OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

A CRIME IN HOLLAND 185j
of impulsiveness. Her smile was a wise, measured smile, and if she
ever experienced joy, it could only be a wise and measured joy.
At the age of six she must have been a model child. At sixteen she
must have been just what she was today—one of those women
who seem born to be sisters or aunts, nurses or nuns, or widows
busying themselves with charities.
Conrad was gone, yet Maigret had never been so conscious of his
vitality, his ruddy jovial face, his eagerness to taste all the good
things of life—and yet with his timidity, his fear of hurting anybody's
feelings. Conrad turning the knobs of his wireless set, wistfully
switching from Parisian jazz to Hungarian gypsy music or
Viennese musical comedies, or even picking up messages in Morse
from ships on the high seas. . . .
Any came up to her sister, as though the latter was in need of
comfort or support. But, waving her aside, Madame Popinga took
two or three steps towards the inspector.
" It had never entered my mind . . ." she said, hardly above a
whisper. " Never! . . . I was living ... in such peace . . . and then
at his death to find ..."
He guessed from the way she was breathing that she suffered
from some disease of the heart. The next moment she confirmed it
by standing motionless for quite a time with a hand pressed to her
chest.
Someone moved. It was the farmer, a hard wild look in his eye,
who had come up to the table and was gathering up his daughter's
letters, nervously, as a thief who fears to be interrupted.
But Madame Popinga did not attempt to stop him. Nor did
Maigret.
Even when he had them, he did not turn to go. He began speaking,
though he did not seem to be addressing anybody in particular.
More than once Maigret caught the word Frarv[ose, and it seemed
to him that he could at that moment understand Dutch, just as
Liewens had apparently been understanding those letters that had
been translated into French.
What he heard, or thought he heard, was:
" Do you really think it's necessary to tell all this to a Frenchman?
"
His cap dropped to the floor. He stopped to pick it up, bowed
to Any, who was between him and the door—but to her only
—then went out, muttering a few words that probably no one
heard.