The Late Monsieur Gallet (18 page)

‘Did you tell him that as well?' Maigret interrupted, in a surprisingly gentle voice.

‘Why not? I was hoping to stiffen his backbone. I offered him 500 francs.'

Elbows propped on the mantelpiece, the inspector had drawn the portrait photograph of the dead man towards him.

‘Five hundred francs,' he repeated.

‘I'll show you the notebook where I write down all my expenses. It will show you that at the end of the day he'd got more than 200,000 francs out of me. I was in the grounds that evening …'

‘And not very much at your ease …'

‘I was nervous, I can't say why. I heard a noise from beside the wall, and then I saw him fixing I don't know what in the tree. I thought at first he wanted to play some nasty trick on me, but he disappeared just as he had come.
When I stood on a barrel for a better look he'd gone into his room, where he was standing upright beside the table, turned to me although he couldn't see me. I couldn't make it out. I swear to you that at that moment I was afraid. The gun went off ten metres from where I
was standing, and Gallet hadn't moved … only his right cheek was all red, and blood was flowing. But he still stood there staring the same way, as if he was expecting something.'

Maigret took the revolver off the mantelpiece. A guitar string made of several strands of metal, like those you use when fishing for pike, was still tied to it. A small tin box was firmly fixed under the gun and attached to the trigger with a
stiff thread.

Opening the box with his fingernail, Maigret found the sort of mechanism you can buy in shops these days allowing you to take a photograph of yourself. All you have to do is load a spring, which releases of its own accord after a certain number
of seconds. But in this case the device had a triple movement and so should have set off three shots.

‘The spring must have got stuck after the first bullet was fired,' he said slowly, in a rather muted voice. And the other man's last words echoed in his ears:
Only his right cheek was all red, and blood was flowing. But he
still stood there staring the same way, as if he was expecting something.

The other two bullets, for heaven's sake! He hadn't entirely trusted the precision of the device for firing the gun. With three bullets, he was sure of getting at least one
of them in his
head. But the other two had never gone off! So he had taken his knife out of his pocket.

‘He was unsteady on his feet when he pressed its blade against his chest … he was straight as he fell … dead, of course. The first thing to come into my head was that it was vengeance, that he'd been careful to
leave papers revealing the truth, perhaps even accusing me of his murder.'

‘You're certainly a prudent man! And talk about a cool head! You went to find rubber gloves in your kitchen …'

‘You think I was going to leave my fingerprints in his hotel room? I went through the gate and put the key in my pocket. But my visit wasn't any use. He'd burned all his papers himself. I didn't like the look in his open
eyes, so I got out of there in such a hurry that I forgot to lock the gate again. Well, what would you have done in my place? Seeing that he was certainly dead … I was even more frightened on the day when I was playing cards at the notary's and I learned that the revolver had
been fired again. I went to take a look at it, close to, but I didn't dare to touch it, because if anyone got round to suspecting me it was the proof of my innocence. An automatic with six bullets in the chamber … I realized that the spring must have stuck after the gun went
off, and then slackened again a week late … probably because of the atmospheric conditions. But there could still be three bullets left, couldn't there? It's since then that I've spent so much time walking in the grounds, listening for them. Just now, when the two
of us were here together, I avoided standing close to the table.'

‘But you let me stand there! And it was you who threw the key into the nettle lane when I threatened you with a visit to your home.'

Some of the hotel guests who had finished their dinner were walking along the road. There was an intermittent noise of plates being moved about from the kitchen.

‘It was a mistake for me to offer you money …'

Maigret almost burst out laughing, and if he had not controlled himself the sound of his laughter would probably have been terrifying. The other man was a head shorter than the inspector, with much narrower shoulders, and standing in front of
him, Maigret looked at him with an expression that was both benevolent and fierce, swinging his hand as if to seize him suddenly by the throat or smash his head against the wall.

And yet there was something pitiable about this pseudo Tiburce de Saint-Hilaire, in his desire to justify himself, to regain his self-assurance.

A poor sort of villain, who didn't even have the courage of his villainy, perhaps was not even fully aware of it himself! And he was trying to show off! Every time it looked as if Maigret might move he flinched back. If the inspector had
raised his hand he would probably have fallen flat on the floor!

‘And by the way, if his wife needs anything I am prepared, discreetly and within my means, to help her.'

He knew he was on safe ground here, but all the same he was not easy in his mind. He'd have given much for a kind word from this police officer, who looked as if he were a cat playing with a mouse.

‘He's provided for her himself.'

‘Yes, I read that in the papers. Three hundred thousand francs' life insurance! That's extraordinary.'

Maigret could contain himself no longer.

‘Extraordinary, isn't it? A man who spent his childhood
without a penny to spend on his small pleasures. And you know what those schools are like. Among the former pupils of the school in
Nantes are most of the great men of the centre of the country. He has a fine name. A name as old and lustrous as theirs, apart from that ridiculous first name, Tiburce. But as for him, he may eat and he has a right to have lessons, but he can't buy a chocolate bar or a whistle or
marbles … At recreation time he's left alone in a corner. Perhaps the poor students paid to supervise the boys take pity on him, they're almost as wretched as he is.

‘Well, he gets out of there. He sells books in a bookshop. He hopelessly goes around with his interminable name, his close-fitting jacket, his liver trouble. He has nothing to pawn … but he does have that name, and one fine day
someone comes along and offers to buy it from him. Without the name, he's still in a miserable state, but with the name of Gallet he can at least attain a higher level: mediocrity. When he is hungry and thirsty, he can eat and drink. But his new family treat him like a mangy dog. He
has a wife and a son. His wife and his son blame him for being unable to rise in society, earn money, become a departmental councillor like his brother-in-law. The name he sold for 30,000 francs is suddenly worth a million! The only thing he had possessed, and the one that had brought him
most of his wretchedness and humiliation! The name he had got rid of.

