EIGHT

Get yourself dressed, Madame,” Maigret said gently. “You can pack a suitcase with a change of underwear and some personal belongings…Perhaps you should ring for Lise?”

“To be sure that I won’t commit suicide? Don’t worry, there’s no danger of that, but you may push the button on your right.”

He waited for the maid to appear.

“Give Madame Parendon a hand…”

Then he walked along the hallway, his head bowed, looking at the carpet. He lost his way, mistook one passage for another, and saw Ferdinand and fat Madame Vauquin through the glass door of the kitchen. There was an almost half-full bottle of red wine in front of Ferdinand. The butler had just poured himself a glass and was sitting with his elbows on the table, reading a newspaper.

He went in.

The other two were startled, and Ferdinand jumped to his feet at once.

“Would you give me a glass of wine, please?”

“I brought the other bottle from the office…”

What did it matter? In the state he was in, vintage Saint-Emilion or some ordinary red wine…

He didn’t dare say that he would have preferred the ordinary red.

He drank slowly, staring into space. He did not protest when the butler refilled his glass.

“Where are my men?”

“Waiting near the cloakroom. They didn’t want to sit in the drawing room.”

They were guarding the exit instinctively.

“Lucas, go back into the hallway where you were a few minutes ago. Stand outside the boudoir door and wait there for me.”

He went back to see Ferdinand.

“Is the chauffeur in?”

“Do you want him? I’ll call him right away.”

“What I want is for him to be at the door with the car in a few minutes…Are there any reporters waiting in the street?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Photographers?”

“Yes.”

He knocked at the door of Parendon’s office. He was alone, sitting in front of scattered papers which he was annotating in red pencil. He saw Maigret and remained motionless, looking at him, not daring to ask any questions. His blue eyes behind their thick lenses had an expression which combined softness and a sadness such as Maigret had rarely seen before.

Did he need to speak? The lawyer had understood. While waiting for the superintendent he had clung to his papers as if to a wreck.

“I think you will have one more occasion to study Article 64, Monsieur Parendon…”

“Has she confessed?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you think she will confess?”

“There will come a time, tonight, in ten days’ time, or in a month, when she will crack; and I would rather not be present…”

The little man took his handkerchief from his pocket and began to clean his glasses as if it were a matter of prime importance. Suddenly the irises of his eyes seemed to melt, to dissolve into the whites. Only his mouth remained, showing an almost childish emotion.

“Are you taking her away?”

His voice was scarcely audible.

“In order to avoid the reporters’ comments and to give her departure some dignity, she will go by her own car. I shall give the instructions to the chauffeur, and we shall arrive at Police Headquarters at the same time.”

Parendon gave him a look of gratitude.

“Do you want to see her?” asked Maigret, knowing what the answer would be.

“What could I say to her?”

“I know. You’re right. Are the children here?”

“Gus is at school. I don’t know if Bambi is in her room or if she has a class this afternoon…”

Maigret was thinking both of the woman who was about to leave and of those who would be left behind. Life would be difficult for them too, for a time at least.

“Didn’t she say anything about me?”

The lawyer asked the question timidly, almost fearfully.

“She spoke about you a great deal…”

The superintendent understood now that Madame Parendon had not found the words which seemed to accuse her husband in books. They had been in herself. She had developed a kind of transference, projecting her own disturbance onto him.

He looked at his watch, and gave the reason for looking.

“I am giving her time to dress, to pack her suitcase…The maid is with her…”

“…if the person charged with the commission of a felony or misdemeanor was then insane or acted by absolute necessity…”

Some men he had arrested because it was his job to do so had been acquitted by the court, others found guilty and sentenced. Some, especially at the beginning of his career, had been condemned to death, and two of them had asked him to be there at the final moment.

He had begun by studying medicine. He had regretted having to give it up because the circumstances so required. If he had been able to go on with it, would he not have chosen psychiatry?

In that case it would have been he who had to answer the question:

“…if the person charged with the commission of a felony or misdemeanor was then insane or acted by absolute necessity…”

Perhaps he didn’t regret the termination of his studies so much. He would not be required to decide.

Parendon got up and walked hesitantly, awkwardly, toward him and held out his little hand.

But he was unable to speak. It was sufficient for them to shake hands silently, looking each other in the eye. Then Maigret went to the door, which he closed behind him without looking back.

He was surprised to see Lucas standing by the door with Torrence. A glance from his assistant in the direction of the drawing room explained why Lucas had left his post in the hall.

Madame Parendon stood there in the middle of the enormous room, dressed in a light-colored suit, with a hat and white gloves. Lise was standing behind her, holding a suitcase.

“You two go to the car and wait for me.”

He felt that he was acting like a master of ceremonies, and he knew that he would always hate the moments he was living through.

He went toward Madame Parendon and bowed slightly. It was she who spoke, in a calm, natural voice.

“I shall follow you.”

Lise went down with them in the elevator. The chauffeur rushed to open the car door and was surprised that Maigret did not follow his employer into the car.

He put the suitcase in the trunk.

“Drive Madame Parendon directly to 36, Quai des Orfèvres, go in through the archway, and turn left in the courtyard…”

“Very good, Superintendent.”

Maigret gave the car time to break through the hedge of reporters, who had not understood what was happening. Then, while they bombarded him with questions, he rejoined Lucas and Torrence in the little black police car.

“Are you going to make an arrest, Superintendent?”

“I don’t know…”

“Do you know who’s guilty?”

“I don’t know…”

He was being honest. The words of Article 64 came flooding into his memory one by one, terrifying in their imprecision.

The sun still shone, the chestnut trees were still growing greener, and he could see the same people prowling around the palace of the President of the Republic.

EOF