OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

A CRIME IN HOLLAND 211
A few hours before, she had been strung up to tragic pitch.
There was nothing left of it now. She looked older. Her coat was
so badly made that one shoulder looked broader than the other.
One couldn't help noticing her big feet, and also a scar on her neck
below the ear.
Any cut a still poorer figure. Her features had never been so
irregular. Her clothes were absurd, and there was even something
mean about them.
Madame Popinga took her place in the middle of the front row.
The place of honour. The last time she had sat there, widi all
Delfzijl behind her, she had been pink with pride.
" Who sat beside you? "
" The captain of the training-ship."
" And on the other side? "
" Monsieur Wienands."
The latter was requested to take his place. He still had his overcoat
on. He sat down awkwardly, trying not to catch anybody's eye.
" And Madame Wienands? "
" At the end of the row, because of the children."
" Beetje?"
The girl took her seat before Madame Popinga could answer.
She was two places away from Any, the chair between them being
the one Conrad Popinga had sat in.
Pijpekamp stood in the background. He was uneasy and
altogether out of his depth. Jean Duclos was dejectedly waiting to
be called upon to play his part.
" Go up on to the platform," said Maigret.
Of all the people in the room he was perhaps the most pitiable.
Standing on the platform, thin, badly dressed, lifeless, it was impossible
to imagine him having been the great attraction a few nights
before.
Another pause. The silence was as bleak as that miserable light
which fell from the high ceiling. Four or five times Oosting coughed
at the back of die room.
Even Maigret could hardly have been called comfortable. He
looked mournfully at the spurious drama which he was staging,
his eye resting on one character after the other, taking in the
smallest details—the way Beetje sat in her chair, Any's skirt, which
was too long, the professor's dirty fingernails as he stood drumming
on the table, trying not to look too silly.
" How long did you speak? "