Night at the
Crossroads – Georges Simenon
This 1933 mystery opens with Chief Inspector Maigret and
Sgt. Lucas, for seventeen hours, taking turns interrogating a person of
interest who, miraculously, can’t be made to talk. The Dane Carl Andersen can
stand up under a police grilling like nobody, good or bad, Maigret has ever
seen. Given Andersen claims to know nothing about the corpse found in the
garage of the house he’s renting and no evidence says otherwise, Maigret
releases him.
Andersen has lived outside Paris at the Crossroads of the
Three Widows. Only three buildings are here: the mansion Andersen rents where
three widows once lived before their grisly ends; the upper-middle-class house
of insurance agent Michonnet and his snoopy wife; and the filling station of Mr.
Oscar and his crew of mechanics. Maigret’s investigation reveals plenty of odd
goings-on within the walls of these three structures .
Carl Andersen and his sister Else have lived in the old
manse for five years. She is rarely seen outside and rumor has it he locks her
in a bedroom when he has to go out. Else Andersen, every inch the mysterious
woman, has everything from a perfect figure to the scar on her right breast that
humanizes her to child-like innocence. Neither Mrs. Michonnet, the devoted wife
of the insurance broker, nor the submissive Mrs. Oscar, spouse of the hale
fellow, can claim to be a femme fatale.
Maigret knows the mystery hinges on Else. Clues are there to hear when a person
of interest makes a slip, but only one listens closely enough - Maigret.
Tension permeates the story, with a lot more gunplay than
in the later Maigrets. In this quiet rural corner, the damnedest things happen
to human beings, but Simenon almost always points out the birds keep on twittering,
the sun seldom fails to shine, drivers speed by on their way to do business and
pursue pleasure in Paris and Orleans and all points in between. He mentions a
half-dozen times rear red lights fading and disappearing in the distance. How
little the world cares for the crazy business that goes on at a nondescript
crossroads with three buildings. Given the world is largely indifferent to and
forgetful of tragedies after the usual nine days, how consoling that our own social
gaffes, mistakes, embarrassments, and even shames are forgotten, like pebbles
sinking to the bottom of a pond.
This
translation is from 2014 and is by Linda Coverdale. The translation Maigret and the Crossroads was by
Robert Baldick and issued by Penguin in 1963. Penguin in probably right to commission
new translations of Simenon’s novels not only for the sake of marketing but
quality control – see an interesting
discussion here.
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