The Saint-Fiacre Affair (10 page)

This time the priest's face
drained of blood.

‘I don't know anything
 …' he stammered.

‘Please, Father … You've
helped me, certainly! … You let me have those forty thousand francs that give me
time to breathe and bury my mother in a decent way … I thank you with all my heart …
Except at the same time, you are letting all your suspicions weigh upon me … You
pray for me … It's too much, or not enough …'

And a hint of anger, or menace, began to
appear in his voice.

‘At first I thought I might be
able to have an explanation from you, without Detective Chief Inspector Maigret
being present … Well, I won't conceal the fact that I'm glad he's
here too! … The more I think about it, the more I have a sense that there's
something murky …'

‘Monsieur, please don't
torture me any more …'

‘And for my part, Father, I warn
you that you will not leave here before you have told me the truth!'

He was a different man. He had reached
his limit. And like all weak, meek people, his ferocity was excessive.

His voice was now so loud that it must
have been audible in the mortuary chamber, just above the library.

‘You saw my mother often … And I
imagine that Jean
Métayer attended your
church as well … Which of the two told you something? … It was my mother,
wasn't it? …'

Maigret remembered what he had heard the
day before:

The secret of the confessional …

It was then that he understood the
priest's torment, his anxiety, his martyred expression as Saint-Fiacre's
torrent of words crashed down on him.

‘What could she have told you? … I
know her, after all … You might say that I was present when things began to slip …
We are among people who know all about life …'

He looked around, with silent rage:

‘There was a time when people only
came into this room holding their breath, because my father, the
boss
, was
working there … There was no whisky in the cupboards … But the shelves were full of
books as the combs of a beehive are saturated with honey …'

And Maigret remembered too!

The count is working …

And those words were enough to keep the
tenant farmers waiting in the hall for two hours!

The count let me into the library …

And Maigret's father was worried,
because it was beginning to sound like an important event.

‘He didn't like to waste
logs, but instead settled for a paraffin heater that he put right next to him, to
supplement the boiler …' said Maurice de Saint-Fiacre.

And, to the distraught priest:

‘You never knew that … You only
ever knew the
chateau in a state of chaos
 … My mother after she lost her husband … My mother whose only son got up to all
sorts of nonsense in Paris and only ever came home to ask for money … And then, the
secretaries …'

His eyes were so glistening that Maigret
expected to see a tear fall from them at any moment.

‘What did she say to you? … She
was afraid to see me turning up, wasn't she? … She knew there would be yet
another hole to fill, something she'd have to sell to put me back on my feet
once again …'

‘You should calm down!' the
priest said in a flat voice.

‘Not before knowing … whether
you've suspected me without knowing me from the very first moment …'

Maigret broke in.

‘The priest made the missal
disappear …' he said slowly.

He had already worked it out! He was
coming to the aid of Saint-Fiacre. He imagined the countess, torn between sin and
remorse … Didn't she fear punishment? … Didn't she feel a little ashamed
before her son? …

She was a sick and troubled soul! And
why, in the secret of the confessional, might she not one day have said,
‘I'm afraid of my son …'

Because she must have been afraid of
him. The money that passed to people like Jean Métayer was Saint-Fiacre money, meant
for Maurice. Was he not bound to come sooner or later and ask for an explanation?
Would he not …

And Maigret felt that these ideas were
dawning, still confused, in the young man's brain. He helped him to set them
out more clearly.

‘The priest can't say anything
if the countess's words were spoken under the secret of the confessional
 …'

It was quite clear. Maurice de
Saint-Fiacre broke off the conversation.

‘You will forgive me, Father … I
forgot your catechism … Please don't be angry with me for …'

He turned the key in the lock and opened
the door.

‘Thank you … As soon as … as soon
as possible I'll give you back the forty thousand francs … Because I assume
they don't belong to you …'

‘I approached Madame Ruinard, the
widow of the old notary …'

‘Thank you … Goodbye …'

He nearly slammed the door but
restrained himself and looked Maigret in the eyes, snapping:

‘What rubbish!'

‘He wanted …'

‘He wanted to save me, I know! …
He was trying to avoid a scandal, somehow to glue the pieces of the Château de
Saint-Fiacre back together … That's not the point! …'

He poured himself some whisky.

‘It's that poor woman
I'm thinking about! … Take Marie Vassiliev, for example … And all the others,
in Paris … They have no pangs of conscience … While she, on the other hand! … And
bear in mind that what she wanted above all from that fellow Métayer was affection …
Then she hurried to the confessional … She must have seen herself as a monster … And
from there to fearing my revenge … Ha! Ha! …'

His laugh was terrifying.

‘You see me raging furiously at my
mother because … And the priest hasn't understood a thing! … He sees life
purely in terms of the scriptures! … In my mother's lifetime, he must have
tried to save her from herself … Now that my mother is dead, he thought it was his
duty to save me … But right now, I'm willing to bet, he's convinced that
I was the one who …'

And he looked the inspector straight in
the eye and said:

‘And what about you?'

And when Maigret didn't reply:

‘Because there has been a crime …
A crime that only the worst kind of wretch could commit … A revolting coward! … Is
the law really powerless to deal with him? … That's what you said … But
there's something I want to tell you, inspector, and I grant you permission to
use it against me … When I get hold of that little scoundrel, I'm the one
he'll have to deal with … And I won't need a gun! No, no weapons … These
hands will be quite enough! …'

He was clearly fired up by alcohol. He
must have been aware of it, because he ran his hand over his brow, looked at his
reflection in the mirror and addressed a mocking grimace to himself.

