Maigret's Revolver

Also published in Large Print

from G.K. Hall by Georges
Simenon:


Maigret and The Headless Corpse
Maigret and The Killer

Mazgret and The Pickpocket
Mazgret and The Toy Village
Mazgret's Boyhood Friend
Mazgret Sets A Trap

Mazgret's Pipe

Mazgret's Rival

Maigret's War Of Nerves

Maigret's Revolver


Georges Simenon



Translated from the French by
Nigel Ryan



Soston Massacfiusetts

1992

This Large Print Book carries the
Seal of Approval of N.A.V.H.


Copyright 1952 by Georges Simenon.

Copyright renewed 1984 by Georges Simenon.


All rights reserved.


Published in Large Print by arrangement with
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers.


G.K. Hall Large Print Book Series.


Printed on acid free paper in the

United States of America.


Set in 16 pt. Plantin.


Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Simenon, Georges, 1903[Revolver
de Maigret. English]

Maigret's revolver / Georges Simenon: translated
from the French by Nigel Ryan.

p. cm. -- (G.K. Hall large print book series)
(Nightingale series)

ISBN 0-8161-5316-7 (acid-free paper)

1. Large type book I. title

[PQ2637. I53R4713 1992]

843'. 912--dc20

9218389


WHEN, LATER ON, Maigret thought abou1

that case, it would always be as of somethin
a little abnormal, linked in his mind wit
those illnesses that don't break Cut openls,
but begin with vague aches and pains, syrup,
toms too mild to claim one's attention.

There was, to start with, no CCmplaint t(
the Police Judiciaire, no emergercy call, n,
anonymous information, but, to go as fa
back as possible, a banal telephonte call fro
Mme Maigret. i

The black marble clock on the c)ffice man
telpiece had stood at twenty to twelve; h
saw again distinctly the angle of' the hand
on its face. The window had been widt
open, for it was June, and, beneath the hot
sun, Paris had taken on its summer smell
"That you?"

His wife had recognized his Voice, obvi,
ously, but she still asked if it really was he
speaking, not in doubt, but merely because
she had always been awkward On the tele,

phone. On Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, too,
the windows must have been open. Mme
Maigret at that hour would have finished the
bulk of her housework. It was unusual for

her to call him.

"It's me."

"I wanted to ask if you expect to be back
for lunch."

It was even more unusual for her to
telephone to ask him that question.
He had frowned, not worried, but in sur-prise.

"Why?"

"Oh, nothing. Or, rather, there's someone

here waiting to see you."

"Who?"

"No one you know. It's nothing. Only, if
you weren't coming back, I wasn't going to

make him wait."

"A man?"

"A young man."

She had probably taken him into the living
room, where they scarcely ever set foot. The
telephone was in the dining room, which
they normally used, and where they enter-tained
their friends. It was there that Maigret
had his pipes, his armchair, Mine Maigret
her sewing machine. From the embarrassed
way she spoke, he realized that she hadn't


2

dared to close the door between the two
rooms.

"Who is it?"

"I don't know."

"What does he want?"

"I don't know that either. It's personal."
He had attached no importance to tlqe
matter. If he did anything about it, it was
only because his wife was uncomfortable,
and also because she seemed to have taken
the visitor under her protection.

"I expect to leave the office about noon,"
he said finally.

He had only one more person to see, a
woman who had already been to see hitn
three or four times about threatening letters
some neighbor was sending her. He ran. g for
the porter.

"Show her in."

He lighted his pipe, and leaned back in
his chair, resigned.

"Well, Madame, you've had another leX-ter?"

"Two, Superintendent. I've brought them
with me. In one of them, as you'll see, sle
admits it was she who poisoned my cat, an,d
declares that if I don't move, it will soon be

my turn 	"

The
hands crept slowly around the fa
e


3

of the clock. He had to make a show oftaking
the matter seriously. It lasted for a little
under a quarter of an hour. Then, just as
he was going to get his hat from the closet,

there was a knock at the door.

"You busy?"

"You! What are you doing in Paris?"

It was Lourtie, once one of his inspectors,
who had been assigned to the flying squad
in Nice.

"Just on my way through. I felt like taking
a look at the old place again and saying hello
to you. Do we have time to drink a pastis

at the Brasserie Dauphine?"

"A quick one."

He was fond of Lourtie, a big-boned,
strapping fellow with a voice like a choir
leader's. In the brasserie, where they stood
at the bar, there were several other inspectors.
They spoke of this and that. The taste
of the pastis was exactly what was needed for
a day like that. They drank one, then a second,
a third.

"It's time I was getting along. I'm expected
at home."

"Can I walk partway with you?"

They had crossed the PontNeuftogether,
Lourtie and he, then walked as far as Rue
de Rivoli, where it had taken Maigret a good

.!


five minutes to find a taxi. It had been ten
of one when he at last climbed the three
flights on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, and,
as usual, the-door of his apartment opened
before he had time to take the key from his
pocket.

Right away he had noticed his wife's un-easy
manner. Speaking low, because of the

open doors, he had asked:
"He's still waiting?"
"He's gone."

"You don't know what he wanted?"
"He didn't tell me."

But for something in Mme Maigret's
manner, he would have shrugged his shoul-ders
and muttered:

"Good riddance!"

But instead of going into the kitchen and
serving lunch, she followed him into the din-ing
room with the air of someone who has
excuses to make.

"Did you go into the living room this

morning?" she finally asked.

"Me? No. Why?"

Why in fact should he have gone into the
living room, which he loathed, before going
to the office?

"It seemed all right to me." :ii
"Well?"


5


"Nothing. I was trying to remember. I

looked in the drawer."

"What drawer?"

"The one where you keep your revolver
from America."

Only then had he begun to suspect the
truth. When he had spent several weeks in
the United States at the invitation of the
FBI, there had been a great deal of talk about
weapons. The Americans had presented
him, on his departure, with a revolver of
which they were very proud, a Smith & Wes-son
.45 Special, with short barrel and highly
sensitive trigger mechanism. His name had
been engraved on it.


To J.-J. Maigret

from his FBI friends


He had never used it. But only the day be-fore,
he had taken it out of its drawer to show
to a friend, or, rather, a colleague, whom he

had asked in for a liqueur after dinner.
"Why J.-J. Maigret?"

He had asked the same question himself
when he had been presented with the gun
at a cocktail party in his honor. The Ameri-cans,
who seemed normally to have two
Christian names, had found out his. The


6

first two, luckily: Jules-Joseph. In fact, there
was a third: Anthelme.

"You mean my revolver has disappeared?"
"I'm just going to explain."

Before letting her speak, he went into the
living room, which still smelled of cigarette
smoke, and glanced at the mantelpiece,
where he remembered having put the gun
the evening before. It was no longer there.
Yet he was sure he had not put it away in
its place.

"Who's responsible for this?"

"Sit down, first of all. Let me give you your
meal, or the roast will be overdone. Don't
be mad."

He was.

"I think it's a bit much when you let a
stranger make his way in here and .... "

She left the room, came back with a plate.
"If you had seen him . . ."
"What age?"

"Quite a young man. Nineteen? Twenty
perhaps?"

"What did he want?"

"He rang the bell. I was in the kitchen.
I thought it was the gas man. I went and
opened the door. He asked me if this was
where Superintendent Maigret lived. I gathered,
from his manner, that he mistook me


7

for the maid. He was nervous, frightened-looking."

"And you showed him into the living
room?"

"Because he told me he simply had to see
you to ask your advice. My advice was to
go and see you at your office. It seems it was
too private."

Maigret kept his peevish look, but began
to feel like smiling. He pictured the panic-stricken
young man, on whom Mme

Maigret had at once taken pity.

"What sort of young man?"

"A very nice boy. I don't know how to put
it. Not very well off, but from a good family.
I'm sure he'd been crying. He took some cig-arettes
from his pocket and then im-mediately
apologized. So I told him: 'You
can smoke. I'm used to it.' Then I promised
to telephone you to make sure you'd be com-ing
back."

"The revolver was still on the mantel-piece?"

"I'm certain it was. I didn't notice it there
at that moment, but I remember it was there
when I did the dusting this morning about
nine, and no one else has been in."

If she hadn't replaced the revolver in the
drawer, it was, he knew, because she had


8

never been able to get used to firearm.
Knowing the weapon wasn't loaded made
no difference; she wouldn't have touched it
for anything in the world.

He pictured the scene. His wife going into
the dining room, speaking to him in low
tones on the telephone, then coming bac
to say:

"He'll be here in half an hour at the latest. '
Maigret asked:

"You left him alone?"

"Well, I had to see to lunch."

"When did he leave?"

"That's just what I don't know. At one
point I had to fry some onions, and I closec;t
the kitchen door so the smell wouldn't es--cape.
Then I went to the bedroom to tid
up. I thought he was there all the time. Per--haps
he still was. I didn't want to disturt9
him by going into the living room. It wa
only just after half past twelve that I decidect
to go and ask him to be patient, and founCt
he wasn't there any longer. Are you mad a5
1Tie?"

Mad at her about what?

"What do you think it's all about? H
looked so unlike a thiefi"

He certainly wasn't one, either! Hoxad
could a thief have guessed that on that par'

ticular morning there was a revolver on the
mantelpiece in Maigret's living room?

"You look worried. Was the gun loaded?"

"No."

"Well then?"

The question was a stupid one. Anyone
who takes the trouble to get hold of a re-volver
has more or less some intention of
using it. Wiping his mouth, Maigret got up
and had a look in the drawer, where he found
the cartridges in their place. Before sitting
down again he called his office.

"That you, Torrence? Would you get hold
of the gunsmiths in town... Hello! The
gunsmiths, yes... Ask them if anyone has
been in to buy cartridges for a Smith & Wes-son
.45 Special .... What? .... 45 Special
·.. In case no one has been in yet, if anyone
does come this afternoon or tomorrow, tell
them to find an excuse to keep the customer
there for a moment and warn the nearest po-lice
station .... Yes... That's all .... I'll
be at the office as usual .... "

When he had arrived at the Quai des
Orfivres at about half past two, Torrence al-ready
had the answer. A young man had
gone to a gunsmith's on Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle.
They had no ammunition of the
caliber asked for and had sent the customer


10

to Gastinne-Renette. The latter had sold
him a box.

"Did the boy produce the gun?"

"No. He showed them a scrap of paper
with the make and caliber written on it."

Maigret had had other things to attend to
that afternoon. Toward five o'clock he had
gone up to the laboratory. Jussieu had asked
him:

"Are you going to the Pardons' this eve-rang.

"With a fish brandade for dinner!" Maigret
had replied. "Pardon called me up the, day

b fo
	day.

	e re yester
		"
	·


"Me, too. I don't think Dr. Paul can
come."

There are, just like that, periods in the
lives of families during which they see a'lot
of another family, and then lose sight of
them for no reason.

For about a year, every month, the
Maigrets had dined with the Pardons, or, "at
the Doc's." It was Jussieu, the head of the
Forensic laboratory, who had one evening
taken the Inspector around to Dr. Pardon's
house, on Boulevard Voltaire.

"You'll see! He's a man you'll like. An able
man besides, who could have become one
of our biggest specialists. I should add, spe

11

cialist in any field, since, after being on the
staff at Val-de-Grfice and an assistant of
Lebraz, he spent five years on the staff at
SainteAnne."

"And now?"

"He's become a G.P., by choice, works
twelve or fifteen hours a day without bothering
to.find out if his patients are going to
be able to pay him, and most of the time
forgets to send his bill. Apart from that, his
one passion is cooking."

Two days later, Jussieu had called him.
"Do you like cassoulet?"
"Why?"

"Pardon has invited us for tomorrow. At
his house, you have just one dish, a regional
one, by choice, and he likes to know in advance
if his guests like it."

"Cassoulet suits me."

Since then there had been other dinners,
the one with coq au vin, the couscous one, the sole dieppoise, and others besides.

This time it was to be brandade de morue. By the way, who was it, again, Maigret was
going to meet at the dinner? Pardon had
called him the day before.

"You free the day after tomorrow? You like brandade? Are you for or against truffles?"

"For."


12

They had got into the habit of calling e;ach
other Maigret and Pardon, while the wonen
called each other by their Christian na rres'
The two couples were almost the same age.
Jussieu was ten years younger. Dr. Paul, the
police medical expert, who often joirned
them, was older.

"Tell me, Maigret, would it bore yot to

meet one of my former schoolmates?"
"Why should it bore me?"

"I don't know. To tell you the trut .17Ih, I
wouldn't have invited him if he hadn't asl'ked
me to give him an opportunity to meet y0,ou.
Just now he came to see me in my officoZe
he's one of my patients as well and insisted
on knowing definitely if you were cominSg."

At half past seven that evening, M:lme
Maigret, who had bedecked herself iin a
flowered dress and a pretty straw hat, finished
putting on her white cotton gloves.
"You ready?"
"I'm coming."

"Still thinking about the young man?:(?,,
"Of course not."

What was nice, among other things, abooout
these dinners, was that the Pardons li-0fived
only five minutes' walk away. One could gl see
the sunlight reflected in the top-floor windows.
The streets smelled of warm dtlust.


13

Children were still playing outdoors, and I

families had brought their chairs out to the

	I

sidewalks.

"Don't walk too fast."

He always walked too fast for her.

"You're sure itwas he who bought the car-tridges?''

Since that morning, especially since he
had told her about Gastinne-Renette, she
had had a load on her mind.

"You don't think he's going to kill him-self?."

"Suppose we talk about something else?"

"He was so nervous! The cigarette butts
in the ashtray were all picked to pieces."

The air was warm, and Maigret walked
with his hat in his hand, like people who go
for Sunday walks. They reached Boulevard
Voltaire and just before the square disap-peared
into the building where the Pardons
lived. They took the narrow elevator, which
always made the same noise as it started off,
and Mme Maigret gave her usual little start.

"Come in. My husband will be here in a
few minutes. He's just been called out on
an urgent case, but it's only up the street."

It was seldom that a whole dinner went
by without the doctor being disturbed. He
would say:


14

"Don't wait for me."

And often, in fact, they went home without
seeing him again.

Jussieu was already there, alone in the living
room, where there was a grand piano and
embroidery work on all the furniture. Pardon
came bursting in a few minutes later,

and at once plunged into the kitchen.
"Lagrange not here yet?"

Pardon was a little man, rather stout, with
a very large head and bulging eyes.

"Wait a minute and I'll give you something
that'll really make you sit up."

At his home there was invariably a surprise,
maybe an unusual wine, maybe a liqueur,
or, as in this case, a pineau from the
Charentes, which a vineyard owner in
Jonzac had sent him.

"Not for me!" protested Mme Maigret,
who became tipsy after one glass.

They talked on. Here, too, the windows
were open, life idled past on the sidewalk,
and the air was gilded, the light a little more
opaque and reddish.

"I wonder what Lagrange is doing."
"Who is he?"

"A fellow I knew in the old days at the
Lyc&e Henri IV. If I remember rightly, he
must have left us about his third year. He

lived on Rue Cuvier at the time, opposite
the Jardin des Plantes, and his father irn-pressed
me because he was a baron, or pretended
to be. I lost track of him for a long
time, more than twenty years, and only a few
months ago I saw him coming into my office,
after waiting his turn. I recognized him at

once." I
He looked at his watch, then the clock.
"What surprises me is that he made such
a fuss about coming and now isn't here himself.
If he isn't here in five minutes we'll start
dinner."

He filled the glasses. Mme Maigret and
Mme Pardon did not speak. Although Mme
Pardon was thin and the Superintendent's
wife plump, they both had the same self-effacing
attitude toward their husbands. It was
rare during dinner for either of them to open
their mouths; it was not until afterward that
the two of them retired into a corner to whisper.
Mme Pardon had a very long nose,
much too long. You had to get used to it.
At first it was embarrassing to look her in
the face. Was it because of this nose, which
her schoolmates must have laughed at, that
she was so humble and looked at her husband
as though to thank him for having married
her?



16

I!



"I bet everyone here," Pardon was say-ing,
"had a boy or a girl of the Lagrange
type at school. Out of twenty boys, or
thirty, it is rare for there not to be at least
one who, by the age of thirteen, is already
a fat lump with a baby face and great pink
legs."

"In my class, it was me," ventured Mine
Maigret.

And Pardon said, gallantly:

"XX/ith girls it adjusts itself. Indeed, those
are often the ones who turn out to be the
prettiest in the end. XVvre used to call Francois
Lagrange 'Baby Cadum,' and there must
have been thousands of them in all the
schools of France given that nickname by
their school friends at that time, when the
streets were full of pictures of the monster

baby in the advertisements."

"He hasn't changed?"

"The proportions are no longer the same,
naturally. But he's still a great tub. Ah, well,
let's eat!"

"XX/hy not phone him?"

"He hasn't got a telephone."

"Does he live near here?"

"A few yards away, on Rue Popincourt.
I Wonder what he wants exactly. The other

[] day, at my office, he came trailing in with


17

a magazine with your photograph on
front .... "

Pardon looked at Maigret.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know how I lq
pened to let it out that I knew you. Irr
have added that you were a friend.

"'Is he really like people say?' Lagrm
asked me.

"I said yes, that you were a man who.
"Who what?"

"It doesn't matter. Anyway, I said w
I thought while I was examining him.
diabetic. He also had glandular troubles.
comes in twice a week, he's so overanxi,
about his health. On the next visit, he tall
abOut you again, wanting to know if I
you often, and I said that we dined roger
once a month. It was then that he insisl
on being invited, which surprised me, 1
cause since we left the Henri IV I've of
seen him in my office. Let's sit down to d
ner ....

The brandade was a masterpiece, and P
don had served a dry wine from somewh,
around Nice, which went miraculously w
the fish. After talking about fat people, t
talked about redheads.

"It's true there's a redhead in every cia

tOO."


18

This steered the conversation to the the-ory
of genes. They always ended up by talk-ing
medicine, and Mme Maigret knew this

pleased her husband.

"Is he married?"

With the coffee, they had got back to La-grange,
goodness knows why. The blue of
the sky, a deep velvety blue, had slowly pre-vailed
over the red of the setting sun; but
they had not put on the lights, and they
could see, through the windows, the balcony
railings printing in inky black their wrought-iron
arabesques. From a distant street cor-ner
came the strains of an accordion, and
a couple on a neighboring balcony were talk-ing
in low voices.

"He was, from what he told me, but his

wife died a long time ago."

"What does he do?"

"Business. Pretty vague sort of business,
probably. His card says 'Company Director'
with an address on Rue Tronchet. I called
the address one day, when I wanted to cancel
an appointment, and was told the offices had
ceased to exist years ago."

"Any children?" .

	"Two or three. A daughter certainly, if I

	remember correctly, and a son he wants to

	find a steady job for."

II
	19

They went back to medicine. Jussieu, who
had worked at Sainte-Anne, recounted
memories of Charcot. Mme Pardon was
knitting and explaining a complicated stitch
to Mme Maigret. The lights were put on.
There were several mosquitoes. It was
eleven o'clock before Maigret got up. I
They left Jussieu at the corner of the go

levard, where he caught the mtro at Place
Voltaire. Maigret felt a bit full on account of the brandade, and perhaps also the Midi

wine.
	?h

	His wife, who had taken his arm, will

she seldom did except when they were
going home in the evening, wanted to say
something. How did he sense this? She
hadn't opened her mouth, and yet he was
waiting.

	"What are you thinking about?" he finally

grunted.


	"You won't be annoyed?"

	He shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm thinking about the young man this
morning. I wonder if, when we get, back,I
you could telephone to see ifthere's been any'
thing."

She used a roundabout way of expressing
herself, but he understood. She meant:
"... to see if he's committed suicide."


20

oddly enough, this was nmot the idea
Maigret had in mind of what m:night happen.

It was only a feeling, without amy solid basis.
lit was not, in his case, a suicide-e that he was

thinking of. He felt vaguely unmeasy, without
wishing to seem so.

"How was he dressed?"

"I didn't pay much attenrntion to his
clothes. I seem to remember he v was in something
dark, probably navy blume."

"His hair?"

"Fair. Blond, rather."
"Thin?"
"Yes."
"Good-looking boy?"
"Quite. To my mind."

He would have sworn she was blushing.

"You know, I didn't look at lffhim much! I
remember more than anythiking else his
hands, because he fiddled nervouously with the
brim of his hat. He didn't darem sit down. I
had to bring a chair to him. Ho--e seemed to
be expecting me to turn him oout."

Back at home Maigret called I the municipal
police, to which all emergenozcy calls were..,
Put through.

"Maigret here. Anything to report?"
"Only some Bercy cases, sir.'"


21

This, on account of the Halle aux Vins on

Quai de Bercy, meant drunks.

"Nothing else?"

"A free-for-all on Quai de Charenton.
Wait. Yes. Late in the afternoon, a drowned
woman was taken out of the Saint-Martin
canal."

"Identified?"

"Yes. A prostitute."

"No suicides?"

This to please his wife, who was listening,
hat in hand, at the bedroom door.

"No. Not so far. Shall I call you if there's
anything new?"

He hesitated. It annoyed him to appear in-terested
in the affair above all, in front of
his wife.

"If you would."

He was not called again that night. Mme
Maigret woke him with his coffee, and the
bedroom window, s were already open.
Workmen could be heard loading crates on
a truck in front of the store opposite.

"You see, he hasn't killed himselfi" he
said, as though he were getting his re-venge

"Perhaps they don't know about it yet."

He reached the Quai des Orfvres at nine
o'clock, met his colleagues at the conference


22

in t'] Chief Commissioner's office. Just
routine matters. Paris was quiet. They had
the tescription of the murderer of the
woran fished out of the canal. His arrest
was only a question of time. Probably he
woold be found dead drunk in some bar before
abe end of the day.

3,Iund eleven o'clock, Maigret was called

to tge telephone.
,,ho is it?"
,,trdon."

tthe other end of e line, he seemed
hesitant.

,,cuse me for disturbing you at your of
fica'
Yesterday I spoke to you about La-grange,
who had asked if he might be

allod to come to our dinner party. This
mo(ing, on my rounds, I went by his phce

on ue Popincourt. I went in on the off

	.e.

	thinking perhaps he wasn't well.

	cha:ellol e you ere?"

	,, n listening"

	'4 ouldn't have called you except at,

	afterOU went, my wife told me about e

youg man." ,

,,at young man?"

,,e young man and the revolver2 It

see Madame Maigrst, told my wife how,
yesday morning...


23

"Yes. Well?"

"Lagrange would be furious if he knew
I've gone and warned you. I found him in
a curious state. First of all, he let me knock
for several minutes at the door of his rooms
without answering, and I began to be uneasy,
since the concierge had told me he was
in. Finally he came, in bare feet and shirt
sleeves, disheveled-looking. He seemed relieved
to see it was me.

"'I'm sorry about last evening...' he said,
going back to bed. 'I wasn't feeling well. I
still don't feel well. Did you mention me to
the Inspector?'"

"What did you reply?" asked Maigret.
"i don't remember. I took his pulse,
his blood pressure. He was not a pretty
sight. He looked like someone who's just
had a shock. The place was in chaos. He
hadn't eaten, or had any coffee. I asked
him if he was alone, and that at once
alarmed him.

"'You're afraid I may have a heart attack,
aren't you?'

"'Of course not! I was only surprised
. . .'

"'What about?'

"'Don't your children live here?'
"'Only my younger son. My daughter left


24

as soon as she was twenty-one. The older
boy is married.'

"'Does the younger one work?'

"Then he began to cry, and it was like a
wretched great creature being deflated.

"'I don't know,' he stammered. 'He isn't

here. He hasn't come back.'

"'Since when?'

"'I don't know. I'm all alone. I'm going
to die all alone... '

"'Where does your son work?'

"'I don't even know if he does work.
He doesn't tell me anything. He's

, ,,

gone ....

Maigret listened, his face serious.

"Is that all?"

"Pretty much. I tried to cheer him up. He
was rather pathetic. Usually he goes around
looking quite grand; at any rate, he still keps
up appearances. To see him in those shabby
rooms, sick in a bed that hadn't been made
for several days . . ."

"His son is in the habit of staying out all
night?"

"Not so far as I could see. It would be a
pure fluke, obviously, if it was the same

	,,

young man as . . .

	"Yes."

	"What do you make of it?"


25

"Nothing so far. Is the father really
ill?"

"As I told you, he's had a severe shock.
His heart's not too good. He's there, sweat-ing
in his bed, terrified that he's going to
die .... "

"You were quite right to telephone me,
Pardon."

"I was afraid you would laugh at me."

"I didn't know my wife had told yours the

story of the revolver." .
"Have I put my foot in it?"
"Not at all."

He called the porter.

"No one else for me?"

"No, sir. Apart from the loony."
"Send him in to Lucas."

A regular customer, this was, a harmless
madman who came in once a week to offer
his services to the police.

Maigret hesitated a moment longer.
Mainly out of self-respect, in actual fact.
This story, seen in a certain light, was rather
absurd.

On the Quai, he nearly took one of the
police cars, then, still slightly from shame,
decided to go to Rue Popincourt by taxi. It
was less official. That way, there would be
no one to laugh at him.


