A Crime in Holland Page 4

A black dress moved in front of the inspector. He followed it up a staircase fitted with brand-new carpeting. The Popinga home, no more than ten years old, was built like a doll’s house, with lightweight materials, hollow bricks and pine boards. But the paint which had been applied to all the woodwork gave it a fresh and bright look.

  The bathroom door was the first to be opened. There was a wooden lid over the bath, transforming it into an ironing board. Maigret leaned out of the window, and saw the bicycle shed, the well-kept kitchen garden, and across the fields the town of Delfzijl, few of whose houses had two storeys, and none three.

  Any was waiting at the door.

  ‘I hear you’re carrying out your own investigation,’ Maigret said.

  She shuddered, but didn’t answer, and hurried to open the door of Professor Duclos’s room.

  A brass bedstead. A pitch-pine wardrobe. Lino on the floor.

  ‘And this is whose bedroom?’

  She had to make an effort to speak French.

  ‘Of me … When I am here.’

  ‘And you’ve often stayed here?’

  ‘Yes … I …’

  She was really very shy. The words stuck in her throat. Her eyes looked around for help.

  ‘So since the professor was a guest here, you slept in your brother-in-law’s study?’

  She nodded yes and opened the door. A table laden with books, including new publications on gyroscopic compasses and on radio communication with ships. Some sextants. On the walls, photos of Conrad Popinga in the Far East and Africa in his uniform as first lieutenant or captain.

  There was a display of Malayan weapons. Japanese enamels. On trestles lay some precision tools and a ship’s compass in pieces, which Popinga must have been repairing.

  A divan covered with a blue bedspread.

  ‘And your sister’s room?’

  ‘Here, next door.’

  The study communicated both with the professor’s room and the Popingas’ bedroom, which was furnished more stylishly. An alabaster lamp over the bed. A rather fine Persian carpet. Wooden colonial furniture.

  ‘And you were in the study,’ said Maigret thoughtfully.

  A nod, yes.

  ‘So you couldn’t come out without going either through the professor’s room or your sister’s?’

  Another nod.

  ‘And the professor was in his room. And your sister in hers.’

  She opened her eyes wide, her jaw dropped as if she’d had a terrible shock.

  ‘And, you think …?’

  Maigret muttered as he paced through the three rooms:

  ‘I don’t think anything. I’m searching. I’m eliminating possibilities! And up to now, you are the only one who can logically be eliminated, unless we assume some complicity between you and either Duclos or Madame Popinga.’

  ‘You … you …’

  But he was carrying on talking to himself.

  ‘Duclos might have fired the shot either from his room or the bathroom, that’s clear. Madame Popinga could have gone into the bathroom. But the professor, who went in there immediately after hearing the shot, didn’t see her. On the contrary, he saw her coming out of her room only a few seconds later.’

  Perhaps she was now emerging a little from her shell. The student was taking over from the timid girl, as if inspired by this technical hypothesis.

  ‘Maybe, someone shot from downstairs?’ she said, her gaze now more focused and her thin body alert. ‘The doctor says …’

  ‘True, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the revolver that killed your brother-in-law was certainly the one Duclos was holding. Unless the murderer threw the gun upstairs through the window.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Obviously. Why not?’

  And he went down the stairs, which seemed too narrow for him, the steps creaking under his bulk.

  He found Madame Popinga standing in the dining room, apparently on the spot where he had left her. Any followed him in.

  ‘Did Cornelius come here often?’

  ‘Almost every day. He only had lessons three times a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. But he came on the other days. His parents are in the East Indies. A month ago, he was told that his mother had died. She was dead and buried by the time he got the letter. So …’

  ‘What about Beetje Liewens?’

  There was a slightly awkward silence. Madame Popinga looked at Any. Any looked down.

  ‘She used to come …’

  ‘Often?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you invite her?’

  His questions were getting brusquer, more pointed. Maigret had the feeling he was making progress, if not in discovering the truth, at least in his penetration of the life in this house.

