Maigret 031 (1949) - My Friend Maigret by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon
Format: epub
Published: 1949-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

It was hot in spite of the open window. It had become an obsession to listen to the noises of the house. There were occasional footsteps above his head. As for Mr. Pyke, he had to go a fourth time to the end of the passage and, each time, Maigret waited with a sort of anguish for the upheaval caused by the plug before attempting to go back to sleep. For he must have been sleeping between the interruptions, not deeply enough to efface his thoughts completely, but sufficiently to distort them.

Mr. Pyke had played a dirty trick by speaking to him about the Dutchman at the end of the jetty. From now on the Chief Inspector could only see De Greef in the light of the peremptory phrases of his English colleague.

However, the portrait which Mr. Pyke had sketched of the young man did not satisfy him. He, too, was there, with Anna, who must have been sleepy and who, as time passed, allowed herself to lean more and more on her companion’s shoulder.

De Greef did not speak to her. He cannot have been in the habit of speaking to her often. He was the male, the leader, and she had only to follow, to await his pleasure.

He would look around him. With his very thin face he called to mind a lean animal, a wild creature.

The others probably weren’t lambs, but indisputably De Greef was a wild animal. He sniffed like a wild animal. It was a mannerism. He would listen to what was being said and then he would sniff. That was his only perceptible reaction.

In the jungle the major would probably have been a pachyderm, an elephant, or better still a hippopotamus. And Monsieur Émile? Something furtive, with pointed teeth.

It was absurd. What would Mr. Pyke have thought if he had been able to read Maigret’s thoughts? True the Chief Inspector had the excuse of having had too much to drink and being half asleep. If he had foreseen that he would not be able to sleep he would have accounted for a few more glasses, in order to plunge at once into a dreamless slumber.

All in all Lechat was a very good man. So good that Maigret would have liked to have had him in his service. Still a little young, a little excitable. He was easily agitated, like a shooting dog which runs in all directions around its master.

He knew the Midi already, as he had been in the squad at Draguignan, but he had only had occasion to visit Porquerolles once or twice; he had only really got to know the island during the last two or three days.

“Do the people from the North Star come over every evening?”

“Almost every evening. They sometimes arrive late. Usually, when the sea is calm, they come by moonlight in a dinghy.”

“Are Mrs. Wilcox and the major friends?”

“They studiously avoid speaking to one another, and each regards the other as though he were a transparent corpse.”

After all, it was understandable.

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