A Man's Head Read Online Free PDF Page A

had come up with a single defence tactic: to ask for a new examination of the mental state of his client. The doctor he had chosen had told the court:
    â€˜Diminished responsibility …’
    To which the reply from the prosecution was:
    â€˜This was a cold, callous and appalling crime! If Heurtin didn’t steal anything, it was because he was prevented from doing so by some circumstance or other. All told, he struck his victims eighteen times with a knife!’
    Photographs of the victims had been handed round the members of the jury, who pushed them away with disgust.
    â€˜GUILTY’, on all counts.
    Death! The next day, Joseph Heurtin was transferred to the top-security block with four other men who had also been sentenced to death.
    â€˜Isn’t there anything you want to tell me?’ Maigret made a point of coming to ask him, for he was not happy with himself.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜You do know you’re going to be executed?’
    Heurtin wept, still as pale as ever, his eyes red.
    â€˜Who was in this with you?’
    â€˜Nobody.’
    Maigret returned every day, even though officially he had no business looking into the case any further.
    And every morning he found Heurtin more and more crushed but calm. He had stopped shaking. There was even, at times, a glint of irony in his eyes …
    Â â€¦Â until the morning the prisoner heard footsteps in the next cell, and then loud screams.
    They had come to fetch number 9, a son who had killed his father, to take him to the scaffold.
    The next day, Heurtin, number 11, was in tears. But he said nothing. All he did was lie stretched out on his bunk with his teeth clenched and his face to the wall.
    When Maigret got an idea into his head, it stayed anchored there for a long time.
    He went to see Coméliau and told him: ‘That man is either mad or he’s innocent.’
    â€˜Impossible! In any case, sentence has been passed on him.’
    Maigret, 1 metre 80 tall, powerful and as burly as a market porter, dug his heels in.
    â€˜Don’t forget that the prosecution was unable to establish how he got back to Paris from Saint-Cloud. He didn’t take the train. He didn’t get on a tram. He didn’t walk back!’
    Jokes were made at his expense.
    â€˜Would you like to try an experiment?’
    â€˜You’ll have to take this to the minister!’
    And Maigret, solemn and stubborn, did so. He himself wrote the note which gave Heurtin the escape plan.
    â€˜Listen! Either there were others in it with him, and he’ll think the note is from them, or there weren’t, in which case he’ll be on his guard and suspect a trap. I’ll take full responsibility for him. You have my
absolute word that he won’t escape.’
    The inspector’s stolid, calm, rock-hard face was a sight to be seen!
    The tussle lasted three days. He raised the spectre of a miscarriage of justice and the scandal which would follow sooner or later.
    â€˜But you’re the one who arrested him!’
    â€˜Because, as a policeman, it’s my job to draw logical conclusions from the material evidence presented.’
    â€˜And as a man?’
    â€˜I’m still waiting to be morally sure …’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜Either he’s mad or he’s innocent.’
    â€˜Why doesn’t he say anything?’
    â€˜The test I propose will tell us why.’
    Then there were phone calls, discussions …
    â€˜You’re putting your career on the line, detective chief inspector. Think about it!’
    â€˜I have thought about it.’
    The note was duly passed to the prisoner, who had not shown it to anyone and, for the last few days, had eaten with a heartier appetite.
    â€˜So he wasn’t surprised!’ said Maigret. ‘Therefore he was expecting something of the sort! Therefore he has accomplices who may have promised they’d get him out.’
    â€˜Unless he’s