The Shadow Puppet (9 page)

‘I'd better pay old Mathilde
a visit!' thought Maigret.

But when he arrived at Place des Vosges
the next morning, the concierge, who was sorting the post (a big pile for the
Couchet laboratory and only a handful of letters for the other residents),
intercepted him.

‘Are you on your way up to the
Martins'? I'm not sure that's a good idea. Madame Martin was taken
very ill last night. We had to call the doctor out urgently. Her husband is out of
his mind.'

The laboratory staff were crossing the
courtyard on
their way to the offices and
the lab. At a first-floor window, a manservant was shaking rugs.

A baby could be heard wailing and a
nanny was crooning monotonously.

‘Sssh! … She's
asleep … Come in anyway.'

Monsieur Martin stood aside, resigned.
Resigned to showing his home in a state of disorder. Resigned to showing himself
ungroomed, his moustache drooping, a greenish colour, which betrayed the fact that
it was dyed.

He had sat up with his wife all night.
He was worn out, listless.

He tiptoed over to close the door that
communicated with the bedroom, through which Maigret glimpsed the foot of the bed
and a bowl on the floor.

‘The concierge told
you?'

He whispered, glancing anxiously at the
door. As he spoke, he turned off the gas ring on which he had been making
coffee.

‘Some coffee?'

‘No thank you. I shan't
disturb you for long. I wanted to inquire after Madame Martin.'

‘You're too kind!'
said Martin emphatically.

He really did not suspect any ulterior
motive. He was so distraught that he must have lost his critical faculties, although
it was not certain he had ever possessed any.

‘It's terrible, these
attacks she has! Would you excuse me for drinking my coffee in front of
you?'

He grew flustered
on noticing that his braces were flapping against his calves. He hastily adjusted
his clothes and removed the bottles of medicine that were sitting on the table.

‘Does Madame Martin often suffer
these attacks?'

‘No. And especially not as violent
as this. She's very highly strung. When she was a girl, apparently she had
nervous fits every week.'

‘And still does?'

Martin gave him a hangdog look, barely
daring to admit, ‘I have to make allowances for her. One little disagreement
and she's seething!'

With his putty-coloured overcoat,
carefully waxed moustache and leather gloves, he had been ridiculous. A caricature
of the pretentious petty official.

But now the dye had faded from his
moustache, the look in his eyes was that of a defeated man. He hadn't had the
time to shave, and was still wearing his nightshirt under an old jacket.

And he cut a pathetic figure. He was,
astonishingly, at least fifty-five.

‘Did something upset her last
night?'

‘No … No—'

He became agitated, looking about him,
panic-stricken.

‘No one came to see her? Her son,
for example?'

‘No! You came, then we had dinner.
And then—'

‘What?'

‘Nothing. I don't
know … It just came over her … She's very sensitive.
She's had so much unhappiness in her life!'

Did he really
believe what he was saying? Maigret sensed that Martin was trying to convince
himself.

‘In short, you personally have no
ideas about the murder?'

And Martin dropped the cup he was
holding. Was he of a nervous disposition too?

‘Why would I have any ideas? I
swear … If I did, I …'

‘You—'

‘I don't know. It's a
terrible business! Just when we're inundated at the office. I haven't
even had the time to inform my boss this morning.'

He wiped his thin hand across his
forehead then busied himself picking up the pieces of broken china. He spent ages
looking for a cloth to clean the wooden floor.

‘If only she'd listened to
me, we wouldn't have stayed here.'

He was afraid, that was patent. He was
beside himself with fear. But fear of what, fear of whom?

‘You're a good man,
aren't you, Monsieur Martin? And an honest man.'

‘I have thirty-two years'
service and—'

‘So if you knew something that
could help the police unmask the culprit, you would feel duty-bound to tell
me.'

Were his teeth chattering?

‘I would most definitely do
so … but I don't know anything … and I too would like to
know! This is no life …'

‘What do you think of your
stepson?'

Martin stared at Maigret in
amazement.

‘Roger?
He's …'

‘He's depraved, I
know!'

‘But he's not a bad boy, I
swear. It's all his father's fault.
As my wife always says, you shouldn't give young
people so much money. She's right! And as she says I don't think Couchet
did it out of generosity or fatherly love, he had no interest in his son. He did it
to get rid of him, to salve his conscience.'

‘His conscience?'

Martin turned red, and became even more
flummoxed.

‘He treated Juliette badly,
didn't he?' he said quietly.

‘Juliette?'

‘My wife, his first wife. What did
he ever do for her? Nothing! He treated her like a skivvy. And she was the one who
helped him through the hard times, and later—'

‘He didn't give her
anything, obviously. But she had remarried.'

Martin's face had turned beetroot.
Maigret watched him with amazement, and pity. For he realized that the poor man was
in no way to blame for this staggering story. He was merely repeating what he must
have heard hundreds of times from his wife.

Couchet was rich! She was poor! And
so …

But the civil servant was straining to
listen.

‘Did you not hear
something?'

They kept quiet for a moment. A faint
cry was heard coming from the bedroom. Martin went over and opened the door.

‘What are you telling him?'
asked Madame Martin.

‘But … I—'

‘It's Inspector Maigret,
isn't it? … What does he want now?'

Maigret couldn't see her. The
voice was that of someone
lying in bed,
very weary, but who still has all her wits about her.

