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

parents’ castle, too. I was kept away from all the girls who might have become my friends, supposedly because they weren’t my social equals.’
    Her expression changed with striking abruptness.
    â€˜Do you think that Carl has become … I’m not sure how to put it … abnormal?’
    And she leaned forwards, as if to hear the inspector’s reply as quickly as possible.
    â€˜You’re afraid of …?’ exclaimed Maigret in surprise.
    â€˜I didn’t say that! I didn’t mean anything! Please excuse me … You’ve started me talking … I don’t know why I trust you like this … So …’
    â€˜Does he behave oddly at times?’
    She shrugged wearily, crossed and uncrossed her legs, then stood up, uncovering for an instant a flash of skin between the folds of the peignoir.
    â€˜What do you want me to say to you? I don’t know any more. Ever since that business with the car … Why would he have killed a man he didn’t know?’
    â€˜You’re sure you have never seen Isaac Goldberg?’
    â€˜Yes … As far as I know …’
    â€˜You and your brother never went to Antwerp?’
    â€˜We stayed there one night, three years ago, when we arrived from Copenhagen … No, Carl could not do such a thing! If he has become somewhat strange, I’m sure that
his accident is
more to blame than our financial ruin. He was handsome! He still is, when he wears his monocle. But otherwise … Can you see him kissing a woman without that bit of black glass? That staring eye in its red-rimmed socket …’
    She shuddered.
    â€˜That has to be the main reason my brother hides himself away …’
    â€˜But he’s keeping you hidden along with him!’
    â€˜What difference does that make?’
    â€˜You’re being sacrificed.’
    â€˜That’s the lot of every woman, especially a sister. It isn’t quite the same thing here in France. In our country, as in England, only the eldest male counts in the family, the son who will carry on the name.’
    She was growing agitated, puffing hard on her cigarette. She paced up and down through the patterns of sunshine and shadow in the shuttered room.
    â€˜No! Carl could not have killed him. That was all a mistake. Wasn’t it because you realized this that you let him go? … Unless …’
    â€˜Unless?’
    â€˜But you would never admit this! I know that when the police haven’t enough proof, they sometimes release a suspect so that they can catch him for good later on … That would be despicable!’
    She stubbed out her cigarette in the china bowl.
    â€˜If only we hadn’t chosen this awful crossroads … Poor Carl, who wanted to be left alone … But we’re less on our own here, chief inspector, than in the most crowded
neighbourhood in Paris! Across the way are those impossible, ridiculous, narrow-minded people who spy on us, especially her – with that white dust cap every morning and her crooked chignon in the afternoon … Then that garage, a little farther
on … Three groups, three camps is more like it, and all at about the same distance from one another …’
    â€˜Did you ever have any contact with the Michonnets?’
    â€˜No! The man came once, peddling insurance. Carl showed him the door.’
    â€˜And the garage owner?’
    â€˜He has never set foot here.’
    â€˜Was it your brother who wanted to make a run for it on Sunday morning?’
    She was quiet for a moment, hanging her head, her cheeks pink.
    â€˜No,’ she sighed at last, almost inaudibly.
    â€˜It was you?’
    â€˜Yes, me … I hadn’t thought things through. The idea that Carl could have committed a crime almost drove me crazy. I’d seen him in such distress the day