In this Detective Chief Inspector Maigret mystery, Simenon takes us out of France to a small canal-side town in Holland, where there is more than a language problem to solve.
Jean Duclos is a French professor lecturing on criminality, when a man is shot dead, and he is discovered holding the gun. He asks the Paris police to investigate.
The task has fallen to Maigret.
Delfzijl is a sparse town encircled by a dyke, the landscape more Nordic than Dutch.
Duclos was requested by teacher Conrad Popinga to lecture at the Naval College, and for drinks at his home afterwards with his wife Liesbeth (who speaks German and English), her sister Any Van Elst (who understands but does not speak French), Beetje Liewens (a farmer's daughter who speaks French), and Cornelius (a student who speaks English). At the end of the evening, Conrad returns from escorting Beetje home, and is shot dead at close range. Duclos, Liesbeth and Any were the only people left in the house, each in seperate rooms. Conrad's smoking revolver is found in the bathroom, and Duclos is discovered picking it up. No one is charging the professor, but he has been asked to not leave the area. Maigret works with Pijpekamp of the Dutch Authorities, but is on his own. How can you investigate when you don't speak the language?
The austere Protestant town values order above all. Certainly it is obvious, the culprit is no one they would know, perhaps a wandering traveller, now far away on a cargo vessel.
Duclos, a man of ideas, starts his own investigation; Any is also an avid fan of sociology and forensics. Beetje on the other hand is a buxom farmer's daughter of 18, and it is clear all the men have been tempted.
No one was near the gun when it went off, and with so few suspects, in the dark of the night, by the side of the quiet canal so far from the town, Maigret has a difficult time shedding light on the matter. His response: to reenact the evening, in which terrific tension builds for the reader, as the players are gathered, and one by one the clues are presented, the answer revealed at the very last moment.
This was my least favourite of the seven Maigret mysteries I have read so far, as I found it quite simplistic, but my hat is always off to Simenon for ingenuity and plotting.
Maigret is always enjoyable, again remarkable that so timeless a novel was written in 1931.
My other reviews for Georges Simenon:
1931 / Tradeback / 152 pages
Commentaires