The Cellars of the Majestic Read online

  ‘That’s old Bariteau on his way to laying his eel nets. He won’t be back for another two hours.’

  How could old Bariteau see his way in all this blackness? God knows. You sensed the presence of the sea, very close, just at the end of the narrows. You could breathe it in. It was swelling, irresistibly invading the straits.

  Maigret mind wandered, he couldn’t have said why. He thought of the recent merger of the Police Judiciaire and the Sûreté Générale and of certain points of friction that … Luçon! He had been sent to Luçon, where …

  ‘Look …’

  Hulot gripped his arm nervously.

  No, it really was unbelievable! The idea that these two old people … That ladder held by Didine … The naval binoculars … And those calculations of tides! …

  ‘The lights have been switched off.’

  What was so extraordinary, at this hour, about seeing all the lights go out in the judge’s house?

  ‘Come. We can’t see well enough …’

  All the same, Maigret found himself walking on tiptoe in order not to shake the planks of the bridge. That siren lowing like a hoarse cow …

  The water had almost reached the wooden sheds. A foot struck a broken basket.

  ‘Shhh!’

  And then they saw the door of the judge’s house open.

  A short, sprightly man appeared in the doorway, looked left and right and went back into the passage. A moment later, the improbable happened. The little man reappeared, bent over, gripping a long object that he started dragging through the mud.

  It must have been heavy. After four metres, he stopped to catch his breath. The front door of the house had been left open. The sea was still twenty or thirty metres away.

  ‘Oof …’

  They sensed that ‘oof’, sensed the physical effort he must be making. The rain was still falling. Hulot’s hand trembled convulsively on Maigret’s thick sleeve.

  ‘You see!’

  Oh, yes! It had happened just as the old woman had said, just as the former customs officer had predicted. That little man was clearly Judge Forlacroix. And what he was dragging in the mud was definitely the lifeless body of a man!

  THE BEGINNING

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  First published in French as Les Caves du Majestic by Éditions Gallimard 1942

  This translation first published 2015

  Copyright 1942 by Georges Simenon Limited

  Translation copyright © Howard Curtis, 2015

  GEORGES SIMENON ® Simenon.tm

  MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited

  Cover photograph (detail) © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos

  Front cover design by Alceu Chiesorin Nunes

  All rights reserved

  The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted

  ISBN: 978-0-141-98067-6