The Late Monsieur Gallet (5 page)

The bell on the gate had been wrapped in a linen cloth, and the front door was draped in black, with the dead man's initials picked out in silver embroidery.

Maigret had not expected so much pomp and ceremony. To the left, in the corridor, there was a tray with a single card on it, one corner turned down, from the Mayor of Saint-Fargeau.

The sitting room where Madame Gallet had received the inspector had been turned into a temporary chapel of rest. Its furniture must have been moved into the dining room. Black hangings covered the walls, and the coffin stood in the middle of the
room, surrounded by candles.

It was hard to say why the scene seemed so odd. Perhaps because there were no visitors, and you could guess that there would not be any, although the hearse was already at the door.

That lone visiting card, a fake lithograph! All those silver tears! And two silhouettes, one on each side of the coffin: Madame Gallet on the right in full mourning, a crape veil over her face, a rosary of matt beads in her fingers; Henry Gallet
on the left, also entirely in funereal black.

Maigret moved forward in silence, dipped a sprig of box into the holy water and sprinkled the water over the coffin. He felt that mother and son were following him with their eyes, but no one said a word. Then he moved back into a
corner, on the alert for sounds from outside and at the same time watching the young man's facial expressions. Sometimes one of the horses drawing the hearse pawed the path with a hoof. The undertakers' men were talking under their
breath out in the sunlight, close to the window. In the funereal room, lit only by the candles, young Monsieur Gallet's irregular face looked even more irregular because all the black emphasized the unhealthy pallor of his skin. His hair, separated by a parting, clung close to his
scalp. He had a high, bumpy forehead. It was difficult to catch his troubled gaze as he peered short-sightedly through the thick lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses.

Sometimes Madame Gallet dabbed her eyes with her mourning handkerchief. Henry's gaze never focused on anything for long. It slid over things, always avoiding the inspector, who was relieved to hear the steps of the undertaker's
men.

A little later, the stretcher bumped into the corridor walls as it was carried in. Madame Gallet uttered a small sob, and her son patted her on the shoulder while still looking elsewhere.

There was a great contrast between the ostentatious splendour of the hearse and the two figures who began to walk after it, preceded by a puzzled master of ceremonies.

It was still as hot as ever. The man with the wheelbarrow made the sign of the cross, and went off along another path, while the funeral procession, taking small steps, went down the avenue, which was wide enough for regiments to march down
it.

 • • • 

A small group of locals gathered in the square as the religious ceremony took place, but Maigret went off into
the town hall, where he found no one. He had to go and fetch the schoolteacher, whose
classroom was next to the town hall, and the children were left to their own devices for a little while.

‘All I can tell you,' said the teacher, ‘is what's recorded in our registers. Wait, here we are:

‘Gallet, Émile Yves Pierre, born Nantes, 1879, married Aurore Préjean in Paris, October 1902 … A son, Henry, born in Paris 1906, registered at the town hall of the IXth arrondissement …'

‘Don't the local people like them?'

‘It's just that the Gallets, who had the villa built in 1910 when the forest was sold off in plots, never wanted to see anyone … they're very proud. I've been known to spend a whole Sunday fishing in my skiff
less than ten metres away from Gallet's. If I needed something he'd let me have it, but I wouldn't get the slightest bit of conversation out of him afterwards …'

‘How much do you think this lifestyle cost?'

‘I can't say exactly, because I don't know what he spent when he was away, but they'll have needed at least 2,000 francs a month just for the upkeep of their household. If you've seen the villa, you'll know
that it has every convenience. They send to Corbeil or Melun for almost everything they need … and that's another thing that …'

But looking out of the window, Maigret saw the funeral procession going round the church and into the graveyard. He thanked the teacher and, once out in the road again, heard the first spadeful of earth falling on the coffin.

He did not let the mourners see him but went a long way round back to the villa and was careful to arrive a
little while after the Gallets. The maid opened the door to him and looked at him
hesitantly.

