Death Threats

2

Some families are able to abide a stranger among them for weeks, or even months, without showing anything of those small, more or less shameful secrets which are the dirty linen of all households. The Grosbois family too, had no doubt promised themselves to present Maigret a favorable image, and the proof was the affectionate attitude of the two brothers with respect to each other, when they had come to greet the Chief Inspector at the station.

It was the same with their sister Françoise, whose first appearance was all smiles and honey. She came out of the kitchen drying her hands. "Excuse me," she said, turning up the corners of her lips. "I haven't yet done my toilet. This old residence is so inconvenient and we have only one domestic."

Maigret noted to himself, "You, my little woman, are the cry-baby type! Victim of fate, all wailing and moaning."

As for the two brothers, they would have liked to continue to give the impression of peaceful, spiteless fellows. Actually, at first they almost succeeded, with their mouse-gray suits, their straw hats, their fabric shoes and the affected steps of small pensioners breathing in the air of their garden.

But not one hour had passed before this mask had already fallen. Babette had just served tea on the iron table in the garden. Émile Grosbois drew from his pocket a kind of snuffbox and took a out a capsule. At once, Oscar, unable to contain himself any longer, exclaimed, "You see, Chief Inspector! He's taking a pill, isn't he? Now, in an hour, it will be another one. And then, with his meal, some kind of drops, and after, still another drug." By his mimicry, he tried to reinforce his thesis of his brother's semi-madness.

"I take care of myself as I see fit," Émile countered rather bitterly.

"You might say that you are out of sorts. Certainly you are tired, and you need rest. But from there to believe you suffer all the diseases which you find in your medical book and to stuff yourself with drugs…"

"Each has his own mania."

"Well yours is absurd."

"I know people with more dangerous ones!"

And Maigret thought, "Round one! While waiting for the second, I'd be curious to know Oscar's mania."

During this time, Éliane, whose bathing suit was of the skimpiest variety, was swimming in the river, where a young man was not long in making his move towards her. The Chief Inspector would have sworn that it was the young man from the train, who had had to go down to the next station.

Round two! They had just sat down at the table. The menu was dull: vegetable soup, potato omelet, spinach and cheese. Éliane, who had taken a sun bath, her skin still coated with a very odorous lotion, had been satisfied to put on a light dressing gown over her swimming suit. This time it was Émile who attacked: "Françoise! What have I told you a hundred times?"

The poor thing looked around her with anguish, like someone accustomed to being berated. She wondered what was wrong.

"I understand, Mother. Uncle Émile would like me to get dressed."

"Decently, yes!" Émile affirmed. Anyone who would enter here suddenly would have to wonder whether this was a serious household."

And Éliane retorted while rising, "More likely they'd think it was a lunatic asylum! For what there is to eat here, I'd do better to leave!"

Round three! They dined in silence, and there were two empty chairs at the table, Éliane's and another. Françoise lowered her nose towards her plate. Émile, after a time, noted, "Once more, Henri hasn't yet arrived!"

"He must have been delayed on business," risked his mother.

And the uncle laughed painfully, "His business! You dare speak of his business?"

"Émile!"

She indicated Maigret, hunched over, eating everything that passed within his range.

"You have funny way of raising your children! It is true that if they take after their father…"

"Émile!"

Not at all! He was due his speech! He addressed himself to the Chief Inspector. "You should be informed, M. Maigret, that my sister made a sad marriage, a man who married her only for our money and who had affairs. He died, fortunately, for if not I do not know what the family would have become!"

Françoise retained her tears. Suddenly everyone looked up, for a car had stopped in front of the garden gate, then set out again at once. Steps were heard. A young man entered, thin, pale, tormented face. "I missed the train! Excuse me."

Without noticing Maigret's presence, he sat down in his place, but quickly looked up in surprise, "Éliane's not here?" Then he saw the stranger, blinked, and looked at each one in turn, awaiting an explanation.

"Did she bring you here?" his uncle questioned.

