TWO

Once outside, he found the sun again, and the scent of the first fine days of the year. There was already a faint smell of dust. The guardian angels of the Elysée Palace walked along nonchalantly and gave him discreet signs of recognition.

At the corner of the Rond-Point, an old woman was selling lilacs which smelled like suburban gardens, and Maigret resisted the impulse to buy some. What would he have looked like arriving at the Quai des Orfèvres carrying a huge bunch of flowers?

He felt lightheaded—an odd sort of lightheadedness. He had just left a hitherto unknown world where he had found himself more like a fish out of water than he would ever have believed. As he walked along the sidewalks, among the jostling crowds, he could visualize the solemn apartment presided over by the shade of the great judge. He must have given formal receptions there.

From the start Parendon, as if to put him at his ease, had given him a sort of wink that said:

“Don’t get it wrong. All this is only décor. Even the Maritime Law is only a game, only make-believe…”

And he had brought out a toy, his Article 64, which interested him more than anything else in the world.

Or was Parendon a sly one? In any case, Maigret felt attracted to the skipping gnome who devoured him with his eyes as if he had never before seen a superintendent of the Criminal Police.

He took advantage of the good weather to walk down the Champs-Elysées as far as the Place de la Concorde, where he finally took a bus. He couldn’t get one with a platform, so he had to put out his pipe and sit inside.

When he got back to his office it was time to sign his mail, and he took twenty minutes to get through the letters. His wife was surprised to see him come in at six o’clock, looking gay.

“What’s for dinner?”

“I thought I’d cook…”

“Don’t cook anything. We’re going to eat out.”

It didn’t matter where, just as long as they could dine outside. It was no ordinary day, and he wanted it to stay special right to the end.

The days were growing longer. They found a restaurant in the Latin Quarter with a glassed-in terrace pleasantly warmed by a charcoal heater. The specialty of the house was sea food, and Maigret sampled almost every kind, even some sea urchins flown in that very day from the Midi.

She looked at him, smiling.

“You’ve had a good day, haven’t you?”

“I saw a very odd man…A very odd house, too, and some very odd people.”

“A crime?”

“I don’t know…It hasn’t been committed yet, but it could happen at any time. And when it does, I’ll find myself in a very awkward situation.”

He rarely talked to her about cases under way, and she usually learned more about them from the newspapers and the radio than from her husband. This time, he gave in to the urge to show her the letter.

“Read that.”

They had reached the dessert. They had drunk a bottle of Pouilly Fumé with their grilled red mullet, and its aroma still surrounded them. Madame Maigret gave her husband a rather surprised look as she handed back the letter.

“Was it written by a child?” she asked.

“There is in fact a child in the house. I haven’t seen him yet. But there are such things as childlike men. And childlike women too, when they get to a certain age.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Somebody wanted me to go into that house. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have used writing paper which is sold these days only in two stationers’ in Paris.”

“If he’s planning to commit a crime…”

“He doesn’t say that he is going to commit a crime. He is telling me there is going to be one, and he doesn’t seem to be too sure who is going to commit it.”

For once she didn’t take him seriously.

“It’s just a joke, you’ll see.”

He paid the bill. It was so warm that they walked home, making a detour to walk through the Ile Saint-Louis.

He found lilacs on Rue Saint-Antoine, so there were some in the apartment that night, after all.

The next morning the sun was just as bright, the air just as clear, but already Maigret took less notice of it. He found Lucas, Janvier, and Lapointe ready for the little briefing, and he looked immediately for the letter in the pile of mail.

He was not sure that it would be there, for the advertisement in the Monde had not appeared until the middle of the previous evening, and the Figaro had only just come out.

“There it is!” he cried, brandishing it in the air.

The same envelope, the same carefully written block letters, the same writing paper with the letterhead cut off.

The writer didn’t call him Divisional Superintendent any more, and the tone had changed.

“You made a mistake, Monsieur Maigret, in coming before receiving my second letter. Now they all have a bee in their bonnet and that means things will be speeded up. From now on, the crime may be committed at any moment, and that will be partly your fault.