‘Madame can't …' she began.

‘Tell Monsieur Henry that I need to talk to him.'

The squinting maidservant left him outside. A few moments later, the figure of the young man appeared in the corridor. He came towards the doorway and asked, looking past Maigret, ‘Couldn't you postpone this visit to another day? My
mother is absolutely devastated.'

‘I have to talk to you today. Please forgive me if I insist.'

Henry half turned, thus implying that the police officer had only to follow him. He hesitated at the doors on the ground floor and finally opened the door to the dining room, where the sitting-room furniture had been stacked so that you could
hardly get round it. Maigret saw the portrait photo of Henry as a boy ready for his First Communion, but looked in vain for the photo of Émile Gallet. Henry did not sit down or say anything, but he took off his glasses to clean the lenses with a gesture of annoyance, while his eyelashes
fluttered as he adjusted to the bright light.

‘I'm sure you know that it is my job to find whoever killed your father.'

‘Yes, which is why I'm surprised to see you here, at a time when it would be more proper to leave my mother and me alone!'

And Henry put his glasses back on, pulling up a double cuff that had slipped down over a hand covered with the same reddish hairs as the chest of the dead man in Sancerre. There was not so much as a twitch on his bony and rather horsy face, with
its strong features and gloomy expression. He was leaning his elbow on the piano, which had been moved sideways, showing its green baize back.

‘I'd like to ask you for some information about both your father and the whole family.'

Henry did not open his mouth or move a muscle but stood in the same place, icy and funereal.

‘Please would you tell me where you were on Saturday 25 June, around four in the afternoon?'

‘Before that I'd like to ask
you
a question. Am I obliged to see you and reply to you at a time like this?' He spoke in the same neutral voice suggesting boredom, as if every syllable tired him.

‘You're at liberty not to answer. However, let me point out that …'

‘At what point in your inquiries did you find out who I was?'

Maigret did not reply to that, and to tell the truth he was stunned by this unexpected turning of the tables. It was all the more unexpected because it was impossible to detect the least subtlety on the young man's features. Henry let
several seconds pass, and the maid could be heard downstairs replying to a summons from the first floor. ‘Just coming, madame!'

‘Well?'

‘Since you know it already, I was there.'

‘In Sancerre?'

Henry still did not move a muscle.

‘And you were having a discussion with your father on the lane leading to the old chateau.' Maigret was the more nervous of the two of them, since he felt that his remarks were getting nowhere. His voice sounded flat, there was no
echo of response to his suspicions. But the most unnerving thing about it was Henry Gallet's silence; he was not trying to explain himself, just waiting.

‘Can you tell me what you were doing in Sancerre?'

‘Going to visit my mistress, Éléonore Boursang, who is on holiday and staying at the Pension Germain on the road from Sancerre to Saint-Thibaut.' He almost imperceptibly raised his eyebrows, which were as thick as Émile
Gallet's.

‘You didn't know your father was in Sancerre?'

‘If I'd known I'd have avoided meeting him.' Still the minimum of explanation, forcing the inspector to repeat his questions.

‘Did your parents know you were having an affair?'

‘My father suspected. He was against it.'

‘What was the subject of your conversation?'

‘Are you making inquiries about the murderer or his victim?' asked the young man deliberately slowly.

‘I'll know who the murderer was when I know enough about the victim. Was your father angry with you?'

‘Sorry … I was the angry one – I was angry with him for spying on me.'

‘And then?'

‘Then nothing! He treated me like a disrespectful son. How kind of you to remind me of that today.'

To his relief, Maigret heard footsteps on the stairs. Madame Gallet appeared, as dignified as ever, her neck adorned by a triple necklace of heavy dark stones.

‘What is going on?' she asked, looking at Maigret and her son in turn. ‘Why didn't you call me, Henry?'

There was a knock, and the maid came in. ‘The upholsterers have come to take the draperies away.'

