A Crime in Holland Read online

  She was amazed that Maigret didn’t know of the professor, whom she had assumed to be a national celebrity in France.

  ‘He’s a top lawyer. A specialist on crime, and what’s the right word? Psychology of crime? He was giving this talk on the responsibility of criminals. That’s right, is it? You must correct me if I make mistakes. Madame Popinga chairs the committee and the lecturers always stay at her house.

  ‘At ten p.m. there was a small private party. Professor Duclos, Conrad Popinga and his wife. Wienands and his wife and children. And me … It was at the Popingas’. About a kilometre from here, it’s on the Amsterdiep like this house. The Amsterdiep is the canal you can see. We had a glass of wine and some cakes. Conrad switched on the wireless. Oh yes, I nearly forgot, Any was there, Madame Popinga’s sister, she’s a lawyer too … Conrad wanted people to dance. They rolled back the carpet. The Wienands family left early because of the children. The little one was crying. They live next door to the Popingas. And at midnight, Any was feeling sleepy. I had my bike. Conrad saw me back home, he took his bike too.

  ‘When I got back here, my father was waiting up for me. And it was only next day that we heard what had happened. All of Delfzijl was in an uproar.

  ‘I don’t think it was my fault. When Conrad got back home, he went to put his bike in the shed behind the house. And someone shot him with a revolver! He fell down, and in half an hour he was dead. Poor Conrad! With his mouth open.’

  She wiped away a tear, which looked incongruous on that smooth cheek as pink as a rosy ripe apple.

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘Yes. The police came from headquarters at Groningen to help the local gendarmes. They said the shot had been fired from inside the house. Apparently, the professor was seen right afterwards holding a revolver in his hand. And that was the gun that had been fired.’

  ‘Professor Jean Duclos?’

  ‘Yes! So they didn’t let him leave.’

  ‘So, in all, in the house at that time, there were just Madame Popinga, her sister Any and Professor Duclos?’

  ‘Ja!’

  ‘And that evening, the other people present were the Wienands family, yourself and Conrad …’

  ‘And oh yes, there was Cor … I forgot.’

  ‘Cor?’

  ‘Short for Cornelius, a pupil at the Naval College. He was taking private lessons.’

  ‘When did he leave?’

  ‘The same time as Conrad and me. But he would have turned left on his bike, to get back to the college boat, which is moored on the Ems Canal. Do you take sugar?’

  Steam rose from the teacups. A car had just stopped at the foot of the three steps up to the house. Shortly afterwards, a large burly man, grey-haired, with a serious expression, entered the room: his bulk emphasizing his calm presence.

  This was Farmer Liewens, waiting for his daughter to introduce the visitor.

  He shook Maigret’s hand vigorously, but without saying anything.

  ‘My father doesn’t speak French.’

  She served the farmer a cup of tea, which he drank standing up, with small sips. Then she told him about the calf’s birth, speaking in Dutch.

  She must also have mentioned the part played by the inspector in that event, since her father looked at him in astonishment tinged with irony, before, with a stiff bow, going off to the cowshed.

  ‘So, is the professor in prison?’ Maigret asked.

  ‘No, he’s at the Van Hasselt Hotel, with a gendarme attached to him.’

  ‘And Conrad?’

  ‘His body has been taken to Groningen … Thirty kilometres away. A big town with a university, population a hundred thousand. Where Jean Duclos had been welcomed the day before. It’s all so dreadful, isn’t it? Nobody can understand it.’

  Dreadful, perhaps. But it was hard to feel that way! No doubt because of the clear air, the cosy, welcoming surroundings, the tea steaming on the table and the little town itself, looking like a toy village someone had set down by the seaside for fun.

  By leaning out of the window one could see, looming over the brick houses, the smokestack and gangway of a large cargo vessel being unloaded. And the boats floating down the Ems towards the sea.

  ‘Did Conrad usually accompany you home?’

  ‘Every time I went to their house. He was a good friend.’

  ‘And Madame Popinga didn’t mind?’

