The Night at the Crossroads (5 page)

‘Open, no! But there's always a man there who sleeps on a cot. The door's locked. Regular customers ring the bell when they need something.'

‘Do you get much traffic on the road at night?'

‘Not a lot, no, but it never stops. Lorries on their way to Les Halles … This region's known for its early fruits and vegetables, especially its watercress. The drivers sometimes run out of petrol, or need some little repair
made … Would you like to join me for a drink?'

‘No, thanks.'

‘Your loss … but I won't insist. So! You haven't sorted out this business with the cars yet? You know, Monsieur Michonnet is going to worry himself sick over it. Especially if he isn't issued another six-cylinder
car right away!'

A headlamp gleamed in the distance, growing larger. A rumbling sound. A shadow went past.

‘The doctor from Étampes!' murmured the garage owner. ‘He went to see a patient in Arpajon. His colleague must have invited him for dinner …'

‘You know every vehicle that goes past here?'

‘Many of them … Look! Those two side-lamps: that's watercress for Les Halles. Those fellows can never bring themselves to use their headlamps … And they take up the entire road! … Evening,
Jules!'

A voice replied from up in the cab of the passing lorry, and then the only thing to see was the small red tail-light, which soon dissolved into the night.

Somewhere, a train, a glowing caterpillar that stretched out into chaos of the night.

‘The 9.32 express … Listen, you're sure you won't have anything? … Say, Jojo! When you've finished your supper, check the third pump, it's jammed.'

More headlamps. But the car went on by. It was not Madame Goldberg.

Maigret was smoking constantly. Leaving Monsieur Oscar in front of his garage, he began to walk up and down, trailed by Lucas, who kept talking softly to himself.

Not a single light in the Three Widows house. The policemen went past the gate ten times. Each time Maigret automatically looked up at the window he knew was Else's.

Then came the Michonnet villa, brand new, nondescript, with its varnished oak door and silly little garden.

Then the garage, the mechanic busy repairing the petrol pump, Monsieur Oscar dispensing advice, both hands stuck in his pockets.

A lorry from Étampes on its way to Paris stopped to fill up. Lying asleep atop the heap of vegetables was the relief driver, who made this same journey every night at the same hour.

‘Thirty litres!'

‘How's it going?'

‘Can't complain!'

The clutch growled and the lorry moved off, down the hill to Arpajon at sixty kilometres an hour.

‘She won't be coming now,' sighed Lucas. ‘Probably decided to spend the night in Paris …'

After they'd covered the 200 metres up and down from the crossroads three more times, Maigret veered off abruptly towards Avrainville. When they reached the inn, there was only one lamp still burning and no one in the café.

‘I think I hear a car …'

They turned around. And two headlamps were indeed
shining in the direction of the village. A car was turning slowly in front of the garage. Someone was talking.

‘They're asking for directions.'

The car came towards them at last, illuminating the telegraph poles one after another. Maigret and Lucas were caught in the light, standing across the road from the inn.

The sound of brakes. The driver got out and opened a door to the back seat.

‘Is this the right place?' asked a woman's voice from inside.

‘Yes, madame. This is Avrainville. And there's the traditional branch of fir over the front door of the inn.'

A leg sheathed in silk. A foot placed on the ground. An impression of fur …

Maigret was about to walk towards the woman.

At that moment there was a loud bang, a cry – and the woman fell headlong, literally crashing to the ground, where she lay curled up in a ball while one of her legs kicked out spasmodically.

Maigret and Lucas looked at each other.

‘Take care of her, Lucas!' shouted the inspector.

But already a few seconds had been lost. The chauffeur stood stunned, rooted to the spot. A window opened on the second floor of the inn.

The shot had come from the field to the right of the road. As he ran, the inspector drew his revolver from his pocket. He could hear something, footsteps thudding softly on clayey soil … But he couldn't see a thing: the
car's headlamps were shining so brightly straight ahead that they flooded everywhere else with darkness.

Turning around he yelled, ‘The headlamps!'

When nothing happened, he yelled it again. And then there was a disastrous misunderstanding: the driver, or Lucas, turned one of the headlamps towards the inspector.

Now he was spotlit, a huge figure in black against the bare ground of the field.

The murderer had to be farther on, or more to the left – or the right – but in any case, outside that circle of light.

‘God almighty, the headlamps!' yelled Maigret one last time.

He was clenching his fists in rage, running in zigzags like a hunted rabbit. That glare was disrupting even all perception of distance, which is why he suddenly saw the garage's pumps less than a hundred metres away.

Then there was a human figure, quite close, and a voice saying hoarsely, ‘What's going on?'

Furious and humiliated, Maigret stopped short, looked Monsieur Oscar up and down and saw there was no mud on his slippers.

‘Did you see anyone?'

‘Just a car asking the way to Avrainville.'

The inspector noticed a red light on the main road heading towards Arpajon.

‘What's that?'

‘A lorry for Les Halles.'

‘He stopped?'

‘Long enough to take twenty litres …'

They could hear the commotion going on over by the inn and the headlamp was still sweeping the deserted field. Maigret suddenly noticed the Michonnet villa, crossed the road and rang the bell.

A small spy hole opened.

‘Who's there?'

‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret. I would like to speak with Monsieur Michonnet.'

A chain and two bolts were undone. A key turned in the lock. Madame Michonnet appeared, anxious, even upset, impulsively darting furtive glances up and down the main road.

‘You haven't seen him?' she asked.

