Maigret Afraid, page 5
part #1 of Maigret 42 Series
Vernoux’s son interrupted him.
“I haven’t asserted that these three crimes are the work of a lunatic. I said that, if they were the work of a lunatic …”
“That comes to the same thing.”
“Not exactly.”
“Let’s put it that it’s I who said everything seems to indicate that we are confronted by a lunatic.”
And, turning to Maigret:
“We talked about this yesterday evening, you and I. The absence of motive in the three cases… The similarity of method…”
Then, to Vernoux:
“So, will you repeat to the Chief Inspector what you were explaining to me?”
“I’m not an expert. In these matters I am only an amateur. I was developing a general idea. Most people suppose that lunatics invariably act like lunatics, that is to say, without logic or continuity of ideas. Now, in reality, it is often the contrary. Lunatics have their own logic. The difficulty lies in detecting that logic.”
Maigret was looking at him, with his large eyes slightly sea green in the morning light, without saying anything. He was sorry he hadn’t stopped on the way to have a drink, which would have put new life in his belly.
This small office, where a layer of smoke from his pipe was beginning to float and the little flames from the logs were dancing, seemed scarcely real to him, and the two men discussing madness, watching him out of the corners of their eyes, appeared to him rather like wax figures. They too formed no part of real life. They were making gestures they had learned, speaking as they had been taught to.
What could a man like Chabot know of what went on in the street? And, still more so, in the mind of a killer?
“It is that logic, since the first crime, I have been trying to penetrate.”
“Since the first crime?”
“Let’s say, since the second. From the first, however, from the murder of my uncle, I thought it was the act of a madman.”
“Have you found anything out?”
“Not yet. I’ve only noted a few elements of the problem, which might provide a clue.”
“Such as?”
“Such as, that he strikes from the front. It’s not easy to express my idea simply. A man who wanted to kill in order to kill, that is to say, to do away with other living beings, and who at the same time wouldn’t like to be caught, would choose the least dangerous method. Now, this one certainly doesn’t want to get caught, because he avoids leaving any traces. Do you follow me?”
“It’s not too complicated, up to now.”
Vernoux frowned, sensing the irony in Maigret’s voice. It was possible that, fundamentally, he lacked confidence. He did not look people in the eye. From the shelter of the large lenses of his glasses, he merely gave furtive little glances, then gazed at some point in space.
“You admit that he’ll do anything rather than be caught?”
“It looks like it.”
“Nevertheless, he attacks three people in the same week, and all three times he brings it off.”
“True.”
“In all three cases, he might have struck from behind, which would have reduced the chances of a victim starting to call out.”
Maigret stared hard at him.
“Because even a madman does nothing without reason, I deduce from this that the murderer feels the need to fly in the face of fate, or in the face of those whom he assaults. Certain characters need to assert themselves, whether by one crime or by a series of crimes. Sometimes, it’s in order to prove their power, or their importance, or their courage to themselves. Others are convinced they have to avenge themselves on their fellow men.”
“This one, up to now, has only attacked the weak. Robert de Courçon was an old man of seventy-three. The widow Gibon was a cripple, and Gobillard, at the time he was assaulted, was dead drunk.”
It was the Magistrate this time who had spoken, his chin still in his hand, evidently pleased with himself.
“I thought of that too. Perhaps it’s a clue, perhaps it’s a coincidence. What I’m trying to discover is the sort of logic that directs the actions and conduct of this unknown person. When we have discovered that, it won’t be long before we get our hands on him.”
He said “we” as if he were participating in the investigation as a matter of course, and Chabot didn’t object.
“Was it for that reason you were out last night?” inquired the Chief Inspector.
Alain Vernoux started, blushed slightly.
“Partly. I was actually calling on a friend, but I do admit to you that, for the last three days, I have been going about the streets as often as possible, studying the behavior of the passers-by. The town isn’t large. It’s more than likely the murderer isn’t hiding out at home. He is around on the sidewalks, like everyone else, maybe having a drink in the cafés.”
“Do you think you would recognize him if you met him?”
“I think that Alain may be invaluable to us,” Chabot murmured with a touch of embarrassment. “What he has said to us this morning seems to me full of good sense.”
The doctor rose, and at the same time a noise was heard in the hall. Someone knocked at the door, and Inspector Chabiron put his head in.
“You’re not alone?” he said, looking, not at Maigret, but at Alain Vernoux, whose presence appeared to displease him.
“What is it, Inspector?”
“I have someone with me I would like you to question.”
The doctor announced:
“I will go.”
Nobody stopped him. As he was going out, Chabiron said to Maigret, not without some bitterness:
“So it seems you’re taking a hand, Chief?”
“The newspaper says so.”
“Perhaps the case won’t take long. It might be all over in a couple of minutes. Shall I bring my witness in, Magistrate?”
