Free My Friend Maigret by Georges Simenon

Marcel’s death?”
    â€œI wanted to explain to you…”
    â€œExplain what?”
    â€œWe remained good friends, Marcel and me, but there was no question of living together. He no longer thought about that. I don’t think he even wanted it. Do you understand? He was enjoying the kind of life he had made for himself. He no longer had any relations with the underworld. Look I saw Charlot, just now…”
    â€œYou know him?”
    â€œI’ve met him here several times. We even ate occasionally at the same table. He’s found girls for me.”
    â€œWere you expecting him to be at Porquerolles today?”
    â€œNo. I swear I’m speaking the truth. It’s your way of putting questions that upsets me. Before, you used to trust me. You were even a little sorry for me. It’s true I’ve no longer anything to be sorry about, have I? I haven’t got TB now!”
    â€œDo you make a lot of money?”
    â€œNot so much as you might think. Justine is very tightfisted. So is her son. I don’t go without anything, of course. I even put a little aside, but not enough to retire on.”
    â€œYou were telling me about Marcel.”
    â€œI can’t remember what I was saying. Oh yes! How can I explain? When you knew him he used to try to play the tough guy. In Paris he was always going to bars where you meet people like Charlot, and even killers. He wanted to look as though he belonged to their gangs and they didn’t take him seriously…”
    â€œHe was a half-and-half, eh?”
    â€œWell, he grew out of it. He grew up seeing those types, and lived in his boat or in his hut. He drank a lot. He always found some means of getting a drink. My money orders used to help him. I know what people think when a man like him is killed…”
    â€œThat is?”
    â€œYou know it, too. People imagine it’s an underworld affair, a settling of accounts, or a revenge. But that isn’t the case.”
    â€œThat’s what you really came to say, isn’t it?”
    â€œFor the last few minutes I’ve lost my train of thought. You’ve changed so much! I’m sorry. I don’t mean physically…”
    He smiled, in spite of himself, at her confusion.
    â€œIn the old days, even in your office in the Quai des Orfèvres, you didn’t remind one of a policeman.”
    â€œYou’re really afraid that I’m going to suspect the old cons? You aren’t in love with Charlot, by any chance?”
    â€œCertainly not. I’d be pretty hard put to it to be in love with anyone after all the operations I’ve been through. I’m not a woman anymore, if you must know. And Charlot doesn’t interest me any more than the others.”
    â€œTell me the rest now.”
    â€œWhat makes you think there is anything else? I give you my word of honor that I don’t know who killed poor Marcel.”
    â€œBut you know who didn’t kill him.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou know whom I might be led to suspect.”
    â€œAfter all, you’ll find out for yourself one of these days, if you haven’t already done so. I would have said so to start off with if you hadn’t questioned me so drily. I’m going to marry Monsieur Émile. There!”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œWhen Justine dies.”
    â€œWhy do you have to wait until she isn’t there anymore?”
    â€œI tell you she’s jealous of all women. It’s because of her that he hasn’t married or even been known to have any mistresses. When, from time to time, he needed a woman, it was she who chose him the least dangerous one, and she never ceased giving him advice. Now all that’s over.”
    â€œFor whom?”
    â€œFor him, of course!”
    â€œAnd yet he’s still contemplating marriage?”
    â€œBecause he has a horror of being left alone. As long as his mother is alive, he is content. She looks after him