26

.2


THE LODGE, ON the right of the archway, was

like a hole in the wall, lighted all day by a
yellowish bulb, which hung on the end of
a wire. Practically the entire space was taken
up with objects that looked as if they fit in
place like a child's set of blocks: a stove, a
very high bed covered by a red quilt, a round
table covered with oilcloth, an armchair with
a big ginger cat in it.

The concierge didn't open the door, but
watched Maigret through the glass. When
he didn't go away, she resigned herself to
opening the pane. Her head was then framed
in the window like an enlarged photograph,
a bad enlargement, with blemishes, a bit
faded, which might have been done at a fair.
The black hair looked dyed, the rest was

without color or shape. She waited. He said:
"Monsieur Lagrange, please?"

She did not reply at once, and he might
well have thought her deaf. Finally she uttered,
in a voice of hopeless boredom:

"Third on the left the far side of the courx-yard."

"Is he in?".


27

It was not boredom, but indifference, perhaps
contempt, perhaps even hatxed for all
that existed outside her aquarium. Her voice
droned.

"Because the doctor came to see him this
morning, he's probably in."

"No one went up after Doctor Pardon?"

Mentioning the name gave the inpression he knew all about it.

"He wanted me to go up."

"Who?"

"The doctor. He wanted to give me a little
money to go and clean the place up and get

him something to eat."

"Did you go?"

She shook her head, without explaining.
"Why?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You don't get on with Monsieur La-grange?"

"I've only been here two months."

"Does the last concierge still li-ve around
here?"

"She's dead."

It was useless, he knew, to try TO get any
more out of her. The entire establishment,
the six-story building that faced the street,
and the three-story building on the far side
of the courtyard, with its tenants, its work28


ers, its children, its comings and goings--all
this represented, for her, the enemy,
whose sole object in life was to disturb her
peace.

As one emerged from the dark, cold archway,
the courtyard seemed almost gay; it
even showed a bit of grass struggling up between
the flagstones. The sun was shining
full on the yellowish plastered house front
at the far end, a carpenter in his workshop
was sawing pleasant-smelling wood, and in
a carriage a child was sleeping, its mother
looking down from time to time from a
secondfloor window.

Maigret knew the district, which was near
his own; there were many houses like this
in it. In the courtyard on Boulevard Rich-ardLenoir,
too, there was still a washroom
without a seat, with a door that was always
half open, as in a country yard.

He climbed the stairs slowly, pressed an
electric bell, and heard it ring in the
room. Like Pardon, he had to wait. Like
him, too, he eventually heard light sounds,
the slithering of bare feet on the floor, a cautious
approach, and finally, he could have
sworn, labored breathing near him on the
other side of the latch. The door did not
open. He rang again. Nothing moved this


29

time, and, bending down, he could see the
gleam of an eye at the keyhole.

He coughed, wondering whether he ought
to give his name. Then, just as he was going

to open his mouth, a voice said:

"One moment, please."

More steps, comings and goings, finally
the click of the lock, the noise of a bolt. In
the half-open doorway a tall man in a bath-robe
was surveying him.

"Did Pardon tell you... ?" he stammered.
The bathrobe was old, worn out, the slip-pers,
too. The man was unshaven, and his
hair was disheveled.

"I am Superintendent Maigret."

A nod gave him to understand that he had
been recognized.

"Come in! I am sorry about . ."

He did not specify what. They went right
into an untidy living room, where Lagrange
hesitated, and Maigret, pointing to the open

door of a bedroom, said:
"Do go back to bed."
"Thank you."

Sunshine flooded the cheap rooms, which
did not look the way such rooms usually did,
but more like a sort of camping place,
though it would not be possible to say ex-actly
why.


30

"I'm sorry..." the man repeated as he
slipped into the unmade bed.

He was breathing with difficulty. His face
glistened with sweat, and his big eyes didn't
know where to rest. Underneath, Maigret

was not much more at ease himself.
"Take the chair, here."

	Seeing there was a pair of trousers on it,

Lagrange repeated again:

	"Sorry."

The Superintendent didn't know where to
put the trousers; finally he left them on the
foot of the bed and began, steadying his
voice:

"Doctor Pardon told us yesterday we
would have the pleasure of meeting

,,

you ....

	"I hoped so, yes 	"

	"Were
you in bed?"

	He saw that the man was hesitating.

	"In bed, yes."

	"When did you begin to feel ill?"

	"I don't know. Yesterday."

	"Yesterday morning?" '

	"Maybe. . ."

	"Heart?"

	"And everything else... Pardon has been

looking after me a long time 	Heart

as
well . . ."


31

"You're worried about your son?"

The man was looking at him just the way
the big schoolboy he had once been must
have looked at his teacher when he didn't
know what to reply.

"He hasn't come back home?"
Another moment's hesitation.
"No... Not yet..."
"You wanted to see me?"

Maigret tried to affect the indifferent
tones of a visitor. Lagrange, for his part,
sketched a vague polite smile.

"Yes, I'd said to Pardon..."
"Because of your son?"

He looked suddenly astonished, repeated:
"My son?"

Then right away he shook his head.
"No . . . I didn't know then..."
"You didn't know he was going away?"

Lagrange corrected him, as though the

words were too emphatic:

"He hasn't been back."

"For how long? Several days?"

"No."

"Since yesterday morning?"

"Yes."

"You had a quarrel?"

Lagrange was in torment, but Maigret was
determined to get to the bottom of it.


32

"In Alain's case, we've never quarreled."

He said this with a kind of pride, which
didn't escape the Superintendent.

"And with your other children?"
"They don't live here anymore."
"Before they left you?"
"That wasn't the same."

"I suppose you'd be glad if we found your
son?"

Fear showed, once again.

"What do you intend to do?" the man
asked.

He had bouts of energy, which made him
seem almost like a normal person, then all
of a sudden he would collapse, deflated, on
his bed.

"No. You mustn't. I think it's better not

	,,

tO ....

"You're worried?"

"I don't know."

"You're afraid of dying?"

"I'm ill. I've no strength left. I . . ."

He put his hand to his heart, and seemed
to be feeling its beats anxiously.

"You know where your son worked?"

"Not recently. I didn't mean the doctor
to talk to you about it."

"Yet two days ago you insisted on his ar-ranging
for you an interview with me."


33

"I insisted?"

"You wanted to see me about somethin
didn't you?"

"I was interested in seeing you."
"Nothing else?"
"I'm sorry."

It was the fifth time at least he had uttere
those words.
"I'm ill, very ill. There's nothing else."
"However, your son has disappeared."
Lagrange became impatient.

"Perhaps he has simply done the same
his sister."

"What did his sister do?"

"When she was twenty-one, the very
of her coming of age, she left without a wor.

with all her belongings."

"A man?"

"No. She works in a lingerie shop, in ti
Champs-Elyses Arcade, and lives with

girlfriend."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"You have another son, older?"
"Philippe, yes. He's married."

"You don't think Alain's gone to him.;
"They don't see each other. It's nothin
I tell you. Except that I'm ill, and I'm
all alone. I'm ashamed you've been di


34

I

turbed. Pardon shouldn't have done it. I
wonder why I told him about Alain. I sup-pose
I was in a fever. Perhaps I still am. You
mustn't stay here. It's all in a mess, and it

must smell. I can't even offer you a drink."
"You haven't a cleaning woman?"
"She hasn't come."

It was obvious that Lagrange was lying.
Maigret didn't like to ask if he had any
money. It was very hot in the bedroom, a
stagnant heat, and a disagreeable odor hung
r in the air.

· [ "You don't want me to open the window?"

"No. There's too much noise. I have a
headache. I ache all over."

"Perhaps you'd better be taken to a hos-pital?''

The word frightened him.

"Above all, not that! I want to stay he're."
"To wait for your son?"
"I don't know."

( It was strange. At one moment Maigret

was moved to pity, and then immediately af-terward
he was irritated, feeling that it was
playacting. Perhaps the man was ill, but not,
it seemed to him, to the point of collapsing
on his bed like a slug, not enough to have
tears in his eyes and lips quivering like a baby
about to cry.



35


/

"Tell me, Lagrange . . ."

As he broke off, he caught a sudden firmer
look, one of those sharp looks that women
in particular dart furtively at you when they

think they have been found out.
"What?"

"You're sure that when you asked Pardon
to invite you to meet me you had nothing
to tell me?"

"I swear I just said that offhand .... "

He was lying; that was why he found it
necessary to swear. Again, just like a woman.

"You have no information to give me that
would enable us to find your son?"

There was a chest of drawers in one corner,
and Maigret, who had risen, went over
to it, all the time conscious of the other
man's eyes fixed on him.

"I'm going to ask you, just the same, to
let me have a photograph of him."

Lagrange was about to reply that he didn't
have one. Maigret was so sure of this that,
with an almost mechanical gesture, he

opened one of the drawers.

"Is it here?"

Everything was to be found there: keys,
an old wallet, a cardboard box containing
buttons, jumbled papers, gas and electric
bills.


36

	"Give it to me."

	,'What?"

	"The wallet."

	Afraid the Superintendent would examine

	the contents himself, he found the strength

	to raise himself on one elbow.

	"Give it here 	I
think I have a picture
	taken
last year ....
He
was becoming feverish. His big pudgy fingers
were trembling. From a small fold, where
he knew it was, he pulled out a photograph.

"Since
you insist. I'm sure there's nothing to
it. You mustn't publish it in the papers. You
mustn't do anything."
"I'll
bring it back to you this evening or tomorrow."

This
frightened him again.
"There's
no hurry."
"What
are you going to eat?"
"I'm
not hungry. I don't need anything." "And
this evening?"
I'll
probably be better and able to go

OUt."

"And if you aren't better?"

He was on the verge of sobbing with agitation
and impatience, and Maigret was
not so cruel as to impose himself any
longer.


37

I
"Just one question. Where has your son

Alain been working recently?"

I'

	"I don't know the name 	It
was in an
	office
on Rue R6aumur."
	"What
sort of office?"

Advernsng... Yes... it must have been
an advertising office .... "

He made as if to get up and show his vis.
itor out.

"Don't disturb yourself. Good-bye, Monsieur
Lagrange."

"Good-bye, Superintendent. Don't hold

it against me .... " I
Maigret all but asked: "What?"

But what was the use? He remained
standing a moment on the landing, to re-light
his pipe, and he could hear the bare
feet on the floor, then the key in the lock,
the bolt, and probably, also, a sigh of
relief.

Passing in front of the lodge he saw the
concierge's head in its frame, hesitated,
stopped.

"You'd better go up from time to time, as
Doctor Pardon advised, to see if he needs
anything. He really is ill."

"He wasn't last night, when I thought le
was making a moonlight getaway."

This had hung by a thread. Maigret, wl0


38

1

had been on the point of going off, frowned,
turned back.

"He went out last night?"

"He was fit enough to carry his big trunk,

with the aid of a taxi driver."

,'You spoke to him?"

"No,"

"What time was it?"

,'About ten o'clock. I hoped the rooms
ere going to be empty!"

"You heard him come back?"

She shrugged.

"Of course, since he's up there."
"With his trunk?" ,
"No."

Maigret was too near home to take a taxi.
As he passed by a cafe, he remembered
the pastis of the day before, which suited the
early summer so well, and he had one at
the bar, gazing, without seeing them, at
some workmen in white overalls having
drinks next to him.

As he crossed his own boulevard, he lifted
his head and saw Mine Maigret passing back
and forth in the apartment, with the windows
open. She must have seen him, too.
At any rate, she recognized his footsteps on
the stairway, for the door opened.

"Still nothing happened to him?"


39

fi;he Was again thinking of her young man

of the dy before and her husband took the
ptaOtogrph from his pocket, showed it to

her.

"Is that him?"

"How did you get it?"

"It's him?"

"Certainly it's him! Is he . . . ?"

She Rust already have been imagining

him dead and was upset about it.

"No, no. He's still alive and kicking. I've
jost corete from his father."

"The one the doctor told you about yes-trday?'

"Lagvange, yes."
"Wha, t did he say?"
"Noticing."

"So Yu still don't know why he took your
rcvolver?"

"To rase it, presumably."

He telephoned the Police Judiciaire, but
taothint had happened that could be put
clown to Alain Lagrange. He ate a quick
ltnch, took a taxi to the Quai, went straight
oP to the photographic section.

"Prinat me enough copies of this for all the
lolice n Paris."

He nearly changed his mind and had the
picture circulated all over France, but

40

,uldn't that have attached too much im-ortance
to the affair? What annoyed him
as that ultimately the only real fact was that

.'one had taken his gun.

A little later on he called Lucas into his
fffice. He had taken off his vest, and was
moking his enormous pipe.

"I'd like you to get hold of the taxis that
york at night around Rue Popincourt.
7here's a stand on Place Voltaire. That must
e the one. At this time, the night drivers
.re generally at home."

"What do I ask them?"

"If one of them, last night about ten
,'clock, took a big trunk from a building on
ue ?opincourt. I would like to know where

te delivered it."

"That all?"

"Also ask if he took his fare back to Rue
opincourt."

"Right, Chief."

Already, at three o'clock, the radio cars
eere in possession of the photograph of
tlain Lagrange; at four, it reached the police
tations and posts with the caption: "Warng.t
Armed.t" By six o'clock all the police in

'aris going out on their beats would have
in their pockets.

As for Maigret, he was not too sure what


41

to do. Embarrassment prevented him from
taking the affair too seriously, and at the
same time he felt uncomfortable in his of-rice.
He felt he was wasting time and ought
to be doing something.

He would have liked a long conversation
with Pardon about the Lagranges, but at that
time the' doctor's waiting room would be full
of sick people. The idea of interrupting the
consultations disconcerted him. He didn't
even know what questions he would have
asked.

He thumbed through the telephone direc-tory,
found three advertising agencies on
Rue Raumur, and jotted them down almost
mechanically in his notebook.

"Anything for me, Chief?." Torrence came
in and asked a little later on.

But for that he wouldn't have given him
the agencies to do.

"Telephone all three and find out which
of them employed a young man named Alain
Lagrange. If you find him, go over and get
all the information you can. Not so much
from the employers, who never know any-thing,
as from the rest of the staff."

He lingered another half hour in his office,
finishing odd jobs of no importance. Then
he saw a curate who complained that money


42

had been stolen from the poor boxes in his
church. To receive the priest, he had put his
jacket on. Alone once more, he in turn went
out, took one of the police cars waiting on
the Quai.

"The Champs-Elyses Arcade."

The sidewalks were overflowing with peo-ple.
At the entrance to the Arcade there were
more tourists, speaking every language, than
there were Frenchmen. He didn't often go
there, and was surprised to note that in a
stretch of less than a hundred yards there
were five women's lingerie shops. It embar-rassed
him to have to go in. He felt the
salesgirls were looking at him ironically.

"You haven't a young lady by the name

of Lagrange here, have you?"
"Is it something private?"
"Yes . . . that's to say..."

"We have a Lajaunie, Berthe Lajaunie, but
she's on vacation .... "

At the third shop a pretty girl lifted her
head sharply and said, already on the defen-sive:

"That's me. What do you want?"

She did not look like her father; perhaps
like her brother Alain, with a very different
expression, and, without knowing why,
Maigret felt sorry for the man who fell in


43

love with her. At first sight, indeed, she was
charming, especially when she iput on her
salesgirl's smile. But behind the charm, he
guessed that she was hard, exceptionally
self-possessed.

"Have you seen your brother recently?"
"Why do you ask that?"

She glanced toward the back of the shop,
where the manager was in a fitting room with
a customer. Rather than talk in a void,
Maigret preferred to show his loadge.

"Has he done something wrong?" she
asked in a low voice.

"It is Alain you're thinking o"

"Who told you I work here?"

"Your father." She didn't stop to think for
long.

"If you really have to talk to me, wait for
me somewhere in half an hour's time."

"I'll wait for you on the terrace of the caf
Le Franais."

She watched him go without moving, her
brows puckered, and Maigret spent thirty-five
minutes watching the crowd flowing
past, and moving his legs out of the way
every time a waiter or passers-by knocked
against them. She arrived, dressed in a light
outfit, looking determined. He was sure she
would come. She was not the girl to leave

him in the lurch, or, once there, to show em-barrassment.
She sat in the chair he had kept
for her.

"What will you have?"

"A port."

She arranged the hair on each side of her
white straw toque, crossed her well-shaped
legs.

"You know your father's ill?"

"He always has been."

There was no pity, no emotion in her
voice.

"He's in bed."

"Very likely."

"Your brother's disappeared."

He saw that she was startled, that this
piece of news surprised her more than she
was willing to admit.

"That doesn't astonish you?"
"Nothing astonishes me."
"Why?"

"Because I've seen too much. What ex-actly
do you want from me?"

It was difficult to reply point-blank to such
a straight question, and she calmly took a

cigarette from a case and asked:
"Do you have a light?"
He struck a match for her.
"I'm waiting."


45

"How old are you?"

"I presume it wasn't just to find out my
age that you took all this trouble. According
to your badge, you aren't a plain inspector,
but a superintendent. In other words, some-one
important."

Examining him more closely:
"You're not the famous Maigret?"
"I'm Superintendent Maigret, yes."
"Has Alain killed someone?"
"Why do you think that?"

"Because for you to be on a case I imagine
it must be serious."

"Your brother could be the victim."
"Has he really been killed?"

Still no emotion. True, she didn't seem
to believe it.

"He's wandering around Paris some-where
with a loaded gun in his pocket."

"There must be other people doing that."

"He stole the revolver yesterday morn-ing.''

"Where?"

"From where I live."

"He went to your home? To your apart-ment?''

"Yes,"

"When there was no one there? You mean
he robbed you?"


46

This amused her. There was a sudden

look of irony on her face.

,'You're no more fond of Alain than of

your father, are you?"

"I'm not fond of anybody, not even my-self."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-one and seven months."

"So it's seven months since you left your
father's horae?"

"You call that a home? Have you been
there?"

"Do you think your brother is capable of
killing someone?" .

Wasn't it to make herself interesting that
she replied, as if to rile him:

"Why not? Everyone is capable of it."
Anywhere but on this terrace, where a
couple next to them were beginning to
eavesdrop, he would probably have shaken
her, so much did she exasperate him.

"Did you know your mother, mademoi-selle?''

"Hardly---I was three when she died, im-mediately
after Alain's birth."

"Who were you brought up by?" :,
"My father."

"He looked after his three children by
himself?." .


47

"When he had to."

"Which means what?"

"When he didn't have the money to pay
for a maid. There was a time when we had
two of them, but that didn't last. Sometimes
it was a cleaning woman who looked after
us, sometimes a neighbor. You don't give the
impression of knowing the family very well."

"Have you always lived on Rue Pop-incourt?"

"We've lived everywhere, even near the
Bois de Boulogne. We went up, we went
down, then up again a little bit, before finally
going downhill for good. Well, if you haven't
anything more important to tell me, it's time
I was getting along, because I have a date
with my friend."

"Where do you live?"

"A few yards away, on Rue de Berri."
"At the hotel?"

"No. We've got two rooms in a private
house. I suppose you want to know the number?''

She gave it to him.

"Anyway, it's been interesting meeting
you. One tends to get ideas into one's head
about people."

He didn't dare ask her what idea she had
formed about him, or, more particularly,


48

what idea she now had. She was standing
up, her suit showing offher figure, and some
customers looked at her, then looked at
Maigret, no doubt telling themselves he was
in luck. He rose in turn and left her in the
middle of the sidewalk.

"I'm much obliged to you," he said grudg-ingly.

"Not at all. Don't worry too much about
Alain."

"Why not?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"An idea, that's all. I've a feeling that even
though you may be the great Maigret, you've
still got a lot to learn."

Thereupon she set off hurriedly in the di-rection
of nearby Rue de Berri, and did not
look back. He had not kept the police car.
He took the m6tro, which was packed, and
gave him an opportunity of venting his ill
humor. He wasn't pleased with anyone, in-cluding
himself. If he had met Pardon, he
would have upbraided him for telling him
about this Lagrange, who looked like a great
ghost puffed up with wind, and he nursed
a grievance against his wife for the revolver
business, for which he wasn't far from hold-ing
her responsible.

All this was no concern of his. The m6tro


49

smelled of laundry. The advertisements, always
the same in the stations, nauseated
him. Outside he found the sun almostburning,
and he bore a grudge against tine sun,
too, for making him sweat. Seeing him go
by, the porter realized he was in a bad,hood
and confined himself to a discreet nod.

On his desk, well in evidence, protected
against gusts of wind by one of his pipes,
which served for the occasion as a paperweight,
there was a note:

"Please telephone the Station Police at Gate

du Nord as soon as possible."

It was signed: "Lucas."

He picked up the telephone, asked for the
number, with his hat still on, and, in order to light his pipe, held the receiver between
his cheek and shoulder.

"Is Lucas still with you?"

Maigret had spent the grimmest two years
of his life in the Station Police office and he
knew every aspect of it. He heard the voice
of an inspector saying:

"For you. Your chief."

And Lucas:

"Hello! I wondered if you would be going
back by the office. I telephoned your apartment
as well.'

"Did you find the driver?"


5O

"A stroke of luck. He told me he was in
a bar on Place Voltaire last evening, and a
customer came and hunted him out, a great
fat fellow, trying to look important, who had
himself taken to Gare du Nord."

"To put a trunk in the checkroom?"

"That's right. You've got it. The trunk is
still here."

"Have you opened it?"
"They won't let me."
"Who?"

"The station people. They insist on the

ticket, or else a search warrant."
"Anything special?"
"Yes. It stinks!"
"You mean . . . ?"

"What you're thinking, yes. If it's not a
stiff, the trunk is stuffed with rotten meat.
Shall I wait?"

"I'll be there in half an hour."

Maigret made his way to the Chief Com-missioner's
office. The latter rang up the
Public Prosecutor's office. The Public Pros-ecutor
had already left, but one of his sub-ordinates
finally took the responsibility upon
himself '

When Maigret came back through the
duty room, Torrence had not returned.
Janvier was dictating a report.


51

"Take someone with you. Go to Rue lolX
incourt and watch number 37B. There's a
certain Francois Lagrange who lives on the
third floor on the left at the far end of the
courtyard. Don't give yourselves away. He's
big and fat, sickly looking. Take the son's
picture with you, too."

"What do we do with him?"
"Nothing. If by any chance the son returns
and goes out again, follow him carefully.
He's armed. If the father goes out, which
would surprise me, follow him, too."

Several minutes later Maigret was travel-ing
in the direction of Gare du Nord. He
recalled what the Lagrange girl had said to

him at the caffi on the Champs-Elysfies:
"Isn't everyone capable of it?"
Something like that, anyway. And now it
was a question of murder. He threaded his
way through the crowd, found Lucas chat-ting
quietly with a Station Police inspector.

"You have the warrant, Chief?. I may as
well warn you right away that the guy in the
checkroom is tough, and the police don't
count for anything with him."

It was true. The man scrutinized the doc-ument,
turned it over, turned it back, put
on his glasses to examine the signature and
the stamps.


52

,'Seeing that I'm released fro, m all respo..
ibility ···

With a resigned but disappr,'oving gestu
e indicated a big gray trunl of old-fas.
oned design, its cloth torn in rplaces, whic
lad been tied up with rope. Lucas had e.
tggerated in saying it stank, b-ut it gave
t stale smell that Maigret knw well.

"I hope you're not going to copen it here."

It happened to be the rush tnour. Crowd! were pressing around the tick:et windows.

"Is there someone who cmn help us?
viaigret asked the checkroorm man.

"There are porters. You don't by a!
:hance want me to lug it myself?"

The trunk would not fit irnto the smi
lack police car. Lucas had i-t loaded im

taxi. All this was not very re*ular. Maigel

ranted to get it over with qu.ickly.
"Where's it to go to, Chieff?.."

"The laboratory. That'll be Dest. Jussieu'
robably still there."

He met Torrence on the st:airs.
"You know, Chief.."
"YOU've fo '


53
"Who?"
[nd
him?" "The young man."
"No,
but . . ,, ["One
minute
then
.
.


Sure enough, Jussieu was upstairs. There
were four or five of them around the trunk,
photographing it from all sides and making
various tests before opening it.

Half an hour later, Maigret called the
Chief Commissioner's office.

"The Chief's just gone," someone replied.
He called him at his home, discovered he
was dining that evening at a restaurant on
the Left Bank. At the restaurant, he hadn't
yet arrived. It meant another ten minutes'
wait.

"I'm sorry to trouble you, Chief. It's
Maigret, about the case I told you of. Lucas
was right. I think you'd better come. It's
someone important, and it may cause a sen-sation...."

A second's pause.

"Andrfi Delteil, the Deputy . . . I'm
sure of it, yes... Right. . I'll wait for

	,,

you ....


THE POLICE COMMISSIONER was attending a

foreign-press dinner at a big hotel on Avenue
Montaigne when the head of the Police
Judiciaire succeeded in getting through to


54

him on the telephone. At first he only let out
an exclamation:


After which there was a silence.

"I trust the press isn't onto the case yet?"
he finally murmured.

"Not so far. A reporter is hanging around
in the corridor and realizes that something
is going on. We won't be able to hide what
it's all about for long."

