OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

316 MAINLY MAIGRET
Maigret smoked, his brow set.
" At his first interrogation, Le Clinche lied and talked about a
man with yellow shoes who had killed Fallut.... The man with
the yellow shoes was Buzier. ... Confronted with him, Le Clinche
withdrew his statement. ..."
Why did he lie, unless to save the third person, that is to say,
the murderer? And why wouldn't Le Clinche reveal his name?
Far from it! He let himself be imprisoned in his place! He scarcely
defended himself when there was every chance that he would be
found guilty!
He was gloomy, like a man eaten up with remorse. He did not
dare look his fiancee or Maigret in the eyes.
And one tiny detail: before he returned to the trawler he went
to the Rendezvous des Terre-Neuvas and, upstairs in his room, he
burned his papers. . . .
When he got out of prison he was quite joyless, even when Marie
Leonnec was there, urging him to be optimistic.. • . And he found
a way of getting hold of a revolver. . . .
He was afraid. ... He hesitated. . . . For a long time he had
remained with his eyes closed and his finger on the trigger. ...
Then he had fired....
•
As the night wore on the air became cooler and the breeze more
charged with the musty smell of seaweed and iodine.
The trawler had risen a few feet. The bridge was now on a level
with the quay, and the suction of the tide made it lurch sideways
and caused the gangway to creak.
Maigret had forgotten his fatigue. The worst hour had passed.
Day was near.
He drew up a list:
Captain Fallut, who had been taken off the anchor-chain, dead.
Adele and Gaston Buzier, who were always quarrelling, fed up
with each other and yet with no one else to turn to.
Le Clinche, who had been wheeled out on a stretcher, swathed
in white, from the operating-theatre.
And Marie Leonnec.
And those men who, even when they were drunk, at the Rendezvous
des Terre-Neuvas, remembered something terrible.
" The third day! " said Maigret aloud. " That's where we'll have