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Authors: Georges Simenon
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overcome Maigret.
A few days in slippers, slouching from one
chair to another, eating and drinking with Jaja, watching a semi-naked Sylvie come and
go …
‘On Friday, at two o’clock, he
left … At five o’clock, he picked up his car and, a quarter of an hour
later, he collapsed, fatally wounded, on the steps of his villa, while his women,
thinking he was drunk, swore at him from the window … He had about two thousand
francs on him, as usual …’
Maigret didn’t say any of this out
loud, he merely thought it as he watched the passers-by filing in front of the grill of
his eyelashes.
It was Boutigues who broke the
silence:
‘Who would have an interest in
seeing him dead?’
There it was: the dangerous question. His
two women? Didn’t they, on the contrary, have an interest in keeping him alive as
long as possible since, out of the two thousand francs that he brought home each month,
they managed to save a small amount?
The women from Cannes? They will have lost
one of their few customers, someone who kept the whole household fed for a week and paid
for stockings for one of them and paid the gas and electricity bills of the other
…
No! In terms of material advantage, only
Harry Brown stood to gain anything, as he no longer had to pay out five thousand francs
a month.
But what is five thousand francs to a
family that sells wool by the shipload?
Boutigues sighed
again:
‘I’m beginning to think the
people round here are right, and it’s a spying matter …’
‘Waiter! Same again!’ said
Maigret.
He regretted it immediately. He wanted to
cancel the order, but didn’t dare.
He didn’t dare out of fear of
admitting to his weakness. He would remember this later, remember sitting on the terrace
of the Café Glacier, remember Place Macé …
It was one of his rare moments of
weakness! Total weakness! The air was warm. A little girl was selling mimosas at the
corner of the street in her bare feet, her legs tanned.
A fat grey torpedo with nickel accessories
slid past silently, carrying three women in summer pyjamas and a young man with a thin,
matinee-idol moustache on their way to the beach.
It smelled of holidays. The previous
evening Cannes harbour, with the setting sun, had also had that smell of holidays,
especially the
Ardena
, whose owner swaggered in front of two girls with
gorgeous figures.
Maigret was dressed in black, as was his
wont in Paris. He had his bowler hat with him, which didn’t belong here.
A notice in blue letters right in front of
him announced:
Casino of Juan-les-Pins
Golden Rain Grand Gala
And the ice cube melted slowly in the
opal-coloured glass.
Holidays! Watching the silken seabed,
leaning over
the side of a boat painted green or orange … Having
a nap under a stone pine, listening to the buzzing of large flies …
Above all, not worrying about some man
whom he didn’t know who happened to get stabbed in the back!
Or about those women whom Maigret
didn’t even know before yesterday evening and whose faces haunted him, as if he
had been the one who slept with them!
A terrible job! The air smelled of melting
bitumen, Boutigues had pinned a fresh red carnation to the lapel of his light-grey
jacket.
William Brown? … He was buried
… What else did he want? … Was it anything to do with Maigret? … Was
it he who once owned one of the biggest yachts in Europe? … Was it he who had
shacked up with the two Martini women, the mother with the plastered face and the
daughter with the callipygian figure? … Was it he who had immersed himself
blissfully in the crapulous laziness of the Liberty Bar? … There were small warm
puffs of wind that stroked your cheeks … The people walking past were on holiday
… Everyone was on holiday here! … Life was one long holiday!
Even Boutigues, who was unable to be
silent and who muttered:
‘Deep down, I’m happy that
A few days in slippers, slouching from one
chair to another, eating and drinking with Jaja, watching a semi-naked Sylvie come and
go …
‘On Friday, at two o’clock, he
left … At five o’clock, he picked up his car and, a quarter of an hour
later, he collapsed, fatally wounded, on the steps of his villa, while his women,
thinking he was drunk, swore at him from the window … He had about two thousand
francs on him, as usual …’
Maigret didn’t say any of this out
loud, he merely thought it as he watched the passers-by filing in front of the grill of
his eyelashes.
It was Boutigues who broke the
silence:
‘Who would have an interest in
seeing him dead?’
There it was: the dangerous question. His
two women? Didn’t they, on the contrary, have an interest in keeping him alive as
long as possible since, out of the two thousand francs that he brought home each month,
they managed to save a small amount?
The women from Cannes? They will have lost
one of their few customers, someone who kept the whole household fed for a week and paid
for stockings for one of them and paid the gas and electricity bills of the other
…
No! In terms of material advantage, only
Harry Brown stood to gain anything, as he no longer had to pay out five thousand francs
a month.
But what is five thousand francs to a
family that sells wool by the shipload?
Boutigues sighed
again:
‘I’m beginning to think the
people round here are right, and it’s a spying matter …’
‘Waiter! Same again!’ said
Maigret.
He regretted it immediately. He wanted to
cancel the order, but didn’t dare.
He didn’t dare out of fear of
admitting to his weakness. He would remember this later, remember sitting on the terrace
of the Café Glacier, remember Place Macé …
It was one of his rare moments of
weakness! Total weakness! The air was warm. A little girl was selling mimosas at the
corner of the street in her bare feet, her legs tanned.
A fat grey torpedo with nickel accessories
slid past silently, carrying three women in summer pyjamas and a young man with a thin,
matinee-idol moustache on their way to the beach.
It smelled of holidays. The previous
evening Cannes harbour, with the setting sun, had also had that smell of holidays,
especially the
Ardena
, whose owner swaggered in front of two girls with
gorgeous figures.
Maigret was dressed in black, as was his
wont in Paris. He had his bowler hat with him, which didn’t belong here.
A notice in blue letters right in front of
him announced:
Casino of Juan-les-Pins
Golden Rain Grand Gala
And the ice cube melted slowly in the
opal-coloured glass.
Holidays! Watching the silken seabed,
leaning over
the side of a boat painted green or orange … Having
a nap under a stone pine, listening to the buzzing of large flies …
Above all, not worrying about some man
whom he didn’t know who happened to get stabbed in the back!
Or about those women whom Maigret
didn’t even know before yesterday evening and whose faces haunted him, as if he
had been the one who slept with them!
A terrible job! The air smelled of melting
bitumen, Boutigues had pinned a fresh red carnation to the lapel of his light-grey
jacket.
William Brown? … He was buried
… What else did he want? … Was it anything to do with Maigret? … Was
it he who once owned one of the biggest yachts in Europe? … Was it he who had
shacked up with the two Martini women, the mother with the plastered face and the
daughter with the callipygian figure? … Was it he who had immersed himself
blissfully in the crapulous laziness of the Liberty Bar? … There were small warm
puffs of wind that stroked your cheeks … The people walking past were on holiday
… Everyone was on holiday here! … Life was one long holiday!
Even Boutigues, who was unable to be
silent and who muttered:
‘Deep down, I’m happy that
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