Maigret Afraid, page 3
part #1 of Maigret 42 Series
Féron, the Police Superintendent, explained to him:
“A certain Gobillard, a fellow who goes around Fontenay once or twice a week collecting rabbitskins. He also buys up hides of cattle and sheepskins from the municipal slaughterhouse. He has a cart and an old horse, and he lives in a hut outside town. He spends most of his time fishing near the bridge, using the most disgusting bait, marrow, fat, chicken guts, clotted blood…”
Chabiron must have been a fisherman.
“Does he catch any fish?”
“He’s practically the only man who does. Every evening he goes from bar to bar drinking a jug of red wine in each, until he reaches his limit.”
“Ever any trouble?”
“Never.”
“Married?”
“He lived alone with his horse and a large number of cats.”
Chabiron turned to Maigret:
“What do you think, Chief?”
“I don’t think anything.”
“Three in one week; it’s not bad for a little spot like this.”
“What are we to do?” Féron asked the Magistrate.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to wait for the Prosecutor. Wasn’t he home?”
“No. His wife’s trying to get him on the phone.”
“I think we might move the body to the morgue.”
He turned to Dr. Vernoux.
“You saw nothing else, heard nothing?”
“Not a thing. I was walking quickly, my hands in my pockets. I all but stumbled over him.”
“Is your father at home?”
“He returned this evening from Niort; he was eating when I left.”
As far as Maigret could understand, this was the son of the Vernoux de Courçon with whom he had traveled in the local train.
“You can take him away, the rest of you.”
The journalist would not leave Maigret alone.
“Are you going to take charge of it, this time?”
“Certainly not.”
“Not even in a private capacity?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“No.”
“Do you too believe in these being the crimes of a lunatic?”
Chabot and Dr. Vernoux, who had heard, looked at each other, still with that air of belonging to the same set, of knowing each other so well that words are no longer necessary.
It was natural. It exists everywhere. Rarely, nevertheless, had Maigret had such a strong sense of a clique. In a little town like this there are, of course, the local worthies, few in number, who, through force of circumstances, meet each other, if only in the street, several times a day.
Then there are the others, those, for example, who were gathered together to one side and seemed discontented.
Without the Chief Inspector’s having asked at all, Chabiron was explaining to him:
“A couple of us have come over. Levras, who was my partner, had to leave this morning, because his wife’s expecting a baby any time now. I’m doing what I can. I’m tackling the case from all angles at once. But as for getting those people over there to talk…”
It was the first group, the local worthies, whom he indicated with a jerk of his chin. His sympathies were obviously with the others.
“The Police Superintendent too does his best. He has only four policemen at his disposal. They’ve been working on it all day. How many have you out on patrol at the moment, Féron?”
“Three.”
As if to confirm his statement, a bicyclist in uniform stopped by the curb and shook the rain from his shoulders.
“Anything?”
“I’ve checked the papers of the half-dozen people I’ve met. I’ll give you the list. They all had good reasons for being out of doors.”
“Will you come back home for a moment?” Chabot asked Maigret.
He hesitated. He chose to do so only because he wanted something to drink in order to get warm again, and he didn’t expect he would be able to get anything at the hotel.
“I’ll come along with you,” Dr. Vernoux announced. “That is, if I’m not intruding?”
“Not at all.”
This time, they had the wind behind them and were able to talk. The ambulance had departed with Gobillard’s body, and its red taillight could be seen going toward Place Viète.
“I haven’t properly introduced you. Vernoux is the son of Hubert Vernoux, whom you met on the train. He’s a qualified doctor, but doesn’t practice, and is chiefly concerned with research.”
“Research!…” the doctor protested half-heartedly.
“He was a resident for two years at Sainte-Anne; now he’s keenly interested in psychiatry, and two or three times a week he goes to Niort lunatic asylum.”
“Do you believe these three crimes are the work of a madman?” asked Maigret, more out of politeness than anything else.
What he had just heard had not made him take kindly to Vernoux, since he didn’t care for amateurs.
“It’s more than likely, if not certain.”
“Do you know any mad people in Fontenay?”
“There are some everywhere, but usually one only discovers them at the critical moment.”
“I suppose it couldn’t be a woman?”
“Why not?”
“Because of the force with which the blows have been struck on each occasion. It can’t be easy to commit a murder like that, three times, without ever needing to strike twice.”
“In the first place, many women are as strong as men. Again, when you’re dealing with lunatics…”
They had already arrived.
“Anything you want to talk about, Vernoux?”
“Not for the moment.”
“Shall I see you tomorrow?”
“Almost certainly.”
Chabot searched in his pocket for the key. In the hallway, he and Maigret shook themselves so that the rain would fall off their clothes, and immediately there were trails of water on the flagstones. The two women, mother and maid, were waiting in a badly lit living room, which looked onto the street.
“You can go to bed, Mama. There’s nothing more to be done tonight, except to ask the police station to put all available men out on patrol.”
Only then did she decide to go upstairs.
“I feel really ashamed that you’re not staying with us, Jules!”
