Free A Crime in Holland by Georges Simenon

officer.
    â€˜So, concentrate on those two things. I’m going to pay a visit …’
    Pijpekamp was too polite to ask any questions about the visit, but his eyes were full of curiosity.
    â€˜â€¦Â to Mademoiselle Beetje,’ Maigret went on. ‘What’s the quickest way?’
    â€˜Along the Amsterdiep.’
    They could see the Delfzijl pilot boat, a handsome steam vessel of some 500 tons, describing a curve on the Ems before entering port. And the Baes, walking with a slow but heavy tread, full of pent-up emotion, on the deck of his boat, a hundred metres from where the Quayside Rats were soaking up the sunshine.

6. The Letters
    It was purely by chance that Maigret did not follow the Amsterdiep, but took the cross-country path.
    The farm, in the morning sunshine of eleven o’clock, reminded him of his first steps on Dutch soil, the girl in her shiny boots in the modern cowshed, the prim and proper parlour and the teapot in its quilted cosy.
    The same calm reigned now. Very far away, almost at the limit of the infinite horizon, a large brown sail floated above the field looking like some ghost ship sailing in an ocean of grassland.
    As it had the first time, the dog barked. A good five minutes passed before the door opened, and then only a few centimetres wide, enough to let him guess at the red-cheeked face and gingham apron of the maidservant.
    And even so, she was on the point of shutting the door before Maigret could even speak.
    â€˜Mademoiselle Liewens!’ he called.
    The garden separated them. The old woman stayed in the doorway and the inspector was on the other side of the gate. Between them, the dog was watching the intruder and baring its teeth.
    The servant shook her head. ‘She isn’t here … 
Niet hier.
’
    Maigret had by now picked up a few words in Dutch.
    â€˜And monsieur … 
Mijnheer
?’
    A final negative sign and the door closed. But as the inspector did not go away immediately, it budged, just a few millimetres this time, and Maigret guessed the old woman was spying on him.
    If he was lingering, it was because he had seen a curtain stir at the window he knew to be that of the daughter of the house. Behind the curtain, the blur of a face. Hard to see, but what Maigret did make out was a slight hand movement, which might have been a simple greeting, but more probably meant: ‘I’m here. Don’t insist. Watch out.’
    The old woman behind the door meant one thing. This pale hand another. As did the dog jumping up at the gate and barking. All around, the cows in the fields looked artificial in their stillness.
    Maigret risked a little experiment. He took a couple of steps forward, as if to go through the gate after all. He could not resist a smile, since not only did the door shut hurriedly, but even the dog, so fierce before, withdrew, tail between its legs.
    This time the inspector did leave, taking the Amsterdiep towpath. All that this reception had told him was that Beetje had been confined to the house, and that orders had been given by the farmer not to let the Frenchman in.
    Maigret puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. He looked for a moment at the stacks of timber where Beetje and Popinga had stopped, probably many times, holding their bicycles with one hand, while embracing each other with a free arm.
    And what still dominated the scene was the calm. A serene, almost too perfect calm. A calm that might make
a Frenchman believe that all of life here was as artificial as a picture postcard.
    For instance, he turned round suddenly and saw only a few metres away a high-stemmed boat, which he had not heard approaching. He recognized the sail, which was wider than the canal. It was the same sail he had seen only a short time ago far away on the horizon, and yet it was here already, without it seeming possible that it could have covered the distance so quickly.
    At the helm was a woman, a baby at her breast, nudging the