‘He's not here?' replied Maigret gruffly, with a glimmer of hope.

‘I mean … I don't know … I … I just heard a shot, didn't I? … But do come in!'

She was about forty, plain, with prominent features.

‘Monsieur Michonnet stepped out for a moment to …'

On the left, the door to the dining room was open. The table had not been cleared.

‘How long has he been gone?'

‘I don't know … Perhaps half an hour …'

Something moved in the kitchen.

‘Do you have a servant?'

‘No. It might be the cat …'

The inspector opened the kitchen door and saw Monsieur Michonnet himself, coming in through the garden door, mopping his face. His shoes were caked with mud.

There was a moment of surprised silence as the two men looked at each other.

‘Your weapon!' said the inspector.

‘My …?'

‘Your weapon, quickly!'

The insurance agent handed him a small revolver he'd pulled from a trouser pocket. All six of its bullets were still there, however, and the barrel was cold.

‘Where have you been?'

‘Over there …'

‘What do you mean by “over there”?'

‘Don't be afraid, Émile! They wouldn't dare touch you!' exclaimed Madame Michonnet. ‘This is too much, really! And when I think that my brother-in-law is a judge in Carcassonne …'

‘Just a moment, madame: I am speaking to your husband … You were at Avrainville just now. What did you go there to do?'

‘Avrainville? Me?'

He was shaking, trying in vain to put up a front, but seemed genuinely dumbfounded by his predicament.

‘I swear to you, I was over
there
, at the Three Widows house! I wanted to keep an eye on them myself, since—'

‘You didn't go into the field? You didn't hear anything?'

‘Wasn't there a shot? Has anyone been killed?'

His moustache was drooping. He looked at his wife the way a kid looks at his mother when he's in a tight spot.

‘I swear, chief inspector! … I swear to you …'

He stamped his foot, and two tears rolled down his cheeks.

‘This is outrageous!' he cried. ‘It's my car that was stolen! It's my car they found the body in! And no one will give my car back to me, when I'm the one who worked
fifteen years to pay for it! And now I'm the one accused of—'

‘Be quiet, Émile! I'll talk to him!'

But Maigret didn't give her the chance.

‘Are there any other weapons in the house?'

‘Only this one revolver, which we bought when we had the villa built … And the bullets are even the same ones the gunsmith put in himself.'

‘You were at the Three Widows house?'

‘I was afraid my car would be stolen again … I wanted to conduct my own investigation … I entered the grounds – or rather, I climbed up on the wall.'

‘You saw them?'

‘Who? Those two? The Andersens? Of course! … They're in the drawing room. They've been quarrelling for an hour now.'

‘You left when you heard the shot?'

‘Yes. But I wasn't sure it was a gunshot … I only thought so … I was worried.'

‘You saw no one else?'

‘No one.'

Maigret went to the door and, opening it, saw Monsieur Oscar coming towards him.

‘Your colleague has sent me, chief inspector, to tell you that the woman is dead. My mechanic has gone to inform the police in Arpajon. He'll bring back a doctor … And now, will you excuse me? I can't leave the garage
unattended.'

At Avrainville, the pale headlamp beams could still be seen, illuminating a section of wall at the inn and some shadowy figures moving around a car.

Head down, Maigret was walking slowly in the field, where the growing corn was beginning to dot the earth with pale green.

It was morning. The sun was out and the air was vibrant with the songs of invisible birds. In Avrainville, Lucas was standing outside the inn door, waiting for representatives of the prosecutor's office and keeping an eye on the car Madame
Goldberg had hired in Paris on Place de l'Opéra for her journey.

The wife of the diamond merchant from Antwerp was laid out upstairs on an iron bed. A sheet had been thrown over her corpse, which the doctor had partly unclothed the night before.

It was early on a fine April day. In the very field where Maigret, blinded by the headlamps, had chased the murderer in vain and now advanced step by step, following the traces left in the darkness, two farm workers loaded a cart with beets they
were harvesting from a hillock while their horses waited quietly.

The double row of trees along the main road sliced through the countryside. The red petrol pumps at the garage sparkled in the sunlight.

Slow, stubborn, quite possibly in a bad mood, Maigret was smoking. The footprints found in the field seemed to
prove that Madame Goldberg had been shot dead with a rifle, for the murderer had not come
within thirty metres of the inn.

The footprints were unremarkable: smooth soles, average size. The trail curved around to wind up at the Three Widows Crossroads, keeping a more or less equal distance from the Andersens' house, the Michonnet villa and the garage.

In short, this trail proved nothing! It introduced no new lead and Maigret, stepping out on to the road, was biting down on his pipe stem rather grimly.

He saw Monsieur Oscar at his door, his hands in the pockets of his baggy trousers and a smug expression on his common-looking face.

‘Up already, chief inspector?' he shouted across the road.

At that same moment someone pulled up between Maigret and the garage: it was Carl Andersen in his little old car.

He was wearing gloves and a fedora and had a cigarette between his lips. He doffed his hat.

‘May I have a word with you, chief inspector?'

After rolling down his window, he went on in his usual polite manner.

‘I did want to ask your permission to go to Paris, and was hoping to find you here … I'll tell you why I must go: today is the 15th of April, the day I am paid for my work for Dumas and Son. It's also the day when the
rent is due …'

He smiled apologetically.

‘Quite ordinary errands, as you see, but urgent ones all the same. I'm low on funds.'

When he removed his monocle for a moment to resettle it more securely, Maigret turned his head away because he did not like looking into that staring glass eye.