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yourself off home to bed,
Janvier.’
    If Maigret should need anyone, he had left a
couple of duty officers back at Quai des Orfèvres.
    â€˜Let’s get on with it!’ he
sighed.
    He walks into the Pelican,
gives a shrug when he sees the black doorman who busies around and thinks he must smile from ear
to ear. He decides not to leave his overcoat with the crone in the cloakroom. Jazz music reaches
him through the velvet curtains which mask the entrance to the hall. A small bar on the left.
Two women who yawn, a spoilt rich kid, already drunk, and the owner of the establishment who
comes running.
    â€˜Evening,’ the inspector growls.
    The owner of the joint looks worried.
    â€˜Say, this isn’t about anything
serious, is it?’
    â€˜No. Nothing like that.’
    He brushes the man aside and sits down in a
corner not far from the musicians’ dais.
    â€˜Whisky?’
    â€˜A beer.’
    â€˜But you know we don’t keep
beer.’
    â€˜Brandy and water, then.’
    Around him, it’s obvious the place has seen
better days. Maigret is hard put to pick out any paying customers. Are there any at all in this
narrow room, where dim lights cast a reddish glow which changes to purple when the band plays a
tango? Hostesses. Now that they know who the new customer is, they don’t bother dancing
with each other and one of them catches up with her embroidery.
    On the dais, Pétillon looks even thinner and
younger in his dinner jacket than he really is. He is pasty-faced under the long, fair hair, his
eyelids are red with exhaustion and tension, and, try as he might, he cannot take his eyes off
the inspector, who just sits there and waits.
    Janvier was right: he’s
a pushover. There are unmistakeable signs that show that a man is out on his feet, that his
wheels have come off, that his head’s in a spin, that there’s only one thing he
wants: to have done with it, to get it all off his chest. The sense of it is so palpable that
for a moment it seems likely that Jacques Pétillon will lay down his sax and rush across
the room to Maigret.
    A man at such a pitch of fear is not a pretty
sight. Maigret has seen it before, there have even been times when he himself has carefully
gingered up certain interviews with suspects – some lasting twenty-four hours or more
– to bring his man, or rather his patient, to this same point of physical and mental
collapse.
    This time, it’s been none of his doing. He
never thought there was anything in the Pétillon angle. He has no sense that it would lead
anywhere. He paid it little attention, being mesmerized by the strange phenomenon that is
Félicie, whom he cannot get out of his mind.
    He tastes his drink. Pétillon must be
astonished to see him behaving so casually. His hands with their long, slim fingers, are
shaking. The other members of the band throw him furtive glances.
    What had he spent those forty-eight hours of
sheer madness looking for so desperately? What hopes had he been clinging to? Whom had he been
hoping to find in those cafés and bars where he had gone one after the other, his eyes
fervently fixed on the door, finding only disappointment, walking out, searching elsewhere,
eventually heading out to Rouen, where he made straight for a bar known for its girls in the
garrison part of town?
    He is totally drained. Even
if Maigret were not there, he would turn himself in of his own accord; he would be seen
stumbling up the dusty staircase of police headquarters and asking to talk to someone.
    Ah! Here we go! The band takes a short break. The
accordionist drifts towards the bar for a drink. The others talk among themselves in whispers.
Pétillon hooks his instrument on to its stand then goes down the two steps.
    â€˜I must talk to you …’ he
stammers.
    The inspector replies in a very gentle voice:
    â€˜I know, boy.’
    Is this the right place? Maigret runs his eyes
over their surroundings,