Félicie (2 page)

‘Discover what?'

‘Oh nothing!'

‘Are you implying that you were sleeping
with Pegleg?'

‘What do you take me for?'

Taking a risk, Maigret asks:

‘His daughter, then?'

‘It's no good questioning me. One
day, perhaps …'

That was Félicie for you! Stiff as an
ironing board, acid-tongued, capricious, a sharp face badly daubed with powder and lipstick, a
little housemaid who puts on airs at a Sunday dance, and then suddenly an unnerving beadiness
appears
in her eye, or maybe something resembling a distant smile of
contemptuous irony crosses her lips.

‘If he had a drink when he was by himself,
it was no business of mine.'

In fact, old Jules Lapie, usually known as
Pegleg, had not had a drink by himself. Of that Maigret is quite certain. A man who works in his
garden, with his straw hat on his head and clogs on his feet, does not suddenly abandon his
tomato seedlings, bring out the decanter of old brandy from the sideboard and pour himself a
glass in the arbour.

At some point, on this green-painted table, there
had been another glass. Someone has removed it. Was it Félicie?

‘What did you do when you didn't see
Lapie?'

‘Nothing. I went into the kitchen, lit the
gas to boil the milk and drew water from the pump to wash the vegetables.'

‘After that?'

‘I stood on the old chair and changed the
fly-paper.'

‘Still with your hat on? Because you wear a
hat when you go shopping, don't you?'

‘I'm no scullery maid.'

‘When did you take your hat off?'

‘When I took the milk pan off the stove. I
went up …'

Everything is brand new and fresh in the house,
which the old man christened ‘Cape Horn'. The staircase smells of varnished pine.
The treads creak.

‘So go up. I'll follow
you.'

She pushes open the door to her bedroom, where a
box-mattress covered with flowered cretonne serves as a divan and photos of
film stars grace the walls.

‘So, I take off my hat. Then I think,
“Drat! I forgot to open the window in Monsieur Jules' room.”

‘I walk across the landing … I open
the door and I scream …'

Maigret is still drawing smoke from his pipe,
which he had refilled as he was crossing the garden. He studies a chalked shape on the polished
floor, the outline of Pegleg's body in the position it was in when it was discovered on
Monday morning.

‘And the revolver?' he asks.

‘There was no revolver. You know that
because you've read the report by the local police.'

Above the mantelpiece is a scale model of a
three-masted ship, and on the walls are a number of paintings all of sailing vessels. It is like
being in the house of an old, retired seafaring man, but the police lieutenant who conducted the
original investigation has told Maigret all about Pegleg's strange adventure.

Jules Lapie was never a sailor but a book-keeper
with a firm of ship's chandlers at Fécamp supplying nautical equipment – sails,
ropes, pulleys – as well as provisions for long sea voyages.

A thick-set bachelor, meticulous in his habits,
maybe obsessively so, with a generally grizzled air and a brother who is a ship's
carpenter.

One morning. Jules Lapie, then aged about forty,
goes aboard the
Sainte-Thérèse
, a three-master which is sailing that same day
for Chile, where it will take on a cargo of
phosphates. Lapie is given the
humdrum job of ensuring that all the merchandise ordered has been delivered and of collecting
payment from the captain.

What happens next? The Fécamp matelots are
all too ready to have a laugh at the fastidious book-keeper's expense. He always appears
so ill at ease whenever his work takes him on board a ship. Glasses are raised, as is the
custom. They make him drink. God knows how much they made him drink to get him so drunk.

However that may be, when with the high tide the
Sainte-Thérèse
glides between the piers of the Normandy port and heads out
into the open sea, Jules Lapie, dead to the world, is snoring in a corner of the hold while
everyone believes he has gone ashore – at least that is what everyone will say later.

The hatches have been battened down. It is only
after two days that the book-keeper is found. The captain refuses to put about and be diverted
from his course, and that is how Lapie, who at that time still has both legs, finds himself on
the way to Cape Horn.

