Félicie by Georges Simenon

switched it on, Sergeant Lucas wouldhave
seen it. The shutters don’t close properly … So, you’re out of bed …
You’re not afraid, though an ordinary storm scares you to death … What happened
then? Did you leave your bedroom?’
    â€˜Not straight away. I put my ear against
the door and listened. There was someone on the other side of the landing. I heard a chair being
moved. Then what sounded like a stifled curse. I knew then that the man couldn’t find what
he was looking for and that he was getting ready to leave …’
    â€˜Was your bedroom door locked?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜But you opened it so you could rush out,
unarmed, and confront a man who was probably the murderer of Jules Lapie?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    She glares in defiance. He gives a little whistle
of admiration.
    â€˜So you were quite sure he wouldn’t
harm you? Obviously you had no way of knowing that at exactly that time young Pétillon was
far from here, in Paris …’
    She cannot help exclaiming:
    â€˜What do you know about that?’
    â€˜Let’s see … What time was
it?’
    â€˜I looked at the time
after
. It
was half past three in the morning. How do you know that Jacques …’
    â€˜Ah! You call him by his Christian
name?’
    â€˜Oh, why don’t you just leave me
alone! If you don’t believe me, why don’t you just go!’
    â€˜Fair enough, I won’t interrupt again
… So, youcame out of your room, full of spirit, armed only with
courage …’
    â€˜And got punched in the face!’
    â€˜The man ran away?’
    â€˜Went out through the door into the garden.
That’s the way he came in.’
    Actually, Maigret would love to tell her, despite
the bruises to her face:
    â€˜Know something? I don’t believe a
word of it.’
    On the other hand, if it could be shown that
she’d caused her injuries herself, would it have made a difference? Why?
    But at this juncture, his eye is caught by
something, and he stares intently at the still-damp earth of a flower bed. She notices and,
looking in the same direction, sees the footprints and through a thin smile says:
    â€˜Perhaps it was my feet that made those
marks?’
    He stands up.
    â€˜Come …’
    He goes into the house. He has no difficulty
seeing the muddy trail on the polished treads of the staircase. He opens the door of the old
man’s bedroom.
    â€˜You came in here?’
    â€˜Yes. But I didn’t touch
anything.’
    â€˜What about this chair? Was it just here
last night?’
    â€˜No. It was by the window.’
    At present, it is in front of the huge walnut
wardrobe, and on its woven straw seat distinct traces of mud are visible.
    So Félicie wasn’t lying after all. A
man really did break into Cape Horn during the night, and it could not havebeen Pétillon, who, at that moment, poor devil, was lying on an operating table in
Beaujon Hospital.
    If Maigret needed further proof, he finds it when
he in turn stands on the chair and looks on the top of the wardrobe, where fingers have
disturbed the thick layer of dust and where someone has used a tool to prise up a strip of
wood.
    He’ll have to call in experts from Criminal
Records to photograph everything and take fingerprints, if there are any.
    More serious now, with a worried expression on
his face, Maigret mutters, seemingly to himself:
    â€˜And you didn’t call for help! You
knew there was a police officer outside the window and you did nothing. You even took great care
not to switch any lights on.’
    â€˜I switched the light on in the kitchen
when I was bathing my face in cold water.’
    â€˜But wasn’t that because the kitchen
light can’t be seen from the road? In other words, you did not want to raise the alarm.
Despite being punched, you wanted to give your attacker time to get away. This morning, you got
up as if nothing had happened