The Saint-Fiacre Affair (11 page)

‘I found some,
monsieur!'

‘Then hurry up! This country air
gives you a terrific appetite!'

It was Maigret who went to the kitchen
and who used his knife to cut into the metal of the tin while the cross-eyed woman
stammered in a low voice:

‘I'm confused … I
 …'

‘Shut up, Marie!' he
muttered.

One camp … Two camps … Three camps?

He felt a need to joke to escape
reality.

‘By the way! The priest asked me
to bring you three hundred indulgences! To make up for your sins!'

And Marie Tatin, who didn't get
the joke, looked up at her companion with a mixture of fear and respectful
affection.

Maigret had phoned Moulins to order a
taxi. At first he was surprised to see one arriving about ten minutes after his
call, but, as he was heading for the door, the lawyer, who had been finishing his
coffee, cut in.

‘Sorry! That's ours … But if
you want to join us …'

‘Thank you, but …'

Jean Métayer and the lawyer left first,
in a big car that still bore the family crest of its former owner. A quarter of an
hour later Maigret left in turn and as he travelled along, chatting to the driver,
he observed the landscape.

The setting was monotonous: two rows of
poplars along the road, ploughed fields as far as the eye could see, with the
occasional rectangle of copse, and the blue-green eye of a pond.

Most of the houses were little shacks.
This made sense, because there were no small landowners.

Nothing but large estates, one of which,
the one that belonged to the Duke of T— included three villages.

The Saint-Fiacre estate had covered two
thousand hectares before the sequence of sales.

The sole means of transport was an old
Paris bus bought by a farmer, which travelled between Moulins and Saint-Fiacre once
a day.

‘We're in the middle of the
countryside here,' said the
driver.
‘You haven't seen anything yet. But in the depths of winter …'

As they drove along the main Moulins
road the clock on the church of Saint-Pierre struck half past two. Maigret stopped
the cab outside the Comptoir d'Escompte and paid the fare. Just as he turned
away from the taxi to head towards the bank, a woman came out of it, holding a
little boy by the hand.

And the inspector quickly immersed
himself in the contemplation of a shop window so as not to be noticed. She was a
countrywoman in her Sunday best, her hat balanced on her hair, her waist constrained
by a corset. She held herself upright, dragging the child along behind her, paying
him no more heed than she would have done to a parcel.

It was the mother of Ernest, the
Saint-Fiacre altar boy.

The street was busy. Ernest would have
liked to stop and look at the window displays, but he was caught up in the wake of
the black skirt. Nevertheless, his mother bent down to say something to him. And, as
if it had been decided in advance, she stepped inside a toyshop with him.

Maigret didn't dare to get too
close. And yet he received the information he needed in the form of some
whistle-blasts that emanated from the shop a moment later. They were trying out
every imaginable whistle, and in the end the altar boy had to opt for a two-note
boy-scout model.

When he came out he was wearing it
around his neck, but his mother continued to drag him along and wouldn't let
him use the instrument in the street.

A bank branch like any other in the
provinces. A long oak counter. Five clerks leaning on desks. Maigret made for the
counter marked ‘Current Accounts', and a clerk rose to his feet and
waited to serve him.

Maigret wanted to find out about the
exact state of the Saint-Fiacre fortune, and particularly about the transactions of
the previous few weeks, or indeed the previous few days, which he thought might
provide him with a clue.

But he paused in silence for a moment,
studying the young man who stood there politely, without a hint of impatience.

‘Émile Gautier, I
assume?'

He had seen him pass by twice on his
motorbike, although hadn't been able to make out his features. But it was the
striking resemblance to the estate manager of the chateau that left no doubt.

Not so much a resemblance in terms of
detail as a resemblance in terms of breeding. The same peasant origins: marked
features, robust bones.

His degree of social advancement was
more or less the same, his skin better groomed than that of the farmers, his
expression intelligent, his assurance that of an ‘educated' man.

But Émile wasn't yet a city type.
His hair, although brilliantined, was still rebellious and stood up in a tuft on the
top of his head. His cheeks were pink, like those of village toughs, scrubbed clean
on Sunday mornings.

‘That's me.'

He wasn't troubled. Maigret was
sure that he must be
a model employee, in
whom his manager had every confidence and who would soon be due for promotion.

A black suit, made to measure but by a
local tailor, in indestructible serge. His father wore celluloid collars. He, on the
other hand, wore soft ones, but his tie was still elastic.

‘Do you recognize me?'

‘No! I assume you're the
policeman …'

‘And I would like some information
about the state of the Saint-Fiacre account.

‘That's easy! I've
been put in charge of that account, as I have of many others.'

He was polite, well brought up. At
school he must have been the teacher's pet.

‘Let me have a look at the
Saint-Fiacre account!' he said to a clerk sitting behind him.

And his eye skimmed a big sheet of
yellow paper.

‘Would you like a statement, the
balance or general information?'

At least he was precise!

‘Would general information be all
right?'

‘Would you mind coming over here?
 … People might hear us …'

And they reached the end of the room but
were still separated by the oak counter.

