The Saint-Fiacre Affair (5 page)

‘Can I offer you
something?'

Gautier chose a bottle from the
sideboard, perhaps as a way of gaining some time.

‘What do you think about Monsieur
Jean? … And by the way, what's his surname? …'

‘Métayer … A respectable family
from Bourges …'

‘Did he cost the countess a lot of
money?'

Gautier filled the glasses with brandy,
but remained stubbornly silent.

‘What business did he have at the
chateau? As estate manager I assume you look after everything …'

‘Everything!'

‘So?'

‘He didn't do anything … A
few private letters … At first he claimed to be making the countess some money,
thanks to his knowledge of finance … He bought some shares that collapsed in a few
months … But he insisted that he would make it all back and more thanks to a new
photographic process that one of his friends had invented … It cost the countess
about a hundred thousand francs, and the friend disappeared … And last of all there
was some story about photographic printing … I don't know a thing about it.
Something like photoengraving or heliogravure, but cheaper …'

‘Jean Métayer was a busy
man!'

‘A lot of effort for not much
result … He wrote articles in the
Journal de Moulins
, and they had to take
them because of the countess … That was where he did his printing experiments, and
the editor didn't dare throw him out … Cheers! …'

And, suddenly uneasy:

‘There were no rows between him
and the count.'

‘Nothing at all?'

‘I assume you're just here by
chance … Since it was a heart attack, there's no reason to …'

What annoyed Maigret most was that he
couldn't catch the estate manager's eye. He wiped his moustache and
moved into the other room.

‘Do you mind if I get changed? … I
was supposed to be going to high mass and now …'

‘I'll see you later!'
said Maigret as he left.

And he was just closing the door when he
heard the still invisible woman asking, ‘Who was that?'

They had put sandstone paving stones
down in the courtyard, where he had once played marbles on the beaten earth.

The square was filled with groups of
people in their Sunday best, and the sound of organ music filtered from the church.
The children, in their new suits, didn't dare to play. And handkerchiefs
protruded from everyone's pockets. They all had red noses, which they blew
noisily.

Scraps of phrases reached
Maigret's ears:

‘He's a policeman from Paris
 …'

‘… Apparently he's come
about the cow that died at Mathieu's the other week …'

A cocky young man with a red flower in
the buttonhole of his navy-blue serge waistcoat, his face well scrubbed and his hair
shiny with brilliantine, dared to call out to the inspector:

‘They're waiting for you at
Tatin's, it's about that guy who stole …'

And he nudged his friends in the ribs,
holding in a laugh
that exploded in any
case as soon as Maigret turned his head away.

He hadn't been making it up. At
Marie Tatin's the atmosphere was hotter now, and thick with pipe smoke. At one
table a family of villagers were eating food they had brought from the farm and
drinking big bowls of coffee. The father was cutting a dried sausage with his
penknife.

The young people were drinking lemonade,
the old ones brandy. And Marie Tatin trotted ceaselessly about.

In one corner a woman got up as the
inspector came in and took a step towards him, fearful and hesitant, her lips moist.
Her hand rested on the shoulder of a little boy; Maigret recognized his red
hair.

‘Are you the inspector,
sir?'

Everyone looked in his direction.

‘First of all I want to tell you,
sir, that we've always been honest people in our family! But we're poor
 … You understand? … And when I saw that Ernest …'

The boy, extremely pale, stared straight
ahead without showing the slightest emotion.

‘Are you the one who took the
missal?' Maigret asked him, bending towards him.

No answer. A keen, shy glance.

‘Answer the inspector …'

But the little boy didn't open his
mouth. His mother swiftly gave him a slap that left a red mark on his left cheek.
The boy's head rocked for a moment. His eyes moistened slightly, his lips
trembled, but he didn't move.

‘Are you going to give him an
answer, you little wretch?'

And to Maigret:

‘Children today! For months
he's been pleading with me to buy him a missal! A big one like the one the
priest has! Can you imagine that? … So, when I was told about the countess's
missal, I immediately thought … And besides! I'd been surprised to see him
coming back between second and third mass, because he usually eats at the presbytery
 … I went into his room and found it under the mattress …'

Again the mother's hand struck the
child's cheek. He did nothing to defend himself.

‘I couldn't even read at his
age! But I was never bad enough to steal a book …'

There was a respectful silence in the
inn. Maigret held the missal in his hands.

‘Thank you.'

He was in a hurry to examine it. He
walked to the back of the room.

‘Inspector, sir …'

The woman was calling to him. She was
puzzled.

‘I was told there was a reward …
Not because Ernest …'

Maigret held out twenty francs, which
she put carefully in her purse, before dragging her son towards the door, saying
crossly, ‘As for you, you young delinquent, just you wait till I get you home
 …'

Maigret's eye met the boy's.
The glance lasted a matter of seconds. But they both knew that they were
friends.

Perhaps because Maigret himself had once
wanted – without ever owning one! – a gilt-edged missal, containing not only the
ordinary of the mass but all the liturgical texts in two columns, in Latin and
French.

‘What time will you be back for
lunch?'

‘I don't know.'

Maigret was about to go to his room to
examine the missal, but when he remembered the draughts from the roof he chose
instead to take the main road.

It was as he walked slowly towards the
chateau that he opened the bound book with the Saint-Fiacre coat of arms. Or rather
he didn't open it. The missal opened all by itself, at a page where a piece of
paper had been slipped between two pages.

Page 221: ‘Prayer after
communion.'

The piece of paper was a roughly cut
scrap of newspaper which, at first glance, looked odd, as if it had been badly
printed.