“I thought you were more patient, more reflective. Do you really think that you are capable of discovering the secrets of a whole household in one afternoon?

“You are more credulous, and perhaps more vain, than I had thought. I cannot help you any more. My only advice to you is to continue your investigation without believing what anyone tells you.

“With regards. In spite of everything I retain my admiration for you.”

The three men standing facing him realized that he was embarrassed, and he handed them the sheet of paper with some reluctance. They were even more embarrassed than he was at the offhand way the anonymous correspondent was treating their chief.

“Don’t you think it’s a kid having fun?”

“That’s what my wife said last night.”

“What do you think?”

“No…”

No, he didn’t think that it was a joke in poor taste. Besides, there was nothing dramatic in the air on the Avenue Marigny. In that apartment everything was clear and well ordered. The butler had received him with calm dignity. The secretary with the funny name was lively and pleasant. As for Maître Parendon, he had shown himself to be a most charming host in spite of his strange appearance.

The idea that it might be a joke had not occurred to Parendon either. He had made no protest against this intrusion into his private life. He had talked a lot about many subjects, particularly about Article 64, but, after all, hadn’t there been an undercurrent of unhappiness all the time?

Maigret did not mention it at the big briefing. He realized that his colleagues would shrug their shoulders if they knew he was involving himself in such an unlikely affair.

“Anything new with you, Maigret?”

“Janvier is just on the point of arresting the man who killed the postmistress. We are almost sure, but we’d better wait a bit and see if he had an accomplice…He’s living with a young girl, and she’s pregnant…”

Ordinary things. Commonplace things. Everyday things. One hour later he left the everyday world as he went into the building on Avenue Marigny. The uniformed concierge waved to him through the glass door of the lodge.

Ferdinand, the butler, took his hat and asked:

“Do you wish me to announce your arrival to Monsieur?”

“No. Take me to the secretary’s office.”

Mademoiselle Vague! That was it! He had remembered her name. She worked in a small room with green-painted filing cabinets around the walls, and she was typing on the latest-model electric typewriter.

“Did you want to see me?” she asked, not at all upset

She got up, looked around her, and pointed to a chair near the window which looked onto the courtyard.

“I’m sorry I haven’t got an armchair for you. If you’d rather, we could go to the library or the drawing room…”

“I’d prefer to stay here.”

He could hear a vacuum cleaner running somewhere in the apartment. Another typewriter was clacking away in one of the offices. A man’s voice, not Parendon’s, was speaking on the telephone:

“Yes, yes…I understand you perfectly, my dear boy, but the law is the law, even if it sometimes runs counter to common sense…I have spoken to him about it, of course…No, he can’t see you today or tomorrow, and that wouldn’t help anyway…”

“Monsieur Tortu?” Maigret asked.

She nodded. The clerk was speaking in the next room. Mademoiselle Vague went over and shut the door, cutting off the sound just as if she had turned off the radio. The window was open a little and a chauffeur in blue denims was hosing down a Rolls-Royce. “Does that belong to Monsieur Parendon?”

“No, to the tenants on the second floor. They’re Peruvians.”

“Does Monsieur Parendon have a chauffeur?”

“He has to, because his eyesight is too poor to let him drive.”

“What kind of car does he have?”

“A Cadillac. Madame uses it more often than he does, although she has a little English car of her own. Does the noise disturb you? Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to shut the window?”

No. The jet of water was part of the atmosphere, of spring, of a house like the one he found himself in. “Do you know why I am here?”

“I only know that we are all at your service and that we are to answer all your questions even if we think they are indiscreet.”

He took the first letter out of his pocket again. He would have a photocopy made of it when he got back to the Quai, otherwise it would end up in shreds.

While she was reading it, he examined her face, which her round tortoise-shell spectacles managed not to make ugly. She was not beautiful in the usual sense, but she had a pleasant face. Her mouth in particular held the eye, full, smiling, its corners turned up. “Yes?” she said, handing back the paper.

“What do you think of it?”

“What does Monsieur Parendon think?”

“The same as you do.”

“What do you mean?”

“That he was no more surprised than you are.”