For Émile, definitely, could not remain long without expressing his mood. He swallowed some drops of an unspecified medication, drank from a glass of a little-known brand of mineral water, and nibbled a diet biscuit. "I'm waiting for your answer."

"You'll go on bellyaching anyway!"

The uncle complained, indeed, "Initially, I would like you to show yourself more respectful. Furthermore, I have well the right to worry when I see my nephew, twenty years old, unable to do any kind of work, but playing the gigolo with an actress."

He turned to Maigret. "For this boy is the lover of a kept woman! You see his head! Some days he can't even hold it up, and I just wonder how he will finish."

"Émile!" begged Françoise, who sniffled.

Oscar continued to look at the Chief Inspector with the air of saying, "Did I lie to you? Is my brother half mad or not?"

As for Henri, he retorted, "It's not me who makes me come out here each weekend!"

Maigret, on his side, thought to himself, "You, my young man, if I'm not completely mistaken, are a devotée of cocaine!" And it was from this moment that, contrary to his habit, he started to make notes in the large black note-book which never left him.

These notes, by Sunday at midday, were as follows:

 Charming family! They cultivate hatred like others the middle-class virtues. I wonder who among them doesn't hate all the rest, if not someone in particular.

 Émile Grosbois is a maniac who plays the domestic tyrant and who has an atrocious fear of dying and losing money. Like all tyrants, he's wary of those around him, spends his time spying on them, suspecting them of the blackest intentions.

 Oscar has some vice, or mania. His brother referred to it. But what is it exactly? He must be as miserly as Émile. Émile, as almost always arrives between twins, has some terrible power over him, and Oscar doesn't dare to shake the yoke.

 Françoise is afraid of her two brothers. She suffers all the pain of the anger of the house and the faults of her children.

 Éliane, rather than face the storms and suffer from all this meanness, leads her life her own way, egotistically. Last night, I heard a noise from her room. I'm persuaded that the young man from the train came to join her. Her uncles must be afraid of her, for if she decides to marry, it's almost certain that she'll claim her share of the fortune.

 As for Henri, he's weak, a highly-strung person who will be ruined quickly if he continues to devote himself to drugs. Easy prey for an expert woman who gives him the illusion of the good life."

Hadn't one of them sent Émile Grosbois the threatening note, and wasn't it necessary to believe that this threat would really be put into execution? The day before, in the office of the Chief of the P. J., the two men did not give it much credence, rather smelling in it a rotten trick, or even a strange maneuver by Émile Grosbois himself. But since Maigret had been in the house, he no longer took things so lightly, and what had started as discomfort had darkened to anxiety.

For it was difficult to imagine, within the radiant framework of the border of the Seine, where Sunday had brought whole flotillas of canoes and tight rows of lined-up fishermen, an atmosphere more choking that that of the Grosbois villa. Nothing was clear, clean, or sincere! And if the walls sweated moisture, if the wallpaper fell apart, if the kitchen were dirtier than in the worst greasy spoon, the inhabitants were in harmony with the decor.

On this subject too, Maigret had taken notes, for he foresaw that at a certain time, the least details would have their importance. It was, so to speak, a list of the "brawls":

1. Saturday, tea time, Oscar reproaches Émile for his medication mania and Émile refers to a secret vice of his brother.

2. At dinner, the first match between Émile and Éliane.

3. Émile attacks Henri who responds in kind.

4. In the kitchen, a little afterwards, an argument between Babette and Françoise. It's Babette who raises her voice. What's the subject of this argument? Immediately afterwards, Françoise, in tears, goes up to lie down, hugging the walls.

5. This morning, in the garden, a discussion between Henri and Éliane. Henri seems to suspect that his sister received a young man in her room and he speaks to her vehemently. Éliane responds in the same tone. They both become silent at the approach of their uncle Émile.

6. Less than a quarter of an hour later, in a corridor on the first floor, Émile, furious, goes at Françoise.

7. Almost at the same time, Oscar approaches me furtively and whispers, "I warned you! One day or another, it will be necessary to have him committed. This life is not possible any more."

