SIX
I am sorry I lost my temper, Monsieur Maigret. It is most unusual for me…”
“I know.”
It was precisely because he knew it that Maigret was thoughtful.
The little man, still standing, got back his breath and his self-control and wiped his face once more. It was not flushed, but yellowish.
“Do you hate her?”
“I don’t hate anybody…Because I don’t believe that a human being is ever fully responsible…”
“Article 64!”
“Yes, Article 64…I don’t care if it makes me appear to be mad, but I will not change my opinion…”
“Even if it should concern your wife?”
“Even if it should concern her.”
“Even if she killed Mademoiselle Vague?”
For a moment his face seemed to dissolve, his eyes to dilate.
“Even then.”
“Do you think she is capable of such an action?”
“I am not going to accuse anyone.”
“A few moments ago I asked you a question. I am going to ask you another, and you will be able to answer yes or no. My anonymous correspondent is not necessarily the murderer. Someone, sensing disaster, might have thought that by introducing the police into the house he could avert it.”
“I can anticipate the question. I did not write the letters.”
“Could the murdered girl have done so?”
He reflected for a few moments.
“It’s not impossible. But it doesn’t fit in with her character. She was more direct than that—I was just telling you about her spontaneity…
“In fact, wouldn’t she have been more likely to come to me, since she knew quite well…?
He bit his lip.
“Knew what quite well?”
“That if I had felt I was being threatened I would have done nothing about it.”
“Why?”
He looked hesitantly at Maigret.
“It’s hard to explain…One day I made my choice…”
“By getting married?”
“By embarking on my chosen career…By getting married…By living in a certain way…So I must take the consequences…”
“Isn’t that contrary to your views on human responsibility?”
“Perhaps. It would seem so, anyway…”
He seemed tired, helpless. One could guess at the turmoil of thoughts he was forcing himself to organize behind his domed forehead.
“Do you believe, Monsieur Parendon, that the person who wrote to me thought that the victim would be your secretary?”
“No.”
In spite of the closed doors they heard a voice in the drawing room, crying:
“Where is my father?”
Then almost immediately the door opened abruptly and a very tall young man with unkempt hair took two or three steps into the room and stopped in front of the two men.
He first looked from one to the other, then his eyes became fixed on the superintendent with an almost menacing gleam.
“Are you going to arrest my father?”
“Calm down, Gus…Superintendent Maigret and I…”
“Are you Maigret?”
He looked at him with more than mere curiosity.
“Whom are you going to arrest?”
“No one, at the moment.”
“Anyway, I can swear it wasn’t my father…”
“Who told you what has happened?”
“The concierge first of all, but he didn’t give me any details, then Ferdinand…”
“Weren’t you half expecting it?”
Parendon took advantage of the situation to sit down at his desk, as if he wanted to be in his most accustomed place once more.
“Is this an interrogation?”
And the boy turned to his father to ask his advice.
“My role, Gus…”
“Who told you I’m called Gus?”
“Everybody I’ve met here…I’m going to ask you questions, just as I shall do with everybody, but it isn’t an official interrogation…I asked you if you weren’t half expecting it?”
“Expecting what?”
“What happened this morning.”
“If you mean was I expecting someone to cut Antoinette’s throat, no…”
“Did you call her Antoinette?”
“I’ve called her that for a long time. We were good friends.”
“What did you expect?”
His ears suddenly flamed.
“Nothing in particular…”
“But something drastic?”
“I don’t know…”
Maigret noted that Parendon was watching his son carefully, as if he too had asked a question, or as if he was making a discovery.
“Are you fifteen, Gus?”
“I’ll be sixteen in June.”
“Would you rather I talked to you in front of your father, or alone in your room or any other room?”
The boy hesitated. Although his anger had subsided, he was still very nervous. He turned toward the lawyer again.
“Which would you prefer, Father?”
“I think you would both be more at ease in your room…Just a minute, Gus…Your sister will be coming in at any minute, if she isn’t here already…I want you to have lunch together as usual, without worrying about me…I won’t come to the dining room.”
