The Saint-Fiacre Affair Read Online Free PDF

suddenly noticed that he was
     heading towards the estate manager’s house. He thought he recognized the
     silhouette he had seen in the field from a distance.
    A few metres separated the two men, who
     were about to enter the courtyard where a few hens were huddled against a wall, in
     the shelter of the wind, their feathers trembling.
    â€˜Hey! …’
    The man with the rifle turned round.
    â€˜Are you the Saint-Fiacre estate
     manager?’
    â€˜And you are?’
    â€˜Detective Chief Inspector
     Maigret, Police Judiciaire.’
    â€˜Maigret?’
    The estate manager was struck by the
     name, but couldn’t remember exactly why.
    â€˜Have you been told what’s
     going on?’
    â€˜I’ve just been informed … I
     was hunting … But what do the police? …’
    He was a small, squat man, grey-haired,
     his skin criss-crossed with fine, deep wrinkles, and pupils that
looked as if they were lying in ambush behind thick
     eyebrows.
    â€˜I was told her heart …’
    â€˜Where are you going?’
    â€˜I’m hardly going to go into
     the chateau with my boots covered in mud and my rifle …’
    The head of a rabbit hung from his
     game-bag. Maigret looked at the house they were walking towards.
    â€˜Wait a moment! They’ve
     changed the kitchen …’
    He felt a suspicious glance upon
     him.
    â€˜Fifteen years ago!’
     murmured the estate manager.
    â€˜What’s your
     name?’
    â€˜Gautier … Is it true that the
     count arrived without …’
    His whole attitude was hesitant,
     reticent. And Gautier didn’t even invite Maigret inside. He pushed open his
     door.
    The inspector came in anyway and turned
     right, towards the dining room, which smelled of biscuits and brandy.
    â€˜If you have a moment, Monsieur
     Gautier … You’re not needed at the house … But I have a few questions to ask
     you …’
    â€˜Hurry up!’ said a
     woman’s voice in the kitchen. ‘Apparently it’s horrible
      …’
    And Maigret ran his fingers along the
     oak table, its corners decorated with carved lions. It was the one from his
     childhood! It had been sold on to the new estate manager after his father’s
     death.
    â€˜Can I offer you
     something?’
    Gautier chose a bottle from the
     sideboard, perhaps as a way of gaining some time.
    â€˜What do you think about Monsieur
     Jean? … And by the way, what’s his surname? …’
    â€˜Métayer … A respectable family
     from Bourges …’
    â€˜Did he cost the countess a lot of
     money?’
    Gautier filled the glasses with brandy,
     but remained stubbornly silent.
    â€˜What business did he have at the
     chateau? As estate manager I assume you look after everything …’
    â€˜Everything!’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜He didn’t do anything … A
     few private letters … At first he claimed to be making the countess some money,
     thanks to his knowledge of finance … He bought some shares that collapsed in a few
     months … But he insisted that he would make it all back and more thanks to a new
     photographic process that one of his friends had invented … It cost the countess
     about a hundred thousand francs, and the friend disappeared … And last of all there
     was some story about photographic printing … I don’t know a thing about it.
     Something like photoengraving or heliogravure, but cheaper …’
    â€˜Jean Métayer was a busy
     man!’
    â€˜A lot of effort for not much
     result … He wrote articles in the
Journal de Moulins
, and they had to take
     them because of the countess … That was where he did his printing experiments, and
     the editor didn’t dare throw him