Read Cécile is Dead for Free Online Page B

her
     walking-stick.’
    â€˜Did she have many
     visitors?’
    â€˜No one except for her nephew,
     Monsieur Gérard. He sometimes came. His younger sister Berthe never set foot in her
     aunt’s place. With all due respect, inspector, I think Berthe has a man friend.
     One Sunday when I went to the cemetery I met him, a very good-looking gentleman about
     thirty years old, and I thought he was married, but I couldn’t see whether he was
     wearing a wedding ring …’
    â€˜To sum up, Madame Boynet lived
     entirely alone with Cécile?’
    â€˜Poor girl! So gentle, so devoted! Her
     aunt treated her like a servant, and she never complained. Now there was one who
     didn’t go chasing men! Not strong, either. She had a weak constitution and a
     delicate stomach, but that didn’t prevent her from going down five floors with the
     rubbish bucket and to bring up coal.’
    â€˜So I suppose it was Cécile who took
     the money to the bank?’
    â€˜What bank?’
    â€˜I assume that
     when Madame Boynet got the rent money …’
    â€˜Oh, she wouldn’t for the world
     have put her money in a bank. She was too distrustful. That reminds me that at first
     Monsieur Bourniquel wanted to pay by cheque. “What’s all this,” she
     said indignantly. “You just tell the gentleman that I want proper money.”
     Monsieur Bourniquel stuck to his guns, and that went on for two weeks, but in the end he
     had to do as she wanted. Another glass of wine, inspector? I don’t often drink,
     but when there’s a good reason to …’
    The bell rang above the bed. She rose,
     leaned over the eiderdown and pressed the rubber pear, telling Maigret,
     ‘That’s Monsieur Deséglise the tenant on the second floor left. He’s a
     bus conductor. He works different hours every week.’
    Sure enough, Maigret saw a man wearing the
     uniform cap of the Paris bus company passing along the corridor.
    â€˜There’s a piano teacher on the
     same floor, Mademoiselle Paucot, she’s an old maid. She has a pupil every hour,
     and when it’s raining the stairs get terribly dirty. The third floor is empty. You
     probably saw on the door that it’s to let. The last tenants were thrown out
     because they missed paying the rent twice running. All the same, they gave me a tip when
     they moved in, and they were very polite … It’s not always the rich who are most
     polite, is it? I’m surprised that Monsieur Dandurand isn’t in yet. When I
     think what that girl dared to insinuate … Girls like those two, a vicious pair they are,
     they’d see a man sent to prison just to make themselves seem interesting. Did you
     notice the
way she was looking at you? A man
     of your age, married, in public service. I know what that’s like, my husband was
     in public service too, he was on the railways. Ah, here’s Monsieur
     Dandurand.’
    She rose and leaned over to press the rubber
     pear again. Light showed both in the corridor and on the stairs. Maigret heard the soft
     sound of an umbrella folding, and the faint crunch of shoes being conscientiously wiped
     on a doormat.
    â€˜Monsieur Dandurand isn’t one to
     get the stairs dirty.’
    A dry cough. Slow, measured footsteps. The
     door of the concierge’s lodge opened.
    â€˜Any post for me, Madame
     Benoit?’
    â€˜Not this evening, with all due
     respect to you, Monsieur Dandurand.’
    He was a man of fifty with a grey
     complexion, grey hair, dressed entirely in black, his umbrella wet with rain. He had
     raised his eyes to the inspector, who in turn had frowned, because he thought he had
     seen that face somewhere before.
    At the moment the name of Dandurand meant
     nothing to him, yet he was sure he knew the man. He racked his brains for the memory.
     Where had he seen him?
    â€˜Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, if
     I’m not