At least all the family has gotten accustomed to breathing this atmosphere! As for Maigret, he felt as gloomy and depressed as he'd ever been. Was it really possible that people who had fortune and health had so little common sense as to waste their existence in this way? What underlying evil corroded them? And how did one of them avoid suddenly bursting out laughing while exclaiming, "Enough of these stupidities! Let's cease this senseless bickering, spying on each other, hating each other. There's the sun! It's Sunday! Life is beautiful!"

But no! Only Éliane reacted in that manner, in the sense that, without worrying about the others, magnificently impudent in her bathing suit, she went running towards the river where one immediately saw her in a canoe, in the company of her young man.

Henri was lying in the tall grass, close to a ditch, and when Maigret discovered him, he regarded him with vague eyes. The Chief Inspector wanted to sit down nearby, to start a conversation. "Tell me, my friend, it seems that your uncles don't make your life so easy…"

Henri didn't answer at first. He chewed a bit of straw and his dilated pupils showed that he'd just drugged himself.

"It's true that you'll soon be old enough to take your father's place…"

"What business is it of yours?"

"Maybe it's none of my business, but I will point out to you that it was your uncle Émile who begged me to come to this house where, in fact, the stay is not particularly jolly."

"So much the worse for you!"

Maigret knew that these young people tended to be aggressive, always on the offensive, but not necessarily bad. "As you wish," he murmured, while moving away.

There was nothing in the house to pass the time. One did, all things considered, literally nothing.

The two brothers, who were ready, in their gray alpaca suits, since eight o'clock in the morning, would sit down for a moment in an armchair in the garden; then one would wander about the house, undoubtedly in search of someone to rebuke; then they would find each other again and exchange some idle words, during which time Françoise worked in the kitchen with Babette.

They were there on principle, because they had a country house and it had been decided, once and for all, that the whole family would pass their weekends on this property. It didn't matter that everyone was bored! Essentially, it was to be there, around Uncle Émile, who took a malicious pleasure in spying on his small world and discovering the smallest infractions of the rules that he had enacted.

"What can Oscar's vice be?" Maigret wondered for the hundredth time, examining the little man with the rat's head. He doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink. Miserly as he is, as both brothers are, it would astonish me to see him running after girls."

The answer was provided to him before lunch. The Chief Inspector was forced to do as the others, going and coming, sometimes in the garden, sometimes in the house. Around ten o'clock, Babette went up to do the rooms. Maigret, walking the corridor on the first floor, had seen a half-opened door and, through the opening, Oscar, who held the maid in his arms, or rather who… The eyes of the Chief Inspector sparkled. It was unexpected without being so. He should have suspected that, in such a family, one did not have to expect anything sensational.

His image of the two bachelors was precise. While Émile was pure, Oscar had some passion. Careful, fearing unseen eyes, he was satisfied to appease it with Babette, who had no other distractions. Without his brother, wouldn't he be capable of marrying the maid? Perhaps! In any case, if he took her as his own… And wasn't this why Babette dared to speak in a loud voice to Françoise? But who'd written the threatening letter to Émile? And would someone really have the nerve to put it into effect?

The lunch menu was a little better than that of the dinner of the day before. It was Sunday, after all! One was entitled to hors d'oeuvres (herring fillets, radishes and potato salad), leg of mutton with beans, cheese and a cherry pie, of which Émile chose the largest piece.

Perhaps to avoid a new scene with her mother, Éliane had condescended to put on a dress, a simple one of white fabric, under which she wore nothing at all, for when the sun was behind her, her whole body was revealed through the transparent cloth. In truth, because of this detail, Maigret hardly observed what occurred during the meal. Éliane was right in front of him, on the terrace where the table had been drawn up. And he thought, with some desire, of the happy young man who had been surreptitiously introduced into the villa at night, and who'd spent such pleasant moments.

