The Flemish House

 

THE FLEMISH
HOUSE
Translated by Shaun Whiteside

Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in French as
Chez les
Flamards
by Fayard 1932
This translation first published in Penguin
Books 2014

Copyright 1932 by Georges Simenon
Limited
Translation copyright © Shaun Whiteside, 2014
GEORGES SIMENON ®
Simenon.tm
MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited

Cover © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos
Front
cover design by Alceu Chiesorin Nunes

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author and
translator have been asserted

ISBN 978-0-698-19386-4

Version_1

Title Page

Copyright

About the Author

1. Anna Peeters

2. The
Étoile Polaire

3. The Midwife

4. The Portrait

5. Maigret's Evening

6. The Hammer

7. A Three-Hour Gap

8. The Visit to the Ursulines

9. Around a Wicker Armchair

10. Solveig's Song

11. Anna's Ending

EXTRA: Chapter 1 from
The Madman of Bergerac

Georges Simenon was born on 12 February
1903 in Liège, Belgium, and died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived
for the latter part of his life. Between 1931 and 1972 he published seventy-five novels
and twenty-eight short stories featuring Inspector Maigret.

Simenon always resisted identifying himself
with his famous literary character, but acknowledged that they shared an important
characteristic:

My motto, to the extent that I have
one, has been noted often enough, and I've always conformed to it. It's
the one I've given to old Maigret, who resembles me in certain points …
‘understand and judge not'.

Penguin is publishing the entire series of
Maigret novels.

PENGUIN CLASSICS

‘I love reading Simenon. He makes me think of
Chekhov'

— William Faulkner

‘A truly wonderful
writer … marvellously readable – lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with the
world he creates'

— Muriel Spark

‘Few writers have ever conveyed with such a
sure touch, the bleakness of human life'

— A. N. Wilson

‘One of the greatest writers of the twentieth
century … Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability
was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories'

—
Guardian

‘A novelist who entered his fictional world
as if he were part of it'

— Peter Ackroyd

‘The greatest of all, the most genuine
novelist we have had in literature'

— André Gide

‘Superb … The most addictive of
writers … A unique teller of tales'

—
Observer

‘The mysteries of the human personality are
revealed in all their disconcerting complexity'

— Anita Brookner

‘A writer who, more than any other crime
novelist, combined a high literary reputation with popular appeal'

— P. D. James

‘A supreme writer … Unforgettable
vividness'

—
Independent

‘Compelling, remorseless,
brilliant'

— John Gray

‘Extraordinary masterpieces of the twentieth
century'

— John Banville

When Maigret got off the train at Givet
station the first person he saw, right opposite his compartment, was Anna
Peeters.

It was as if she had predicted that he
would stop at this precise spot on the platform! She didn't seem either
surprised or proud of the fact. She was just as he had seen her in Paris, as she
must always have been, dressed in a gunmetal suit and black shoes, wearing a hat
whose shape or even colour it was impossible to remember afterwards.

Here, in the wind that swept the
platform, where only a few passengers were now walking, she looked taller, a little
stouter. Her nose was red, and she was holding a handkerchief rolled up in a
ball.

‘I was sure you would come,
inspector …'

Was she sure of herself, or sure of him?
She didn't smile as she greeted him. She was already asking him questions:

‘Do you have any other
luggage?'

No! Maigret had only his bellows case,
in coarse mellowed leather, and he carried it himself, in spite of its weight.

The only people to leave the train were
third-class passengers, who had already disappeared. The girl held out her platform
ticket to the ticket collector, who looked at her insistently.

Outside, she went on without fuss:

‘At first I thought of getting a
room ready for you at home. Then I thought it through. In the end I imagine
it's better for you to stay at a hotel. So I've booked the best room at
the Hôtel de la Meuse.'

They had walked barely a hundred metres
along the little streets of Givet, and already everyone was turning to look at them.
Maigret walked heavily, dragging his suitcase along at his side. He tried to notice
everything: the people, the houses, and particularly his companion.

‘What's that noise?'
he asked her, hearing a sound that he couldn't identify.

‘The Meuse in spate, slapping
against the piers of the bridge. Boat transport has been suspended for three weeks
now.'

Emerging from a sidestreet, they
suddenly came upon the river. It was broad. Its banks were indistinct. In places the
brown waters spread into the meadows. Elsewhere, a boathouse emerged from the
water.

It held at least a hundred barges, tugs
and dredgers, pressed tightly against one another, forming a huge block.

‘Here's your hotel. It
isn't very cosy. Do you want to stop and take a bath?'

It was baffling! Maigret couldn't
define the sensation that he felt. Never, he was sure, had a woman ever aroused his
curiosity as much as this one; she stayed calm and unsmiling, made no attempt to
look pretty and sometimes dabbed her nose with her handkerchief.

She must have been between twenty-five
and thirty. A lot taller than the average, she was solidly built,
with a bone structure that stripped her features of all grace.

The clothes of a lower-middle-class
woman, extremely sober. A calm, almost distinguished reserve.

She treated him like a guest. She was at
home. She thought of everything.

‘I have no reason to take a
bath.'

‘In that case, will you come
straight to the house? Give your suitcase to the porter. Porter! Take this suitcase
to room 3. The gentleman will be back shortly.'

And Maigret thought, as he looked at her
from the corner of his eye: ‘I must look like an idiot!'

For there was nothing of the little boy
about him. Even though she wasn't exactly frail, he was twice as wide as she
was, and his big overcoat made him look as if he was carved from stone.

‘Aren't you
tired?'

‘Not at all!'

‘In that case, I can already tell
you the first few bits of information on the way …'

She had already given him the first bits
of information in Paris! One fine day when he got to his office, he had found this
strange woman who had been waiting for him for two or three hours, and whom the
office boy had been unable to send away.

‘It's personal!' she
had announced as he questioned her in front of two police inspectors.

And once they were alone she had handed
him a letter. Maigret had recognized the handwriting of one of his wife's
cousins, who lived in Nancy.

My dear Maigret,

Miss Anna Peeters has been
recommended to me by my brother-in-law, who has known her for about ten years.
She is a very responsible young woman, who will tell you of her misfortunes
herself. Do what you can for her …

‘Do you live in Nancy?'

‘No, in Givet!'

‘But the letter …'

‘I went to Nancy on purpose,
before coming to Paris. I knew my cousin knew someone important in the police force
…'

She wasn't an ordinary supplicant.
She didn't lower her eyes. There was nothing humble about her bearing. She
spoke frankly, looking straight ahead, as if to claim what was rightfully hers.

‘If you don't agree to look
at our case, my parents and I will be lost, and it will be the most hateful
miscarriage of justice …'

Maigret had taken some notes to sum up
her account of things. Quite a muddled family history.

The Peeters family, who owned a
grocer's shop on the Belgian border … Three children: Anna, who helped them
with the business, Maria, who was a teacher, and Joseph, a law student in Nancy
…