Cécile is Dead by Georges Simenon

for a moment, would you?’
     And he led Maigret into another room.
    â€˜I am what I am, of course. However,
     there’s one thing I can confirm, and my friends there will say so too:
Monsieur Charles has always been on the
     level. The old lady’s certificates have disappeared, but we’re not the sort
     to quibble about signatures. I said three million; it may be more. With or without
     papers, no one’s going to touch it without your say-so.’
    â€˜I’ll have to put this to my
     superior officers,’ remarked Maigret.
    â€˜One moment … there’s something
     else I want to say, and this time my friends must hear it too.’
    They returned to the other room.
    â€˜Well, it’s like this,
     inspector. We have decided to make you an offer: we will offer twenty thousand to you
     for finding whatever nasty piece of work did old Juliette in. Are you happy with that?
     Is it enough? We’ve arranged everything, and Monsieur Charles will give you the
     cash.’
    The former lawyer thought that the moment
     had come for him to take a wallet stuffed with banknotes out of his pocket.
    â€˜Not now,’ the inspector
     interrupted. ‘As I said, I must put this to my superiors. Waiter, my bill, please
     … Yes … excuse me, I insist!’
    And he paid for his drinks, while the
     spokesman for the group growled, ‘Just as you like, but we’d rather you
     didn’t!’
    Maigret left the bistro with the warmth of
     two aperitifs in his chest. He hadn’t gone ten steps before he stopped in his
     tracks.
    Gérard, looking more strung up than ever,
     was facing him, and his sister Berthe gave the inspector a look conveying that she had
     done her best to take him away with her,
as he
     could see for himself, but there was nothing to be done about it.
    As for her brother, who had somehow got hold
     of drink and whose breath smelled of alcohol, he said in a truculent tone, his lips
     quivering, ‘Now then, inspector, I hope you’re going to give me an
     explanation.’
    The grave-diggers had left; other graves
     needed their attention, and there were still only a few spadefuls of yellowish clay on
     top of Cécile’s coffin.

6.
    â€˜In you go, my child!’
    It was not like Maigret, but without
     realizing it he felt the need to place his hand on the curve of Berthe Pardon’s
     shoulder. Many mature, middle-aged men habitually treated her like that, in a paternal
     manner, it wasn’t unusual. The inspector must have done it clumsily, for the girl
     turned to him in surprise, and while he was slightly embarrassed, Berthe seemed to be
     saying: You as well!
    Her brother had been the first to enter the
     apartment; the undertaker’s staff who had prepared it as a chapel of rest for the
     dead women had left only a little earlier, for Maigret and his companions had met them,
     with their equipment, at the foot of the stairs.
    It was Maigret’s turn to go in, but he
     heard a voice with a slight foreign accent, quite close to him, saying, ‘I’d
     like a word with you, inspector.’
    He saw that it was Nouchi, whose funeral
     wear had been a black suit too small and too tight for her, no doubt bought a year or so
     earlier, before she began her adolescent development, which made her look even more
     ambivalent.
    â€˜In a little while,’ he said
     crossly, because he did not feel indulgent towards her and her effrontery.
    â€˜But it’s very
     important.’
    Maigret, entering the
     late Juliette Boynet’s apartment and closing the door behind him, growled,
     ‘Important or not, it will have to wait.’
    Since he had Gérard here, he was going to
     finish talking to him first, and he was not put out by Berthe’s presence. The old
     woman’s home was a better place for this conversation than his office at Quai des
     Orfèvres. The atmosphere was already taking effect on