Maigret's Holiday (6 page)

‘Were you about to leave,
monsieur?'

He hadn't said
‘inspector', but ‘monsieur', perhaps with a hint of
affectation.

‘I was planning to, yes
…'

‘If you're going in the same
direction as I am …'

It was strange. He was cordial, but his
cordiality was cold, aloof.

For the first time in a long while, for the
first time in his life perhaps, Maigret had the feeling that he wasn't the one
calling the tune, but that he was being manipulated by the other person at will.

All the same, he followed. Chief Inspector
Mansuy had witnessed the scene with a certain surprise.

Still calm, controlled, without irony,
Bellamy held the door open for him. The beach spread out in front of them, with its
thousands of children and mothers, and the pastel swimming hats of the bathers against
the blue of the sea.

‘You probably know where I
live?'

‘Your house was pointed out to me and
I admired it.'

‘Perhaps you'd like to see the
interior?'

It was so direct, so unexpected, that
Maigret was temporarily at a loss for words. Lighting a cigarette with a gold lighter
– a gesture that showed off his beautiful, carefully manicured hands – the
doctor said in a detached tone:

‘I believe you are keen to get to know
me?'

‘I have heard a lot about
you.'

‘People have been talking about me a
great deal in the last two days.'

Silence did not make him
uncomfortable. He felt no need to talk for the sake of keeping the conversation going.
His gait was sprightly. A few people greeted him, and he returned their greeting,
doffing his hat in the same way to a market woman in a traditional lace headdress as for
a dowager in an open-topped car driven by a liveried chauffeur.

‘You would have come sooner or later,
wouldn't you?'

That could mean a lot of things. Perhaps
simply that eventually Maigret would have managed to get himself invited to the
doctor's house.

‘I hate wasting time, just as I hate
ambiguous situations. Do you think that I killed my sister-in-law?'

This time, Maigret had to make a huge effort
to keep pace with this man who, there in the sunshine, among the idle crowd of
holidaymakers, was asking him such a brutal question.

He did not smile, did not protest. It took
him only a few seconds to formulate his reply, which he gave in the same calm tone as
that in which the question had been asked.

‘Two nights ago,' he said,
‘I didn't know yet that she was dead, or that she was your sister-in-law,
but I had already begun to take an interest in her.'

Had Maigret hoped to catch him off-guard? If
he had, he was to be disappointed. First of all, Doctor Bellamy appeared not to have
heard his words, which had been drowned out by the growing noise from the beach and the
sea. He had the time to take a few steps before the echo of Maigret's statement,
rather than his actual voice, reached him.

Then his expression betrayed a faint
surprise. He gave his companion a little wink, as if trying to find a reason for this
ambiguity. Meanwhile, faced with a partner who was a match for him, Maigret was so
alert, so receptive, that he felt able to capture Doctor Bellamy's slightest
nuance of thought, and he sensed a slight disappointment, a silent admonition.

A few seconds later, it was already over,
Bellamy gave the matter no further thought and the two of them continued along the
promenade, in step with one another. Both men automatically gazed at the elegant curve
of the beach which had something feminine, almost sensual, about it. It was the hour
when the sea began to grow paler, shimmering slightly, before the flaming sunset.

‘You were born in the countryside,
weren't you?' asked Bellamy.

Their thoughts, like their footsteps, were
in tune again,
as if, like long-term lovers, they no longer needed to
speak in lengthy sentences, but only a sort of linguistic shorthand.

‘I was born in the countryside,
yes.'

‘I was born in an ancient house that
my family owns a few kilometres from here, in the marshes.'

He hadn't said chateau, but Maigret
knew that the Bellamy family owned a chateau in the region.

‘Which province are you
from?'

Others would have said
‘department', and Maigret appreciated the use of the word province, which he
liked.

‘The Bourbonnais.'

This was not idle curiosity. There was
nothing mundane about Bellamy's questions.

‘Your parents were farmers?'

‘My father was an estate manager in
charge of around twenty smallholdings.'

Doctor Bellamy was asking him exactly the
questions he would have asked, but he did not take offence, quite the opposite. They
continued walking in silence. In silence too, they crossed the road, just beyond the
casino. Doctor Bellamy automatically reached into his pocket for his key. He paused for
a moment on the threshold, groped around and pushed open the white-painted door.

Maigret entered, showing no discomfiture or
surprise. He stepped on to the thick carpet in the hall and immediately felt surrounded
by comfort and well-being.

It would have been hard to design a calmer,
more harmonious interior. It was lavish without being oppressive, with nothing to arrest
the eye, and the light itself had a
quality that could be savoured like
a good wine, like certain sparkling spring mornings. The drawing rooms, whose armchairs
looked as if they had been vacated only a few moments earlier, boasted huge bay
windows.

A wide staircase with a wrought-iron
banister led to the upper floors. The doctor started to make his way upstairs.

‘If you would like to follow me into
my study …'

He didn't take the trouble to conceal
a certain smugness. There was a barely perceptible glint of pride in his eyes.

They went upstairs, without hurrying, and
then a slight incident occurred. A door opened above their heads. For Maigret, it was
just a door, since he was not familiar with the layout of the rooms, but the doctor had
already recognized the sound of that particular door. He frowned. They heard footsteps
on the stair carpet, beyond the first bend. They were light, faltering steps, the steps
of someone who was no more familiar with the house than Maigret.