She forced herself to smile, but he could tell that the shot had gone home.

“Should I have reacted in any special way?”

“When someone announces that a murder is going to be committed in a house…”

“That could happen in any house, couldn’t it? Up to the moment when a man commits a crime, I suppose that he acts like any other man, that he is like any other man, otherwise…”

“Otherwise we would arrest future criminals in advance. That’s true enough.”

The strange thing was that she had thought of that, for few people in the course of Maigret’s long career had given him that simple piece of reasoning.

“I put the advertisement in. This morning I had a second letter.”

He held it out to her, and she read it with the same attention, but this time with a certain anxiety too.

“I’m beginning to understand,” she murmured.

“What?”

“Why you are worried and why you are taking on the investigation yourself.”

“May I smoke?”

“Please do. I am allowed to smoke in here, which isn’t the case in most offices.”

She lit a cigarette with simple, unaffected gestures, unlike so many women. She smoked in order to relax. She leaned back a little in her secretary’s chair. The office did not look at all like a business office. Although the typewriter table was metal, an extremely beautiful Louis XIII table stood beside it.

“Is the Parendon boy a practical joker?”

“Gus? He’s quite the opposite. He is intelligent, but reserved. He is always at the top of his class at the lycée, though he never does any work.”

“What is he most interested in?”

“Music and electronics. He has built a complete hi-fi system in his bedroom, and he subscribes to I don’t know how many scientific magazines…Look, here’s one that came in this morning’s mail. I’m the one who puts them in his room.”

Electronics of Tomorrow.

“Does he go out a lot?”

“I’m not here in the evenings. I don’t think so.”

“Has he any friends?”

“Sometimes a friend comes to listen to records or to do experiments with him.”

“How does he get on with his father?”

She seemed surprised by the question. She thought for a moment, and smiled to excuse herself.

“I don’t know what to say. I have been working for Monsieur Parendon for five years. It’s only my second job in Paris.”

“Where was the first?”

“In a business on Rue Reaumur. I wasn’t happy, because the work didn’t interest me.”

“Who got you this post?”

“René. I mean Monsieur Tortu. He told me about this job.”

“Did you know him well?”

“We used to have our evening meal at the same restaurant on the Rue Caulaincourt.”

“Do you live in Montmartre?”

“On the Place Constantin-Pecqueur.”

“Was Tortu your…petit-ami?”

“First of all, he’s not so little—almost six foot three. Anyway, except for one time, there hasn’t been anything between us.”

“Except for one time?”

“I’ve been told to be absolutely frank, haven’t I?…One evening, not long before I came here, we went to the movies together on the Place Clichy, after we left ‘Chez Maurice’—‘Chez Maurice,’ that’s the restaurant on Rue Caulaincourt…”

“Do you still eat there?”

“Almost every evening. I’m part of the furniture.”

“And he?”

“Not so often now that he’s engaged.”

“So, after the movies…”

“He asked me if he could come up and have a drink at my apartment. We’d already had a few drinks, and I was a little bit drunk. I said no, because I hate the idea of a man coming into my room…It’s something physical…I said I’d go with him to his apartment on the Rue des Saules…”

“Why didn’t it happen again?”

“Because it didn’t work out, we both realized that…Just one of those things, in fact…We’re still good friends.”

“Is he going to get married soon?”

“I don’t think he’s in any hurry.”

“Is his fiancée a secretary too?”

“She’s Dr. Parendon’s, the boss’s brother’s, assistant.”

Maigret smoked his pipe in short puffs, trying to soak up everything about this world which he had not known anything about the previous day, and which had just welled up in his life.

“Since we’re talking about such things, I’m going to ask you another indiscreet question. Do you go to bed with Monsieur Parendon?”

It was her way of doing things. She listened attentively to the question, her face serious. She took her time and then, at the moment of answering, she began to smile, a smile both mischievous and spontaneous, while her eyes twinkled behind her glasses.

“In a sense, yes. We make love, but it’s always on the run, so to speak, so the word ‘bed’ isn’t appropriate, since we’ve never been to bed together.”

“Does Tortu know?”

“We’ve never spoken about it, but he must guess.”

