Read Online Maigret in Montmartre by Georges Simenon - Free Book Online Page B

too.”
    “Are you going to Picratt’s?”
    Maigret nodded, and walked away to his office next door, where he found the inspector who was dealing with telephone calls and visitors who claimed to identify Arlette.
    “Nothing reliable so far. One old woman seemed so sure of herself that I took her to the mortuary. Even when she was faced with the body she swore it was her daughter. But the chap on duty put me wise. She’s cracked. She’s been claiming to recognize every woman who’s been brought in there for the last ten years or more.”
    The weather forecast must have been right for once, because when Maigret left the office it was colder, as cold as winter, and he turned up the collar of his overcoat. He reached Montmartre too early: it was only just after eleven, and the night life had not begun—people were still packed together in theatres and cinemas, the neon lights of the cabarets were being turned on one by one, and the uniformed doormen were not yet at their posts.
    Maigret went first of all to the tabac at the corner of the Rue de Douai, where he had been scores of times and was recognized. The proprietor had only just come in, for he too was a night bird. In the day-time his wife ran the bar, with a team of waiters, and he took over from her in the late evening, so they only met in passing.
    “What will you have, Inspector?”
    Maigret had already caught sight of a figure to which the proprietor, with a sidelong glance, now seemed to be directing his attention. It could only be the Grasshopper. His head scarcely topped the bar at which he was standing, drinking a menthe à l’eau . He, for his part, had recognized Maigret, but was pretending to be absorbed in his racing paper, on which he was making pencil notes.
    He might easily have been taken for a jockey—he was just the right size. It was uncanny to discover, on looking closely, that with his childish body went a wrinkled, grey-skinned face with sharp, darting eyes which seemed to take in everything, like the eyes of some restless animal.
    He was not in uniform, but wore a dark suit which gave him the appearance of a small boy in his first long trousers.
    “Was it you who were here this morning, about four o’clock?” Maigret asked the proprietor, after ordering a glass of calvados .
    “Yes, as usual. I saw her. I know what’s happened—it was in the evening paper.”
    These people would make no difficulties. A few musicians were there, taking a café—crème before going off to their work. And there were two or three shady characters whom Maigret knew and who put on innocent expressions.
    “What was she like?”
    “Same as she always was at that time of night.”
    “Did she come every night?”
    “No, only now and then. When she thought she hadn’t had enough. She’d drink a glass or two of something strong and then go off to bed—she never stayed long.”
    “Not even last night?”
    “She seemed rather on edge, but she said nothing to me. I don’t think she spoke to anyone, except to give her order.”
    “Did there happen to be a middle-aged man in the bar, short and thickset, with grey hair?”
    Maigret had deliberately refrained from mentioning Oscar to the journalists, so there had been nothing about him in the papers. But he had questioned Fred on the subject, and Fred might have repeated his questions to the Grasshopper, who…
    “I didn’t see anyone like that,” replied the proprietor—a little too emphatically, perhaps.
    “You don’t happen to know a man called Oscar?”
    “There must be any number of Oscars in the district, but I can’t think of one who fits your description.”
    Maigret edged along a couple of paces, to stand beside the Grasshopper.
    “Anything to tell me?”
    “Nothing in particular, Inspector.”
    “Were you at the door of Picratt’s all last night?”
    “More or less. I went a little way up the Rue Pigalle once or twice, to hand out cards. And I came here once, to get some cigarettes for