Georges Simenon - The Flemish Shop (a. k. a. Maigret and the Flemish Shop)

The Flemish Shop

Chez les Flamands
the 14th episode in the Maigret Saga
1932

Georges Simenon

Translated from the French by Geoffrey Sainsbury

A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

Contents

THE FLEMISH SHOP

First Published in England, 1940 Reprinted 1946

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY

BEADLEY BROTHERS

109 KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C.2 ; AND ASHFORD, KENT

from plates

By the same Author

THE PATIENCE OF MAIGRET

MAIGRET TRAVELS SOUTH

MAIGRET ABROAD

MAIGRET KEEPS A RENDEZVOUS

MAIGRET SITS IT OUT

MAIGRET AND M. LABBE

IN TWO LATITUDES

AFFAIRS OF DESTINY

THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE TRAINS GO BY

HAVOC BY ACCIDENT

ESCAPE IN VAIN

ON THE DANGER LINE

THE SHADOWFALLS

LOST MOORINGS

MAIGRET TO THE RESCUE (includes The Flemish Shop and Guingette by the Seine )

Translated front the French by GEOFFREY SAINSBURY

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LTD.

BROADWAY HOUSE:

Translated from the French :
Chez les Flamands

Chapter I
anna peeters

W hen Maigret got out of the train at Givet the first person he saw was Anna Peeters.

She was standing exactly opposite his carriage, as though she had foreseen that he would stop just there. Yet she seemed neither surprised nor proud of having calculated so nicely. She looked just the same as when he had seen her in Paris: probably she was never otherwise. Her coat and skirt were iron-grey, her shoes black, while her hat was the kind of thing of which it is absolutely impossible to remember either the colour or the shape.

Only one difference. Here, on the almost empty, windswept platform, she seemed a shade taller and broader. Her nose was red, and the handkerchief she was holding was rolled up in a ball.

I felt sure youd come, Monsieur le commissaire .

She certainly looked sure, but whether she was sure of him or of herself was not so easy to tell. Without any smile of greeting, she asked in a business-like way:

Have you any other luggage?

No. Maigret only had his shabby old gladstone-bag, and, heavy as it was, he didnt want a porter.

The few third-class passengers who had left the train had already disappeared. The girl held out her platform ticket to the collector, who stared hard at her. That, however, did not appear to embarrass her, and as soon as they had passed through she went on:

I thought at first of getting a room ready for you at home. But on second thoughts I decided it would be more suitable for you to be in a hotel. So I booked one of the best rooms in the Htel de la Meuse .

They dived into the narrow streets of Givet, where every passer-by turned round to look at them. Maigret walked heavily, his gladstone dragging at his shoulder. He was trying to take everything in, the people in the streets, the houses, and, most of all, his companion.

Whats that noise? he asked, conscious of a vague murmur that he could not identify.

The Meuse in flood, pounding against the piles of the bridge. Shippings been held up for the last three weeks.

At the end of a narrow lane they suddenly found themselves facing the wide river. Here and there, the brown flood spread out over the fields. In other places a shed stood up out of the water.

At least a hundred barges were there, as well as tugs and dredgers, all made fast alongside one another to form one vast floating block.

Heres your hotel. Im afraid its none too comfortable. Perhaps youd like to stop for a bit and have a bath?

It was bewildering. Maigret did not know what to think of her. Perhaps no woman had ever aroused his curiosity so much as Anna Peeters, who remained perfectly calm, without smiling, without making the slightest attempt to look pretty, and who now and again dabbed her red nose with her handkerchief.

She must have been between twenty-five and thirty. Much taller than the average, she was also a solidly built, large-boned woman to a degree that made anything like gracefulness impossible.

Her clothes were extremely sober and quite commonplace.

It was only her bearing that was really quite distinguished. She seemed perfectly at home, and treated Maigret as her guest. It was up to her to make all arrangements.

Ive no reason to want a bath.

In that case, perhaps youd come to the house straight away. Give your bag to the porter.Here! Porter! Take it up to No. 9 Monsieur will be coming back presently.

And Maigret, watching her out of the corner of his eye, thought:

I must look like a schoolboy!

Yet that was just the absurdity of it: he looked anything but a schoolboy! If she was stoutly built, he was nevertheless half as big again, and his enormous overcoat made him look as though hewn from a block of granite.

Youre not too tired?

Im not tired at all.

In that case I can run through the principal points as we walk along.

As a matter of fact, she had already been through the principal points in Paris. One day, on entering his room at the Police Judiciaire , he had found this stranger, who had been patiently waiting for two or three hours. Nothing the clerk had said had succeeded in choking her off.

When anybody had tried to find out her business, they had only received the answer:

Its personal.

As soon as the inspector had sat down at his desk, she had handed him a letter. Maigret had at once recognized the writing as that of a cousin of his wifes, living at Nancy.

My dear Maigret,

Mademoiselle Anna Peeters has been recommended to me by my brother-in-law, who knew her ten years ago, and who gives her an excellent character. As for her troubles, she can tell you about them herself. Do what you can for her

You live at Nancy?

No. Givet.

But this letter

I went on purpose to Nancy, before coming to Paris, for I knew that I could get an introduction to someone high up in the police.

She wasnt like the usual person who came to beg a favour. She didnt fidget, she didnt stumble over her words, she didnt plead. There was nothing pathetic about her, or even humble. Looking straight in front of her, she stated her business clearly, as though claiming no more than her due.

Unless you take the matter up, were lost, all of us, and it will be the most horrible mistake.

Maigret had listened attentively to a rather complicated family story.

The Peeters kept a shop by the Belgian frontier. A father and mother, and three children. Anna worked in the shop, Maria was a teacher, while Joseph was a law student at Nancy

This Joseph had had a child by a local girl. The child was now three years of age And all at once its mother had disappeared, and the Peeters were suspected of having either killed or kidnapped her

It had nothing whatever to do with Maigret. The local police were handling the case and had not appealed for help. In fact, when Maigret had wired for information, the answer was in no way ambiguous:

Peeters family guilty stop arrest imminent.

That had decided him. So here he was in Givet, though without any official authority, being led by the hand, so to speak, by Anna Peeters, whom he never stopped observing.

The river sped northward, swirling noisily round each pile of the bridge, and carrying whole trees in its onrush.

The wind, sweeping up the valley against the stream, lashed the water into real waves. It was no more than three oclock, yet the day was already drawing in.