The Misty Harbour by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online

fisherfolk … The father never did much of anything.
     Died during the war. The mother must still be peddling fish in the streets, when she
     isn’t swilling red wine in bistros …’
    For the second time, thinking of Julie,
     Maigret smiled to himself. He remembered her arriving in his office in Paris, neat
     as a pin in her blue suit, a determined little thing …
    And that very
     morning, when she struggled so clumsily, like a child, to keep him from taking her
     brother’s letter.
    Joris’ house was already fading
     into the mist. There was no light any more upstairs, where the body had lain, or in
     the dining room, only the light in the front hall and probably at the back of the
     house, in the kitchen, where the two women were keeping Julie company.
    Some lock workers now came in from the
     harbour but, sizing up the situation, went off to a table in the back to play some
     dominoes. The lighthouse lit up.
    ‘The same again!’ called the
     captain, pointing to the glasses. ‘This one’s on me.’
    When Maigret asked the next question,
     his voice sounded strangely soft, almost velvety.
    ‘If Joris were alive right now,
     where would he be? Here?’
    ‘No! At home. In his
     slippers.’
    ‘In the dining room? In his
     bedroom?’
    ‘In the kitchen. With the evening
     paper. And then he’d read one of those books on gardening. He’d fallen
     head over heels for flowers. Just look at his garden! Still full of them, although
     it’s late in the season.’
    The other men laughed, but were a trifle
     chagrined at not having a passion for flowers instead of haunting their beloved
     tavern.
    ‘He never went hunting?’
    ‘Not often … A few
     times, when he was invited.’
    ‘With the mayor?’
    ‘When the shooting was good,
     they’d go off to the duck blind together.’
    The place was so poorly lit that it was
     difficult to see the
domino players
     through the smoky haze. A big stove made the air even heavier. Outside, it was
     almost evening, but the fog turned this darkness more oppressive, almost sinister.
     The fog horn was still sounding. Maigret’s pipe made faint sizzling
     noises.
    Leaning back in his chair, he half
     closed his eyes, trying to piece together his scattered clues floating in a formless
     mass.
    ‘Joris vanished for six weeks only
     to return with a cracked and patched-up skull,’ he murmured, without realizing
     that he was speaking out loud.
    Then poison is waiting for him on the
     day he comes home!
    And Julie doesn’t find her
     brother’s note in the pantry cupboard until the next day …
    Maigret heaved a great sigh and
     muttered, ‘So: someone tried to kill him. Then someone got him back on his
     feet. Then someone finished him off. Unless …’
    For these three statements did not fit
     together. Then he had an outlandish idea, so outlandish that it startled him.
    ‘Unless this someone wasn’t
     trying to kill him that first time? And was only trying to affect his
     reason?’
    Hadn’t the doctors in Paris
     affirmed that his operation could only have been performed by a highly skilled
     surgeon?
    But does one fracture a man’s
     skull to steal away his mind?
    And besides! What proof was there that
     Joris had lost his mind for ever?
    The others watched Maigret in respectful
     silence. The customs official simply signalled to the waitress for another
     round.
    And they sat off
     in their corners in the fug of the tavern, each in a reverie slightly blurred by
     drink.
    They heard three cars go by: the public
     prosecutor’s party was returning to Caen after the Grandmaisons’
     reception. By now Captain Joris’ body was already in a cold room at the
     Institut Médico-Légal.
    No one spoke. Dominoes clicked on the
     unvarnished wooden table. The puzzling crime, it seemed, had gradually come to weigh
     heavily on everyone’s mind. They felt it hanging, almost visibly, over their
     heads. Their faces creased into scowls.
    The youngest of the customs