Félicie by Georges Simenon Page A

alone … Please, let me
be!’
    A thought enters his head, but he does not linger
over it: this is all just play-acting. Félicie has picked her moment. She has even chosen
her posture carefully, and who knows if it’s by accident that her dress has ridden up well
above her restless knees?
    â€˜Come on, up you get.’
    Surprise! She does what she’s told!
Félicie does what she’s told without arguing, which is unexpected to say the least.
Now she is sitting on her bed, eyes swimming with tears and face mottled with red, and she
stares at him, cutting such a dismal, weary figure that he feels as if he is behaving like a
brute.
    â€˜What’s the matter? Come on, tell me
…’
    She shakes her head. She can’t speak. She
intimates that she would like to tell him everything, but that she can’t, and again she
buries her head in her hands.
    Standing in that room, he feels he looms too
large and pulls a chair towards him, sits by the side of the bed and hesitates about whether he
should take one of her hands and ease it away from her tear-stained face. For he is not yet
convinced by her. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if, behind those clenched fists, he were
to find a sarcastic expression on her face.
    She is crying genuinely. She cries like a child
and is notlooking for effect or for sympathy. So it is in a child’s
voice that at last she stammers:
    â€˜You’re not being very nice
…’
    â€˜Me, not nice? Oh come on, my girl. Just
calm down. Don’t you realize that it’s for your own good?’
    She says no with a shake of her head.
    â€˜But damn it all, don’t you
understand that there’s been a murder, that you are the only person who knew the house
well enough to … I’m not saying you killed the man you lived with here
…’
    â€˜I didn’t “live” with him
…’
    â€˜I know. You already told me … So
let’s say he was your father. Because that’s what you’ve been hinting at,
isn’t it? And let’s say that a long time ago old Lapie did something stupid and that
later he brought you here, to his house … So you stand to inherit everything. You’re
the one who has gained most from his death.’
    He has moved too quickly. She gets to her feet,
stands in front of him straight and stiff, the very picture of indignation.
    â€˜But it’s true, Félicie! …
Sit down … Logically I should have arrested you already.’
    â€˜I’m ready …’
    Good God, it’s difficult! How much more
would Maigret have preferred to be faced with the wiliest of rogues, the most vicious old
reprobates! Deciding when she’s play-acting and when she is being serious is impossible.
Is she actually ever sincere? He senses that she is observing him, that she never stops watching
him with quite frightening lucidity.
    â€˜That’s not the
issue. The issue is that you must start helping us. The man who took advantage of your absence
at the grocer’s to kill your … let’s just say, to kill Jules Lapie, was
sufficiently familiar with the domestic routine here to …’
    She sits down wearily on the edge of the bed and
murmurs:
    â€˜I’m listening.’
    â€˜Anyway, why would Lapie take someone he
didn’t know to his bedroom? He was killed in his room. He had no reason to go upstairs at
that time of day. He was busy in the garden. He offered his visitor a drink, though he was
pretty
near
…’
    At times Maigret has almost to shout to make
himself heard above the noise of the storm, and when one clap of thunder comes, louder than the
rest, Félicie instinctively reaches out her hand and grabs his wrist.
    â€˜I’m scared.’
    She is shaking. No pretence. She really is
shaking.
    â€˜There’s no need to be frightened.
I’m here …’
    It’s a stupid thing to say, and he knows
it. She immediately