“Why?”

“When you know the apartment better, you’ll understand. Let’s see, how many people are around here during the day?…Monsieur and Madame Parendon and the two children, that’s four. Three in the office, seven. Ferdinand, the cook, the maid, and the cleaning-woman, brings us to eleven. Not to mention Madame’s masseur, who comes four mornings a week, or her sisters, or her friends…Even though there are a lot of rooms, one meets everyone else. Especially in here.”

“Why in here especially?”

“Because it’s in here everyone comes to get paper, stamps, paper clips…If Gus needs a piece of string, it’s these drawers he comes to look in…Bambi always needs stamps or scotch tape. As for Madame…”

He watched her, curious to see how she would continue.

“She’s everywhere. Oh, yes, she goes out a lot, but one never knows if she’s out or in. You will have noticed that all the halls and most of the rooms are carpeted. You can’t hear anyone coming. The door opens and in pops someone you weren’t expecting. For example, she sometimes pushes open my door and mutters ‘Oh, excuse me,’ as if she’d made a mistake…”

“Is she inquisitive?”

“Or scatterbrained. Unless she has a thing about it.”

“Has she never surprised you with her husband?”

“I’m not sure. Once, not long before Christmas, when we thought she was at the hairdresser’s, she came in at a rather delicate moment. We had time to look normal, at least I think we did, but I’m not sure. She seemed very natural and began to talk to her husband about the present she had just bought for Gus.”

“Hasn’t she changed in her attitude to you?”

“No. She is nice to everyone, a kind of niceness that is peculiarly her own, a little as if she were floating around above us to protect us…I’ve secretly nicknamed her the angel…”

“Don’t you like her?”

“I wouldn’t have her for a friend, if that’s what you mean.”

A bell rang, and the girl got up suddenly.

“Will you excuse me? The boss is calling me.”

She was at the door already, having picked up a pencil and a shorthand notebook on the way.

Maigret remained alone, watching the chauffeur in the courtyard not yet reached by the sun. He was polishing the Rolls with a chamois and whistling a catchy tune.

Mademoiselle Vague did not come back, and Maigret remained seated by the window—he who had such a horror of waiting. He could have gone along to the end of the hall to the office occupied by Tortu and Julien Baud, but it was as if he were in a pleasant stupor, his eyes half closed, looking first at one thing, then at another.

The table that served as a desk had heavy oak legs, tastefully carved, and it must have stood previously in another room. Its surface was polished by long use. There was a beige blotter with four leather corners. The pen-tray was very ordinary, made of a kind of plastic. It held fountain pens, pencils, a rubber, and a scraping knife. There was a dictionary near the typing table.

Suddenly he frowned. He stood up rather regretfully and went over to look more closely at the table. He had not been mistaken. There was a thin cut, still fresh, such as the erasing-knife would have made cutting a sheet of paper.

Near the pen-tray there was a flat metal ruler.

“You’ve noticed that too?”

He jumped. It was Mademoiselle Vague who had come in, still holding her notebook.

“What do you mean?”

“The scratch. Isn’t it awful to spoil such a lovely table?”

“Have you any idea who did it?”

“Anyone with access to this room, that is to say, anyone at all. I told you everybody treated this place as his own.”

So he wouldn’t have to search. He had promised himself the previous day that he would examine all the tables in the house, for he had noticed that the paper has been cut cleanly, as if with a guillotine.

“Did you tell him what we were talking about?”

She answered, not in the least embarrassed:

“Yes.”

“Even about your relationship with him?”

“Of course.”

“Is that why he called you?”

“No. He really had something to ask me about the case he’s working on just now.”

“I’ll come back in a moment. I suppose you don’t need to show me in any more?”

She smiled.

“He told you to make yourself at home, didn’t he?”

So he knocked at the tall oak door, opened it, and found the little man sitting at his desk, which was covered this morning with official-looking documents.

“Come in, Monsieur Maigret. I’m sorry I interrupted you. I didn’t know you were with my secretary. You’re getting to know a bit more about our household.

“Would it be indiscreet to ask you if I could look at the second letter?”

