The Shadow Puppet (13 page)

When he came back into the dining room,
the man had not budged, but he was calmer. He straightened up with a sigh, fumbled
for a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.

‘All this is going to end badly,
isn't it?' he began.

‘There are already two
dead!' replied Maigret.

‘Two dead.'

An effort. An
effort that must have been extremely harrowing, but Martin, who was about to get all
agitated again, managed to remain composed.

‘In that case, I think it would be
best—'

‘That it would be
best …?'

Maigret barely dared speak. He held his
breath. He felt a pang in his chest, for he sensed he was close to the truth.

‘Yes,' groaned Martin to
himself. ‘Too bad! It's essential … ess-en-tial—'

But then he walked automatically over to
the door of the bedroom, and looked deep into the room.

Maigret was still waiting, motionless,
not saying a word.

Martin said nothing. His wife remained
silent. But something must have been happening.

The situation dragged on and on. The
inspector was growing impatient.

‘Well?'

Martin turned slowly towards him, with a
different face.

‘What?'

‘You were saying that—'

Monsieur Martin tried to smile.

‘That what?'

‘That it was best, to avert any
further tragedies—'

‘That it was best to
what?'

He wiped his hand across his forehead,
like someone finding it difficult to remember.

‘Please forgive me! I'm so
distraught—'

‘That you have forgotten what you
wanted to say?'

‘Yes … I don't
remember … Look! … She's asleep.'

He pointed to Madame Martin, who had
closed her eyes
and whose face had
turned purple, probably from the ice being applied to her forehead.

‘What do you know?' asked
Maigret in the tone he used for smart-aleck prisoners.

‘Me?'

And from then on, all his answers were
in that vein! What's known as acting dumb. Repeating a word in
astonishment.

‘You were on the point of telling
me the truth—'

‘The truth?'

‘Come on! Don't try and
pretend you're an idiot. You know who killed Couchet.'

‘Me? … I
know?'

If he had never been given a clout, he
was within a whisker of receiving an almighty one from Maigret's hand!

Maigret, his jaws clenched, watched the
unmoving woman who was asleep, or pretending to be, then the man whose eyelids were
still puffy from the previous outburst, his features drawn, his moustache
drooping.

‘Will you take responsibility for
what might happen?'

‘What might happen?'

‘You're wrong,
Martin!'

‘Wrong how?'

What was going on? For a minute,
perhaps, the man who had been about to speak had stood between the two rooms, his
eyes riveted on his wife's bed. Maigret had not heard a sound. Martin had not
moved.

Now she was asleep, and he was feigning
innocence!

‘Forgive me … I think
there are moments when I don't
know what I'm saying … Admit that a
person can go mad if—'

All the same, he remained sad,
lugubrious even. He had the attitude of a condemned man. His gaze avoided
Maigret's face, fluttered over familiar objects and finally settled on the
wireless set, which he proceeded to pick up, crouched on the floor, his back to the
inspector.

‘What time will the doctor be
coming?'

‘I don't know. He said
“this evening”.'

Maigret left, slamming the door behind
him. He found himself nose-to-nose with old Mathilde, who got such a fright that she
stood transfixed, her mouth open.

‘You haven't anything to
tell me either, have you? … Eh? … Perhaps you're going to
claim you don't know anything either?'

She tried to compose herself. She had
both hands beneath her apron in the classic pose of an elderly housewife.

‘Come and let's go back to
your room.'

Her felt slippers glided over the
floorboards. She paused, reluctant to push her half-open door.

‘Go on, go inside.'

And Maigret followed her in, kicked the
door shut, not even sparing a glance for the madwoman sitting by the window.

‘Now, talk! Understood?'

And he sank with his full weight on to a
chair.

‘First of all, they spend their
whole time arguing!'

Maigret didn't bat an eyelid. He
was up to his ears in all this day-to-day unpleasantness, which was more repulsive
than the murder itself.

The old woman before him had a
malevolent expression of jubilation and menace. She was talking! She was going to
talk some more! Out of hatred for the Martins, for the dead man, for all the
residents of the building, out of hatred for the whole of humanity! And out of
hatred for Maigret!

She remained standing, her hands clasped
over her soft, fat belly, and it was as though she had been waiting for this moment
all her life.

It was not a smile that hovered on her
lips. It was bliss that melted her!

‘
First of all
, they spend
their whole time arguing.'

She had time. She distilled her words.
She allowed herself the leisure of expressing her contempt for people who argue.

‘Worse than ragamuffins!
It's always been like that! I sometimes wonder how he's managed not to
wring her neck yet.'

‘Ah! You were
expecting …?'

‘When you
live in a place like this, you have to expect anything …'

She placed careful emphasis on her
words. Was she more loathsome than ridiculous or more ridiculous than loathsome?

The room was large. There was an unmade
bed with grey sheets that can never have been hung out to dry in the open air. A
table, an old wardrobe, a stove.

The madwoman sat in an armchair staring
in front of her with a gentle half-smile.

‘Do you ever have visitors, may I
ask?' said Maigret.

‘Never!'

‘And your sister never leaves this
room?'

‘Sometimes, she gets out on to the
staircase.'

A depressing drabness. A smell of
unsavoury poverty, of old age, of death even?

