knows
whether, when we're separated …”'

So Cécile had calmly suggested taking the
papers out of the desk. She didn't for a moment think of running away with the
money, or taking some of it for her brother, who needed money so much.

‘Did you read those documents?'
asked the inspector.

‘Yes.'

At that moment Maigret went over to the door
that he had opened slightly a little earlier.

‘You might be more comfortable in
here, Monsieur Dandurand … From this point on, I think my questions will be mainly
addressed to you.'

For Monsieur Charles was installed in the
next room, with an inspector guarding him. He made a remarkable entrance. His collar and
tie had been removed, and even his shoelaces. It was two days since he had shaved. His
wrists were handcuffed together in front of him.