The Saint-Fiacre Affair Read online

  The sacristy was very cramped. There was hardly enough room for the three men and the body. Two altar boys arrived, because there was mass at seven.

  ‘Her car must be outside,’ said Maigret. ‘We’ll have to have her taken home.’

  And he still felt the priest’s anxious eyes on him. Had he guessed something? Either way, while the sacristan, with the help of the driver, guided the body towards the car, he approached the inspector.

  ‘Are you sure that … I still have two masses to say. It’s All Souls’ Day. My congregation is …’

  Since the countess had died of an embolism, couldn’t Maigret find it in himself to reassure the priest?

  ‘You heard what the doctor said …’

  ‘And yet you’ve come here today, to this very mass …’

  Maigret tried to stay calm.

  ‘A coincidence, Father … My father is buried in your cemetery.’

  And he hurried towards the car, an old-model coupé. The chauffeur was turning the crank. The doctor didn’t know what to do. There were a few people in the square who had no idea what was happening.

  ‘Come with us …’

  But the corpse took up all the room inside the car. Maigret and the doctor crammed themselves in beside the driver’s seat.

  ‘You look surprised by what I said,’ murmured the doctor, who hadn’t yet regained all his confidence. ‘If you knew the situation you might understand … The countess …’

  He fell silent, glancing at the black-liveried chauffeur, who was absently driving his car. They crossed the sloping square, bounded on one side by the church built on the incline, on the other by the Notre-Dame pond, which was a poisonous grey that morning.

  Marie Tatin’s inn was on the right, the first house in the village. On the left there was an avenue lined with oaks and, at the end, the dark mass of the chateau.

  A uniform sky, cold as a skating-rink.

  ‘You know this is going to cause a fuss … That’s why the priest is pulling such a face …’

  Dr Bouchardon was a peasant, and the son of peasants. He wore a brown hunting suit and high rubber boots.

  ‘I was going duck-hunting in the ponds …’

  ‘You don’t go to mass?’

  The doctor glanced at him.

  ‘It didn’t stop me being friends with the old priest … But this one …’

  They entered the grounds. The details of the chateau could be seen now: the ground-floor windows obscured by shutters, the two corner towers, the only old parts of the building.

  When the car parked near the steps, Maigret peered through the barred basement windows and saw kitchens full of steam, and a fat woman busy plucking partridges.

  The driver didn’t know what to do and didn’t dare open the doors of the car.

  ‘Monsieur Jean isn’t up yet …’

  ‘Call anyone … Are there any other servants in the house? …’

  Maigret was sniffling. It was really cold. He stood in the courtyard with the doctor, who started stuffing a pipe.

  ‘Who is Monsieur Jean?’

  Bouchardon shrugged and gave a strange smile.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘No, tell me, who is he?’

  ‘A young man … A charming young man …’

  ‘A relative?’

  ‘If you like! … In his own way! … Well, why don’t I get it out of the way … He’s the countess’s lover … officially, he’s her secretary …’

  And Maigret looked the doctor in the eye, remembering that they had been to school together. Only, no one recognized him. He was forty-two! He had put on some weight.

  He knew the chateau better than anyone. Especially the servants’ quarters. He had to take only a few steps to see the estate manager’s house, his birthplace.

  And perhaps it was the memories that troubled him so much! Especially the memory of the Countess of Saint-Fiacre as he had known her: a young woman who had personified, to the working-class little boy that he was, femininity, grace, nobility …

  And she was dead! She had been pushed, like an inert object, into the car, and they had had to fold her legs. They hadn’t even buttoned up her blouse, and white underwear contrasted with the black of her mourning dress!

  … a crime will be committed …

  But the doctor claimed that she had died of an embolism. What supernatural creature had predicted such a thing? And why alert the police?

  In the chateau people were running about. Doors were opening and closing. A butler, not yet in full livery, half-opened the main door and hesitated to come any further. A man appeared behind him, in pyjamas, his hair tousled and his eyes weary.