  Maigret made the remark almost at random, since his gaze had fallen on the young woman’s tempting bosom, and perhaps because the sight of it had brought some warmth to his own cheeks.

  ‘Why would she?’

  ‘I don’t know. Night time … the two of you …’

  She laughed, showing healthy teeth.

  ‘In Holland, it’s always … Cor used to see me home too.’

  ‘And he wasn’t in love with you?’

  She didn’t say yes or no. She chuckled. A little chuckle of satisfied coquettishness.

  Through the window, her father could be seen taking the calf out of the shed, carrying it like a baby and placing it on the grass in the field, in the sunlight.

  The creature wobbled on its slender legs, almost fell to its knees, then suddenly tried to gallop for a few metres before stopping still.

  ‘And Conrad never kissed you?’

  Another laugh, accompanied by a very slight blush.

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘And Cor?’

  This time she was more formal, looking away for a moment.

  ‘Yes, he did too, but why do you ask?’

  She looked at him oddly. Perhaps she was expecting Maigret to kiss her as well.

  Her father was calling from outside. She opened the window. He spoke to her in Dutch. When she turned back, it was to say:

  ‘Excuse me, please. I have to go to town to find the mayor, about the calf’s pedigree. It’s very important. You’re not going to Delfzijl too?’

  He went out with her. She took the handlebars of her nickel-plated bicycle and walked alongside him, swinging her hips, already those of a mature woman.

  ‘It’s so beautiful here, isn’t it? Poor Conrad! He will never see it again. The swimming opens tomorrow. He used to come every day, other years. He’d stay in the water for an hour.’

  Maigret, as he walked, kept his eyes on the ground.

  2. The Baes’s Cap

  Contrary to his usual habit, Maigret noted down a few physical details, mainly topographical, and that was in fact a true case of intuition, since, in the end, the solution proved to be a matter of minutes and metres.

  Between the Liewens farm and the Popinga residence, the distance was about twelve hundred metres. Both buildings were on the bank of the canal, and to go from one to the other, the only route was the towpath.

  This canal had more or less fallen into disuse, following the construction of a much wider and deeper channel, the Ems Canal, linking Delfzijl to Groningen.

  The smaller canal, the Amsterdiep, silted up, meandering and shaded by fine trees, was now used almost exclusively for floating timber, and by the occasional boat of low tonnage.

  A few farms scattered about. A boatyard for repairs.

  On leaving the Popinga house to go to the farm, the next building one reached, just thirty metres away, was the Wienands villa. Then came a plot under construction. After that, a long empty stretch, and the timber yard with its stacks of wood.

  Beyond the yard came another uninhabited section, preceded by a bend in the canal and the path. From there, the Popinga windows were clearly visible, as was, just to the left, the white-painted lighthouse on the far side of the town.

  ‘Does the lighthouse have a revolving beam?’ Maigret asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So at night, it must light up this part of the road …’

  ‘Yes,’ she exclaimed again, with a little laugh, as if it brought back some happy memory.

  ‘Not too good for courting couples!’ he concluded.

  She left him before they reached th
e Popinga house, claiming that she could take a short cut, but probably so as not to be seen in his company.

  Maigret did not stop. The house was modern, brick-built, with a small garden in front, a vegetable plot behind, a path along the right-hand side, and a patch of waste ground on the left.

  He preferred to head for the town, only five hundred metres further along. His steps took him to the lock separating the canal from the harbour. The basin was crammed with boats of between a hundred and three hundred tons, moored side by side, masts in the air, forming a floating world.

  On the left was the Van Hasselt Hotel, into which he walked.

  A dark lounge with varnished woodwork, and a complex smell of beer, genever and furniture polish. A large billiard table. Another table with newspapers stretched on brass rods.

  A man sitting in the corner stood up as soon as Maigret arrived and came to meet him.

  ‘Are you the man the French police have sent me?’

  He was tall and gaunt, with a long face, sharp features, horn-rimmed glasses and a crew cut.

  ‘You must be Professor Duclos,’ Maigret replied.