It was at coffee that Émile spoke suddenly, with an unexpected solemnity. Standing, he seemed to want to make a speech, and it was almost a speech, indeed, on all the feelings which formed the basis for the relations of this extravagant family:

"It is unnecessary to point out to you the threatening letter which I received, and because of which Chief Inspector Maigret is here today. I do not have any illusions about the affection that you bestow on me! When one is the head of a household, one takes on his shoulders all the responsibilities."

For, as Maigret had learned that morning, it was he who was the elder, Oscar having come in the world a few minutes after his brother.

"It is no less true that, whether I want to or not, I must make a point of taking all precautions. The letter specifies that the crime will be committed before six o'clock this afternoon."

Françoise, as usual, seemed filled with an eternal desire to burst into tears. Oscar looked at Maigret fixedly. Éliane, her eyes half-closed in the sun, was no doubt dreaming of some sensual pleasures, while the nostrils of her brother quivered as those of an addict awaiting the hour of his fix.

Babette was in the doorway. Maigret hadn't noticed her, but Émile did. "Come out! You are not excluded, since you form part of the household. I am unaware of the intentions of the Chief Inspector, and I do not know yet what precautions the police force have taken to avoid a mishap. For my part, I believe that the surest means of avoiding the drama is that we remain all together until six o'clock this evening."

He looked at them maliciously, with a challenge, and seemed to say, "Whether you like it or not, this is the way it will be! Too bad for any among you who has plotted my death!"

The counterpart was as funny as unexpected, for it came from Babette, who exclaimed, "And my dishes?"

"You can do them later."

Éliane glanced quickly towards Maigret. Their glances met. She might have read his thoughts, for she blushed slightly.

Henri had become pale, probably considering the prospect of being deprived of his cocaine, which he would certainly couldn't take in front of everyone.

As for Françoise, she sighed, "You suspect us, Émile?"

"I suspect no one and I suspect everyone. All the family will remain on this terrace. Babette will bring what is necessary to prepare the tea. I think that the Chief Inspector will no doubt approve of this elementary safety measure."

The Chief Inspector would approve, indeed! Why not? For Maigret, it facilitated his task, allowing him to avoid running in all directions to ensure himself of how everyone was spending their time.

"What will we do for these hours?" Oscar sighed.

And his brother, in a sour voice, "What do you usually do?"

Éliane could not be prevented from joking, while looking at the sky of radiant blue, "And if it rains?"

Her uncle satisfied himself with a glance.

So much the worse for the young man on the train who was going to pass and pass by again in vain, in his varnished canoe, in front of the garden! Couldn't he be satisfied with what he had had the previous night?

Maigret was almost starting to enjoy himself. Reclining in his rattan chair, he stuffed his pipe with small taps of his index finger, sought matches in his pocket, and, not finding any, rose.

"What do you need?" Émile Grosbois asked.

"Matches."

"They'll be brought to you. Please make sure that no one has any other reason to leave. Forgive me for being so intransigent; however, I allow myself to point out that it is my own life which is at stake!"

Less than fifty meters away, the railway line crossed the garden, and sometimes a train passed with a deafening din, drowning the house for a few moments in its malodorous smoke. Undoubtedly the villa had been built before the establishment of the line. And undoubtedly also the expropriation of a portion of their ground had well benefited the family financially.

"Would you care for something alcoholic, Chief Inspector?" Émile asked him, as if he were certain that the reply would be negative.

Maigret purposely responded, "In fact, if we're to be sitting here for the next few hours, I wouldn't mind at all."

Émile gave the cellar key to Babette. "Bring up the opened bottle of cognac, from the sideboard on the left."

The weather was hot. Families were picnicking everywhere at the edge of the Seine, and men stretched out in the tall grass, handkerchiefs or newspapers over their faces, with the prospect of a tasty nap.

"You don't play anything?" Maigret asked with some irony, looking at his companions in turn.

Françoise answered timidly, "There's a Pope-Joan^[5], but I don't know if it's complete…"

The waiting started, waiting, in effect, for the death of Émile Grosbois, who held himself very stiff in his garden chair and whose wild glance went unceasingly from the one to the other.