Inspector Cadaver (18 page)

‘Monsieur Naud and I have just had a
long, amicable conversation. I told him that I had decided to go back to Paris tomorrow
so it would be better all round, before we parted company, if we told each other the
truth. And that is what we did. Why do you start like that, Monsieur Groult? By the way,
Cavre, my apologies for bringing you out just when you were about to go to bed. Yes,
I'm the guilty party. I knew very well when I rang our friend Alban that he
wouldn't have the nerve to come by himself. I wonder why he felt threatened by my
invitation to come and have a chat with us … Anyway, he had a private detective to
hand, and, much as he would have wished to bring a lawyer, he settled for second best
… Isn't that so, Groult?'

‘It wasn't me
who sent to Paris for him!' retorted the balding would-be gentleman.

‘I know. It wasn't you who
battered the hapless Retailleau to death, since, as chance would have it, you were in La
Roche at the time. It wasn't you who left your wife, since she left you. It
wasn't you … Fundamentally, you see, you are a negative creature … You
have never done anything good in your life …'

Worried at finding himself in the hot seat
like this, Groult-Cotelle called Cavre to his assistance, but, with his leather
briefcase on his lap, the private detective was looking uneasily at Maigret.

He knew the police, and the boss in
particular, well enough to understand that Maigret had engineered this scenario with a
specific aim in mind. By the end of their little get-together the case would be resolved
one way or another.

Étienne Naud hadn't protested
when the inspector said, ‘It's over!'

So what else did Maigret want? He was
roaming about, planting himself in front of one or other of the portraits, pacing from
door to door, talking constantly as if he were improvising. Cavre found himself
wondering if he wasn't playing for time. Was he waiting for something he thought
should already have happened?

‘So, I'm leaving tomorrow, as
you all want me to. By the way, I ought to give you a piece of my mind for not trusting
me more – you especially, Cavre, since we know each other. For goodness'
sake, you knew I was just a guest, who was being treated as well as anyone could
possibly expect.

‘What happened in the house before I
got here was none
of my concern. You could have at least asked me for
advice, couldn't you? After all, what was Naud's situation? He had done
something unfortunate, very unfortunate even. But had anyone lodged a complaint? No. The
young man's mother was satisfied, if I may put it like that …'

And then, with a lightness that deceived
them all, Maigret deliberately said this terrible sentence:

‘The only people involved were
respectable folk, people of breeding. There were rumours, of course. You may have been
alarmed by one or two disagreeable pieces of evidence, but our friend Cavre's
diplomacy and Naud's money, together with certain people's weakness for
drink, averted that danger. As for the cap, which incidentally is not in itself
conclusive proof, I presume Cavre took care to destroy it. Isn't that so,
Justin?'

The latter gave a start as he heard himself
addressed by his first name. Everyone turned to him, but he avoided answering.

‘So that's where we were, or
rather where our host was. Anonymous letters were going round. The prosecutor and the
police had been sent some. An investigation was in the offing. What do you advise your
client, Cavre?'

‘I'm not a legal
adviser.'

‘That's your modesty speaking, I
must say! If you want to know what's on my mind, I'll tell you right now,
and it won't be an opinion, because I'm not a lawyer either. I think that in
a few days Naud will feel the need to go travelling with his family. He is rich enough
to sell his business and move elsewhere, abroad perhaps …'

Naud gave a sigh that sounded more like a
sob at the
thought of leaving what had been his whole life up until
then.

‘That only leaves our friend Alban
… What are your plans, Monsieur Alban Groult-Cotelle?'

‘You don't have to
answer,' Cavre put in hastily as he saw him opening his mouth. ‘I should add
that we're under no obligation to put up with this interrogation. Which, in any
case, is not really one at all. If you knew the inspector as I do, you'd know
he's putting on an act. He's trying his singing lesson, as they say at Quai
des Orfèvres. I don't know if you have made a confession, Monsieur Naud, nor
by what means it was extracted from you. But what I am certain of is that my former
colleague has a specific aim in mind. I cannot make out what it is yet, but, whatever it
is, I am warning you against it.'

