OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

THE SAILORS' RENDEZVOUS 317
to look! Something happened more terrifying than jealousy. And
yet something which was a direct result of the presence of Adele on
board, . • •
The effort was painful. There was a tension in all his faculties.
The ship swayed imperceptibly. There was a light in the fo'c's'le
where the sailors were getting up.
" The third day ..."
Then his throat tightened. He looked at the quarter-deck and
then at the quay where lately a man had stooped down and shaken
his fist.
Perhaps it was the effect of the cold. In any case, a shudder passed
over him.
The third day. The cabin-boy .. . Jean-Marie, who had stamped
his foot and hadn't wanted to go . . . and was washed overboard
by a wave ... in the night....
Maigret stared round the deck as if trying to find the exact place
where the catastrophe had occurred.
" There were only two witnesses, Captain Fallut and the
operator, Le Clinche. The next day, or the day after, Le Clinche
became Adele's lover. ..."
It was a clean break. Maigret didn't wait an instant longer. Someone
was moving in the fo'c's'le. Without being seen, he crossed the
plank which connected the ship with the land.
And, lugubriously, his hands in his pockets, his nose blue with
the cold, he went back to the Hotel de la Plage.
It wasn't yet day, but it was no longer night, for on the sea the
crests of the waves loomed up, crudely white. And the seagulls
made light splashes on the sky.
A train whistled in the station. An old woman went off towards
the rocks, her basket on her back, a hooked stick in her hand, to
catch crabs.
10. What Happened on the Third Day
WHEN Maigret came down from his room at about eight in the
morning he felt light in the head and heavy in the chest, as if he
had been drinking too much.
" Isn't it going as it should? " his wife asked him.