OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

A CRIME IN HOLLAND 229
Maigret, his mind going back once more to Popinga. " He bent his
head just as I am doing as he wheeled his machine in under the
roof/'
Was he deliberately dawdling? He seemed to be waiting for
something to happen. And, as a matter of fact, something did
happen: a little noise above, coming from the bathroom window,
a metallic sound, the click of an unloaded revolver.
It was immediately followed by a scuffle ... the thud of a body,
perhaps two bodies, falling to the flpor.
Maigret nipped into the house by the kitchen door, and dashing
upstairs switched on the bathroom light.
On the floor two men were wrestling. One of them was Pijpekamp,
the other Cornelius Barens. As Maigret entered the room the
latter went limp, and his hand dropped a revolver.
It was the revolver Jean Duclos had been told to replace on the
bathroom window-sill, the revolver that had killed Conrad.
11. The Unwanted Solution
"FOOL!..."
With that one word, Maigret grasped the boy by the collar and
literally picked him up from the floor, holding him for a moment
as, had he let go sooner, the limp body would merely have sunk
down again. Doors were opening, steps approaching.
" Everybody in the drawing-room! " roared Maigret.
He picked up the revolver too. He did not need to handle it
gingerly, as he had himself made arrangements for it to be loaded
with dummy cartridges.
Pijpekamp was straightening his jacket and flicking the dust off
his trousers with the back of his hand. Pointing to Barens, the
professor asked:
" Was it him? "
The young cadet looked more piteous than ever. He didn't look
like a criminal at all, but simply like a guilty schoolboy. He looked
down, avoiding everybody's eye. He fidgeted, not knowing what
to do with his hands.
They all went downstairs into the drawing-room. Any came in