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She’s had singing lessons.’
    â€˜Do you remember the
     piece?’
    â€˜It’s always the same.
     “Solveig’s Song” … But … I … I don’t understand.’
    â€˜It’s just an experiment
     …’
    She left the room backwards, and was
     about to close the door.
    â€˜No! Leave it open.’
    A few moments later, some fingers ran
     carelessly over the keyboard, producing disconnected chords. And Maigret, without
     wasting any time, opened the cupboards in the girls’ bedroom.
    The first was the linen cupboard.
     Regular piles of shirts, trousers and well-ironed skirts …
    The chords followed on from one another.
     The tune became recognizable. And Maigret’s fat fingers came and went among
     the white cloth underwear.
    An onlooker would probably have taken
     him for a lover, or even for a man satisfying some hidden passion.
    Coarse underwear, solid, hard-wearing,
     inelegant. The underwear of the two sisters must have been mixed together.
    Then it was the turn of a drawer:
     stockings, suspenders, boxes of hairpins … No powder … No perfume, except a bottle
     of Russian eau de Cologne that must only have been used on important occasions.
    The sound grew louder … The house was
     filled with music … And gradually a voice accompanied the piano, and came to the
     fore.
    I wait for you here,
    Oh my handsome betrothed …
    It wasn’t Marguerite who was
     singing – it was Anna Peeters! She clearly enunciated each syllable, and lingered
     wistfully on certain phrases.
    Maigret’s fingers were still
     working fast, probing around in the fabric.
    In a pile of linen there was a rustle
     that was not of cloth, but of paper.
    Another portrait. An amateur portrait,
     in sepia. A young man with curly hair and fine features, his upper lip jutting
     forward in a confident and slightly ironic smile.
    Maigret didn’t know who the man
     reminded him of. But he reminded him of something.
    Until my very last day …
    A serious voice, almost a masculine
     voice fading slowly away. Then a call:
    â€˜Should I go on,
     inspector?’
    He closed the doors of the cupboards,
     put the photograph into his waistcoat pocket and darted into Joseph Peeters’
     room.
    â€˜Don’t bother.’
    He noticed that Anna was paler when she
     came back.Had she been putting too much soul into her singing? Her
     eyes scoured the room but found nothing unusual.
    â€˜I don’t understand … I
     would like to ask you something, inspector. You saw Joseph last night … What did you
     think of him? … Do you think he’s capable …’
    Probably downstairs, she had taken off
     the headscarf that covered her head. Maigret even had a sense that she had washed
     her hands.
    â€˜Everyone, you understand,
     everyone,’ she went on, ‘must acknowledge his innocence! He has to be
     happy!’
    â€˜With Marguerite Van de
     Weert?’
    She said nothing. She sighed.
    â€˜How old is your sister
     Maria?’
    â€˜Twenty-eight … Everyone agrees
     that she’s going to be headmistress of the school in Namur.’
    Maigret touched the portrait in his
     pocket.
    â€˜No lovers?’
    And she replied, straight away:
    â€˜Maria?’
    It meant, ‘Maria, a lover? You
     don’t know her!’
    â€˜I’m going to pursue my
     inquiry!’ said Maigret, moving towards the landing.
    â€˜Have you had any results so
     far?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    She followed him down the stairs. As
     they passed through the kitchen, he noticed old Peeters, who had taken up his place
     in his armchair and plainly couldn’t see him.
    â€˜He isn’t aware of anything
     any more,’ Anna sighed.
    In the grocery, there were three or four
     people. MadamePeeters was pouring genever into glasses. She
     greeted him with a slight bow, without setting down her bottle, then went on talking