The newsman, G6rard Lombras, an old
hand at petty scandals, who made his little
trip to the Quai des Orfvres every evening,
was sitting on the bottom step of the stairway
just opposite the laboratory door, patiently
smoking his pipe.

"Do nothing, say nothing, until I give the
word," cautioned the Police Commissioner.

And, in his turn, from one of the boo'ths,
in the hotel, he called the Minister of the
Interior. It was an evening of interrupted
dinners, an exceptionally balmy evening,
however, with languid strollers filling the
streets of Paris. There were some on the
quais as well, who must have wondered why,
when night had not yet fallen, there were so
many lighted offices in the old building of
the Palais de Justice.

The Minister of the Interior, a native of


55

Cantal who had kept his rough local accent
and style of speech, exclaimed on hearing
the news:

"Even dead, that fellow's a... nuisance!"
The Delteils lived in a big building on
Boulevard Suchet, on the edge of the Bois
de Boulogne. When, eventually, Maigret got
permission to call, a manservant replied that
Madame was not in Paris.

"You don't know when she'll be back?"

"Not before fall. She's in Miami. Monsieur
is not here either."

Maigret asked on the off chance:

"Do you know where he is?"

"No."

"Was he in Paris yesterday?"
A moment's hesitation.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean?"
"Monsieur went out."
"When?"

"I don't know."

"The evening before last?"

"I think so, yes. Who is this?"

"Police Judiciaire."

"I don't know anything. Monsieur is not
here."

"Does he have relatives in Paris?"

"His brother, Monsieur Pierre."


56



1

"You know his address?"

"I think he lives right near the Etoile. I
can give you his telephone number. One
minute... Balzac 5102."

"You weren't surprised not to see Monsieur
Delteil return?"

"No, sir."

"Had he warned you he wouldn't be coming
back?"

"No, sir.

New figures began to fill the Forensic Laboratory.
The Examining Magistrate, who
had been sought out at the home of some
friends where he had been playing bridge,
had just arrived, as had the Public Prosecutor,
and the two were conversing together
in low tones. Paul, the police medical expert,
who had also been dining out, was one of
the last to appear, the perpetual cigarette' between
his lips.

"Shall I take him away?" he said, indicating
the open trunk, where the corpse was
still slumped.

"As soon as you've made your preliminary
examination."

"I can tell you right away he's not fresh

today. Good Lord! It's Delteil!"

"Yes."

A "yes" that spoke volumes. Ten years ear57





I

lier, probably none of those who were pres-ent
would have recognized the dead man.
He was then a young lawyer more often to
be met with at the Roland-Garros races or
in the bars of the Champs-Elys6es than at
the Law Courts, and was more like a young
movie star than a member of the bar.

A little later on he had married an Amer-ican
woman with a private fortune, had in-stalled
himself on Boulevard Suchet, and
three years afterward was a candidate in the
general election. Even his opponents during
the electoral campaign had not taken him
seriously.

He had, nonetheless, been elected, by a
narrow majority, and from the very next day
had begun to get himself talked about. He
did not, strictly speaking, belong to any
party, but became the terror of them all, con-tinually
interrupting, exposing abuses,
plots, intrigues, without anyone ever being
able to see exactly what he was hoping to
get out of it. At the beginning of each im-portant
session, ministers and deputies

could be heard to ask:

"Is Delteil there?"

And brows would knit. If in fact he
was there, bronzed like a Hollywood star,
with his little brown mustache shaped like


58

two commas, it meant there would be some
n.

Maigret had his peevish look. He had
called the brother's number, a furnished
home on Rue Ponthieu, where he had been
advised to try Le Fouquet. Le Fouquet had
put him on to Maxim's.

"Is Monsieur Delteil with you?"

"Who is calling?"

"Tell him it's about his brother."

He finally got him. They must have delivered
his message incorrectly.

"That you, Andr6?"

"No. This is the Police Judiciaire. Will you
take a taxi and come around here?"

"I've got my car at the door. What's it all
about?"

"Your brother."

"Has something happened to him?"
"Don't talk about anything until you've

	5,

seen me.

"But . . ."

Maigret hung up, cast an irritated look at
the groups forming in the vast room, then,
since he wasn't needed right away, went
down to his office. Lombras, the reporter,
followed on his heels.

"You won't forget me, Superintendent?''


59

"No."

"In an hour it'll be too late for the ne
edition."

"I'll see you before then."
"Who is it? A big fish, isn't it?"
"Yes."

Torrence was waiting for him, but befo:
speaking to him Maigret telephoned h
wife.

"Don't expect me this evening, and mo:
than likely not tonight at all."

"I thought as much when you didn't corr
home."

A silence. He knew what, or, rathe

whom, she was thinking about.

"Is it him?"

"At any rate, he hasn't committed su
cide."

"He's shot someone?"

"I just don't know anything."

He hadn't told them everything, upstair:
He didn't feel like telling them everythint
He still had probably about an hour ahea
of him of being bored by the bigwigs, aft
which he could take up his inquiry in peac
once more.

He turned to Torrence.

"You've found the boy?"

"No. I say his former employer and hi


60

colleagues. It's only three weeks ago that he

left them."

"Why?"

"He got thrown out."

"In trouble?"

"No. It seems he's honest. But recently he
was continually absent. At first they weren't
bothered. Everyone rather took to him.
Then, as he treated things more and more
leisurely..."

"Did you find out anything about his hab-its?''

"Nothing."

"No girlfriend?"

"He never talked about his private af-fairs.''

"No flirting with the typists?"

"One of them, not a pretty one, blushed
when she mentioned him, but I got the im-pression
he took no notice of her."

Maigret asked for a number on the tele-phone.

"Hello! Madame Pardon? Maigret here.
Is your husband in? Tough day? Ask him to
come to the phone for a second, would you?"

He wondered if, by any chance, the doctor
had gone back, late in the day, to Rue Pop-incourt.

"Pardon? I'm very sorry to bother you.


61

Have you got patients to see this evening
Listen. Things are getting serious in con.
nection with your friend Lagrange .... Ye: ·.. I've seen him .... Something new ha:
come up since I went to his place. I nee,
your help .... That's right .... I would we
much like you to come and pick me u
here .... "

When he went upstairs again, still followed
by Lombras, he caught sight of Pie:
Delteil on the stairs, and recognized hi
from his likeness to his brother.

"Was it you who called me here?"
"Ssh! "

He pointed to the reporter.

"Follow me."

He led him off upstairs, pushed the dooJ
closed just as Dr. Paul, who had been m ing a preliminary examination of the

was straightening up.

"Recognize him?"

Everyone was silent. The scene was m
more painful by the resemblance bel
the two men.

"Who did it?"

"It's your brother, all right?"
There were no tears, but clenched fists,
set jaw, eyes that became fixed and hard.
li"Who did it?" repeated Pierre Delteil,


62

who was three or four years younger than
rge Deputy.

"We don't know yet."

Dr. Paul explained:

"The bullet entered through the left eye
and lodged in the brain. It did not come out
again. As far as I can judge, it's a small-caliber
bullet."

On one of the telephones the Chief Commissioner
was speaking to the Police
Commissioner. When he came back to
the group waiting for him, he passed on
the instructions, which came from the Minister.

"A simple statement to the press, announcing
that Andr6 Delteil, the Deputy,
has been found dead in a trunk deposited
in the checkroom at Gare du Nord. As few
details as possible. There'll be time tomorrow."

Rateau, the Examining Magistrate, drew
Maigret into a corner.

"You think it's a political crime?"

¢CSo."

"An affair over a woman?"

"I don't know."

"You suspect someone?"

I'll know tomorrow."

"I count on you to keep me posted. Phone


63

me, even at night, if there's anything new.
I'll be in my office tomorrow from nine
o'clock in the morning onward."

Maigret vaguely nodded his assent, went

and had a few words with Dr. Paul.

"All right, old man."

Paul went off to proceed with the autopsy.
All this had taken time. It was ten o'clock
at night when dark silhouettes merged into
one another on the badly lighted stairway.
The reporter did not leave the Superintendent's
side.

"Come into my office a moment. You are
right. It is a big fish. Andr Delteil, the Deputy,
has been murdered."

"When?"

"We don't know yet. A bullet in the head.
The body was found in a trunk deposited

in the checkroom at Gare du Nord."
"Why was the trunk opened?"

The man had caught on right away.
"Nothing else for today."
"Have you got any clues?"
"Nothing else for today."

"Are you going to spend all night on the
case?"

"Possibly."

"What if I followed you?"

"I would have you locked up on the first

pretext at hand and leave you to cool

tomorrow morning."

"I see.

"So that's settled."

Pardon knocked at the door, came lo.
reporter asked:

"Who's this?"

"A frierd."

"May we know his name?"

"INTo."

They were left alone together at last,
Maigret began by taking off his jacket
lighting a pipe.

"Sit down. Before going over
would like to have a little talk, and it's erL

for it to be here."

"grage?"

"Yes. ooe question, to begin with.Is



eally ill, nd to what extent?" .

"I was expecting that and I've been

ng about it all the way here, because ts
easy to answer categorically. Ill, yes, tNt
certain. He contracted diabetes soete
years ago."

"Which doesn't stop him leading a 0m5
life?',

"Hardly at all. I gave him insuliO..Fv%
taught hi to give hmself Nsown'e%

	tions. en he eats

	way fro home, IC


65

till


he


ways has a little folding scale in his pocket
on which to weigh certain foods. With insulin,
it's important."

"I know. Well?"

"Do you want a diagnosis in technical
terms?

"NO."
"All his life he's suffered from glandular
trouble, which is the case with most people
of his physical type. He's soft, impressionable,
easily depressed."

"And his present state?"

"It's here that it becomes trictcier. I was
very surprised this morning to find him in
the state you saw him in. I examined him
carefully. Although hypertrophied, the
heart's not bad.., no worse than it was
a week or two ago, when Lagrange was going
around as usual."

"You've considered the possibility of a
hoax?"

Pardon had considered it, that could be
seen from his expression. A scrupulous man,
he was picking his words with care.

"I presume you have good reason to ask
me that?"


	"Grave reasons."

"His son?"

"I don't know. I'd better give you all the


66

facts. Forty-eight hours ago, a man was
killed, more than likely in the apartment on
Rue Popincourt."

"Has he been identified?"

"It's Deputy Delteil."

"Did they know each other?"

"Our inquiries will tell us. The fact re-mains
that last evening, while we were
dining with you and talking about him,
Francois Lagrange called a taxi to the
front of his building and, with the help
of the driver, brought down a trunk con-taining
the corpse, to take it to Gare du
Nord and deposit it. Does that surprise
you?" '

"It would be a surprise any time."
"You understand now why I am anxious
to know if, when you examined him 'this
morning, Francois Lagrange was ill to the
extent he wanted people to believe, or if he

	was pretending."
	, ,.

	Pardon rose.

"Before answering, I.would like to exam-ine
him again. Where is he?"

He supposed that Lagrange had been
brought to one of the offices of the Police

Judiciaire.
			'

	"Still at home, in bed."
	.



	"Doesn't he know anything?'''


67

	bathrobe again. His hands were tremblih

	for he had trouble in turning the key; ".:

lock.
	m t


	"Have you found Alain?"

All of a sudden he saw the doctor in the
semidarkness, and his face changed, turned
still paler than usual. He stood there, with.
out moving, no longer knowing what to do
or say.

	"May we come in?"

Maigret sniffed, recognized the smell
pervaded his nostrils, a smell of burne
paper. Lagrange's beard had grown a bi
more since the Superintendent's visit, and
the bags under his eyes were more pro-nounced.

"Considering your state of health,"
Maigret began at last, "I didn't want to come
without being accompanied by your doctor.
Pardon has consented to take the trouble.
I presume you have no objection to his
amining you?"

"He listened to my chest this morning. I4¢
knows I'm ill." 1

"If you'll get back into bed, he'll exarr¢
you again."

Lagrange was on the point of protesting'
as could be seen from his expression, but
finally he resigned himself, went into


70

room, removed his bathrobe, and lay


,,Ucover your chest, Pardon said gently.

;.qile he was being examined, the man

stared fixedly at the ceiling. As for Maigret,

he paced back and forth in the room. There

vas a chimney with a black damper, which

he lifted, and behind the shutter he found

some paper ashes which had been carefully

reduced almost to powder with a poker.

From time to time Pardon muttered pro
fessional
phrases.

	"Turn over 	Breathe
in 	Breathe
	deeper.
Cough
....
There was
a door not far from the bed, and the
Superintendent pushed it, found an unoccupied
room, which must have belonged to
one of the children, with an iron bedstead
from which the mattress had been
removed. He switched on the light. The
room had become a sort of glory hole. A
pile of weekly papers lay in one corner, with
tattered books, including schoolbooks, a
leather suitcase covered with dust. On the
right, near the window, a patch of the floor
the shape of the trunk found in Gare du
Nord was a lighter color than the rest.
Maigret
came
back into the adjoin71


ing room, PardOn was standing up, With

preoccupied look.

"Well?"

He did not reply at once, was avoidh
Lagrange's eyes, which were fzxed on hh

"In all conscience, I think he's in a fit sta

to reply to your questions."
"You'hear, Lagrange?"

The man was looking from one to t
other of them in silence, and his eyes we
a wretched sight, like those of a wound
beast staring at the men bending over it a
trying to understand.

"You know why I am here?"
Lagrange must have come to a decisie
probably during the examination, becar
he remained silent, and not a muscle
face moved.

"Why not admit you know very well, ti
you've been expecting it since this mornit
and that it's fear which is making you il

Pardon had gone to sit in a corner, 0
elbow over the back of his chair, chin
hand.

"We have discovered the trunk."
There was no shock. Nothing happen'
and Maigret could not even have sworn tJ
for the fraction of a second there had be
an added intensity in those pupils.


72

,'I'm not saying that you killed. Andr
elteil. It's possible that you are in.nocent
of the crime. I admit I don't know arything
of what happened here, but I am celrtain it
was you who took the corpse, shut up i in your
trunk, to the checkroom. In your O',wn in-terest
it would be better for you to Sc, peak."

Still no sound, no movement. /laigret
turned to Pardon, at whom he shoot a dis-couraged
glance.

"I would even like to believe that 5qou are
ill, that the effort you made last eveniing and
the emotional upset have shaken you. All the
more reason to answer me frankly.''

Lagrange closed his eyes, openeczt them
again, but his lips did not part.

Jr son is on the run. If he did ,lae kill-ing,
we won't be long in getting ou- hands
on him, and your silence doesn't hlp him
at all. If it was not him, it's better, for his
safety, that we should know. He's armed.
The police are warned about it."

Maigret had approached the bed, lad per-haps
leaned over it a bit without re alizing,
and at last the man's lips moved; he stam-mered
something.

"What did you say?"

Then, in a frightened voice,Lgrange
Cried out: f


73

	"Don't hit me! You've no right to hit

"I have no intention of doing so, and,
know it."

	"Don't hit me 	Don't..."

	And
all of a sudden he threw back
'
	covers, cringed, made as if to
ward

	attack.
	"I don't want... I don't want
to
hit
	"

It was ugly to see. It was painful. O
more, Maigret turned to Pardon as if to s
his advice. But what advice could the doc
give him?

"Listen, Lagrange. You are perfec
lucid. You're no longer a child. You
derstand me extremely well. And a sh
while ago you weren't so ill, since y
had the energy to burn some compromisi
papers ....

A lull, as though the man were getting'
breath, only to break out more violently
ever, to shout this time:

"Save me!... Help!... They're hitti
me! . . . I don't want them to hit me!.
Let me go!"

	Maigret seized one of his wrists.

	"That's enough of that, do you hear?'


	"Are you going to shut up?"

.rdon had risen, and then came over to

bed, looking intently at the sick man.

· "I don't want ··· Leave me .... I'll wake

		the whole place up ....I'll
tell them ...."

	I, ardon murmured in his ear:

· ,,you won't get anything out of him."

Hardly had they moved away from the bed when Lagrange became motionless and relapsed
into his silence.

	The two of them held council in the cor	ner.


	"You think his mind is really deranged.>"

	"I can't be positive."

	"It's a possibility?"

"It's always a possibility. He ought to be
put under observation." '

	Lagrange had slightly moved his head so

not to lose sight of them, and it was evident
that he was listening. He must have
understood the last few words. He seemed
pacified. Nevertheless, Maigret returned to
the charge, not without weariness.

"Before you make any decision, Lagrange,
I would like to warn you of one thing. I have
an arrest warrant out in your name. Downstairs
two of my men are waiting. Unless I
get satisfactory replies to my questions, they
are going to take you to the Police Infirmary.',
j:


75

I
No reaction. Lagrange was gazing at
ceiling with such a faraway look that
might have wondered whether he was liste ing .

"Doctor Pardon can assure you that
are almost infallible methods of exposing
malingerers. You were not mad this morn,
ing. No more were you when you burned
your papers. You aren't now, I feel SUre."

Was there really a vague smile on the
man's lips?

"I haven't struck you, and I'm not going
to strike you. I'm just telling you again that
the attitude you're adopting won't get you
anywhere, and will only make people unsympathetic,
if not worse. Have you made
up your mind to answer?"

"I don't want them to hit me!" he repeated
in a toneless voice, as if mumbling a prayer.

Maigret, with shoulders hunched, went
and opened the window, leaned out, call

to the inspector waiting in the yard.
"Come up with Janvier!"

He closed the window again and began
pacing up and down the room. Footsteps
were heard on the stairs.

"If you want to dress, you can. If not,
they'll carry you as you are, wrapped in a
blanket."


76

Lagrange merely went on moving his lips,
,eating the same syllables, so that they

	ed up by meaning nothing at all.

"I don't want them to hit me .... I don't

want them ···

,,come in, Janvier 	You,
too... Just
take
him to the Infirmary 	No use
dress	ing
him,
since he's quite capable of starting
	to struggle
again. ·· Just in case, put the
	dcuffs on
him 	Wrap him in
a blan-

A door had
opened on the floor above. A window was lighted
on the other side of the courtyard, and they
could see a woman leaning out
of her window, and a man getting out of
bed behind her.
"I don't
want them to hit me!..." Maigret didn't
look, heard the click of the handcuffs, then
heavy breathing, footsteps, bumps.

"I
don't want them to . . . I . . . Help! ·
. ·Save me!"
One
of the men must have put a hand over his
mouth, or gagged him, for the voice became
fainter, then ceased; the footsteps reached
the staircase.
The
silence, immediately afterward, was
Uncomfortable.
The Superintendent's first move
was to light his pipe. Then he looked

77

at the unmade bed, from which a shee
trailed out into the middle of the room.
old slippers were still there, the bathrobe
the floor.

	"Your views, Pardon?"

	"You'll have trouble."

		1

"I'm sorry to have mixed you up in thi
case. It wasn't a pretty sight."

As though a detail had come back to bin
the doctor muttered:

	"He was always very frightened of dying.

I

"Every week he used to complain of ne
illnesses, questioned me at length to find 0
if they were serious. He used to buy medic
books. We ought to find them around sore
where."

Maigret in fact found them in the chi
of drawers, and there were markers at cz
rain pages.

"What are you going to do?"

"To start with, the Police Infirmary v
see to him. As for me, I'm going on w
the case. What I'd like more than anyt
would be to find his son."

"You've got an idea it's him?"

"No. If Alain had done the killing,
wouldn't have needed to steal my revolt
Actually, by the time he was at my ho


78 I

ethe cr had already been committed. The
death dates back forty-eight hours at least
to
Tuesday, in fact."

"Are you staying ,here?"

"A few minutes. I m waiting for the men

I got Janvier to send. In an hour I'll have
Doctor Paul's report."

It was Torrence who came a little later on,
accompanied by two colleagues and some
forensic and criminal records men complete
with cameras. Maigret gave them instructions,
while Pardon stood to one side, still
looking worried.

"You coming?"

"I'm with you."

"Can I drop you at home?"

"I would really like to ask your permission
to go around to the Police Infirmary. But

perhaps my colleagues over there would take
dim view."

"On the contrary. Have you got an idea?"

"No. I would just like to see him again,
erhaps try once more. He's a difficult

case."

It did them good to breathe the air in the
streets once again. The two men reached the
Quai des Orfvres, and Maigret knew in adVance
that there would be more lighted windows


Usual.


79

.!

Pierre Delteil's sports car was still Pa
there. The Superintendent frowned.
found the reporter Lombras on guard in
waiting.

"The brother's waitng for you. Still
ing for me?"

"Still nothing, my boy."

He spoke without thinking, for
Lombras was almost his own age.


PIERRE DELTEIL WAS aggressive from the

start. For example, while Maigret was giving
instructions to little Lapointe, who had just
come on duty, he stood by the desk, his but-tocks
resting on its edge, strumming the tips
of his well-manicured fingers on a silver cig-arette
case. Then, when Maigret changed
his mind just as Lapointe was going out, and
asked him to order some sandwiches and
beer, he deliberately twisted his lips into a
sardonic smile.

True, he had received a serious shock, and
since then his nervousness had continually
increased, to a point where it became tiring
to watch him.

"At last!" he cried when the


80

	ed and the Superintendent sat cloWn at

his desk.

	And, because the latter was loo king at

him as though seeing him for tl-qe first
time:

"I suppose you're going to decide on a vice
crime or some affair with a woman? They
must have given you instructiors from
above to hush up the business? Let me tell

,,

you this.. ·

"Sit down, Monsieur Delteil."

He would not sit down at once.

"I hate talking to a man standing up."

Maigret's voice was a bit weary, a bit hol
low.
The ceiling light was not on, ;and the

desk lamp only diffused a green glove. Pierre

Delteil finally settled himself in the chair that

was offered him, crossed, then uncrossed his

legs, opened his mouth to say sometting else

disagreeable, but didn't have time to utter

a word.

"Pure formality," Maigret interupted

him, reaching out a hand toward him with
out
bothering to look at him. "We, uld you

show me your identity card?"

He examined it with care, like a frontier

PsdCeman,' turned it over and back again in

	hands.
	[

	"Film producer," he read out finally, next


81

to the heading "Profession." "Have (

duced many films, Monsieur Delteil
"The fact is that . . ."
"Have you produced one?"

"It's not yet in production, but. ,,
"iF i understand you correctly, you haven't
produced anything at all. You were at
Maxim's when I got you on the telephone.
A little while before, you were at
Fouquet. You live in a furnished apartment
in a pretty expensive building on Rue de
Ponthieu and you own a magnificent car.:

He now examined him from head to fo01
as though to appraise the cut of the suit, the
silk shirt, the shoes, which came from the
best shoe manufacturer.

"You have private means, Monsieur
Delteil?"

"I don't see the point of these..."
"These questions," the Superintendent
finished, placidly. "None. What did you
before your brother became a deputy?"

"I worked on his election campaign."
"And before that?"


"Just so. In short, for several years,
more or less been your brother's gray
inence. In return, he provided for
needs."


82

Are you trying to humiliate me? Is that

.rt
	of the instructions you've received?
not admit that those people know per
ctly
well it's a political crime and they've

.ld you to suppress the truth at all costs.
t's because I realized that, up there, that,, I

.aited for you. Let me inform you...
,'You know the murderer?"

"Not necessarily, but my brother was be-orning
a nuisance, and it had been arranged

,,


"You may light your cigarette."

This time there was no reply.

"I suppose, in your eyes, there is no so-ution
other than a political crime?"

"Do you know the culprit?"

'Here, Monsieur Delteil, it's I who ask the

estions. Had your brother any mistresses?"

"It's common knowledge. He made no secret
of it."

"Not even from his wife?"

He had still less reason to conceal it, be-ause
they were getting divorced. That's
one of the reasons why Pat is now in the
States.,,

"Is it she who's asking for the divorce?"

Pierre Delteil hesitated.

"For what reason?"


I 83

"Probably because she's got bored wit
all."

"Your brother?"

"You know the Americans?"
"I've met one or two."
"Rich ones?"
"Some."

"In that case you must know that h
marry as a sort of game. Eight years
Pat was passing through France. It was
first visit to Europe. She decided to stay,
have her own mansion in Paris, to live l
life of Paris . . ."

"And to have a husband playing a part
that same Parisian life. Was it she w

pushed your brother into politics?" I
"He always had the idea of going into i
"So he simply took advantage oft
means that the marriage placed at his d
posal. You mean that, fairly recently, his
had enough of it and went back to the Sta
to demand a divorce. What would have
come of your brother?"

"He would have.continued with his'
reer."

"What about money? Usually, rich Amc
cans take the precaution of marrying
a separate-maintenance arrangement."

"Nevertheless, Andr would never la:


84

:cepted her money. Anyhow, I ctt don't see

dere these questions ·· ."

-
	.ou know this young man?:!n?"

I
	''I9°Y- ,.,,ded him the photot!0:ograph of
5{taigret

Alain Lagrange.

pierre Delteil looked at it uncomltprehendLngly,
raised his head.

"Is that the murderer?"

"I'm asking if you've seen him 1Ia before."
,'Never."

I "Do you know a man named LlLagrange,

FranCois Lagrange?"

He began to search his memory, a, as though
the name was not entirely unknown to him
and he was trying to place it.

"I think, in certain circles," I' Maigret
prompted him, "he is called 'BaBaron La-grange.'"

