042 Maigret Afraid by Simenon Georges

Author:Simenon Georges
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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5

At a quarter past eight, when they left the house on Rue Clemenceau, they almost shrank back in surprise at the suddenness with which so much calm and silence enveloped them.

Toward five in the afternoon, the sky had turned as black as at the Crucifixion, and lights had to be put on all over town. Two brief, rending claps of thunder had rung out, and at last the clouds had emptied themselves, not in rain, but in hail; people on the streets had disappeared, as though swept away by the squall, while white bullets rebounded on the cobblestones like Ping-Pong balls.

Maigret, who was in the Café de la Poste at that moment, had got to his feet with the rest, and everyone had remained standing by the windows, looking at the street as though they were watching a fireworks display.

Now, it was all over and it was a bit disconcerting to hear neither the rain nor the wind, to walk out in the still air, to see stars between the rooftops when one lifted one’s head.

Possibly because of the silence, broken only by the sound of their footsteps, they walked without saying a word, going up the street toward Place Viète. Just at the corner of it, they almost bumped into a man standing motionless in the darkness, a white arm band on his overcoat, a club in his hand, who watched them pass without breathing a word.

A few steps farther on, Maigret was on the point of asking a question, and his friend, guessing this, explained in a constrained voice:

“The Police Superintendent telephoned me just before I left my office. It’s been boiling up to this since yesterday. This morning, boys distributed notices in people’s mailboxes. They held a meeting at six o’clock and have organized a watch committee.”

“They” obviously did not refer to the boys but to the hostile elements in the town.

Chabot added:

“We can’t prevent them from doing so.”

Right outside the Vernouxs’ house, on Rue Rabelais, three more men with arm bands were standing on the sidewalk and watching them approach. They were not patrolling, simply standing there on guard, and one might almost have thought they were waiting for them, were perhaps going to keep them from entering. Maigret thought he recognized, in the smallest of the three, the thin figure of Chalus, the schoolmaster.

It was quite impressive. Chabot hesitated to go up to the entrance, was probably tempted to continue along the road. There was no sign as yet of a riot, or even a disturbance, but it was the first time they had come across such a tangible sign of public discontent.

Calm in appearance, very dignified, not without a kind of solemnity, the Examining Magistrate eventually mounted the steps and raised the door knocker.

Behind him, there wasn’t a murmur, not even a joke. Still not moving, the three men watched what he did.

The noise of the knocker reverberated inside as though in a church. Immediately, as if he were there to await them, a butler manipulated the chains, the bolts, and received them in reverent silence.

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