“Aren’t you going to have anything to eat?”
“I don’t know. I may have a sandwich…I need a little peace.”
The boy was on the point of rushing to give his father a hug. It was not Maigret’s presence that stopped him, but a fear, which must always have stood between father and son, of showing too much emotion.
Neither of them was inclined to sentimental effusions or embraces, and Maigret could easily visualize a younger Gus coming to sit silent and motionless in his father’s office, just to watch him reading or working.
“If you want to come to my room, come on…”
As they went through the drawing room, Maigret found Lucas and Torrence waiting for him, ill at ease in the enormous, sumptuously furnished room.
“Finished, fellows?”
“Yes, Chief…Do you want to see the layout and the time schedule?”
“Not just now. What time did it happen?”
“Between half past nine and quarter to ten…Almost certainly at nine thirty-seven.”
Maigret turned toward the wide-open windows.
“Were they open this morning?” he asked.
“From a quarter past eight onward.”
Behind the garages rose the many windows of a six-story apartment house on the Rue du Cirque. It was the back of the building. A woman was walking across a kitchen, pot in hand. Another, on the third floor, was changing her baby’s diaper.
“You two go and have a bite before going on with the work. Where is Janvier?”
“He has found the mother, in a village in Berry. She hasn’t got a telephone, and he has asked someone to get her to the post office…He’s waiting in the rear office for the call.”
“He can join you later. You’ll find a pretty good restaurant on Rue de Miromesnil—it’s called ‘Au Petit Chaudron.’ After you’ve eaten, divide the floors of the apartment house you can see from here on the Rue du Cirque between you. Question the tenants whose windows look out on this side. They might, for instance, have seen someone going through the drawing room between nine thirty and nine forty-five…They must be able to look into other rooms…”
“Where will we find you?”
“At the Quai, when you’ve finished. Unless you find something important…I might still be here.”
Gus waited, interested in what was going on. The tragedy that had taken place did not stop him from having a slightly childish curiosity about police procedure.
“Now I’m all yours, Gus.”
They went down a hallway, narrower than the one in the other wing, past a kitchen. They could see a fat woman dressed in black through the glass-paneled door.
“It’s the second door.”
The room was big, its whole feeling different from the rest of the apartment. The furniture was in the same style, undoubtedly because it had had to be used somewhere. Gus had changed its character by piling it up with all kinds of things, adding pinboards and shelves.
There were four loud-speakers, two or three phonograph turntables, a microscope on a white wood table, copper wires forming a complicated circuit fixed onto another table. There was only one armchair, by the window, with a piece of red cotton thrown haphazardly over it. There was a length of red cotton covering the bed, too, turning it into a sort of couch.
“You’ve kept it?” Maigret remarked, pointing to a large teddy bear on a shelf.
“Why should I be ashamed of it? My father gave it to me for my first birthday.”
He spoke the word “father” proudly, almost defiantly. He was ready to spring fiercely to his defense.
“Did you like Mademoiselle Vague, Gus?”
“I’ve told you already. She was my friend.”
He must have been flattered that a girl of twenty-five should treat him as a friend.
“Did you often go into her office?”
“At least once a day.”
“Did you ever go out with her?”
The boy looked at him, surprised. Maigret filled his pipe.
“Go out where?”
“To the movies, maybe…or dancing…”
“I don’t dance. I’ve never been out with her.”
“Did you ever go to her apartment?”
The boy’s ears flamed again.
“What are you trying to make me say? What are you thinking?”
“Did you know of Antoinette’s relationship with your father?”
“Why not?” he replied, his head held proudly. “Do you see anything wrong with that?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, but what you think.”
“My father’s a free agent, isn’t he?”
“What about your mother?”
“It wasn’t any of her business.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s a man’s right…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but what he had said showed his meaning clearly.
“Do you think that’s the reason for what happened this morning?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you expecting something to happen?”
Maigret had taken a seat in the red chair, and he lit his pipe slowly, watching the boy, who was still in the adolescent period of growth, his arms too long, his hands too big.
