Maigret's Holiday (18 page)

There was no way he could deal with it that
evening. He would have to wait until daylight, when the shops and cafés were
open.

Then the hunt would be on,
the only vital lead being his conviction, and he would have to keep repeating his
never-ending thank-yous.

Providing there was still time!

The two inspectors had finished dinner and
were smoking cigarettes and drinking brandy when Maigret sat down at the table in the
almost empty dining room.

‘Well, chief?'

And he, surlier than ever, an unpleasant
taste of tiredness in his mouth, like after a long train journey, grunted:

‘Well, nothing, dammit!'

At eleven o'clock the next morning,
Maigret pushed open a door, perhaps the hundredth, and this time it was a leather goods
shop. He had started at one end of the town at eight o'clock, when the bigger and
more elegant establishments are still closed. He entered shops that only the women in
the neighbourhood went to. Anyone observing from the outside would see him, too tall and
too broad, scraping his head on the brooms and mops hanging from the ceiling, looking
around sullenly, waiting his turn, surrounded by bareheaded housewives. They would also
note that after the fourth or fifth shop, it was clear that his lips formed the same
words each time.

With the difference that, initially, he had
felt obliged to buy something. In the cafés, it was easy: he would drink a glass of
white wine. In a grocer's, he had bought a small packet of pepper, because at that
point he thought that he would have a lot of other shops to visit and he couldn't
saddle himself with bulky items.

In a haberdasher's with grimy windows,
where he had bought a reel of cotton, an elderly spinster sprouting hairs on her chin
and exuding a strong, musty smell had given him a funny look.

‘Do you know Madame Bellamy?'
recited Maigret.

‘The mother or the wife?'

‘The
wife.'

‘I know her and everyone
else.'

‘Do you sometimes see her walk past in
the street?'

These were the ritual questions he
tirelessly asked.

‘Now look here, monsieur. I have
enough work not to poke my nose into what's going on in the street. If I have a
piece of advice for you, it's to do the same.'

When people thought he meant Madame Bellamy
the mother, their faces generally became hostile. La Popine was right: the elderly lady
with a walking stick inspired little affection among the town's shopkeepers.

So to keep things simple, he had learned to
say:

‘Do you know Doctor Bellamy's
wife?'

And he had stopped making purchases. Either
people already knew him by sight, or they assumed he was a police officer.

He had started out in the northern part of
town, in other words, in the port district, combing the streets that Madame Bellamy
could have taken to go to the fish market, for example.

‘Of course I know her. I often used to
see her. She's a very beautiful woman. I still see her drive past in the car, with
her husband—'

‘But you don't see her out and
about?'

Husbands turned to their wives, or wives to
their husbands.

‘What about you, do you ever see her
walking past?'

They shook their heads. Odette Bellamy did
not come to this neighbourhood, or that of Notre-Dame, or the town centre.

‘Excuse me, madame,
do you know Doctor Bellamy's wife?'

He did not only ask the shopkeepers. He
asked women in their doorways and even an elderly cripple who must spend his days
sitting at his open window.

It was a painstaking, repugnant task, which
made him feel slightly ashamed. He could imagine the comments being made behind his
back.

At ten o'clock, he had covered most of
the arc of the circle around the doctor's house. If Odette Bellamy ever went out
alone, on foot, it was now certain that she could only follow Le Remblai.

He returned there. Most of the shops were
expensive-looking.

‘Excuse me, madame, do you know
…'

And now, at last, his efforts were rewarded.
It began with the cake shop almost next door to the big white house.

‘She hasn't gone out much since
her marriage. But I do sometimes see her in the morning …'

This round, rosy-cheeked woman could not
suspect how much joy she brought to Maigret's heart.

‘Perhaps to walk her dog?'

‘Does she have a dog? I've never
seen it. I'd be surprised if there were a dog in the doctor's
house.'

‘Why is that?'

‘I don't know. He doesn't
seem to me to be the type to have a dog. No! I suppose she goes out shopping. She
usually wears a little suit. She tends to walk briskly …'

‘Around what time does she go
past?'

‘Oh! It's not
every day, you know. I can't even say that it's often … If I notice
her, it's because it's almost always at the time I'm putting the cakes
in the window … Around ten o'clock … I sometimes see her coming back
…'

‘Much later?'

‘Perhaps an hour afterwards? … I
couldn't swear to it … you know, so many people go past …'

‘Do you see her several times a
month?'

‘I don't know … I
don't want to mislead you … Let's say once a week, for instance
… Sometimes twice …'

‘Thank you
very
much
…
'

He had been repeating those four words ad
nauseam all morning, even to the bearded haberdasher woman who had put him in his
place.

And, since the cake shop, he had stayed on
the trail. Sometimes it was a long and tedious process. It took patience to jog
people's memories.

‘In which direction does she
walk?'

‘Towards the end of Le
Remblai.'

‘In the direction of the pier or the
pine woods?'

‘The pines.'

There were gaps. If a street ran into the
promenade at that point, he had to check it out to make sure that Madame Bellamy
didn't take it.

The two inspectors, Piéchaud and
Boivert, who had enjoyed a lie-in, walked past him, fresh and rosy-cheeked. They saw him
go into a hair salon and must have thought that he was going to have a haircut. From a
distance, Maigret could clearly see the windows of the white house.
Why did he have the feeling he was being watched?

