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Authors: Georges Simenon
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want to be taken for a gentleman.â
The trapdoor for rolling the beer barrels into the cellar was being closed. Maigret paid his bill, and gave a last glance at the plans.
âSo, either you, or the whole family â¦â
âI didnât say that. Listen â¦â
But Maigret was already at the door. Once his back was turned, he allowed his features to relax, and if he didnât burst out laughing at least he had a delighted smile on his face.
Outside he found himself bathed in sunlight, gentle warmth and calm. The ironmonger was at the door of his workshop. The little Jewish chandler was counting his anchors and marking them with red paint.
The crane was still unloading coal. Several
schippers
were hoisting their sails, not because they were leaving, but to allow the canvas to dry. And among the forest of masts they looked like great curtains, brown and white, flapping gently in the breeze.
Oosting was smoking his clay pipe on the afterdeck of his boat. A few Quayside Rats were chatting quietly.
But turning towards the town, one could see the smug residences of the local bourgeoisie, freshly painted, with their sparkling panes, immaculate net curtains and pot plants in every window. Beyond those windows, impenetrable shadows.
Perhaps the scene had taken on a new meaning since his conversation with Jean Duclos.
On one hand, the port, the men in clogs, the boats and sails, the tang of tar and salt water.
On the other, those houses with their polished furniture and dark wall-hangings, where people could gossip behind closed doors for a fortnight about a lecturer at the Naval College who had had a glass too many one evening.
The same sky, of heavenly limpidity. But what a frontier between these two worlds!
Then Maigret imagined Popinga, whom he had never seen, even in death, but who had had a ruddy round face, reflecting his crude appetites.
He imagined him standing at that frontier, gazing at
Oostingâs boat, or at some five-master whose crew had put in to every port in South America, or perhaps at the Dutch steamers that had plied in China alongside junks full of slim women who looked like beautiful porcelain dolls.
And all he had was an English dinghy, highly varnished and fitted with brass trimmings, to sail the flat waters of the Amsterdiep, where you had to navigate through floating tree trunks from Scandinavia or some tropical rainforest!
It seemed to Maigret that the Baes was looking at him meaningfully, as if he would have liked to come over and talk to him. But that was impossible! They would have been unable to exchange two words.
Oosting knew that, and stayed where he was, simply puffing a little faster on his pipe, his eyelids half-closed in the sunlight.
At this time of day, Cornelius Barens would be sitting on a college bench, listening to a lecture on trigonometry or astronomy. No doubt he was still pale in the face.
Maigret was about to go and sit on a bronze bollard when he saw Pijpekamp coming towards him, hand held out.
âDid you find anything this morning aboard the boat?â
âNot yet â¦Â Itâs just a formality.â
âYou suspect Oosting?â
âWell, there was the cap â¦â
âAnd the cigar!â
âNo. The Baes only smokes Brazilian cigars, and that was a Manila.â
âSo?â
Pijpekamp drew him further along the quay, so as not to be under the nose of the overlord of Workum Island.
âThe compass on board used to belong to a ship from Helsingfors. The lifebelts came from an English collier â¦Â And thereâs plenty more like that â¦â
âStolen?â
âNo. Itâs always the way. Whenever a cargo vessel comes into the port, thereâs invariably someone, an engineer, a third officer, an ordinary seaman, sometimes even the captain, who wants to sell something. You see? They tell the company that the lifebelts were swept overboard in a storm, or that the
The trapdoor for rolling the beer barrels into the cellar was being closed. Maigret paid his bill, and gave a last glance at the plans.
âSo, either you, or the whole family â¦â
âI didnât say that. Listen â¦â
But Maigret was already at the door. Once his back was turned, he allowed his features to relax, and if he didnât burst out laughing at least he had a delighted smile on his face.
Outside he found himself bathed in sunlight, gentle warmth and calm. The ironmonger was at the door of his workshop. The little Jewish chandler was counting his anchors and marking them with red paint.
The crane was still unloading coal. Several
schippers
were hoisting their sails, not because they were leaving, but to allow the canvas to dry. And among the forest of masts they looked like great curtains, brown and white, flapping gently in the breeze.
Oosting was smoking his clay pipe on the afterdeck of his boat. A few Quayside Rats were chatting quietly.
But turning towards the town, one could see the smug residences of the local bourgeoisie, freshly painted, with their sparkling panes, immaculate net curtains and pot plants in every window. Beyond those windows, impenetrable shadows.
Perhaps the scene had taken on a new meaning since his conversation with Jean Duclos.
On one hand, the port, the men in clogs, the boats and sails, the tang of tar and salt water.
On the other, those houses with their polished furniture and dark wall-hangings, where people could gossip behind closed doors for a fortnight about a lecturer at the Naval College who had had a glass too many one evening.
The same sky, of heavenly limpidity. But what a frontier between these two worlds!
Then Maigret imagined Popinga, whom he had never seen, even in death, but who had had a ruddy round face, reflecting his crude appetites.
He imagined him standing at that frontier, gazing at
Oostingâs boat, or at some five-master whose crew had put in to every port in South America, or perhaps at the Dutch steamers that had plied in China alongside junks full of slim women who looked like beautiful porcelain dolls.
And all he had was an English dinghy, highly varnished and fitted with brass trimmings, to sail the flat waters of the Amsterdiep, where you had to navigate through floating tree trunks from Scandinavia or some tropical rainforest!
It seemed to Maigret that the Baes was looking at him meaningfully, as if he would have liked to come over and talk to him. But that was impossible! They would have been unable to exchange two words.
Oosting knew that, and stayed where he was, simply puffing a little faster on his pipe, his eyelids half-closed in the sunlight.
At this time of day, Cornelius Barens would be sitting on a college bench, listening to a lecture on trigonometry or astronomy. No doubt he was still pale in the face.
Maigret was about to go and sit on a bronze bollard when he saw Pijpekamp coming towards him, hand held out.
âDid you find anything this morning aboard the boat?â
âNot yet â¦Â Itâs just a formality.â
âYou suspect Oosting?â
âWell, there was the cap â¦â
âAnd the cigar!â
âNo. The Baes only smokes Brazilian cigars, and that was a Manila.â
âSo?â
Pijpekamp drew him further along the quay, so as not to be under the nose of the overlord of Workum Island.
âThe compass on board used to belong to a ship from Helsingfors. The lifebelts came from an English collier â¦Â And thereâs plenty more like that â¦â
âStolen?â
âNo. Itâs always the way. Whenever a cargo vessel comes into the port, thereâs invariably someone, an engineer, a third officer, an ordinary seaman, sometimes even the captain, who wants to sell something. You see? They tell the company that the lifebelts were swept overboard in a storm, or that the
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