Félicie by Georges Simenon

pretty close … Then all at
once, in the middle of a dance, she slaps his face with the flat of her hand! I thought there
was going to be trouble. I went up to them. But no bother. The guy just left, he’d had
enough, and the Princess went snootily back to her seat and started powdering her nose
…’
    Janvier must have got to Rouen ages ago. Maigret
leaves his bike on the terrace of the Anneau d’Or, then goes for a word with the woman
working the switchboard in the cool interior of the post office.
    â€˜No calls for me?’
    â€˜Just a message. You’re to contact
the Rouen central police station. Want me to put you through?’
    It’s not Janvier he
gets at the other end of the line, but the station head.
    â€˜Detective Chief Inspector Maigret? …
This is what we’ve been asked to pass on to you. The young man got to Rouen after
traipsing round a dozen bars in Montmartre. Apparently, he did not speak to anyone. Each time,
he seemed to be waiting for somebody. When he got to Rouen, he headed straight for the garrison
district. He went into a brasserie I’m sure you know of, the Tivoli, where working girls
hang out. He stayed for maybe half an hour, then he wandered through the streets and turned up
back at the station. He was looking more tired than ever, even desperate. At present, he’s
waiting for the Paris train, and Inspector Janvier is staying on his tail …’
    Maigret gives the standard orders: question the
madam who runs the bar, find out which woman Pétillon came to see, what he was after, etc.
He is still in the booth when he hears a muffled rumble, like a passing bus, but when he comes
out into the post office he realizes that it is the distant herald of an approaching storm.
    â€˜Will you be expecting any more
calls?’ asks the telephone operator, who has never known such thrills in all her days.
    â€˜Possibly. I’ll send you my
sergeant.’
    â€˜It’s ever so exciting being in the
police! Whereas we in our small corner never see anything!’
    He gives a mechanical smile instead of shrugging
his shoulders as he would like to do and then he sets off once more along the short stretch of
road which separates him from the village.
    â€˜She’s got to
start talking!’ he keeps telling himself all the way there.
    The storm is building. The horizon has turned a
threatening purple, and the slanting rays of the sun seem more sharply angled. The flies are
biting.
    â€˜Go back to the Anneau d’Or, Lucas.
Answer the phone calls, if there are any.’
    When he opens the door of Cape Horn, his face
wears the determined expression of a man who has allowed himself to be walked over for too long.
That’s all over now! He’s going to face up to Félicie, confound her!
He’ll shake her as hard as it takes to knock her off her high horse!
    â€˜That’s it, girl! We’ve
finished playing games!’
    He knows she’s in. He saw a curtain twitch
on the ground floor when he was sending Lucas back to Orgeval. He goes in. Silence. In the
kitchen, the coffee is percolating. No one in the garden, He scowls.
    â€˜Félicie!’ he calls softly.
‘Félicie!’
    He starts to lose patience and he shouts
angrily:
    â€˜Félicie!’
    For a moment he wonders if she hasn’t taken
him for a ride once again, and whether she hasn’t just slipped through his fingers. But
no. He hears a faint sound upstairs, something resembling the sobbing of a very small child. He
climbs the stairs two at a time and comes to a stop at the door to Félicie’s bedroom
and then sees her lying full length on her divan.
    She is crying, her face buried in the pillow.
Just as large tears start to flow, a draught slams a door shut somewhere in the house.
    â€˜Well?’ he
growls.
    She does not move. Her back jerks with each sob.
He puts a hand on her shoulder.
    â€˜Well, Félicie?’
    â€˜Leave me