Today was Friday. It was the doctor's
consulting day: from ten to twelve, he should have been in the annexe at the bottom of
the garden.

But there was nothing stopping him from
leaving his patients in the lurch or getting rid of them quickly to go and stand behind
the louvred shutters of the library. With binoculars it was the ideal place to follow
Maigret's comings and goings.

Was Bellamy watching him?

‘Either I'm wrong or
…'

The same words had been going round and
round in Maigret's head since the previous evening and he remained conscious of a
threat, not so much to himself − not immediately − but to some unknown
person. He was so concerned that in the morning, he had telephoned Chief Inspector
Mansuy, not without some trepidation.

‘Maigret here … Tell me, do you
have anything to report? … No violent deaths? … No missing persons?
…'

Mansuy had thought he was joking.

‘I'd like to ask you a personal
favour. You know the municipal departments better than I do …'

Each time he telephoned from the Hôtel
Bel Air, he could be certain that Monsieur Léonard was not far away, watching him
like a faithful dog.

‘Émile Duffieux was in the habit
of dropping in to your station every morning, then calling into the town hall and
finally the sub-prefecture, to gather news … What? It's your secretary he
used to see? … It doesn't matter
… Try to understand
my question … In theory, he should have been with you at around ten fifteen, ten
thirty at the latest. That enables you to work out what time he arrived, still in
theory, at the town hall and at the sub-prefecture …'

‘I can tell you straight away
…'

‘Hold on … you haven't
understood what I'm getting at … I said, and I repeat,
in theory
… What I need to know is whether his hours were regular … If for example,
from time to time, on a specific day or otherwise, he did his round a lot later
…'

‘Understood …'

‘I'll telephone you for your
answer, or I'll come and see you later on.'

‘Do you have any news?'

‘Nothing.'

The telephone call Maigret had received from
Janvier late in the evening could hardly be called news. Émile Duffieux had not yet
turned up at the poste restante. There were three letters for him, all postmarked Les
Sables d'Olonne. Two were in the same handwriting.

‘A girl's writing,' added
Janvier. ‘Should I take them and send them to you?'

‘Leave them at the post office until
further orders.'

‘There's also a
telegram.'

‘I know. Thank you.'

The telegram informing the young man of his
sister's death.

As he hung up, Maigret was on the point of
giving the inspector a new task but he felt that he alone was the
person who could accomplish it successfully. He couldn't be in Les Sables
d'Olonne and Paris at the same time. Was he right to opt for Les Sables
d'Olonne, for this dubious, painstaking chore that he had been carrying out since
first light?

‘Odette Bellamy? … But of
course, inspector …'

The fine leather goods dealer was another
one who recognized him and spoke to him with the familiarity of a fan talking about a
favourite film star.

‘Germaine,' he yelled,
‘it's Chief Inspector Maigret …'

They were a young, pleasant couple.

‘Do you have a lead? Is it true what
people are saying?'

‘I have no idea what people are
saying.'

‘That you want to arrest an important
figure in town and that the examining magistrate is trying to stop you.'

So a tiny grain of truth had found its way
into the most outlandish rumours.

‘That is false, madame, don't
worry. I don't want to arrest anyone.'

‘Not even the killer of the Duffieux
girl?'

‘My colleagues are handling that. I
merely wish to ask you a question. Do you know Doctor Bellamy's wife?'

‘I know Odette very well.'

‘Are you friends?'

‘We were, especially before she got
married. Since then, we haven't seen much of her.'

‘A propos, I'd like to know
whether you see her walking past on Le Remblai from time to time?'

‘Fairly often.'

‘What do you call
fairly often?'

‘I don't know … Once or
twice a week? … I sometimes talk to her, when I'm standing in the doorway
…'

‘And do you know where she's off
to?'

The woman was stunned, like a person who had
been expecting a tough test and who is asked the most mundane question.

‘Of course!'

‘Far from here?'

‘Right here … The house next
door …'

‘Do you know why she goes
there?'

‘It's not hard to guess …
It's obvious you're not a woman, inspector … On the first floor of the
house next door there's a dressmaker and lingerie shop run by another of my
friends, Olga … Olga dresses all the most elegant women in Les Sables
d'Olonne, except those who go to Nantes or Paris … But they too always have
little things, even if it's only underwear, that they need making
…'

‘Are you certain that Odette Bellamy
doesn't go any further?'

‘I've seen her go next door
countless times … Olga will tell you …'

‘Thank you
very
much
…
'

He was irked. His thinking was correct,
because the young woman did indeed go out alone once or twice a week, but he
hadn't been able to follow his idea through.

If he had had a family of his own, as a
police officer at the station had said to him the other night, he would immediately have
thought of the schoolmistresses.

Had he been a woman, he
would immediately have thought of the dressmaker.

‘May I use your telephone?'

To call Mansuy.

‘I think you're right,
inspector. I wonder how you guessed … Usually, young Duffieux was very regular
… He would arrive at each of the places within five minutes of the times you
mentioned … But, from time to time, he would turn up not late, but nearly two
hours later … I tried to find out if it was a particular day; unfortunately, no
one was able to say …'

‘Thank you
very
much
…
'