‘Well said, Justin!'

‘I don't need your
opinion.'

‘I'm giving it
anyway.'

And then Maigret abruptly changed his tone.
The thing he had been waiting for for over a quarter of an hour, which had compelled him
to put on this piece of theatre, had finally just happened. It wasn't pure fancy
that had made him roam about, constantly pacing from the hall door to the one leading to
the dining room.

Nor was it even hunger or greed that had
made him go into the kitchen earlier to get some bread and a piece of chicken. He needed
to know if there was another staircase besides the one leading down to the hall. There
was: a staff staircase by the kitchen.

When he had telephoned Groult-Cotelle, he
had spoken
in a very loud voice, as if he were unaware that two women
were supposedly asleep in the house.

Now there was someone behind the half-open
dining-room door.

‘You're right, Cavre, for,
however sad a person you may be, you're no fool … I have an aim in mind, and
that aim, I'll come right out with it, is to prove that Naud is not really the
guilty party …'

No one was more astonished than Étienne
Naud, who had to stop himself exclaiming aloud. Alban, meanwhile, had turned pale and,
something Maigret hadn't noticed about him before, his forehead had come out in
little red blotches, as if a sudden attack of nettle rash had revealed his internal
turmoil.

It reminded the inspector of a murderer of
some notoriety who, after holding his own for twenty-eight hours of questioning, had
suddenly had an accident in his trousers like a scared child. Maigret and Lucas, who
were interrogating him, had smelled it and looked at one another. From that moment on,
they had known the game was up.

Alban Groult-Cotelle's nettle rash was
similar, and the inspector had trouble suppressing a smile.

‘Tell me, Monsieur Groult, would you
rather tell us the truth or would you like it to come from me? Take your time. Naturally
you have my permission to consult your lawyer … Justin Cavre, I mean. Feel free to
go off into a corner if you want to agree on a plan of action …'

‘I have nothing to say
…'

‘So it's up to me to inform
Monsieur Naud, who is entirely in the dark, why Albert Retailleau was killed, is it?
For, strange as it may seem, although Étienne Naud knows
how
the young man was killed, he has absolutely no idea
why
he was
… What do you say to that, Alban?'

‘You're lying!'

‘How can you claim I'm lying
when I haven't said anything yet? Come now! I'll ask another question and it
will come to the same thing. Will you tell us why on a certain, very specific day you
suddenly felt the need to go to La Roche-sur-Yon and make sure you returned with your
hotel bill?'

Still baffled, Étienne Naud looked
anxiously at Maigret, convinced he was making matters worse. Moments earlier he had been
impressed by the inspector, but Maigret was rapidly losing prestige in his eyes. This
hounding of Groult-Cotelle made no sense; it was becoming hateful.

So much so that Naud intervened, as an
honourable man who refuses to see an innocent man unjustly accused, a host who will not
allow one of his guests to be dragged over the coals.

‘I assure you, inspector, you are on
the wrong track …'

‘I am sorry to have to disabuse you,
my dear sir, especially because what you are about to hear will be extremely unpleasant.
Won't it, Groult?'

The latter had sprung to his feet and looked
for a moment as if he were about to hurl himself at his tormentor. He had the utmost
difficulty controlling himself, clenching his fists and trembling all over. Finally he
made as if to head for the door.

Maigret stopped him with a little question,
asked in the most innocent way possible:

‘Going
upstairs?'

Who would have guessed, seeing Maigret so
heavy-set and stubborn, that he was sweating as much as his victim? His shirt stuck to
his back. He was straining to hear. The truth was, he was afraid.

A few minutes earlier, he was certain
Geneviève was listening behind the door, as he had hoped she would be. It had been
for her benefit that he had spoken in such a loud voice when he was on the telephone to
Groult-Cotelle in the hall.

‘If I'm right,' he had
thought, ‘she'll come downstairs …'

And she had. Or at least, he had heard a
slight rustle in the dining room and the door had moved a little.