  ‘No … yes.’

  ‘She’s a different kind of person from you and Mademoiselle Any, shall we say?’

  ‘She’s, well, she’s very young, isn’t she? Her father is a friend of Conrad’s. She used to bring us apples, raspberries, cream …’

  ‘And she wasn’t in love with Cornelius?’

  ‘No!’

  That sounded definite.

  ‘You didn’t like her much?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? She came here, she laughed. She chattered all day long. Like a bird, you understand?’

  ‘Do you know Oosting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he have any dealings with your husband?’

  ‘Last year Oosting put a new engine into his boat. So he consulted Conrad. My husband drew up some plans for him. They went hunting for zeehonden – what do you call them in French? – seals, out on the sandbanks.’

  And then suddenly:

  ‘Oh, you think … The cap perhaps? It’s impossible! Oosting!’

  And she wailed, in distress once again:

  ‘No, not Oosting. No! Nobody … Nobody could have killed Conrad. You didn’t know him. He was … he …’

  She turned her head aside, because she was weeping. Maigret preferred to leave. No one shook his hand and he simply bowed, muttering his apologies.

  Outside, he was surprised by the damp coolness rising from the canal. And on the other bank, not far from the boatyard, he saw the Baes, talking to a student wearing the uniform of the Naval College.

  They were both standing in the gathering dusk. Oosting seemed to be speaking insistently. The young man was looking down and only the pale oval of his face could be made out.

  Maigret realized that this must be Cornelius. He was sure of it when he glimpsed a black armband on the blue woollen sleeve.

  4. Logs on the Amsterdiep

  He wasn’t strictly speaking tailing them. At no time did Maigret have the feeling he was spying on anyone. He had been coming out of the Popinga house. He had walked a few steps. He had seen two men on the other side of the canal and had quite simply stopped to observe them. He wasn’t hiding. He was there in full view on the bank, pipe in mouth and hands in pockets.

  But perhaps it was precisely because he wasn’t hiding, and because nevertheless the other men had not seen him as they carried on their intense conversation, that there was something poignant about that moment.

  The bank on which the two men were standing was otherwise deserted. A shed loomed up in the centre of a dry dock where two boats were propped on stays, and a few dinghies lay rotting, hauled up out of the water.

  On the canal itself, the floating tree trunks allowed only a metre or two of the liquid surface to be seen, giving the scene a slightly exotic feel.

  It was evening now. In the semi-darkness, however, the air was still limpid, allowing the colours to retain all their clarity.

  The tranquillity was surprisingly intense, so that the croaking of a frog in a distant marsh was startling.

  The Baes was doing the talking. He did not raise his voice. But he appeared to be enunciating each syllable clearly, wanting to be understood, or obeyed. Head lowered, the young man in his cadet uniform was listening. He was wearing white gloves, showing a
s the only bright spots in the failing light.

  Suddenly there came an ear-splitting sound. A donkey had started to bray in a field somewhere behind Maigret. It was enough to break the charmed silence. Oosting, looking across in the direction of the animal, which was now beseeching the heavens, noticed Maigret, and let his gaze wander over him, but without showing any reaction.

  He said a few more words to his companion, stuck the stem of his clay pipe in his mouth and set off towards the town.

  It meant nothing, proved nothing. Maigret walked on as well, and the two men progressed in step together, one on either bank of the Amsterdiep.

  But the path Oosting was taking soon diverged from the canalside. And the Baes presently disappeared behind some more sheds. For almost a minute, the heavy tread of his wooden clogs could still be heard.

  It was night time now, scarcely a shred of light in the sky. The lamps had just been lit in town and along the canal, where the street lighting stopped at the Wienands’ house. The other bank, uninhabited, remained in darkness.

  Maigret turned round, without knowing why. He groaned as the donkey launched into another bout of desperate heehawing.

  And he glimpsed further along, beyond the houses, two little white patches dancing on the far side of the canal. Cornelius’s gloves.