Maigret gave it to him willingly, and he had the impression that Parendon’s face, which was already colorless, grew waxy. The blue eyes no longer sparkled behind the thick glasses, but stared at Maigret with an anguished, questioning look.

“‘From now on, the crime may be committed at any moment.’ Do you believe that?”

Maigret, who was staring at him equally hard, said only:

“Do you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know any longer. Yesterday I took the affair rather lightly. Although I did not believe it was a spiteful joke, I was tempted to think it was a minor revenge, treacherous and naïve at the same time…”

“Against whom?”

“Against me, against my wife, against anyone in the house…A clever way of getting the police here and having us harassed by questions.”

“Have you mentioned it to your wife?”

“I had to, since she met you in my office.”

“You could have told her that I had come to ask your opinion on a professional matter.”

Parendon’s face expressed mild surprise.

“Would Madame Maigret be satisfied with an explanation like that?”

“My wife never asks questions.”

“Mine does. And she goes on asking, just as you do in your interrogations, if one can believe what one reads, until she thinks she has got to the bottom of things. Then she checks on them with seemingly harmless questions which she shoots at Ferdinand, at the cook, at my secretary, at the children…”

He was not complaining. There was no bitterness in his voice. More a kind of admiration, in fact. He seemed to be talking about a phenomenon whose merits are widely known.

“What was her reaction?”

“That it must be revenge on the part of one of the domestics.”

“Have they any grounds for complaint?”

“They always have grounds for complaint For example, Madame Vauquin, the cook, works late when we give a dinner, and the cleaning woman leaves at six sharp, regardless. On the other hand, the cleaning woman earns two hundred francs less than the cook. You understand?”

“What about Ferdinand?”

“Did you know that Ferdinand, who is so correct, so formal, was in the Foreign Legion and has taken part in commando raids? No one checks on what he does in the evenings in his room above the garage, whom he sees or where he goes…”

“Are they the people you suspect too?”

The lawyer hesitated a second and decided to be honest.

“No.”

“Why?”

“None of them would have written the sentences in the letter, or used certain of the words.”

“Are there any guns in the house?”

“My wife has two shotguns, because she is often invited on a shoot. I don’t shoot.”

“Have you a revolver?”

“I have an old Browning in a drawer of my bedside table. Lots of people do, I think. One tells oneself that if burglars…”

He laughed softly.

“I could give them a fright, anyway. Here…”

He opened a drawer of the desk and took out a box of cartridges.

“The gun is in my room at the other end of the apartment, and the cartridges are here, a habit I got into when the children were younger and I was afraid of accidents. This makes me realize that they’re now well into the age of reason and I could load my Browning…”

He kept on rummaging in the drawer, and this time he pulled out an American-style blackjack.

“Do you know where I got this toy? Three years ago, I was surprised to be called to the police station to see the superintendent. When I got there I was asked if I had a son called Jacques. He was twelve at the time.

“A fight had broken out as the boys were coming out of school, and the policemen found Gus in possession of this blackjack…

“I questioned him when I got home and learned that he had got it from a friend in exchange for six packages of chewing gum.”

He smiled, amused at the memory.

“Is he a violent boy?”

“He went through a difficult period when he was between twelve and thirteen. He used to have violent but short-lived tempers, especially when his sister teased him. After that it wore off. I would say he’s too calm, too solitary a boy for my liking…”

“Hasn’t he any friends?”

“I only know of one, a boy called Génuvier who comes quite often to listen to music with him. His father is a pâtissier on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré—you must have heard the name—ladies go there from all over town…”

“If you will excuse me now, I’ll go back to your secretary.”

“What do you think of her?”

“She is intelligent, both spontaneous and thoughtful…”

That seemed to please Parendon, who purred:

“I find her invaluable…”

While Parendon immersed himself in his papers once again, Maigret rejoined Mademoiselle Vague in her office. She was not even pretending to work and was obviously waiting for him.

“One question that you will find ridiculous, Mademoiselle—has the Parendon boy…”

“Everyone calls him Gus.”

“Right. Has Gus ever tried to make love to you?”

