The Saint-Fiacre Affair (3 page)

… 
a crime will be committed
 …

The second peal of bells rang for mass.
People would be in a great hurry. There were farmers who came from far away, on
carts. And they had brought flowers to put on the graves in the cemetery.

Jean didn't dare approach. The
butler, who had opened the door, was shocked and stood there frozen.

‘Your ladyship … Your lady …'
he stammered.

‘So? Are you going to leave her
there? Well?'

Why on earth was the doctor wearing an
ironic smile on his face?

Maigret took charge of the
situation.

‘Right! Two men … You!' (He
pointed at the chauffeur.) ‘And you!' (He pointed at the butler.)
‘Carry her to her bedroom.'

And as they leaned towards the coupé, a
bell rang out in the hall.

‘The telephone! … That's
strange, at this time of day! …' Bouchardon muttered.

Jean didn't dare go and answer it.
He seemed in a daze. It was Maigret who hurried inside and picked up the
receiver.

‘Hello! … Yes, this is the chateau
 …'

And a clear voice said, ‘Could I
speak to my mother? She must have come back from mass …'

‘Who's speaking?
 …'

‘The Count of Saint-Fiacre … And
in any case that's no concern of yours … Let me speak to my mother.'

‘One moment. Will you tell me
where you're calling from?'

‘From Moulins! For heaven's
sake, I told you …'

‘It would be better for you to
come here,' Maigret said, as he hung up.

And he was forced to press his back to
the wall to let the two servants pass, carrying the corpse.

‘Are you coming in?' the
doctor asked as soon as the countess was laid on her bed. ‘I need someone to
help me undress her.'

‘We should find a maid!'
Maigret exclaimed.

Jean went upstairs and came back down a
short time later with a woman in her thirties, who darted frightened glances.

‘Get out!' the inspector
snapped at the servants, who wanted to do precisely that.

He held Jean back by the sleeve, looked
him up and down and led him over to a window.

‘What is the nature of your
relations with the countess's son?'

‘But … I …' The young man
was gaunt, and his striped pyjamas, of dubious cleanliness, added nothing to his
dignity. His eyes avoided Maigret's. He kept tugging on his fingers as if to
stretch them.

‘Wait!' the inspector
interrupted. ‘Let's be frank so as not to waste any more
time.'

Behind the heavy oak door of the bedroom
there was the sound of people coming and going, the squeak of bedsprings, muttered
orders being given to the maid by Dr Bouchardon: they were undressing the
corpse!

‘What exactly is your situation at
the chateau? How long have you been here?'

‘Four years …'

‘Did you know the Countess of
Saint-Fiacre?'

‘I … That is to say, I was
introduced to her by some mutual friends … My parents had just been ruined by the
collapse of a little bank in Lyon … I came here in a position of trust, to deal with
the personal affairs of …'

‘Excuse me! What did you do
before?'

‘I travelled … I wrote art reviews
 …'

Maigret didn't smile. And in any
case the atmosphere wasn't conducive to irony.

The chateau was huge. From outside it
had a certain charm. But the interior looked as seedy as the young man's
pyjamas. Dust everywhere, ugly old objects, a pile of useless junk. The curtains
were faded.

And on the walls there were lighter
patches, indicating that furniture had been removed.

The best furniture, obviously! The
pieces that had some value!

‘You became the countess's
lover …'

‘Everyone is free to love whoever
 …'

‘Idiot!' muttered Maigret,
turning his back on the young man.

As if things weren't obvious
enough already! You only had to look at Jean. You only had to breathe the air of the
chateau for a few minutes! And catch the expressions on the servants'
faces!

‘Did you know her son was on his
way?'

‘No … What has that got to do with
me?'

And his gaze was still evasive. With his
right hand he tugged on the fingers of his left.

‘I'd like to get dressed …
It's cold … But why are the police concerned about? …'

‘Yes, go and get
dressed!'

Maigret pushed the door of the bedroom
and avoided looking in the direction of the bed, on which the dead woman lay
entirely naked.

The bedroom looked like the rest of the
house. It was far too big, too cold, filled with mismatched old objects. As he went
to lean against the marble mantelpiece, Maigret noticed that it was broken.

‘Have you found anything?'
the inspector asked Bouchardon. ‘Just a moment … Would you leave us alone,
please, mademoiselle?'

And he closed the door behind the maid,
pressed his forehead against the window and let his eye wander across the grounds,
carpeted with dead leaves and frost.

‘I can only confirm what I told
you a moment ago. Death is due to a sudden heart attack.'

‘Caused by? …'

The doctor gestured vaguely, threw a
blanket over the corpse, joined Maigret by the window and lit his pipe.

‘Perhaps a shock … Perhaps the
cold … Was it cold in the church?'

‘On the contrary! Of course,
you've found no trace of a wound?'

‘Nothing!'

‘Not the tiniest sign of an
injection?'

‘I thought of that. Nothing! And
there's no poison in
the
countess's blood. So you understand that it would be hard to claim
 …'

Maigret's face was severe. On the
left, under the trees, he could make out the red roof of the estate manager's
house, his birthplace.

‘In just a few words … life at the
chateau?' he asked under his breath.

‘You know as much as I do. One of
those women who are models of good behaviour until the age of forty or forty-five …
That was when the count died, and the son went to Paris to pursue his studies
 …'

‘And here?'

