Maigret and the Spinster Read Free

she really think that a Chief Superintendent of the Police Judiciaire had nothing better to do than to lurk about for nights on end in a stairwell, checking up on some garbled story brought to him by a foolish girl?
    “I’ll send Lucas along tomorrow night.”
    “Can’t you come yourself?”
    No! Absolutely not! She was going too far! And her vexation—his colleagues were right there—was very like that of someone jilted in love.
    “He may not come again tomorrow…Maybe three days from now, or five or ten…How should I know…? I’m scared, Chief Superintendent…The thought of a man…”
    “Where do you live?”
    “At Bourg-la-Reine, about a mile beyond the Porte d’Orléans, on the Route Nationale…Just opposite the fifth stop…It’s a big, five-story brick building with shops on the ground floor, a bicycle shop and a grocer’s…We live on the fifth floor.”
    Lucas had gone there and questioned the neighbors.
    On his return, he had sounded skeptical.
    “An old woman, housebound for the past few months, and a niece pressed into service as part domestic, part nurse…”
    The local police had been informed, and had kept watch for nearly a month. No unauthorized person had been seen to enter the building at night. All the same, Cécile had returned to the Quai des Orfèvres.
    “He’s been in the apartment again, Chief Superintendent. This time I found traces of ink on the blotter, and I put in fresh paper only yesterday evening.”
    “Did you find anything missing?”
    “Nothing.”
    Maigret had been misguided enough to tell the story to his colleagues, and soon the whole department was pulling his leg.
    “Maigret has made a conquest.”
    The young woman with the squint, visible behind the glass wall of the waiting room, became an object of quizzical scrutiny.
    Colleagues were forever knocking on his door.
    “Watch out! There’s someone waiting to see you!”
    “Who?”
    “Your lady friend.”
    For eight nights in succession, Lucas had lurked on the staircase and had not seen or heard anything.
    “Maybe he’ll come tomorrow night,” Cécile had suggested.
    But there was no justification for incurring further expense.
    “Cécile is here.”
    Cécile was a celebrity. Everyone called her Cécile. Inspectors about to knock on Maigret’s door would be stopped with the warning:
    “Careful! He’s got someone with him…”
    “Who?”
    “Cécile!”
    Maigret changed streetcars at the Porte d’Orléans. At the fifth stop, he got off. On his right a building stood all by itself, flanked on either side by waste land. The effect was of a thin slice of layer cake sticking out into the road.
    There seemed to be nothing amiss. Cars sped toward Arpajon and Orléans, and there were trucks returning from the central market. The door to the building was sandwiched between a bicycle shop and a grocer’s. The concierge was scraping carrots.
    “Is Mademoiselle Pardon back yet?”
    “Mademoiselle Cécile?…I don’t think so. But if you care to ring the bell, Madame Boynet will let you in.”
    “I understood that she’s bedridden.”
    “She is, more or less…But she’s had a remote-control system installed within reach of her chair. The same as I have in the lodge. And besides, if she really wants to…”
    Five floors up. Maigret hated stairs. These were dark and carpeted in tobacco brown. The walls were dingy. Each floor had a different smell, according to what was cooking in the various kitchens. The sounds also varied. The tinkling of a piano, the squealing of children, the reverberation of voices raised in anger.
    On the fifth floor, on the left, a dusty visiting card had been affixed above the bell: Jean Siveschi . So it must be the apartment on the right. He rang the bell. He could hear it ringing throughout the apartment, but there was no click of a latch being released, and no one came to the door. He rang again. Embarrassment was superseded by anxiety, anxiety by remorse.
    Behind him, a