The tone he had taken with Groult-Cotelle
had been for Geneviève's sake too. But now he was wondering if she was still
there because he couldn't hear anything any more. He thought she might have
fainted, but there hadn't been any sound of a fall.

He was searching desperately for an
opportunity to look behind that half-open door.

‘Going upstairs?' he had asked
Alban.

And the latter, unable to take it any more,
retraced his steps and drew himself up to his full height only centimetres away from his
enemy.

‘What are you insinuating? Tell me!
What fresh slanders are these? There isn't a word of truth in what you're
going to say, you hear?'

‘Look at your legal
adviser!'

Cavre's face wore a crestfallen
expression, because he
realized that Maigret was on the right track,
and that his client was trapped.

‘I don't need anyone's
advice. I don't know what stories you've heard or who told you them. But I
want to say before you start that they're lies and if some people's minds
have …'

‘You are vile, Groult.'

‘What?'

‘I say you're a revolting
character. I say, and I will keep on saying, that you are truly responsible for the
death of Albert Retailleau and that if human justice were perfect, life imprisonment
would be too good for you. Personally, although this is something I rarely feel, I would
take pleasure in walking you to the foot of the guillotine …'

‘Gentlemen, I call you to witness
…'

‘Not only did you kill Retailleau but
you killed other people as well …'

‘Me? Me? … You're mad,
inspector … He's mad. I swear he's raving mad … Where are they,
these people I killed? Do show them to me, please … Well, we're waiting,
Sherlock Holmes …'

He laughed mockingly. His agitation had
reached fever pitch.

‘Here's one for a start,'
Maigret replied quietly, pointing at Étienne Naud, who had no idea what was
happening.

‘He strikes me, as they say, as a dead
man in excellent health. If all my victims …'

Alban had gone up to Maigret with such a
show of arrogance that the response was automatic: the inspector's hand literally
flew out and landed with a dull thwack on his livid cheek.

They might have come to
blows, grappling with one another and rolling around on the carpet like the teenagers
the inspector had been thinking of earlier, if they hadn't heard a frightened
voice at the top of the stairs.

‘Étienne! … Étienne!
… Inspector! … Quick! … Geneviève.'

It was Madame Naud calling, as she took a
few more steps down the stairs. She was astonished they hadn't heard her because
she had been calling for a while.

‘Quick, go upstairs …'
Maigret said, addressing Naud, ‘to your daughter's room …'

And then, looking Cavre squarely in the eye,
he said in a tone that brooked no contradiction, ‘As for you, don't let him
go … Understand?'

He followed Étienne Naud up the stairs
and they both reached the girl's bedroom at the same time.

‘Look …', moaned Madame
Naud, panic-stricken.

Geneviève was lying across her bed,
fully dressed. Her eyes were half-open but glassy, like a sleepwalker's. A tube of
Veronal lay in pieces on the rug.

‘Help me, madame …'

The hypnotic was only starting to take
effect, and the girl was still half-conscious. She recoiled, horrified, as the inspector
went over, grabbed hold of her and unclenched her teeth.

‘Get me water, lots of it, hot if you
can …'

‘Go on, Étienne, you do it
… In the boiler …'

Poor Étienne hurried off, bumping into
the walls of the passage and the servants' staircase like a cockchafer.

‘Don't worry, madame …
We're in time … It's my
fault, I didn't
imagine she'd react like this … Give me a handkerchief, a towel, anything
…'

Less than two minutes later, the girl had
vomited profusely and was sitting limply on the edge of her bed, obediently drinking the
water the inspector kept giving her to make her vomit again.

‘You can ring the doctor. He
won't do much, but just to be on the safe side …'

Geneviève suddenly let herself go and
started weeping, but so quietly and wearily that her tears seemed to lull her to
sleep.

‘I'll leave you alone with her,
madame. I think she should rest while you wait for the doctor. In my opinion – and
I swear that I have unfortunately seen a fair number of cases of this kind – the
danger is past.'