“I was expecting it and not expecting it…”
“Express yourself more clearly. Your teachers at the Lycée Racine would not accept that for an answer.”
“I didn’t imagine you were like this…”
“Do you think I’m hard?”
“I think you don’t like me, that you suspect me of something, I don’t know what…”
“That’s right.”
“Not of having killed Antoinette, though? Besides, I was at school.”
“I know. And I also know that you really worship your father.”
“Is that wrong?”
“Not at all. At the same time, you feel he’s defenseless.”
“What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing bad, Gus. Your father is inclined not to fight, except possibly in his work. He believes that everything that happens to him happens only because of his own shortcomings.”
“He’s an intelligent and honest man…”
“Antoinette was defenseless too, in her own way. In fact there were two of you keeping guard over your father, she and you. That’s why there was a sort of complicity between you.”
“We never said anything about that…”
“I’m sure you didn’t. But you still felt you were on the same side. That’s why, even if you had nothing to say to her, you never missed a chance of going to see her.”
“What are you getting at?”
For the first time the boy, who had been fiddling with a piece of copper wire, did not meet his eyes.
“I’m there already. It was you who sent me those letters, Gus, and you who telephoned the Criminal Police yesterday.”
Maigret could only see his back. There was a long pause. Finally the boy turned to him, his face scarlet.
“Yes, it was me…You would have found out anyway, wouldn’t you?”
He no longer looked defiantly at Maigret. On the contrary, the superintendent had risen in his esteem again.
“How did you come to suspect me?”
“The letters could only have been written by the murderer or by someone who was trying to protect your father indirectly.”
“It could have been Antoinette.”
Maigret thought it better not to tell him that the girl wasn’t a child any more and would not have gone about things in such a complicated, or such a childish, way.
“Have I been a disappointment to you, Gus?”
“I thought you would go about things differently.”
“How, for instance?”
“I don’t know. I’ve read all about your cases. I thought you were the man who would understand everything…”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t think anything at all.”
“Whom did you want me to arrest?”
“I didn’t want you to arrest anyone.”
“Well, then? What should I have done?”
“You’re the one who’s in charge of the Crime Squad, not me.”
“Had any crime been committed yesterday, or even at nine o’clock this morning?”
“Of course not.”
“What did you want me to protect your father from?”
There was another silence.
“I felt he was in danger.”
“What kind of danger?”
Maigret was sure that Gus understood the real meaning of the question. The boy had wanted to protect his father. From whom? Couldn’t it also have been to protect him from himself?
“I don’t want to answer any more questions.”
“Why not?”
“Because!”
He added, in a firm voice:
“Take me to the Quai des Orfèvres if you want. Ask me the same questions for hours on end…Maybe you think I’m only a boy, but I swear I won’t say any more…”
“I’m not asking you any more. It’s time you were going to lunch, Gus.”
“It won’t matter if I’m late back to school today.”
“Where is your sister’s room?”
“Two doors along this hallway.”
“No hard feelings?”
“You’re doing your job…”
And the boy slammed the door. A moment later Maigret knocked at Bambi’s door, through which he could hear the droning of a vacuum cleaner. It was a young girl in uniform who opened the door. She had soft blonde hair.
“Were you looking for me?”
“Are you Lise?”
“Yes. I’m the maid. You’ve already walked past me in the halls.”
“Where is Mademoiselle Bambi?”
“She might be in the dining room. Or perhaps in her father’s room, or her mother’s—that’s in the other wing.”
“I know. I was in Madame Parendon’s rooms yesterday.”
An open door showed him a dining room paneled from floor to ceiling. The table, which could have seated twenty, was set for two. In a little while Bambi and her brother would be here, separated by a vast stretch of tablecloth, with Ferdinand, formal in white gloves, to serve them.
As he passed, he opened the door of the lawyer’s office slightly. Parendon was sitting in the same chair as in the morning. There was a bottle of wine, a glass, and some sandwiches on a folding table. He did not move. Perhaps he had not heard anything. There was a spot of sunlight on his head. It looked bald like that.
