Cécile is Dead (19 page)

‘You can stand, can't
you?' Maigret asked him. ‘Not too tired?'

Gérard had jumped to his feet, suspecting a
trap. ‘What the …?'

‘Calm down, Pardon … and carry on with
your story. I wanted Monsieur Dandurand to hear it. Right, so you were sitting beside
the desk, you and your sister, examining those papers. A number of them were business
paperwork: receipts, leases, statements of accounts …'

‘There were letters as well.' As
Gérard said that, he
looked at the former
lawyer as if, in spite of the handcuffs, he feared a blow.

‘Love letters, am I right?'
asked Maigret.

At this, Dandurand raised his voice.

‘Just a moment! May I ask if this is
some kind of confrontation?'

‘Exactly as you say, Monsieur
Dandurand.'

‘In that case I want, I insist on
having my lawyer present, as I am legally entitled to request.'

‘His name, please?'

‘Maître Planchard.'

‘Torrence! Torrence!' Maigret
called. ‘Will you telephone Maître Planchard, please? Or rather, wait … at this
time of day he's probably in court in the Palais …'

‘He's making a plea in Courtroom
11,' said Monsieur Charles.

‘Go off to Courtroom 11, then, and
bring him back to me … or if the case he's involved in isn't over, get him
to ask for an adjournment. Give my name.'

For nearly thirty minutes silence reigned in
Maigret's office; the slightest movement broke the absolute calm like a pebble
thrown into a pond.

‘Sit down, Maître Planchard. I
won't conceal it from you that I'm probably going to ask the examining
magistrate to have your client arraigned on a charge of premeditated murder …
We're listening, Pardon. You were speaking of love letters just now. If I'm
not mistaken, those letters must date from about fifteen years ago.'

‘I don't know. They
weren't dated.'

A triumphant smile
from Maître Planchard, who was already acting as if he were in court. Here Maigret
turned to Spencer Oats. ‘You'll remember our visit to that unattractive town
hall in Bourg-la-Reine?'

And then, looking at Gérard again,
‘What did the letters say? One moment … we must first establish an important
point. Am I correct in thinking that in view of the gravity of their contents, your
sister decided to bring them to me at the same time as handing herself in as a prisoner?
And she put them in her bag, along with all the business papers that the two of you
found in the desk?'

‘Yes, that's correct.'

‘In that case,' said the lawyer,
addressing himself to Maigret, ‘I must ask you to produce those
documents.'

‘Wait a moment, please, Maître
Planchard.' And Maigret saw a smile hovering round Monsieur Charles' lips.
‘I wouldn't rejoice too soon, Dandurand. I'm well aware that you
returned to your apartment in possession of that correspondence, which was so
compromising that you destroyed it.
But don't forget that you took advantage
of a phone call that removed me from your vicinity in order to go into Madame
Boynet's bedroom
… Very well, young Gérard, we're listening. Tell
us first how those letters began …'

‘With the words “My
darling”.'

All of a sudden Maigret seemed to be amused.
‘I'll interrupt you again, just for long enough to tell my American
colleague, who may be getting an unfortunate idea of amorous relationships in France,
that at the time when those letters were written, Madame Boynet was fifteen years
younger … she may not have been in the first flush
of youth, but nor was she the scarecrow with a walking-stick
of recent years … How many letters were there, Gérard?'

‘About thirty. Most of them were just
notes … “Tomorrow, you know where” … “Kisses, your …”'

‘They were signed?'

‘With the letter C.'

Monsieur Charles, who had not been invited
to sit down, never took his eyes off the young man. His face was ashen, but he was still
far from losing his self-assurance.

‘A letter of the alphabet proves
nothing,' objected Maître Planchard. ‘If those notes are to appear as
evidence, I shall have to call on an expert graphologist.'

‘They won't be appearing as
evidence – not
those
notes, anyway. We're listening, Gérard. I expect
some of the notes were longer?'

‘Yes, four or five real
letters.'

‘Tell us what you remember about
them.'

‘I do remember that one of them said:
“Be brave, you will soon be delivered, and we shall be left in peace at
last.”'

Here Maître Planchard laughed heartily.
‘Delivered? The lady was pregnant, then?'

‘No, sir. The lady was torn between a
husband and a lover. That letter was written by the lover.'

‘So the husband was ill?'

‘That's what you will have to
establish. Go on, young man.'

Thrown off balance by all the eyes turned on
him, Gérard stammered, ‘I do remember another passage. “You see that he
hasn't noticed anything, so be patient. It will
be better for us not to meet during the next few days … As
for the actual dosage, we must count on a minimum of two weeks. Going any faster would
be dangerous …”'

‘I don't follow this,'
said Maître Planchard, coughing.

‘I'm sorry about that on your
account, sir.'

‘And don't forget that I shall
be waiting for the documents concerned to be produced. Allow me to say that I think it
very imprudent of you to bank on …'

Here Maigret said smoothly and quietly,
‘If you insist, I shall call for the exhumation of the late Joseph Boynet, and an
examination of what is left of him after fifteen years … You are probably aware, Maître
Planchard, that most poisons, in particular those that can be administered in small
doses, like arsenic, can be traced long after …'

But here Torrence interrupted him, placing
on his desk the list of those who had come to see the Police Judiciaire on the morning
of the day when Cécile was murdered.

‘You must be tired of standing,
Dandurand … Get him a chair, Torrence. I saw Monsieur Charles looking a little unsteady
on his feet a few moments ago.'

