Maigret's Holiday (11 page)

Mansuy's voice also sounded
strange.

‘We've found out the surname
…'

A silence. Why didn't Maigret dare ask
any questions?

‘She's called Lucile Duffieux
…'

Another silence. Time and space were
definitely out of order.

‘Well?' he barked,
exasperated.

‘
She's dead
…
'

Then, still holding the receiver, Maigret
felt his eyes fill with tears.

‘
She was strangled last night, in
her bed, next to her mother's bedroom …
'

Monsieur Léonard, who
was coming out of the cellar, a bottle of white wine in his hand, stood there bemused,
wondering why Maigret was looking at him so fiercely and seemed not to recognize
him.

It was already late morning when Maigret
noticed that the sky was grey and that a few drops of rain had probably fallen at dawn.
Until then, the greyness of people and things, added to his own greyness, had stopped
him from looking at the sky and noticing that, for the first time since his arrival at
Les Sables d'Olonne, the sea was a murky green, its surface ruffled, almost black
in places.

At the police station, the officers on night
duty hadn't been relieved yet, and there was an atmosphere of disarray, tiredness
and disquiet. At the foot of the stairs, he bumped into the officer who, at around
midnight, had had the idea of contacting a schoolmistress. What age were his own
daughters? Recognizing Maigret, he started. His tunic was unbuttoned, his hair tousled.
He had slept on a bench. And now, standing in front of him, was the man who, a few hours
earlier, had been desperately trying to find out where the girl lived.

It didn't make sense. Nothing made
sense that morning. Did the officer think that Maigret was the killer?

Maigret lumbered up the stairs. His pipe
tasted stale. He had shaved and dressed in haste, had found waiting outside the police
car that Mansuy had sent for him so as to save time. Why had he asked the driver to take
a detour via Le Remblai?

Probably to get a glimpse
of the doctor's house. It was in its usual place, of course. The entire first
floor seemed quiet, the shutters were closed, but decorators were hanging black drapes
around the front door. He also drove past the church, this time because it was on the
way, and there was only a handful of elderly women in starched headdresses coming out of
Low Mass.

There was a certain febrility in the
inspectors' office. Several of them were on the telephone. There was incredulity
in every pair of eyes. The disgruntled faces were not simply expressing annoyance at
having been dragged from sleep too early, but contained shock and a muted anger.

Most of the men were unshaven. They could
not have been there long. Perhaps they had found a bar open on the way and managed to
grab a coffee?

The door at the back opened. Mansuy had been
watching out for Maigret's arrival and stood waiting for him in the doorway to his
office, so changed that Maigret felt somewhat awkward.

Who knows? Perhaps Mansuy felt the same
about him. The chief inspector had not shaved either. He had been the first to be
informed. The first on the scene. People were surprised to see his cheeks invaded by a
thick stubble, as pervasive as couch grass, a darker auburn than his hair.

It was no longer timidity that Maigret read
in his pale blue eyes, but a genuine anxiety. Maigret advanced towards him and went in.
The door closed behind him. And the stocky chief inspector's eyes remained riveted
on him, asking a silent question.

Maigret was too caught up
in his own thoughts to worry about other people's reactions. How could Mansuy not
be intimidated by this burly man who, the previous evening, had been obstinately trying
to track down this girl whom no one had ever heard of, giving a detailed description of
her, just a few hours before she was strangled in her bed?

‘I presume you want to go over
there?' he said hoarsely.

There weren't many opportunities at
Les Sables d'Olonne to see such sights, and it had left him deeply upset. Maigret
could tell from the way he had said ‘over there'.

‘I managed to get hold of the public
prosecutor's office at La Roche-sur-Yon on the telephone. The prosecutor will
arrive at around eleven. Perhaps before, if they manage to gather his men earlier. He
insisted on asking the Poitiers Flying Squad to send two inspectors over. I didn't
tell him that you were here. I thought that best. Was that right?'

‘It was right.'

‘Won't you be handling the
investigation?'

Maigret shrugged without replying, and he
could tell Mansuy was disappointed. What could he do?

‘There's a crowd outside the
house, even though it's still early. It's on the outskirts of town, a whole
neighbourhood of little houses surrounded by small gardens. Old Duffieux is night
watchman in the shipyards. He took the job after he'd had his arm amputated.
You'll meet him. It must have been terrible for him. This is what happened
…'

Mansuy told Maigret the story, his elbows on
the desk, his chin resting on his fists.

‘He left work at six
in the morning, as soon as the first crew arrived. Everything was as usual that morning,
absolutely everything. He's a calm, meticulous man. The housewives who rise early
can set their watches by the time he walks past. He goes quietly home, at around six
twenty. He told me all this in detail, sounding like a sleepwalker. The front door opens
directly into the kitchen. There's a chair to the left, a straw-bottomed chair,
you'll see it. His slippers are waiting by the chair.

‘He takes off his shoes, so as not to
wake anyone. He puts a match in the stove, where the fire has been laid, with a sheet of
newspaper and kindling …

‘The ground coffee is in the filter of
the cafetière and, as soon as the water in the kettle boils, he pours it over. All
he needs to do is put two lumps of sugar in the floral bowl.

‘You'll see … By the
fireside is a clock with a brass pendulum …

‘It is six thirty on the clock when, a
bowl in his hand, he creeps silently into his wife's bedroom.

‘For years, each morning, it's
been the same routine …'

Maigret opened the window, even though the
morning air was cool.