  ‘What is it?’ he shouted.

  ‘The gigolo!’ the doctor murmured cynically into Maigret’s ear.

  The cook had been alerted as well. She watched in silence from the basement window. Skylights opened in the roofs leading into the servants’ bedrooms.

  ‘Well! What are we waiting for? Let’s carry the countess to her bed,’ Maigret thundered indignantly.

  It all struck him as sacrilegious, clashing as it did with his childhood memories. It made him uncomfortable, not just emotionally, but physically as well!

  … a crime will be committed …

  The second peal of bells rang for mass. People would be in a great hurry. There were farmers who came from far away, on carts. And they had brought flowers to put on the graves in the cemetery.

  Jean didn’t dare approach. The butler, who had opened the door, was shocked and stood there frozen.

  ‘Your ladyship … Your lady …’ he stammered.

  ‘So? Are you going to leave her there? Well?’

  Why on earth was the doctor wearing an ironic smile on his face?

  Maigret took charge of the situation.

  ‘Right! Two men … You!’ (He pointed at the chauffeur.) ‘And you!’ (He pointed at the butler.) ‘Carry her to her bedroom.’

  And as they leaned towards the coupé, a bell rang out in the hall.

  ‘The telephone! … That’s strange, at this time of day! …’ Bouchardon muttered.

  Jean didn’t dare go and answer it. He seemed in a daze. It was Maigret who hurried inside and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello! … Yes, this is the chateau …’

  And a clear voice said, ‘Could I speak to my mother? She must have come back from mass …’

  ‘Who’s speaking? …’

  ‘The Count of Saint-Fiacre … And in any case that’s no concern of yours … Let me speak to my mother.’

  ‘One moment. Will you tell me where you’re calling from?’

  ‘From Moulins! For heaven’s sake, I told you …’

  ‘It would be better for you to come here,’ Maigret said, as he hung up.

  And he was forced to press his back to the wall to let the two servants pass, carrying the corpse.

  2. The Missal

  ‘Are you coming in?’ the doctor asked as soon as the countess was laid on her bed. ‘I need someone to help me undress her.’

  ‘We should find a maid!’ Maigret exclaimed.

  Jean went upstairs and came back down a short time later with a woman in her thirties, who darted frightened glances.

  ‘Get out!’ the inspector snapped at the servants, who wanted to do precisely that.

  He held Jean back by the sleeve, looked him up and down and led him over to a window.

  ‘What is the nature of your relations with the countess’s son?’

  ‘But … I …’ The young man was gaunt, and his striped pyjamas, of dubious cleanliness, added nothing to his dignity. His eyes avoided Maigret’s. He kept tugging on his fingers as if to stretch them.

  ‘Wait!’ the inspector interrupted. ‘Let’s be frank so as not to waste any more time.’

  Behind the heavy oak door of the bedroom there was the sound of people coming and going, the squeak of bedsprings, muttered orders being given to the maid by Dr Bouchardon: they were undressing the corpse!r />
  ‘What exactly is your situation at the chateau? How long have you been here?’

  ‘Four years …’

  ‘Did you know the Countess of Saint-Fiacre?’

  ‘I … That is to say, I was introduced to her by some mutual friends … My parents had just been ruined by the collapse of a little bank in Lyon … I came here in a position of trust, to deal with the personal affairs of …’

  ‘Excuse me! What did you do before?’

  ‘I travelled … I wrote art reviews …’

  Maigret didn’t smile. And in any case the atmosphere wasn’t conducive to irony.

  The chateau was huge. From outside it had a certain charm. But the interior looked as seedy as the young man’s pyjamas. Dust everywhere, ugly old objects, a pile of useless junk. The curtains were faded.

  And on the walls there were lighter patches, indicating that furniture had been removed.

  The best furniture, obviously! The pieces that had some value!

  ‘You became the countess’s lover …’

  ‘Everyone is free to love whoever …’

  ‘Idiot!’ muttered Maigret, turning his back on the young man.

