The Night at the Crossroads (17 page)

Here was a landscape that had little in common with picture-postcard Holland, and was a hundred times more Nordic in character than he had imagined.

Just a little town: ten to fifteen streets at most, paved with handsome red bricks, laid down as regularly as tiles on a kitchen floor. Low-rise houses, also built of brick, and copiously decorated with woodwork, in bright cheerful colours.

It looked like a toy town. All the more so since around this toy town ran a dyke, encircling it completely. Some of the stretches of water within the dyke could be closed off when the sea ran high, by means of heavy gates like those of a lock.

Beyond lay the mouth of the Ems. The North Sea. A long strip of silver water. Cargo vessels unloading under the cranes on a quayside. Canals and an infinity of sailing vessels the size of barges and just as heavy, but built to withstand ocean swells.

The sun was shining. The station master wore a smart orange cap, with which he unaffectedly greeted the unknown traveller.

Opposite the station, a café. Maigret went inside and hardly dared sit down. Not only was it as highly polished as a bourgeois dining room, it had the same intimate feeling.

A single table, with all the daily papers set out on brass rods. The proprietor, who was drinking beer with two customers, stood up to welcome the newcomer.

‘Do you speak French?' Maigret asked.

A negative gesture. Slight embarrassment.

‘Can you give me a beer … 
bier
?'

Once he was seated, he took the slip of paper from his pocket. The last name on the list was the one that his eyes lighted on. He showed it, pronouncing the name two or three times.

‘Liewens.'

The three men began conferring together. Then one of them, a big fellow wearing a sailor's cap, got up and beckoned to Maigret to follow him. Since the inspector had no Dutch currency yet, and offered to pay with a hundred-franc note, he was told repeatedly:

‘
Morgen! Morgen!
'

Tomorrow would do! He could just come back.

It was homely. There was something very simple, naive even, about it. Without a word, his guide led Maigret through the streets of the little town. On their left was a shed full of ancient anchors, rigging, chains, buoys and compasses, spilling out on to the pavement. Further along, a sail-maker was working in his doorway.

And the window of the confectioner's shop displayed a bewildering choice of chocolates and elaborate sweetmeats.

‘No speak English?'

Maigret shook his head.

‘
Deutsch?
'

Same reply, and the man resigned himself to silence. At the end of one street, they were already in the countryside: green fields, a canal in which floating logs from Scandinavia took up almost the whole width, ready to be hauled through Holland.

At some distance appeared a large roof of varnished tiles.

‘Liewens … 
Dag, mijnheer!
'

And Maigret went on, alone, after vainly trying to thank this man who, without knowing him from Adam, had walked with him for a quarter of an hour to do him a favour.

The sky was clear, the air of astonishing limpidity. The inspector walked past a timber yard where planks of oak, mahogany and teak were stacked in piles as tall as houses.

A boat was moored alongside. Some children were playing. Then came a kilometre with no outstanding features. Floating tree trunks covered the surface of the canal, all the way. White fences surrounded fields dotted with magnificent cows.

Another clash between reality and his preconceived ideas. The word ‘farm' for Maigret conjured up a thatched roof, a dunghill, a bustle of barnyard fowls.

And he found himself facing a fine newly built structure, surrounded by a garden full of flowers. Moored in the canal in front of the house was an elegant mahogany skiff. And propped against the gate, a lady's bicycle, gleaming with nickel.

He looked in vain for a bell. He called, without getting any reply. A dog came and rubbed against his legs.

To the left of the house ran a long low building with regularly spaced windows but no curtains, which could have been an ordinary shed but for the quality of the materials and especially its bright fresh paintwork.

A sound of lowing came from that direction, and Maigret went on, round the flowerbeds, to find himself in front of a wide open door.

The building was a cowshed, but a cowshed as immaculate as a dwelling. Red brick everywhere, giving a warm, almost sumptuous luminosity to the atmosphere. Runnels for water to run off. A mechanical system for distributing feed to the mangers, and a pulley behind each stall, whose purpose
Maigret discovered only later: to lift up the tails of the cows during milking so that the milk wouldn't be contaminated.

