Maigret and the Spinster by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page B

that he had formerly been a lawyer. He was occasionally asked to give legal advice.
    By now, he had joined the chosen few who were admitted behind the scenes. He was no longer received as a client but as a friend.
    “Have you heard that the house on Rue d’Antin is up for sale? Dédé has had some trouble, and he’s leaving next week for South America…With five hundred thousand francs to his credit…”
    Maigret seemed to be lost in a dream. His head lowered, he was staring at the faded red fitted carpet. Suddenly he started. He thought he had heard a sound from the floor above. For a second, he had imagined it came from Madame Boynet’s apartment. The thought of Cécile…
    “It’s only Nouchi,” said Monsieur Dandurand, with a characteristically mirthless smile.
    Obviously, since Cécile was dead!
    Cécile was dead! At that very moment, the Chief Commissioner of the Police Judiciaire, playing bridge at a friend’s house, was briefly describing the scene in the broom closet, the body hunched against the wall, the tall figure of Maigret bending over it.
    “What did
he
say?”
    “Nothing…he just stood there with his hands in his pockets…I think he was harder hit than at any time during his career. Then he left the building. I would be greatly surprised if he got any sleep tonight…Poor old Maigret.”
    Maigret tapped out his pipe on the heel of his shoe, emptying the ash onto the carpet.
    “Did you look after Madame Boynet’s business interests?” he asked, speaking slowly with a wry mouth, as if the words had a bitter taste.
    “I knew her and her sister in Fontenay-le-Comte…You might almost say we were neighbors. It was only when I took a lease on this apartment that I discovered she owned the building. She was a widow by that time…You never knew her when she was alive, did you? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that she was mad, but she was certainly something of an eccentric. She was obsessed with money. She kept her entire fortune in the apartment, because she was terrified of being robbed by the banks.”
    “Very much to your advantage, I don’t doubt!”
    It did not take much effort of imagination for Maigret to envisage this man worming his way into the confidence of the elderly women who ran the establishments which he patronized. Later, Monsieur Dandurand had taken a step up the ladder and become acquainted with the landlords, whom he would join in a game of
belote
in the evenings in some bar in Montmartre.
    Thus, Maître Charles Dandurand, lawyer from Fontenay, had been transformed into Monsieur Charles, adviser and associate of these gentlemen, who reposed great trust in him, since, being in the know as he was, he could be extremely useful to them in many ways.
    “It was all to her advantage, Chief Superintendent!”
    His long, bloodless, hairy hands fidgeted with the pipes on the table. His nostrils also sprouted tufts of gray hair.
    “Surely you must have heard of old Juliette? It’s true, you’ve always specialized in murder. But your colleague, Cassieux…It all started with the house on Rue d’Antin, which was up for sale. I mentioned it to Madame Boynet, whom I always called Juliette, since we had known one another from the time when we were young. Juliette bought it. A year later, I acquired Le Paradis in Béziers on her behalf, and that is one of the most profitable establishments of its kind in the country.”
    “Did she know what sort of place you were investing her money in?”
    “Look, Chief Superintendent, I’ve known a few misers in my time…a lawyer in the provinces meets all sorts of people. But their greed was nothing in comparison with Juliette’s. Money had a sort of mystical fascination for her. Ask anyone in the
milieu,
as you call it at police headquarters…ask them how many of their establishments are owned by Juliette. Allow me to quote you a few figures…”
    He got up and took from a wall safe a grubby ledger. As he turned over the pages, he licked his