‘My father must have told you the
countess was very chaotic … I was constantly having to stop cheques that would
otherwise have bounced … In fact she wasn't aware of it … She drew cheques
without worrying about the state of her account … And then, when I phoned her
to let her know, she lost her head … Even
this morning, three dud cheques were presented, and I was forced to turn them down …
I've been given an order not to pay anything before …'

‘Is she completely
ruined?'

‘Not exactly … Three farms out of
five have been sold … The two others have been mortgaged, along with the chateau …
The countess had a block of flats in Paris that brought her in a small income … But
when all of a sudden she paid forty or fifty thousand francs into her son's
account, it threw everything out of kilter … I always tried to do what I could … I
delayed payments two or three times … My father …'

‘Lent some money, I
know.'

‘That's all I can tell you …
Right now, the balance is exactly seven hundred and seventy-five francs … Bear in
mind that property tax hasn't been paid for last year, and that the bailiff
issued a first warning last week …'

‘Is Jean Métayer aware of
this?'

‘He's aware of everything!
And perhaps more than aware.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Nothing!'

‘Do you think he has his feet on
the ground?'

But Émile Gautier, the soul of
discretion, did not reply.

‘Is that all you want to
know?'

‘Do any other residents of
Saint-Fiacre have their accounts at your branch?'

‘No!'

‘No one came today to make a
transaction? To cash a cheque, for example?'

‘No one.'

‘And you were at your counter all
the time?'

‘I never left it!'

He wasn't concerned. Ever the
model employee, he replied as one must to an important person.

‘Would you like to see the
manager? Although he won't be able to tell you more than I can …'

The streetlights were coming on. The
main street was so busy it was almost like a big city, and there were long queues of
cars outside the cafés.

A procession was passing by: two camels
and a baby elephant bearing advertising streamers for a circus set up in Place de la
Victoire. In a grocer's shop, Maigret noticed the altar boy's mother,
still holding him by the hand and buying tins of food.

A little further on he nearly bumped
into Métayer and his lawyer, who were walking busily along, talking. The lawyer was
saying:

‘… they'll have to block it
 …'

They didn't see the inspector and
carried on towards the Comptoir d'Escompte.

You inevitably meet everyone ten times
an afternoon, in a town that consists entirely of a street five hundred metres
long.

Maigret was on his way to the printworks
of the
Journal de Moulins
. The offices were at the front of the building:
modern shop windows, with a large display of press photographs and the latest news,
handwritten in blue pencil, on long strips of paper.

Mondchourie. The Havas Press Agency informs us that …

But, to get to the printworks, one had
first to turn down a dark alley, guided by the noise of the rotary press. In a
desolate studio, men in overalls worked at tall marble tables. In a glazed cage at
the end were the two linotypes, rattling away like machine guns.

‘The foreman, please …'

He literally had to shout, because of
the thundering noise of the machines. The smell of ink caught his throat. A little
man in blue overalls who was setting the type in a press form cupped a hand to his
ear.

‘Are you the foreman?'

‘I'm the page
setter!'

Maigret took from his wallet the piece
of paper that had killed the Countess of Saint-Fiacre. The man put on steel-rimmed
glasses, looked at it and wondered what it might mean.

‘Is this one of yours?'

‘What? …'

People ran past, carrying piles of
newspapers.

‘I'm asking you if this was
printed here.'

‘Come with me!'

It was easier in the courtyard. It was
cold, but at least they could talk in an almost normal voice.

‘What did you ask me?'

‘Do you recognize the
type?'

‘It's 9-point
Cheltenham.'

‘From here?'

‘Almost all linotypes use
Cheltenham.'

‘Are there other linotypes in
Moulins?'

‘Not in Moulins … But in Nevers, in
Bourges, in Chateauroux, in Autun, in …'

‘Is there anything special about
this particular document?'

‘It's been printed using a
planer … They wanted to make it look like a newspaper cutting, didn't they? …
I was once asked to do the same thing, for a joke …'

‘Aha!'

‘At least fifteen years ago … When
we still set the newspaper by hand …'

‘And the paper doesn't give
you a clue?'

‘Almost all provincial newspapers
use the same supplier. It's German paper … Excuse me … I have to finish
setting the type … It's for the Nièvre edition …'

‘Do you know Jean
Métayer?'

The man shrugged.

‘What do you think of
him?'

‘To listen to him you'd
think he knew the trade better than we do. He's got a screw loose … We let him
fiddle about in the workshop, because of the countess, who's a friend of the
boss …'

‘Can he use a linotype
machine?'

‘Hmm! … Well, he says he can!
 …'

‘Well, could he have set this
paragraph?'

‘If he had a good two hours to
spare … Starting the same line ten times over again …'

‘Did he have access to a linotype
machine any time recently?'

‘What do I know? He comes! He
goes! He irritates us all with his photographic techniques … You'll forgive
me … The train won't wait … And my
form isn't finished yet …'

There was no point pressing the matter.
Maigret was about to go into the studio again, but the bustling activity in there
put him off. These people didn't have much time on their hands. Everyone was
running. The porters jostled him as they hurried to the exit.

But he did manage to take aside an
apprentice who was rolling a cigarette.

‘What do you do with the lines of
lead type once they've been used?'

‘They're melted down
again.'

‘How often?'

‘Every two days … Look! The
foundry's over there, in the corner … Careful! It's hot …'