The superintendent shut the door again and found the corridor he had gone along the day before, and the door of the boudoir. Through it he could hear a voice he did not recognize, insistent, tragic.
He could not make out the words, but he could feel the unbridled passion.
He knocked very loudly. The voice stopped suddenly and a second later the door opened and a girl stood in front of him, still breathless, her eyes shining.
“What do you want?”
“I am Superintendent Maigret.”
“I thought so. So what? Haven’t we the right to be in our own house any more?”
She was not beautiful, but she had a pleasant face and a well-proportioned figure. She wore a simply cut suit, and her hair was held back by a ribbon, although it was not the fashion.
“I would like to have a short talk with you before you have lunch, Mademoiselle.”
“Here?”
He hesitated. He had seen her mother’s shoulders trembling.
“Not necessarily. Wherever you like.”
Bambi came out of the room without a backward glance, shut the door, and said:
“Where do you want to go?”
“To your room?” he suggested.
“Lise is doing my room.”
“To one of the offices?”
“I don’t mind.”
Her hostility was not directed toward Maigret in particular. It was more a state of mind. Now that her violent harangue had been interrupted, her nerves had relaxed and she followed him dully.
“Not in…” she began.
Not in Mademoiselle Vague’s room, of course. They went into Tortu’s and Julien Baud’s office. They were out having lunch.
“Have you seen your father? Sit down.”
“I’d rather not sit.”
She was too overwrought to sit still in a chair.
“As you like.”
He did not sit either, but leaned on Tortu’s desk.
“I asked you if you had seen your father?”
“No, not since I came home.”
“When did you get back?”
“At twelve fifteen.”
“Who told you what had happened?”
“The concierge.”
It appeared that Lamure had lain in wait for both Gus and his sister, so as to be the first to tell them the news.
“And then?”
“And then what?”
“What did you do?”
“Ferdinand wanted to say something to me. I didn’t listen and I went straight to my room.”
“Was Lise there?”
“Yes. She was cleaning the bathroom. Everything’s late because of what has happened.”
“Did you cry?”
“No.”
“Didn’t it occur to you to go and see your father?”
“Maybe…I don’t remember…I didn’t go.”
“Did you stay in your room long?”
“I didn’t look at the time. Five minutes, maybe a little longer…”
“What were you doing?”
She looked at him, hesitating. That seemed to be a habit in the household. Everyone had a tendency to weigh his words before he spoke.
“Looking in the mirror.”
It was a challenge. That habit, too, could be found in other members of the family.
“Why?”
“You want me to be honest, don’t you? Well, I will be…I was trying to see whom I look like.”
“You mean your father or your mother?”
“Yes.”
“What conclusion did you come to?”
Her expression hardened and she shouted at him angrily:
“My mother!”
“Do you hate your mother, Mademoiselle Parendon?”
“I don’t hate her. I want to help her. I’ve often tried.”
“To help her do what?”
“Do you think this is getting us anywhere?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your questions…My answers…”
“They may help me to understand.”
“You spend a few hours here and there in the midst of a family and you think you can understand them? Don’t think I’m hostile to you. I know you have been wandering around the house since Monday.”
“Do you know who sent me the letters?”
“Yes.”
“How did you find out?”
“I walked in while he was cutting the sheets of paper.”
“Did Gus tell you what they were for?”
“No. I only understood afterward, when I heard people talking about the letters.”
“Who told you about them?”
“I don’t remember. Julien Baud, maybe. I like him. He looks scatterbrained, but he’s a nice boy.”
“There’s one thing that intrigues me…It was you who chose the nickname Bambi and who called your brother Gus, wasn’t it?”
She looked at him, smiling slightly.
“Does that surprise you?”
“Was it a protest?”
“That’s right. A protest against this huge, solemn barracks of a place, against the way we live, against the kind of people who come here…I wish I’d been born in an ordinary family and had to struggle to make my way in life.”
“You are struggling, in your own way.”
