A Crime in Holland Read online

‘And that’s just one little incident. Plenty more where that came from! As I said, every one of the seams of Popinga’s uniform of respectability was bursting open. Just try to work out what a sin it is here to get drunk! And his pupils had seen him in that state. That was probably why they were so fond of him!

  ‘And now, try to imagine the atmosphere in that house on the banks of the Amsterdiep. Think of Madame Popinga and Any.

  ‘Look out of the window. On both sides you can see to the edge of the town. It’s tiny. Everyone knows everyone else. Scandal takes about an hour to reach the entire population. Including Popinga’s relations with the man they call the Baes, and who is a kind of brigand, I have to say. They went seal-hunting together. And Popinga used to knock back spirits on Oosting’s boat.

  ‘I’m not asking you to come to a conclusion right away. I would just repeat this sentence: if the crime was committed by someone in the house, the whole house is guilty.

  ‘Then there is that silly little girl, Beetje. Popinga never missed a chance of seeing her home. Shall I give you an idea of what she’s like? Beetje is the only female round here who goes swimming every day, and not wearing a decent bathing-dress with a skirt, like all the other ladies, but in a skin-tight costume. Bright red, what’s more!

  ‘I’ll let you carry on with your inquiries. I just wanted to give you a few elements that the police tend to overlook.

  ‘As for Cornelius Barens, as I see it, he’s part of the family, on the female side.

  ‘So on one hand, if you like, you have Madame Popinga, her sister Any and Cornelius. On the other, Beetje, Oosting and Popinga. If you have understood what I’ve told you, you might get somewhere.’

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ said Maigret gravely.

  ‘Yes, I’m listening.’

  ‘Are you a Protestant too?’

  ‘I am, yes, but I don’t belong to the Dutch Reformed Church. It isn’t the same …’

  ‘So which side of the barricades are you on?’

  ‘I didn’t like Popinga …’

  ‘So …’

  ‘I disapprove of crime, of whatever kind.’

  ‘Didn’t he play jazz music and dance while you were talking to the ladies?’

  ‘That’s another aspect of his character that I didn’t think to tell you about.’

  Maigret looked splendidly serious, solemn indeed, as he stood up, saying:

  ‘So in sum, who do you advise me to arrest?’

  Professor Duclos gave a start.

  ‘I didn’t mention arresting anyone. I have given you some general indications in the realm of pure ideas, if I may say so.’

  ‘Of course. But in my place …?’

  ‘I’m not the police. I am looking for truth for truth’s sake and even the fact that I am myself under suspicion is not capable of influencing my judgement.’

  ‘So I shouldn’t arrest anyone?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, I …’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Maigret, extending his hand.

  And he tapped his glass with a coin to call Madame Van Hasselt over. Duclos looked at him disapprovingly.

  ‘Not the kind of thing one should do here,’ he murmured. ‘At least not if you want to be taken for a gentleman.’

  The trapdoor for rolling the beer barrels into the cellar was being closed. Maigret paid his bill, and gave a last glance at the plans.

  ‘So, either you, or the whole family …’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Listen …’

  But Maigret was already at the door. Once his back was turned, he allowed his features to relax, and if he didn’t burst out laughing at least he had a delighted smile on his face.

  Outside he found himself bathed in sunlight, gentle warmth and calm. The ironmonger was at the door of his workshop. The little Jewish chandler was counting his anchors and marking them with red paint.

  The crane was still unloading coal. Several schippers were hoisting their sails, not because they were leaving, but to allow the canvas to dry. And among the forest of masts they looked like great curtains, brown and white, flapping gently in the breeze.

  Oosting was smoking his clay pipe on the afterdeck of his boat. A few Quayside Rats were chatting quietly.

  But turning towards the town, one could see the smug residences of the local bourgeoisie, freshly painted, with their sparkling panes, immaculate net curtains and pot plants in every window. Beyond those windows, impenetrable shadows.

  Perhaps the scene had taken on a new meaning since his conversation with Jean Duclos.

