The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

Marcellin ever happen to go up to see her in her bedroom?”
“Certainly not. He was very respectful toward her.”
“Can I speak to you like a grownup, Jojo?”
“I’m nineteen, you know.”
“Good. Did Marcellin have relations with women, now and again?”
“Certainly.”
“On the island?”
“With Nine, to start with. That’s my cousin. She does it with everybody. It
seems she can’t help it.”
“On board his boat?”
“Anywhere. Then with the widow Lambert, who keeps the café on the other
side of the square. He would sometimes spend the night with her. When he was
fishing perch he would bring them to her. I suppose, now he’s dead, I can tell
you: Marcellin fished with dynamite.”
“There was never any question of his marrying the widow Lambert?”
“I don’t think she wants to remarry.”
And Jojo’s smile let it be understood that the widow Lambert was no ordinary
person.
“Is that all, Jojo?”
“Yes. I’d better be going down again.”
Ginette wasn’t asleep either. She lay in the next room, just behind the
partition, so that Maigret had the impression that he could hear her breathing. It
made him feel uncomfortable because when he turned over, half asleep, he
sometimes banged the partition with his elbow and each time that must have
made her jump.
It had been a very long time before she went off to, sleep. What could she
have been doing? Seeing to her face or her toilet? The silence at times was so
absolute in the bedroom that Maigret wondered if she was in the middle of
writing something. Especially as the attic window was too high for her to be able
to lean out and breathe the fresh air.
That famous smell again… It was, quite simply, the smell of Porquerolles. He
had caught it at the end of the jetty a short while ago with Mr. Pyke. There were
whiffs of smells from the water, overheated by the sun during the day and others
coming from the land, with the breeze. Weren’t the trees in the square
eucalyptus? There were probably other sources of smells on the island.
Who was it crossing the passage again? Mr. Pyke? It was the third time.