OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

3°°
MAINLY MAIGRBT
" We'll try and save him! " he answered the inspector. " The
intestine is perforated in seven places. What one might call a dirty
wound! We've cleared it all up...."
And he pointed to tubs full of blood, cotton-wool, and disinfectants.
" I can tell you it was a hell of a job... ."
They were in excellent spirits, doctor, assistants, and nurses.
When it had been brought in, the case had been as bad as it possibly
could be, filthy, the stomach gaping open and burnt, with fragments
of clothing encrusted in the flesh.
Now it was a clean body that was wheeled out on the stretcher.
And the stomach was carefully sewn up.
The rest would come later. Perhaps Le Clinche would recover
consciousness, perhaps not. At the hospital they did not even try
to find out who he was.
" There's really a chance that he'll pull through? "
" Why not? I saw worse cases in the war. .. ."
Maigret had immediately telephoned to the Hdtel de la Plage to
reassure Marie Leonnec. Now he went off by himself. The hospital
door closed behind him on its well-oiled hinges. It was night, the
street with its little bourgeois houses was deserted.
He had not taken ten steps when a figure emerged from the
shadow of a wall and Adele's face was revealed in the light of a
street-lamp.
" Is he dead? " she snapped at him.
She must have been waiting for hours. Her face was drawn and
the love-locks on her temples had lost their curl.
" Not yet! " Maigret answered in the same tone.
" Is he going to die? "
" Perhaps.... Perhaps not. ..'."
" You believe I meant to do it? "
" I don't believe anything."
"... because it's not true... ."
The inspector walked on. She followed him and had to walk
very quickly to keep up with him.
" You'll admit that at bottom it was his fault."
Maigret pretended not to hear, but she persisted stubbornly.
" You know perfectly well what I mean. On board, he all but
asked me to marry him. But once he was on shore ..."
She wouldn't be put off. She seemed to be impelled by an
irrepressible need to talk.