‘However it's also true that
without the priest I would have been arrested even before the funeral! I
haven't been very nice to him … The old notary's wife who's paying
my debts … Who is she? … I don't even remember her …'

‘The lady who always dresses in
white … The house with the gate with gold arrows, on the Matignon road …'

Maurice de Saint-Fiacre calmed down. His
fever had only been a flash in the pan. He began to pour himself a drink, hesitated,
drained the contents of his glass in one go, with a pout of revulsion.

‘Do you hear that?'

‘What?'

‘The locals filing past upstairs!
I should be up there, in mourning, red-eyed, shaking hands and looking
grief-stricken! Once they're outside they'll start talking …'

And, in a suspicious voice:

‘But in fact if, as you say, the
law can do nothing about the affair, why are you staying in Saint-Fiacre?'

‘Something else might happen
 …'

‘And if I discovered the guilty
party, would you stop me from …'

His clenched fingers were more eloquent
than any speech.

‘I will leave you now,'
Maigret said abruptly. ‘I must go and keep an eye on the other front
 …'

‘The other front?'

‘The one at the inn! Jean Métayer
and his lawyer, who arrived this morning …'

‘He's got a
lawyer?'

‘He's a far-sighted young
man … This morning, people were organized like this: at the chateau, you and the
priest; at the inn, the young man and his counsel …'

‘Do you think he was capable of
 …'

‘Please excuse me if I serve
myself?'

And Maigret drank a glass, wiped his
lips and stuffed one last pipe before leaving.

‘I assume you don't know how to
use a linotype machine?'

A shrug.

‘I don't know how to use
anything at all … That's precisely the problem! …'

‘And you're not going to
leave the village without telling me under any circumstances, are you?'

A serious, deep expression. And a
serious, deep voice:

‘I promise you!'

Maigret went outside. He was about to
walk down the steps when suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a man standing next to
him.

‘Excuse me, inspector … I wonder
if you might give me a few moments of your time … I've heard …'

‘What?'

‘That you were almost part of the
household … Your father was in the trade … Please do me the honour of coming to my
house and joining me for a drink …'

And the grey-bearded estate manager led
his companion across the courtyards. Everything was ready at his house. A bottle of
brandy whose label announced its venerable age. Some biscuits. A smell of cabbage
and bacon came from the kitchen.

‘From what I've heard, you
knew the chateau in different circumstances … When I arrived there, the chaos was
just beginning … There was a young man from Paris who … This brandy is from the days
of the old count … No sugar, I assume?'

Maigret stared at the table with the
carved lions holding
brass rings in their
mouths. And once again he felt his physical and emotional exhaustion. In the old
days, he had only been allowed to come into this room in his slippers, because of
the waxed parquet.

‘I'm very embarrassed … And
you're the one whose advice I want to ask … We are poor people. You are
familiar with the estate manager's trade, which doesn't make a man rich
 …

‘Some Saturdays when there was no
money in the cash box, I paid the farm workers myself …

‘And sometimes I even paid for the
livestock that the tenant farmers said they needed …'

‘In other words, to cut a long
story short, the countess owed you money!'

‘The countess didn't know
anything about business … The money disappeared in all directions … It was only for
indispensable matters that none could be found.'

‘And it was you who …'

‘Your father would have done the
same, wouldn't he? There are times when you mustn't let the local people
know that the coffers are empty … I took money from my savings …'

‘How much?'

‘Another little glass? … I
didn't do the sums. At least seventy thousand … And now once again, for the
funeral, I'm the one who …'

Maigret saw it vividly: his
father's little office, near the stables, at five o'clock on Saturday.
All the people who worked at the chateau, from linen maids to day labourers, waited
outside. And old Maigret, sitting in the office lined
with green baize, made little piles of silver coins. They
all passed by in turn and wrote their signature or a cross in the accounts book.

‘Now I wonder how I'm going
to recover the … For people like us it's …'

‘Yes, I understand! You've
had the fireplace changed!'

‘Well, it was made of wood … The
marble looks better …'

‘A lot better!' muttered
Maigret.

‘You understand! All the creditors
will pounce on us! We'll have to sell up! And with all these mortgages
 …'

The armchair Maigret was sitting in was
new, like the mantelpiece, and must have come from a shop on Boulevard Barbès. There
was a phonograph on the sideboard.

‘If I had no sons I wouldn't
mind, but Émile has his career to think of … I don't want to rush things
 …'

A girl crossed the corridor.

‘Do you have a daughter as
well?'

‘No! She's a local girl who
comes and helps out.'

‘Well! We'll talk again,
Monsieur Gautier. Excuse me, but I've still got lots of things to do
 …'

‘One last little glass?'

‘No, thank you … You said around
seventy-five thousand, didn't you?'And he left, hands in his pockets,
passed through the flock of geese, walked along the Notre-Dame pond, which was no
longer lapping at the shore. The church clock rang on the stroke of noon.

At Marie Tatin's, Jean Métayer and
the lawyer were having lunch. Sardines, herring fillets and garlic sausage for
starters. On the nearby table were the
glasses that had held the aperitifs.

The two men were in a cheerful mood.
They welcomed Maigret with ironic glances. They winked at each other. The
lawyer's briefcase was closed.

‘Did you find any truffles for the
chicken, at least?' he asked.

Poor Marie Tatin! She had found a very
small tin in the grocer's, but she couldn't get it open. She
didn't dare admit it.