The Saint-Fiacre Affair (12 page)

Maigret went outside, a little weary,
perhaps slightly discouraged. Night had fallen completely now. The pavement gleamed
more brightly than usual because of the cold. Outside a draper's shop, a
salesman with a head cold was pacing back and forth, accosting passers-by.

‘A winter coat? … Lovely bit of
English fabric from only two hundred francs … Come in! No obligation to buy
 …'

A little further along, outside the Café
de Paris, where the click of billiard balls could be heard, Maigret spotted the
Count of Saint-Fiacre's yellow car.

He went inside, looked around for the
man and, not finding him, sat down at a table. This was the town's smartest
café. On a raised platform, three musicians were tuning up and sorting out the
sequence of their set with three cards, each one bearing a number.

A sound came from the phone cabin.

‘A beer!' Maigret said to
the waiter.

‘Light or dark?'

But the inspector was struggling to hear
the voice in the cabin. He couldn't quite make it out. Saint-Fiacre came out,
and the cashier asked him:

‘How many calls?'

‘Three.'

‘To Paris, yes? … Three times
eight eighty …'

The count spotted Maigret and came
towards him quite casually and sat down beside him.

‘You didn't tell me you were
coming to Moulins! I would have given you a lift … Admittedly it's a coupé,
and in this weather …'

‘Were you calling Marie
Vassiliev?'

‘No! I don't know why I
would hide the truth from you … I'll have a beer too, waiter … No, in fact!
Something hot … a hot rum … I was calling a certain Monsieur Wolf … If you
don't know him, others are bound to, Quai des Orfèvres … A money-lender, if
you like … I've resorted to his services several times … I've just been
trying to …'

Maigret gave him a quizzical look.

‘Were you asking him for
money?'

‘On any terms! And he refused
anyway. Don't look at me like that! This afternoon I called in at the bank
 …'

‘At what time?'

‘Around three … The young man you
know and his lawyer were coming out …'

‘Were you trying to withdraw
money?'

‘I tried! Don't think for a
moment that I'm trying to make you feel sorry for me! Some people are
embarrassed when it comes to money. Not me … So! Once the forty thousand francs had
been sent to Paris and Marie Vassiliev's train ticket bought, I've got
about three hundred francs in my pocket. When I came here I hadn't foreseen
any of this … I've just got the suit on my back … In Paris I owe several
thousand francs to the landlady of my flat, who won't let me have my
belongings …'

As he spoke, he watched the balls
rolling on the green baize of the billiard table. The billiard-players were some
young men from the town, of modest origins, who cast the occasional envious glance
at the count's elegant outfit.

‘That's all! I would have
liked at the very least to be in mourning for the funeral. There isn't a
tailor in the country who would give me two days of credit … At the bank, they told
me my mother's account was blocked, and also that the balance came to just
over seven hundred francs … And do you know who gave me this pleasant
information?'

‘The son of your estate
manager!'

‘The very same!'

He took a swig of the steaming rum and
fell silent, still watching the billiards. The band struck up a Viennese waltz which
seemed to be oddly in time with the sound of the billiard balls.

It was hot. The café was plunged in
greyish murk, in spite of the electric lights. It was an old-fashioned provincial
café, with only one concession to modernity in
the form of a poster which announced: ‘Cocktails 6
francs.'

Maigret smoked slowly. He too stared at
the billiard table, lit harshly by lamps in green cardboard shades. From time to
time the door opened, and after a few seconds a gust of frosty air caught them by
surprise.

‘Let's go and sit at the
back …'

It was the voice of the lawyer from
Bourges. He passed by the table at which the two men were sitting, followed by Jean
Métayer, who was wearing white woollen gloves.

But they both looked straight ahead.
They didn't see the others until they had sat down.

The two tables were almost facing one
another. Métayer blushed slightly and ordered firmly:

‘A hot chocolate!'

And Saint-Fiacre joked under his
breath:

‘Poor love!'

A woman sat down an equal distance from
the two tables and, giving the waiter a familiar smile, murmured:

‘The usual!'

He brought her a cherry brandy. She
powdered her face and put on some lipstick. And she fluttered her eyelashes, unsure
which table to focus her gaze upon.

Was Maigret, tall and comfortable, the
one she should target? Was it the more elegant lawyer, already looking her up and
down with a half-smile?

‘And there you have it! I'll
be attending the funeral in grey!' murmured the Count of Saint-Fiacre.
‘I can hardly borrow a black suit from the butler! Or wear one of my late
father's morning coats!'

Apart from the lawyer, whose interest was
focused on the woman, everyone was looking at the nearest billiard table.

There were three of them. Two were
occupied. Cries of ‘bravo!' erupted as the musicians concluded their
piece. And all of a sudden, the sound of glasses and saucers could be heard
again.

‘Three ports, three!'

The door opened and closed again. The
cold came in and was gradually absorbed by the warmth of the room.

The lamps above the third billiard table
came on when the cashier turned to flick the electric switches, which were behind
her back.

‘Thirty points!' said a
voice.

And, to the waiter:

‘A glass of Vichy … No! A Vittel
with strawberry syrup …'

It was Émile Gautier, who was carefully
coating the tip of his cue with blue chalk. Then he set the marker to zero. His
companion was the sub-manager of the bank, ten years his senior, with a pointed
brown moustache.

It was only on his third stroke – which
he missed – that he spotted Maigret. He greeted him slightly awkwardly. From that
point on he was so engrossed in the game that he no longer had time to see anybody
at all.

