Maigret and the Millionaires by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon [Simenon, Georges]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Georges Simenon
ISBN: 9780156551502
Publisher: Harvest
Published: 1956-12-31T11:00:00+00:00

5

In which Maigret at last meets somebody who has no money and who is worried

He slept badly, never completely losing consciousness of his surroundings, of the hotel with its two hundred open windows, the public garden with its lawns blue-gray in the lamplight, the casino that was as old–fashioned as the elderly ladies in out-of-date dresses he had seen entering it after dinner, and the lazy sea that, every twelve seconds – he had counted them over and over again, as other people count sheep – broke into a rippling fringe of foam on the rocky shore.

Cars stopped and started up again, performing complicated maneuvers. Car doors slammed. Voices sounded so distinct that he felt like an eavesdropper, and there were still some noisy buses bringing batches of gamblers and taking others away, while the music went on playing on the terrace of the Café de Paris across the street.

When by some miracle a brief silence fell, he could hear in the background, like the sound of a flute in an orchestra, the faint, anachronistic noise of a carriage.

He had left his window open because of the heat. But since he had brought no luggage and had gone to bed without pajamas, he soon felt chilled and went to close it, casting a resentful glance at the distant lights of the Sporting Club, where Joseph Van Meulen, the little Countess’s ‘Daddy,” was presiding over a table set for twenty.

Because of his change of mood, he now saw people in a different light, and he felt annoyed with himself, almost humiliated at having listened so meekly to the Belgian financier, as though not daring to interrupt him.

Hadn’t he basically been flattered that such a well-bred person had treated him with friendly familiarity? Unlike John Arnold, the plump little Englishman with his irritating self-confidence, Van Meulen had not appeared to be giving him a lecture on the habits of a certain social set, and had indeed seemed impressed at receiving a personal visit from Maigret.

“I know you can understand me,” he had seemed to be saying all the time. Had Maigret allowed himself to be taken in? Daddy…the little Countess…David…and all the other Christian names these people used without bothering about further details, as though it was up to everybody else to recognize them.

He dozed off a little, rolled over clumsily, and suddenly saw, in his mind’s eye, the colonel lying naked in his tub, then the Belgian, equally naked, being pummeled by a masseur who looked like a boxer.

Weren’t these men too highly civilized to fall under suspicion?

“We are all capable of killing, provided we have an adequate motive and can feel sure of not being caught…”

Van Meulen, however, had not considered passion an adequate motive. Hadn’t he subtly implied that in some cases passion is almost inconceivable?

“At our age…a young, attractive woman who has done her homework…”

Their little Countess sent for the doctor, groaned, let herself be taken to hospital, then, on the sly, telephoned first to try and get

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