  He hadn’t expected him to look so young. Duclos was about thirty-five to thirty-eight. But there was something slightly unusual about him that struck Maigret.

  ‘You’re from Nancy?’

  ‘I have the chair of sociology in the university there.’

  ‘But you weren’t born in France?’

  It was as if a little tussle had started.

  ‘I was born in French Switzerland. But I’ve been naturalized a French citizen. I completed all my studies in Paris and Montpellier.’

  ‘And you’re a Protestant?’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  By nothing and everything! Duclos belonged to a category of men that the inspector knew well. Men of science. Study for study’s sake. Ideas for ideas. A certain austerity of manner and lifestyle, combined with a taste for international contacts. A passion for lectures, conferences and exchanges of letters with foreign correspondents.

  He seemed rather on edge, if this could be said of a man whose expression never changed. On his table stood a bottle of mineral water, together with two fat books and a sheaf of papers.

  ‘I don’t see the policeman who’s supposed to be keeping you under observation.’

  ‘I gave my word of honour I wouldn’t leave here. Although, I have to tell you, I’m expected by literary and scientific gatherings in Emden, Hamburg and Bremen. I was due to give my lecture in those three towns, before …’

  A large blonde woman, the hotel proprietress, appeared and Jean Duclos explained to her in Dutch who the visitor was.

  ‘I just took a chance in asking for a French policeman to be sent here. In fact, I am hoping to be able to shed light on this mystery myself.’

  ‘Can you tell me what you know?’

  And Maigret slumped into a chair before ordering:

  ‘A Bols … in a big glass.’

  ‘Here are some diagrams, done exactly to scale. I can give you a copy. The first is the ground floor of the Popinga house. With the corridor on the left, the parlour and dining room on the right. The kitchen at the back, and behind it a shed where Popinga kept his boat and the bicycles.’

  ‘Were you all in the parlour?’

  ‘Yes. Madame Popinga and Any went twice into the kitchen to make tea, because the housemaid had gone to bed. And here’s the first floor: at the back, over the kitchen, is a bathroom; at the front of the house there are two rooms: on the left, the Popingas’ bedroom; on the right a study, where Any slept on a divan. And at the back was the bedroom they had given me.’

  ‘Which rooms could the shot have been fired from?’

  ‘My bedroom, the bathroom and the dining room downstairs.’

  ‘So tell me about the evening.’

  ‘My lecture was a triumph. I gave it in the hall you can see there.’

  A long room, decorated with paper chains, and evidently used for dances, banquets and dramatic productions. A stage with scenery representing the grounds of a chateau.

  ‘Then we went to the Amsterdiep.’

  ‘Along the canal bank? Can you tell me what order you went in?’

  ‘I went ahead with Madame Popinga, who is a highly educated woman. Conrad Popinga was flirting with that silly little girl from the farm, who can only giggle and hadn’t understood a word of my talk. Then there were the Wienands, and Any, and some pupil of Popinga’s, an anaemic-looking boy.’

  ‘You arrived at the house …’

  ‘They will have told you that my lecture was about the responsibility of murderers. Madame Popinga’s sister, Any, who has finished her law degree and will start teaching in the autumn, asked me for some details. We were led to discuss the role of the lawyer in criminal cases. Then we talked about forensics, and I remember I suggested she read some books by Professor Grosz of Vienna. I maintained that to commit a crime with impunity is virtually impossible. I talked about fingerprints, the analysis of all kinds of material traces and calculations … But Conrad Popinga kept pressing me to listen to Radio-Paris!’

  Maigret showed only the shadow of a smile.

  ‘And he succeeded. They were playing some jazz. Popinga went to fetch a bottle of cognac, and was amazed to find a Frenchman who didn’t drink it. He took some himself, and so did the girl from the farm … They were very merry … They started dancing. “Just like in Paris!” Popinga was shouting.’

  ‘You didn’t like him!’ Maigret remarked.

