The Shadow Puppet (14 page)

Except that, when he came back, he no
longer had them! Had he hidden them somewhere safe? Had he been robbed in turn? Or
had he become scared and got rid of the money by throwing it into the Seine?

Was mediocre Monsieur Martin in his
putty-coloured overcoat a killer?

Earlier on, he had wanted to talk. His
weariness was that of a guilty man who no longer has the strength to keep quiet, who
prefers immediate prison to the anguish of waiting.

But why was his wife the one who was
ill?

And above all, why was it Roger who had
killed himself?

Was all this perhaps a figment of
Maigret's imagination? Why not suspect Nine, or Madame Couchet, or even the
colonel?

Making his way slowly down the stairs,
the inspector met Monsieur de Saint-Marc, who turned around.

‘Oh! It's you.'

He extended a condescending hand.

‘Any news? Do you think
you'll get to the bottom of it all?'

Then came the scream of the madwoman
upstairs, who must have been abandoned by her sister, gone to stand guard behind
some door.

A lovely funeral. A big turnout.
Distinguished people. Especially Madame Couchet's family and their neighbours
on Boulevard Haussmann.

Only
Couchet's sister in the front row looked out of place, even though she had
gone to impossible lengths to be elegant. She was crying. Above all, she had a noisy
way of blowing her nose that prompted the dead man's mother-in-law to glare at
her every time.

Immediately behind the family sat the
laboratory staff.

And, with the employees, old Mathilde,
very dignified, sure of herself, sure of her right to be there.

The black dress she wore must have
served for just that purpose: attending funerals! Her eyes met Maigret's, and
she deigned to give him a slight nod.

The singing, accompanied by the organ,
burst forth, the cantor's bass, the deacon's falsetto:
Et
ne nos inducas in tentationem …

The scraping of chairs. The catafalque
was high, and yet it was invisible beneath all the flowers and wreaths.

The residents of 61, Place des Vosges

Mathilde must have given her share. Had
the Martins added their names to the list of contributors too?

Madame Martin was not there. She was
still in bed.

Libera nos, domine …

The absolution. The end. The master of
ceremonies slowly leading the procession. Maigret, in a corner, by a confessional
box, came across Nine, whose little nose was all red. She hadn't bothered to
give it a dab of powder.

‘It's terrible, isn't
it?' she said.

‘What's terrible?'

‘Everything! I don't know! That music … and that smell of
chrysanthemums.'

She bit her lower lip to stifle a
sob.

‘You know … I've
thought a lot about … Well, I sometimes think he suspected
something.'

‘Are you going to the
cemetery?'

‘What do you think? People might
see me, mightn't they? Perhaps it's better if I don't
go … Even though I'd so like to know where they put him.'

‘You can always ask the
keeper.'

‘True.'

They were whispering. The footsteps of
the last of the guests died away on the other side of the door. Cars started up.

‘You were saying that he suspected
something?'

‘Perhaps not that he would die in
that manner … but he knew he didn't have long. He had quite a
serious heart disease.'

Maigret could sense that she had been
fretting, that for hours and hours on end a single question had been on her
mind.

‘Something he said came back to
me.'

‘Was he afraid?'

‘No! On the contrary. When anyone
happened to mention cemeteries, he would laugh and say,
“The
only place where you'll find peace and quiet … A nice little
corner in
Père-Lachaise
.
”
'

‘Did he joke a lot?'

‘Especially when he wasn't
happy … Does that make
sense?
He didn't like to show he was worried. At those times, he tried somehow to
snap out of it, to find something to laugh about.'

‘When he spoke of his first wife,
for example?'

‘He never talked to me about
her.'

‘What about his second
wife?'

‘No! He didn't talk about
anyone in particular … He would talk about people in
general … He found they were strange creatures. If a waiter cheated him,
he would look at him more affectionately than the others.
“A
rascal!”
he would say. And he'd say it in an amused tone,
pleased even!'

It was cold. A real November day.
Maigret and Nine had no business in this district of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule.

‘Is everything all right at the
Moulin Bleu?'

‘It's fine!'

‘I'll come by and say hello
one evening.'

Maigret shook her hand, and jumped on to
the platform of an omnibus.

He needed to be alone, to think, or
rather to let his mind wander. He pictured the procession arriving soon at the
cemetery … Madame Couchet, the colonel, the brother, the people who must
be gossiping about the strange will …

What had the Martins been up to,
rummaging around the bins?

For that was the crux of the story.
Martin had poked around the dustbins claiming he was looking for a glove, which he
hadn't found but had been wearing the next morning. Madame Martin had also
rifled through the rubbish, talking of a silver spoon thrown out accidentally.

‘
… because he didn't bring home the money
,'
old Mathilde had said.

In fact, things must have been lively at
that hour in Place des Vosges! The madwoman, who must be on her own, wouldn't
she be screaming as usual?

The omnibus was full, and drove past bus
stops without stopping. A man, pressed up against Maigret, was saying to his
neighbour, ‘Did you read about that business with the thousand-franc
notes?'

‘No! What was that?'

‘I wish I could have been
there … At the Bougival weir … Two mornings
ago … Thousand-franc notes floating on the tide … It was a
sailor who spotted them first and who managed to fish out a few … but the
lock-keeper saw what was going on and called the police and an officer kept an eye
out for anyone trying going after the loot.'

