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Flemish.
    She must have explained that the visitor
     was the police inspector who had come from Paris, because the sailors turned
     respectfully towards Maigret.
    Outside, Inspector Machère was busy
     studying a spot of ground where the soil was less firm than elsewhere.
    â€˜Anything new?’ Maigret
     asked.
    â€˜I don’t know! I’m
     still looking for the corpse. Because until we get our hands on it, it will be
     impossible to get these people.’
    And he turned towards the Meuse as if to
     say that that wasn’t the way the body had gone.

4. The Portrait
    It was just after midday. Maigret,
     perhaps for the fourth time since that morning, was walking along the riverbank. On
     the other side of the Meuse there was a big whitewashed factory wall, a gate and
     dozens of workmen and women coming out of it, on foot or by bicycle.
    The encounter took place a hundred
     metres before the bridge. The inspector passed someone, looking at him straight on,
     and when he turned round he saw the other man turning round as well.
    He was the original of the portrait
     found among Anna’s clothes.
    A brief hesitation. It was the young man
     who took a step towards Maigret.
    â€˜Are you the policeman from
     Paris?’
    â€˜Gérard Piedboeuf, I
     presume?’
    The policeman from Paris.
It
     was the fifth or sixth time since that morning that Maigret had heard himself
     referred to in those terms. And he understood the nuance very clearly. His colleague
     Machère, from Nancy, was there to carry out inquiries, nothing else. They watched
     him coming and going and when they thought they knew something they ran to tell
     him.
    As for Maigret, he was ‘the
     policeman from Paris’,summoned by the Flemings, who had come
     specially to wash them of all suspicion. And, in the street, people who knew him
     already watched after him without the slightest sympathy.
    â€˜Have you come from my
     house?’
    â€˜I went there, but early this
     morning, and I only saw your nephew …’
    Gérard was no longer quite the same age
     as he had been in the portrait. If his figure was still very young, and his hair and
     clothes were young as well, close up it was clear that he had turned twenty-five
     some time ago.
    â€˜Did you want to speak to
     me?’
    In any case, shyness was not one of his
     faults. He didn’t once look away. His eyes were brown and very shining, eyes
     that women were bound to like, particularly since his complexion was dark and his
     lips well formed.
    â€˜Bah! I’ve only just begun
     my inquiries …’
    â€˜On behalf of the Peeters, I know!
     The whole town knows! We knew even before you got here. You’re a friend of the
     family and you’re going out of your way to …’
    â€˜I’m doing no such thing!
     Ah, your father’s getting up …’
    They could see the little house. On the
     first floor the shutter rose, and they made out the form of a man with a big grey
     moustache looking through the glass.
    â€˜He’s seen us!’ said
     Gérard. ‘He’s going to get dressed …’
    â€˜Did you now the Peeters
     personally?’
    They walked along the quayside, turning
     around every time they reached a mooring post a hundred metres from the grocery. The
     air was sharp. Gérard was wearing anovercoat that was too thin,
     but whose very slim fit must have appealed to him.
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Your sister has been Joseph
     Peeters’ mistress for three years. Didn’t she used to go to his
     house?’
    Gérard shrugged.
    â€˜If we go through all that again
     in detail! First of all, shortly before the child was born, Joseph swore that he
     would marry her. Then Dr Van de Weert came, on behalf of the Peeters, to offer
     10,000 francs for my sister to leave the country and never come back.
     Germaine’s first outing after she had recovered from the birth was to go