“Archaeology, as you know. I didn’t want to take up a career where I would be taking a place from someone else.”
“It’s your mother who irritates you above all, isn’t it?”
“I would much rather not talk about her.”
“Unfortunately, she is what matters just now, isn’t she?”
“Perhaps…I don’t know…”
She stole a glance at him.
“You think she is guilty,” Maigret insisted.
“What makes you think that?”
“When I went to her room I heard you speaking angrily…”
“That doesn’t mean that I think she’s guilty…I don’t like the way she behaves…I don’t like the life she leads, the life she makes us lead…I don’t like…”
She was less in control of herself than her brother, although she looked calmer.
“Do you blame her for not making your father happy?”
“You can’t make people happy in spite of themselves. As for making them unhappy…”
“Did you like Mademoiselle Vague, as you like Julien Baud?”
She didn’t hesitate before replying.
“No!”
“Why?”
“Because she was a little schemer who made my father believe she loved him.”
“Did you ever hear them speak of love?”
“Certainly not. She wouldn’t coo over him in front of me. You only had to see her when she was with him. I don’t know what went on when the door was closed.”
“Were you upset on moral grounds?”
“To hell with morals…And anyway, what morals?…Those of what environment? Do you think that the moral standards of this district are the same as those of a small town in the provinces or those of the 20th Arrondissement?”
“Do you think she hurt your father?”
“Perhaps she isolated him too much.”
“Do you mean that she estranged him from you?”
“Those are questions I’ve never thought about. Nobody thinks about them. Let’s say that if she hadn’t been there, there might have been some chance…”
“Of what? Of a reconciliation?”
“There wasn’t anything to reconcile. My parents have never loved each other, and I don’t believe in love either. Nevertheless there is a possibility of living in peace, in a kind of harmony…”
“Is that what you have tried to bring about?”
“I’ve tried to calm my mother’s frenzies, to lessen her rantings and ravings…”
“Hasn’t your father helped you?”
Her ideas were not at all like those of her brother, and yet they coincided on a few points.
“My father has given up.”
“Because of his secretary?”
“I’d rather not answer that, not say any more. Put yourself in my place—I come home from the Sorbonne and I find…”
“You’re right. Believe me, I am doing this so that the least possible harm will come of it. Can you imagine an investigation dragging on for several weeks, the uncertainty, the interviews at Criminal Police, then in the magistrate’s office…”
“I hadn’t thought of that. What are you going to do?”
“I haven’t made any decisions yet.”
“Have you had lunch?”
“No. Neither have you, and your brother must be waiting for you in the dining room.”
“Isn’t my father having lunch with us?”
“He’d rather have it alone in his office.”
“Aren’t you having lunch?”
“I’m not hungry just now, but I must confess I’m dying of thirst.”
“What would you like to drink? Beer? Wine?”
“Anything, as long as it’s in a big glass…”
She couldn’t help smiling.
“Wait here a minute…”
He had understood the reason for her smile. She didn’t see him going to the kitchen or the butler’s pantry to have a drink, like one of the servants. Nor did she see him sitting with Gus and herself in the dining room while they lunched in silence.
When she came back, he saw she hadn’t bothered with a tray. She held a bottle of Saint-Emilion, six years old, in one hand, and a cut-glass tumbler in the other.
“Don’t hold it against me if I was rude to you, or if I haven’t been very helpful…”
“You are all very helpful…Run along and eat now, Mademoiselle Bambi.”
It was an odd sensation to be there at one end of the apartment, in the office belonging to Tortu and the young Swiss, alone with a bottle and a glass. Because he had said a big glass, she had brought a water tumbler and he was not ashamed of filling it full.
He was really thirsty. He needed some kind of stimulation too, for he had just spent one of the most exhausting mornings of his career. Now he was sure that Madame Parendon was waiting for him. She knew that he had questioned the entire household except for her, and she would be waiting restlessly, wondering when he would finally come.
Had she, like her husband, had lunch taken to her room?