‘Go on …'

‘Madame Duffieux is a pale, sickly
woman. She never recovered from the birth of her last child, which doesn't stop
her from trotting around from dawn till dusk … She's a tall and anxious
woman, always tense, always agitated, one of those women who spend their lives expecting
disaster to strike …

‘She got dressed while her husband
took off his heavy
night clothes. She commented: “It's
raining … It rained earlier …”'

It was only then that Maigret looked at the
sky, which was still grey.

‘The two of them sat together for half
an hour. It's pretty much their only moment of intimacy.

‘Then, on the dot of seven, Duffieux
opened a door to go and wake up his daughter.

‘Those little houses don't have
shutters. The window at the back overlooking the garden was wide open, as always at this
time of year.

‘Lucile was dead in her bed, her face
a bluish colour, with big black bruises on her neck …

‘Shall we go over there?'

But he didn't get up yet. He was
waiting. He was still waiting. He couldn't believe that Maigret had nothing to
tell him.

‘Let's go,' was all
Maigret said, with a sigh.

And the street of the outlying district was
exactly as he had imagined it from Mansuy's description. It was indeed the sort of
street that girls like Lucile come from, with a corner shop that sells vegetables,
groceries, kerosene and sweets, and where the women are on their doorsteps and children
play on the pavements.

There were huddles in the doorways. Women
still in their nightdresses had simply slipped a coat around their shoulders.

Fifty or so people clustered around a little
house just like the others, where a uniformed police officer stood on guard. The car
stopped and the two men alighted.

Then, standing on the
pavement, Maigret paused for a moment, abruptly, for no apparent reason, the way people
with heart disease sometimes stop in the street.

‘Do you want to go in?'

He nodded. The curious onlookers stood aside
to let them through. Mansuy tapped discreetly on the door … It was the man who
opened it. His eyes weren't red, but he looked dazed and he walked mechanically.
He glanced at Mansuy, whom he recognized, and took no further notice of them.

That day, the house seemed no longer to
belong to him. A bedroom door was open and a shape lay on the bed letting out a regular,
animal moan. It was Madame Duffieux. A local doctor sat at her bedside, while an old
woman with a paunch, a neighbour perhaps, was bustling around the oven.

The floral bowls were still on the table,
one full of coffee, the one Duffieux had taken in to his daughter at seven
o'clock.

The house had only three rooms. To the
right, the kitchen, which was also the sitting room and was fairly large, with one
window overlooking the garden and another with a view of the street. To the left, two
doors, two bedrooms, the parents' room at the front, and the other at the
back.

There were photographs on the walls and on
the mantelpiece.

‘Did they have just the one
child?' asked Maigret softly.

‘I believe they have a son, but I
don't think he's in Les Sables d'Olonne. I confess I didn't have
the courage to
question them at length. The prosecutor will be here
later, and the gentlemen from Poitiers will do what must be done …'

Mansuy thus admitted that he wasn't
born for this job. He covertly watched Maigret, who seemed afraid to go into the second
bedroom, whose door was closed.

‘No one has touched anything?'
he said, automatically, because it was the professional thing to ask.

Mansuy shook his head.

‘Let's go in …'

He pushed open the door and was surprised to
catch a strong whiff of tobacco. Then he spotted a man silhouetted against the window,
who turned to them.

‘I left one of my men in this room as
a precaution,' said Mansuy.

‘You promised to relieve me,'
protested the officer.

‘A bit later, Larrouy.'

There were two beds in the room, and between
them just room for a bedside table. The beds were of iron, the black bars standing out
against the bluish wallpaper. The bed against the left-hand wall had not been slept in.
On the other, a huddled form was entirely covered with a sheet.

A big wardrobe stood against the opposite
wall, and there was a table covered with a towel, with a white enamel basin on it, a
comb, a brush, soap and a saucer; and, under the table, a pitcher of water and a blue
enamel pail. That was all. This was Lucile's room, which she must have shared with
her brother.

‘Do you know who the old lady is, in
the kitchen?'

‘She wasn't
there this morning. Or if she was, I didn't see her, because the place was full of
curious folk and we had a job getting them out.'

‘Did the mother not hear
anything?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Has the coroner been?'

‘He must have come by because I
telephoned him before coming myself. I'll call him again once I'm back in
the office.'

Maigret finally did what was expected of
him. He walked slowly over to the bed and bent over to lift the sheet. He only looked
for a few seconds and then went straight over to the window.

Mansuy stood close to him. The three men
gazed out at the little garden surrounded by pickets linked together by barbed wire. In
one corner was a rabbit hutch, in the other, a shed where Duffieux must keep his tools
and probably pottered about in his free time. A few vegetables grew in the sandy soil,
pale green leeks, lettuces, cabbages. Five tomato plants tied to stakes bore their red
fruits.

They did not need to speak. This was how the
man had got in. It was easy to climb over the barbed wire, even easier to clamber over
the window-sill. Beyond the garden was a patch of waste ground and, further away, some
disused buildings which must once have been a factory.

‘If he left any footprints,'
said the inspector quietly, ‘this morning's rain will have washed them away.
My colleague Charbonnet had a look …'

He sought the approval of Maigret, who
didn't move a muscle. Had he ever bothered with footprints?

He went into the garden, however, through
the kitchen
where two people had just arrived. There was a little path
made of flat stones scavenged from the waste ground. The rabbits watched him, wrinkling
their noses, and he grabbed a handful of cabbage leaves, opened the hutch and closed it
again.