Cécile hadnât told me.â
âI suppose you will be your
auntâs heir?â
âWith my two sisters, yes ⦠I caught
the tram at Le Châtelet and ⦠but Cécile, why was Cécile killed? The concierge has just
told me â¦â
âCécile was killed because she knew
who the murderer was,â said Maigret slowly.
Unable to calm down, the young man reached
out his hand to the bottle of rum.
âNo,
youâve had enough,â said the inspector. âWhat you need now is a cup of
strong coffee.â
âWhat are you insinuating?â
He was aggressive, looking at his questioner
as if he were an enemy.
âI hope you donât think I
murdered my aunt and my sister?â he suddenly cried in a fury.
Maigret made the mistake of not replying. He
wasnât really thinking about that. He had been letting his mind wander, as he
sometimes did, or more precisely he had been bringing the scene around him to life: the
same apartment, but a few years earlier, the aunt with her obsessions, the teenage
Cécile, her sister Berthe still a child with her hair worn loose, Gérard wanting to
enlist so as to escape the atmosphere here â¦
He started as the young man grabbed him by
the lapels of his overcoat, shouting, âAnswer me! You think ⦠you really think I
â¦â
He smelled strongly of alcohol. Maigret
stepped back and caught hold of both Gérardâs wrists.
âTake it easy, young man,â he
murmured. âTake it easy.â
He was forgetting his own strength, and the
other man groaned as he felt the inspectorâs iron grip.
âYouâre hurting me.â
Tears had finally sprung into his eyes.
5.
Was there some kind of epidemic in
Bourg-la-Reine? Maigret could have resigned himself to that, but he couldnât get
the question out of his mind. No doubt the undertakerâs man would have replied
that deaths occur all at once, that you can go for five days without any call for a
first-class or a second-class hearse, and then be suddenly overwhelmed by the demand for
them.
This morning the undertakerâs services
were in great demand, so much so that one of the horses pulling Juliette Boynetâs
hearse was not a proper undertakerâs horse at all and tried ten times to break
into a trot, thus lending a jerky appearance to the cortège and setting a fast pace that
was incompatible with the dignity of a funeral.
A man called Monfils, an insurance agent
from Luçon, seemed to be in charge of the ceremony. As soon as the murder of Juliette
Boynet had been announced in the press, he set off for Paris, already in deep mourning
garb (which no doubt dated from a preceding funeral), and he was to be seen everywhere,
tall, thin and pale, his nose red from a head cold that he had caught on the train.
He was Juliette Boynetâs first
cousin.
âI know what Iâm talking about,
inspector,â he told Maigret. âIt was always settled that she would be
leaving us something, and she agreed to be our eldest sonâs godmother.
Iâm sure there must be a will. If it
hasnât been found, it may be that other people had an interest in disposing of it.
Incidentally, I shall appear as plaintiff in any trial.â
He had insisted on a proper burial, leaving
from the home of the deceased, where a chapel of rest was to be set up in the
fifth-floor apartment.
âIn this family,â he pronounced,
âwe are not in the habit of burying our dead in any old fashion.â
On that same morning, he had gone to the
railway station to meet his wife, who was also in deep mourning, and their five
children, who were to follow the procession in descending order of size, holding their
hats. Five boys, all with fair hair too unruly to submit to being combed.
This was the time of day when traffic on the
main road was especially
âI suppose you will be your
auntâs heir?â
âWith my two sisters, yes ⦠I caught
the tram at Le Châtelet and ⦠but Cécile, why was Cécile killed? The concierge has just
told me â¦â
âCécile was killed because she knew
who the murderer was,â said Maigret slowly.
Unable to calm down, the young man reached
out his hand to the bottle of rum.
âNo,
youâve had enough,â said the inspector. âWhat you need now is a cup of
strong coffee.â
âWhat are you insinuating?â
He was aggressive, looking at his questioner
as if he were an enemy.
âI hope you donât think I
murdered my aunt and my sister?â he suddenly cried in a fury.
Maigret made the mistake of not replying. He
wasnât really thinking about that. He had been letting his mind wander, as he
sometimes did, or more precisely he had been bringing the scene around him to life: the
same apartment, but a few years earlier, the aunt with her obsessions, the teenage
Cécile, her sister Berthe still a child with her hair worn loose, Gérard wanting to
enlist so as to escape the atmosphere here â¦
He started as the young man grabbed him by
the lapels of his overcoat, shouting, âAnswer me! You think ⦠you really think I
â¦â
He smelled strongly of alcohol. Maigret
stepped back and caught hold of both Gérardâs wrists.
âTake it easy, young man,â he
murmured. âTake it easy.â
He was forgetting his own strength, and the
other man groaned as he felt the inspectorâs iron grip.
âYouâre hurting me.â
Tears had finally sprung into his eyes.
5.
Was there some kind of epidemic in
Bourg-la-Reine? Maigret could have resigned himself to that, but he couldnât get
the question out of his mind. No doubt the undertakerâs man would have replied
that deaths occur all at once, that you can go for five days without any call for a
first-class or a second-class hearse, and then be suddenly overwhelmed by the demand for
them.
This morning the undertakerâs services
were in great demand, so much so that one of the horses pulling Juliette Boynetâs
hearse was not a proper undertakerâs horse at all and tried ten times to break
into a trot, thus lending a jerky appearance to the cortège and setting a fast pace that
was incompatible with the dignity of a funeral.
A man called Monfils, an insurance agent
from Luçon, seemed to be in charge of the ceremony. As soon as the murder of Juliette
Boynet had been announced in the press, he set off for Paris, already in deep mourning
garb (which no doubt dated from a preceding funeral), and he was to be seen everywhere,
tall, thin and pale, his nose red from a head cold that he had caught on the train.
He was Juliette Boynetâs first
cousin.
âI know what Iâm talking about,
inspector,â he told Maigret. âIt was always settled that she would be
leaving us something, and she agreed to be our eldest sonâs godmother.
Iâm sure there must be a will. If it
hasnât been found, it may be that other people had an interest in disposing of it.
Incidentally, I shall appear as plaintiff in any trial.â
He had insisted on a proper burial, leaving
from the home of the deceased, where a chapel of rest was to be set up in the
fifth-floor apartment.
âIn this family,â he pronounced,
âwe are not in the habit of burying our dead in any old fashion.â
On that same morning, he had gone to the
railway station to meet his wife, who was also in deep mourning, and their five
children, who were to follow the procession in descending order of size, holding their
hats. Five boys, all with fair hair too unruly to submit to being combed.
This was the time of day when traffic on the
main road was especially
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