  On one hand, the port, the men in clogs, the boats and sails, the tang of tar and salt water.

  On the other, those houses with their polished furniture and dark wall-hangings, where people could gossip behind closed doors for a fortnight about a lecturer at the Naval College who had had a glass too many one evening.

  The same sky, of heavenly limpidity. But what a frontier between these two worlds!

  Then Maigret imagined Popinga, whom he had never seen, even in death, but who had had a ruddy round face, reflecting his crude appetites.

  He imagined him standing at that frontier, gazing at Oosting’s boat, or at some five-master whose crew had put in to every port in South America, or perhaps at the Dutch steamers that had plied in China alongside junks full of slim women who looked like beautiful porcelain dolls.

  And all he had was an English dinghy, highly varnished and fitted with brass trimmings, to sail the flat waters of the Amsterdiep, where you had to navigate through floating tree trunks from Scandinavia or some tropical rainforest!

  It seemed to Maigret that the Baes was looking at him meaningfully, as if he would have liked to come over and talk to him. But that was impossible! They would have been unable to exchange two words.

  Oosting knew that, and stayed where he was, simply puffing a little faster on his pipe, his eyelids half-closed in the sunlight.

  At this time of day, Cornelius Barens would be sitting on a college bench, listening to a lecture on trigonometry or astronomy. No doubt he was still pale in the face.

  Maigret was about to go and sit on a bronze bollard when he saw Pijpekamp coming towards him, hand held out.

  ‘Did you find anything this morning aboard the boat?’

  ‘Not yet … It’s just a formality.’

  ‘You suspect Oosting?’

  ‘Well, there was the cap …’

  ‘And the cigar!’

  ‘No. The Baes only smokes Brazilian cigars, and that was a Manila.’

  ‘So?’

  Pijpekamp drew him further along the quay, so as not to be under the nose of the overlord of Workum Island.

  ‘The compass on board used to belong to a ship from Helsingfors. The lifebelts came from an English collier … And there’s plenty more like that …’

  ‘Stolen?’

  ‘No. It’s always the way. Whenever a cargo vessel comes into the port, there’s invariably someone, an engineer, a third officer, an ordinary seaman, sometimes even the captain, who wants to sell something. You see? They tell the company that the lifebelts were swept overboard in a storm, or that the compass didn’t work. Emergency flares, whatever you can think of. Sometimes even a dinghy!’

  ‘So that doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘No. See the Jewish chandler over there, he makes his living from this second-hand trade.’

  ‘So your investigation …’

  Pijpekamp turned away, looking awkward.

  ‘I told you that Beetje Liewens hadn’t gone straight home. She retraced her footsteps. That’s how you say it, yes? In French?’

  ‘Yes, yes, go on!’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t fire the gun …’

  ‘Ah.’

  The Dutchman was definitely ill at ease. He felt the need to drop his voice, and to take Maigret towards a completely deserted part of the quayside before going on.

  ‘There’s that timber yard … You see what I mean. The timmerman … In French you say the sawyer, so, yes, the sa
wyer claims he saw Beetje and Monsieur Popinga. Yes. The two of them.’

  ‘Hiding behind a stack of timber, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, and I think …’

  ‘You think …?’

  ‘There may have been two other people nearby. That’s the thing. The boy from the college, Cornelius Barens. He’s been wanting to marry that girl. We found a photo of her in his satchel.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘And also Monsieur Liewens, Beetje’s father. Very important man. He raises cattle for export. He even sends some to Australia. He’s a widower, and she’s his only child.’

  ‘So he might have killed Popinga?’

  Pijpekamp was so embarrassed that Maigret almost felt sorry for him. It was clearly very painful for him to accuse an important man, someone who raised cattle for export to Australia, no less.

  ‘If he saw, you know …’

  Maigret was relentless.

  ‘If he saw what?’

  ‘Near the timber stacks. Beetje and Popinga …’

  ‘Ah yes.’

