Free A Crime in Holland by Georges Simenon Page A

tiller with her hip. And a man sat astride the bowsprit, legs hanging over the water, while he repaired the bobstay.
    The boat glided past first the Wienands’ house, then that of the Popingas, and the sail was higher than either roof. For a moment, it hid the entire façade, with its huge moving shadow.
    Once again, Maigret stopped. He hesitated. The Popingas’ maidservant was on her knees, scrubbing the front step, head down, hips in the air, and the door stood open.
    She gave a start as she sensed him behind her. The hand holding the floor cloth was shaking.
    â€˜Madame Popinga?’ he said, indicating the interior of the house.
    She tried to go ahead of him, but she got up awkwardly, because of the cloth, which was dripping with dirty water. He was the first to enter the corridor. Hearing a man’s voice in the parlour, he knocked at the door.
    There was a sudden silence. A total, uncompromising silence. And more than silence: expectation, as if life had been momentarily suspended.
    Then footsteps. A hand touched the doorknob from inside. The door began to move. Maigret saw first of all Any, who had just opened it for him, and who gave him an unfriendly stare. Then he made out the silhouette of a man standing at the table, wearing a thick tweed suit and tawny gaiters.
    Farmer Liewens.
    And finally, leaning her elbow on the mantelpiece and shielding her face with her hand, Madame Popinga.
    It was clear that the intruder’s arrival had interrupted an important conversation, a dramatic scene, probably an argument.
    On the table covered with a lace cloth, some letters were randomly scattered, as if they had been thrown down violently.
    The farmer’s face was the most animated, but it was also the countenance that froze most immediately.
    â€˜I’m afraid I’m disturbing you …’ Maigret began.
    Nobody spoke. Not a word from anyone. Only Madame Popinga, after a tearful glance round, left the room and went almost at a run towards the kitchen.
    â€˜Please believe that I am very sorry to have interrupted your conversation.’
    At last Liewens spoke, in Dutch. He addressed a few evidently cutting remarks to the young woman, and Maigret could not help asking:
    â€˜What does he say?’
    â€˜That he will be back. That the French police …’
    She looked embarrassed as she cast about for a way to continue.
    â€˜â€¦Â have incredibly bad manners, perhaps,’ Maigret finished the sentence. ‘We have already had occasion to meet, Monsieur Liewens and I.’
    The other man tried to guess what they were saying, paying attention to Maigret’s intonation and expression. And the inspector, for his part, let his eyes fall on to the letters and on the signature at the bottom of one of them:
Conrad
.
    The embarrassment was now at its height. The farmer moved to pick up his cap from a chair, but could not resign himself to leaving.
    â€˜He has just brought you letters that your brother-in-law wrote to his daughter.’
    â€˜How did you know?’
    For heaven’s sake! The scene was so easy to reconstruct, in that atmosphere thick with emotion: Liewens arriving, holding his breath in his efforts to contain his anger. Liewens being shown into the parlour, and into the presence of the two terrified women, then suddenly speaking to them and throwing the letters on the table. Madame Popinga, distraught, hiding her face in her hands, perhaps refusing to believe the evidence, or so distressed that she was unable to speak. And Any trying to stand up to the man, arguing …
    And it was at this point that he had knocked on the door. Everyone had frozen and Any had let him in.
    In his reconstruction of events, Maigret was mistaken in one respect at least, the character of one of the people concerned. For Madame Popinga, whom he imagined to
be in the kitchen, devastated by this revelation, completely overcome and without any strength, entered the room a few