"Now I know whom you're talkinifing about.



Most of the time people
Baron.'" '

"You know him well?"

"I meet him from time

just - say 'the


to timime at Le




85
Fouquet or other places. I occasio
onally say hello. I must have drunk
an ap&i.&ritif with

"Did ou have
any business deooealmgs?
"Thank God, no."
"Your brother
saw
him
often?"


"Same as me, probably. Everyone kn0,
the Baron, more or less."

"What do you know about him?"
"Practically nothing. He's an idiot, a st
idiot, a great slob who tries to worm his
in."

"What's his profession?"

And Pierre Delteil, more naYvely than
would have wished:

"Does he have a profession?" I

"I presume he must have means of su
port?"

Maigret almost added: "Not everyon,
lucky enough to have a deputy fo
brother." '

He didn't do so because it was no lonl
necessary. Young Delteil was coming
heel, without noticing his own change
attitude.

"He's in some vague sort of busine
At least, I suppose so. He isn't the o
one in his poskion. He's the kind of
who buttonholes you and tells you h
just pulling off a deal involving several
dred million, and ends up by asking Y
to lend him the price of a dinner
taxi."

"He must have got around to touch
your brother?"


86

tried to touch everybody."

)t don't think your brother could have

I

rade use o.f him?"

,,Certainy not."

.'\Vhy?"

,,Because my brother distrusted idiots.
,n't see what you're driving at. I get the
feeling you know something you don't intend
to tell me. What I still don't understand
is how they knew that a trunk left in the
checkroom at Gate du Nord contained
Andr6's body."

l"They didn't know."

"It was just chance?"


He was beginning to sneer again.
''Almost sheer chance. One more question.
What reason would a man like your
brother have had to pay a visit, at his home,
to a man like the Baron?"

"Did he pay him a visit?"

1 "You haven't answered me."

"It doesn't seem likely to me."

"A crime, at the start of the investigation,

never seems likely."

1 Because there was someone knocking at

the door, he called out:

"Come in!"

It Was the waiter from the Brasserie DauPhine
with the sandwiches and beer.


87

"Would you like some, M°nsieut
Delteil?"

"Thank you, but.. ."

"No, thank you?"

"I was just having dinner when...,, "I won't keep you any longer. I've got Your
telephone number. Maybe I'll need you t0-morrow
or the day after."

"In fact, you altogether discount the
of a political crime?"

"I discount nothing. As you see, I'm Work.
ing on it."

He picked up the telephone, to make quite

clear that the interview was over.
"Hello! Is that you, Paul?"

Delteil hesitated, finally went to get his
and made for the door.

"At any rate, you can be sure I won't let
it rest.. ."

Maigret waved a hand at him:

"Good night! Good night!" The do,
closed once again.

"Maigret here... Well?... Yes, as I suspected...
In your opinion he was killed 0
Tuesday evening, perhaps during the courSe
of the night?... Does that tally?. ··
speaking . ."

It was on Tuesday, too, but in the after'
noon, that Frangois Lagrange had tele'


88

		honed for the last time to the doctor to

	P 	re
that Nlaigret would be at the din,er

the following day. At that time he still wa
ted to meet the Superintendent, and
it was more than likely it was not out of
mere curiosi. He couldn't
en have been expecting e
DepuW's visit, but perhaps he foresaw it for one
of e next few days?
0n Wednesday morning his son Alain
appeared at Boulevard chard-Lenoir,
so nervous, looking so frightened, according to .
e Maigret, that she
felt sorry for him and took him under her
protection.
hat did the young man go
there for? To ask advice? Had he
seen the murder? Had he
discovered e body, which was probably
not yet in the trunk?
The fact
remained that the sight of Maigret's n made
him change his mind, · at he took the
weapon, left the apartment on tiptoe,
and dashed into e first gun shop
he came across to buy ammunition.
	So he
had some idea in his head.
	e
same evening, his faer was not at
·
e Pardons' dinner parW. Instead, he
got
hold of
a
taxi driver and,
wi
his
help,
went
d deposited e bod at Gar
	affe
,,.. -	y	e
du
Nord

	r
w
	.


	,. c he
re red
to
bed
and
became
ill.

	·
-e
II
e ,
Paul?"

As he expected, it had not been fired
his American revolver, since the weapon,
the time of the murder, was still at his
but from a small-caliber gun, a 6.35,
would not have done much harm if the
hitting the left eye, had not entered t
brain.

"Anything else to report? The stornac[
The latter contained the remains of a c
pious dinner, and digestion had only jt
begun. That put the crime, according to
Paul, at about eleven o'clock in the eveni
Delteil, the Deputy, not being one of tho

who dine early.

	"Thanks, old man 	No,
the proble!
I've'
still got to solve aren't in your provinc
He
began to eat, all alone in his offic where
there was still only a greenish lig He
was uncomfortable, ill at ease. He fou the
beer tepid. He hadn't thought of ord ing
coffee, and, wiping his lips, he went a
fetched
the bottle of cognac he kept in
	I

	closet,
and poured himself a glass. ,,
	"Hello!
Get me the Police Infirmary.
	He
was surprised to hear Journe's voit
	The
professor had gone out of his way1

	answer himself.

	"You've had time to look at my custore

	What do you think of him?"


90

			definite answer would have eased his

		.d a bit, but old Journe was not the man

	r definite answers. He delivered, over the

	telephone, a lecture studded with technical

	termS, from which it emerged that there was

	about a sixty percent chance that Lagrange

	was a fraud, but that, short of a mistake on

	his part, weeks could pass before they had

	any scientific proof of it.

	"Is Doctor Pardon still with you?"

	"He's just about to leave."

	"What's Lagrange doing?"

	"Absolutely quiet. He let himself be put

	bed and began talking to the nurse in a

	childish voice. He told her in tears that peo
	ple
had wanted to beat him, that everyone

	was set against him, that it had been like that

	all his life."

	"Can I see him in the morning?"

	"Whenever you like."

	"I'd like a word with Pardon."

	And, to the latter:

	"Well?"

	"Nothing new. I'm not altogether of the

	rofessor's opinion, but he's more of an ex
	pert
than I, and it's a long time since I gave

	up,, psychiatry ,,

	What' '
	'

,Ti s your personal opinion?"

rather have a few hours to think it over


91

I
before saying. It's too serious a matter
give an opinion lightly. Aren't you go
home to bed?"

"Not yet. I probably won't get any
tonight."

	"You don't need me any more?"

	"No, old man. Thanks very much.

ogize to your wife for me again."
"She's used to it."

	"So's mine, fortunately."

Maigret rose, with the idea of g0inl
around to Rue Popincourt to see how Ii
men were getting on. Because of the burned
papers in the fireplace, he was not too hopeful
that they'd find a clue, but he wanted
to poke around in the corners of the ro0m

Just as he was getting his hat, the tel?
phone rang.

"Hello! Superintendent Maigret? Faubourg
Saint-Denis police station here. I w
told to telephone you just in case. It's

Lecoeur speaking."
	I

	The man was plainly very excited.

"It's about the young man in the photO'
graph they sent us. I've got a character"
here . . ."

	He corrected himself:

"... person here who's just had his v;lle:
stolen on Rue de Maubeuge . · ."


92

The victim must have been listening,
-,sing Lecoeur to pick his words.

cait,s a businessman from the provinces

I4old on..-From GlermontFerrand
'.. He was going along Rue de Maubeuge,
about half an hour ago, when a man came
out of the darkness and brandished a large
gun under his nose'.,, ·· a young man, to be
more precise ....

	Lecoeur spoke to someone beside him.

	"He says a very young man, almost a boy.

It seems his lips were trembling, so it
was all he could do to say: 'Your wallet,


Maigret frowned. Ninety-nine times out
of a hundred an assailant simply says: "Your
walled"

· And in that alone could be recognized the
amateur, the beginner.

"When the gentleman spoke about a
young man," Lecoeur went on, not without
a touch of self-satisfaction, "I at once
thought of the picture issued to us yesterday,
and I showed it to him. He recognized it

	without hesitating 	What?
. . ."

	It was the Clermont-Ferrand business
	man
talking, whose voice Maigret could

	hear stating emphatically:

	I'm absolutely certain of it!"


93

"What did he do then?" Maigret asked
"Who?" .
"The assailant."

Two voices again, as when a radio;
properly tuned in, two voices sayin
same thing:

"He ran away."

"In which direction?"

"Boulevard de la Chapelle."

"How much money was there in the wal.
let?"

"About thirty thousand francs. What shall I do? You want to see him?"

state
"The man? No. Take down his ment.

·.. One moment. Just put him on the line.'"
The man immediately said:

"My name is Grimal, Gaston Grimal, but
I'd rather my name . . ." any]

"Of course. I only want to ask you if .thing
struck you about the behavior of y0ur
assailant. Give yourself a moment to reflect.''

"I've been reflecting for half a hour. All
my papers . . ." .

"There is a good chance of recovern-them.
Your assailant?"

"He seemed to me like a young man
good family, not a hooligan."

"Were you far from a street lamP?


94

,,Not very far. The same as here to the next
,or. Ne looked as frightened as I was. So
ach so that I very nearly . . ."

	,,Resisted.

	,'yes. Then I thought that accidents easily

,,

	happen and ···

	,,Anything else? What sort of suit was he

IIwearing?" ·
	1
	"

I "A dark suit, probab y naw blue.

I

,,Crumpled?"

	"I don't know."

il

Thank you, Monsieur Grimal. I'd be

very surprised if between now and the
morning a patrol doesn't find your wallet
on the sidewalk. Without the money, of
course."

I Itwas a detail that Maigret hadn't thought
of, and he reproached himself. Alain La-grange
had got hold of a revolver, but he
could have had very little money in his
pocket, to judge by the kind of life that was
led on Rue Popincourt.

He left his office abruptly and went into
the radio room, where there were only two
men on duty.

"Put out a general call for me to police
stations and cars."

Less than half an hour later all the stations
in Paris Were listening in.


95

"Report to Superintendent Maigret
armed holdup or attempted holdup taking
in the past twenty-four hours. Urgent. ,,

He repeated it, gave the descriltio
Alain Lagrange.

"Probably still in the Gare du Nord and
levard de Chapelle area."

He did not return directly to his office,
went through to the hotels section.

"Just have a look and see if you have
got the name Alain Lagrange somewhere
Probably in a second-class hotel."

It was worth trying. Alain hadn't given hi
name to Mme Maigret. There was a chanc
that he had slept somewhere the previ0u
night. Since his identity wasn't known,
should he not have written his real name 0
the register?

"Will you wait, Superintendent?"
"No. Let me have the answer upstairs."
The specialists had returned from Rue
Popincourt with their cameras, but the in-spectors
had remained over there. At half
past midnight Maigret had a telephone call

from the Police Commissioner.
"Nothing new?"
"Nothing definite, so far."
"What about the papers?"
"They'll publish only the


96

e the first editions are out, I'm exp,'ecting

t]ood of reporters." Maigret?"

a ,,Xghat do you think,

¢,,Nothing yet. The Delteil brother was detrained
it was a political crime. I p,'olitely

dissuaded him."

I The Chief Commissioner telephred as well , and even Rateau, the Examining ;' Magistrate.
They all slept badly' that nigttt. As
for Maigret, he had no intention of going
to bed.

I It was quarter past one when he reo'ceived

a more surprising call.

I This one didn't come from the Ga,re du

Nord area, or even from the center, of the
cit3', but from the Neuilly police stat:2ion.

Over there they had been speaking about
Maigret's call to a policeman just returned
from his beat, and the man, scratchi:ng his
head, had finally mumbled:

"Perhaps I'd better call him."

He had told his story to the sergeant on
duty. The sergeant had encouraged 1,qim to
call the Superintendent. It was a yourg policeman,
who had been in uniform Ot)nly a
few months.

"I don't know if it will interest yo," he
said, much too close to the instrume:nt, so
that his Voice vibrated. "It was this mo ming,


97

or, rather, yesterday morning, seeingi
past midnight .... I was on duty on

levard Richard-Wallace, on the edge

Bois de Boulogne, almost opposite the B

atelle. It's only from this evening that I

on nights 	There
was a row of buildin
all
the same. It was about ten o'clock. I
had stopped to look at a big car of sot foreign make,
which had a license plate didn't know
.... A young man came 0 of a
building behind me, the one with t number 7B
.... I didn't pay any attentic since he
was walking naturally, in the dire tion of
the corner .... Then I saw the co cierge coming
out with an odd look on face.

"As
it happens, I know her a little. I talk with
her one day when I was taking a sun mons
to someone who lives in the buildin ·
. . She recognized me ....
"'You
look worried,' I said to her. Ar she
replied: 'I wonder what that fell0 wanted
in my building.' She was looking the
direction of the young man, who was ju turning
the corner.
"'He
just passed by the lodge without ing
for anyone,' she went on. 'He went ward
the elevator, hesitated, then went the
stairs. Since I'd never seen him

98

after him. "Who do you want?" He had

gone up several steps. He turned
surprised, as if he was afraid, and

tood there a good while without replying.
,, 'All he could find to say to me was:

I must have come to the wrong building.

The policeman went on: "The concierge
declares he stared at her in such a funny way

at she didn't dare press him. But when he
eft, she followed him. Intrigued, I went my-elf
to the corner of Rue de Longchamp.

,.re wasn't anybody there any longer. The

man must have taken to his heels. It's
rely just now that they've shown me the

I'm not sure, but I'd swear it's

I was probably wrong to call you. The
sergeant told me . . ."

"You've done perfectly right."

And the young policeman, who had his
wts about him, added:
I"My name is Emile Lebraz."

I
	Maigret called Lapointe.
"Tired?"
"No, Chief."

I h- taym my office and take any messages.

ope to be back here in three-quarters of

an hour. If there's anything urgent, call me
at Bou v trd Richard-Wallace, in Neuilly.


99

Number 7B. The concierge should have a
telephone. In fact, it would save time if you'd
call and warn her I want to talk to her for
a moment. Then she'll have time to get up
and put on a robe before I arrive."

The run through the deserted streets took
little time, and when he rang he found the
lodge lighted, the concierge not in a robe,
but fully dressed to receive him. It was a
handsome building, and the lodge was a sort
of living room. In the next room, to which
the door was open, he could see a child
asleep.

"Monsieur Maigret?" stammered the
good woman, quite overcome at receiving
him in person.

"I am very sorry to have wakened you. I
would just like you to look at these photo-graphs
and tell me if the young man you
caught on the stairs yesterday morning looks
like any of them."

He had taken the precaution of bringing

a handful of photographs of young men of
about the same age. The concierge took no
longer than the businessman from Clerm-ont.

"That's him!" she said, pointing to Alain
Lagrange.

"You're quite sure about it?"


100

	"There's no mistaking him."

	"When you caught up withyt

	threaten you at all?"
	rr'hidn't

"No! It's odd that you shouldama.,
because I've thought about
impression, if you see what Iea, ,':e an
want to state as a fact what I' m n.lon't


of fact, it seemed to me he as, .Ipoint

wheer to kill me... ."
	V%ing

	"How many tenants have

ing?"
	y0thild
};:
"There are two apartments

That makes fourteen for theseus,

But there are two empW at the0:o

family left for Brazil ree weeks

are actually Brazilians, from te

and a gentleman on the fif died b¥
ago."
	eeOays

	"Can you let me have a list0 f%n
	"That's
easy. I've got onere

up. Ware[ was b?iling on a s r r, '" de


	"I ought you'd like a

,.. My husband, whom I had e


101

to lose last year, wasn't exactly in the police,
but he was in the Republican Guard."

"I see two names on the ground floor, the

Delvals and the Tr61os."

She smiled.

"The Delvals, that's right. They are im-porters,
with offices on Place des Victoires.
But Monsieur Tr61o is all alone. Don't you
know him? He's the movie comedian."

"Anyway, it's not them the young man was
after, because, after hesitating by the eleva-tor,
he headed for the stairs."

"On the next floor, to the left, Monsieur
Desquiens, whom you see on the list, is
away at the moment. He's on vacation
with his children, who have a place in the
Midi."

"What does he do?"

"Nothing. He's rich. He's a widower, very

polite and quiet."
"On the right, Rosetti?"

"Italians. She's a very beautiful person.
They have three maids, plus a nurse for the

baby, who is just over a year old."
"Profession?"

"Monsieur Rosetti's in automobiles. It
was actually his car the policeman was look-ing
at when I came out behind the young
man."


102

"On the next floor? I'm sorry to keep you
up so late."

"Not at all. Two lumps of sugar? Milk?"
"No milk. Thanks. Mettetal. Who's that?"
"Rich people, too, but they can't keep
their maids, because Madame Mettetal,
who's in bad health, goes for everybody."

Maigret was writing notes in the margin
of the list.

"On the same floor I see Beauman."

[ "Diamond brokers. They are traveling.
It's the season. I forward their mail to them
in Switzerland."

"Next floor, on the right, Jeanne Debul.
Single woman?"

A sngle woman, yes.

The concierge had said this in the tone
women generally use to speak of another
woman against whom they have a grudge.

"What type of person?"

"You can hardly call her a type. She left
yesterday about noon for England. I was re-ally
rather surprised she hadn't mentioned
it."

"To whom?"

"To her maid, a good girl, who tells me
everything."

"Is the maid up there now?"

"Yes. She spent part of the evening here


103

'in the lodge. She wasn't in a hurry to go to
bed, because she's nervous and terrified of

sleeping by herself in the apartment."
"You say she was surprised?"

"The maid, yes. The night before, Madame
Debul came home in the small hours,
as often happens with her. You notice how
they say Madame, but I'm convinced she's

never been married."

"What age?"

"The real one, or the one she pretends to
be?"

"Both."

"The real one I know, seeing as I had her

papers in my hands when she got her lease."
"How long ago?"

"About two years. Before that she lived on
Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. The fact is
she's forty-nine and pretends to be forty. In
the morning she looks her age. In the eve,,

ning, why, heavens ...

"Does she have a lover?"

"It's not exactly what you might think.
Otherwise she wouldn't be kept on in the
place. The management is very strict on that

point. I don't quite know how to put it."
"Try."

"She's not the same class as the other residents.
Even so, she's not a person who gives


104

a bad impression, if you see what I mean.
Not a kept woman, for example. She's got
money. She gets letters from her bank, from
her stockbroker. She could be a widow or

a divorc& having a good time."

"Does she entertain?"

"Not gigolos, if that's what you have in
mind. Her legal adviser comes from time to
time. Women friends, as well. Sometimes
couples. But she's more a woman who goes
out than one who entertains at home. In the
morning she stays in bed, till noon. In the
afternoon she sometimes goes into town, always
extremely well dressed, rather quietly
even. Then she comes back to put on her
evening dress, and I don't pull the cord to
let her in till well after midnight. There's another
odd thing besides, which her maid,
Georgette, tells me. She spends a lot of
money. Her furs alone are worth a fortune,
and she always wears a diamond ring on her
finger as big as that. Even so, Georgette says
she's petty, and spends a large part of her

time going over the household accounts."
"When did she leave?"

"About half past eleven. That's what surprised
Georgette. At that time, her mistress
ought still to have been in bed. She was
asleep when she had a telephone call. Right


105

afterward, she had a railway timetabl
brought to her."

"This was a short time after the
man tried to get into the house?"

"A little after, yes. She didn't wait fm

breakfast and she packed herself."
"Large cases?"

"Only suitcases. No trunks. She's bee
around a lot."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because there were labels all over the
cases, nothing but big hotels in Deauville,
Nice, Naples, Rome, and other foreign
places besides."

"She didn't say when she would be
back?"

"Not to me. Georgette doesn't know any.
thing about it either."

"She didn't ask her to have her mail
warded?"

"No. She just called Gare du Nord to
serve a seat on the Calais express."

Maigret was struck by the persistence with
which the words "Gare du Nord" had recurred
since the beginning of the case. It was
at the checkroom of Gare du Nord that
Francois Lagrange had deposited the
containing the body of the Deputy. Agai
it was in the neighborhood of Gare du


106

· n had held UlgI-P the businessman
that Is,S°montFerrand..l.

IThisfr°m ''*me Alain had sl/l.lipped, up the staks

an apartment buildii-ng on Boule'ard



chard-Wallace, and, a '- little while later, a
resident of the building had set off for (e

au Nord. Coincidence?

"You know, if you have 5 the slightest desie

to question Georgette, she would be abs0.
lutely delighted. She's 8 so afraid of
alone that it would be a I pleasure for heft0
have company.

And the concierge adc-ded:

"And especially comp,oany like yours?
Before anything else M Maigret wantedr0
finish with the residents o 0of the building, and
he pointed to their names-s patiently, one aer
the other. There was a filll;lm producer once
fourth floor, a genuine or*ne this time, whise
name was to be seen on 4 walls all over Pzis.
Directly above him was a a film director, well
known, too, and, as thouough by chance, on
the seventh floor there li,ilived a scriptwner,
who did his daily dozen orOn the balcony eve7
,,morning.

Do you want me to googo and warn Ge0rgette?,,

"I,,wOuld like to make3re a telephone call


107

He called Gare du Nord.
"Maigret here, from the Police
Tell me, do you have a train for Cala:
around midnight?"

It had been about half past eleven When
the businessman was held up on Rue de
Maubeuge.

"At twelve-thirteen."

"Express?"

"It connects with the Dover Mhil at half
past five. It doesn't stop on the way."

"You don't remember issuing a ticket
a young man by himself?."

"The clerks who were in the ticket office

then have gone to bed."

"Thank you."

He called the Harbor Police in Calais,
gave the description of Alain Lagrange.

"He's armed!" he added, just in case.

Then, without expecting too much, he an
nounced, after emptying his cup of coffee:

"I'll go up and see Georgette. Warn her."

To which the concierge replied, with a
licious smile:

"You be careful. She's a pretty girl!"
She added:

"And she likes handsome men!"


108

iosY-COMpLEXIONED' WITH ample breasts,

she was in her pajamas, of candy-pink crepon,
washed so often that they allowed dark
shadoWS to show through. One would have
said that her body, too rounded everywhere,
was still not fully developed, and with her
complexion, too fresh for Paris, she reminded
one of a gosling which has not yet
0st its down. When she opened the door to
irn, he caught the smell of her bed, of armpits.
l

He had let the concierge telephone her to
wake her and say he was on his way up. She
couldn't have got through right away, because,
when he reached the third floor,the
bell was still ringing in the apartment.

He waited. The telephone was too far
from the landing for him to hear her voice.
There were footsteps on the moquette, and
she opened the door for him, not in the least

i.ernbarrassed, without having taken trou-th,e

bleto put on a robe Perhaps she didn t have

0rl
	' .
	.
	·

	I,. · .When she got up n the mormng, t was

	12ortner to get to work, and when she un
	luressed
at night, it was to go to bed. She


109

was blond, her hair all untidy, and there

still traces of lipstick on her lips.

	"Sit down there."

They had crossed the hall, and she
switched on only a large standing lamp in
the living room. She had chosen for herself
a large sofa of delicate green, where she was
half stretched out. The air coming in
through the high French window billowed
the curtains. She was watching Maigret with
the solemnity of a child examining an im-portant
grownup whom people have told her
a lot about.

"I didn't picture you quite like that," she
finally admitted.

	"How had you pictured me?"

	"I don't know. You are better."

"The concierge told me you wouldn't
mind if I came up and asked you a few ques
tions."

	"About Madame?"

	"Yes."

That didn't surprise her. Nothing coul
have surprised her.

	"How old are you?"

		1

"Twenty-two years old, six of them in
Paris. You can go ahead."

	He began by showing her the ph

of Alain Lagrange.


110

	,,you know him?"

	,,I've never seen him."

	,,you're sure he's never come to see: your

	istress?"

	,'Not since I've been with her. Young peo
	,le
aren't her type, whatever you rrnight

	k"

	·
	°
	,,

	"Why should beople think the opp0. ste?

,,

,,Because of her age.

"Have you been in service with her lcong?"

"Since she set up house here. That rmakes
t nearly two years."

"You didn't work for her whern she
was living on Rue NotreDamedeLorette?"

"No. I applied the day she moved out."
"Did she still have her previous maid?"
"I didn't even meet her. She started fresh,,J
you might say. The furniture, the bitrs and
pieces, everything was new."

For her, this seemed to have one meaning,
and Maigret thought he interpreted b-er innuendo
correctly.

"You don't like her?"

"She's not the kind of woman one can like.

eSides, it doesn't matter to her."

'What do you mean?"

"She thinks she's good enough. She
esn't take the trouble to be nice. When

she talks to you, it's not for your benefit,
just because she wants to talk."

"You don't know who telephoned her Jus
before she suddenly decided to leave for
London?"

"No. She answered the telephone hersel
She didn't mention any name."

"Did she seem surprised, annoyed?,,

"If you knew her, you'd realize she never
shows what she feels."

"You don't know anything about he
past?"

"Except that she lived on Rue Notre
Dame-de-Lorette. She's friendly with me.
and she goes through all the accounts wi
a fine-tooth comb."

From the way she spoke, that
everything, and this time, again, Maigret felt
that he understood her meaning.

