The Late Monsieur Gallet Read Free Page A

even more lifeless than in his photograph.
    He was dieting, Madame Gallet had said.
    Under his left breast there was a neat, regular wound retaining the shape of a knife-blade.
    Behind Maigret, the doctor was dancing on the spot with impatience. ‘Do I send my report to you? Where are you staying?’
    â€˜At the Hôtel de la Loire.’
    The magistrate and his clerk looked elsewhere and said nothing. Maigret, looking for the way out, tried the wrong door and found himself among the benches in one of the school classrooms. It was pleasantly cool in there, and the inspector
lingered for a moment in front of some lithographs entitled ‘Harvest’, ‘A Farm in Winter’ and ‘Market Day in Town’. On a shelf all the measures of weight and volume, made of wood, tin and iron, were arranged in order of size.
    The inspector mopped his face. As he left the room again, he met the police inspector from Nevers, who was looking for him.
    â€˜Oh, good, there you are! Now I can join my wife in Grenoble. Would you believe it … yesterday morning when the phone call came I was about to go on holiday!’
    â€˜Have you found anything out?’
    â€˜Nothing at all. As you’ll see, it’s a most improbable case. If you’d like we can dine together, and I’ll give you the details, if you can call them details. Nothing was stolen. No one saw or heard anything! And it
would be a clever fellow who could say why the man was killed.
There’s only one oddity, but I don’t suppose it will get us very far. When he stayed at the Hôtel de la Loire, as he did from time to time, he checked in under the name of
Monsieur Clément, a man of private means, from Orleans.’
    â€˜Let’s go and have an aperitif,’ suggested Maigret.
    He remembered the tempting atmosphere of the terrace. Just now it had looked to him like the refuge he dreamed of. However, when he was sitting in front of an ice-cold beer, he did not feel the satisfaction he had anticipated.
    â€˜This is the most disappointing imaginable case,’ sighed his companion. ‘You just take a look at it! Nothing to give us a lead! And what’s more, nothing out of the ordinary, except that the man was
murdered …’
    He went on in this vein for several minutes, without noticing that the inspector was hardly listening.
    There are some people whose faces you can’t forget even if you merely passed them once in the street. All that Maigret had seen of Émile Gallet was a photograph, half of his face, and his pale body. Again, it was the photo that lingered in
his mind. And he was trying to bring it to life, to imagine Monsieur Gallet having a private conversation with his wife, in the dining room at Saint-Fargeau, or leaving the villa to catch his train at the station.
    In fits and starts, the top part of the man’s face took clearer shape in his mind. Maigret thought he remembered that he had ashen bags under his eyes.
    â€˜I’ll bet he had liver trouble,’ he suddenly said under his breath.
    â€˜Well, he didn’t die of it, anyway!’ said his companion tartly, annoyed. ‘Liver trouble doesn’t blow off half your face and stab you through the heart!’
    The lights of a funfair came on in the middle of the square, where a carousel of wooden horses was being dismantled.

2. A Young Man in Glasses
    There were only two or three groups of hotel guests still sitting at their tables. Howls of indignation from children being made to go to bed came from the rooms on the first floor.
    From the other side of an open window, a woman’s voice asked, ‘See that big man, did you? He’s a policeman! He’ll put you in prison if you’re naughty …’
    Still eating, and letting his eyes wander over the scene before him, Maigret heard a persistent droning sound. It was Inspector Grenier from Nevers, talking for the sheer pleasure of