Maigret's Holiday by Georges Simenon

Bellamy is with you … I thought that, given
what’s happened and since you are friends … No, no! … I simply need to
ask him something … You haven’t seen him? … You haven’t the
least idea where I might be able to get hold of him? … What? … At the
hospital? … I hadn’t thought of that.’
    It was so straightforward! Might not the
doctor have gone to the hospital to see one of his patients?
    â€˜Hello … Sister Aurélie?
… I’m sorry … I thought I recognized her voice … Can you tell me
whether Doctor Bellamy …’
    Neither at the convent hospital nor at the
municipal hospital.
    â€˜One thing, Francis … Does the
doctor’s bedroom overlook Le Remblai?’
    â€˜Not exactly … It looks on to
the east façade, but you can see it from the promenade.’
    â€˜Thank you very much.’
    â€˜Are you going?’
    He left them completely baffled in their
little dining room, Francis in his slippers and his open shirt, La Popine thrilled to
have spent an evening with her idol.
    â€˜If you are in the neighbourhood
tomorrow lunchtime, Monsieur Maigret, I’ll be bound to have some information about
the girl …’
    He was barely listening. By now the streets
were completely empty. It was past midnight. He spotted a police officer under a gas
lamp and almost stopped him to ask whether he had seen Doctor Bellamy.
    In the big house on Le Remblai, the only lit
window wasthat of the library. Francis had left the light on when he
went home, as he had told Maigret. If the doctor had come back, there would probably be
a light on in his room. In any case, he would have switched off the light in his study
after drinking his whisky.
    La Popine had spoken of a small town. But
right now, Maigret found it too big. Big enough, in any case, for it to be impossible to
locate a man and a girl in it.
    If only he had known Lucile’s name
earlier!
    He walked with great, rapid strides. Instead
of going back to his hotel, he took a detour and saw the red light of the police station
where only a sergeant and a few officers were on duty.
    â€˜Do any of you happen to know a girl
called Lucile?’
    They broke off their game of belote, looked
at each other and racked their brains.
    â€˜My wife’s called Lucile,’
joked one of them, ‘but, since you said a girl, it can’t be her
…’
    â€˜You don’t know her
surname?’ the sergeant asked naively.
    It was an officer of around thirty who
taught Maigret a lesson, saying slowly:
    â€˜That’s a question you should be
asking the schoolmistresses.’
    Of course! Maigret, who had never had any
children, hadn’t thought of that. It was so simple!
    â€˜How many schools are there in Les
Sables d’Olonne?’
    â€˜Hold on a minute … If you count
Château d’Oléron, that makes three. I’m talking about girls’
schools … Not including the convent schools …’
    â€˜Do the teachers
sleep there?’
    â€˜Of course not … Especially as
it’s the summer holidays now …’
    Maigret had conducted thousands of
investigations, nosed around in the most diverse milieus. But just as, a few days
earlier, he had known nothing of nuns or the atmosphere of a hospital, he was equally
ignorant of everything to do with schools.
    â€˜Do you think the teachers have the
telephone?’
    â€˜It’s unlikely … They earn
about as little as we do, poor things!’
    Suddenly, he was weary. Since five
o’clock that afternoon, his mind had been working so fast that he suddenly felt
drained, useless, just as he hit a blank wall.
    Eight or ten schoolteachers were asleep
somewhere in the town, in those little houses huddled together, their windows open on to
narrow streets or little gardens.
    One of them at least knew Lucile, whose
homework she marked every day.
    At one point, on the threshold