He sipped his wine standing in front of the window, looking vaguely at the courtyard, which he saw for the first time empty of cars, with only a ginger cat stretched out in a patch of sunlight. Since Lamure had told him that except for the parakeet there wasn’t an animal in the house, it must be a neighbor’s cat, looking for a peaceful spot.
He hesitated before taking a second glass, filled it half full, and took time to fill a pipe before drinking it.
After that he heaved a sigh and went to the boudoir, along the hallways he was now familiar with.
He had no need to knock. His steps had been heard in spite of the carpet, and the door opened as soon as he approached. Madame Parendon, still wearing her blue silk housecoat, had had time to put on her make–up and do her hair, and her face looked almost as it had the previous day.
Was it more tense or more relaxed? He would have found it difficult to say. He felt there was a difference, some sort of flaw, but he was unable to pick it out.
“I was expecting you.”
“I know. Well, now I am here…”
“Why did you have to see everyone else before me?”
“What if it was to give you time to think things over?”
“I don’t need to think things over…To think what things over?”
“The things that have happened…The things that are inevitably going to happen…”
“What are you talking about?”
“When a murder has been committed it is followed, sooner or later, by an arrest, a preliminary investigation, a trial…”
“What has that got to do with me?”
“You hated Antoinette, didn’t you?”
“So you call her by her Christian name too?”
“Who else does?”
“Gus, for one. I don’t know about my husband…He’s probably capable of saying ‘Mademoiselle’ very politely while making love.”
“She’s dead.”
“Well? Just because someone is dead do we have to see nothing but good in her?”
“What did you do last night when your sister left after bringing you back from the Crillon?”
She frowned, remembered, sneered:
“I had forgotten that you had filled the house with policemen…Well…I had a headache, I took an aspirin and tried to read while I waited for it to take effect. See, the book is still there, and you’ll find a bookmark at page ten or twelve…I didn’t get very far…
“I went to bed and tried to sleep, without success…That happens not infrequently and my doctor knows all about it.”
“Dr. Martin?”
“Dr. Martin is my husband’s doctor, and the children’s. My doctor is Dr. Pommeroy, who lives on Boulevard Haussmann. I’m not ill, thank God!”
She spoke these words forcefully, threw them out like a challenge.
“I’m not undergoing any treatment or following any diet…”
He thought she was going to say, under her breath:
“Unlike my husband.”
She did not say it, and went on:
“The only thing I have to complain about is insomnia. Sometimes I am still awake at three in the morning…It’s both tiring and a strain…”
“Was that the case last night?”
“Yes…”
“Were you worried?”
“By your visit?” she retorted in a flash.
“It might have been by the anonymous letters, by the atmosphere they had created…”
“I have slept badly for years, and there were never any anonymous letters…I always end up by getting up again and taking a sleeping pill that Dr. Pommeroy has prescribed for me. If you want to see the box…”
“Why should I want to see it?”
“I don’t know. Judging by the questions you asked me yesterday, I can expect anything…In spite of the sleeping pill, it took me a good half hour to get to sleep, and when I woke up I was surprised to see that it was half past eleven.”
“I thought you often got up late.”
“Not as late as that. I rang for Lise…She brought me a tray with tea and toast. It wasn’t until she opened the curtains that I saw her eyes were all red.
“I asked her why she had been crying. She burst into tears again and told me that something dreadful had happened, and I at once thought of my husband…”
“What did you think might have happened to him?”
“Do you think that man is strong? Don’t you think that his heart might give out at any moment, like the rest?”
He did not comment on “like the rest,” but reserved it for later.
“She finally told me that Mademoiselle Vague had been murdered and that the house was full of policemen.”
“What was your first reaction?”
“I was so shattered that I began by drinking my tea. Then I rushed to my husband’s office. What’s going to happen to him?”
He pretended not to understand.
“To whom?”
“To my husband. You aren’t going to throw him in prison? With his health…”
“Why should I put your husband in prison? In the first place, that’s not my job, but the judge’s. Furthermore, I don’t see any reason at this moment for arresting your husband.”
“Well, whom do you suspect, then?”
