OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

A CRIME IN HOLLAND 233
very much at the age of eighteen, and she thought he'd chuck everything
up to run away with her. •.
" As Madame Popinga's sister, Any is soon on terms of easy
familiarity with Conrad. She comes, so to speak, within his orbit.
If she hasn't Beetje's looks, she is .. . well, she's a woman. I dare
say Popinga had never met anyone of her type before. She may
have aroused his curiosity—a new line! ... Or perhaps it began
only in playfulness. It may have tickled him to think of stealing
Any from her precious books! Anyhow . .."
The voice plodded on through the painful silence.
" I don't say she was his mistress, but with her, too, he had been,
shall we say imprudent. Sufficiently, anyhow, for her to have been
taken in. She fell in love with him, though she was never altogether
blind, like her sister, to the fact that he was a philanderer. . . .
" They were living in this house, a man and two women: Madame
Popinga, blind, serene, and confident; Any, shrewd, passionate, and
jealous. ... It didn't take her long to realize that Conrad was carrying
on with Beetje. Perhaps she'd looked for letters. Perhaps she'd
found them.. . . She had no resentment against her sister. The
latter was Conrad's wife, and she was prepared to accept that. But
with Beetje it was different. She wouldn't admit her right to
Conrad's affections. She couldn't bear the thought that those two
might one day go off together.
" Rather than that. . . Yes, rather than that, wouldn't it be better
to kill him?"
After a moment Maigret began again:
" That's all. Love turned to hate. At least, that's the simple
formula for something that's no doubt very complex. . . . She began
to play with the idea of killing him. She began to wonder how she
could do so without leaving the smallest clue that could point in
her direction. .. .
" And that very evening the professor talked of unpunished
crimes and scientific murder! . . .
" If she's a passionate girl, she is none the less exceedingly proud
of her intelligence. And she certainly is intelligent. She planned it
very well. . . .
" She decided on a cigar-end as a means of throwing suspicion
on an outsider. The alibi was carefully planned. She knew Conrad
would see Beetje home, and knew that a hint would suffice to pin
her sister to the window, watching anxiously for them to pass the
lighted patch