Inspector Cadaver by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

6

ALBAN GROULT COTELLE’S ALIBI

Before dinner that evening, an incident occurred which, though insignificant in itself, nonetheless gave Maigret food for thought. Etienne Naud had still not sat down, as though afraid of being even more at the mercy of the superintendent if he were once to remain still. They could hear voices in the dining room. Madame Naud was reprimanding the maid for not cleaning the silver properly. Geneviève had just come downstairs.

Maigret saw the look her father gave her as she came into the drawing room. There was a trace of anxiety in his expression. Naud had not seen his daughter since she had retired to her room the day before, saying she did not feel well. It was perfectly natural, too, that Geneviève should reassure him with a smile.

Just at that moment the telephone rang and Naud went into the hall to answer it. He left the drawing room door open.

“What?” he said, in an astonished tone of voice. “Of course he’s here, damn it. What did you say?…Yes, hurry up, we’re expecting you…”

When he came back into the drawing room he shrugged his shoulders once again.

“I wonder what has got into our friend Alban. There’s been a place for him at our table for years. Then he rings up this evening to find out if you’re here and when I say you are he asks if he can come to dinner and says he must talk to you…”

By chance, Maigret happened to be looking, not at Naud but at his daughter, and he was surprised to see such a fierce expression on her face.

“He did more or less the same thing earlier on,” she said crossly. “He came here to lunch and looked very peeved when he realized the superintendent hadn’t come back. I thought he was going to leave. He muttered: ‘What a pity. I had something to show him.’

“He took his leave as soon as he had gulped down his dessert. You must have met him in the town, then, superintendent?”

Whatever it was was so subtle that Maigret could not pinpoint it. A hint of something in the young girl’s voice. And yet it was not really the voice. What is it, for example, that makes an experienced man suddenly realize that a young girl has become a woman?

Maigret noticed something of this sort. It seemed to him that Geneviève’s peevish words displayed something more than plain ill temper, and he decided to watch young Mademoiselle Naud more closely.

Madame Naud came in, apologizing for her absence. Her daughter availed herself of the opportunity to repeat:

“Alban has just rung to say he’s coming to dinner. But first of all he asked whether the superintendent was here. He’s not coming to see us…”

“He’ll be here in a minute,” said her father who had finally sat down, now that his family was round him. “It will take him three minutes by bicycle.”

Maigret dutifully remained seated, looking rather dejected. His large eyes were expressionless as they always were whenever he found himself in an awkward situation.

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