Cécile is Dead

Cécile is Dead Read Free

Book: Cécile is Dead Read Free
Author: Georges Simenon
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like that of a woman in love.
    â€˜You see, it might not be tonight. It
     could be in three, five, maybe ten days. How do I know? I’m afraid, inspector. The
     idea of a man …’
    â€˜Where do you live?’
    â€˜In Bourg-la-Reine, a kilometre from
     Porte d’Orléans, on the main road … just opposite the fifth tram stop. It’s
     a big five-storey apartment building, brick, and there’s a bicycle shop and a
     grocer’s on the ground floor. We live on the fifth floor.’
    Lucas had gone there and had asked the
     neighbours questions. When he came back he was sceptical.
    â€˜An old lady who hasn’t been out
     of the place for months, and her niece who acts as her maidservant and looks after her
     in general.’
    The local police were asked to keep an eye
     on the building, which was under surveillance for almost a month. No one ever saw anyone
     but the tenants going in and out of it by night.
    And yet Cécile kept returning to Quai des
     Orfèvres.
    â€˜He’s been back again,
     inspector. This time he left ink marks on the blotter. I’d changed the blotting
     paper yesterday evening.’
    â€˜And he didn’t take anything
     away?’
    â€˜No,
     nothing.’
    Maigret had been imprudent enough to tell
     the story to his colleagues, and the whole of Quai des Orfèvres was greatly amused.
    â€˜Maigret has made a
     conquest.’
    They went to take a look at the young lady
     with the squint through the glazed partition of the waiting room and then visited
     Maigret’s office.
    â€˜Quick – there’s someone to see
     you!’
    â€˜Who is it?’
    â€˜Your love-sick admirer.’
    Lucas had spent eight nights running lying
     in wait in the stairwell of the building and had neither seen nor heard anything.
    â€˜It could be tomorrow,’ Cécile
     said.
    It was left at that.
    â€˜Cécile is here …’
    Cécile was famous. Everyone called her
     Cécile. If a junior officer wanted to see Maigret, he was told, ‘Careful.
     There’s someone in there.’
    â€˜Who is it?’
    â€˜Cécile.’
    Maigret changed to another tram at Porte
     d’Orléans and got off at the fifth stop. A building rose on the right, by itself,
     alone between two tracts of waste land; you might have thought you were on a thin slice
     of road, cut from a block of Neapolitan ice cream.
    Nothing out of the ordinary. Cars were
     driving towards Arpajon and Orléans. Trucks were coming back from Les Halles. The door
     of the apartment building was wedged
between
     the bicycle shop and the grocery. The concierge was peeling carrots.
    â€˜Has Mademoiselle Pardon come home
     yet?’
    â€˜Mademoiselle Cécile? I don’t
     think so. You can always ring the bell, and Madame Boynet will open the door.’
    â€˜I thought she was
     disabled.’
    â€˜Almost, but she’s had a system
     rigged up so that she can open the door from her armchair, like in my lodge here.
     That’s to say, if she wants to.’
    Five floors. Maigret hated stairs. These
     were dark, and the stairwell was covered with wallpaper the colour of tobacco juice. The
     walls were well seasoned; the smell changed from landing to landing, depending on what
     people were cooking. So did the noises. Piano music, children yowling, and somewhere the
     echoes of a heated argument.
    There was a dusty business card, saying
     ‘Jean Siveschi’, under the electric bell on the left-hand door on the fifth
     floor, so it must be the door on the right that he wanted. He rang the bell there. The
     sound passed from room to room, but there was no click, and the door did not open. He
     rang again. His uneasiness was turning to anxiety and his anxiety to remorse.
    â€˜What is it?’ asked a
     woman’s voice behind him.
    He turned and saw a plump young woman whose
     blue dressing gown made her look even more alluring.
    â€˜Madame

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