My Friend Maigret by Georges Simenon Page A

himself with women or cars, or to gamble in the casino. Do your bad boys play chess? I doubt it. Do they read Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard? It’s unlikely, isn’t it? They only want to live their life without waiting for their inheritance.”
    They leaned against the wall which ran along one side of the jetty, and the calm surface of the water was occasionally troubled by a fish jumping.
    â€œDe Greef does not belong to that category of bad characters. I don’t think he even wants to have money. He’s almost a pure anarchist. He has revolted against everything he has known, against everything he’s been taught, against his magistrate of a father and his bourgeois mother, against his hometown, against the customs of his own country.”
    He broke off, half-blushing.
    â€œI beg your pardon…”
    â€œGo on, please.”
    â€œWe only exchanged a few words, the two of us, but I think I have understood him, because there are a lot of young people like that in my country, in all countries, probably, where morals are very strict. That’s why I said just now that one probably doesn’t come across a vast number of that type in France. Here there isn’t any hypocrisy. Perhaps there isn’t enough.”
    Was he alluding to the surroundings, the world the two of them had been plunged in since their arrival, to the Monsieur Émiles, the Charlots, the Ginettes, who lived among the others without being singled out for opprobrium?
    Maigret felt a little anxious, a little piqued. Without being attacked, he was stung by an urge to defend himself.
    â€œBy way of protest,” pursued Mr. Pyke, “these young people reject everything en bloc , the good and the bad. Look, he has taken a young girl away from her family. She’s sweet, very desirable. I don’t think, however, that it was from desire for her that he did it. It was because she belonged to a good family, because she was a girl who used to go to Mass every Sunday with her mother. It was because her father is probably an austere and high-minded gentleman. Also because he was taking a big risk in carrying her off. But, of course, I may be quite wrong.”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œThere are some people who, when in a clean and elegant setting, feel the need to defile. De Greef feels the need to defile life, to defile anything. And even to defile his girlfriend.”
    This time Maigret was astounded. He was bowled over, as they say, for he realized that Mr. Pyke had been thinking the same thing as he had. When de Greef had admitted having been several times on board the North Star , it had immediately occurred to him that it was not only to drink, but that more intimate and less admissible relations existed between the two couples.
    â€œThey are very dangerous fellows,” Mr. Pyke concluded.
    He added:
    â€œPerhaps they are very unhappy too?”
    Then, probably finding the silence a little too solemn, he said in a lighter tone:
    â€œHe speaks perfect English, you know. He hasn’t even got an accent. I shouldn’t be surprised if he went to one of our public schools.”
    It was time to go to dinner. It was long past the half hour. The darkness was almost complete, and the boats in the harbor were swaying to the rhythm of the sea’s breathing. Maigret emptied his pipe and knocked it against his heel, hesitated to fill another. Going past, he studied the Dutchman’s little boat closely.
    Had Mr. Pyke just spoken for the sake of speaking? Had he, in his own way, wanted to convey some sort of message?
    It was difficult, if not impossible, to tell. His French was perfect, too perfect, and yet the two men did not speak the same language, their thoughts followed different channels in their passage through the brain.
    â€œThey’re very dangerous, those fellows,” the Scotland Yard inspector had emphasized.
    There was no doubt that he would not have