"In fact, in your opinion, she's not a lady?"
"Certainly not. I've worked with real ladies
and I know the difference. I've ALSO
worked in the Place Saint-Georges area with
a kept woman."

"Has Jeanne Debul been kept?"

"If she has been, she isn't any longer.
certainly rich."

"Did men come to see her?"

"Her masseur came every other day. She



112

i



on friendly terms with him, too, and

ed him Ernest."

	,,Anything between them?"

	,,She's not interested."

Her pajama top was of the kind a- you slip
xer your head, very short, and as Ceorgette

back on the cushions, her skin n showed
>ye her waistband.
"You don't mind if I smoke?"

	"I'm sorry," he said, "but I hav.wen't any

	cigarettes."
	,,

	"There are some on the table .....

	She found it natural for him to geTt up and

	-)ffer her a pack of Egyptian cigareettes belonging
to Jeanne Debul. While he I held the
match, she puffed inexpertly at the ci:igarette,
blowing out the smoke like a begMinner.

She was pleased with herself, ple[ leased at
having been awakened by a man as- important
as Maigret, who was listening to tt.c her with
attention.

I "She's got plenty of men and'! women
friends, but they seldom come he:ere. She
calls them up, mostly uses their Ci3Christian
names. She sees them in the evening at cocktail
parties,

	I've often or in restaurants and nig158.1ghtclubs.

Wondered if she didn't l°t keep a
rOUse before. You see what I meann?"

	"And the people who do come h. here?"


113

"Her legal adviser, chiefly. She sees hirr
in her study. He's a lawyer, Gibon, wh(
doesn't come from this neighborhood, bu'
lives in the Ninth Arrondissement. So sh
knew him before, when she was in the sam
district. Then there's a slightly younger mar
who's with the bank, and she discusses he'
investments with him. He's the one she call
when she has instructions to give about he
stocks."

"You never see a man named Franqois La
grange?"

"Carpet Slippers!"

She broke off with a laugh.

"It's not me who calls him that. It's th,
mistress. When I tell her he's here, sh
grumbles:

"'That old Carpet Slippers again!'
"He always says, to announce himselfi

"'Ask Madame Debul if she can se
Baron Lagrange.'"

"Does she see him?"
"Nearly always."
"Which means often?"

"Say, about once a week. There are sore
weeks when he doesn't come at all, othel
when he comes twice. Last week he caf
twice on the same day."

"About what time?"


114


"Always in the morning,
o'clock. Apart from Ernest,
he's the only one she sees

	,,

room.

about eleve
the masseur,
in her bed.




And, as he registered her point:

"It's not what you think. Even for the law.
yet she dresses. I must say she dresses well,
in a very quiet way. It's actually what struck
me right away: what she's like in bed, in her
room, and what she's like when she's
dressed. It's two different people. She
doesn't speak in the same way: you might
say that even her voice changes."

I

"Is she more common in bed?"

"Yes. Not only common. I can't think of
the word."

["Is Francois Lagrange the only one she re.
ceives like that?"

[ "Yes. She shouts to him, no matter what
state she's in:

" 'Come in, you!' As if they were olcl
friends .. ."

[

". or accomplices?"

"If you like. Until I go out, they don't talk
about anything important. He sits down
timidly on the edge of an armchair, as
though afraid of creasing the satin."

"Does he have papers, a briefcase, with
lhim?"

115

"No. He's a proper gentleman. He's not
my type, but I think he's so distinguished."

"You've never overheard their conversa-tions?''

"It isn't possible with her. She guesses ev-erything.
She's got sharp ears. She's the one
who does most of the listening at doors in
this house. When I happen to be on the
phone, I can be almost sure that she's some-where
around, spying on me. If I'm taking
a letter to mail, she says to me:

"'Who are you writing to now?'

"And I know she looks at the address. You

know the type?"

"I see."

"There's something you haven't seen yet
that may give you a surprise."

She jumped to her feet, threw the butt of
her cigarette into the ashtray.

"Come with me. Now you've seen the liv-ing
room. It's furnished in the same style
as all the other living rooms in the build-ing.
One of the best decorators in Paris
took on the job. Here's the dining room, in
modern style, too. Wait till I put on the
light."

She pushed open a door, flicked a switch,
stood out of the way to let him see a bedroom
entirely in white satin.


116

I

	"Now here's how she dresses in the eve
	niBg."

	In
an adjoining room, she opened some

	closets and ran her hands over the silk of a

	neat array of dresses.

	"So. Now come this way!"

	She went in front of him down a hallway,

	and the crepon of her pajamas was caught

	between her buttocks. She opened another

	door, flicked another switch.

	"There!"

	It was a little office at the back of the apart
	ment,
which might have belonged to a businessman.
Not the [east feminine trace was
to be seen. There was a metal file cabinet
painted green, and behind the revolving
chair there was an enormous safe of fairly
recent design.

"It's here that she spends part of her afternoons
and sees the lawyer and the man
from the bank. Look..."

She was pointing to a pile of papers: The Stock Exchange Courier. True, Maigret noticed
a racing paper beside them.
"Does she wear glasses?"
"Only in this room."

There was a pair of them, big round
glasses with tortoise-shell frames, on a blotter
with leather corners.


117

Mechanically he tried to open the file
inet, but it was locked.

"Every night when she comes in, she goes
and puts her jewels in the safe."

1

"What else does it contain? Have you eve

seen inside?"

"Deeds mostly. Papers. Then there's a lit. the red diary she often looks at."

From the desk Maigret picked up one 0:
those indexes in which people jot down th
telephone numbers they use often, ant
started going through its pages. He read ou
the names in an undertone. Georgette
plained:

"The milkman... The butcher... Th
hardware store on Avenue de Neuilly..
Madame's shoemaker..."

When, instead of a surname, there
only a Christian name, she would smile, sa'
isfied.

"Olga. . . Nadine . . . Marcelle ·· ."
"What did I tell you?" I
Men's Christian names, too, but fewer
them. Then some names the maid did
know. Under the heading "banks," the
were no fewer than five establishments e

tered, including an American bank or pla

I

Vend6me.

He searched, without finding it, for


118

Delteil. There were certainly an Andr6
a pierre somewhere. Did these refer to

	e Deputy and his brother?

,,After seeing the rest of the apartment and

the closet, were you expecting to find this?"
He said no, to please her.
,,Aren't you thirsty?"

	,'The concierge was kind enough to make

	some coffee."

	"You won't have a little something?"

She led him back to the living room, turn-ng
out the lights behind her, and, as if the
interview were likely to last a lot longer, took

place on the sofa again, since he had rea
drink.

	"Does your mistress drink?"

	"Like a man."
	'

	"Which means a lot?"

	"I've never seen her drunk, except once

twice coming home in the small hours.

she pours herself a whisky right after her

i rnorning coffee, and has two or three more

	in the course of the afternoon. That's why

	ay she drinks like a man. She takes her

	isky almost straight."

	'She hasn't told ou which hotel in Lon
	n
she will be sta n at?"

	No."
	Y g

	Or how long she expects to stay?"


119

"She told me nothing. She didn',
half an hour over her packing and dress,]
ing."

I

"How was she dressed when she left?,,
"In her gray suit."

"Did she take any evening dresses with
her?"

"Two/"

"I don't think I've any more questions to

ask you, and I'll let you go to bed."
"Already? Are you in a hurry?"

She deliberately uncovered a bit more o:'
her body between the two parts of her pajamas,
and deliberately, too, crossed her leg
in a certain way.

"Do you often have to do your investiga.
tions at night?"

"Sometimes."

"You really don't want anything to
drink?"

She sighed. ,
"Personally, now that I'm awake, I won
be able to go to sleep again. What time i:
it?"

"Getting on for three o'clock."

"At four it starts to get light, and the bir&
begin to sing."

He got up, sorry to disappoint her, an,
perhaps she still had hopes that he was


120

teoding to, leave, but only to come over to
in . --o- t until she saw him going toward

i ii°,i°eatc ng tbtPc k.n'' turn

,,possibly."

,,you'll never bother me. Just give two lit
rings,
then one long one. I'll know it's
you and I'll open the door. When I'm alone

i don't always open it."

"Thank you, mademoiselle."

Once again he caught the smell of bed,
,f armpits. One of the large breasts
brushed against his sleeve with a certain
insistence.

"Good luck!" she called to him softly,
when he was on the stairs.

And she leaned over the banister to watch
him go down.

At the Police Judiciaire he found Janvier
waiting, having spent several hours at the
rooms on Rue Popincourt. He looked worn

out.

"How did it go, Chief?. Did he talk?"
Maigret shook his head.

"I left Houard over there, just in case. We
tUrned the apartment upside down, without

much out of it. I've got only this to

YOtl."

first poured himself a glass of


121

brandy, then passed the bottle to the inspec.
tor.

"You'll see. It's rather odd."

In a rough paper cover, which had been
torn from the back of a school exercise book
were some press clippings, some of th,
illustrated with photographs.

Frowning, Maigret read the headlines
and ran through the stories, while Janvier
watched him with a curious expression.

All the articles, without exception, were
about the Superintendent, and some dated
back seven years. They were reports of cases,
published day by day, with, often, a summary
of the court proceedings.

"Notice anything, Chief?. While I was
waiting for you, I took the trouble to
them from beginning to end."

Maigret noticed something he preferred
not to mention.

"You could swear, couldn't you, that
they've chosen the cases where you
to be more or less defending the
party."

One of the articles was headed: Kind-hearted Superintendent."

'Another was devoted to testimonY by
Maigret to a high court, in the course of which all his replies showed his syr'


122

pathY for the young man who was being
tried.

Even clearer was another article, which

had appeared the previous year in a
weekly. It did not deal with any par-ticular
case, but with the question of guilt
in general, and was titled: "Maigret's Hu-manity."

"What do you think of it? This file proves
the fellow has been following you for a long
time, has some interest in what you do or
say, in your character."

Some words were underlined in blue pen-cil,
among them the words "leniency" and
"understanding."

And there was a passage entirely circled

one in which a reporter described the last
morning of a man condemned to death
and revealed that after refusing a priest the
condemned man asked for the favor of
a final interview with Superintendent

Maigret.

"You don't like it?"

He had in fact become more solemn, more
intent, as though this discovery was opening
up new horizons for him.

,, found nothing else?"

SOme bills. Unpaid, of course. The

OWes money all over. The coal seller


123

hasn't been paid for last winter. Here' 'l
photo of the Baron's wife with his fir,
child."

The print was a bad one. The dress date{
it, and so did the hair style. The young
woman posing for it had a melancholy Smile.
Perhaps it was the period when that was the
fashion, in order to look distinguished. Yet
Maigret felt certain that, simply through
seeing this picture, anyone would have realized
this woman was not destined for
piness.

"In a wardrobe, I found one of her dresse
pale-blue satin, and a boxful of baby clothes,

tOO."

Janvier had three children, the youngest--!
of them not a year old.

"My wife keeps only their first pair of
shoes."

Maigret picked up the telephone.

"Police Infirmary!" he said in a low voice.
"Hello! Who's speaking?"

It was the nurse, a redhead he knew.

"Maigret here. How's Lagrange? What
did you say? I can't hear you clearly."

She was saying that her patient, who had
been given an injection, had gone offto sleep
almost immediately after the doctor's de..Pahr
ture. Half an hour later she had heard a


124

	.
	had gone over on tiptoe to see

	I oise

what it was.

I vh,,e was crying."

didn't he speak to you?"

"He heard me, and I put on the light. The
tears were still shining on his cheeks. He
looked at me in silence for a while, and I
had the feeling he was hesitating over
whether to confide in me."

I "Did he seem to you to be in his right
senses?" She, too, hesitated.

I "It's not for me to judge," she countered,

	beating a retreat.

	"Then what?"

	"He made a move to take my hand."

	"Did he take it?"

"No. He started whimpering, and kept on
repeating, always the same words: 'You
won't let them hit me, will you?... I don't
want to be hit.'"

	I "That all?"

	"Finally, he became excited. I thought

	e
		going to jump out of bed, and he

		was

	cgan to cry out: 'I don't want to die! . . .

	I don't want to!
		I mustn't be left to

	die! ,,,
	···

		,.

	I

		Maigret hung up, turned to Janvier, op
him,
who was fighting against sleep.
can go home to bed."


125

//


"And you?"

"I've got to wait up till half past five. I
to know if the boy actually took the Calais
train."

"Why should he have taken it?"

"To catch up with someone in England.,,
On Wednesday morning, Alain had stolen
his gun from him, and had provided hirnselt
with--ammunition. On Thursday he went t(
Boulevard Richard-Wallace, and half ar
hour later Jeanne Debul, who knew his fa.
ther, had a telephone call and set off in

hurry for Gare du Nord.
	II

	What was the young man doing during th,

	afternoon? Why didn't he leave at once'

	CoUldn't it be presumed to be only for lacl

of money?

	I

To get some, by the only means at his di.
posal, he had to wait till nightfall.

It so happened he attacked the business
man from Clermont-Ferrand not far fron
Gare du Nord, a short time before the de
parture of the Calais train.

"By the way, I was forgetting to tell y0'
there was a call about the wallet. It's

found in the street."

"Which street?"

"Rue de Dunkerque."

Still near the station.


126

	,,xvithout the money, of course."
	,

	,,efore you leave, get the passport 0-°rnce,

	0n he phone. Ask them if they've ever isIssue,d,

	oassport in the name of Alain Lagrar.,n,g.e'

	a n the meantime he went and planted nlm
self
in front of the window. It was nd of yet
day, but that gray, cold hour that come-es before
sunrise. In a sort of dull green misst the
Seine flowed by, almost black, and a to atge-man
was washing down the deck ofhislJboat,
moored to the quay. A tug was going sillilently
downstream, on its way to fetch its s-/string
of barges.

"He applied for a passport elleven
months ago, Chief. He wanted to go to.° Austria.''

"So his passport is still valid. You 0 don't
need a visa for England. You didn't ihnd it
among his things?"

	"Nothing." · "No
change of clothes?" :
"He can only have one decent suit Iiit and
he's got that on. There was another ii in his
Wardrobe, worn to threads. All the shoeoes we
saw had holes in them."

	"Go to sleep."

	"You're sure
	.e any

	longer?,,
	you don't need me


Certain. Besides, there are still two men


127

1 in the office." Maigret wasn't conscious of

dozing off in his arm chair. When he slid.
denly opened his eyes, because the tug he
had noticed a short while ago was returning
upstream and whistling before negotiating
the bridge with its seven barges behind it,
the sky was pink and gleams of reflected light
could be seen from various rooftops. He
looked at his watch, picked up the tele.
phone.

"Harbor Police, Calais!"

This took a little time. The Harbor Polic
did not reply at once. The inspector wh(
eventually came to the phone was out of
breath.

"Maigret, Police Judiciaire, here."
"I know what you're after."
"Well?"

"We've just finished examining the passports.
The boat hasn't left the dock yet.
colleagues are still there."

Maigret heard the siren blasts from the

mail boat, which was about to depart.
"Young Lagrange?"

"We haven't found anything. No one re
sembling him. There were very few passe
gers, and it was easy to check."'

"Have you still got the list of the people
who left yesterday?"


128

I

,,I'11 go and get it from the office next door.

you hold on?"

Ohen he spoke again, it was to say:

"I don't see any Lagrange on yesterda's
departures either."

I"It's

not Lagrange I want. Look for a/Viadame
Jeanne Debul."

"Debul ··· DebuI... D... D... Hre

we are .... Daumas . . . Dazergues . - ·
Debul, Jeanne Louise Clementine, fort
nine, living at Neuilly-sur-Seine, 7B Go'
levard . · ."

"I know. What destination address do'es
. she give?"
i','Savoy Hotel, London."

'Thank you. You're sure that L;

grange . .

"You may rest assured, Superintendent'5."
Maigret was hot, perhaps because of n0°t
having slept. He was in a bad mood, and it
was as if to get even that he seized hold o of
the bottle of brandy. Then all of a sudden

he picked up the telephone again, grunteo:d:
"Le Bourget."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I asked you to get me Le Bourget."

I Iqis tone was offensive; the operator madlle

a wry face and acted quickly.

here, from the Police Judiciaire.:.."


129

	"Inspector Mathieu."
	[

	"Is there a plane to London during the

	night?"

	"There's one at ten o'clock in the evenin[g,

	another at twelve-forty-five, and then the

	first of the morning took off a few seconds

	ago. I can still hear it gaining altitude.,,

	"Will you get a passenger list?"

	"Which flight?"

	"Twelve-forty-five."

	"One moment."

	It was seldom that Maigret was so un.

	friendly.

	"You there?"

	"Yes."

	"Look for Lagrange."

	"Right .
	. Lagrange, Alain Franoi,

Marie."
	,

"Thank you."

"That all?"

Maigret had already hung up. On accoun

of that cursed Gare du Nord, which hac

hypnotized him, he hadn't thought of:

plane, so that by now Alain Lagrange, wit

his loaded revolver, had already been iF

London for some time.

His hand hovered over the desk for a to

merit before grasping the telephore re

ceiver.


	130
	I

	,,Savoy Hotel, London."

He got through almost at once.

	,'Savoy Hotel. Reception speaking..."

	He was getting tired of repeating his pat	ter,
his name and office.

"Can you tell me if a Madame Jeanne

	Debul arrived at your hotel
		- >"

		yesteraay.

This took less time than with the police.
The reception clerk had the list of guests for
each day within his reach.

	"Yes, sir. Room 605. You wish to speak

	to her?"

	I ,,Hlo.hesitated'

See if you had an Alain Lagrange last

night." This took hardly any longer. "No,

sir."

	I "I presume you ask for the passports of

	travelers on their arrival?"

	"Certainly. We follow the regulations."

	"So Alain Lagrange couldn't be staying

I beWith you under another name?"
	re

	"Only if he had a false passport. They a

checked every night b,, the nolice remem

	r"
	J

	'
	I
Thanks.

The still had one call to make, and this one

I ne particularly disliked all the more becau

	I he ,,,,
	,
	se

	" going to b
	'

	I Very 	e
obhged to use the not
/
suoc English he had learned at school.


131

"Scotland Yard."

It would have been a miracle if Inspect
Pyke, whom he had entertained in France.
had been on duty at such an hour. He ha
to be content with a stranger, who was slo:
to understand who he was, and answered
him in a nasal voice.

"A Madame Jeanne Debul, aged fortyi
nine, is staying at the Savoy, room 605!
. . . I would like to have her discreetl3
watched for the next few hours .... "

The faraway voice had a mania for repeat-ing
Maigret's last words, but with the right
accent, as though to correct him.

"It's possible a young man may try to pay
her a visit or waylay her. I'll give you his de-scription
.... "

The description provided, he added:
"He's armed; a Smith & Wesson Special
That gives you an excuse to detain him. I'rr
having his photograph sent to you by wire
in a few minutes."

But the Englishman seemed unable to
grasp what he was talking about, and
Maigret was obliged to spell things out, to
repeat the same things three or four times.

"Now what exactly do you want us to do?"

Faced with so much obstinacy, Maigret
was sorry he had taken the precaution


132

the Yard, and felt liko¢replying:
Nothing at allI"

He was bathed in sweat.

	'11 be there as soon as po'ssible,'' he

by saying.

"You mean you're coming to:°Scotland
rd?"

"I'm coming to London, yes..

	"What time?"

	"I don't know. I haven't got the airline

schedule in front of me 	"

	"You're
coming by air?"

	He finally hung up, exasperat0ed, calling

	down every sort of curse on this ciivil servant

	he didn't know, who was probal131y really a

	very good man. What would Lucas have re
	plied
to a Yard inspector calling him up at

	six o'clock in the morning to tell 1¢ him a story

	of the same type in bad French? !t ?

	"It's me again! Get me Le BoW·urger once

		,,


I

	A

	plane

	was leaving at eight-fift.tfteen. That

	gave him time to go around to 1t Boulevard

	Richard-Lenoir to change and eve'en to shave

	and SWallow his breakfast. MmesCse Maigret

	tas

	careful

	not to ask him questiiltions.

	I"Imdon,t know when I'll be back.tzk,'' he said

	U'pily, with the vague intentio:)n of mak
	,mr
angry with

	I
	him, so he cotOuld blame

		133

his temper on someone else. "I'm off to Lon.
don."


"Get my little suitcase ready, with a
change of clothes and my shaving things.
There ought to be a few English pounds at
the bottom of the drawer."

The telephone rang. He was in the rniddh
of putting on his tie.

"Maigret? Rateau here."

The Examining Magistrate, bright am
early, who had spent the night in bed, who
was doubtless delighted at being awakened
by brilliant sunshine, and who, as he ate his

croissants, was asking for news.

"What did you say?"

"I said I haven't got time: I'm taking the

plane to London in thirty-five minutes."
"To London?"
"That's right."

"But what have you found out that..."

"I'm sorry to hang up; the plane won't
wait."

He was in such a state of mind that
added:

I'll send you some postcards."

By then, of course, the receiver was
on its rest.


134

6


THERE WERE CLOUDS as they approached the

French coast, and they flew above them.
Through a large break, a little while later,
Maigret had a chance of glimpsing the sea,
which sparkled like fishes' scales, and fish-ing
boats trailing their foamy wake behind
them.

His neighbor leaned over in a friendly way
to point out some chalky cliffs to him, ex-plaining:

"Dover . . . Douvres . . ."

He thanked him with a smile, and soon
there was nothing more than an almost
transparent mist between the earth and the
plane. Only now and then did they fly into
a large, luminous cloud, from which they
emerged almost immediately, to find be-neath
them once more pastures dotted with
tiny COWs.

	r
in.ally the landscape rocked, and it was

	Yaon. It was also Mr. Pyke. For Mr.

	;s e was there, awaitine his French col
	ag.
ue. Not on the airtri itself as he

°Ubtless Wou
	P · '


		ld have had the right to be,

	L awaymfrom the crowd, but with it, wisely,


135

behind the barrier separating passe
		·
	"gets

	from
relatives and friends waiting for them.

He made no gesticulation, didn't Wave his
handkerchief. When Maigret looked in his
direction, he merely nodded his head, as he
must do every morning on meeting his col,
leagues at the office.

It was years since they had seen each
other, and twelve or thirteen years since the
Superintendent had set foot in England.

He followed the line of people, suitcase in
hand, into a building where he had to go
through Immigration, then through Cus-toms.
Mr. ?yke was still there, behind a glass
panel, in his dark-gray suit, which looked a
little too tight for him, and his black felt hat,
a carnation in his buttonhole.

He could have come in here as well, told
the Immigration official: "It's Superinten-dent
Maigret, who's come to see us..."

Maigret would have done that for him at
Le Bourget. He did not mind, however, un-derstanding
that it was, on the contrary,

sort of tact on his part. Actually, he felt
rather ashamed of his anger that morning
with the policeman at the Yard. The fact tlt
Mr. Pyke was there showed that the man

not done his job so badly, had even shOVei
initiative. It was only half past ten. To reaCt

cro

l

ydon in time, PykeemrUtvehtve left Lon
I
almOSt as soon .as h a r' at his omce.

I Vaigret was coming out of the room. The

tv, hard hand was extended.

	;'How are you?"

?yke went on, in French, which was a sacI
rifice on his part, since he spoke it with dil-l
ficulty and hated making mistakes:

	,, , re ue vous allez enjoy. How

lm 7 esp q .....

l, .. ,, iP
	ouir
	Oui, jouir de

· CIO yuU Saa
	·
··

	journee
resplendissante.
It
was in fact the first time Maigret had been
in England in summer, and he won-dered
if he had ever seen London in real sun-shine.

I
"I thought you would rather go by car than
in
the airline bus."
I
He did not speak to him about his inves-tigation,
made no reference to it, and that was
again all part of his sort of tact. They took
their seats in a Yard Bentley, driven by a
man in uniform, and the latter, scrupu-!ously respecting
the speed limits, didn't
lump any
traffic lights.
	"Pretty, isn't
it?"
	Pyke was
pointing to some rows of small
-
cl-brick houses, which under gray skies
WOuld have looked gloomy, but which, in the

, were trim, rather gay, each with


137

a square patch of lawn slightly larger than
a sheet between the front door and the fence.
One could tell how he relished this prospect
of suburban London, where he lived him.
self.

The red-brick houses were succeeded by
yellow houses, then brown houses, then
more red-brick ones. It was beginning to be
very hot, and in some little gardens automatic
hoses were playing.

"I was forgetting to let you have this."

He handed Maigret a piece of paper on
which there were notes, written in French.

Alain Lagrange, age nineteen, office worker,
checked in at 4:00 a.m. at Gilmore Hotel, opposite
Victoria Station, without luggage.
Slept till eight o'clock, then went out.

First went to Astoria Hotel and made inquiries
about Mme Jeanne Debul.

Then went to Continental Hotel, then to
Claridge's, still asking the same question.
Appears to be following an alphabetical list
of big hotels.

Has never been to London before. Does not
speak English.

Now it was Maigret who merely nodded
his thanks, and he was more annoyed with
himself than ever for his unkind thoughts
about the policeman that morning.


138


			er a long silence and several rows of

		identical houses, Pyke began to speak:

		:'I took the liberty of reserving you a hotel

		room, because we have a lot of tourists at

		the moment."

