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She had stolen away in secret, in a dubious
automobile, with a kid who could barely drive, crossing the entire Beauce region in the heat of
the day, foregoing lunch. Now, she was looking at the time on an old-fashioned necklace watch
that she was wearing.

‘If you have any questions, be
quick,' she commanded, already poised to get up.

‘You don't like your son-in-law, if I
understand correctly.'

‘I hate him.'

‘Does your daughter hate him too? Is she
unhappy with him?'

‘I don't know and I don't
care.'

‘Don't you get on with your
daughter?'

‘I prefer to ignore her. She has no spine,
no blood in her veins.'

‘You say that seven days ago, in other
words last Tuesday, your granddaughter drowned in the Seine.'

‘I most certainly did not. You'd
better listen more carefully to what I tell you. Monita was found dead in the Seine, above the
weir downstream.'

‘But she had no injuries and the doctor
gave permission for the body to be buried?'

She merely looked at him with the utmost
contempt, with perhaps a touch of pity.

‘You are the only person, I gather, who
suspects that this death was not natural.'

This time, she rose.

‘Listen, inspector. You are reputed to be
the cleverest policeman in the whole of France. At least the one who has had the most successes.
Get dressed. Pack your bag. In half an hour I'm dropping you off at Les Aubrais station.
By seven o'clock this evening, you'll be at the Auberge de l'Ange. It would be
best if we appeared not to know one another. Every day, at around midday, François will go
and have a drink at L'Ange. He doesn't usually drink, but I'll order him to.
So that we can communicate without arousing their suspicions.'

She took a few steps in the direction of the
garden, determined no doubt to go for a stroll while waiting for him, despite the heat.

‘Hurry up.'

Then, turning around:

‘Perhaps you would be so kind as to have a
drink brought out to François. He must be in the car. Wine mixed with water. Not pure wine,
as he has to drive me home, and he's not used to it.'

Madame Maigret, who must have overheard
everything, was standing in the hall behind the door.

‘What are you doing, Maigret?' she
asked on seeing him head for the staircase with its copper banister knob.

It was cool inside the house, where there was a
pleasant smell of wax polish, cut hay, ripening fruit and food simmering on the stove. It had
taken Maigret fifty years to rediscover that smell, the smell of his childhood, of his
parents' house.

‘You're not going to go with that mad
old woman, are you?'

He had left his clogs by the door. He walked
barefoot on the cool tiles, then up the polished oak stairs.

‘Give the driver a drink, then come
upstairs and help me pack.'

There was a little twinkle in his eyes, a little
twinkle he recognized as he shaved in cold water and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror.

‘I really don't understand
you,' sighed his wife. ‘Only a couple of hours ago you couldn't relax because
of a few Colorado beetles.'

The train. He was hot. He sat in his corner
puffing on his pipe. The grass on the embankments was yellow, the little stations with their
tubs of flowers flashed past. In the haze of the heat a man waved his small red flag and blew a
whistle, as children do, looking ridiculous.

Maigret was greying at the temples. He was a
little calmer, a little heavier than he had been, but he did not feel that he had aged since
retiring from the Police Judiciaire.

It was out of vanity, or rather a sort of
modesty, that for the past two years he had systematically refused to take on any of the jobs he
had been offered, especially by banks, insurance companies and jewellers, who brought him tricky
cases.

At Quai des Orfèvres they would have said:

‘Poor old Maigret is going back to his old
ways, he's already bored with gardening and fishing.'

And here he was, having allowed an old woman who
had appeared through the little green door to twist him round her little finger.

He pictured her sitting upright and dignified in
the old-fashioned limousine driven with perilous negligence by a François still wearing his
gardener's clothes who hadn't had time to swap his clogs for a pair of shoes.

He heard her saying, after she had seen Madame
Maigret waving from the doorstep as they left:

‘That's your wife, isn't it?
She must have been offended when I took her for the housekeeper … And I thought you were
the gardener.'

And the car set off on its daredevil journey,
having dropped Maigret off at Les Aubrais station in Orléans, where François, in the
wrong gear, had nearly reversed into a whole cluster of bicycles.

It was the holiday season. Parisians swarmed all
over the countryside and the woods, driving fast cars on the roads and paddling canoes on the
rivers, and there were fishermen in straw boaters at the foot of every willow tree.

Orsenne wasn't a station, but a halt where
the occasional train condescended to stop. Through the trees in the vast gardens the roofs of
large houses could be glimpsed, and beyond them the Seine, broad and majestic at this spot.

Maigret would have found it hard to say why he
had obeyed Bernadette Amorelle's orders. Perhaps because of the Colorado beetles?

Suddenly, he too felt as if he were on holiday,
just like the people he had sat among on the train, those he met walking down the steep path,
those he saw everywhere since he had left Meung.

A different atmosphere from that of his garden
enveloped him. He walked with a light step amid his new surroundings. At the bottom of the
sloping path, he came to the Seine bordered by a path wide enough for vehicle traffic.

From the station, Maigret had followed the signs
with arrows indicating the Auberge de l'Ange. He entered a garden with neglected arbours,
and finally pushed open the glass door of a veranda where the air was suffocating because of the
sunshine streaming in through the glazed sides.

‘Hello!' he called.

There was only a cat on a cushion on the floor
and some fishing rods in a corner.

‘Hello!'

He descended a step and found himself in a room
where the copper pendulum of an ancient clock swung lazily to and fro, clicking with each
movement.

‘There's no one in this dump,'
he muttered.