“He’s fifteen years old.”

“I know. That’s just the age to be curious about certain things, or for sentimental attachments.”

She thought for a moment. Like Parendon, she took time to think before answering. It was as if he had taught her exactitude.

“No,” she said finally. “When I first knew him, he was a little boy who came in to ask me for stamps for his collection, a boy who scrounged incredible amounts of pencils and scotch tape. And sometimes he asked me to help him with his homework. He would sit where you are and watch me with a serious expression…”

“And now?”

“He is half a head taller than I am and he has been shaving for a year. If he scrounges anything from me now, it’s cigarettes, when he has forgotten to buy any.”

She lit one suddenly, while Maigret filled his pipe slowly.

“Aren’t his visits any more frequent?”

“Quite the opposite. I think I told you he leads his own life, apart from the family, except for meals. And he even refuses to appear at table when there are guests. He prefers to eat in the kitchen.”

“Does he get on well with the staff?”

“He doesn’t make any distinctions between people. Even if he is late, he won’t let the chauffeur drive him to school, in case the other boys see him in a limousine.”

“In fact, he is ashamed of living in a house like this?”

“It’s a bit like that, yes.”

“Has his relationship with his sister improved?”

“You must remember that I never have meals with them and that I rarely see them together. As far as I can see, he thinks of her as a curious creature and tries to understand how she works, rather the way he would think of an insect.”

“What about his mother?”

“She’s a bit flamboyant for him. I mean she is always on the move, always talking to a crowd of people…”

“I understand. And the girl? Paulette, I think her name is.”

“Everyone here says Bambi. Don’t forget that both children have nicknames. Gus and Bambi. I don’t know what they call me among themselves—it should be quite funny.”

“How does Bambi get on with her mother?”

“Badly.”

“Do they quarrel?”

“Not even that. They hardly speak to each other.”

“On whose side is the animosity?”

“On Bambi’s. You’ll be seeing her. Although she’s young, she passes judgment on everyone around her, and you can tell by her look that she is judging them cruelly.”

“Unjustly?”

“Not always.”

“Does she get on with you?”

“She accepts me.”

“Does she ever come to see you in your office?”

“When she needs me to type a lecture or photocopy a document.”

“Does she ever talk to you about her friends?”

“Never.”

“Do you think that she knows about your relationship with her father?”

“I’ve sometimes wondered about that. I don’t know. Anyone could have looked in on us without our knowing.”

“Does she love her father?”

“She has taken him under her protection. She seems to think of him as her mother’s victim, and that is why she hates her for taking so much of the limelight.”

“In fact Monsieur Parendon doesn’t play an important role in the family, does he?”

“Not an obvious role.”

“Has he never tried?”

“Perhaps he did a long time ago, before I came. He must have seen that the battle was already lost and…”

“…and he retreated into his shell.”

She laughed.

“Not as much as you may think. He knows everything that goes on, too. He doesn’t ask questions like Madame Parendon—he contents himself with listening, observing, deducing…He is an extremely intelligent man.”

“I had that impression.”

He saw that she was delighted. Suddenly she looked on him as a friend, as if he had won her over. He realized that if she and Parendon made love it was not because he was her boss, but because she felt a real passion for him.

“I imagine you don’t have a lover…”

“That’s right. I don’t want one.”

“Don’t you mind living alone?”

“On the contrary. I would find it unbearable to have someone around all the time. Even more so to have someone in my bed.”

“No passing affairs?”

Still that slight hesitation between the truth and a lie.

“Sometimes. Very rarely.”

And, with a pride that was quite comical, she added as if she were making a profession of faith:

“But never in my apartment.”

“What kind of relationship is there between Gus and his father? I did ask before, but we got sidetracked.”

“Gus admires him. But he admires him from a distance, without letting him see it, with a kind of humility. You see, to understand them you would have to know the whole family, and your investigations would have to go on forever…

“You know that the apartment belonged to Monsieur Gassin de Beaulieu, and it’s full of reminders of him. The former President has been ill for three years and never leaves his house in the Vendée. But before that he sometimes came to spend a week or two here—he still has a room—and from the moment he came in he was master of the house again.”