		He handed his colleague a slip bearing the

		name "Savoy" and the number of the room.

				very nearly paid no attention to it.

		,n the number struck him: 604.

		So they had thought of putting him just

	opposite Jeanne Debul.

		"Is that woman still there?" he asked.

		"She was when we left Croydon. I had a

		>orr by telephone just as your plane was

		;inning to land."

		Nothing else. He was satisfied, not so

lrUCh with having proved
			that the

	tO

		Maigret

irish police are efficient as with showing-him
England beneath an indisputable sun.

When they entered London and passed
big red buses, when they saw women in light
dresses on the sidewalks, he could not help
murmuring:

	"That's really something, isn't it?"

And, as they approached the Savoy:

"If you aren't busy, could I come and pick
you up for lunch at about one? From now
until then I will be in my office. You can call

of

[ 1

lit



e



ga


oo


-e

gg


bd



[I.11




139

I
That was all. He let him enter the hot,

alone, while the uniformed chauffet
handed his suitcase to one of the pOrters

Did the reception clerk recognize hi
after twelve years? Did he know him pure
by his photographs? Or was it just flatter
Or the fact that his room had been reserve
through Scotland Yard?

"Did you have a good journey, Monsiet
Maigret?"

"Very good, thank you."

The immense lobby, where at every hot
of the day and night there were people
deep armchairs, always overawed him a Ii the . On the right, flowers were being sok
Every man had one in his buttonhole, an
probably under the influence of Pyke's goo
humor, Maigret bought himself a red ca:
nation.

He remembered that the bar was on th
left. He was thirsty. He went toward th

glass-paneled door, tried in vain to open i
"At half past eleven, sir!"

His face clouded. It was always the sar
abroad. Details that enchanted him; ther
all of a sudden, others that infuriated birr
Why the devil hadn't he the right to
a drink before half past eleven? He had
been to bed all the night before. His hea


140

felt thick, and the sun was making him
slightly giddy. Perhaps it was the motion of
the plane as well?
I As he was going toward the elevator, a

man he didn't know came up to him.

:The lady has just had her breakfast taken
Mr. Pyke told me to keep you informed.
Should I wait in case you want me?"

I It was a man from the Yard. Maigret
thought him elegant, not out of place in this
luxurious hotel, and he, too, wore a flower
in his buttonhole. His was white.

I

"The young man hasn't appeared?"
"Not so far, sir."

"Would you watch the lobby and warn me
the moment he arrives?"

"It'll be some time before he gets to the
letter S, sir. I think Inspector Pyke has
posted one of my colleagues at the Lancaster
Hotel."

The room was vast, with a pearl-gray adjoining
sitting room. The windows gave onto
the Thames, where just at that moment a
boat was passing, the same kind as the river
Steamers of Paris, with two decks covered
th tourists.

Maigret was so hot that he decided to the a shower and change. He all but called

for news of the Baron, changed his


141

mind, dressed again, half opened the dod
Room 605 was opposite. The sunlight could
be seen under the door, which meant the
curtains had been opened. Just as he was
going to knock, he heard the noise of
water in the bathroom, and he began to
pace up and down the hall, smoking his
pipe. A chambermaid passing by looked at
him curiously. She must have mentioned
him at the office, for a boy in uniform came
and had a look at him, too. Then, seeing
from his watch that it was eleven-twenty-four,
he took the elevator and was at the
door of the bar at the very second it was
being opened. Other men as well, who must
have been waiting for this moment in the
armchairs in the lobby, were in an equal
hurry.

"Scotch?"
"All right."
"Soda?"

His expression must have shown that
thought the drink didn't have much taste,

for the barman suggested:

"A double, sir?"

Things were better already. He had never

London. He
suspected it could be so hot in rninte!

went to get some fresh air for a few

in front of the big revolving doors,


142

to the

the time again, and went ore;

elevator.

grlaehe knocked at the do,r ol-6t,0,5'a

,man s voice inside called: Entr?'

Then, probably thinking it was e boy

coming to take away her tray:

"Come in!"

He turned the handle, and th/ door
opened.

is He found himself in a room briut with
unshine, where a woman in a r)te was

i ' seated before her dressing table. She d id.n t

look at him right away. She went on h,stung
her brown hair, and she had haifflis b.e-nveen
her teeth. It was in the mirror tat she

saw him. Her brows contracted.

"What do you want?"

"Superintendent Maigret, of the 5I°tice
Judiciaire."

"Does that give you the right to walIlk into
other people's rooms?"

I"You told me to come"

It was hard to tell her age. Sheomus!.,l- have been very beautiful once, and

thin o'
	·

	the i,t,t ,remained. In the evening/' with

	that i--'°,w, she would probabl g.v,e

	idn't '-''esson, especially if her fnoutn

	- take on the hard twist it hmd at

	mOrnent.


143

"You can start by taking your pipe out of
your mouth."

He did so, awkwardly. He hadn't thought
about his pipe.

"Then, if you have something to say, get
it over with quickly. I don't see what business
the French police can have with me. Espe-cially
here."

She was still not facing him, and it was
disquieting. She must have known it, and
lingered at her dressing table, watching him
in the mirror. Standing up he felt too big,
too massive. The bed was not made. There
was a tray with the remains of breakfast, and
he could see only a small armchair, in which
he Could scarcely accommodate his large
thighs.

He announced, looking at her himself by
means of the mirror:

"Alain is in London."

Either she was very strong-minded or else
the name meant nothing to her, since she
did not falter.

He went on in the same tone: "He's
armed."

"Did you cross the Channel just to tell
me that? I presume you've come from
Paris? What name did you say?
yours.


144

He was convinced she was playacting, in
the hopes of annoying him.

"Superintendent Maigret."

r

"Which district?"

"Police Judiciaire."

"You're looking for a young man whose
name is Alain? He's not here. Search the
room if that would reassure you."

[,
	"It's he who's looking for you."
"Why?"

"That's just what I'd like to ask you."
This time she got up, and he saw that she
was almost as tall as he was. She was wearing
a robe of heavy salmon-colored silk, which
showed a still-attractive figure. She went to
get a cigarette from a side table, lighted it,
rang for service. For a moment he thought
it was with the intention of having him
thrown out, but when the waiter appeared
she simply said:

"Scotch. Without ice. With water."

Then, when the door had closed, she
turned toward the Superintendent.

"I've nothing to say to you. I'm sorry."
"Alain is the son of Baron Lagrange."
"Possibly."

"Lagrange is one of your friends."

She shook her head, as though she felt


145


I mean

	II Sorry for him.


"Listen, Superintendent, I don't know
what you've come here to do, but you're
wasting your time. Probably there is some

mistake about the person concerned."
"You really are Jeanne Debul?"

"that's my name. You want to see my
passport?" He made a sign that there was
no need.

"Baron Lagrange has been in the habit
of paying visits to your apartment on Boulevard
Richard-Vallace, and before that
probably on Rue NotreDamedeLorette."

"I see that you are well informed. Tell me
now, how does the fact that I've known La-grange
explain your pursuing me to London?''

"Andr Delteil is dead."

"You mean the Deputy?"

"Was he one of your friends as well?"
"I don't think I ever met him. I've heard
people talk about him, like everyone else, because
of his questions in the Chamber. If I
have seen him, it was in some restaurant or
nightclub."

"He's been murdered."

"Judging by his political methods, he must
have made himself a certain number of enemies.''


146

"The murder was committed in Franqois
Lagrange' s ap artment."

There was a knock at the door. It was the
waiter with the Scotch. She drank one
straight off, like a person used to taking alcohol
every day at the same time, and, glass


in hand, went over and sat on the chair,
crossed her legs, pulled the sash of her robe.

[i

"That's all?" she asked.

"Alain Lagrange, the son, got hold of a
gun and some ammunition. He went around
to your house yesterday, a short while before
you left so abruptly."

i:
	"Say that word again."

"Abruptly."

"Because you know, I suppose, that, the
evening before, I had no intention of coming
to London?"

"You hadn't told anyone." .

[ "Do you tell your plans to your maid? Presumably
it was Georgette you questioned?"

"It's unimportant. Alain went to your
house."
[ "No one told me about it. I didn't hear

the bell ring."

"Because on the stairs he was caught by
the concierge and did an about-face."

"He told the concierge it was me he
lwanted to see?"


147

"He said nothing."

"Can you be serious, Superintendent?
Was it really just to tell me these fancy tales
that you made the trip?"

"You had a telephone call from the
Baron."

"Really!"

"He brought you up to date about what
had happened. Or perhaps you already
knew?"

He was hot. She wasn't giving him any
°pening, still as calm, as fresh as ever in
her appearance for the morning. From time
to time she would sip from her glass, with-out
thinking of offering him anything to
drink, and she left him standing, feeling
awkward.

"Lagrange is under arrest."

"That's his affair and yours, isn't it? What
does he have to say about it?"

"He tries to pretend he's mad."
"He always has been a little mad."
"He's nonetheless a friend of yours?"
"No, Superintendent. You can save your
ingenuity. You won't make me talk, for the
excellent reason that I have nothing to say.
If you care to examine my passport, you will
see that I do sometimes spend a few days
in London. Always at this hotel, where they


148

will confirm it. As for Lagrange, poor :man,
I've known him for some years."

"Under what circumstances did you meet
him?"

"That's none of your business. Under the
most banal circumstances. I will say, 2however,
that it happened as a man and a woman
meet one another.

"He was your lover?"
"You are a man of the utmost delicacy."
"Was he?"

"Suppose he was, for an evening or a

week, or even a month 	It
was tx,welve
or
fifteen years ago 	"
"You
remained
good friends?"
"Ought we
to have quarreled or f0ught?"
"You used to receive him in the mornings,
in your bedroom, when you were strill' in
bed."

W"It's morning now, my bed's unmade and
you're in my room."

[
	"You did business with him?"

She smiled.

"What business, for Heaven's sake? KDon't
you know that all the business old Crpet
Slippers talked about existed only ira his
imagination? Didn't you take the trouble
to find out about him? Go to Le F0uc21uet,
to Maxim's, to any bar on the Charmps

149

Elys6es, and they'll tell you. It wasn't worth

taking the boat or the plane just for that."
"Did you give him money?"
"Is that a crime?"
"A lot?"

"You will observe that I am patient. I
could have had you thrown out a quarter of
an hour ago, because you've no right to be
here or to question me. I want, however, to
repeat, once and for all, that you are on the
wrong track. I knew Baron Lagrange once,
when he was still handsome and fooled everyone.
I met him again later on the
Champs-Elysfies, and he treated me as he
does everybody."

"Which means?"

"He sponged. Ask anyone about him.
He's the sort of man who's always short of
a few hundred francs in order to bring off
the most stupendous deal and make himself
rich in a few days. Which means he hasn't
enough to pay for the ap6ritif he's drinking
at the moment or for the m6tro to get home. I behaved like the others."

"And he badgered you at your home?"
"That's all."

"Nevertheless, his son is looking for you."
"I've never seen him."

"He's been in London since last night."


150

"In this hotel?"

This was the only occasion when her voice
was a little less firm, betraying a certain anx-iety.

"No."

He hesitated. He had to choose between
two solutions, and he leaned toward the one
he thought would be better.

"The Gilmore Hotel, opposite Victoria
Station."

"How can you be sure it's me he's looking
for?"

"Because all this morning he has been
turning up at a whole string of hotels and
asking for you. He seems to be going in al-phabetical
order. In less than an hour he will

be here.'

"Then we'll find out what he wants from

me won't we?"

There was a slight quaver in her voice.
:. "He is armed."

She shrugged her shoulders lightly, got
up, looked at the door. '

"I suppose I should thank you for having

the kindness to watch over me."
"There's still time."
"For what?"
"For talking."

"We've been doing nothing but that for


151

the last half hour. Now I must ask you to
leave me alone so that I can dress."

She added, in a voice that did not ring al-together
true, with a little laugh:

"If this young man is really coming to pay
me a visit, I'd better be ready!"

Maigret left without saying anything
more, his shoulders rounded, annoyed with
himself and with her, because he had got
nothing out of her and he had a feeling that,
throughout the interview, Jeanne Debul had
kept the upper hand. With the door closed
again, he paused in the hallway. He would
have liked to know if she was telephoning
or showing signs of sudden activity.

Unfortunately, a chambermaid, the same
one who had seen him prowling about the
hallway earlier, came out of a nearby room
and stared at him. Feeling disconcerted, he
began to walk toward the elevator.

In the lobby he rejoined the Yard man in-stalled
in one of the armchairs, his eyes riv-eted
on the revolving doors. He sat down
next to him.

"Any sign?"

"Not yet."

At that hour there were many arrivals and
departures. Cars drew up incessantly in
front of the hotel, bringing not only travelers


152

but also Londoners coming to lunch or sim-ply
to have a drink at the bar. They were
all very happy. They all had the same look
of delight as Pyke at such an exceptional day.
Groups began to form. There were three or
four people around the reception desk con-stantly.
Women, in armchairs, were waiting
for their escorts, whom they then followed
into the dining room.

Maigret remembered another way out of
the hotel, giving onto the Embankment. If
he were in Paris... It would all be so easy!
Pyke had put himself at his disposal in vain;
he did not want to abuse his offer. The fact
was, here, he was always afraid of making
himself look ridiculous. Did Inspector Pyke
have the same humiliating sensation during
his stay in France?

[ Upstairs in the hallway, for example...
in France the presence of a maid would not
have perturbed him. He would have told her
some story, probably that he was from the
police, and would have continued his vigil.

"Lovely day, sir!"

Even that was beginning to jar on him.
These people were too pleased with their ex-ceptional
sun. Nothing else counted any

more. The passers-by in the street were
lwalking as though in a dream.



	153

"D'you think he'll come, sir?"

"It's likely, isn't it? The Savoy is on the
list."

"I'm a bit afraid Fenton may have been
clumsy."

"Who's Fenton?"

"My colleague.., the one Inspector Pyke
sent to the Lancaster. He was to sit down
like me opposite the reception desk and wait.
Then, when the young man left, to follow
him."

"He's no good?"

"He's not bad, sir. He's a very good man.
Only, he is red-haired and he has a mus-tache.
So that once he's been seen, he's eas-ily
recognized."

The man looked at his watch, sighed.
Maigret himself was watching the ele-vators.
Jeanne Debul came out of one of
them, wearing a pretty two-piece spring
dress. She appeared to be completely at
ease. On her lips she had the slight smile
of a woman who knows she is pretty and
well dressed. Several men followed her
with their eyes. Maigret had noticed the
big diamond she was wearing on her fin-ger.

In the most natural way in the world, she
took a few steps into the lobby, looking al


154

the faces around her, then put her key on
the reception desk, and hesitated.

She had seen Maigret. Was she acting for
his benefit?

There were two places you could lunch:
the big dining room on one side, which ad-joined
the lobby and had bay windows that
looked out on the Thames, and the grill, less
vast, less solemn, where there were more
people and where the windows allowed you



to see the hotel entrance. It was the grill she
made for finally. She said a few words to the
maitre d'h6tel, who showed her promptly to
a little table near a window.

At the same moment the Yard man next

to Maigret was saying:

"That's him . . ."

The Superintendent looked quickly into
the street through the revolving doors, saw
no one resembling the photograph of Alain
Lagrange, opened his mouth to ask a ques-tion.

[ Before he even framed it, he understood.
A small man with very red hair and a flam-boyant
mustache was nearing the door.

It was not Alain who was referred to, but
Fenton. In the lobby he looked around for
his colleague, went up to him, and, ignoring
the presence of Maigret, asked:


155

"He hasn't come?"

"No."

"He came to the Lancaster. So I followed
him. He went into the Montreal. I wonder
if he noticed me. He had turned around
once or twice. Then, all of a sudden, he
jumped into a taxi. I lost a minute findin[
one for myself. I tried at five other hotels
He hadn't..."

One of the pageboys was leaning towarc
Maigret.

"The head of reception would like a wor(
with you," he murmured in a low voice.

The head of reception, in a morninl
coat and with a flower in his buttonhol
was holding a telephone receiver in hi
hand.

He winked at Maigret, a sign the Supe]
intendent thought he understood. Then 1:
said into the instrument:

I'll give you the man on duty."
Maigret took the receiver.
"Allo!"

"Vous parlez fran;ais?"

"Oui... Yes . . . I speak French.. ·

"I'd like to know if Madame Jeanne Deb

is staying at your hotel."
"Who is calling?"
"One of her friends."


156

"You wish to speak to her? I can have you

put through to her room."

"No . . . No . . ."

The voice seemed far away.

"Her key is not here. So she must be in.

I imagine she will be down before long."
"Thank you."
"Can I . . ."

[. Alain had already hung up. He wasn't
such a fool, after all. He must have realized
that he was being followed. Rather than
show himself in person at various hotels, he
had adopted the device of telephoning from
a booth or a bar.

The head of reception was holding another
receiver in his hand.

"Another for you, Monsieur Maigret."

This time it was Pyke, asking him to have
lunch with him.

"I'd better stay here."

"Have my men been successful?"
"Not entirely. It's not their fault."
"Have you lost track of him?"
"He's definitely coming here."
"Anyway, they are at your disposal."

I'll keep the one who's not called Fenton,
if you don't mind."

"Keep Bryan. Excellent. He's intelligent.
Perhaps this evening?"


157

,i'Perhaps this evening."

l-¢tj e rejoined the two men, who were still
chaatting. They fell silent on his arrival.

-,,an must have told Fenton who he was,
ant the red-haired fellow was looking contrit;e¢'


,,/Thank you, Mr. Fenton. I've picked up

th tracks of the young man. I won't need

yot any more today. Will you have a drink?"
,qpiever on duty."

,,'fou, Mr. Bryan, I would like you to go

and lunch in the grill, near that woman
wearing a two-piece dress with small blue

flow-ers. If she leaves, try to follow her."

faint smile stole over Bryan's lips as he

warc$hed his companion depart.

,,C3ount on me."

,,,ou can charge the bill to my account."
M.aigret was thirsty. He had been thirsty

for ore than half an hour. Because the too-deep
armchairs were making him hot, he
rose, wandered around the lobby, ill at ease
in tltte midst of people speaking English who
all hd a reason to be there.

HOw many times did he see the doors
revolve, each time sending a reflection of
sunli}ght across one of the walls? Yet again.
There was a constant coming and going.

CarS were stopping, driving off, old Lon

158

don taxis, comfortable and picturesque,
Rolls-Royces and Bentleys with impeccable
chauffeurs, small models like racing
cars.

Thirst was parching his throat, and from
where he was he could see the bar, full of
people drinking, and the pale Martinis,
which, from afar, looked so fresh in their ice-cold
glasses, the whiskies the customers
standing at the bar were holding in their
hands.

If he went over there, he would lose sight
of the door. He approached it, went away
again, regretted having dismissed Fenton,
who could at least have taken over the watch
for a few minutes.

I As for Bryan, he was busy eating and
drinking. Maigret was beginning to feel hungry
as well.

He sat down again, sighing, as an old gentleman
with white hair, in the chair next to
his, pressed an electric bell, which Maigret
hadn't noticed. A few moments later a

waiter in a white jacket was bending toward
i him.

"A double Scotch with ice!"

There! It was as simple as that. It had

never occurred to him that he could be
served in the lobby.


159

"The same for me. I suppose yo 0uh:ven,t
any beer?"

"Yes, sir. What sort of beer w0ul.q you

like?"

The bar had every kind of beexr, IDutch'
Danish, German, and even a Fren,.ch eport
beer Maigret had never heard of..

In France he would have ord erecl two
glasses at once, he was so dry. Here: he lidn't
dare. And it infuriated him not too dare. It
was humiliating to be thus intimidated.

Were the waiters, the maitres d'lh6tel, the
pageboys, the porters more impointg than
those in a big Paris hotel? It seemed to him
that everyone was watching him, tlxat tine old
gentleman, his neighbor, was studying him
with a critical eye.

Was Alain Lagrange going to make up his
mind one way or the other, to come or not?

It wasn't the first time this had happened
to him: Maigret all of a sudden, without any
plausible reason, was losing confidence in
himself. What was he doing here, in actual
fact? He had passed the night without sleeping.
He had been to drink coffee in a
concierge's lodge, then he had listened to the
tales of a big girl in rose-colored pajamas
who showed him a patch of her stomach and
tried hard to make herself interesting.


160

that else? Alain Lagrange had lifted his
revolver, threatened a passer-by in the
street and stolen the passerby's wallet before
taking the plane to London. At the Police
Infirmary the Baron was acting like a mad
iTlan.

What
if he really was mad?

Suppose Alain did appear at the hotel?
What was Maigret going to do? Accost him
politely? Tell him he wanted an explanation?

What if he tried to escape, if he showed
fight? What sort of a figure would he cut,
in front of all these Englishmen smiling at
their sunshine, attacking a young boy? Perhaps
it would be him they would grab hold
o

It had happened to him once in Paris
when he was a young man, though, and till
on the beat. Just as he was reaching out for
the shoulder of a thief in the line of people
coming out of the mtro, the fellow started
shouting: "Help!" And it was Maigret the
crowd had held until the police arrived.

He was still thirsty, hesitated to ring, then
finally pressed the white button, convinced
that his white-haired neighbor thought him
an ill-bred fellow who drank glasses of beer
one after the other.


161

He thought he recognized a profile out.

side, said, without thinking:
"A whisky-and-soda."
"Certainly, sir."

It wasn't Alain. From close up, he didn't
look like him at all, and, besides, he joined
a girl waiting for him at the bar.

Maigret was still there, thoroughly tor-pid,
with an unpleasant taste in his mouth,
when Jeanne Debul came out of the grill
in fine form, and reached the revolving
doors.

Outside she waited for one of the doormen
to whistle for a taxi. Bryan was following,
looking sprightly himself, and he winked at
Maigret as he passed.

He seemed to be saying: "Don't worry!"
He got into a second taxi.

If Alain Lagrange had been considerate,
he would have arrived now. Jeanne Debul
was no longer there. So there was no danger
of his charging at her and firing his revolver.
The lobby was quieter than it had been for
the past half hour. People had eaten. Look-ing
more pink-faced, they went off one after
the other about their business, or to walk

down Piccadilly or Regent Street.
"Same again, sir?"

"No. This time I would like a sandwich."


162

"I'm sorry, sir. We are not allowed to serve
anything to eat in the lobby."

Fie could have wept with rage.

"Well, give me anything you like. Same
again, then!"

Too bad, on top of everything else. It
wasn't his fault.


AT THREE O'CLOCK, at half past three, at four

Maigret was still there, as uncomfortable as
when, after days and days of stormy heat,
people look irritably at one another, so cross
that one expects to see them open their
mouths to breathe like fish out of water.

The difference was that he was the 6nly
one in this state. There was not the slightest
sign of a storm in the air. The sky above the
Strand remained a pretty, airy blue, without
any trace of violet, with occasionally a little
white cloud that floated in space like a
feather escaped from an eiderdown.

At odd moments he caught himself exam-ining
his neighbors as though to vow to them
his personal hatred. At others an inferiority
complex weighed on his stomach and gave
him a shifty look.


163

They were all too smart, too sure of them-selves.
The most exasperating of all was the
head of reception, with his smooth morning
coat, his collar which no drop of sweat would
ever soften. He had shown friendliness to-ward
Maigret, or perhaps it was pity, and
from time to time he gave him a smile at once
conspiratorial and encouraging.

He seemed to be saying, above the coming
and going of the anonymous travelers: "We
are both victims of professional duty. Can't
I do anything for you?"

Maigret would probably have replied:
"Bring me a sandwich."

He was sleepy. He was hot. He was hun-gry.
When, a few minutes after three, he had
rung for another glass of beer, the waiter
looked as shocked as if he had taken off his
coat in church.

"I'm sorry, sir. The bar is closed until half
past five, sir!"

The Superintendent muttered something
like:

"Savages!"

And ten minutes later, ill at ease, he had
gone up to a pageboy, the youngest and least
imposing one.

"Could you go and buy me a bar of choc-olate?''


164

He was unable to last any longer without
eating, and so it was that he consumed, in
little bits, a bar of milk chocolate concealed
in the depths of his pocket. Mustn't he look,
in the lobby of this palatial hotel, like one
of those caricatures of a French detective,
whom the Parisian journalists call "hobnail
socks"? He caught himself looking in the
mirrors, found himself ugly, ill-dressed.
Pyke, well, he didn't look like a policeman,
but like a bank manager. Or, rather, an as-sistant
manager. Or a trusted clerk, a me-ticulous
clerk.

Would Pyke wait, as Maigret was doing,
without even knowing that anything was
going to happen?

At twenty of four the head of reception
made a sign to him.

"Paris on the line for you. I suppose you
would prefer to take the call here?"

Some telephone booths stood in a row in
a room to the right of the lobby, but from
there he wouldn't be able to watch the en-trance.

"That you, Chief?."

It was good to hear old Lucas's voice.
"What's the latest?"

"The revolver's been found. I thought I'd
better tell you."


[]
	165

"Go ahead."

"Just before noon I went and paid a call

at the old man's place."

"Rue Popincourt?"