Paris, 1 November. A dramatic
suicide occurred this morning in a flat on Rue de Miromesnil occupied for
several years by the Count of Saint-Fiacre and his Russian girlfriend, a certain
Marie V …

After informing his girlfriend
that he was ashamed of the scandal provoked by a member of the family, the count
fired a bullet into his head from a Browning and died a few minutes later
without regaining consciousness.

We have reason to believe that
this was a particularly painful family drama, and that the person in question is
none other than the mother of the unfortunate man.

A goose that had wandered into the path
furiously stretched its gaping beak towards Maigret. Bells rang, and the crowd
shuffled slowly out of the little church
accompanied by the smells of incense and snuffed
candles.

Maigret had shoved the missal into his
pocket, making it bulge, and had stopped to examine the terrible piece of paper.

The crime weapon! A newspaper cutting,
seven centimetres by five!

The Countess of Saint-Fiacre went to
first mass, knelt down in the pew reserved for the members of her family for two
centuries.

She took communion. It was planned. She
opened her missal to read the ‘prayer after communion'.

There was the weapon! And Maigret turned
the bit of paper in all directions. He found something not quite right about it. He
looked among other things at the alignment of the letters, and was convinced that it
had not been produced by a rotary press as a real newspaper would have been.

It was a simple galley, hand-printed.
And in fact the sheet bore exactly the same text on the other side.

The murderer hadn't taken the
trouble to refine it, or perhaps he hadn't had time. Would it have occurred to
the countess to turn the page over? Would she not have died first, from shock,
indignation, shame or anguish?

There was a frightening expression on
Maigret's face: because he had never before seen a crime at once so cowardly
and so skilful.

And whoever had committed the crime had
also called the police!

Assuming that the missal wouldn't
have been found …

Yes! That was it! No one was supposed to
find the missal! In which case it would have been impossible to speak of a crime, to
accuse anyone at all! The countess had died of a sudden heart attack!

He suddenly turned on his heel. He
reached Marie Tatin's while everyone was talking about him and the missal.

‘Do you know where little Ernest
lives?'

‘Three houses past the
grocer's, on the main street …'

He ran off in that direction. A
single-storey cottage. Enlarged photographs of the father and mother hung on either
side of the dresser. The woman, already in her house clothes, was in the kitchen,
which smelled of roast beef.

‘Is your son here?'

‘He's changing.
There's no point in him dirtying his Sunday clothes … You saw how I shook him!
 … And to think that he's only ever had good examples in front of his eyes and
who …'

She opened a door and shouted,
‘Come here, you scoundrel!'

And the boy could be seen in his
underpants, trying to hide himself.

‘Let him get dressed,' said
Maigret. ‘I'll talk to him later …'

The woman went on preparing lunch. Her
husband was probably at Marie Tatin's, having an early drink.

At last the door opened, and Ernest came
shiftily in, wearing his weekday suit, the trousers of which were too long.

‘Come for a walk with me …'

‘Really?' the woman
exclaimed. ‘In that case, Ernest … Hurry up and put on your good suit
 …'

‘There's no need! … Come on
then, my little man …'

The street was deserted. The life of the
village was concentrated on the square, the cemetery and Marie Tatin's.

‘Tomorrow I'll give you an
even bigger missal, with the first letters of each verse in red …'

The little boy was amazed. So the
inspector knew that there was such a thing as missals with red letters, like the one
on the altar?

‘Only, you're going to tell
me quite honestly where you got this one! I'm not going to tell you off
 …'

It was odd to see the old peasant
suspicion appearing on the boy's face. His mouth was shut. He was already on
the defensive.

‘Did you find it on the
prie-dieu?'

Silence! His cheeks and the top of his
nose were scattered with freckles. His fleshy lips were tight as he tried not to
show any emotion.

‘Don't you realize that
I'm your great friend?'

‘Yes … You gave my mum twenty
francs.'

‘So?'

The boy savoured his revenge.

‘On the way back my mum said
she'd only slapped me for show, and gave me fifty centimes.'

Bull's-eye! The boy knew his
stuff! What thoughts was he rolling about in that head, too big for his thin
body?

‘And the sacristan?'

‘He didn't say anything to
me …'

‘Who took the missal from the
prie-dieu?'

‘I don't know …'

‘And where did you find
it?'

‘Under my surplice, in the
sacristy … I was supposed to go and eat in the presbytery. I'd forgotten my
handkerchief … When I moved my surplice I felt something hard …'

‘Was the sacristan there
too?'

‘He was in church, putting the
candles out … You know the ones with the red letters are very expensive …'

So someone had taken the missal from the
prie-dieu and hidden it momentarily in the sacristy, under the altar boy's
surplice, with the clear intention of coming to get it later!

‘Did you open it?'

‘I didn't have time … I
wanted my boiled egg … Because on Sunday …'

‘I know.'

And Ernest wondered how this man from
the city could know that there was an egg and bread and jam at the priest's
house on Sunday.

‘You can go.'

‘Is it true that I'll have
 …?'

‘A missal, yes … Tomorrow …
Goodbye, son.'

Maigret held out his hand, and the boy
hesitated for a moment before holding out his own.

‘I know it's just a
joke!' he said none the less as he walked away.

A crime in three stages, then: someone
had set the article, or had it set, using a linotype machine, the kind
that you only find in a newspaper office
or a very big printworks.

Someone had slipped the piece of paper
into the missal, carefully choosing the page.

And someone had taken the missal back,
had hidden it momentarily under the surplice, in the sacristy.

Had the same man done everything? Had
each action been performed by a different person? Had two of the actions been
performed by the same person?

As he was passing in front of the
church, Maigret saw the priest coming out and heading towards him. He waited for him
under the poplar trees, beside the woman selling oranges and chocolate.