  As if things weren’t obvious enough already! You only had to look at Jean. You only had to breathe the air of the chateau for a few minutes! And catch the expressions on the servants’ faces!

  ‘Did you know her son was on his way?’

  ‘No … What has that got to do with me?’

  And his gaze was still evasive. With his right hand he tugged on the fingers of his left.

  ‘I’d like to get dressed … It’s cold … But why are the police concerned about? …’

  ‘Yes, go and get dressed!’

  Maigret pushed the door of the bedroom and avoided looking in the direction of the bed, on which the dead woman lay entirely naked.

  The bedroom looked like the rest of the house. It was far too big, too cold, filled with mismatched old objects. As he went to lean against the marble mantelpiece, Maigret noticed that it was broken.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ the inspector asked Bouchardon. ‘Just a moment … Would you leave us alone, please, mademoiselle?’

  And he closed the door behind the maid, pressed his forehead against the window and let his eye wander across the grounds, carpeted with dead leaves and frost.

  ‘I can only confirm what I told you a moment ago. Death is due to a sudden heart attack.’

  ‘Caused by? …’

  The doctor gestured vaguely, threw a blanket over the corpse, joined Maigret by the window and lit his pipe.

  ‘Perhaps a shock … Perhaps the cold … Was it cold in the church?’

  ‘On the contrary! Of course, you’ve found no trace of a wound?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  ‘Not the tiniest sign of an injection?’

  ‘I thought of that. Nothing! And there’s no poison in the countess’s blood. So you understand that it would be hard to claim …’

  Maigret’s face was severe. On the left, under the trees, he could make out the red roof of the estate manager’s house, his birthplace.

  ‘In just a few words … life at the chateau?’ he asked under his breath.

  ‘You know as much as I do. One of those women who are models of good behaviour until the age of forty or forty-five … That was when the count died, and the son went to Paris to pursue his studies …’

  ‘And here?’

  ‘A series of secretaries came and stayed for various lengths of time … You saw the latest one …’

  ‘The fortune?’

  ‘The chateau is mortgaged … Three-quarters of the farms have been sold … Now and again an antique dealer comes for anything valuable that’s left …’

  ‘And what about the son?’

  ‘I don’t know him well. They say he’s quite a character …’

  ‘Thank you!’

  Maigret went to leave, but Bouchardon came after him.

  ‘Between ourselves, I’d be curious as to what coincidence it was that brought you to the church this morning of all mornings …’

  ‘Yes! It’s strange …’

  ‘I have the feeling I’ve seen you somewhere before …’

  ‘It’s possible …’

  And Maigret hurried along the corridor. He was finding it hard to concentrate, because he hadn’t had enough sleep. He might also have caught a cold at Marie Tatin’s inn. He spotted Jean coming down the stairs, wearing a grey suit but still in his slippers. At the same time a car without a silencer drove up in the chateau courtyard.

  It was a little racing car, painted canary yellow, long, narrow, uncomfortable-looking. A moment later a man in a leather coat burst into the hall, took off his cap and yelled, ‘Hello! Anyone there? Is everyone still asleep around here?’

  But then he noticed Maigret looking at him curiously.

  ‘What the? …’

  ‘Shh! I need to talk to you …’

  Standing beside the inspector, Jean was pale and anxious. As he stepped past him, the Count of Saint-Fiacre punched him lightly on the shoulder and joked, ‘Still here, you rogue?’

  He didn’t seem to be angry with him. Just to hold him in complete contempt.

  ‘At least there’s nothing serious happening, is there?’

  ‘Your mother died this morning, in church.’

  Maurice de Saint-Fiacre was thirty, the same age as Jean. They were the same height, but the count was broad, slightly fat. And everything about him, particularly his leather outfit, hinted at a life of frivolity. His clear eyes were cheerful and mocking.

  It took those words from Maigret to make him frown.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Come in here.’