  ‘An uncouth fellow, of no interest! Wienands, although he is mostly concerned with mathematics, was listening to us. A baby started to cry. The Wienands left. The farmer’s daughter was in high spirits. Conrad offered to see her home, and they both went off on their bicycles. Madame Popinga showed me to my room. I sorted out some papers from my briefcase. I was just going to take notes for a book I’m writing when I heard a gunshot, from so close by that it could almost have been fired in my room. I rushed outside. The bathroom door was ajar. I pushed it. The window was wide open. And someone was groaning in the garden, near the bicycle shed.’

  ‘Was the light on in the bathroom?’

  ‘No. I leaned out of the window. And my hand touched the butt of a revolver, which I automatically picked up … I thought I saw someone lying on the ground near the shed. I made to go downstairs. And I bumped into Madame Popinga, who was coming out of her room, in shock. We both ran downstairs. We had got as far as the kitchen when we were joined by Any, who was so alarmed that she had come down in nothing but her petticoat. You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.’

  ‘And Popinga?’

  ‘Half-dead. He looked up at us with great agonized eyes, clutching at his chest with one hand. At the moment I tried to lift him up, he stiffened. He was dead, a bullet through the heart.’

  ‘And that’s all you know?’

  ‘We telephoned the gendarmerie, and the doctor. We called Wienands out, and he came to help us … I sensed a certain awkwardness around me. I’d forgotten that I had been seen holding the revolver. The gendarmes reminded me of this and asked me to explain. Then they requested me politely to remain available for further questioning.’

  ‘And that was six days ago.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been working on the problem, trying to resolve it, because it is a problem. See these papers?’

  Maigret tapped out his pipe, without looking at the papers in question.

  ‘And you haven’t left the hotel?’

  ‘I could do, but I prefer to avoid any incidents. Popinga was very popular with his pupils and you meet them all the time around town.’

  ‘And no physical clue has been found.’

  ‘Ah yes, sorry. Any, who is carrying out her own investigation and hoping to identify the killer too, although she doesn’t go about it methodically, sometimes brings me some more information. You ought to know that the bath in the Popinga bathroom is covered with a wooden lid, which converts it into an ironing board. The
day after the murder, they took the lid off and found a shabby seaman’s cap, which had never been seen in the house before. On the ground floor, a police search found the end of a cigar on the dining room carpet, very dark tobacco, Manila I think, such as none of them smoked, Popinga, Wienands or the young pupil. And I never smoke. And yet the dining room had been swept after dinner.’

  ‘From which you deduce …’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Jean Duclos. ‘I’ll draw my conclusions in my own good time. I apologize for bringing you all the way here. And they could have picked a policeman who knew the language. You can be useful to me only in the event that they take any measures regarding me, in which case you would have to make an official protest.’

  Maigret stroked his nose, while smiling a truly delicious smile.

  ‘Are you married, Monsieur Duclos?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And before this you were not acquainted with the Popingas, or the little sister Any, or any of the other people present?’

  ‘No, none of them. They knew me, by reputation …’

  ‘Naturally! Of course!’

  And Maigret picked up the two carefully plotted diagrams, stuffed them in his pocket, touched his hat and went out.

  The police station was modern, well-lit and comfortable. Maigret was expected. The station master had reported his arrival and they were astonished not to have seen him yet.

  He went in as if to his own office, took off his light spring overcoat and placed his hat on a chair.

  The inspector who had been sent from Groningen spoke French slowly and rather pedantically. A tall, blond, clean-cut young man, of remarkably affable manner, he underlined every sentence with a little nod, which seemed to indicate: ‘You get my meaning? We are agreed on this?’

  Although in truth Maigret hardly gave him time to start speaking.

  ‘Since you’ve been on this case for six days,’ he said, ‘you must have checked the times.’

  ‘What times?’

  ‘It would be interesting for instance to know exactly how many minutes the victim took to escort Mademoiselle Beetje home, and then return. Wait! I’d also like to know what time Mademoiselle Beetje actually set foot back in the farm, where her father was waiting up for her, and he ought to be able to tell you that. And lastly, the time that young Cor arrived back at the college boat, where there is no doubt a night watchman.’