‘Of course, if you're not
scared of the cold there's room in my car …' said Maurice de
Saint-Fiacre. ‘Can I get you something? I'm sure one drink isn't
going to finish me off …'

‘Waiter!' said Jean Métayer
loudly. ‘Put a call through to Bourges 17!'

His father's number! A few moments
later he closed himself in the cabin.

Maigret was still smoking. He had
ordered a second beer. And the woman had finally focused her attention on him,
perhaps because he was the largest person present. Every time he turned towards her
she smiled at him as if they were old acquaintances.

She probably had little idea that he was
thinking about the old woman, as the son himself called her, who was laid out on the
first floor of the chateau, with the locals processing past her and nudging one
another.

But that was not how he saw her. He
imagined her at a time when there had not yet been any cars outside the Café de
Paris, and when no one drank cocktails.

In the grounds of the chateau, tall and
lithe, elegant as the heroine of a popular novel, beside the pram being pushed by
the nanny …

Maigret was only a little boy whose
hair, like the hair of Émile Gautier and the altar boy, insisted on standing up in a
tuft on the top of his head.

Was he not jealous of the count on the
morning when the couple had left for Aix-les-Bains, in a car (one of the first in
the area) full of furs and perfume? Her face was hidden behind her veil. The count
was wearing big goggles. It looked like a heroic abduction. And the nanny was
holding the baby's hand, waving goodbye …

Now, the old woman was being sprinkled
with holy water, and the bedroom smelled of candle-wax.

Preoccupied, Émile walked around the
billiard table, playing like a dream, counting under his breath, importantly:

‘Seven …'

He lined up his shot again. He was
winning. His boss with the pointed moustache said in a thin voice:

‘Terrific!'

Two men studied each other across the
green baize: Jean Métayer, to whom the lawyer was speaking incessantly with a smile
on his face, and the Count of Saint-Fiacre, who stopped the waiter with a languid
gesture.

‘Same again!'

As to Maigret, he was now thinking about
a boy-scout whistle. A two-note whistle, in bronze, of the kind he himself had never
owned.

‘Another phone call!' sighed
Maigret as he saw Métayer getting up yet again.

He watched after him and noted that he
didn't go into either the cabin or the lavatory. The podgy lawyer, meanwhile,
was no longer perched on the edge of his chair like someone hesitating to get up. He
was looking at the Count of Saint-Fiacre. He looked almost as if he was about to
smile.

Was it Maigret who was superfluous? The
scene, at any rate, reminded the inspector of certain situations from his youth:
three or four friends, in a bar like this; two women at the other end of the room.
Discussions, hesitation, calling the waiter, to pass him a note …

The lawyer was in the same state of
nerves. And the woman sitting two tables away from Maigret mistakenly thought that
she was the source of the agitation. She smiled, opened her handbag and put a little
powder on her face.

‘I'll be back in a
moment!' said the inspector to his companion.

He crossed the bar in the direction that
Métayer had taken and saw a door that he hadn't noticed, which opened on to a
wide corridor with a red carpet. At the end of the corridor was a counter with a big
book and a telephone
switchboard, a
receptionist. Métayer was there, finishing a conversation with the girl. He left her
just as Maigret stepped forwards.

‘Thank you, mademoiselle … The
first on the left, you say?'

He didn't hide from the inspector.
He didn't seem bothered by his presence. On the contrary! And a little flame
of joy flickered in his eyes.

‘I didn't know it was a
hotel …' Maigret said to the girl.

‘Are you staying somewhere else? …
You've made a mistake … This is the best hotel in Moulins …'

‘Didn't you have the Count
of Saint-Fiacre staying here?'

She nearly laughed. Then all of a sudden
she turned serious.

‘What has he done?' she
asked with some concern. ‘This is the second time in five minutes that
 …'

‘Where did you send my
predecessor?'

‘He wants to know if the Count of
Saint-Fiacre went out during the night from Saturday to Sunday … I can't
answer now, because the night watchman hasn't turned up … So this gentleman
asked me if we had a garage and he went there …'

Good heavens! Maigret had only to follow
Métayer!

‘And the garage is in the first
street on the left!' he said, slightly irritated.

‘Exactly! It's open all
night.'

Jean Métayer had obviously been quick,
because when Maigret stepped into the street in question, he emerged from it,
whistling. The watchman was having a snack in a corner.

‘I want to know the same thing as
the gentleman who just left … The yellow car … Did someone come and get it during
the night between Saturday and Sunday? …'

There was already a ten-franc note on
the table. Maigret set down a second one.

‘At about midnight,
yes!'

‘And they brought it
back?'

‘Perhaps at three o'clock in
the morning …'

‘Was it dirty?'

‘A little bit, perhaps … You know,
the weather's dry at the moment …'

‘There were two of them,
weren't there? A man and a woman …'

‘No! Just a man on his
own.'

‘Small and thin?'

‘No! On the contrary, very tall
and athletic.'

The Count of Saint-Fiacre, of
course!

When Maigret entered the café, the band
was in full swing once more, and the first thing he noticed was that the corner
where Métayer and his companion had been sitting was empty.

But a few seconds later he found the
lawyer sitting in his own seat, beside the Count of Saint-Fiacre.

When Maigret appeared, he rose to his
feet.

‘Please excuse me … No, really!
Sit where you were, please …'