Just then someone stirred, close to where he
stood. He shuddered and in the gloom could just make out a person moving. It was a woman wrapped
in blankets, no doubt this Jeanne whom Madame Amorelle had mentioned. Her dark, greasy hair hung
down on either side of her face and there was a thick white compress around her neck.

‘We're closed!' she croaked.

‘I know, madame. I heard you were
unwell.'

Ouch! The word ‘unwell', ridiculously
inadequate, was an insult.

‘I'm at death's door, you mean!
Nobody will believe it … People are horrible.'

Nevertheless, she finished shrugging off the
blanket covering her legs and got to her feet, her thick ankles swollen over the tops of her
felt slippers.

‘Who sent you here?'

‘It so happens I came here once before,
more than twenty years ago, and this is a sort of pilgrimage that—'

‘So you knew Marius?'

‘Of course I did!'

‘Poor Marius … You know he
died?'

‘So I heard. I found it hard to
believe.'

‘Why? … He wasn't in good
health either … It's three years since he died, and here I am, dragging on …
Were you expecting to sleep here?'

She had spotted the suitcase that he had left in
the doorway.

‘I was planning to spend a few days here,
yes. As long as I'm not putting you to any trouble. In your condition—'

‘Have you come far?'

‘From the Orléans area.'

‘You don't have a car?'

‘No. I came by train.'

‘And there are no trains back today. Oh
Lord! Oh Lord! Raymonde! Raymonde! … I bet she's off gallivanting again. I'm
going to have to have words with her … If she'll listen … Because she can be
difficult. She's the maid, but she takes advantage of my being unwell to do as she pleases
and anyone would think she was the one in charge. Well, well, now what does
he
want
around here?'

She was looking out of the window at a man whose
footsteps could be heard crunching the gravel. Maigret watched him too and began to frown, for
the newcomer vaguely reminded him of someone.

He was wearing tennis whites or country attire,
white flannel trousers, a white jacket and shoes, but what struck Maigret was his black crepe
armband.

He came in, as if he were a regular.

‘Hello, Jeanne.'

‘What do you want, Monsieur Malik?'

‘I came to ask if you—'

He stopped mid-sentence, looked straight at
Maigret and broke into a smile, saying:

‘Jules! … Well I never! … What
on earth are
you
doing here?'

‘I'm sorry?'

First of all, it had been years and years since
anyone had called him Jules, to the extent that he had almost forgotten his first name. Even his
wife was in the habit of calling him Maigret, which he found amusing.

‘Don't you remember?'

‘No …'

Yet that ruddy face with well-defined features, a
prominent nose, cold, steely eyes, was no stranger to him. The name Malik too, when Madame
Amorelle had uttered it, had rung a bell somewhere in the back of his mind.

‘Ernest.'

‘Ernest who?'

Hadn't Bernadette Amorelle spoken of a
Charles Malik?

‘The Moulins lycée.'

Maigret had been a pupil at the lycée in
Moulins for three years when his father was the steward in a chateau in the region. Still
…

Curiously, although his memory was unreliable, he
was certain that it was an unpleasant recollection that this well-groomed face, this man
brimming with self-confidence, stirred in him. What was more, he did not like his over-friendly
manner. He had always had a horror of familiarity.

‘The Tax Collector.'

‘I'm with you, yes … I would
never have recognized you.'

‘What are you doing here?'

‘Me? I—'

Malik burst out laughing.

‘We'll talk about it later … I
knew perfectly well that Detective Chief Inspector Maigret was none other than my old pal Jules.
Do you remember the English teacher? … No need to make up a room, Jeanne. My friend will
stay at the house.'

‘No!' protested Maigret, annoyed.

‘Eh? What did you say?'

‘I said that I'd stay here …
It's already been arranged with Jeanne.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I insist.'

‘Because of the old woman?'

‘What old woman?'

A mischievous smile hovered on Ernest
Malik's thin lips, the smile of the schoolboy he had once been.

He was nicknamed the Tax Collector because his
father was the tax collector in Moulins. He was very thin, with a hatchet face and
light-coloured eyes, of an unappealing grey.

‘Don't worry, Jules. You'll
understand later … Tell us, Jeanne, don't be afraid to speak your mind. Is my
mother-in-law mad, yes or no?'

And Jeanne, gliding noiselessly in her slippers,
muttered half-heartedly:

‘I'd rather not get involved in your
family affairs.'

She was already viewing Maigret less
sympathetically, if not with distrust.

‘Well, are you staying here or are you
going with him?'

‘I'm staying.'

Malik was still looking at his former schoolmate
mockingly, as if this were all a prank being played on Maigret.

‘You're going to have a lot of fun, I
assure you … I can't think of anywhere more lively than the Auberge de l'Ange.
You saw the angel, you were taken in!'

Did he suddenly recall that he was in mourning?
In any case, his manner became more solemn as he added:

‘If all this weren't so sad,
we'd have a good laugh, the two of us … Come up to the house at least. Yes, you
must! You have to … I'll explain … I'll tell you over an aperitif and
you'll get the picture.'

Maigret was still in two minds. He stood rooted
to the spot, massive compared to his companion, who was the same height as him but unusually
slim.

‘I'll come,' he eventually
said, somewhat reluctantly.

‘You'll dine with us, of course? I
can't pretend the house is very cheerful at the moment, after the death of my niece, but
…'

As they left, Maigret glimpsed Jeanne, who sat
watching them from a dark corner. And he had the impression that there was hatred in the look
that she allowed to rest on Ernest Malik's elegant form.