The person coming down must have heard them
and leaned over the banister. They looked up, and saw a girl's small head. Their
eyes met, only for a second, and there was panic in the eyes of the visitor who
dithered, as if she was about to go back upstairs to avoid them.

Instead, she suddenly darted forwards and
they saw all of her on the landing, a tall, skinny girl of around fourteen, whose legs
were too spindly, wearing a slightly faded cotton frock. Why was Maigret particularly
struck by a little coloured-bead bag which she clutched nervously?

She seemed to be calculating her move,
assessing how much room she had to pass them, and then she made a
dash
for it. Keeping her face averted and staying close to the wall, she slipped past them,
raced down the stairs and almost banged into the front door, groping frantically for the
door knob, as in a nightmare when you are being pursued by danger and you run into a
blank wall.

The doctor swung round at the same time as
Maigret. The door opened, an oblong of brighter light appeared and swallowed up the
girl.

That was all. It was nothing. Bellamy looked
up again. Wondered whether someone was on the landing watching them. He was taken aback,
vexed, anxious perhaps?

Maigret could sense that there was something
unforeseen, something inexplicable about this encounter.

Bellamy resumed his ascent. Now they could
see the door the girl had come out of, but it was shut. They walked past it, down a wide
corridor, and Bellamy pushed open another door much further along.

‘Come in, monsieur. Make yourself
comfortable. It goes without saying that if you feel hot, you may remove your
jacket.'

They were in a vast study lined with books.
As they entered, they were dazzled by the sun pouring in through the three big bay
windows. Bellamy, with a movement that must have been habitual, lowered the venetian
blinds and the light softened and was transformed into a golden dust.

Above the fireplace was a magnificent
portrait of a woman, an oil painting, and there was a photograph of the same woman in a
silver frame on the desk.

The doctor picked up the intercom and waited
for a few moments.

‘Is that you, Mother?
You don't need me?'

A piercing voice came out of the receiver,
and because it was so loud, the speech was garbled and Maigret was unable to catch a
single word.

‘I'm busy at the moment, yes.
Would you send Francis to me?'

They were silent until the arrival of the
butler in a white linen jacket.

‘I shan't ask you if you'd
like a whisky … Or a port either, no doubt? … Would you like a glass of dry
Pouilly? … A bottle of Pouilly, Francis … The usual for me
…'

He glanced quickly at some envelopes lying
on his desk, without opening them.

‘Would you excuse me for a
moment?'

He left the room on the heels of the butler.
Was it to ask him about the girl they had met on the stairs? Was he going into the room
on the landing and would he, on his return, call the woman in the photograph and the
portrait?

Chief Inspector Mansuy had not been
exaggerating. Even among the crowds in the street, it would have been impossible not to
notice her. And yet the most striking thing about her was an extraordinary simplicity.
Her demeanour was calm, modest. She seemed shy, scared of people staring at her. Her
initial instinct must be fear of everything that was new or unfamiliar.

She had big, light-blue, almost violet eyes
and a childlike face, and yet she was very much a woman, and you could imagine a
curvaceous figure, and soft, fragrant flesh.

‘Forgive me for leaving you alone
…'

Bellamy, who had caught his guest
contemplating the
photograph, pretended not to notice. However, opening
a drawer, he said:

‘Her sister was very different, as you
will see.'

He riffled through some photographs and held
one out to Maigret. And it was indeed a completely different face, a young brunette with
an elongated face and irregular features. She wore a high-necked dress, without
jewellery, which gave her a sober, austere look.

‘They're not at all alike, are
they? You have probably already been told that they are not from the same father and it
is very possible, it is likely … Admit, monsieur, that you would have come to see
me sooner or later … I don't know what pretext you would have found …
For my part, I confess that, these events notwithstanding, I wanted to have a chat with
you …'

It was curious: his cordiality was so
natural, so unaffected, that it was arid. He never took the trouble to smile. The rattle
of glasses could be heard on the other side of the door, and Francis brought in a tray
with a misted bottle, whisky, ice and glasses.

‘I shan't tell you that you may
smoke your pipe. That goes without saying. Perhaps I should have waited until the
funeral to invite you. It takes place tomorrow, as you know. As you also know, the body
isn't in the house.'

He took his watch out of his pocket, and
Maigret understood. It was around this time that the autopsy was due to take place.

‘I was very fond of my sister-in-law.
Or rather, I considered her to be my own sister. When she came to this house, she was
thirteen and had plaits down her back.'

Maigret was reminded of the
girl they had met on the stairs, and Bellamy, who guessed his thoughts, frowned
slightly, displaying the tiniest hint of impatience.

‘Forgive me for not drinking the same
as you. To your good health! … Lili was a highly strung child, inquisitive, a
little wild, and crazy about music. If you are interested, later on I'll show you
what we called – what she herself called – her sanctuary.'

He drank the whisky slowly, set down his
glass and went and sat at the desk, which in no way resembled a work desk, and indicated
an armchair where Maigret should sit.

He did not allow Maigret the chance to take
the initiative, which neither vexed Maigret nor made him feel humiliated. A fly on the
wall would have found him awkward, self-conscious. His gaze was dull, his movements
heavy, while the doctor, on the other hand, was not taken in.

‘You are on holiday, so I've
been told. I've seen you a few times watching our games of bridge, which have
become a vital need for most of us. As far as I'm concerned, it's
practically the only moment in the day that I spend outside this house, and I consider
this habit as necessary for my health. Which reminds me, forgive me for not inquiring
after your wife. She is in the hands of our best surgeon. Bertrand is a friend of
mine.'