The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

“When?”
“When Justine dies.”
“Why do you have to wait until she isn’t there any more?”
“I tell you she’s jealous of all women. It’s because of her that he hasn’t
married or ever been known to have any mistresses. When from time to time he
needed a woman, it was she who chose the least dangerous one, and she never
ceased giving him advice. Now all that’s over.”
“For whom?”
“For him, of course!”
“And yet he’s still contemplating marriage?”
“Because he has a horror of being left alone. As long as his mother is alive, he
is content. She looks after him like a baby. But she hasn’t much time left. A year
at the outside.”
“Does the doctor say so?”
“She’s got cancer and she is too old to have an operation. As for him he
always imagines he’s going to die. He has fits of breathlessness several times a
day, doesn’t dare stir, as if the least movement might be fatal…”
“So he’s asked you to marry him?”
“Yes. He made sure I was fit enough to look after him. He has even had me
examined by several doctors. Needless to say, Justine knows nothing or she
would have thrown me out a long time ago.”
“And Marcel?”
“I told him.”
“What was his reaction?”
“None. He thought I was right to provide for my old age. I think it pleased
him to know that I would come to live here.”
“Monsieur Émile wasn’t jealous of Marcel?”
“Why should he have been jealous? I’ve already told you there was nothing
between us.”
“In short, that is what you were so anxious to talk to me about?”
“I thought of all the conclusions you would arrive at which don’t correspond
to reality.”
“For example that Marcel might have been able to blackmail Monsieur Émile,
and the latter, to get him out of the way . . .”
“Marcel never blackmailed anyone, and Monsieur Émile would rather die of