Maigret Read Free Page A

me.’
    There was resignation in his voice. They
     had got off on the wrong foot, and that was all! It was a stupid business and
     Maigret felt like gnashing his teeth.
    ‘I’m sorry,
     Uncle!’
    ‘No emotional scenes in the
     street! If they let you go free, meet me in the Chope du Pont-Neuf. If I’m not
     there, I’ll leave you a note.’
    They did not even shake hands. Philippe
     headed straight for the Floria. The sergeant did not know him and tried to bar him
     from entering. Philippe had to show his badge, then he vanished inside.
    Maigret remained at a distance, his
     hands in his pockets, like the other onlookers. He waited. He waited for almost half
     an hour, without the least idea of what was going on inside the club.
    Detective Chief Inspector Amadieu came
     out first,followed by a short, nondescript man who looked like a
     waiter.
    And Maigret needed no explanations. He
     knew that this was the man who had bumped into Philippe. He could guess
     Amadieu’s question.
    ‘Was it right here that you bumped
     into him?’
    The man nodded. Inspector Amadieu
     beckoned Philippe, who was still inside. He came out, looking as nervous as a young
     musician, as if the entire street were aware of the suspicions that were about to
     engulf him.
    ‘And was this the gentleman who
     was coming out at that moment?’ Amadieu must have been saying, tugging his
     brown moustache.
    The man nodded again.
    There were two other police officers.
     The divisional chief glanced at his watch and, after a brief discussion, the man
     sauntered off and went into the Tabac Fontaine while the policemen went back inside
     the Floria.
    Fifteen minutes later, two cars arrived.
     It was the public prosecutor.
    ‘I’ve got to go back to
     repeat my statement,’ the man from the Floria told the waiter at the Tabac
     Fontaine. ‘Another white wine and Vichy, quick!’
    And, discomfited by Maigret’s
     insistent stare as he stood nearby drinking a beer, he lowered his voice and
     asked:
    ‘Who’s that?’

2.
    Maigret sat with his head bent over his
     work with the application of a schoolboy. He drew a rectangle and placed a little
     cross somewhere in the centre. Then he stared at his effort and frowned. The
     rectangle represented the Floria, and the cross, Pepito. At the far end of the
     rectangle, Maigret drew another, smaller one: the office. And in this office he
     placed a dot indicating the gun.
    This was pointless. It meant nothing.
     The case wasn’t a geometry problem. Maigret doggedly continued all the same,
     scrunched the page into a ball and started all over again on a fresh sheet.
    Only now he was no longer concerned with
     placing crosses in rectangles. Poring over the page, deeply engrossed, he tried to
     pin down a snatch of conversation, a look, an unwitting attitude.
    He sat alone at his former table at the
     back of the Chope du Pont-Neuf. And it was too late to wonder whether he had been
     right or wrong to come. Everyone had seen him. The owner
had shaken his
     hand.
    ‘How’s it going with the
     chickens and rabbits?’
    Maigret was sitting by the window and he
     could see the Pont-Neuf bathed in a rosy glow, the steps of the Palais de Justice,
     the gates of the police headquarters. A white napkin under his arm, the beaming
     owner was in a chatty mood:
    ‘So life’s
     good! Dropping in to see your old pals?’
    The beat officers were still in the
     habit of playing a hand of
belote
in the Chope before setting off on their
     rounds. There were some new faces who didn’t know Maigret, but the others,
     after greeting Maigret, spoke to their colleagues in hushed tones.
    That was when he had drawn his first
     rectangle, his first cross. The hours dragged by. At aperitif time, there were a
     dozen ‘boys’ in the place.
    Trusty Lucas, who had worked with
     Maigret on a hundred cases, came over looking slightly sheepish.
    ‘How are you, chief? Come for a
     breath of Paris air?’ Lucas still called him chief,