  ‘This is completely confidential …’

  ‘Good Lord, yes. But what about Barens?’

  ‘He might have seen them too. And perhaps he was jealous. But he was back in college five minutes after the shooting. That’s what I don’t understand.’

  ‘So to sum up,’ said Maigret, in the same solemn tones he had used when speaking to Duclos, ‘you suspect both Beetje’s father and her admirer, Cornelius.’

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘And you also suspect Oosting, whose cap was found in the bath.’

  Pijpekamp made a gesture of discouragement.

  ‘And of course, there’s also the man who left a Manila cheroot in the dining room. How many cigar shops are there in Delfzijl?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘That doesn’t help. And finally, you suspect Professor Duclos.’

  ‘Because he was holding the gun. I can’t allow him to leave. You do see that.’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  They walked on about fifty metres in silence.

  ‘So what do you think?’ said the Groningen policeman, at last.

  ‘That is the question. And that’s the difference between us. You think something. In fact, you think a great many things. But I’m not aware of thinking anything yet.’

  Then suddenly a question:

  ‘Did Beetje Liewens know the Baes?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did Cornelius know him?’

  Pijpekamp rubbed his forehead.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. I can find out.’

  ‘That’s it. Try to find out if they were acquainted at all before the murder.’

  ‘You think …?’

  ‘I don’t think anything at all. One more question. Can they get wireless reception on Workum?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Another thing to find out, then.’

  It was hard to say quite how it had happened, but now there was a kind of hierarchy between Maigret and his companion, who was looking up to him almost as if he were his superior officer.

  ‘So, concentrate on those two things. I’m going to pay a visit …’

  Pijpekamp was too polite to ask any questions about the visit, but his eyes were full of curiosity.

  ‘… to Mademoiselle Beetje,’ Maigret went on. ‘What’s the quickest way?’

  ‘Along the Amsterdiep.’

  They could see the Delfzijl pilot boat, a handsome steam vessel of some 500 tons, describing a curve on the Ems before entering port. And the Baes, walking with a slow but heavy tread, full of pent-up emotion, on the deck of his boat, a hundred metres from where the Quayside Rats were soaking up the sunshine.

  6. The Letters

  It was purely by chance that Maigret did not follow the Amsterdiep, but took the cross-country path.

  The farm, in the morning sunshine of eleven o’clock, reminded him of his first steps on Dutch soil, the girl in her shiny boots in the modern cowshed, the prim and proper parlour and the teapot in its quilted cosy.

  The same calm reigned now. Very far away, almost at the limit of the infinite horizon, a large brown sail floated above the field looking like some ghost ship sailing in an ocean of grassland.

  As it had the first time, the dog barked. A good five minutes passed before the door opened, and then only a few centimetres wide, enough to let him guess at the red-cheeked face and gingham apron of the maidservant.

  And even so, she was on the point of shutting the door before Maigret could even speak.

  ‘Mademoiselle Liewens!’ he called.

  The garden separated them. The old woman stayed in the doorway and the inspector was on the other side of the gate. Between them, the dog was watching the intruder and baring its teeth.

  The servant shook her head. ‘She isn’t here … Niet hier.’

  Maigret had by now picked up a few words in Dutch.

  ‘And monsieur … Mijnheer?’

  A final negative sign and the door closed. But as the inspector did not go away immediately, it budged, just a few millimetres this time, and Maigret guessed the old woman was spying on him.

  If he was lingering, it was because he had seen a curtain stir at the window he knew to be that of the daughter of the house. Behind the curtain, the blur of a face. Hard to see, but what Maigret did make out was a slight hand movement, which might have been a simple greeting, but more probably meant: ‘I’m here. Don’t insist. Watch out.’

  The old woman behind the door meant one thing. This pale hand another. As did the dog jumping up at the gate and barking. All around, the cows in the fields looked artificial in their stillness.

  Maigret risked a little experiment. He took a couple of steps forward, as if to go through the gate after all. He could not resist a smile, since not only did the door shut hurriedly, but even the dog, so fierce before, withdrew, tail between its legs.

