The Late Monsieur Gallet by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page B

June.’
    â€˜Suppose I saw him twice?’
    â€˜Well, maybe you’ll get a hundred! Come on, out with it!’
    â€˜First you’ve got to promise not to say a word to my old man. It’s not so much that he likes to be the boss as on account of the hundred francs. All the same, I’d not like Monsieur Tiburce to know I been talking, because
it was with him I saw the gent who got killed. First time was in the morning, about eleven, when they were walking in the grounds.’
    â€˜Are you sure you recognized him?’
    â€˜Sure as I’d recognize you! There aren’t so many look like him. Well, they were chatting for maybe an hour. Then I saw them through the sitting-room window in the afternoon, and it looked like they were arguing.’
    â€˜What time was that?’
    â€˜It had just struck five … so that makes twice, right?’
    Her eyes were fixed on Maigret’s hand as he took a hundred-franc note out of his wallet, and she sighed as if she was sorry she hadn’t stuck close to Monsieur Clément’s trail all that Saturday.
    â€˜And could be I saw him a third time,’ she said hesitantly, ‘But I s’pose that doesn’t count. A few minutes later I saw Monsieur Tiburce taking him back to the gate.’
    â€˜You’re right, it doesn’t count,’ agreed Maigret, impelling her towards the door.
    He lit a pipe, put his hat on and stopped opposite Monsieur Tardivon in the café. ‘Has Monsieur de Saint-Hilaire lived in the little chateau for long?’
    â€˜About twenty years.’
    â€˜What kind of man is he?’
    â€˜Very pleasant fellow! A little, fat man, cheerful, straightforward. When I have guests in summer we hardly see
him, because, well, they’re not his class. But he often drops in here in the
hunting season.’
    â€˜Does he have any family?’
    â€˜He’s a widower. We almost always call him Monsieur Tiburce, because that’s not a common first name. He owns all the vines you can see on the slope there. He tends them himself, goes to live it up in Paris now and then and comes
back to get his hobnailed boots. What did Mother Canut have to tell you?’
    â€˜Do you think Monsieur Tiburce is at home now?’
    â€˜Could be. I didn’t see his car pass this morning.’
    Maigret went to the barred gate and rang the bell, noticing that as the Loire described a bend just outside the hotel, and the villa was the last property in the area, you could go in and out of it at any time without being seen.
    Beyond the gate, the wall surrounding the vineyard went on for another three or four hundred metres, and after that there was nothing but undergrowth.
    A man with a drooping moustache, wearing a gardener’s apron, came to open the gate, and the inspector concluded, from the strong smell of alcohol about him, that he was probably Madame Canut’s husband.
    â€˜Is your master here?’
    At the same moment, Maigret caught sight of a man in shirtsleeves inspecting a mechanical sprinkler. The gardener’s glance told him that this was indeed Tiburce de Saint-Hilaire, and moreover, abandoning the device, he turned to the visitor
and waited.
    Then, as Canut looked awkward, to say the least of it, he finally picked up the jacket that he had left on the grass and came over.
    â€˜Is it me you want to see?’
    â€˜Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Police Judiciaire. Would you be kind enough to give me a moment of your time?’
    â€˜That crime again, is it?’ The owner of the property jerked his chin at the Hotel de la Loire. ‘What can I do for you? Come this way. I won’t invite you into the drawing room, because the sun’s been beating on the
walls all day. We’ll be more comfortable under that arbour. Baptiste! Glasses and a bottle of the sparkling wine … the row at the back.’
    He was just as the hotelier had described him, small