The adventure will cost him a leg, one day when
there's a sudden squall and he falls through an open hatch.

Years later, he will be killed by a single shot
from a revolver one Monday in springtime, a few minutes after leaving his tomato seedlings to
themselves, while Félicie goes shopping in Mélanie Chochoi's brand-new
store.

‘Let's go back downstairs,'
sighs Maigret.

The house is so quiet, so pleasant because it is
as clean as a new pin and filled with nice smells. To the right, the
dining
room has been turned into a funeral parlour. The inspector opens the door a little into the
semi-dark interior, where the shutters are closed and only thin slats of light squeeze into the
room. The coffin has been laid on the table, over which a sheet has been spread, and by its side
is a hors d'œuvre dish filled with holy water in which a sprig of box tree is
soaking.

Félicie waits in the doorway to the
kitchen.

‘In short, you know nothing, you saw
nothing, you have no thoughts whatsoever about the visitor who might have called on your …
employer – let's just say Jules Lapie – when you were out …'

She holds his gaze but does not reply.

‘And you are sure that when you got back
there was only one glass on the table in the garden?'

‘I only saw one. Now, if you can see two
…'

‘Did Lapie get many visitors?'

Maigret sits down next to the butane gas stove
and would not say no to a glass of something, preferably of the rosé Félicie
mentioned, the barrel of which he has glimpsed in the cool darkness of the wine store. The sun
is rising in the sky and steadily drawing up the morning dampness.

‘He didn't like visitors.'

A strange man whose life must have been turned
inside out by his journey round Cape Horn! Back in Fécamp where, despite his wooden leg,
people could not help smiling at his adventure, he keeps more to himself than ever and begins a
long legal battle with the owners of the
Sainte-Thérèse
. A battle which he
would win by sheer persistence.
He claims the company is at fault, that he
was kept on board against his will and that consequently the owners are responsible for his
accident. He sets the highest value on the loss of his leg and in court judgement is given in
his favour, recognizing his right to sizeable compensation.

The people of Fécamp find it all amusing. He
avoids them; he also moves away from the sea, which he loathes, and is one of the first to be
seduced by the glossy prospectus put out by the creators of Jeanneville.

Needing a servant, he sends for a young woman he
knew as a girl in Fécamp.

‘How long have you been living here with
him?'

‘Seven years.'

‘You are twenty-four now. So you were
seventeen when …'

He allows his thoughts to wander, then suddenly
asks:

‘Do you have a boyfriend?'

She looks at him without replying.

‘I asked if you have a
boyfriend.'

‘My private life is my business.'

‘Does he come here?'

‘I don't have to answer
that.'

Dammit, he could box her ears for her! There are
moments when Maigret feels like swatting her or taking her by the shoulders and giving her a
good shake.

‘No matter, I'll find out in the end
…'

‘You won't find out
anything.'

‘Oh, so I won't find out anything
…'

He stops himself. This is too silly for words! Is
he going to stand here arguing with this girl?

‘You're sure
there isn't anything you want to tell me? Think hard, while there's still
time.'

‘I've thought about it.'

‘You're not hiding
anything?'

‘I'd be surprised if I had anything
left to hide. They say you're very clever at making people talk!'

‘Well, we'll see.'

‘You've seen everything!'

‘What do you think you'll do when the
family comes and Jules Lapie has been laid to rest?'

‘No idea.'

‘Would you want to stay on here?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Do you think you'll be left
anything?'

‘Very possibly.'

Maigret does not entirely succeed in keeping his
temper.

‘Be that as it may, my girl, there's
one thing I must ask you to remember. As long as the investigation remains ongoing, you are not
to leave without first informing the police.'

‘So I am not allowed to move out of the
house?'

‘No!'

‘What if I wanted to go away somewhere
else?'

‘You'll have to ask for my
authorization.'

‘Do you think I killed him?'