“I promise you that if I stay more than twenty-four hours, which I doubt, I shall be making demands on your hospitality.”
They returned to the tranquil atmosphere of the study, where the bottle of brandy was still in its place. Maigret helped himself and went to stand with his back to the fire, his glass in his hand.
He sensed that Chabot was ill at ease, that it was for this reason he had brought him back. Before anything else, the Magistrate telephoned the police station.
“Is that you, Lieutenant? You were in bed? I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour…”
A clock with a bronzed dial, on which the hands could hardly be seen, showed half past eleven.
“Yet another one, yes… Gobillard… In the street, this time… And from the front, yes… They’ve already taken him to the morgue… Jussieux is probably busy doing the post-mortem now, but there’s no reason why we should learn anything from it…Have you some men handy?… I think it would be a good thing if they patrolled the town, not so much tonight as in the early hours of the morning, to reassure the townspeople… You understand?… Yes… I felt that just now too… Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Replacing the receiver, he murmured:
“A charming fellow. He graduated from Saumur…”
He must have realized what that signified—always a question of class!—and blushed slightly.
“You see! I’m doing what I can. It must seem childish to you. We probably give you the impression of being desperately old-fashioned. But we don’t have the advantages of an organization such as you are used to in Paris. For fingerprints, for example, I’m obliged every time to send for an expert from Poitiers. So it is with everything. The local police are more used to petty offenses than to crimes. The Poitiers detectives, for their part, don’t know the people of Fontenay…”
He went on after a pause:
“I’d have given anything, with only three years left before my retirement, not to have been saddled with a case like this. In fact, we’re about the same age. You too in three years’ time…”
“Me too.”
“Have you any plans?”
“I’ve even bought a little house in the country already, on the banks of the Loire.”
“You’ll be bored.”
“Are you bored, here?”
“It’s not the same. I was born here. My father was born here. I know everyone there is to know.”
“The townspeople don’t seem very happy.”
“You’ve barely arrived and you’ve already realized that? It’s true. I think it’s inevitable. One crime, and it wasn’t so bad. Especially the first one.”
“Why?”
“Because it happens to have been Robert de Courçon.”
“Wasn’t he liked?”
The Magistrate did not reply right away. He appeared to be choosing his words first.
“Actually, the ordinary people hardly knew him, except by sight.”
“Married? Children?”
“An old bachelor. An eccentric, but a good fellow. If he had been the only one, the people would have remained fairly cool about it. Just the little excitement that always accompanies a crime. But, one after the other, there’s been the widow Gibon, and now Gobillard. Tomorrow, I’m prepared to find…”
“It’s already begun.”
“What?”
“The group that was keeping to one side, the ordinary people, I suppose, and those who’d come out of the Café de la Poste seemed rather hostile to me.”
“It won’t stop at that. However…”
“Is the town very left-wing?”
“Yes and no. It’s not altogether that, either.”
“The Vernouxs are unpopular?”
“Have you been told that?”
To gain time, Chabot asked:
“Won’t you sit down? Have another glass? I’ll try to explain to you. It’s not easy. You know the Vendée, if only by repute. For a long time, the only people who counted were the owners of châteaux, counts, viscounts, anyone who had a ‘de’ to his name, who lived among themselves and formed a closed society. They still exist, almost all impoverished, and they hardly matter any longer. A few of them still continue nevertheless to put up a certain show, and they are regarded with a kind of pity. Do you understand?”
“It’s the same in all country districts.”
“Now, others have taken their place.”
“Vernoux?”
“Well, you have seen him; guess what his father did.”
“Haven’t the least idea! What do you mean?”
“Cattle dealer. The grandfather was a farm hand. Father Vernoux bought up the livestock in the district and drove them to Paris, in whole herds, along the roads. He made a lot of money. He was a brute, always half-drunk, and, what’s more, he died of delirium tremens. His son…”
“Hubert? The one on the train?”
“Yes. He was sent to college. I believe he did one year at a university. In the last years of his life, the father started buying farms and land as well as cattle, and it was that business Hubert continued.”
“In fact, he’s a dealer in real estate.”
“Yes. He has his office near the station, the large freestone house; that was where he lived before he married.”
“He married a nobleman’s daughter?”
“In one way, yes. But not exactly, either. She was a Courçon. Does this interest you?”
“Very much!”
“It will give you a better idea of the town. The Courçons were really called Courçon-Lagrange. Originally, they were just Lagranges, who added Courçon to their name when they bought the Château de Courçon. That happened three or four generations ago. I can’t remember what the founder of the dynasty sold. Probably cattle also, or scrap iron. But that was all forgotten by the time Hubert Vernoux arrived on the scene. The children and grandchildren no longer did any work. Robert de Courçon, the one who’s been murdered, was recognized by the aristocracy and he was the most expert man in the country around here on matters of heraldry. He’s written several works on the subject. He had two sisters, Isabelle and Lucile. Isabelle married Vernoux, who at once began to sign himself Vernoux de Courçon. Have you followed me?”