‘No kidding? I don't suppose
that stopped them putting a bit aside.'

‘The paper says they found around
thirty notes, but that there must have been a lot more, because they fished out a
couple down river in Mantes too … Huh! Cash swimming down the Seine!
It's better than gudgeon.'

Maigret stood a head taller than
everyone else. He remained impassive, his face composed.

… because he didn't bring home the money.

So was that it? Meek Monsieur Martin,
overcome by fear or remorse at the thought of his crime? Martin who admitted he went
for a walk that evening on the Ile Saint-Louis to relieve his neuralgia!

Maigret
couldn't help smiling a little as he pictured Madame Martin, who had seen it
all from her window and was waiting.

Her husband came home, weary, defeated.
She watched his every action and movement. She was eager to see the notes, perhaps
to count them.

He got undressed and prepared for
bed.

Didn't she pick up his clothes to
search his pockets?

She started to feel anxious. She looked
at Martin with his droopy moustache.

‘The … the … money?'

‘What money?'

‘Who did you give it to? Answer
me! Don't try and lie.'

And Maigret, alighting from the omnibus
at Pont-Neuf, from where he could see the windows of his office, caught himself
saying in a low voice, ‘I bet once he was in bed, Martin began to
cry!'

It began at Jeumont. The time was
eleven p.m. A few third-class passengers walked towards the customs shed while the
customs officers began inspecting the second- and first-class carriages.

Meticulous people had got their
suitcases down in advance and spread the contents out on the seats. This included a
man with anxious eyes in second class, in a compartment where the only other
passengers were an elderly Belgian couple.

His luggage was a model of neatness and
forethought. His shirts were wrapped in newspaper to prevent them getting dirty.
There were twelve pairs of detachable cuffs, winter drawers and summer drawers, an
alarm clock, shoes and a pair of worn-out slippers.

A woman's hand had clearly done
the packing. There was no wasted space. Nothing would get creased. A customs officer
poked around carelessly, observing the man in the putty-coloured overcoat, who
looked just the type to have such suitcases.

‘All right!'

A chalk cross on the cases.

‘Anything to declare, the rest of
you?'

‘Excuse me,' asked the man,
‘where exactly does Belgium begin?'

‘You see
the first hedge over there? No! You can't see anything! But
look … Count the lamps … the third on the left … Well,
that's the border.'

A voice in the corridor, repeating at
the door of each compartment, ‘Have your passports ready, your identity
cards!'

And the man in the putty-coloured
overcoat struggled to put his suitcases back in the overhead net.

‘Passport?'

He turned around and saw a young man
wearing a grey peaked cap.

‘French? Your identity card,
then.'

It took a few moments. His fingers
rummaged in his wallet.

‘Here you are,
monsieur!'

‘Good! Martin, Edgar
Émile … That's correct! … Follow me—'

‘Where to?'

‘You can bring your
luggage.'

‘But … the
train—'

The two Belgians now stared at him,
aghast, although they were amused to have shared a compartment with a fugitive.
Monsieur Martin, his eyes wide, clambered up on to the seat to retrieve his
suitcases.

‘I swear … What
the—?'

‘Hurry up … The
train's about to leave.'

And the young man in the grey cap rolled
the heaviest suitcase on to the platform. It was dark. In the glow of the lamplight,
people were hurrying back from the buffet. The whistle was blown. A woman was
arguing with
the customs officers who
refused to allow her back on to the train.

‘We'll see about that in the
morning—'

And Monsieur Martin followed the young
man, struggling to carry his suitcases. He had never thought a station platform
could be so long. It went on and on, endless, deserted, with mysterious doors
leading off it.

Finally, they went through the last
one.

‘Come in!'

It was dark. Nothing but a lamp with a
green shade, hanging so low above the table that it only shed light on a few papers.
And yet something was moving at the far end of the room.

‘Good evening, Monsieur
Martin,' said a cordial voice.

And a burly form stepped out of the
shadows: Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, encased in his heavy overcoat with a
velvet collar, his hands in his pockets.

‘Don't bother taking off
your coat. We're getting the train back to Paris, which is due to arrive on
platform three.'

This time it was definite! Martin was
crying, silently, his hands paralysed by his neatly packed suitcases.

The inspector who had been placed on
sentry duty at 61, Place des Vosges had telephoned Maigret a few hours earlier,
‘Our man is running off. He's just taken a taxi to the Gare du
Nord.'

‘Let him get away. Carry on
watching the wife.'

And Maigret had caught the same train as
Martin. He had travelled in the neighbouring compartment with two
sergeants who had told lewd stories for the entire
duration of the journey.

From time to time, the chief inspector
peeped through the spy hole between the two compartments and glimpsed a gloomy
Martin.

Jeumont … Identity
card! … Border police.

Now, they were both on their way back to
Paris, in a reserved compartment. Martin was not handcuffed. His suitcases were in
the net above his head, and one of them, precariously balanced, threatened to fall
on him.

They had reached Maubeuge and Maigret
still hadn't asked a single question.

It was unbelievable! He was ensconced in
his corner, his pipe between his teeth. He puffed away continually, watching his
companion with his laughing little eyes.

Ten times, twenty times, Martin opened
his mouth without saying anything. Ten times, twenty times, the chief inspector took
absolutely no notice.