‘I'll think whatever I like, and that
is none of your business!'

He has had enough. He is furious. He is angry
with himself for allowing himself to be reduced to such a state by a kid named Félicie.
Twenty-four years old? Come off it! She's a kid of twelve or thirteen who is playing God
only knows what sort of games and takes herself very seriously.

‘Goodbye!'

‘Goodbye!'

‘By the way, how will you manage for
food?'

‘Don't you worry about me! I
won't let myself starve to death.'

He is sure she won't. He can imagine her,
after he's gone, sitting down at the table in the kitchen and slowly eating whatever there
is while she reads one of those cheap novels she buys from Madame Chochoi.

Maigret is incandescent. He has been taken for a
ride, in front of everybody, and worse, taken for a ride by that poisonous creature,
Félicie.

It is now Thursday. Lapie's family have
arrived: his brother Ernest, the ship's carpenter from Fécamp, a rough sort of man
with hair cropped short and a face pitted with scars left by small-pox; his wife, who is very
fat and has a moustache; their two children, whom she herds before her the way geese are driven
in fields; then a nephew, a young man of nineteen, Jacques Pétillon by name, who has come
from Paris, feverish and rather sickly, and is regarded with suspicion by the Lapie tribe.

There is as yet no cemetery at Jeanneville. The
funeral cortege winds its way to Orgeval, in whose parish the new development lies. The great
talking point of the day is the crepe veil worn by Félicie. Where on earth did she find it?
It is only later that Maigret learns that she borrowed it from Madame Chochoi.

Félicie does not wait to
be shown to her place but takes it, at the head of the procession. She walks in front of the
family, ramrod straight, a perfect image of grief, dabbing her eyes with a black-edged
handkerchief, also probably on loan from Mélanie, which she has sprinkled liberally with
cheap perfume.

Sergeant Lucas, who has spent the night at
Jeanneville, is present alongside Maigret. Both follow the cortege along a dusty lane. Larks
sing in the clear air.

‘She knows something, it's obvious.
No matter how clever she thinks she is, she'll trip herself up in the end.'

Lucas agrees. The doors of the small church
remain open during the prayer of absolution, so that the atmosphere inside smells more of spring
than of incense. It is not very far to the graveside.

After the service is over, the family has to
return to the house for the reading of the will.

‘Why would my brother have made a
will?' says an astonished Ernest Lapie. ‘It's not the custom in our
family.'

‘According to Félicie
…'

‘Félicie! Félicie! It's
always Félicie …'

Shoulders are shrugged helplessly.

She brazenly edges to the front and manages to be
first to throw a shovelful of earth down on to the coffin. Then she turns away tearfully and
walks off so quickly that it seems inevitable that she will trip over.

‘Don't let her out of your sight,
Lucas.'

She walks on, without stopping, through the
streets and back lanes of Orgeval. Then suddenly Lucas, who is barely fifty metres behind her,
emerges too late into an almost
completely empty road, at the end of which a
van is vanishing around a corner.

He opens the door of an inn.

‘Tell me … That van which has just
driven off …'

‘Van? It belongs to Louvet, the garage
mechanic. He was here a minute ago, having a drink.'

‘Did he give anyone a lift?'

‘Don't know … Don't think
so … I haven't been outside …'

‘Do you know where he'd be
going?'

‘Paris, like he does every
Thursday.'

Lucas hurries off to the post office, which,
fortunately for him, is just across the road.

‘Hello? … Yes … It's
Lucas … Hurry … A van, pretty beat up … Wait a second …'

He turns to the woman behind the counter.

‘Do you know the registration number of the
van belonging to Monsieur Louvet, the mechanic?'

‘Sorry … All I can remember is that
it ends with an eight …'

‘Are you still there?. …
Registration number ends in eight … A young woman wearing mourning clothes … Hello?
… Don't cut us off … No … I don't think there's any need to
arrest her … Just put a tail on her … Got that? … The chief will phone you
himself.'