OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

*5* MAINLY MAIGRET
Jiis boat, in which he would spend his summer evenings on the
Amsterdiep. He was a very hard worker... • Who could have done
such a thing? "
Maigret said nothing, and she went on, reddening slightly, in a
tone she might have used had she been taken to task.
" I'm not accusing anybody ... I don't know . . . that is, I don't
want to think. . . . It's only the police who thought of Professor
Duclos because he was holding the revolver. . .. I've really no idea
. .. it's too terrible. But there it is—someone killed Conrad. .. .
Why? Why him? And not even for robbery. . .. Then what could
it have been for? "
" You spoke to the police about what you saw from your
window. ..."
She reddened still more. She was standing leaning with one hand
on the tea-table.
" I didn't know whether I ought to or not. I don't for a moment
think Beetje had anything to do with it. . . . Only, as I happened
to look out of the window, I saw . . . And I've heard that the most
insignificant details can help the police. ... I asked the pastor what
he thought about it, and he said I ought to speak. .. . Beetje is a
good girl. . . . Really, I can't imagine who . . . But whoever it is,
it's someone who ought to be in an asylum."
Unlike Beetje, she did not have to grope for her words. Her
French was easy, and only tinctured with the faintest of accents.
" Any told me you'd come from Paris on account of Conrad's
death. Is that really so? "
She was getting very much calmer. Her sister, still keeping to her
corner, did not move, and Maigret could only see her reflection in
a mirror.
" I expect you'd like to see the house? "
She seemed resigned to it, though she added with a sigh:
" Would you like to go with . . . Any . . . ? "
The girl's black figure stalked past th£ inspector 5 , and he followed
it up the newly-carpeted stairs. The house, which could not have
been more than ten years old, was lightly built of hollow brick and
wood, but it was so well kept and so well painted as to be perfect
in its way. Almost too perfect, suggesting an ornament or a model
rather than a real dwelling-place.
The bathroom door was the first to be opened. The wooden
cover was lowered over the bath, which was thus transformed into
an ironing-table. Leaning out of the window, Maigret saw the