The Yellow Dog Read Free

his head low, a yellow pallor to his complexion.
    â€˜What makes you think—’ Maigret began.
    â€˜I don’t know – just a hunch … I saw a grain of white powder in my glass, and the smell seemed odd to me.’
    â€˜The power of suggestion!’ declared the journalist. ‘If I described this in my article tomorrow, it would close every bistro in Finistère.’
    â€˜You always drink Pernod?’
    â€˜Every evening before dinner. Emma’s so used to it that she brings the bottle as soon as she sees our beer mugs are empty. We have our little habits. Evenings, it’s calvados.’
    Maigret went over to the liqueur shelf, reached for a bottle of calvados.
    â€˜Not that one. The flask with the broad bottom.’
    He picked it up, turned it in the light, saw a few specks of white powder. But he said nothing. It was unnecessary. The others had understood.
    Leroy entered and announced offhandedly, ‘Well, the police haven’t seen anything suspicious – no drifters reported in the vicinity. They don’t understand it.’
    The silence in the room suddenly registered, the dense throat-grabbing anguish. Tobacco smoke coiled around the electric lights. The green felt of the billiard table spread like a trimmed lawn. There were a few cigar butts on the floor in the
sawdust, along with gobs of spittle.
    â€˜Seven, carry one …’ Emma counted, wetting the tip of her pencil. Then, raising her head, she called into the wings, ‘Coming, madame!’
    Maigret tamped his pipe. Dr Michoux stared stubbornly at the floor, and his nose looked more crooked than ever. Le Pommeret’s shoes gleamed as if they had never been used for walking. Servières shrugged his shoulders from time to time as he
mumbled to himself.
    All eyes turned towards the pharmacist when he came back with the bottle and the empty glass.
    He had run and was breathless. At the door, he gave a kick, trying to drive something away, muttering, ‘Filthy mutt!’
    He was no sooner inside the café than he asked: ‘It’s a joke, isn’t it? Nobody drank any?’
    â€˜Well?’
    â€˜It’s strychnine, yes! Someone must have put it into the bottle less than half an hour ago.’ He looked with horror at the full glasses, at the five silent men.
    â€˜What’s all this about? It’s outrageous! I have every right to know! Last night, a man was shot right near my house, and today …’
    Maigret took the bottle from his hand. Emma came back from the dining room, looking impassive, and from over the till turned towards them her long face with its sunken eyes and thin lips. Her Breton lace cap was slipping as usual to the left on her
unkempt hair, which it did no matter how often she pushed it back in place.
    Le Pommeret strode back and forth, his eyes on the gleam of his shoes. Servières, unmoving, stared at the glasses, then suddenly, his voice choked by a sob of terror, cried, ‘Good God!’
    The doctor hunched his shoulders.

2. The Doctor in Slippers
    Inspector Leroy, who was twenty-five years old, looked more like what’s called a well-bred young man than a police inspector.
    He had just got out of college. This was his first case, and for the past few minutes he had been watching Maigret unhappily, trying to catch his attention. Finally, blushing, he whispered, ‘Excuse me,
inspector … but … the fingerprints.’
    He must have thought that his chief belonged to the old school and was unaware of the value of scientific procedures, because Maigret merely puffed on his pipe and said, ‘If you want …’
    So off went Leroy, carefully carrying the bottle and glasses to his room, where he spent the evening constructing a packing kit – he carried the instructions in his pocket – specifically developed for transporting objects without losing the
fingerprints on them.
    Maigret took a