A Crime in Holland by Georges Simenon Page B

content. And above all, everyone keeps his instincts under control, because that’s the rule here, and a necessity if people want to live in society. Pijpekamp will confirm that burglaries are extremely rare. It’s true that someone who steals a loaf of bread can expect a jail sentence of at least a few weeks. But where do you see any disorder? There are no prowlers. No beggars. This is a place of clean living and organization.’
    â€˜And I’m the bull in the china shop!’
    â€˜Hear me out! See the houses on the left, by the Amsterdiep? They’re the residences of the city elders, wealthy men, powerful locally. Everyone knows them. There’s the mayor, the church ministers, the teachers and civil servants, everyone who sees to it that nothing disturbs the peace of the town, that everyone knows his place and isn’t a nuisance to his neighbours. These people, as I think I’ve already told you, don’t even approve of one of
their number going to a café, because it would be setting a bad example. Then a crime is committed. And
you
suspect some family quarrel.’
    Maigret listened to all this as he watched the boats, their decks riding higher than the quayside now, like a series of brightly coloured walls, since it was high tide.
    â€˜I don’t know what Pijpekamp thinks,’ Duclos went on. ‘Certainly he’s well-respected. What I do know is that it would be preferable, and in everyone’s interest, to announce this evening that Popinga’s murderer was some foreign seaman, and that the search is still under way. For everyone’s sake. Better for Madame Popinga. For her family. For her father, too, who’s an eminent intellectual. For Beetje and
her
father. But above all for the sake of example! For all the people living in the little houses in this town, who watch what happens in the big houses on the Amsterdiep and are ready to do the same. But you, you want truth for truth’s sake, for the glory of solving a difficult case.’
    â€˜Is that what Pijpekamp said to you this morning? And he took the opportunity, didn’t he, to ask you how he could discourage my persistent habit of raising awkward questions? And you told him that in France, men like me can be bought off with a good lunch, or even a tip.’
    â€˜No such precise words passed our lips.’
    â€˜Do you know what I think, Monsieur Jean Duclos?’
    Maigret had stopped, the better to admire the panorama. A tiny little boat, kitted out as a shop, was chugging along from ship to ship, barge to yacht trailing petrol fumes and selling bread, spices, tobacco, pipes and genever.
    â€˜I’m listening.’
    â€˜I think you were lucky to come out of the bathroom holding the revolver.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Nothing. Just tell me, again, that you saw nobody in the bathroom.’
    â€˜That’s right, I didn’t see anybody.’
    â€˜And you didn’t hear anything either?’
    Duclos turned his head away.
    â€˜Nothing very clearly. Perhaps just a feeling that something moved under the lid of the bath.’
    â€˜Oh, excuse me – I see there’s someone waiting for me.’
    And Maigret strode off briskly towards the entrance of the Van Hasselt, where Beetje Liewens could be seen pacing up and down on the pavement, looking out for him.
    She tried to smile at him, as she had before, but this time her smile was joyless. She seemed nervous. She went on glancing down the street, as if afraid of seeing someone appear.
    â€˜I’ve been waiting almost half an hour for you.’
    â€˜Will you come inside?’
    â€˜Not to the café, please.’
    In the corridor, he hesitated for a second. He couldn’t take her to his room either. He pushed open the door of the ballroom, a huge empty space where voices echoed as if in a church.
    In broad daylight, the stage looked dusty and lacklustre. The piano was open. A bass drum