The Night at the Crossroads by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online

a passkey. As on the previous day, he walked around the house to the drawing room.
    He knocked but, again, without success. Then, grumbling and obstinate, he went inside, where his eye fell
upon the open phonograph. There was a record on the turntable.
    Why did he start the machine? He would have been at a loss to explain. The needle was scratchy. An Argentinean orchestra played a tango as the inspector started up the stairs.
    The door to Carl Andersen’s bedroom stood open. Near a wardrobe Maigret saw a pair of shoes that seemed to have recently been cleaned, for the brush and tin of polish sat beside them and the floor was dotted with crumbled, dried mud.
    The inspector had made paper tracings of the footprints found in the field. He compared them with the shoes. A perfect match.
    And yet he never so much as blinked. He didn’t seem the least bit pleased. He went on smoking, as grumpy as he’d been all morning.
    â€˜Is that you?’ a woman’s voice inquired.
    Maigret hesitated … He could not see who was speaking: the voice had come from Else’s room, but the door was closed.
    â€˜It’s me,’ he finally replied, as indistinctly as he could.
    Then, a long silence.
    â€˜Who’s there?’ the voice asked abruptly.
    It was too late to fool her.
    â€˜Detective Chief Inspector Maigret. I was here yesterday. I’d like to speak to you for a moment, mademoiselle.’
    More silence. Maigret tried to guess what she could possibly be doing behind that door, beneath which gleamed a thin line of sunlight.
    â€˜I’m listening,’ she said at last.
    â€˜If you’d be good enough to open the door … I can certainly wait, if you need time to dress.’
    That annoying silence again.
    A little laugh, and then, ‘What you ask of me is somewhat difficult, chief inspector!’
    â€˜Why is that?’
    â€˜Because I’m locked in. So you will have to speak without seeing me.’
    â€˜Who locked you in?’
    â€˜My brother Carl … I am the one who asks him to, whenever he goes out, because I’m so terribly afraid of prowlers.’
    Without saying anything, Maigret pulled out his passkey and quietly inserted it in the lock. His throat felt tight; was he troubled by any untoward thoughts?
    And when the bolt shifted, he decided not to open the door before announcing first, ‘I’m going to come in, mademoiselle …’
    A strange sensation: he was in a dark, drab corridor – and stepped immediately into a setting alive with light.
    Although the shutters were closed, the horizontal slats admitted great beams of sunshine.
    The entire room was thus a jigsaw puzzle of darkness and light. The walls, objects, even Else’s face were as if striped in luminous bands. Then there was the young woman’s heavy perfume, plus such incidental details as the silk
underwear tossed on to a bergère, the Turkish cigarette smouldering in a china bowl on a lacquered pedestal table, and finally there was Else, lounging on the black velvet couch in a deep red peignoir.
    Eyes wide open, she watched Maigret come towards her with amused astonishment and, just perhaps, a tiny tremor of fear.
    â€˜What are you doing?’
    â€˜I wanted to talk to you. Please forgive me if I’m disturbing you …’
    She laughed like a little girl. When her peignoir slipped off one shoulder, she pulled it up again but remained lying on or, rather, nestled in the low couch striped with sunlight like the rest of the room.
    â€˜You see? … I wasn’t doing much of anything. I never do!’
    â€˜Why didn’t you go to Paris with your brother?’
    â€˜He doesn’t want me to. He says having a woman around gets in the way when men discuss business.’
    â€˜You never leave the house?’
    â€˜But I do! I take walks around the property.’
    â€˜That’s all?’
    â€˜We have three hectares