  To a casual observer, especially one who forgot that the surface of the water was covered with logs, the sight would have been ghostly. Hands waving in the emptiness. The rest of the body melting into the night. And on the water the reflection of the furthest street lamp.

  Oosting’s footsteps could no longer be heard. Maigret walked back towards the outlying houses, passing once more in front of the Popingas’ and then the Wienands’ residence.

  He was still making no effort to hide, but he realized that he too would have been swallowed up by the darkness. He followed the gloves with his eyes. Now he understood. To avoid going by way of Delfzijl, where there was a bridge over the canal, Cornelius was crossing the water using the floating logs as a raft. In the middle, there was a gap of about two metres. The white hands moved more quickly, went up in a rapid arc and the water splashed.

  A few seconds later, he was walking along the bank, and being followed, scarcely a hundred metres behind, by Maigret.

  It was not deliberate on either side, and in any case, Cornelius could not have been aware of the inspector’s presence. All the same, from the first, they were walking in step, so that their crunching footfalls on the cinder path sounded in unison.

  Maigret realized this, because his foot hit a stone at one point, and the synchronicity failed for a micro-second.

  He didn’t know where he was heading. And yet his pace quickened as the young man speeded up. More than that: he felt he was gradually being dragged along in a sort of trance.

  At first the steps ahead of him were long and regular. Then they shortened and became hurried.

  Just as Cornelius was passing the timber yard, a veritable chorus of frogs broke out and the steps stopped abruptly.

  Was Cornelius afraid of something? The footsteps continued, but even less regularly, sometimes hesitating, then on the contrary there would be two or three rapid paces, so that it seemed he might break into a run.

  And now the silence was truly broken, as the frog chorus intensified. It filled the whole night air.

  The steps accelerated. The same process started again. Maigret, by dint of walking in step with the other man, could literally sense his state of mind.

  Cornelius was frightened! He was walking fast because he was afraid. He was anxious to get somewhere. But whenever he passed close to an unfamiliar-looking shadow, a stack of timber, a dead tree, a bush, his foot remained in the air a tenth of a second longer.

  They reached a bend in the canal. A hundred metres ahead, going towards the farm, was the short stretch illuminated intermittently by the beam from the lighthouse. The young man seemed to be disconcerted by the bright swathe of light. He looked behind him. Then he rushed across it, again turning his head.

  He had passed it, and was still casting backward glances, when Maigret calmly entered the illuminated zone, with all his bulk, presence and weight.

  The cadet could not fail to see him. He stopped. Long enough to catch his breath. Then he set off again.

  The light was behind them now. Ahead was a lit window, in the farm. Was the sound of the frogs following them? Although they were moving forward, it stayed close by, surrounding them, as if there were scores of the creatures escorting them.

  A hundred metres from the house, a sudden final stop. A shadow detached itself from a tree trunk. A voice whispered.

  Maigret had no wish to turn round and go back. That would be ridiculous. Nor did he want to hide. In any case it was too late, since he had walked through the lighthouse beam.

  They knew he was there. He went forward slowly, unsettled now that there were no footsteps to echo his own.

  The gloom was intense because of the thick foliage either side of the path. But a white glove showed up ahead, in movement.

  An embrace. Cornelius’s hand around the waist of a girl: Beetje.

  Another fifty metres to go. Maigret paused for a moment, took some matches from his pocket and struck one to light his pipe, thus indicating his exact position.

  Then he stepped forward. The lovers stirred. When he was no more than ten metres away, Beetje’s silhouette detached itself and came to stand in the middle of the path, her face turned towards him, as if waiting for him. Cornelius stayed behind, flattening himself against a tree trunk.

  Eight metres.

  The window at the farm was still lit behind them. A plain reddish rectangle.

  Suddenly there came a strangled cry, an indescribable cry of fear, indicating a loss of nerve, an utterance such as often precedes an outbreak of tearful sobs.