‘You are wrong, inspector. I am still
waiting to hear the smallest shred of evidence that …'

‘Oh, come on, show a little patience!
Your lawyer, Maître Planchard, never knew old Juliette, so it may be useful to give him
a brief description of her … may I, Maître Planchard?'

The lawyer made a vague gesture and lit a
cigarette.

‘As a young girl, still bearing her
maiden name of Cazenove, Juliette was already Dandurand's mistress in
Fontenay-le-Comte, and it was the talk of the little town … Mâitre Dandurand, as he was
then, had not yet been found guilty in a case concerning the abuse of minors. He was
much younger at that time, and I can imagine that he had some attractions … but all the
same Juliette, a member of a family without financial means, did not turn down the
chance of a good marriage in the person of Joseph Boynet, and to make sure of it, nor
did she hesitate to sacrifice her sister by persuading her to combine her own dowry with
Juliette's.

‘I don't know what she expected
of Paris and life in a
building
contractor's household. But there she was in Bourg-la-Reine with a jealous
husband, living a life devoid of luxury and brilliance.

‘Years passed, and meanwhile her
former lover Dandurand was growing older in Fontenay, although his passion for young
girls, and then for very young girls, was as strong as ever.

‘I'll skip the next bit, shall
I? Two years in prison … not such a big deal, all things considered.

‘Then, one fine day, there he is in
Paris, living in Rue Delambre in furnished accommodation, for ever debarred not only
from the registers of his profession but from the world of decent people.

‘Where do they meet again? It
doesn't really matter. Anyway, they become lovers once more. And they begin to
feel that the husband is in the way.

‘Particularly in Juliette's way,
I feel sure of that … perhaps she is the first to have the idea of getting rid of a
husband who prevents her from living as she would like.

‘Her lover advises her, as his letters
show.'

‘The letters that I'm
challenging you to produce,' interrupted the lawyer, looking through his file.

‘The letters that I shall not be
producing, because they caused your client to commit another crime, yes, that's
right.'

‘In that case …' Maître
Planchard made a grand gesture, as if he were in court, sweeping the air with the wide
sleeves of his black gown.

‘Patience, my dear sir … The husband
finally dies. He ate and drank to excess, and he also overworked, so the
doctor feels sure that a heart attack
carried him off. And it is then …'

Maigret paused, looked at Monsieur Charles,
then at Spencer Oats, and gave the hint of a smile steeped in irony.

‘It is then that our Juliette changes
almost overnight into an obsessive old woman. Perhaps the man who was her accomplice
still attracts her, but he also frightens her … She trusts no one and nothing, because
now she knows how easily people can die. She becomes a miser … Monsieur Charles moves
into the same building, indeed into the apartment just below hers, but she has become
careful of her reputation and doesn't see him except outside the house. Two nieces
and a nephew land on her out of nowhere … Later, her legs prevent her from going out,
and so that she can see her accomplice by night she takes the precaution of sending
Cécile to sleep by administering a strong bromide … If Cécile had not had such a
delicate stomach, if she hadn't drunk a tisane every night, who knows what …

‘Madame Boynet kept her old letters
locked in the desk in the sitting room. Dandurand makes lucrative if unedifying
investments for her. Yesterday's lover has become an avaricious, powerless old
woman, and here we are in the presence of a particularly unpleasant kind of substitute
family. She manages to put off the nephew and one of the nieces … good riddance! But
poor Cécile, born with the soul of either a slave or a saint, clings on.'

‘May I ask you a question,
inspector?' It was the lawyer. ‘On what do you base your …'

‘I'll tell you in a moment,
Maître Planchard. Meanwhile,
I'll ask
you to try to follow me … So love has changed to avarice. One passion chases out
another. It takes a chance incident, almost an accident … It takes a tisane drunk by the
wrong person to set off the tragedy …

‘Down in his apartment, Dandurand has
heard everything. He knows that above his head two young people are no longer in the
dark … He knows that Cécile has decided to come here to the Police Judiciaire and tell
me everything, bringing the documents …

‘Can he go up to the fifth floor in
the middle of the night, knock on the door and prevent … Well, you can't have
slept very well, Dandurand!'

Dandurand didn't bat an eyelid. On the
contrary, for a moment a smile, yet again, stretched his cold lips.

‘Early in the morning, when the
concierge is busy with the dustbins out in the yard, brother and sister come downstairs
… Through the door that he has opened just a crack, Dandurand sees them pass. If only
Cécile had been alone! But you don't attack two people at once.

‘Out in the street they separate.
Dandurand follows Cécile into the fog, hoping that he can manage to snatch the bag
containing the documentary evidence of guilt while she is on her way.

‘The tram isn't a good place for
that. From the Pont Saint-Michel to the Police Judiciaire, no good chance turns up.

‘And now she is on the stairs … What
can save Monsieur Charles at this point?

‘Just one thing: the time. It
isn't quite eight in the morning yet. I am still at home. That day, for no reason,
or
perhaps to savour the first fog of the
winter, I decide to walk to work, while Cécile is waiting for me in what we call the
Aquarium.

‘Dandurand prowls round …'

‘Excuse me, inspector.' It was
the lawyer again. ‘But once more I must return to my question: do you have
evidence, do you have witnesses?'

‘I have before my eyes, Maître
Planchard, the list of all those who turned up at the Police Judiciaire that morning,
and I have just ticked at least three names on that list … You ought to understand me,
since you are to some extent in the same line of business. It would be too compromising
for Dandurand to come upstairs and speak to Cécile himself. She knows everything and
wouldn't for the world follow him.