‘And the man who had really been Gallet, a jolly fellow, good company, gives him alms now and then … extraordinary, just as you said. He never succeeded in anything. He spent his life worrying himself sick. No one ever held out a
hand to him. His son rebelled and left home as soon
as he could to spread his own wings, leaving the old man in his mediocrity. Only his wife was resigned to her situation. I don't say she helped him. I don't say she comforted him.
She was resigned to her situation
, because she realized there was nothing to be done about it. A poor old man on a strict diet.

‘And then he leaves her 300,000 francs! More than she ever had when she was married to him. Three hundred thousand francs, enough to make her sisters come running, to win her the smiles of the departmental councillor. He's been
dragging himself around for five years, suffering attack after attack of his liver disease. The legitimists don't make him much more than begging would. In these parts he gets his hands on a 1,000-franc note now and then. But there's a Monsieur Jacob, who takes most of what he
picks up in that way.

‘Extraordinary, yes, Gallet-Saint-Hilaire. Because if he has to cut down on even his small expenses, he keeps up with payments on his life insurance, he spends 20,000 francs a year on it. He senses in advance that a time will come when he
finally gives up the ghost, unless his heart is kind enough to stop of its own accord. A poor old man, all alone, coming and going, not at home anywhere unless perhaps when he's out fishing and doesn't see another human being.

‘He's born inappropriately, into a family on its uppers that, moreover, has been stupid enough to spend the few thousand francs it has painfully managed to save on his education. He has sold his name inappropriately. And he has worked
inappropriately for the cause of legitimism at the moment when legitimism was on its last legs. He married inappropriately – his own son is cut from the same
cloth as his sisters- and brothers-in-law. People die every day when they don't want
to, when they are happy and well. And he, inappropriately, doesn't die! Life insurance isn't paid if someone has committed suicide. He plays about with watches and springs … he knows that the moment when he can't go any further is not far away. And at last,
Monsieur Jacob demands 20,000 francs!

‘He hasn't got 20,000 francs, and no one will give them to him. He has his spring in his pocket. To put his mind at rest, he knocks on the door of the man who gained a million in his place. He has no hope – and yet he goes back again.
But he has already asked for the room looking out on the courtyard, because he is not absolutely sure of his mechanism, and he prefers the simpler option of the well. All his life he has been a grotesque and unlucky figure. And now the room looking out on the courtyard is not available. That
means he must climb a wall. And two of the bullets fail to go off. Just as you said:
His right cheek was red … blood was flowing. But he still stood there staring the same way, as if he was expecting something.
Hasn't he spent his life expecting something? A little
luck? Not even that. One of those little everyday pleasures to be found in the street that people don't notice … He had to wait for his two last bullets, and they failed to go off. He had to finish the job for himself.'

The stem of the pipe between Maigret's teeth broke straight off because, as he stopped talking, he had suddenly clenched his jaws. The other man, looking past him, murmured with some difficulty, ‘You're right, but all the same
he was a crook … and for you there's a limitation clause, isn't there?'

‘It seems to me that you know the law better than I do.'

‘Oh yes, there's a limitation clause. And the law says that there has been no crime or offence when a son lays hands on his father's property by fraudulent means … so that
Henry Gallet, according to you, has nothing to fear. So far he has only 100,000 francs. With his mistress's fifty, that comes to only 150 and he's going to need 500,000 to go and live in the country as the doctors advise.'

‘Just as you said, Monsieur de Saint-Hilaire … extraordinary! There's no crime, no murderer, no culprit. There's no one to be sentenced to prison. Or rather, there wouldn't be anyone except my dead man if he
hadn't had the bright idea of sheltering from justice under a tombstone in the Saint-Fargeau cemetery … made of stone that is
not too expensive, but in good taste and distinguished …
Give me a light, will you? Oh, don't worry about using your left hand,
not now
! Come to think of it, there's no reason for you to deny yourself the pleasure of founding a football club in Sancerre any more. You'll be the honorary president …'

Suddenly the expression on his face changed, and he said, ‘Get out!'

‘But I …'

‘Get out!'

Once again Saint-Hilaire was at a loss. It took him some seconds to regain his composure.

‘I think you're exaggerating, inspector. And if …'

‘Not through the door, through the window. You know the way, don't you? Here … you're forgetting your key.'

‘When you've calmed down, I'll send you …'

‘Yes, do that. You can send me a case of the sparkling wine that you got me to taste.'

The other man didn't know whether to smile or be
afraid, but seeing the heavy silhouette of Maigret advancing on him, he instinctively retreated towards the window.

‘You haven't given me your address.'

‘I'll send it to you on a postcard.'

He abruptly closed the window and was alone in the room, which was bathed in bright light from the electric bulb.

The bed was still just as it had been on the day when Émile Gallet entered this room. His suit of hard-wearing black fabric hung limply on the wall.

With a nervous gesture, Maigret picked up the portrait photo on the mantelpiece, slipped it into a yellow envelope with the letterhead of Criminal Records on it and addressed it to Madame Gallet.

The time was a little past ten. Some Parisian guests who had arrived by car were kicking up a great racket on the terrace, where they had started a portable gramophone playing. They were intent on dancing, while Monsieur Tardivon, torn between
his admiration of their luxury car and the complaints of guest who had already gone to bed, was negotiating with the new arrivals, trying to get them into one of the hotel lounges. Maigret went along the corridors, through the café, where a driver was playing billiards with the local
teacher, and arrived outside just as a couple dancing the foxtrot suddenly stopped.

‘What's he saying?'

‘He says his guests have already gone to bed. He wants us to make less noise.'

You could see the two lights of the suspension bridge, and the occasional reflection on the water of the Loire.