"Yes. I started poking around in the corners
on the off chance. I couldn't find anything.
Then I heard a baby crying in the
courtyard, so I leaned out of the window.
The rooms, you remember, are on the top
floor, with a rather low ceiling. A gutter collects
the water from the roof, and I noticed
that you could reach this gutter with your
hand."

"The gun was in the gutter?"

"Yes. Just below the window. A small revolver,
Belgian make, a very nice job, initialed
A. D."

"Andr Delteil."

"Exactly. I made inquiries. The Deputy
had a license to carry weapons. The numbers
coincide."

"It's the weapon that was used?"

"The expert has just sent in his report by
telephone. I was waiting for it before calling

you. The answer is yes."

"Any fingerprints?"

"The dead man's and Francois
grange's."

"Has anything else happened?"


166

"The evening papers have long stories.
The corridors are swarming with reporters.
I think one of them, who got wind of your
going to London, has taken a plane. Examining
Magistrate Rateau has called two or
three times to find out if you'd sent any
news.

"That all?"

"It's wonderful weather."

Him, too!

"Have you lunched?"

[i "Very well, Chief."

"I haven't! Hello! Don't cut us off, miss.
Are you listening, Lucas? I want you, just
in case, to keep an eye on the building at
Number 7B on Boulevard RichardWallace.
Also question the taxi drivers to find out if
any of them drove Alain Lagrange... Listen!

It's the son; you've got his picture."

"I understand."

"Find out, as I was saying, if one of them
took him on Thursday morning to Gare du
Nord."

"I thought he didn't leave till during the
night, by air."

"Doesn't matter. Tell the Chief I'll call

him as soon as I have some news."

"You haven't found the boy?"

He thought it best not to reply. He didn't


167

much like to admit that he had had Alain
on the telephone, that for hours his movements
had been followed, minute by minute,
through the streets of London, but that they
were no further ahead.

Alain Lagrange, with the large revolver
stolen from Maigret in his pocket, was somewhere
around, probably not far away, and
all the Superintendent could do was wait,
and watch the crowd coming and going
around him.

"I'll hang up."

His eyelids were prickling. He didn't dare
sit down in an armchair, for fear of dropping
off to sleep. The chocolate turned his stomach.

He went for a breath of air outside the

main entrance.

"Taxi, sir?"

He no longer had the right to take a taxi,
or the right to go for a walk, the right to
do anything, except stay there and act the
fool.

"Lovely weather, sir!"

Scarcely had he gone back into the lobby
when his archenemy, the head of reception,
called him again, a smile on his lips, a telephone
in his hand.

"For you, Monsieur Maigret."


168

It was Pyke.

"I've just received some news from Bryan

by telephone and am passing it on to you."
"Thanks very much."

"The lady had herself dropped at Picca-dilly
Circus and went up Regent Street to
look at the shop windows. She didn't appear
to be in a hurry. She went into two or three
shops to buy a few things, which she had

sent to the Savoy. Would you like the list?"
"What sort of things?"

"Lingerie, gloves, shoes. Then she went
through to Old Bond Street to come back
down Piccadilly, and half an hour ago went
into a movie theater with a continuous show-ing.
She's there now. Bryan is still watching
her."

Another detail, which would not have
struck him at any other time, but which put
him in a bad temper: instead of phoning
him, Maigret, Bryan had called his own
chief in the hierarchy.

"Are we having dinner together?"

"I'm not sure. I'm beginning to doubt it."

"Fenton is very upset about what hap-pened.''

"It was no fault of his."

"If you need one of my men, or several
of them. . ."


169

"Thanks."

What on earth was that Alain crea
ture doing? Was Maigret to believe h
had been mistaken from beginning tI
end?

"Can you get me the Gilmore Hotel?" h.
asked, when Pyke hung up.

By the expression on the head of recep
tion's face, he gathered that it was not a first
class hotel. This time he had to speal
English, because the man on the other en
of the line did not understand a word o
French.

"Has Monsieur Alain Lagrange, whl
came to your hotel very early this morng

been in during the day?"

	1

"Who's speaking?"

"Superintendent Maigret, of the Police
Judiciaire in Paris."

"One moment, please."

Someone else was called, with a more impressive
voice, who was obviously more important.

"Can I help you? This is the manager of
the Gilmore speaking."

Maigret repeated his patter.

"May I ask you why you are making the
inquiry?"

He launched into an involved explanation'


170

lfor want of the right English words. The
Iead of reception finally took the receiver

from his hands.

,'Can I help?"

It took him only a couple of sentences, in
which the words "Scotland Yard" were men-tioned.
When he hung up, he was delighted.

"These people always distrust foreigners

a bit. The manager of the Gilmore was just
wondering if he ought to warn the police.
The young man took his key and went up
to his room about one o'clock. He didn't
stay there very long. Later, a chambermaid,
who was cleaning a room on the same floor,

eported that her skeleton key, which she
had left in the door, had disappeared. Does

that tell you anything?"

"Yes."

The episode actually somewhat altered
the picture he had formed of young Alain.
The boy's wits had been at work all that
morning. He had figured that if a maid's
skeleton key opens all the doors of one hotel,
there is a good chance that it will open the
doors of another hotel as well.

Maigret went and sat down. When he
OOked at the time, it was five o'clock.
e Went back suddenly to the reception
desk.


171

"Do you think a skeleton key of the Gil
more
Hotel would open the doors here?,,
"It's unlikely."

"Would you mind checking that none of
your maids has lost her skeleton key?"

"I imagine they would have informed the
floor manager, who would herself have

One moment "

He saw to a gentleman who wanted to
change his suite because there was too much
sun in his, then disappeared into an office
nearby, where several telephone bells could
be heard ringing.

When he came back, he was no longer
quite so patronizing, and his brow was fur-rowed.

"You're right. A bunch of keys has disap-peared
from the sixth floor."

"In the same way as at the Gilmore?" 1
"In the same way. While they're doing
the rooms, the staff have a mania, despite
regulations, for leaving the keys in the
door."

"How long ago did this happen?"

"Half an hour. Do you think this meanS
trouble for us?"

And the man looked at the lobby with the
same anxious expression as a captain who
is responsible for his ship. Must he not, at


172

11 costs, avoid the smallest incident that
would dull the splendor of so fine a day?

In France, Maigret would have said to
lirn: "Give me another skeleton key. I'm
going upstairs. If Jeanne Debul comes
back, keep her here for a moment and warn

file.

Not so here. He was sure they wouldn't
let him enter a suite taken by someone else
without a warrant.

He was prudent enough to wander around
the lobby for a while. Then he decided to
wait for the bar to open, since it was only

matter of minutes, and, not watching the

g doors, he propped himself up
there long enough to drink a couple of
glasses of beer.

"You're thirsty, sir."

¢Ves.

That "yes" was glum enough to squash the
smiling barman.

lie maneuvered to leave the lobby without
being seen from the reception desk, took the
elevator, worried by the thought that his
Whole plan from now on depended on the
mood of a male or female staff member.

'The long hallway was empty when he
Started down it, and he slowed up and

completely until he saw a door open


173

and a valet in a striped vest appear, a pair
of dancing shoes in his hand.

Then, with the self-assurance ora resident
without any ulterior motive, whistling
tween his teeth, he headed toward number
605, fumbled in his pockets, looked discon.
certed.

"Valet, please."

"Yes, sir?"

He was still fumbling. It wasn't the same
valet as in the morning. The relief shift must
have taken over.

"Would you mind opening my door for

me, to save me going down for my key?"
The other suspected nothing.
"With pleasure, sir."

Having opened the door, he did not look
inside, where he would have seen a woman's
robe hanging.

Maigret closed the door again, carefully,
mopped his brow, walked into the middle
of the room, where he said in his normal

voice, as if he were making conversation:
"Well, now!"

He didn't go into the bathroom, of which
the door was ajar, or look in the closetS.
He was disturbed, underneath, far more
than he let it appear or his voice let it be
suspected.


174

,'Here we are, my boy. Now we're ge going

to have a little chat together."

He sat down heavily in the chair, crGscrossed
his legs, drew a pipe from his pockenet and
lighted it. He was convinced Alain LagragranIe
was hiding somewhere, perhaps in one c,e of fie
closets, perhaps under the bed.

He also knew that the young manan was
armed, that he was highly strung, thad:hat his
nerves must be at breaking point.

"All I ask you is not to do anything s:g silly"
It was from the direction of the bed bed that
he thought he heard a slight sound.brad. Ee

wasn't quite sure of it, didn't lean forvorward.
lliOnce upon a time," he went on, as as if

1-'e

	telling a story, "I was an eyewitne:o5:ness to

an extraordinary scene, near my home:ne, n
Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. It was in s sun.
rner, too, one evening when it had been en vet!'
hot, when it was still hot and the w3 whole
neighborhood was out of doors."

1. He was speaking slowly, and anyone ca-e cor.
ng in at that moment would have taken .en hi
at the very least for an eccentric.

"I don't know who saw the cat first. I s.I I seez to remember it was a little girl, who ou0 °ougtt

to h.ave been in bed at that hour. Night Ight was

=gnn!ng to fall. She pointed to a c a dark

n a tree. As always, passerersl:Y


175

			I

stopped. From my window, where I was

leaning out, I could see them gesticulating.

Others joined the group. Soon there Were

a hundred people at the foot of the tree, and

I finally went to see for myself as well."

	He broke off to remark:

	"Here, we are alone: that makes it easier.

What was drawing the bystanders on the

boulevard was a cat, a big tabby cat, crouched

right at the end of a branch. It seemed fright
ened
at finding itself there. It can't have re
alized
that it had climbed so high. It didn't

dare make a move to turn around. It didn't

dare jump either. The women, with their

noses in the air, felt sorry for it. The men

were trying to devise a way of getting it out

of its unfortunate predicament.

	"'I'll go and fetch a double ladder!' said

a workman who lived opposite.

	"They put up the ladder. He climbed it.

It was three feet too short for him to reach

the branch. But even so, at the sight of his

outstretched arm the cat hissed with rage

and tried to claw him.

		,

	"A boy suggested: 'I'll climb up.

	"'You can't. The branch isn't stron

enough.'

	"'I'll shake it, and all you'll have to dc

is hold out a sheet.'


	176
	)

'He must have seen firemen in the movies.

"It had become a real occasion. A concierge
brought a sheet. The boy shook the

0ranch, and the poor brute at the end of it
hung on with all its claws and cast panic-stricken
glances around.

,'Everyone felt sorry for it.

"'If we had a longer ladder...'

"'Watch out!Perhaps it's angry. There's blood around its mouth.'

"It was true. They were sorry and they
were afraid as well, you understand? No one
wanted to go to bed without seeing the end
of this business with the cat. How to get it
into its head that it could let itself fall into
the outstretched sheet without danger? Or
that all it had to do was turn around?"

Maigret was almost expecting a voice to


"What happened?"

But there wasn't any question, and he

went on by himself:

"They got it in the end; a tall, thin fellow

crept along the branch and, with the aid of

a stick, managed to make the cat fall into

the sheet. When they opened it, the animal

JUmped out so quickly that you could

!Carcely see it cross the street and disappear

uto a ventilator. That's all 	"


177

This time he was sure there had been a
movement under the bed.

"The cat was afraid because it didn't know
that no one wished it any harm."

Silence. Maigret drew on his pipe.

"I don't wish you any harm either. It isn't
you who killed Andr Delteil. As for my gun,
it's not a very serious matter. Who knows?
At your age, in the state you were in, I would
perhaps have done the same. It's my fault,
after all. Oh, yes. If, that day, I hadn't gone
and had an aperitif before lunch, I would
have got home half an hour earlier, when you
were still there."

He was talking in a negative, almost sleepy
tone of voice.

"What would have happened? You would
have told me right out what you meant to
tell me. After all, it was to speak to me that
you came to my home. You couldn't know
a revolver was lying on the mantelpiece. You
wanted to tell me the truth and ask me to
save your father."

He was silent rather longer this time, to
give his words time to sink into the young
man's head.

"Don't move yet. It isn't necessary. We are
quite all right as we are. I only advise yoU.
to be careful with the gun. It's a special


178

model, which the American police are ver?wery

phroud of. The trigger is so sensitive that you0'{ you
ardly have to touch it to set it off;,I've neve'TM

used it. It's a souvenir, you see.

He sighed.

"Now, I wonder what you would have:igave
said to me if I had come in to lunch a littlelllkittle
earlier. You would have had to tell me abouu0oout
the body. ··· Wait... We're in no hurry.!'rry·

First of all, I imagine you weren't in ort0a on
Tuesday evening when Delteil paid you0-our
father a visit. If you had been there, thingstaings
would have turned out differently. YouOSc'ou
must have come in when it was all over..rver.
Probably the body was hidden in the bed.,loed-room
you use as a storerom, perhaps already?g:ady
in the trunk. Your father said nothing to you..0,ou.
I bet you don't talk much to each other, you [,o,ou
07"

He caught himself waiting for a reply. .Y.
"Well! Perhaps you suspected something,
.perhaps not. Be that as it may, in the morn-.ornng
you discovered the body. You kept quiet, .ltiaiet.
It's difficult to broach a subject like that with iwith

father.

"Yours was all in, sick.

"Then you thought of me, because you

the newspaper clippings your fathex :her

d.


179

"So, here's more or less what you'd have
said to me:

"'There's a body in our apartment. I don't
know what happened, but I know my father.
To begin with, there's never been any weapon
in our apartment. '

"For I bet there never has been one. Isn't
that so? I don't know your father very well,
but I'm sure he's very scared of revolvers.

"You would have gone on:

"'He's a man who couldn't harm anyone.
That won't stop him from being the one they're
going to accuse. He won't tell the truth, because
a woman is involved.'

"If it had happened like that, I would have
helped you, of course. We would have found
out the truth together.

"By this time it's almost certain that the
woman would be in prison."

Was he hoping it would happen there and
then? He mopped his brow, watching for a
reaction that did not come.

"I had a longish talk with your sister.
don't think you like her very much. She's
an egoist, who thinks only of herself. I
haven't had time to see your brother,
Philippe, but he must be even harder
she is. Both of them have a grudge ag.ainst
your father for the childhood they lao,


	180
	[]

[wlereas
		father actually did all he could.

	your

It's not given to everyone to be strong. You,
you understood ....

Under his breath, he was saying to himself:
"Don't let her come back just yet,
Lord!"

For then it would probably be like the cat
on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, with the
whole population of the Savoy around an adolescent
at the end of his tether.

"You see, there are some things that you
know and I don't know, but there are others
that I know and you don't. Your father at
this moment is in the Police Infirmary. That
means he is under arrest, but people are
wondering if he is in his right mind. When
all's said and done, as usual, the psychiatrists
disagree. They never do agree. What
must be worrying him most is not knowing
what's happened to you, or what you are
going to do. He knows you, realizes you
are capable of going through with your
llans.

"As for Jeanne Debul, she's at the movies.
"It wouldn't help anyone for her to be
killed coming back into her room. To start
0 with, it would be rather a bore, because
it Would be impossible to question her, and
al,o because you would fall into the hands


181

of the law of England, which in all proba,

bility would end up hanging you.
"There you are, young man.

"It's horribly hot in this room, and I'm
going to open the window. I'm not armed;
it's a mistake to imagine that all police in-spectors
and superintendents are armed.
Actually, they have no more right to be than
other citizens.

"I'm not looking under the bed. I know
you are there. I know almost everything you
are thinking. It's difficult, of course! It's less
spectacular than shooting at a woman and
playing executioner!"

He went over to the window, which he
opened, then leaned on the sill, his ears
pricked, looking out. Nothing moved be-hind
him:

"You haven't made up your mind?"

He became impatient, facing into the
room again.

"You'll make me believe you are less in-telligent
than I thought! Where will it get you
staying there? Speak up, idiot! After all, you
are nothing but a young idiot. You haven't
understood the first thing about this affair,
and if you go on like this, it's you who'll end
up by getting your father condemned. Leave
my gun alone, do you hear? I forbid you to


182

ach it. Put it on the floor. Now come out

of there."

He seemed really angry. Perhaps in fact

he was. In any case, he was in a hurry to
get this unpleasant scene over.

As with the cat, so now, a false move would
be enough, an idea passing through the
young man's head.

"Hurry up. She's not going to be much

er coming back. It wouldn't be very

smart to let her find us like this, you under
lthe bed, me trying to make you come out.

I will count up to three .... One... two
... If at three you are not standing up, I
shall telephone to the hotel detectives
and.. "

Then, at last, two feet appeared, worn-.
down soles, then cotton socks, the lower half
of a pair of trousers Alain had ruffled up in
crawling.

To make it easier for him Maigret turned
back to the window, from where he heard
a slithering on the floor, then the light noise

°fsorneone standing up. He didn't forget the
young man was armed, but he was waiting
to give him time to recover himself.


r

"Is it all over?"

lie turned all the way around. Alain was

nding before him, with dust on his blue


183

suit, his tie askew, his hair in disorder. He
was very pale, his lips were trembling, his
eyes seemed to want to wander over the
room.

"Give me back my gun."

Maigret held out his hand, and the young
man fumbled in his righthand pocket, held
out his hand in turn.

"Don't you think it's better this way?"
There was a faint:
"Yes."

Then, right away:

"What are you going to do?"

"First of all, eat and drink. Aren't you
hungry?"

"Yes. I don't know."

"Well, I'm very hungry, and there's an excellent
grillroom on the ground floor."

He made for the door.

"Where have you put the skeleton key?"

He pulled out not one, but a whole bunch,
from his other pocket.

	"It would be better for me to hand them

	in to reception, since they might make a

	scene about it."

	In the hallway he stopped in front of his

	own door.
	,,

	"We'd better tidy ourselves up a little.

	He didn't want a crisis. He knew that it


184

Ias only hanging by a thread. That was why
he was keeping the other s mind busy with;r`


small material details.

	"Have you a comb?"

	"Soo"

	"You can use mine. It's quite clean."

	That almost won him a smile.

	"Why are you doing all this?"

	"All what?"

	"You know what I mean."

	"Perhaps because I was a young man once

[myself. And had a father. Brush yourself off. ' t
Take off your coat. The bedspring hasn't
been cleaned for a long time."

He himself washed his hands and face in
cold water.

"I wonder if I shouldn't change my- t
shirt again. I've sweated quite a bit
today!"

/

	He did, so that Alain saw him barer


chested, with his suspenders hanging over
his thighs.

	"Of

	course you haven't any luggage?"
	li

	"I don't think I can go into the grill as I

alll.

	He examined him with a critical eye.

	"Your clothes are certainly not very clean.

Did you sleep in your shirt?"

	Yes."


185

"I can't lend you one of mine. It Would
be too big."

This time Alain smiled more openly.
"It's just too bad if the maitre d' doesn't
like it. We'll talk in a corner and try to get
them to give us a little white wine, nice and

cold. Perhaps they've got that." "I don't drink."
"Never?"

"I tried once, and I was so sick I didn't
start again."

"Have you got a girlfriend?"
"No."
"Why?"

"I don't know."
"Are you shy?"
"I don't know."

"Have you ever wanted to have a
girlfriend?"

"Maybe. I think so. But I'm not very interested.''

Maigret did not insist. He had understood.
And, as they went out of the room,
he put his big hand on his companion'S
shoulder.

"You gave me a fright."

"What about?"

"Would you have fired?"

"At whom?"


186

	"At her."

	yes.

	"And yourself7."

	"Perhaps. Afterward, I think I'd

	il:."

	They passed the valet, d who turne

	to look at them. Perhaps; .. 4h;hheard¢}eti:

	coming out of number 60¢J
	H/.it.

	had gone into number 60g5057

	The elevator deposiiited thcrrl

	ground floor. Maigret hhad his kyil:

	hand as well as the buncI2-ch of paske, i:

	went over to the reception/n desk. He w,si::

	ing for a little triumph oOv.er his ar-chener:

	in the too-well-cut mornfmng cl°les,t:,

	would it strike him seeingtg them togter:

	receiving the skeleton key4eys?

	Alas! It wasn't he who 0o was starldigi.:

	hind the desk, but a tall, ill' pale, fir-hai::

	.young man, who wore aWan identical

	ng coat and flower. FI He dida.'t:t0

	l,aigret.

	'I found this bunch of°f keys in

Way."

"Thanks very much," "'" he saicl,
CernedlY.When Mmgret to' rned around, lrya,

in the middle of0of the lobly.k:
ook in his eyes he see?emed to


187

the Superintendent if he could have a word
with him.

"Will you excuse me?" he asked Alain.
He went over to the English detective.
"You've found him? It's really him?"
"Yes."

"The lady has just come in."
"Has she gone up to her room?" "No. She's in the bar."
"Alone?"

"She's chatting with the barman. What
'shall I do?"

"Can you bear to keep an eye on her for

another hour or two?"

"Easily."

"If she looks like she's going out, warn me
right away. I'll be in the grillroom."

Alain hadn't tried to run away. He was
waiting, a little awkwardly, a little embarrassed,
at the edge of the crowd.
"Enjoy your meal, sir."
"Thanks."

He rejoined the young man, whom he led

toward the grill, saying:

"I'm ravenous."

And he caught himself adding, as he
passed through a ray of sunshine slanting
through a wide bay window:

"What wonderful weather!"


I

"You LIKE LOBSTER?"

Only Maigret's eyes appeared above the
immense menu the maitre d'h6tel had put
in his hand, and Alain didn't know what to
do with his, which, out of tact, he didn't look


"Yes, sir," he answered, as if at school.
"Well then, we'll treat ourselves to a lobster
a l'Amricaine. Before that I would like

a plate of hors d'oeuvres. Waiter!"

His order given, he said:

"When I was your age, I preferred canned
lobster meat, and when I was told this was
heretical, I would reply that it had more
taste. We had lobster once every six
months, on special occasions, since we
weren't rich."

He leaned back a little.

"You've suffered from not being rich,
haven't you?"

"I don't know, sir. I would have liked my
father not to have had to worry so much
about bringing us up."

"You really don't want anything to drink?"
"Only water."


189

Nevertheless, Maigret ordered himself a
bottle of wine, a Rhine wine, and glasses the
color of absinthe, with long stems of a darker
hue, were set before them.

The grillroom was lighted, but the sunlight
lingered on outside. The room was filling
rapidly, with maitres d'h6tel and waiters
in tails moving about noiselessly.

What fascinated Alain were the wheeled
tables. They had brought one, laden with
hors d'oeuvres, up to their table, and there
were others, including some with pastries
and desserts. Best of all was the enormous
domeshaped silver one, which opened like
a box.

"Before the war, it used to hold a roast
quarter of beef," explained Maigret. "I
think it's here that I've eaten the best roast
beef. Anyway, the most memorable. Now
they've put a turkey in it. Do you like turkey?''

"I think so."

"If you've, any appetite left after the lobster,
we can have turkey."

"I'm not hungry."

They must have looked, the two of them
together at their little table, like a rich uncle
from the country giving a gala dinner to his
nephew at the end of the school year.


190

"I lost my mother very young, too, and

it was my father who brought me up."
"Did he take you to school?"

"He couldn't. He had to work. It was in
e country."

"When I was very small, my father used

to take me to school and come to fetch me
home. He was the only man waiting at the
door among the women. When he got back
home, it was he who made supper for us all."

"There must have been times when you
had servants."

"Did he tell you that? Have you talked to
him?"

"I've talked with him."

"Is he worried about me?"

"I will call Paris soon so they can reassure
him."

Alain didn't realize that he was eating with
a good appetite, and he drank a large gulp
of the wine, which the wine steward had
served as a matter of course. He didn't make
a face.

"That never lasted long."

"What?"

"Servants. My father so much wanted to
change it all that he acted as if his wishes
had COme true from time to time. 'From now
oa, children,' he would announce, 'we're


191

going to live like everyone else. Tomorrow,
we move.'"

"Did you move?"

"Sometimes. Xre would go into a new
apartment, where there was still no furni-ture.
They would bring it when we were
ready there. We saw new faces, women my
father had hired from an employment
agency, and we called them by their first
names. Then almost at once the shopkeep-ers
would begin to troop in, and sheriffs,
who would wait for hours thinking my father
was out when he was only hiding in one of
the rooms. Finally they would cut offthe gas
and the electric light. It's not his fault. He's
very intelligent. He has heaps of ideas. Lis-ten."

Maigret bent his head to hear better, his
face relaxed, his eyes full of sympathy.

"There were years of that .... I remember
that for a long time, perhaps rvvo years, he
went around to all kinds of offices with a
scheme for enlarging and modernizing a
Moroccan port. All he got was promises. If
that had come off, we would have gone to
live over there and we'd have been very rich.
When the plan reached the higher author-ities,
they shrugged their shoulders. They all
but treated my father as if he were mad for


	192
	I

vanting to establish a big port at that point.

Now the Americans have done it."

"I understand."

Maigret knew that type of man so well!
But could he show him up to his son for what
he was? What was the point? The other two,
the elder son and the daughter, had long ago
seen the truth and had left, without feeling
any gratitude for the big, weak, soft man
who, after all, had brought them up. He
couldn't look to those two for pity.

There was only Alain left to believe in him.

It was odd, because Alain looked so much

like his sister that it was disturbing.
"A few more mushrooms?"
"No, thank you."