And, turning to the half-darkness of the hall:
“Come on! Don’t be afraid.”
A voice replied:
“I’m not afraid.”
They saw a small, thin man enter, dressed in navy blue, with a pale face, eager eyes.
Chabiron introduced him:
“Emile Chalus, schoolmaster at the boys’ school. Sit down, Chalus.”
Chabiron was one of those policemen who invariably used “tu” to both offenders and witnesses in the belief that it would impress them.
“Last night,” he explained, “I began interrogating people living on the street where Gobillard was killed. You may say, perhaps, it’s just routine…”
He threw a glance at Maigret, as if the Chief Inspector were a personal enemy of routine.
“… but sometimes routine produces results. The street is not a long one. Early this morning I went on combing the area minutely. Emile Chalus lives thirty yards from the spot where the crime was committed, on the third floor of a house that has offices on the first and second floors. Tell them your story, Chalus.”
The latter was longing to say his piece, in spite of the fact that he obviously had no sympathy for the Magistrate. It was to Maigret that he turned.
“I heard a noise like the sound of feet on the sidewalk.”
“At what time?”
“A little after ten in the evening.”
“And then?”
“The footsteps went away.”
“In which direction?”
The Examining Magistrate was asking the questions, each time looking at Maigret as though to offer him the chance to speak.
“In the direction of Rue de la République.”
“Hurried footsteps?”
“No. Normal steps.”
“A man’s?”
“Definitely.”
Chabot looked as though he thought it was not a very startling revelation, but the Inspector intervened.
“Wait for the rest. Tell them what happened afterward, Chalus.”
“A few minutes went by and then a group of people came into the street, coming from Rue de la République too. They gathered together on the sidewalk, talking loudly. I heard the word ‘doctor,’ then the words ‘police inspector,’ and I got up to look out the window.”
Chabiron was gloating.
“Do you understand, Magistrate? Chalus also heard running footsteps. Just now he informed me that there had also been a muffled noise, like that of a body falling on the sidewalk. Repeat what you said, Chalus.”
“That is correct.”
“Immediately after, someone went off in the direction of Rue de la République, where the Café de la Poste is. I have other witnesses waiting outside, customers who were in the café at that time. It was ten past ten when Doctor Vernoux went in there, without saying anything, and went straight to the telephone booth. After he had telephoned, he noticed Doctor Jussieux playing cards, and whispered something in his ear. Jussieux announced to the others that a crime had just been committed and they all rushed outside.”
Maigret gazed at his friend Chabot, whose expression had stiffened.
“You see what that means?” the Inspector went on, with a kind of aggressive delight, as though he were taking a personal revenge. “According to Doctor Vernoux, he found a body on the sidewalk, a body already almost cold, and he went off to the Café de la Poste in order to telephone the police. If this were so, there would have been two sounds of footsteps in the street, and Chalus, who wasn’t asleep, would have heard them.”
He didn’t yet dare to exult, but they could sense his excitement growing.
“Chalus has no criminal record. He’s a respectable schoolmaster. He has no motive for inventing a story.”
Maigret refused once again the invitation to speak, which his friend offered him with a glance. There followed quite a long pause. To hide his feelings, probably, the Magistrate scribbled a few words in a file he had in front of him, and when he raised his head again, he was looking tense.
“Are you married, Monsieur Chalus?” he asked in a dull voice.
“Yes, sir.”
The hostility between the two men was palpable. Chalus was tense too, and his manner of replying aggressive. He seemed to be challenging the Magistrate to destroy his evidence.
“Any children?”
“No.”
“Was your wife with you last night?”
“In the same bed.”
“She was asleep?”
“Yes.”
“You went to bed at the same time?”
“As usual, when I haven’t too much homework to correct. Yesterday was Friday and I had none at all.”
“At what time did you and your wife go to bed?”
“Half past nine, perhaps a few minutes later.”
“Do you always go to bed so early?”
“We get up at half past five in the morning.”
“Why?”
“Because we make use of the freedom that is accorded to all French people to get up at whatever hour they please.”
Maigret, who was watching him with interest, felt pretty certain that he was active in politics, belonged to a left-wing party, and was probably what is called “militant.” He was the kind of man to march in processions, to speak at meetings, the kind of man also to slip pamphlets in mailboxes and refuse to move on, in spite of injunctions from the police.
“So you were both in bed at half past nine, and I presume you fell asleep?”
“We went on talking for about ten minutes.”
“That takes us to twenty to ten. You both fell asleep?”
“My wife went to sleep.”
“And you?”
“No. I find it difficult to get to sleep.”
“So that, when you heard the noise on the sidewalk, thirty yards from your house, you were not asleep.”
“That is correct.”
“You hadn’t been to sleep at all?”
“No.”
“You were wide awake?”
“Enough to hear running footsteps and the noise of a body falling.”
