Maigret's Holiday (15 page)

‘And I would not
wish to abuse your patience, nor that of Monsieur de Folletier.'

The latter took his watch from his pocket as
if to say that, indeed, this was beginning to drag on. That Maigret should come and put
on his little act in the study where the two friends were chatting was one thing, but
now he was making himself too much at home, like children who are brought in to be
introduced to the grown-ups and who take advantage to misbehave.

‘I wish, doctor, to have a look at
your consulting room.'

‘Your wish is my command.'

Was there not a certain weariness in his
voice?

‘You can follow us, Alain. I
don't believe you've ever had the opportunity to visit the
annexe.'

They went downstairs, Maigret in front, the
other two men behind, and the magistrate spoke to his friend in hushed tones. They went
through a door into the garden, which they crossed, skirting a little ornamental
fountain.

At the bottom of the garden was a red-brick
garage which must have looked on to the little sidestreet and, next to the garage, a
two-storey building, whose door the doctor opened with a key which he took from his
pocket.

The corridor was cold and bare; the waiting
room, which Maigret only glimpsed, ordinary. At least the chairs weren't
threadbare, as they are in most doctors' waiting rooms, and there weren't
the usual watercolours on the walls. However, there was a pedestal table with the
customary pile of magazines and picture stories.

‘If you would like to follow me
…'

At the top of the stairs, there were only
two rooms. The
largest, very light and airy, was the consulting room.
It was comfortably furnished. On either side of the desk, which was as vast as the one
in the study, were two good leather armchairs. Against a wall, a narrow divan, not at
all sagging and also upholstered in leather, must have served as the examining
couch.

The panes of the two windows that looked on
to the garden were of frosted glass and received the sun directly in the afternoon. The
ones that overlooked the street had curtains: there was no view, only the blind wall of
a warehouse.

Maigret opened the door into the adjacent
room a fraction. It was narrower and contained a wash-basin and glass-fronted cabinets
where nickel instruments were carefully laid out.

He looked slowly about him, his hands in his
pockets, much to the annoyance of the magistrate, who was becoming increasingly vexed by
his attitude. Then he leaned over the desk.

‘The silver knife isn't in its
place,' he stated simply.

‘Who told you that this is its
place?'

‘I am merely making an assumption. If
you would like to call your butler, it is easy to ask him the question.'

‘There was indeed a silver-handled
paper knife on my desk. I hadn't even noticed it had gone …'

‘But you have seen patients here since
the 1st of August?'

‘Generally I see patients three times
a week and sometimes, on other days, by appointment.'

‘What are your surgery
hours?'

‘They're on the copper plate
outside. Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, between ten and twelve.'

‘Never in the
evening?'

‘Pardon?'

‘I am asking you if you ever see
patients in the evening.'

‘Rarely. Very occasionally, should the
occasion arise that a patient is unable to come during the day.'

‘Has the occasion arisen
recently?'

‘I don't recall, but I give you
permission to look at the counterfoils in my receipt book.'

Maigret flicked through it shamelessly, and
read names that meant nothing to him.

‘Would anyone from the house allow
themselves to disturb you when you are here?'

‘What do you mean by “anyone
from the house”?'

‘A servant, for example … your
butler … or Madame Bellamy's maid …'

‘Most certainly not. There is an
intercom connecting the annexe to the main house.'

‘Your wife?'

‘I don't think she has ever set
foot inside this consulting room. Perhaps, when I married her and I showed her around
the house.'

‘Your mother?'

‘She only comes when I'm not
here, when the place is being spring-cleaned, to keep an eye on the servants.'

‘Your sister-in-law?'

‘No.'

The two men no longer troubled with
formalities. Their exchanges were short and sharp. Neither attempted to look at the
other with civility.

Maigret, completely relaxed, opened one of
the
windows and they could see the trees in the garden. Between a
beech and a darker green pine tree, part of the house was visible, particularly two
first-floor windows and a skylight on the second floor which was under the eaves.

‘Those windows belong to which
bedrooms?'

‘The one on the left is a corridor,
and the one on the right is my sister-in-law's bathroom.'

‘And the one above?'

‘It's Jeanne's – I
mean, the maid's room.'

‘And you don't know which day
the knife disappeared?'

‘I wasn't even aware of it until
you came here. Here in my consulting room I don't often need to cut the pages of a
book. As for the post, it is delivered to the house and I usually open it in my
study.'

‘Thank you very much
…'

‘Is that all?'

‘That is all. I'll leave by the
street door, if you don't mind.'

On the stairs, he turned round.

‘By the way, what time did you come
home last night?'

‘I can't tell you precisely, but
it must have been around midnight. Francis had gone home but had left the whisky tray in
the study. I came down to get some ice from the refrigerator.'

‘And did you see your wife?'

‘No.'

‘Has her mother visited
her?'

‘This morning, before the
funeral.'

‘In your presence?'

‘Yes.'

He remained unruffled. The
machine was operating admirably, without a hiccup, without any hesitation. Only his
voice was slightly more nervous, more trenchant.

The previous day, they had been two
companionable men who were getting to know one another. Today, they were at
loggerheads.

