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my brother-in-law is a judge in Carcassonne …’
    â€˜Just a moment, madame: I am speaking to your husband … You were at Avrainville just now. What did you go there to do?’
    â€˜Avrainville? Me?’
    He was shaking, trying in vain to put up a front, but seemed genuinely dumbfounded by his predicament.
    â€˜I swear to you, I was over
there
, at the Three Widows house! I wanted to keep an eye on them myself, since—’
    â€˜You didn’t go into the field? You didn’t hear anything?’
    â€˜Wasn’t there a shot? Has anyone been killed?’
    His moustache was drooping. He looked at his wife the way a kid looks at his mother when he’s in a tight spot.
    â€˜I swear, chief inspector! … I swear to you …’
    He stamped his foot, and two tears rolled down his cheeks.
    â€˜This is outrageous!’ he cried. ‘It’s my car that was stolen! It’s my car they found the body in! And no one will give my car back to me, when I’m the one who worked
fifteen years to pay for it! And now I’m the one accused of—’
    â€˜Be quiet, Émile! I’ll talk to him!’
    But Maigret didn’t give her the chance.
    â€˜Are there any other weapons in the house?’
    â€˜Only this one revolver, which we bought when we had the villa built … And the bullets are even the same ones the gunsmith put in himself.’
    â€˜You were at the Three Widows house?’
    â€˜I was afraid my car would be stolen again … I wanted to conduct my own investigation … I entered the grounds – or rather, I climbed up on the wall.’
    â€˜You saw them?’
    â€˜Who? Those two? The Andersens? Of course! … They’re in the drawing room. They’ve been quarrelling for an hour now.’
    â€˜You left when you heard the shot?’
    â€˜Yes. But I wasn’t sure it was a gunshot … I only thought so … I was worried.’
    â€˜You saw no one else?’
    â€˜No one.’
    Maigret went to the door and, opening it, saw Monsieur Oscar coming towards him.
    â€˜Your colleague has sent me, chief inspector, to tell you that the woman is dead. My mechanic has gone to inform the police in Arpajon. He’ll bring back a doctor … And now, will you excuse me? I can’t leave the garage
unattended.’
    At Avrainville, the pale headlamp beams could still be seen, illuminating a section of wall at the inn and some shadowy figures moving around a car.

4. The Prisoner
    Head down, Maigret was walking slowly in the field, where the growing corn was beginning to dot the earth with pale green.
    It was morning. The sun was out and the air was vibrant with the songs of invisible birds. In Avrainville, Lucas was standing outside the inn door, waiting for representatives of the prosecutor’s office and keeping an eye on the car Madame
Goldberg had hired in Paris on Place de l’Opéra for her journey.
    The wife of the diamond merchant from Antwerp was laid out upstairs on an iron bed. A sheet had been thrown over her corpse, which the doctor had partly unclothed the night before.
    It was early on a fine April day. In the very field where Maigret, blinded by the headlamps, had chased the murderer in vain and now advanced step by step, following the traces left in the darkness, two farm workers loaded a cart with beets they
were harvesting from a hillock while their horses waited quietly.
    The double row of trees along the main road sliced through the countryside. The red petrol pumps at the garage sparkled in the sunlight.
    Slow, stubborn, quite possibly in a bad mood, Maigret was smoking. The footprints found in the field seemed to
prove that Madame Goldberg had been shot dead with a rifle, for the murderer had not come
within thirty metres of the inn.
    The footprints were unremarkable: smooth soles, average size. The trail curved around to