Maigret did not move.
"I summoned you…"
"Excuse me," murmured Maigret calmly. "We are here in the Seine-et-Oise, you know. The Chief pointed out to you that my role, outside the jurisdiction of the P. J., is limited to that of protection. Even in Paris, I would not have any reason to arrest your nephew merely because he said merde to you.".
"Very well! Very well! Very well!"
He fumed. He automatically took a drink and, forgetting that it was cognac, swallowed a great mouthful which made him choke.
"Babette! Babette!"
"I am here, Monsieur."
"Prepare the tea. Everything you need is on the terrace isn't it? I don't want anyone else to leave."
He had to wipe his brow, to take a breath. Then he looked at his watch and wiped his brow again, for it was nearly 5:00.
"Calm yourself," advised his brother.
An unpleasant glance, his lips half opened for a new burst of anger, but closed again without his spouting out a word.
"If you'd only let people sleep!" sighed Éliane without opening her eyes.
On the table from which lunch had not been cleared, Babette lit an alcohol stove to boil the water for tea. Maigret smoked without respite, swearing to himself never to accept a similar mission and to be wary from now on of rag merchants and unmarried twins.
"If something happens to me, Chief Inspector, I must to say to you…
Maigret wanted, like the young man, to say simply "Merde!" That he didn't do so was painful.
"… that you will have to answer to public opinion about…"
"… about your death, I know! But I will point out to you that you made all your provisions without consulting me at all."
"They are not adequate?"
"I didn't say that."
"What would you have done?"
"The question is no longer meaningful, since there remain only fifty minutes."
The closer the hour approached the more Émile became nervous, contracted, wary, aggressive. "When I think that someone in my family…"
"Why necessarily someone of your family?"
"Because they hate me! Because they've always hated me!"
It was like those persons who put on a grand show during the whole of their lives but who, with the approach of death, lose all shame, begging to confess themselves to the first passer-by.
"A simple detail! I've thought well about the question! The letter was made up using words and letters cut out of newspapers which we regularly receive in this house."
"I suppose that no other people receive them?" Maigret had really had enough. His contempt was such that he would have been able, like Henri, to leave without awaiting the end of this nauseating meeting.
"Sugar, Françoise!"
"It's in the house."
"Go get it. Or rather don't! Chief Inspector, go with her. No!"
He could no longer decide on which precautions to take. He didn't want to see a single person entering the villa. He didn't want to go there himself. He didn't want anything to occur without the possible assistance of Maigret.
"We will take the tea without sugar."
"But…" protested his brother.
"Silence! Is it me, yes or no, who is expecting to be killed?"
Cowardice burst out of him, while around him there was only spinelessness. Françoise served the tea, sniffling constantly, a true maniac of the tearful life.
The only one who remained calm was Oscar, who benefited from a pause to exclaim, "I am sure that nothing will happen. It's nothing but a bad joke." And to his brother who looked at him savagely, "You would have done better to listen to me, to leave for the mountains where I've found a good spot. A few weeks of rest. Moreover, it is not too late."
5:20. The swimming continued in the Seine. Éliane, her eyes always closed, inflated her chest with each breath, dreaming perhaps of the joys that this day had refused to her.
"Again?"
"Leave me alone."
Émile, as he had done the day before, chose a capsule from his pillbox, where not more than three remained, and swallowed it with a mouthful of tea.
"You'll make yourself sick by believing yourself sick," thundered his brother. "Whereas a little rest…"
Why the devil did he want to drive his brother away from Paris? Why did he so obstinately want to make him believe that he needed a cure in a convalescent home, a cure which could easily have its epilogue in a lunatic asylum? Was it because of Babette? Did he simply need more elbow room? Had the maid decided to marry him and he feared only the veto of Émile?
In place of sugar, Maigret poured some cognac into his tea, for he almost wanted to get drunk not to think any more of all this dirtiness.
5:30…
Maigret was astonished by sudden calm of Émile Grosbois and he observed that he was very pale in his armchair, a hand on his chest, his pupils dilated.
"Does your brother have a heart disorder?" he whispered to Oscar.
"He believes so. That's what he's always worried about."
At that moment they heard a groan, that of Émile who slumped imperceptibly in his armchair.
Maigret leapt up. "An emetic! Quickly!" he shouted.
"There is nothing in the house."
"Anything! Wait… A hen or pigeon feather…"
For Émile was no longer moving. He was bloodless, without a quiver, no sign of life.
"A spoon! Quickly, damn it!"
And Maigret went at it, using a spoon to loosen the rag merchant's teeth, inserting the feather that Babette had brought him into his throat.
"Damnation!" he cursed.
It was his turn to speak, his alone to command, "Just spit it up! Spit it up if you don't want to die!"
He abused the victim in vain, extremely anxious none the less, and he hardly noted the stupor which marked the features of Oscar.
"Hold him up! Chest forward… Yes, like that… But don't let go, idiot!"
Those are minutes during which one does not have time to reflect, nor to think. One acts automatically, according to his reflexes. Those of Maigret were good, happily for Émile Grosbois, who ended up losing his attitude of a statue of salt, became animated, coughed, and finally vomited up all that he could.
"A doctor! You, Éliane! Run to get a doctor."
6:00! The bells sounded ironically in the very small church close by.
"Keep tickling the back of his throat, so he'll throw up everything he has in him."
It was almost revenge to see Grosbois, folded in two, held up by two solid hands, coughing, the long strings of dribble under his chin.
4
"Well? How was the weekend?" The Chief, in the sun, stroked his white goatee and smiled maliciously at a bad-humored Maigret.
"Another time, I'd appreciate it if you'd be kind enough to send someone else for this kind of mission. It's nice to save people, but it would be better if they deserved it! However, such that they are…"
"Who are you talking about?"
"The whole family!"
"Without exception?"
"Well, maybe except for a beautiful young girl who… Still, no one has the right to play all Sunday afternoon at the Temptation of Saint Anthony![6] When one has such a body, one should cover it, or at least…"
"The threatening letter?"
"I was sure about that from the very start. Sent by the brother, Oscar, obviously! For a long time he'd been trying to get rid of his elder brother by getting him to go away to the mountains. And it was he who, under pretext of protest against the drugs which this same Émile took, unceasingly brought him medical books. You understand?"
"Hmm…"
"You can't really understand if you don't know the family. In short, Oscar, at fifty and a few years, wanted to live his life, which he couldn't do as long as he remained under the supervision of his brother. He told himself that by frightening him, he would finally get him to move away, which would enable him devote himself to his small vices in the company of Babette, and undoubtedly to marry her.
6
A reference to the legend of Saint Anthony, the first Christian monk, born in Egypt in the 3rd century, who was said to have struggled to keep to his meditations on the Scriptures when beset by demons in the shape of horrid beasts, beautiful ladies and hideous giants, all sent by the devil to distract him. A popular theme in art, "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" is the title of famous paintings by Bosch, Breughel, Cranach, Dali… and many others.