‘A series of secretaries came and
stayed for various lengths of time … You saw the latest one …'

‘The fortune?'

‘The chateau is mortgaged …
Three-quarters of the farms have been sold … Now and again an antique dealer comes
for anything valuable that's left …'

‘And what about the
son?'

‘I don't know him well. They
say he's quite a character …'

‘Thank you!'

Maigret went to leave, but Bouchardon
came after him.

‘Between ourselves, I'd be
curious as to what coincidence it was that brought you to the church this morning of
all mornings …'

‘Yes! It's strange
 …'

‘I have the feeling I've
seen you somewhere before …'

‘It's possible …'

And Maigret hurried along the corridor.
He was finding
it hard to concentrate,
because he hadn't had enough sleep. He might also have caught a cold at Marie
Tatin's inn. He spotted Jean coming down the stairs, wearing a grey suit but
still in his slippers. At the same time a car without a silencer drove up in the
chateau courtyard.

It was a little racing car, painted
canary yellow, long, narrow, uncomfortable-looking. A moment later a man in a
leather coat burst into the hall, took off his cap and yelled, ‘Hello! Anyone
there? Is everyone still asleep around here?'

But then he noticed Maigret looking at
him curiously.

‘What the? …'

‘Shh! I need to talk to you
 …'

Standing beside the inspector, Jean was
pale and anxious. As he stepped past him, the Count of Saint-Fiacre punched him
lightly on the shoulder and joked, ‘Still here, you rogue?'

He didn't seem to be angry with
him. Just to hold him in complete contempt.

‘At least there's nothing
serious happening, is there?'

‘Your mother died this morning, in
church.'

Maurice de Saint-Fiacre was thirty, the
same age as Jean. They were the same height, but the count was broad, slightly fat.
And everything about him, particularly his leather outfit, hinted at a life of
frivolity. His clear eyes were cheerful and mocking.

It took those words from Maigret to make
him frown.

‘What did you say?'

‘Come in here.'

‘Good heavens! When I've
 …'

‘When you've what?'

‘Nothing. Where is she?
 …'

He was stunned, beside himself. In the
bedroom, he lifted the blanket just enough to see the dead woman's face.

No explosion of grief. No tears. No
dramatic gestures.

Just three murmured words.

‘Poor old thing!'

Jean had thought it was time for him to
walk towards the door, and Maurice noticed and shouted at him, ‘You, get out
of here!'

He started getting nervous. He paced
back and forth. He bumped into the doctor.

‘What did she die of,
Bouchardon?'

‘A heart attack, Monsieur Maurice
 … But the inspector might know more than I do on the subject …'

The young man turned excitedly towards
Maigret.

‘Are you from the police? … What
did? …'

‘Could we talk for a few minutes?
I'd like to take a quick stroll down the road. Will you be staying here,
doctor?'

‘I was about to go hunting and
 …'

‘Well you can go hunting another
day!'

Maurice de Saint-Fiacre followed
Maigret, staring dreamily at the ground in front of him. When they reached the main
avenue of the chateau, seven o'clock mass was coming to an end, and the
congregation, larger than the one at first mass, was coming out and assembling in
little groups in the square in front of the church. Some people had already gone
into the graveyard, and only their heads could be seen over the top of the wall.

As the sun rose, the cold became more
intense, probably because of the breeze that swept the dead leaves from one end of
the square to the other, making them wheel like birds above the pond of
Notre-Dame.

Maigret stuffed his pipe. Wasn't
that the main reason why he had dragged his companion outside? And yet, even in the
dead woman's bedroom the doctor had been smoking. Maigret was used to smoking
anywhere at all.

But not at the chateau! It was a special
place which, throughout the whole of his youth, had represented everything
inaccessible in the world

‘The count called me into his
library today, to work with him!' his father had said with a hint of
pride.

And Maigret, a little boy in those days,
watched respectfully the pram being pushed by a nanny in the park. The baby was
Maurice de Saint-Fiacre.

‘Would anyone stand to benefit
from your mother's death?'

‘I don't understand … The
doctor just said …'

He was anxious and twitchy. He snatched
the piece of paper that Maigret held out to him, the one that announced the
crime.

‘What does this mean? Bouchardon
is talking about a heart attack and …'

‘A heart attack that someone
predicted a few days ago!'

A few villagers watched them from a
distance. The two men approached the church, walking slowly, following their own
trains of thought.

‘What did you plan to do at the
chateau this morning?'

‘I'm wondering that very
thing myself,' the young man
said
carefully. ‘You asked me a moment ago whether … Well, then, yes! There is
someone who stands to gain from my mother's death … I do!'

He wasn't joking. He looked
concerned. A man passed on a bicycle, and he greeted him by name.

‘Since you're from the
police, you must have worked out the situation already … Besides, that animal
Bouchardon will have had no compunction about spilling the beans. My mother was a
poor old woman. My father is dead. I've gone away. Left all on her own, I
think she went slightly deranged. At first she spent her time at church … Then
 …'

‘The young secretaries!'

‘I don't think it was what
you believe, and what Bouchardon was trying to insinuate. Nothing untoward! Just a
need for affection. The need to look after someone … which these young men took
advantage of to take things further … There you are! That didn't mean she
wasn't devout. She must have had terrible crises of conscience, torn as she
was between her faith and this … this …'

‘You were saying you stood to
gain? …'