‘Mind you, it's always the
wife who goes for him!'

Maigret barely had the energy to
question her. He vaguely looked at her. He was listening.

‘Over money matters, of course!
Not over women … Although once she suspected, when she did the accounts,
that he had visited a house of ill-repute, and she gave him a hard time.'

‘Does she hit him?'

Maigret spoke without irony. The idea
was no more preposterous than any other. There were so many implausibilities that
nothing would be surprising.

‘I don't know if she hits
him, but in any case she smashes plates … Then she cries, saying that
she'll never have a happy marriage.'

‘In other
words, there are scenes almost every day?'

‘Not big scenes! But carping. Two
or three big scenes a week.'

‘That must keep you
busy!'

She wasn't sure she had understood
and began to look slightly anxious.

‘What does she complain about most
often?'

‘
“When you can't
afford to feed a wife, you don't marry!

‘
“You don't
deceive a woman telling her you'll be getting a rise when it's not
true.

‘
“You don't steal
a wife from a man like Couchet, who's capable of earning
millions.

‘
“Civil servants are
cowards. You should work for yourself, be prepared to take risks, be
entrepreneurial, if you want to get anywhere.”
'

Poor Martin, with his gloves, his
putty-coloured overcoat and his waxed moustache! Maigret could imagine the hail of
criticism she constantly rained on him.

But he had done his best! Couchet before
him had been subjected to the same criticisms, and she must have said to him,
‘Look at Monsieur Martin! Now there's a clever man! And he hopes to have
a wife one day! She'll get a pension if anything happens to him! Whereas
you—'

All this sounded like a sinister
accusation. Madame Martin had been wrong, had been wronged, had wronged
everyone!

There was a terrible mistake at the root
of all this!

The confectioner's daughter from
Meaux wanted money. That was an established fact. It was a necessity!
She felt it. She was born to have
money, and consequently, it was up to her husband to earn it!

But Couchet didn't earn enough.
And she wouldn't even be entitled to a pension if he died.

So she had married Martin.

Except that it was Couchet who had
become a millionaire, when it was too late! And there was no way of giving Martin
wings, no way to convince him to leave the Registry Office and to sell serums too,
or something that would bring in money.

She was unhappy. She had always been
unhappy. Life seemed determined to cheat her cruelly!

Old Mathilde's glaucous eyes
stared at Maigret, making him think of jellyfish.

‘Did her son ever visit
her?'

‘Sometimes.'

‘Did she quarrel with him
too?'

This was Mathilde's big moment!
She took her time. After all, she had all the time in the world!

‘She used to advise him:
“
Your father's rich! He should be ashamed of himself, not
getting you a better job! You don't even have a car … and do you
know why? Because of that woman who married him for his money! Because
that's the only reason she married him!

“‘And God knows what she's got in store for you
later … Will you even get a share of the fortune that should be
yours?

‘“That's why you should get money out of him now, put it away
in a safe place. I'll look after it for you if you like. Do you want me to
look after it for you?”'

And Maigret,
gazing at the filthy floor, thought hard, his forehead furrowed.

He concluded that among this hodgepodge
of sentiments he could identify one overriding feeling which had perhaps led to all
the others: anxiety! A morbid, pathological anxiety verging on madness.

Madame Martin always talked about what
might happen: her husband's death, poverty if he didn't leave her a
pension … She was afraid for her son!

It was a nightmare, an obsession.

‘What did Roger reply?'

‘Nothing! He never stayed long! He
must have had better things to do elsewhere.'

‘Did he come the day of the
murder?'

‘I don't know.'

And the madwoman in her corner, as old
as Mathilde, still gazed at the inspector, smiling her blissful smile.

‘Did the Martins have a
conversation that was more interesting than usual?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Did Madame Martin go downstairs
at around eight o'clock in the evening?'

‘I don't remember! I
can't be in the corridor all the time.'

Was it thoughtlessness, transcendent
irony? In any case, she was holding something back. Maigret could tell. Not all the
pus had come out.

‘That evening, they had an
argument.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Weren't you listening?'

She did not reply. Her expression
signified: ‘That's my business!'

‘What else do you know?'

‘I know why she's
ill!'

And that was her trump card. Her hands
trembled, still clasped over her stomach. This was the high point of her entire
career.

‘Why?'

The moment needed savouring.

‘Because … Wait a
minute, let me ask my sister if she needs anything … Fanny, are you
thirsty? … Hungry? … Not too hot?'

The little cast-iron stove was red hot.
The old woman floated around the room, gliding soundlessly across the floor in her
felt slippers.

‘Because?'

‘Because he didn't bring
home the money!'

She spelled out this sentence and then
clammed up once and for all. It was over! She would not say another word. She had
said enough.

‘What money?'

A waste of time! She wouldn't
answer any more questions.

‘It's none of my business!
That's what I heard! Make of it what you will … Now, I have to see
to my sister.'

He left, leaving the two old women to
heaven-knows-what routine.

He was all churned up. His stomach
heaved, as in sea-sickness.
He didn't bring home the money …

Was there not an explanation? Martin
decided to rob
the first husband,
perhaps to stop her from criticizing his mediocrity. She watched him out of the
window. He left the office with the 360 notes …