‘Keep an eye on them,' said Madame Gallet.

‘I came in search of information which I consider indispensable for finding out who the murderer is,' said Maigret,
in a voice that was becoming rather too dry. ‘I recognize that this
is not the ideal moment, as your son has pointed out. But every hour that passes will make it more difficult to arrest the man who killed your husband.' His eyes moved to Henry, who was still looking gloomy.

‘When you married Émile Gallet, madame, did you have a fortune of your own?'

She stiffened slightly, and then, with a tremor of pride in her voice, announced, ‘I am the daughter of Auguste Préjean!'

‘Forgive me, but I …'

‘The former secretary to the last Bourbon prince and editor of the legitimist journal
Le Soleil
. My father spent all he had on publishing that journal, which went on fighting the good fight.'

‘Do you still have any family?'

‘I must have, but I haven't seen them since my marriage.'

‘You were advised against marrying Monsieur Gallet?'

‘What I've just told you ought to help you to understand. All my family are royalists. All my uncles occupied prominent positions, and some of them still do. They did not like it when I married a commercial traveller.'

‘Then you were penniless on your father's death?'

‘My father died a year after my marriage. At the time when we married my husband had some 30,000 francs …'

‘What about his family?'

‘I never knew them. He avoided mentioning them … all I know is that he had an unhappy childhood and that he spent several years in Indochina.'

There was the suggestion of a scornful smile on her son's lips.

‘I am asking you these questions, madame, because for
one thing I have just heard that your husband has not in fact worked for the firm of Niel for the last eighteen years.'

She looked at the inspector, and then Henry, and protested emphatically, ‘Monsieur …'

‘I have the information from Monsieur Niel himself.'

‘Perhaps, monsieur, it would be better …' began the young man, moving towards Maigret.

‘No, Henry! I want to prove that what he says is false, it's an odious lie! Come with me, inspector. Come along, follow me!'

And, showing some liveliness for the first time, she made for the corridor, where she came up against the piles of black draperies being rolled up by the upholsterers. She took the inspector up to the first floor, through a bedroom with polished
walnut furniture, where Émile Gallet's straw hat still hung on a hook, as well as a cotton drill outfit that he must have worn for fishing. Next came a small room furnished as a study.

‘Look at that! Here are his samples. And those place settings, for instance, in that dreadful Art Deco style, you wouldn't say they were eighteen years old, would you? Here's the book of orders that my husband wrote up at the
end of every month. Here are some letters that he received regularly, on the Niel letterhead …'

Maigret was paying very little attention to this. He felt sure that he would have to come back to this room and just now he preferred to let its atmosphere sink in. He tried to imagine Émile Gallet sitting here in the swivel chair at his desk. On
the desk itself there was a white metal inkwell and a glass globe acting as a paperweight. Through the window you could see the central avenue and the red roof of another uninhabited villa.

The letters on the Niel letterhead were typed in an almost regular typeface:

Dear sir,

We have received your letter of the 15th inst., as well as the statement of orders for January. We shall expect you at the end of the month to settle our account, as usual, and we will then give you some information about the expansion of your sphere of activity.

With good wishes,

Signed: Jean Niel

Maigret picked up some of the letters and put them into his wallet.

‘So what do you think now?' asked Madame Gallet, with a touch of defiance.

‘What's that?'

‘Oh, nothing … my husband liked to do things with his hands. Here's an old watch that he took apart … and out in the shed there are all kinds of things that he made himself, including fishing gear. Every month he
had a full week to spend here, and writing up his accounts and so forth took him only an hour or two in the morning …'

Maigret was opening drawers at random. He saw a large pink file in one of them, with the word ‘Soleil' written on it.

‘Some of my father's papers,' explained Madame Gallet. ‘I don't know why we kept them. There are copies of all the numbers of the journal in that cupboard, right up to the last one. My father sold his bonds to bring
that out.'