The Sailors’ Rendezvous by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon [Simenon, Georges]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-03-17T15:13:00+00:00

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7. In the Family Circle

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It was one of those situations which spring up of themselves and which it is very difficult to get out of. Marie Léonnec, alone in Fécamp and recommended to the Maigrets by a mutual friend, took her meals with them.

Now her fiancé was there. The four of them found themselves together on the beach when the hotel gong sounded for lunch.

There was some hesitation on Pierre Le Clinche’s part, and he looked at them with a certain embarrassment.

‘Come along! They can set another place… ’ said Maigret.

And he took his wife’s arm across the esplanade. The young couple followed silently. Or rather Marie did the talking, in a low voice but in a firm manner.

‘Do you know what she’s saying to him?’ the inspector asked his wife.

‘Yes! She repeated it to me a dozen times over this morning to know whether it was all right. She’s telling him that she doesn’t mind about anything, whatever may have happened… You see? She’s not mentioning the woman. She’s pretending she doesn’t know, but she told me that all the same she would emphasize the words whatever may have happened… Poor little thing!… She’d go to the ends of the earth for him.’

‘Alas!’ sighed Maigret.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing. Is this our table?’

The lunch went quietly, too quietly. The tables were so close together that one could scarcely talk in an ordinary voice.

To put him at his ease, Maigret avoided looking at Le Clinche, but all the same the operator’s behaviour worried him no less than it did Marie Léonnec, whose face was quite drawn.

Le Clinche remained mournful and dejected. He ate and drank and answered questions, but his thoughts were elsewhere. And several times, when he heard steps behind him, he started as if he thought he was in danger.

The bay windows of the dining-room were wide open and looked on to a sea spangled with sunshine. It was warm. Le Clinche was sitting with his back to the window, but every now and then he would turn round brusquely with a nervous movement, as if to interrogate the horizon.

Madame Maigret made conversation, chiefly addressing the girl, and uttering any commonplace so that the silence might not become oppressive.

The scene was not set for a tragedy — a family hotel, the comforting rattle of plates and glasses, on the table a half-bottle of claret and a bottle of mineral water.

The manager, misunderstanding the situation, came up at dessert and asked:

‘Shall we get a room ready for the gentleman?’

He was looking at Le Clinche. He guessed he was the fiancé, and he probably took the Maigrets for the parents of the girl!

Two or three times the operator made the same gesture as he had made that morning during the identification, a rapid movement of his hand across his forehead. A feeble, weary gesture.

‘What shall we do?’

The room was emptying. The four of them were standing on the terrace.

‘Shall we sit down a little?’ Madame Maigret proposed.

Their beach-chairs were still on the sand.

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