“Was it raining?”
“Yes.”
“There isn’t a floor above yours?”
“No. We are on the top.”
“You must have heard the rain on the roof?”
“You don’t notice it after a bit.”
“Water running down the gutter?”
“Certainly.”
“So that the sounds you heard were just sounds among other sounds?”
“There is an appreciable difference between running water and the trample of men’s feet or a body falling.”
The Magistrate was not giving up yet.
“You hadn’t the curiosity to get up?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because we aren’t far from the Café de la Poste.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Frequently, at night, men who have drunk too much pass our house, and sometimes they collapse on the sidewalk.”
“And stay there too?”
Chalus could find nothing to answer to that right away.
“Since you have spoken of running feet, I presume you got the impression that there were several men in the street, at least two anyway?”
“That goes without saying.”
“Only one man disappeared in the direction of Rue de la République. Is that right?”
“I suppose so.”
“Since there was a crime, two men at the very least were thirty yards from your house, at the time you heard running footsteps. Do you follow me?”
“It’s not difficult.”
“You heard one going off again?”
“I’ve already said so.”
“When did you hear them arrive? Did they arrive together? Did they come from Rue de la République or from the Champ de Mars?”
Chabiron shrugged his shoulders. Emile Chalus was pondering, with a stern expression.
“I didn’t hear them arrive.”
“You don’t suppose, however, that they had been standing in the rain for a long time, one of them awaiting a propitious moment to kill the other?”
The schoolmaster clenched his fists.
“Is that all you’ve got out of it?” he muttered between his teeth.
“I don’t understand.”
“It embarrasses you that someone from your own circle may be involved. But your question is ridiculous. I don’t necessarily hear someone walking along the sidewalk, or, rather, I don’t pay particular attention to it.”
“However…”
“Let me finish, will you, instead of trying to trap me. Up to the time of the running footsteps, I had no reason to pay any attention to what was happening in the street. Afterward, on the other hand, my mind was alert.”
“And you maintain that from the time the body fell on the sidewalk until the time when several people arrived from the Café de la Poste, not a soul passed along the street?”
“There wasn’t a single footstep.”
“Do you realize the importance of this statement?”
“I didn’t ask to make it. It was the Inspector who came to question me.”
“Before the Inspector questioned you, you hadn’t the slightest idea of the significance of what you had noticed?”
“I was unaware of Doctor Vernoux’s testimony.”
“Who has told you about any testimony? Doctor Vernoux hasn’t been called to testify.”
“Let’s say that I was unaware of his story.”
“Was it the Inspector who told you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you realized?”
“Yes.”
“And I suppose you were delighted with the effect you were going to produce? You hate the Vernouxs?”
“Them, and all like them.”
“Have you specifically attacked them in your speeches?”
“It has happened.”
The Magistrate, very frigid, turned to Inspector Chabiron.
“Has his wife confirmed what he says?”
“Partly. I didn’t bring her because she was busy in the house, but I can go and fetch her. They certainly went to bed at half past nine. She is sure of this because it is she who winds the alarm clock each evening. They talked for a little while. She went to sleep, and was waked up again by finding that her husband was no longer beside her. She saw him standing at the window. At that time, it was a quarter past ten, and a group of people were standing around the corpse.”
“Did neither of them go downstairs?”
“No.”
“They weren’t curious to know what was happening?”
“They opened the window a little, and heard someone saying that Gobillard had just been murdered.”
Chabot, who still avoided Maigret’s eyes, seemed discouraged. Without conviction, he asked yet a few more questions:
“Do any other people living on the street support his evidence?”
“Not so far.”
“Have you questioned them all?”
“Those who were at home this morning. Some had already gone off to work. Two or three others, who were at the movies last night, know nothing.”
Chabot turned to the schoolmaster.
“Do you know Doctor Vernoux personally?”
“I’ve never spoken to him, if that’s what you mean. I’ve passed him in the street often enough, like everyone else. I know who he is.”
“You don’t have any particular animosity against him?”
“I have already replied to that.”
“Have you ever appeared in court?”
“I’ve been arrested a good dozen times, in political demonstrations, but after a night in jail and the usual rough handling, they have always let me out.”
“I am not concerned with that.”
“I realize that it doesn’t interest you.”
“Do you stick to your statement?”
“Yes, even if it upsets you.”
“It doesn’t affect me.”
“It affects your friends.”
“Are you so sure of what you heard yesterday evening that you wouldn’t hesitate to send someone to prison or to the scaffold?”
“I haven’t done any killing. The murderer himself didn’t hesitate to do away with the widow Gibon and poor Gobillard.”
“You are forgetting Robert de Courçon.”
“About him, I couldn’t care a f… !”
“Well, I shall call the clerk of the court so that he can take down your statement in writing.”
“I’m at your disposal.”