‘Do you still authorize me to come and
see you, doctor? Mind you, as Monsieur Alain de Folletier so accurately put it, I am
here on holiday and am not entitled to ask anything of you. He himself, even though he
is an examining magistrate and is at Les Sables d'Olonne on official business, is
only at your house as a friend …'

‘I remain at your disposal.'

He had removed the chain from the door, and
released the latch.

‘See you soon, doctor.'

‘Whenever you like.'

There was a moment's hesitation as
Maigret stepped through the doorway, then the doctor held out his hand and Maigret shook
it. It was the magistrate who pretended not to see the hand that Maigret proffered in
turn.

‘Good night, Monsieur de Folletier.
I'd like to mention to you just in case, for the purposes of your investigation,
that yesterday, at around four in the afternoon, little Lucile Duffieux came out of
Madame Bellamy's bedroom.'

‘I know.'

Maigret, who was already in the street, was
taken aback, and wheeled round.

‘My friend Philippe told me about it
well before you arrived, inspector. Good night!'

There was no one in the
back street, where there was nothing but bare walls, the locked door of the
doctor's garage and the small whitewashed building with its waiting room on the
ground floor and consulting room upstairs.

A brass plate engraved with Doctor
Bellamy's name stated his consulting days and times. Another little plate
requested patients to press the bell and enter.

The street on the outer limits of the town
had returned to normal. Occasionally there was an old man sitting outside his house,
smoking a pipe. Occasionally too, through an open door, a strident voice could be heard
calling a child. Kids played ball in the middle of the road, while somewhere a toddler,
all alone, wearing nothing but a blue shirt, dragged his bare buttocks over the
uncobbled pavement.

The bereaved family's door was closed.
At last they were being left in peace, and it was Maigret who had to disturb them once
again. The examining magistrate's words had filled him with amazement. So it was
Doctor Bellamy who had been the first to talk to him about the girl's visit to his
house the previous day.

On reflection, it made sense for him to take
the initiative, since Maigret had seen the girl. What explanation could he give for her
presence in his wife's room?

Maigret knocked. He heard the sound of a
chair scraping the tiled floor of the kitchen and the door opened; standing before him
was the fat woman from that morning. Maybe she recognized him? Maybe, having had to open
the door to so many people during the day, she had said to herself that one more or one
less made no difference.

One finger on her lips, she said:

‘Shhh …
She's asleep …'

Maigret went in, removed his hat and looked
at the door to the bedroom, which had been left ajar so as to hear the slightest sound
from Madame Duffieux, whom the doctor had sedated.

Why did Maigret feel a wintry chill, as he
had done that morning, when they were in the middle of August? Perhaps it is always like
that in these little houses. It was already dark inside, as if it were dusk. The stove
was lit and a pot of soup was simmering away, giving off an aroma of leeks. It was
probably the humming gas ring with its small red disc that reminded him of winter.

Duffieux, his shirt open at the neck, was
sitting in a wicker chair, his head lolling back, his mouth half open. He too was
asleep, with an expression of bewilderment and despair still etched on his face.

How had the old woman managed to tidy the
place up and wash everything after the comings and goings of the police? The house
smelled clean, of soap. Sitting down, the woman mechanically picked up her knitting, for
women like her are never idle.

Maigret drew up a chair and sat in front of
the stove. He knew that for some people, the stove is company. He asked quietly:

‘Are you a member of the
family?'

‘The children call me aunty,'
she replied while continuing to count her stitches. ‘But I'm not a relative.
I live three doors down. I was the one who came when Marthe gave birth. I used to mind
the little one for her when she did her errands. She's never been in good
health.'

‘Has anyone found
out why Lucile went to Doctor Bellamy's house yesterday?'

‘She went to the doctor's house?
… They didn't tell me … Weren't you with them? … Hold on
… They told me about the money they found in the tin, and the raffle tickets
… That must be it … Go into the bedroom … My old legs are too tired
… Open the wardrobe … After they left, I put everything back in its place
more or less … At the back on the right, you'll find a tin
…'

The body had been removed. Like Lili
Godreau, little Lucile was to be subjected to the ultimate ravages of an autopsy.

Maigret followed the old woman's
instructions. Under the clothes, which the inspectors must have examined from every
angle, he found an old biscuit tin, which he took into the kitchen.

The woman watched him open the lid and count
the bank notes and small change. Was it the tinkle of the coins? Duffieux half-opened
his eyes and, seeing another stranger's face in his house, decided to close them
again and try to go back to sleep.

The tin contained two hundred and
thirty-five francs. There were also raffle tickets in aid of the schools' fund, in
booklets of tickets with stubs. Each ticket cost one franc, or twenty five francs for
the entire booklet.

Most of the tickets had been sold singly and
the stubs bore the names of neighbours. On a sheet of paper torn out of a school
exercise book, the girl had written in pencil:

The first three names were those of
shopkeepers in the town centre.

Once again, the doctor had an explanation
that was disarming in its simplicity. All he had needed to say to the magistrate −
who, incidentally, had not asked – was:

‘Actually, my wife told me that this
girl came to see her yesterday afternoon to sell her raffle tickets …'

That was not a sufficient explanation for
Maigret, because he knew that Madame Bellamy had been expecting the girl. He also knew
that she had been to the house before, and that on that occasion she had told Francis
her name.