  This time the inspector did leave, taking the Amsterdiep towpath. All that this reception had told him was that Beetje had been confined to the house, and that orders had been given by the farmer not to let the Frenchman in.

  Maigret puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. He looked for a moment at the stacks of timber where Beetje and Popinga had stopped, probably many times, holding their bicycles with one hand, while embracing each other with a free arm.

  And what still dominated the scene was the calm. A serene, almost too perfect calm. A calm that might make a Frenchman believe that all of life here was as artificial as a picture postcard.

  For instance, he turned round suddenly and saw only a few metres away a high-stemmed boat, which he had not heard approaching. He recognized the sail, which was wider than the canal. It was the same sail he had seen only a short time ago far away on the horizon, and yet it was here already, without it seeming possible that it could have covered the distance so quickly.

  At the helm was a woman, a baby at her breast, nudging the tiller with her hip. And a man sat astride the bowsprit, legs hanging over the water, while he repaired the bobstay.

  The boat glided past first the Wienands’ house, then that of the Popingas, and the sail was higher than either roof. For a moment, it hid the entire façade, with its huge moving shadow.

  Once again, Maigret stopped. He hesitated. The Popingas’ maidservant was on her knees, scrubbing the front step, head down, hips in the air, and the door stood open.

  She gave a start as she sensed him behind her. The hand holding the floor cloth was shaking.

  ‘Madame Popinga?’ he said, indicating the interior of the house.

  She tried to go ahead of him, but she got up awkwardly, because of the cloth, which was dripping with dirty water. He was the first to enter the corridor. Hearing a man’s voice in the parlour, he knocked at the door.

  There was a sudden silence. A total, uncompromising silence. And more than silence: expectation, as if life had been momentarily suspended.

  Th
en footsteps. A hand touched the doorknob from inside. The door began to move. Maigret saw first of all Any, who had just opened it for him, and who gave him an unfriendly stare. Then he made out the silhouette of a man standing at the table, wearing a thick tweed suit and tawny gaiters.

  Farmer Liewens.

  And finally, leaning her elbow on the mantelpiece and shielding her face with her hand, Madame Popinga.

  It was clear that the intruder’s arrival had interrupted an important conversation, a dramatic scene, probably an argument.

  On the table covered with a lace cloth, some letters were randomly scattered, as if they had been thrown down violently.

  The farmer’s face was the most animated, but it was also the countenance that froze most immediately.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m disturbing you …’ Maigret began.

  Nobody spoke. Not a word from anyone. Only Madame Popinga, after a tearful glance round, left the room and went almost at a run towards the kitchen.

  ‘Please believe that I am very sorry to have interrupted your conversation.’

  At last Liewens spoke, in Dutch. He addressed a few evidently cutting remarks to the young woman, and Maigret could not help asking:

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘That he will be back. That the French police …’

  She looked embarrassed as she cast about for a way to continue.

  ‘… have incredibly bad manners, perhaps,’ Maigret finished the sentence. ‘We have already had occasion to meet, Monsieur Liewens and I.’

  The other man tried to guess what they were saying, paying attention to Maigret’s intonation and expression. And the inspector, for his part, let his eyes fall on to the letters and on the signature at the bottom of one of them: Conrad.

  The embarrassment was now at its height. The farmer moved to pick up his cap from a chair, but could not resign himself to leaving.

  ‘He has just brought you letters that your brother-in-law wrote to his daughter.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  For heaven’s sake! The scene was so easy to reconstruct, in that atmosphere thick with emotion: Liewens arriving, holding his breath in his efforts to contain his anger. Liewens being shown into the parlour, and into the presence of the two terrified women, then suddenly speaking to them and throwing the letters on the table. Madame Popinga, distraught, hiding her face in her hands, perhaps refusing to believe the evidence, or so distressed that she was unable to speak. And Any trying to stand up to the man, arguing …