“So you knew him?”

“Very well. He used to dictate all his letters to me.”

“What kind of man is he? From his portrait…”

“The one in Monsieur Parendon’s office? If you have seen the portrait, you have seen the man. What is called an upright and honest judge and a cultivated man. You know what I mean? A man who walked around larger than life and who acted as if he had just stepped down from his pedestal.

“While he was here, no one in the apartment was allowed to make any noise. Everyone walked on tiptoe. They whispered. The children, who were younger then than they are now, lived in terror…

“Monsieur Parendon’s father, the surgeon, on the other hand…”

“Does he still come?”

“Not very often. That’s just what I was going to tell you. You will have heard the stories about him, everyone has. He was the son of peasants in Berry, and he always behaved like a peasant. His speech is intentionally rough and colorful, even in his lectures.

“A few years ago he was still a force of nature. Since he lives very near here, on Rue de Miromesnil, he often used to drop in for a visit, just in passing, and the children adored him.

“That didn’t please everyone…”

“Particularly Madame Parendon…”

“It’s true there was no love lost between them. I don’t know anything for sure. The servants have talked about a violent scene between them. At any rate, he doesn’t come any more, but his son goes to visit him every two or three days.”

“So the Gassins, in fact, have beaten the Parendons.”

“More than you think.”

The air was blue with smoke from Maigret’s pipe and Mademoiselle Vague’s cigarettes. The girl walked over to the window, which she opened wider to let in the fresh air.

“Because,” she went on in an amused tone, “the children have aunts, uncles, and cousins. Monsieur Gassin de Beaulieu had four daughters, and the other three live in Paris too. They have children ranging in age from ten to twenty-two. In fact, last spring one of the girls married an officer attached to the Naval Ministry.

“So much for the Gassin de Beaulieu clan. If you’d like it, I’ll make up a list for you, with their husbands’ names.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary just now. Do they often come here?”

“Sometimes one of them, sometimes another. Although they’ve been married for a long time, they still consider this house the family home.”

“While on the other hand…”

“You have understood what I was going to say before I said it. Monsieur Parendon’s brother, Germain, is a doctor, a specialist in infantile neurology. He is married to a former actress who still looks young and vivacious…”

“Does he look like…?”

Maigret was a little embarrassed by his question, and she understood.

“No. He’s just as broad and powerful as his father, and much taller. He is an extremely handsome man, and it’s surprising to find he’s so gentle. He and his wife have no children. They don’t go out much and only entertain close friends…”

“But they don’t come here,” sighed Maigret, who was beginning to form a fairly accurate picture of the family.

“Monsieur Parendon goes to see them on the evenings when his wife plays bridge, since he loathes cards. Sometimes Monsieur Germain comes to visit him in his office. I can tell if he has been when I come in in the morning because the room smells of cigars.”

Maigret seemed suddenly to change his tone of voice. He did not grow menacing or severe, but there was no longer a trace of badinage and amusement in his voice and in his eyes.

“Listen to me, Mademoiselle Vague. I am sure you have answered me with complete honesty, and sometimes you have even anticipated my questions. I still have one more to ask you, and I beg you to be just as sincere. Do you think these letters are a joke?”

She answered without hesitation:

“No.”

“Before they were written, had you ever felt that something terrible was about to take place in this house?”

This time she hesitated, lit another cigarette, then said:

“Perhaps…”

“When?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking…Perhaps after the summer holidays. Around that time, anyway.”

“What did you notice?”

“Nothing in particular. Just something in the air…I’m tempted to say a sort of oppression.”

“Who, in your opinion, is the person who is being threatened?”

She blushed suddenly and was silent.

“Why won’t you answer?”

“Because you know perfectly well what I would say: Monsieur Parendon.”

He stood up, sighing.

“Thank you. I think I have tormented you enough this morning. I’ll probably come back to see you again soon.”

“Do you want to question the others?”

“Not before lunch. It’s almost noon. I expect I’ll see them after.”

She watched him leave, tall, bulky, awkward, then suddenly, when the front door had closed again, she began to cry.