The interior was in semi-darkness. The cattle were all outside, except for one cow lying on its side in the first stall.

And a girl in her late teens was approaching the visitor, speaking to him at first in Dutch.

‘Mademoiselle Liewens?'

‘Yes. You're French?'

As she spoke, she kept her eyes on the cow. She had an ironic smile which Maigret did not at first understand.

Here again, his preconceived ideas were turning out to be wrong. Beetje Liewens was wearing black rubber boots, which gave her the look of a stable-girl. Her green silk dress was almost entirely covered up by a white overall.

A rosy face, too rosy perhaps. A healthy, happy smile, but one lacking any subtlety. Large china-blue eyes. Red-gold hair.

She had to search to find her first words in French, which she spoke with a strong accent. But she quickly re-acquainted herself with the language.

‘Did you want to speak to my father?'

‘To you.'

She almost pouted.

‘Excuse me, please. My father has gone to Groningen. He won't be back until later. The two farmhands are on the canal, unloading coal. The maidservant is out shopping. And this cow has picked this moment to start calving! We weren't expecting it. And I'm all on my own.'

She was leaning against a winch, which she had prepared in case the birth needed assistance. She was smiling broadly.

It was sunny outside. Her boots shone as if polished. She had plump pink hands with well-kept nails.

‘It's about Conrad Popinga that I …'

But she gave a start. The cow had tried to stand up with a painful movement and had fallen back again.

‘Look out! Can you give me a hand?'

She picked up the rubber gloves lying ready for duty.

And that was how Maigret began his investigation by helping bring a pure-bred Friesian calf into the world, in the company of a girl whose confident movements revealed her physical training.

Half an hour later, with the newborn calf already nuzzling its mother's udder, Maigret was stooping alongside Beetje, soaping his hands up to the elbow under a brass tap.

‘Is it the first time you've done anything like this?' she asked with a smile.

‘Yes, the first time …'

She was eighteen years old. When she took off her white overall, the silk dress moulded her generous curves, which, perhaps because of the sunny day, looked extremely fetching.

‘We can talk over a cup of tea. Come into the house.'

The maidservant was back. The parlour was austere and rather dark, but spoke of refined comfort. The small panes in the windows were of a scarcely perceptible rose tint, which Maigret had never before encountered.

Shelves full of books. Many works on cattle breeding and veterinary science. On the walls hung farming diplomas and gold medals won at international exhibitions.

In the middle of all that, the latest publications by Claudel, André Gide and Paul Valéry …

Beetje's smile was flirtatious.

‘Would you like to see my room?'

She was watching for his reaction. No bed, but a divan covered with a blue velvet spread. Walls papered with Jouy prints. Some dark-stained book shelves with more books and a doll bought in Paris, clad in a frou-frou dress.

One might almost have called it a boudoir, and yet there was a rather solid, serious and down-to-earth feel about it.

‘Like a room in Paris, don't you think?'

‘I'd like you to tell me what happened last week.'

Beetje's face clouded, but not over much, not enough to suggest that she was taking the events too tragically.

Otherwise, would she have given him that beaming smile of pride as she showed him her room?

‘Let's go and have our tea.'

And they sat down facing each other, in front of a teapot covered with a sort of crinoline tea cosy to keep it warm.

Beetje had to search for the right words. She did more than that. She fetched a French dictionary, and sometimes broke off for quite a long time to find the exact word.

A boat with a large grey sail was gliding along the canal, propelled by a pole for want of wind. It manoeuvred its way through the tree trunks in mid-stream.

‘You haven't been to the Popingas' house yet?'

‘I arrived an hour ago, and all I've had time to do is help you to deliver the calf.'

‘Yes … Conrad was so nice, a really lovely man … He
went all over the world as second lieutenant and then first … Is that what you say in French? Then once he had his master's certificate, he got married, and because of his wife he took a job at the Naval College. That wasn't so exciting. He used to have a little sailing boat too. But Madame Popinga is afraid of the water. He had to sell it. He just had a rowing boat on the canal after that. You saw mine? Well, almost the same kind! In the evenings, he tutored pupils. He worked very hard.'

