Free The Flemish House by Georges Simenon, Georges Simenon; Translated by Shaun Whiteside

Downstairs, a fisherwoman was negotiating with the
     hotel landlord.
    â€˜Some news! It came in this
     morning with the first post …’
    â€˜Just a moment! Would you please
     call downstairs for them to bring me up my breakfast, because there’s no
     service bell …’
    And without leaving his bed, Maigret lit
     a pipe that lay ready filled within his reach.
    â€˜News about whom?’
    â€˜About Germaine
     Piedboeuf.’
    â€˜Dead?’
    â€˜Dead as can be!’
    Machère announced this with delight,
     taking a letter from his pocket, four large-format pages decorated with
     administrative stamps.
Issued by the Public
     Prosecutor’s Office of Huy to the Ministry of the Interior in
     Brussels.
    Issued by the Ministry of the
     Interior to the Sûreté in Paris.
    Issued by the Sûreté to the
     Flying Squad in Nancy.
    Issued to Inspector Machère, in
     Givet …
    â€˜Keep it short, will
     you?’
    â€˜Well, in a few words, she was
     pulled from the Meuse in Huy, about a hundred kilometres from here. Five days ago …
     They didn’t immediately connect it with the request for information that
     I’d made to the Belgian police … But I’ll read it to you …’
    â€˜Can I come in?’
    It was the chambermaid with coffee and
     croissants. When she had left, Machère continued:
    â€˜â€œThis twenty-sixth of
     January, in the year nineteen …”’
    â€˜No, old man! Get straight to the
     point …’
    â€˜Well! It seems almost certain
     that she was murdered. It’s not just conjecture, it’s a material fact …
     Listen: “The body, as far as one can judge, must have been in the water for
     between three weeks and a month … Her state of …”’
    â€˜Keep it short!’ grunted
     Maigret, who was eating.
    â€˜â€œâ€¦ decomposition
     …”’
    â€˜I know! The conclusions! And most
     of all, no description!’
    â€˜There’s a whole page
     …’
    â€˜Of what?’
    â€˜Of description … Well, if you say
     so … It doesn’t come to a definitive conclusion … And yet one thing is
     certain: it’s that Germaine Piedboeuf was dead long before she was put in the
     water … The doctor says: “two or three days before …”’
    Maigret was still dipping his croissant
     in his coffee, eating and looking at the rectangle of the window, and Machère
     thought he wasn’t listening to him.
    â€˜Aren’t you interested in
     this?’
    â€˜Go on.’
    â€˜There’s the detailed
     account of the post-mortem … Do you want me to …? No? … Well! Let me tell you the
     most interesting part … The skull of the corpse had been completely shattered, the
     doctors are fairly sure that death was due to this fracture, produced with a blunt
     instrument, like a hammer or a lump of iron …’
    Maigret put one leg out of bed, then the
     other, and looked at himself in the mirror before beginning to soap his cheeks with
     his shaving brush. As he was shaving, Inspector Machère reread the typed report that
     he was holding.
    â€˜Don’t you think
     that’s extraordinary? Not the hammer blow? I’m talking about the fact
     that the body wasn’t thrown into the water until two or three days after death
     … I will have to pay the Flemings another visit …’
    â€˜Do you have the list of clothes
     that Germaine Piedboeuf was wearing?’
    â€˜Yes … Wait … Black buckled shoes,
     quite badly worn … Black stockings … Poor-quality pink underwear … Black serge
     dress, no brand …’
    â€˜Is that all? No coat?’
    â€˜Hang on! You’re quite right
     …’
    â€˜It was the third of January … It
     was raining … It was cold …’
    Machère’s face darkened. He
     grunted without explaining