“It’s not too difficult! I suppose that, at the time of this marriage, the Courçons had descended the scale again and found themselves without money?”
“Pretty much. They still had a mortgaged château in the forest of Mervent and the house on Rue Rabelais, which is the handsomest residence in the town, and which they’ve several times tried to get listed as a historical monument. You’ll be seeing it.”
“Is Hubert Vernoux still a real-estate dealer?”
“He has heavy liabilities. Lucile, his wife’s elder sister, lives with them. His son, Alain, the doctor, whom you’ve just met, refuses to practice and devotes himself to research, which brings in nothing.”
“Married?”
“He married a Mademoiselle de Cadeuils, from the real nobility this time, who’s borne him three children already. The youngest is eight months old.”
“They live with the father?”
“The house is large enough, as you’ll realize. That’s not all. In addition to Alain, Hubert has a daughter, Adeline, who married a certain Paillet, whom she met while on holiday at Royan. What he does for a living, I don’t know, but I have reason to believe that it’s Hubert Vernoux who provides for their needs. Most of the time they live in Paris. Now and then, they turn up for a few days or a few weeks, and I suppose that means that they’re hard up. Do you understand now?”
“What have I got to understand?”
Chabot smiled mournfully, which for a moment reminded Maigret of his former comrade.
“It’s true, I’m talking to you as though you came from here. You’ve seen Vernoux. He outsquires all the squires of the neighborhood. As for his wife and her sister, they seem to contrive with all their skill to make themselves odious to the ordinary run of people. The whole thing constitutes a clique.”
“And this clique is on visiting terms with only a small proportion of the people.”
Chabot blushed for the second time that evening.
“Inevitably,” he murmured, rather as if he were guilty.
“So that the Vernouxs, the Courçons, and their friends have become a world apart in the town.”
“You’ve guessed right. Through the very nature of my position, I am obliged to see them. And, basically, they are not so odious as they appear to be. Hubert Vernoux, for example, is in fact, I would swear, a man overwhelmed with worries. He has been very rich. He is less so now, and I even wonder if he still is at all, because, since the majority of farmers have bought their own properties, the land business is no longer what it used to be. Hubert is weighed down with expenses, is obliged to provide for all his relatives. As for Alain, whom I know better, he’s a young man obsessed with one idea.”
“What’s that?”
“You’d better hear about it. At the same time, you will learn why, just now, in the street, he and I exchanged anxious glances. I’ve told you that Hubert Vernoux’s father died of delirium tremens. On the mother’s side, that is to say the Courçons, the antecedents were no better. Old Courçon committed suicide in circumstances sufficiently mysterious for them to have been hushed up. Hubert had a brother, Basile, of whom they never speak, who killed himself at the age of seventeen. It seems that, however far back you go, there have been lunatics or eccentrics in the family.”
Maigret was listening, all the while lazily smoking his pipe, and taking a sip, every now and again, from his glass.
“That’s the reason why Alain studied medicine, and went to Sainte-Anne as a resident. It’s said, and it’s plausible, that most medical men specialize in the illnesses with which they believe they themselves are threatened.
“Alain is obsessed by the idea that he belongs to a family of lunatics. According to him, Lucile, his aunt, is half-mad. He hasn’t said so to me, but I’m convinced that he keeps looking for signs, not only in his father and mother, but also in his own children.”
“Is it known in the locality?”
“Some people talk about it. In little towns, there’s always a lot of gossip and a certain amount of mistrust of people who don’t live exactly like everybody else.”
“They talked about it after the first crime particularly?”
Chabot hesitated only a second, nodded his head.
“Why?”
“Because they knew, or thought they did, that Hubert Vernoux and his brother-in-law, Courçon, didn’t get on together. Perhaps also because they lived directly opposite one another.”
“Did they see each other?”
“I wonder what you’re going to think of us. I imagine no similar situation could exist in Paris.”
In fact, the Examining Magistrate was ashamed of a milieu that was somewhat his own, since he lived in it year in, year out.
“I told you that the Courçons were in financial straits when Isabelle married Hubert Vernoux. It’s been Hubert who’s given his brother-in-law, Robert, an allowance. And Robert’s never forgiven him for it. When he mentioned him, he would say sarcastically:
“ ‘My brother-in-law, the millionaire.’
“Or else:
“ ‘I’ll go and ask the Rich Man.’
“He wouldn’t set foot in the big house on Rue Rabelais; he could follow all the comings and goings from his own windows. He lived opposite in a smaller house, but a decent one, where he had a daily cleaning woman. He polished his boots and got his meals himself, ostentatiously setting off to do his shopping dressed like a lord on the round of his estates, and he would bring home his bunches of leeks or asparagus as if they were trophies. He must have imagined it would make Hubert angry.”
“Did Hubert get angry?”
“I don’t know. Possibly. He continued to support him nonetheless. Several times they’ve been seen, when they met in the street, exchanging politely cutting remarks. A small detail, which is no fabrication: Robert de Courçon never drew the curtains of his windows, with the result that the family opposite could see how he lived all the time. Some people make out that he occasionally put out his tongue at them.