‘What was he like?'

At first she didn't understand the question. She ended up going to fetch a photograph of a strapping, youngish man, with cropped hair, rosy cheeks and light-coloured eyes, who seemed to radiate bonhomie and good health.

‘That's Conrad. You wouldn't think he was forty, would you? His wife is older … About forty-five. You haven't seen her? And very different … For instance, here everyone's Protestant of course … I go to the Dutch Reformed Church, which has more modern views. But Liesbeth Popinga goes to the Reformed Church of the Netherlands, which is stricter … more, what's the word? Conserving?'

‘Conservative.'

‘Yes. And she is the chairwoman of all the local charities …'

‘You don't like her?'

‘Oh yes … but it's not the same. She's the daughter of a headmaster, you must understand. My father's just a farmer … But she's very nice, kind …'

‘What happened?'

‘There are lots of lectures here … It's just a small town,
population five thousand. But people like to keep up with ideas. And last Thursday, Professor Duclos was here, from Nancy. You've heard of him?'

She was amazed that Maigret didn't know of the professor, whom she had assumed to be a national celebrity in France.

‘He's a top lawyer. A specialist on crime, and what's the right word? Psychology of crime? He was giving this talk on the responsibility of criminals. That's right, is it? You must correct me if I make mistakes. Madame Popinga chairs the committee and the lecturers always stay at her house.

‘At ten p.m. there was a small private party. Professor Duclos, Conrad Popinga and his wife. Wienands and his wife and children. And me … It was at the Popingas'. About a kilometre from here, it's on the Amsterdiep like this house. The Amsterdiep is the canal you can see. We had a glass of wine and some cakes. Conrad switched on the wireless. Oh yes, I nearly forgot, Any was there, Madame Popinga's sister, she's a lawyer too … Conrad wanted people to dance. They rolled back the carpet. The Wienands family left early because of the children. The little one was crying. They live next door to the Popingas. And at midnight, Any was feeling sleepy. I had my bike. Conrad saw me back home, he took his bike too.

‘When I got back here, my father was waiting up for me. And it was only next day that we heard what had happened. All of Delfzijl was in an uproar.

‘I don't think it was my fault. When Conrad got back home, he went to put his bike in the shed behind the house. And someone shot him with a revolver! He fell
down, and in half an hour he was dead. Poor Conrad! With his mouth open.'

She wiped away a tear, which looked incongruous on that smooth cheek as pink as a rosy ripe apple.

‘And that's all?'

‘Yes. The police came from headquarters at Groningen to help the local gendarmes. They said the shot had been fired from inside the house. Apparently, the professor was seen right afterwards holding a revolver in his hand. And that was the gun that had been fired.'

‘Professor Jean Duclos?'

‘Yes! So they didn't let him leave.'

‘So, in all, in the house at that time, there were just Madame Popinga, her sister Any and Professor Duclos?'

‘
Ja!
'

‘And that evening, the other people present were the Wienands family, yourself and Conrad …'

‘And oh yes, there was Cor … I forgot.'

‘Cor?'

‘Short for Cornelius, a pupil at the Naval College. He was taking private lessons.'

‘When did he leave?'

‘The same time as Conrad and me. But he would have turned left on his bike, to get back to the college boat, which is moored on the Ems Canal. Do you take sugar?'

Steam rose from the teacups. A car had just stopped at the foot of the three steps up to the house. Shortly afterwards, a large burly man, grey-haired, with a serious expression, entered the room: his bulk emphasizing his calm presence.

This was Farmer Liewens, waiting for his daughter to introduce the visitor.

He shook Maigret's hand vigorously, but without saying anything.

‘My father doesn't speak French.'

She served the farmer a cup of tea, which he drank standing up, with small sips. Then she told him about the calf's birth, speaking in Dutch.