Félicie by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page A

angry glare, like a cat defending her
kittens.
    â€˜Was it love? The real thing?’
    She does not reply, but he persists and hates
himself for persisting. He keeps telling himself he’s wrong, he thinks of Rue Lepic, Rue
Fontaine, of the scared young man who has been going backwards and forwards since last night and
keeps crashing into walls like a panic-stricken bumble-bee.
    â€˜So tell me, was it here that you met this
man?’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Did your employer know?’
    No. He can’t go on like this, interrogating
this girl who does not give a damn about him or his questions. Still, going round to see Madame
Chochoi, as he does next, is not much more clever. He leans his bike against the shop front and
waits until a woman who is buying a tin of peas has gone.
    â€˜Incidentally, Madame Chochoi, did Monsieur
Lapie’s housekeeper have many boyfriends?’
    â€˜I expect she had some.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜At least she used to talk about one.
Always the same one. But that’s her business. She was often down in the dumps, poor
thing.’
    â€˜A married man?’
    â€˜Could have been. That was probably why she
was always talking about setbacks. She never said much tome. If she ever
told anyone about it, it would have been Léontine, the girl who cleans for Monsieur
Forrentin.’
    A man has been murdered and here’s Maigret,
a serious man, a man in the prime of life, worrying his head about the love-life of a girl with
a head full of romantic notions! Romantic to the point where there are whole pages in her diary
like:
    17 June – Feeling down.
    18 June – Feeling blue.
    21 June – The world is a false paradise in which
there isn’t enough happiness to go round.
    22 June – I love him.
    23 June – I love him.
    Maigret moves on to Forrentin’s house and
rings the bell. Léontine, the estate manager’s housemaid, is a girl of about twenty,
with a large moon face. She immediately takes fright. She is afraid of getting her friend into
trouble.
    â€˜Of course she used to tell me everything.
Or at least everything she wanted to tell me. She used to come round often, rush in she would
…’
    He pictures the two of them so clearly, one
open-mouthed in admiration, and Félicie with her coat worn carelessly over her
shoulders.
    â€˜Anyone else here? Oh Léontine, if you
only knew …’
    She talks and talks the way young women talk
among themselves.
    â€˜I saw him … Oh, I’m so
happy!’
    Poor Léontine does not
know how to answer Maigret’s questions.
    â€˜I’ll never say a bad word about her.
Félicie has been so unhappy!’
    â€˜On account of a man?’
    â€˜Several times she said she wished she was
dead.’
    â€˜Didn’t he love her?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Stop tormenting
me.’
    â€˜Do you know his name?’
    â€˜She never told me.’
    â€˜Did you ever see him?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Where did she used to meet him?’
    â€˜I dunno.’
    â€˜Was she his mistress?’
    Léontine blushes and stammers:
    â€˜Once, she told me that if she ever had a
baby …’
    What has any of this to do with the murder of the
old man? But Maigret ploughs on and the further he goes the more he feels plagued by that uneasy
feeling he has whenever he is about to make a blunder.
    It can’t be helped! Here he is, back again
on the terrace of the Anneau d’Or. The woman who operates the post office switchboard is
waving.
    â€˜There have already been two calls from
Paris. They’ll be calling you back any minute now …’
    Janvier again? No, it’s not his voice, it
is a voice unfamiliar to the inspector.
    â€˜Hello? Monsieur Maigret?’
    So it’s not anybody from Quai des
Orfèvres.
    â€˜I’m a waiter in
the buffet at Saint-Lazare station … A customer asked me to phone you and say …