Free Maigret's Holiday by Georges Simenon

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    â€˜He can’t help it … He
can’t stop himself nicking little things … It’s not even to sell them,
mind you … It’s togive them to women … Because he
always needs to impress them …’
    She burst out laughing, giving Fernand a
knowing look:
    â€˜You impress them with what you can,
isn’t that right, monsieur?’
    Maigret dined in a corner, all alone, and
he wasn’t wearing exactly the expression they were familiar with at the Hôtel
Bel Air. Monsieur Léonard waited for him in vain for their nightly chat in the back
room. Once Maigret had finished eating, he went for a walk in the dark. The sky was
studded with light from the gas lamps and the waves were phosphorescent.
    It was still too early, barely nine thirty.
He walked past the doctor’s house and saw that the lights were on. Then he came to
the port, the little cafés where you have to go inside to sit down for a moment. He
would have found it hard to say what was going on in his mind. His thoughts were vague,
slightly disjointed. They began with Sister Marie des Anges. The calm convent atmosphere
that was rubbing off on Madame Maigret herself.
    Then the doctor and his beautiful, genteel
house, his calm way of speaking and his piercing eyes.
    Then, suddenly, a flaxen-haired girl sent
him to the sordid underbelly of the Hôtel Bellevue, and there was Fernand the
butcher, and the plump Laurence with her raucous laugh.
    There were few passers-by in the narrow
streets, where there was the occasional yellowish oblong of a shop and most of the
windows were open. People went to bed early.From the street you could
almost imagine them, tossing and turning in beds damp with sweat. Sometimes, passing a
dark window, he heard whisperings, so close that he felt as if he were intruding on
someone’s privacy and was tempted to walk on tiptoe, like at the hospital.
    He asked for Madame Popineau’s house.
It stood at the end of the dock, in the new part of town, a fine house built of pretty
pink bricks. The shop’s shutters were closed. It had its own front door, in
varnished oak, with a brass letterbox and door knob. He bent over and peeked through the
keyhole like when he was a child, and saw a light inside.
    It was eleven o’clock. When he rang
the bell he heard the sound of a chair being scraped back, voices, footsteps. The door
opened into a corridor that smelled of linoleum, with a bamboo coat stand to the right,
and house plants in earthenware plant-pot holders.
    â€˜Forgive me, madame …’
    In front of him stood a woman of around the
same build as the plump Laurence, short and fat too, but a brunette, wearing the local
costume, with a pretty starched headdress that lit up her face.
    â€˜What is it?’ she asked, trying
to fathom out his features in the dark.
    â€˜I’d like to have a few words
with Francis.’
    â€˜Come in.’
    The door on the left was ajar. It opened
into a dining room that looked brand new, with its red and yellow linoleum, brass
plant-pot holders, knick-knacks and carved oak Henry II-style furniture.
    Doctor Bellamy’s butler was there, in
felt slippers,wearing no jacket or waistcoat, his open shirt revealing
his chest. Ensconced deep in an armchair, his legs crossed, a small glass within reach,
a pipe in his mouth, he was quietly reading the newspaper.
    There was another armchair facing him, that
of La Popine, with another small glass and an illustrated weekly.
    â€˜It’s Monsieur Maigret who wants
to talk to you, Francis …’
    The Belgian was less surprised than Maigret
himself.
    â€˜You know me?’ asked
Maigret.
    â€˜Don’t think that I don’t
see you walk past every day! … I recognized you at once, at least a week ago
… I said to Babette, I did: “That, my love, is the famous Detective Chief
Inspector Maigret, or I’m not La Popine …”
    â€˜I think I’ve still