He did not answer. He walked slowly over the blue carpet with its yellow pattern while she sat down, as she had done the day before, in the easy chair.
“Why, Madame Parendon,” he asked, putting emphasis on each syllable, “would your husband have killed his secretary?”
“Must there have been a reason?”
“One doesn’t usually commit murder without a motive.”
“Some people could imagine a motive, couldn’t they?”
“Such as…?”
“For example, if she were pregnant?”
“Do you have any reason to believe that she was pregnant?”
“None…”
“Is your husband a Catholic?”
“No…”
“Even suppose she had been pregnant, it’s quite possible that he might have been very pleased…”
“It would have been an embarrassment to him.”
“You forget that we no longer live in the times when unmarried mothers were looked down on. Times change, Madame Parendon…Then, too, many people have no hesitation in finding a broad-minded gynecologist…”
“I only used that as an example.”
“Think of another reason.”
“She might have been blackmailing him…”
“For what reason? Are your husband’s business affairs shady? Do you believe he is capable of serious irregularities which might cast a slur on his honor as a member of the Bar?”
She resigned herself, tight-lipped, to saying:
“Certainly not.”
She lit a cigarette.
“That kind of girl always ends up trying to make the man marry her.”
“Has your husband spoken to you about a divorce?”
“Not so far.”
“What would you do if he did?”
“I would feel obliged to resign myself to it and to stop taking care of him…”
“I understand you have considerable means of your own…”
“More than he does. This is my house. I own the whole building.”
“In that case I can see no reason for blackmail.”
“Perhaps he was growing tired of a make-believe love?”
“Why make-believe?”
“Because of his age, his background, his kind of life, everything…”
“Is your love more real?”
“I gave him two children.”
“Do you mean you gave them to him as a wedding present?”
“Are you daring to insult me?”
She looked furiously at him again while he, on the other hand, took care to appear calmer than he was.
“I have no such intention, Madame, but it usually takes two people to make children. Let us say more simply that you and your husband have had two children.”
“What are you trying to get at?”
“I am trying to get you to tell me simply and sincerely what you did this morning.”
“I have told you.”
“Neither simply nor sincerely. You told me a long story about insomnia, so that you could skip over the whole morning.”
“I was asleep.”
“I would like to be sure about that…I will probably know for certain in a very short time. My inspectors have taken note of what everyone did, and where, between nine fifteen and ten. I am well aware that one can get to the offices by different routes.”
“Are you accusing me of lying?”
“Of not telling me the whole truth, at least.”
“Do you think my husband is innocent?”
“I don’t think anyone is innocent, a priori, just as I don’t think anyone is guilty…”
“Yet the way you are interrogating me…”
“What was your daughter accusing you of when I came to look for her?”
“Didn’t she tell you?”
“I didn’t ask her.”
She sneered once more. It was a bitter twist of the lips, an ironical smile that she wanted to be cruel, scornful.
“She is luckier than I am.”
“I asked you what she was accusing you of…”
“Of not being beside her father at a time like this, if you must know.”
“Does she think that her father is guilty?”
“What if she does?”
“Gus too, of course?”
“Gus is still at the age where the father is a kind of god and the mother is a shrew.”
“When you appeared in your husband’s study just now, you knew I would be there with him…”
“You aren’t necessarily everywhere, Monsieur Maigret, and I might have wanted to see my husband alone…”
“You asked him a question…”
“A simple question, a natural question, the question any wife in my position would have asked in the same circumstances. You saw his reaction, didn’t you? Did you think it was normal? Would you say that a man who dances with rage, shouting insults, is a normal man?”
She felt that she had a scored a point and she lit another cigarette after stubbing out the first in a blue marble ashtray.
“I am waiting for your other questions, if you have any more to ask…”
“Have you had lunch?”
“Don’t worry about that. If you are hungry…”
Her expression, as well as her attitude, was capable of changing from one moment to the next. She became very much the woman of the world again. Leaning back slightly, her eyes half closed, she was mentally snapping her fingers at him.