Looking out was not without its fascina-tion
for him. It was the hour at which, as
at lunch, cars followed one another without
respite, waiting their turn to stop for a mo-ment
beneath the awning, where a doorman
in mouse-gray livery would hurry to the car
door. The difference from noon was that the
people who got out of the cars were nearly

in evening dress. There were plenty of



ung couples, and whole families, too.
ost of the women wore orchids.

The men were in dinner jackets, some in
Is, and through the windows they could


193

be seen coming and going in the lobby
fore taking their places in the main dining
room, from which filtered the strains of the
orchestra.

It was, to the very end, a marvelous day:
with still enough light from the setting sun
to lend an unreal hue to people's faces.

"Until what age did you go to school?"
"Fifteen and a half."
"High school?"

"Yes. I finished my third year and' ther
left."

"Why?"

"I wanted to earn some money to help rn
father."

"Were you a good student?"
"Fairly. Except math."
"Did you find a job?"
"I worked in an office."

"Did your sister give your father th
money she earned?"

"No. She used to pay for her board an.
lodging. She had it worked out exactly, wit!
out counting the rent, or the heating or
light. It was she who used up the most ele(

tricity, reading in bed part of the night."
"You handed over everything to him?"
"Yes."


"You don't smoke?"


194

The arrival of the lobster interrupted them
for a while. Alain seemed relaxed now. From
time to time, however, because he was sitting
with his back to the door, he would turn
around in that direction.

"What are you looking at?"
"To see if she's coming."
"You think she will come?"

"I saw you talking to someone and glancing
toward the bar. I gathered from that that
she was there."

"You know her?"

"I've never spoken to her."
"And does she know you?"
"She'll recognize me."
"Where has she seen you?"

"Two weeks ago on Boulevard Richard.
Wallace." ii

"You went up to her apartment?"

"No. I was opposite, on the other side of
the railings."

"Had you been following your father?"
"Yes."
"Why?"

d Maigret had gone too fast. Alain was with
tawing.

"I
don't see why you are doing all this."

what?"


195

With a glance, he indicated the grill, the
table, the lobster, the luxuries that the man
who ought logically to have clapped him in
jail was lavishing on him.

"We had to eat, didn't we? I haven't had
anything since this morning. What about
you?"

"A sandwich, in a milk bar."

"So we're having dinner. Afterward we'll
see."

"What'll you do?"

"We'll very likely take the plane to Paris.

Do you like flying?"

"Not much."

"Have you been abroad before?"

"Not before. Last year I was to have spent
two weeks in Austria at a vacation camp. An
organization works an exchange program for
young people of the two countries. I put my
name down. They told me to get a passport.
Then, when my turn came, I had sinus trouble
and was in bed."

A silence. '

He had returned to the thought that was
uppermost in their minds, and it only
mained for him to bring it up again himself.
"Have you spoken to that person?"
"To whom?"


196

I"To her."

,'This morning, in her bedroom."
"What did she say?"
,'Nothing."

"It's she who ruined my father, but you'll

see, nothing can be done to her."

"You don't think so?"

"You wouldn't dare arrest her, would
yOU?"

"Why?"

"I don't know. It's always like that. She's
taken precautions."

"You know all about her dealings with
your father?"

"Not exactly. It was only a few weeks ago
that I learned what she is."

"Yet he's known her for a long time."
"He's known her since just after my.
mother died. At that time he didn't hide her
from us. I don't remember anything about
it myself, because I was only a baby, but
Philippe told me. Father had told him he was
going to marry again, which would be better
for everybody, because there would be a
WOman to look after us. It didn't happen.
Now that I've seen her, and know the sort
of Woman she is, I'm sure she was making
a fool of him."

possibly."


197

		I

	"Philippe says Father was miserable about

it, that he often cried in bed at night. He

went years without seeing her. Perhaps she

left Paris. Or changed her address without

telling him.

"Then about two years ago I noticed a

change in my father."

"In what way?"

"It's difficult to say exactly. His whole

attitude was no longer the same. He was

gloomier and, above all, worried. When any
one
came up the stairs he would tremble,

and seem relieved when it was a shopkeeper,

even one coming to dun him.

"My brother wasn't with us any longer by

then. My sister had announced she would

be leaving on the day she was twenty-one.

It didn't all happen at once, you see. It was

only now and again that I noticed the dif
ference.
"In the old days, even in bars where I used

to go and meet him to do errands for him,

he used to drink only bottles of Vichy water.

He started having ap6ritifs, and some eve
nings
he came back very drunk, saying he

had a headache.

"He didn't look at me in the same way

any more, seemed embarrassed by my pres
ence,
and spoke impatiently to me.


198

"Eat up."

"I'm sorry; I'm not hungry anymore."
,'Dessert?"
"All right."

"It was then that you began to follow
him?"

He hesitated before replying, and looked
closely at Maigret, frowning, and at that mo-ment
he looked so like his sister that Maigret
turned his eyes away.

"It was quite natural for you to try to find
out what was happening."

"Even so, I don't know anything."
"Right. You know only that he often
went to see this woman, especially in the
late afternoon. You followed him to Bou-levard
Richard-Wallace, you admitted just
now. You were down below, behind the
railings of the Bois de Boulogne. Your fa-ther
and the woman must have gone to
a window in the apartment. Did she notice

you?"

"Yes. She pointed at me with her finger.
Probably because I was looking in the di-rection
of the window."

"Your father told her who you were. Did
he speak to you about it afterward?"

"No. I was expecting him to speak, but
didn't."


199

"And you?"

"I didn't dare."

"You found the money?"

"How do you know?"

"Isn't it true that in the evening you SOme.
times searched your father's wallet, not to
take money, but to find out?"

"Not his wallet. He used to put it under

his shirts, in the drawer."

"A lot?"

"Sometimes a hundred thousand francs,
sOmetimes more, sometimes only fifty thousand."

"Often?"

"It varied. Once or twice a week."
"And the day after these evenings he
would go around to Boulevard RichardWallace?"


"Yes."

"Then the money wasn't there anymore?"

"She left him a few small notes."
Alain saw a gleam in Maigret's eye as
watched the door, but he had enough
strength of mind not to turn around. He was
not unaware that it was Jeanne Debul coming
in.

Behind her, Bryan made a questioning
gesture to the Superintendent, who in tur


200

llgave him. to understand that he could stop

trailing her.

If it was so late, it was because, on leaving
the bar, she had gone up to change. Though
she was not in an evening dress, she was
wearing a fairly formal one, which must have
come from a first-class dressmaker. On her
wrist she had a wide diamond bracelet, and
more diamonds at her ears.

She hadn't seen the Superintendent or
Alain, and was following the headwaiter,
while most of the women looked her up and
down.

She was placed less than twenty feet away
from them, at a little table almost facing
them, and she sat down, glanced around as
they handed her the menu, met Maigret's
eye, and at once looked hard at his compan.
ion.

Maigret was smiling the smile of a man
who has dined well, his mind at rest. Alain,
blushing scarlet, didn't dare turn in her direction.

"Has she seen me?"

'{Yes."

"What's she doing?"
"She's just defying me."
"What do you mean?"

"She's pretending to be at her ease, light201


ing a cigarette and leaning over to examine
the hors d'oeuvres on a table beside her.
Now she's talking with the headwaiter and
making her diamonds sparkle."

"You won't arrest her!" he said with bitterness
and a touch of defiance.

"I won't arrest her today, because, you
see, if I were foolish enough to do so, she
would get out of it." .

"She'll always get out of it, while my father
. "

"No. Not always. Here in England I am
at a disadvantage, because I would have to
prove that she has committed one of the
crimes covered by the extradition laws. She
won't stay in London forever. She needs
Paris. She'll go back, and I will have had time
to see about her. Even if it isn't right away,
her turn will come. Sometimes we leave people
at large for months, even years, under
the impression that they are fooling us. You
can look at her. You don't have to be
ashamed. She's just showing off. Still, she'd
rather be in your shoes than her own.

"Suppose I had left you under the bed.

She would have gone up. By now · ..
"Don't."

"You would have fired?"

"Yes."


202

Alain muttered between his teeth:
"Because!"

"Are you sorry?"

"I don't know. There's no justice!"
"Oh, yes, there's a sort of justice, and it
does what it can. Obviously, if I were God
the Father this evening, instead of being at
the head of a special squad and having to
account to my superiors, to the magistrate,
to the prosecutor, even to the press, I would

arrange this differently."

"How?"

"First of all, I would forget you stole my
revolver. That I can still do. Then I would
arrange for a certain businessman, from I
can't remember where, to forget that he
didn't lose his wallet but was forced to hand

it over with a gun under his nose."
"It wasn't loaded."
"Are you sure?"

"I'd taken good care to remove the cartridges.
I needed the money for getting to
London."

"You knew the Debul woman was here?"

"I followed her that morning. First of all
I tried going up to her apartment. The concierge
,,

"I know."


203

"When I came out of the building there
was a policeman at the entrance, and I
guessed it was for me. I went around the
block. When I got back, the policeman
wasn't there any longer. I hid in the park,

waiting for her to come out."

"To shoot her?"

"Perhaps. She must have telephOned for
a taxi. I couldn't get near her. I was lucky
enough to find another taxi coming from
Puteaux. I followed her as far as the station.
I saw her get on the Calais train. I didn't
have enough money left to pay for a ticket."

"Why didn't you kill her when she was
standing at the train compartment door?"

Alain shuddered, looked at him to see if

he was being serious, mumbled:

"I didn't dare."

"If you didn't dare shoot when you were
in a crowd, you probably wouldn't have shot
her in her bedroom either. You had been following
your father for several weeks, hadn't

you?"

"Yes."

"Have you a list of people he went to s¢¢?"1
"I could make one up from memory. Fie'
went several times to a little bank on Rue
Chauchat, and also to a newspaper office,
where he saw the assistant editor. He macle


204

a lot of telephone calls and kept turning
around all the time to make sure he wasr't
teing followed."

"Did you realize what was going on?"

"Not right away. I happened to read a
novel about it."

"About what?"

"You know perfectly well."
"Blackmail?
"It was her."

"Of course. And that's why it'll take sonne
time to get her. I don't know what kind of life she led before she moved to Boulevard
Richard-Wallace. She probably got arouLqd
and knew all kinds of people. A woman is
better than a man at finding out little secrets,
especially shameful secrets. When she w'as
no longer young enough to carry on her sort
of life, she got the idea of making money o ut

of her bits and pieces of information."
"She made use of my father."

"Precisely. She wasn't the one who we:nt
and sought out the victims to demarnd
money from them. It was a man about tovmn
who had no definite profession. Peop01e
Weren't overly surprised. They almost xpected
it."'

"Why do you say that?'

"Because you must face the facts. Perha:.ps


205

your father was still in love? I think he Was.
He's the sort of man to remain faithful to
an infatuation like that. Jeanne Debul more
or less provided his keep. He lived in fear
of being caught. He was ashamed of himself.
He didn't dare look you in the face any
more."

Alain turned a hard face, with eyes full of
hate, in the direction of the woman, who

wore a thin, contemptuous smile.

	"One strawberry tart."

	"Aren't you having any?" protested Alain.

"I seldom eat dessert. Coffee and a fine
for me."

He pushed his chair back a little, pulled
his pipe from his pocket. He was busy filling
it when the headwaiter leaned toward him
and said a few words in a low voice, waving
an apology with his hands.

Then Maigret stuffed his pipe back into
his pocket and stopped a passing cart that
had cigars.

	"Aren't you going to smoke your pipe?"

	"Not allowed here! By the way, have you

	I

paid for your hotel room?"

	"NO."

	"Have you still got the passkey you tool(

,,

from the hallway? Hand it to me.

	He passed it to Maigret under the table.


2O6

"Is the tart good?"

'Yes .· ."

His mouth was full of it. He was just a
child now, unable to resist sweet things, and
at that moment he was entirely engrossed
in his tart.

"Did he often see Delteil?"

"I saw him go around to his office twice."
Was it necessary to discover the whole
truth? It was more than likely that the Deputy,
whose wife was petitioning for a divorce
and who was going to find himself without
a penny, obliged to leave his big house on
Avenue Henri-Martin, was trading on his influence.
It was more serious .for him than
anyone else, because he had built up his political
career by denouncing scandals and in:
trigues

Had Jeanne Debul gone too far? Maigret
had another idea on the subject.

"Your father didn't talk any longer about
finishing with your kind of life?"

Despite the strawberry tart Alain lifted his
head in sudden distrust.

"What do you mean?"

"In the old days, he used to announce periodically
that everything was going to
change· Then there was a time when he
Seemed to lose faith in his stars."


207

"Even so, he still hoped."
"Less strongly, though?"
"Yes."

"And recently?"

"He spoke three or four times about going
to live in the Midi."

Maigret didn't go on. This was his affair.
There was no point in explaining to the son
what he deduced from it. Hadn't Franqois
Lagrange, who had been carrying out commissions
for the Debul woman for two years
and only picking up the crumbs, got it into
his head to work on his own account?

Supposing Jeanne Debul ordered him to
extract a hundred thousand francs from
Delteil, who was a big shot . . And the
Baron had demanded a million? Or more?
He was a man who liked talking in big figures,
who had spent his life juggling with imaginary
fortunes ....

Delteil decided not to pay.

"Where were you, on Tuesday night?" "I went to the movies."

"Did your father encourage you to go
out?"

He paused to think. This idea had come
to him for the first time.

"I think he did .... He said to me ..'
I seem to remember he spoke to me about


208

film being shown exclusively at the
2hamps-Elys6es and..."

"When you came back, he'd gone to bed?"
"Yes. I went to say good night, as I always
o; he wasn't well. He promised me he
ould see the doctor."

"That struck you as quite normal?"

'eNo. 7,

"Why?"

"I don't know. I was worried. I couldn't
get to sleep. There was a strange smell in
the house, a smell of American cigarettes.
In the morning I woke up when it was hardly
daybreak. I went around the apartment. My
father was asleep. I noticed that the store-room,
which was my bedroom when I was
small, was locked and the key wasn't in the

door. I opened it."

"How?"

"With a hook. It's a trick I learned from
my friends at school. You twist a thick bit

of wire in a special way and . . ."

"I know. I've done it, too."

"I always kept one of those hooks in my
drawer. I saw the trunk in the middle of the
room and I lifted the lid."

It was best to move quickly now.
"Did you speak to your father?"
"I couldn't."


209

"You left at once?"

"Yes. I walked around the streets. I wanted
to call on that woman."

There was one scene whose details would
never be known unless the Baron gave up
playing the madman, and that was the
one enacted in the apartment between
Fran¢ois Lagrange and Andr& Delteil. It
didn't concern Alain. There was no point
in shattering the picture he had formed of
his father.

The chances were very small that the Dep-uty
had come with the intention of killing
him. More than likely he intended, if nec-essary
by means of threats, to recover the
doCuments that were being used to black-mail
him.

Weren't the sides rather unevenly
matched? Delteil was full of vigor. He was
a man used to fighting, and all he had to
oppose him was a big trembling hulk.

The documents were not in the apart-ment.
Even if he had wanted to, Lagrange
would have been unable to return them.

What had he done? He had probably wept,
begged, asked to be forgiven. He had prom-ised
. . .

All the time, he was being hypnotized by
the revolver that was threatening him.


I


210

It was he, by virtue of his very weakness,
who had ended up winning the fight. How
had he got hold of the weapon? By what ruse
had he distracted the Deputy's attention?

However it came about, the fact remained
that he no longer trembled. His turn now
to speak loudly, to threaten.

Probably he hadn't pulled the trigger on,
purpose. He was too much of a coward, too
used, ever since his schooldays, to walking
about with his head hanging and receiving:
kicks in the behind.

"Finally I went to your apartment."
Alain turned toward Jeanne Debul, who
was trying in vain to catch some of their con--versation.
The sounds that filled the grill--room,
the noise of dishes, knives, forks, th
hum of conversation, the laughter, and
music coming from the big room preventedll
her hearing.

"Shall we be going... ?"

There was a protest in Alain's eyes:
"Are you going to leave her there?"

The woman, too, was surprised to sec
Maigret pass by without saying a word ted
her. It seemed too easy for her. Perhaps sh
had hoped for a scene, which would have
given her plenty of scope.



In the lobby, where he finally took his pip


211

from his pocket and triumphantly stubbed
out his cigar in the sand of a monumental
ashtray, Maigret murmured:

"Will you wait here a second?"
He went up to the reception desk.
"What time is there a plane for Paris?"
"There is one in ten minutes, but you ob-viously
can't catch that. The next is half past

six in the morning. Shall I reserve a seat?"
"Two."

	"What names?"

He gave them. Alain hadn't moved and
was looking at the lights of the Strand.

"Just a moment. A telephone call to
make."

He no longer had to do it from the re-ception
desk; he could go into one of the
booths.

"That you, Pyke? I'm sorry I couldn't
lunch or have dinner with you. I won't see
you tomorrow either. I'm going back during
the night."

"On the half past six plane? I'll drive you
there."

	"But .
	"

	"See you then."

It was better to let him do it; otherwise
he would never be happy. Strange as it was,
Maigret was no longer sleepy.


212

"Shall we have a stroll outside?"

"If you want to."

"Otherwise I won't even have set foot on

a London sidewalk during my entire visit."

It was true. Was it because he was conscious
of being abroad? The streetlights
seemed to him to have a different sort of light
from the ones in Paris, another color, and
even the air had a different smell.

The two of them walked along unhurriedly,
looking at the movie entrances, the
bars. After Chafing Cross there was an
enormous square with a column in the middle.

"Did you come this way this morning?"
"I think so. I seem to recognize it."
"Trafalgar Square."

It was pleasant, before leaving, to come
across sights he recognized, and he took
Alain as far as Piccadilly Circus.

"It only remains for us to go to bed."
Alain could have run away. Maigret
wouldn't have lifted a finger to stop him.
But he knew the young man wouldn't do

S0.

"Still, I would like a glass of beer. Do you
mind?"

It wasn't so much the beer as the atmoSphere
ora pub that Maigret was looking for.


213

Alain didn't drink anything, but waited in
silence.

"You like London?"

"I don't know."

"Perhaps you'll be able to come back in
a few months. It shouldn't really take as

much as a few months." ..
"Will I see my father?"
"Yes."

A little farther on he sniffed, and Maigret
pretended not to notice.

When they got back to the hotel, the Superintendent
slipped a little money and the
passkey into an envelope addressed to the
Gilmore Hotel.

"I was going to take it off to France!"
Then, to Alain, who didn't know what to

do:

"You coming?"

They took the elevator. There was a light
on in Jeanne Debul's room; perhaps she was
expecting a visit from Maigret. She would
have to wait a long time.

"Come in! There are twin beds."

And, because his companion seemed embarrassed:

"You can go to bed in all your clothes if
you prefer."

He arranged to be called at half past five,


214

ll




slept deeply, without a shadow of a dream.
As for Alain, the telephone bell didn't wake
him from his sleep.

"Time to get up!"

Did Franois Lagrange wake his son?

Right to the very end, it wasn't like any
other case.

"Still, I'm very glad."

"About what?"

"That you didn't shoot. Let's not talk
about that any more .... "

Pyke was waiting for them in the lobby,
exactly the same as the day before, and it

was another glorious morning.
"Nice day, isn't it?"
"Splendid!"

The car was at the door. Maigret realized
that he had forgotten to introduce them.,

"Alain Lagrange. Mr. Pyke, a friend from
Scotland Yard."

Pyke made a sign that he understood, and
didn't ask any questions. The whole way
he talked about the flowers in his garden
and the wonderful shade of the hydrangeas
he had obtained after long years of exper-iment.

The plane took off, without a cloud in the
sky, nothing but a fine morning haze.

"What are those?" the young man asked,


215

pointing to the paper receptacles put there

for the convenience of passengers.

"In case anyone feels sick..."

Was it on account of this that, a few min-utes
later, Alain went pale, then green, and,
with a despairing look, leaned over his re-ceptacle?

He Would have given so much not to be
ill, especially in front of Superintendent
Maigret!


IT HAD ALL happened as usual, except that

a month had not elapsed since the last din-ner;
in fact, it was a good deal less. First of

all, Pardon's voice on the telephone.
"Are you free tomorrow evening?"
"Probably."

"With your wife, of course."

"Yes."

"Do you like tgte de veau en tortue?'
"Don't know its"

"Do you like calf's head?"

"Well enough."

"Then you'll like it mock turtle. It's a
dish discovered on a visit to Belgium.
You'll see. But, frankly, I don't know what


216

wine to serve with it 	Perhaps
some
beer?"

At
the last moment Pardon, as he explained
with almost scientific precision, had decided
on a light Beaujolais.
Maigret
and his wife had walked there and had
avoided looking at each other as they passed
Rue Popincourt. Jussieu, from the Forensic
Laboratory, was present, and Mine Maigret
said he was a confirmed old bachelor.

"I
wanted to invite Professor Journe. He said
he never dines in town. It's twenty years since
he had a meal outside his own home.'
The
windows were open, and the wrought-iron
balcony traced its arabesques against
a sky of deepening blue.
"Isn't it
a wonderful evening?"
Maigret gave
a little smile, which the others could
not understand. He had two helpings of tte de veau. Over coffee, Pardon, who
was passing cigars around, absentmindedly
handed the box to Maigret.

"No, thanks. Only at the Savoy."

"You smoked a cigar at the Savoy?" His
wife was astonished.

"I had to. They came and whispered in
my ear that pipes were forbidden."

I Pardon had arranged the dinner solely in

I 217

order to talk about the Lagrange affair, and
everyone was being careful not to steer the
conversation onto that topic. They talked
about everything else, idly, except that one
subject that was in everyone's mind.

"Did you pay a visit to Scotland Yard?"
"I didn't have time."

"How do you get on with them?"

"Excellently. They're the most tactful
people in the world."

He meant it; he kept a soft spot for Mr.
Pyke, who had raised his hand in farewell
the moment the plane took off, and who
had, perhaps, at heart, been rather touched.

"Much work at the Quai des Orfvres just
now}"

"Just the usual stuff. Much illness in the
district}"

"The usual, too."

Then there was a little talk about illnesses.
So that it was ten o'clock when Pardon finally
made up his mind to murmur:
"Have you seen him}"

"Yes. Have you seen him, too}"

"I've been there twice."

The women, tactfully, were pretending
not to listen. As for Jussieu, the affair was
out of his hands, and he was looking through
the window.


218

"Was he confronted with his son?"
"Yes."

"Did he say anything?"

Maigret shook his head. "Same old :ory?"

For Francois Lagrange was sticking to
lis original attitude, curling up like a fright,,ned
animal. The moment anyone approached
him he cowered against the wall,
n arm crooked over his face to protect him-elf.

"Don't hit me .... I don't want to be

lit 	"

He
even managed to make his teeth chat-
er.

"What
does Journe think about it?"
This
time it was Maigret who asked the tuestion.

"Journe
is a clever man, probably one of
ur best psychiatrists. He's also a man wor'ied
to death by his responsibilities."

"I understand."

"Furthermore, he has always been opposed
to capital punishment."

Nlaigret made no comment, drew slowly
n his pipe.

"One day, when I was talking to him about
ishing, he looked at me with a shocked ex)ression.
He doesn't even kill fish."


219

I
"So that... ?"

"If Franfois Lagrange keeps it up for an-other
month . . ."

"Will he keep it up?"

"He's frightened enough to do so. Unless
someone forces the issue..."

Pardon was staring intently at Maigret.
This was the reason for the dinner, the ques-tion
he had long waited to ask, which he ex-pressed
only with a look.

"As far as I am concerned," murmured
the Superintendent, "it has nothing to do
with me now. I have handed in my report.
Rateau, the Examining Magistrate, for his
part, will follow the experts."

Why did Pardon seem to be saying thank
you? It was embarrassing. Maigret was a
little put out with him for this indiscretion.
It was true to say that it had nothing to
do with him now. He could, obviously,
have . . .

"I have other fish to fry." He sighed, rising
to his feet. "Among others, a certain Jeanne
Debul. She returned to Paris yesterday.
She's still brazening it out. Within the next
two months I hope to have her in my office
for a cozy talk."

"Anyone would think you had a private
quarrel with her," remarked Mine Maigret,


220

although she had not seemed to be listening.

Nothing more was said about it. A quarter
of an hour later, in the darkness of the street,
Mine Maigret took her husband's arm.

"It's odd," he said. "The street lamps in
London, though they're really almost the

,,

same . . .

And, as they went along, he began to tell
her about the Strand, Chafing Cross,
Trafalgar Square.

"I thought you hardly had time to eat."

"I went out for a few minutes in the evening
after dinner." "By yourself?."
"No. With him."

She didn't ask whom he meant. As they
approached Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, he
must have remembered the pub where he
had drunk a glass of beer before going to
bed. It made him thirsty.

"You don't mind if..."

"Of course not! Go and have a drink. I'll
wait for you."

For it was a little bar where she would have
felt in the way. When he came out, wiping
his mouth, she took his arm again.

"Beautiful night."



"Yes." 221

"With lots of stars."

Why did the sight of a cat which, as they
came by, dived into a ventilator cloud his
face for a moment?


Shadow Rock Farm

Lakeville, Conn.

June 1952



222

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