OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

212 MAINLY MAIGRET
" Three-quarters of an hour."
" Did you read the lecture? "
" Certainly not. This was the twentieth time I had given it. I
didn't once have to glance at my notes."
" In that case, you were looking at your audience."
Maigret sat down for a moment between Any and Beetje. The
chairs were close together, and he was literally wedged in between
them, his knee pressing against Beetje's.
" At what time did the show finish? "
" Just before nine. We began with some music."
The piano was still open, a polonaise of Chopin still on it. Madame
Popinga was chewing the corner of her handkerchief. Oosting
shuffled his feet on the sawdust-covered floor at the end of the
room. Maigret left his chair and started walking about.
" Monsieur Duclos, will you kindly run through the principal
points of your lecture? "
But Duclos was incapable of speaking, or rather incapable of
doing what he was asked. He hesitated, coughed, and then began
word for word from the beginning:
" I will not insult the intelligent audience I have before me
tonight by . . ."
" Excuse me! You were speaking, I think, of crime. What was
the exact subject? "
" The responsibility of criminals for their actions."
" And you were maintaining? "
" That it is really society itself which is responsible for all the
faults of its members, including those faults which go by the name
of crime.... Life is organized for the greatest possible welfare of
everybody.. . . We have created social classes, and it is essential
that every individual should be properly brought up to take his
place in one of them. . . ."
He stared at the green table-cloth as he spoke. His voice was
faint and lacked all authority.
" That's enough," groaned Maigret. " I know that story: * There
are some individuals who for one reason or another cannot be
fitted into any social class. They are fundamentally inadaptable, or,
if you prefer it, diseased. It is they who provide what we call
criminals and who must therefore be placed in a class of their
own' . .. Something of that sort, wasn't it? We've heard it many
times before.. . . Conclusion: ' Do away with prisons and build
more hospitals.' "