Read Online Félicie by Georges Simenon - Free Book Online

all day, pestering me. I’ll complain.’
    â€˜Be my guest!’
    â€˜You think you’re so clever,
don’t you. And you’ve got the upper hand! So you pick on a poor girl because you
know she can’t defend herself.’
    He puts his hat on his head and, despite the
rain, reaches the front door, intending to go back to the Anneau d’Or. He doesn’t
even say goodbye. He’s had enough. He’s got it wrong. He’s going to have to go
back to square one and restart the inquiry on another tack.
    Too bad if he gets soaked to the skin! As he
takes a step forwards, Félicie comes running.
    â€˜Don’t go!’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜You know why. Don’t go. I’m
afraid of the storm …’
    It’s quite true. For once, she is not
lying. She is shaking all over, she begs him to stay, she is really grateful when he goes back
into the kitchen, sits down – in a bad mood,certainly – but
down he sits nevertheless, and by way of thanks she wastes no time in asking:
    â€˜Would you like a cup of coffee? Do you
want me to pour you a little glass of something?’
    She tries to smile and, as she puts the glass
down in front of him, she repeats:
    â€˜Why are you being so hard on me? What have
I ever done to you?’

4. The Shot from the Taxi
    Maigret is walking along Rue Pigalle at a
leisurely pace, with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, because it’s after
midnight, and the storm has brought down the temperature. There are still patches of damp on the
pavements. Beneath the illuminated signs, nightclub doormen soon spot him as he passes.
Customers standing around the horseshoe counter in the bar-cum-tobacconist’s on the corner
of Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette eye each other questioningly. An outsider would notice nothing. But
from one end to the other of Montmartre, which depends for its existence on nocturnal revellers,
there is an imperceptible ripple, like the cat’s-paw on the surface of a pond which gives
notice of the approaching squall.
    Maigret is all too aware of it and is content.
Here, at least, he does not have to deal with a young woman who sobs and fights him all the way.
As he passes, he recognizes various characters and guesses that the word is being passed from
mouth to mouth, even in the dance-hall cloakrooms, where the old crones who preside over them,
alerted to the danger, quickly hide small packets of cocaine.
    The Pelican is just here, on the left, with its
blue neon sign and its black bouncer. Someone steps out of the shadow, falls into step with the
inspector and says in a quiet voice:
    â€˜Am I glad to see
you!’
    It’s Janvier, who explains with a casual
air of indifference which some might mistake for cynicism but is not as deep-seated as it
sounds:
    â€˜No problems, sir. There was just one thing
I was afraid of, that he’d sit at a table by himself to eat. He’s
shattered.’
    The two men linger on the kerb as if enjoying the
coolness after the rain and Maigret refills his pipe.
    â€˜Since Rouen, he’s been at the end of
his tether. While we were waiting for the train in the buffet I kept thinking he was about to
rush me for the big showdown. He’s just a kid wet behind the ears.’
    Maigret misses nothing of what is happening
around him. Because he is standing there, on the kerb, how many people who do not have clear
consciences have been discreetly giving him a wide berth or concealing items of a compromising
nature?
    â€˜On the train, he more or less passed out.
When we got to Saint-Lazare station, he didn’t know what to do, though maybe he was also a
little drunk, because he’s had a lot to drink since yesterday. In the end he went home to
Rue Lepic. He probably freshened up and put on his dinner jacket. He toyed with his food in a
cheap eating house in Place Blanche and then came to work … Are you going in? Do you need
me any more?’
    â€˜You get