  ‘Good heavens! When I’ve …’

  ‘When you’ve what?’

  ‘Nothing. Where is she? …’

  He was stunned, beside himself. In the bedroom, he lifted the blanket just enough to see the dead woman’s face.

  No explosion of grief. No tears. No dramatic gestures.

  Just three murmured words.

  ‘Poor old thing!’

  Jean had thought it was time for him to walk towards the door, and Maurice noticed and shouted at him, ‘You, get out of here!’

  He started getting nervous. He paced back and forth. He bumped into the doctor.

  ‘What did she die of, Bouchardon?’

  ‘A heart attack, Monsieur Maurice … But the inspector might know more than I do on the subject …’

  The young man turned excitedly towards Maigret.

  ‘Are you from the police? … What did? …’

  ‘Could we talk for a few minutes? I’d like to take a quick stroll down the road. Will you be staying here, doctor?’

  ‘I was about to go hunting and …’

  ‘Well you can go hunting another day!’

  Maurice de Saint-Fiacre followed Maigret, staring dreamily at the ground in front of him. When they reached the main avenue of the chateau, seven o’clock mass was coming to an end, and the congregation, larger than the one at first mass, was coming out and assembling in little groups in the square in front of the church. Some people had already gone into the graveyard, and only their heads could be seen over the top of the wall.

  As the sun rose, the cold became more intense, probably because of the breeze that swept the dead leaves from one end of the square to the other, making them wheel like birds above the pond of Notre-Dame.

  Maigret stuffed his pipe. Wasn’t that the main reason why he had dragged his companion outside? And yet, even in the dead woman’s bedroom the doctor had been smoking. Maigret was used to smoking anywhere at all.

  But not at the chateau! It was a special place which, throughout the whole of his youth, had represented everything inaccessible in the world

  ‘The count called me into his library today, to work with him!’ his father had said with a hint of pride.

  And Maigret, a little boy in those days, watched respectfull
y the pram being pushed by a nanny in the park. The baby was Maurice de Saint-Fiacre.

  ‘Would anyone stand to benefit from your mother’s death?’

  ‘I don’t understand … The doctor just said …’

  He was anxious and twitchy. He snatched the piece of paper that Maigret held out to him, the one that announced the crime.

  ‘What does this mean? Bouchardon is talking about a heart attack and …’

  ‘A heart attack that someone predicted a few days ago!’

  A few villagers watched them from a distance. The two men approached the church, walking slowly, following their own trains of thought.

  ‘What did you plan to do at the chateau this morning?’

  ‘I’m wondering that very thing myself,’ the young man said carefully. ‘You asked me a moment ago whether … Well, then, yes! There is someone who stands to gain from my mother’s death … I do!’

  He wasn’t joking. He looked concerned. A man passed on a bicycle, and he greeted him by name.

  ‘Since you’re from the police, you must have worked out the situation already … Besides, that animal Bouchardon will have had no compunction about spilling the beans. My mother was a poor old woman. My father is dead. I’ve gone away. Left all on her own, I think she went slightly deranged. At first she spent her time at church … Then …’

  ‘The young secretaries!’

  ‘I don’t think it was what you believe, and what Bouchardon was trying to insinuate. Nothing untoward! Just a need for affection. The need to look after someone … which these young men took advantage of to take things further … There you are! That didn’t mean she wasn’t devout. She must have had terrible crises of conscience, torn as she was between her faith and this … this …’

  ‘You were saying you stood to gain? …’

  ‘You’re aware that there isn’t much left of our fortune … And people like the chap you saw a moment ago have high ambitions … Let’s say that in three or four years there would have been nothing left at all …’

  He was bare-headed. He ran his fingers through his hair. Then, looking Maigret straight in the eye and pausing for a moment, he added:

  ‘It remains for me to tell you that I came here today to ask my mother for forty thousand francs … And I need those forty thousand francs to cover a cheque that will otherwise bounce … You see how everything links together!’