  It was Cornelius weeping, his head in his hands, pressing himself against the tree as if for protection.

  Beetje was standing in front of Maigret. She was wearing a coat, but the inspector noted that underneath she was in her nightdress, her legs were bare and her feet in bedroom slippers.

  ‘Pay no attention!’

  Well, this one was calm at any rate. Indeed she shot a glance at Cornelius, full of reproach and impatience.

  The boy turned his back on them, trying to calm down. He couldn’t manage it and was ashamed of his emotion.

  ‘He’s on edge … He thinks …’

  ‘What does he think?’

  ‘That he’s going to be accused …’

  Cornelius was still keeping his distance. He wiped his eyes. Was he about to make a break for it?

  ‘I haven’t accused anyone yet!’ announced Maigret, for the sake of saying something.

  ‘Of course not!’

  And turning towards her companion, she spoke to him in Dutch. Maigret thought he understood, or guessed, that she was saying:

  ‘You see? The inspector isn’t accusing you. Calm down. This is childish!’

  Then she suddenly stopped speaking. She stayed still, listening. Maigret hadn’t heard anything. A few seconds later, he thought he too could hear the snapping of a twig coming from the farm’s direction. It was enough to rouse Cornelius, who looked round, his features drawn and his senses alerted.

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘Did you hear?’ Beetje whispered. Cornelius tried to move towards the sound, with the bravado of a young cock. He was breathing heavily.

  Too late. The enemy was nearer than they had realized.

  Ten metres away, a figure loomed up, immediately recognizable: Farmer Liewens, in his carpet slippers.

  ‘Beetje!’ he called.

  She did not dare answer at once. But as he repeated her name, she sighed, tremulously:

  ‘Ja.’

  Liewens was still coming forward. He walked past Cornelius, affecting not to notice him. Perhaps he had not yet seen Maigret?

  But it was in front of the latter that he stopped foursquare, eyes blazing
and nostrils quivering with anger. He managed to contain himself, however. And stood quite still. When he spoke, his words were addressed to his daughter, in a harsh, peremptory voice.

  Two or three sentences. She hung her head. Then he repeated the same word several times, in a commanding tone. Beetje spoke in French:

  ‘He wants me to say to you …’

  Her father was watching her as if to guess whether she was translating his words exactly.

  ‘… that in Holland the police do not make arrangements to meet unmarried girls after dark out in the countryside.’

  Maigret blushed as he had rarely had occasion to before. The rush of warm blood made his ears buzz.

  What an idiotic accusation! And made in such bad faith!

  Because there was Cornelius, skulking in the shadows, his eyes anxious and his shoulders hunched!

  And Beetje’s father must surely have known that it was to meet him that she had gone out. So? … What could he say in reply? Especially since he would have to go through an interpreter!

  In any event, nobody waited for his answer. The father snapped his fingers as if to call a dog, and pointed out the path to his daughter, who hesitated, turned towards Maigret, did not dare look at her young admirer, and finally trudged away ahead of her father.

  Cornelius hadn’t moved. He raised a hand as if to stop the farmer’s progress, but let it fall. Father and daughter disappeared into the distance. Shortly afterwards the farmhouse door slammed shut.

  Had the frogs stopped croaking during this scene? It was hard to be sure, but their chorus now reached a deafening pitch.

  ‘Do you speak French?’

  ‘… Little bit.’

  The cadet was looking at Maigret with dislike, opening his mouth to speak only reluctantly, and was standing sideways as if to offer less purchase to an attacker.

  ‘Why are you so frightened?’

  Tears sprang to his eyes, but there were no sobs. Cornelius blew his nose at length. His hands were shaking. Was he going to have another panic attack?

  ‘Do you really think you’re going to be accused of killing your tutor?’

  And Maigret added in a gruff voice:

  ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  He pushed Cornelius in the direction of the town. He spoke slowly, sensing that his listener could only grasp about half his words.