‘The detective chief inspector
came to inquire after you.'

‘Tell him to come in. Wait! Pass
me a wet towel and the mirror. And the comb.'

‘You'll get yourself all
upset again.'

‘Hold the mirror straight, will
you! No! Put it down … You're hopeless … Take away that
bowl. Honestly, men! As soon as their wife's not there, the place looks like a
pigsty. You can show him in now.'

Like the dining room, the bedroom was
drab and cheerless, furnished in poor taste with a profusion of old curtains, old
fabrics and faded rugs. The minute he stepped inside, Maigret felt Madame
Martin's eyes boring into him. Her gaze was calm and extraordinarily
clear.

Her drawn face broke into an
invalid's syrupy smile.

‘The place is a terrible mess!
Please don't take any notice,' she said. ‘It's because I was
taken ill.'

And she stared mournfully in front of
her.

‘But I'm feeling better. I
must be back on my feet tomorrow, for the funeral. It is tomorrow, isn't
it?'

‘Yes, it's tomorrow!
You're prone to these attacks—'

‘I had them even as a child, but
my sister—'

‘The sister who—?'

‘I had two sisters. Now
don't you go believing what's not … The youngest suffered fits
too. She got married. Her husband turned out to be a good-for-nothing and one fine
day, when she was having an attack, he had her put away. She died a week
later.'

‘Don't get upset!' implored Martin, who didn't know where to
put himself or where to look.

‘Insane?' asked Maigret.

The woman's features hardened
again and there was malice in her voice.

‘In other words, her husband
wanted to get rid of her! Not even six months later, he married someone else. Men
are all the same … You devote yourself, you kill yourself for
them—'

‘I beg you!' sighed her
husband.

‘I don't mean you! Although
you're no better than the others.'

And Maigret suddenly sensed a whiff of
hatred in the air. It was fleeting, hazy, but he was convinced he was not
mistaken.

‘All the same, if it weren't
for me—' she went on.

Did her voice contain a threat? Her
husband busied himself doing nothing. To keep up appearances, he counted out drops
of a potion into a glass, one by one.

‘The doctor said—'

‘I don't give a fig for what
the doctor said!'

‘But you must … Here!
Drink it slowly. It's not so bad.'

She looked at him, then she looked at
Maigret, and finally she gave a resigned shrug and drank.

‘You haven't really come to
inquire after my health,' she stated suspiciously.

‘I was on my way to the laboratory
when the concierge told me—'

‘Have you found any
clues?'

‘Not
yet.'

She closed her eyes, to indicate
fatigue. Martin looked at Maigret, who rose.

‘Well, I wish you a speedy
recovery. You're already much better.'

She let him leave. Maigret stopped
Martin from seeing him out.

‘Please, stay with your
wife.'

Poor fellow! He seemed afraid to stay;
it was as if he were clinging to Maigret because when there was another person
there, things were not so dreadful.

‘You'll see, it will turn
out to be nothing serious.'

As he walked through the dining room, he
heard a rustle in the corridor. And he caught up with old Mathilde just as she was
about to go back into her room.

‘Good morning.'

She looked at him fearfully, without
replying, her hand poised on the door knob.

Maigret spoke quietly. He guessed that
Madame Martin was listening; she was perfectly capable of getting out of bed to
eavesdrop.

‘As you probably know, I'm
the detective chief inspector in charge of the investigation.'

He already sensed that he would get
nothing out of the woman with her placid, moonlike face.

‘What do you want from
me?'

‘Only to ask you if you have
anything to tell me. How long have you been living here?'

‘Forty years!' she replied
curtly.

‘You know everyone.'

‘I
don't talk to anyone!'

‘I thought perhaps that you might
have seen or heard something. Sometimes a tiny clue helps set the police on the
right track.'

Someone was moving around inside the
room. But the old woman kept the door determinedly shut.

‘You saw nothing?'

She did not reply.

‘And you heard nothing?'

‘You'd do better to tell the
landlord to put the gas in.'

‘The gas?'

‘Everyone else here has gas. But
because he's not allowed to put my rent up, he refuses to install it in my
room. He wants to boot me out! He's doing everything he can to force me out,
but he'll be leaving before me, feet first! And you can tell him that from
me.'

The door opened a tiny crack, so tiny
that it seemed impossible that the fat woman could squeeze through. Then she closed
it behind her and only muffled sounds came from inside the room.

‘May I have your card?'

Maigret proffered his visiting card, and
the butler in a striped waistcoat took it before disappearing inside the apartment,
which was extraordinarily light, thanks to its five-metre-high windows. Such windows
have become rare and are only found in the buildings on Place des Vosges and the Ile
Saint-Louis.

The rooms were vast. From somewhere the
hum of an electric vacuum cleaner could be heard. A nanny in a
white uniform with a pretty blue headdress was going from
one room to another. She shot the visitor an inquisitive glance.

A voice, close at hand.

‘Show the detective chief
inspector in.'

Monsieur de Saint-Marc was in his study,
in his dressing gown, his silvery hair carefully smoothed. First he went over and
closed a door, through which Maigret had the time to glimpse an antique bed, the
face of a young woman on the pillow.

‘Please take a seat. Naturally you
want to speak to me about this terrible Couchet business.'

Despite his age, he gave an impression
of health and vigour. And the atmosphere in the apartment was that of a happy home,
where everything was full of light and joy.