Read Online Maigret's Dead Man by Georges Simenon - Free Book Online Page A

done, all we could. All we can do now is
wait.’
    â€˜Wait for what?’
    â€˜Anything. Whatever turns up. Maybe a
witness? A new fact?’
    â€˜Do you think that will happen?’
    â€˜We have to hope so.’
    â€˜Well, thank you for all this. I shall
forward a report of our conversation to the public prosecutor.’
    â€˜Please convey my best wishes to
him.’
    â€˜I hope your health picks up.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    As he replaced the receiver, he looked as grave
as an owl. Out of the corner of his eye, he observed Madame Maigret, who had taken up her
knitting again and, he sensed, was feeling vaguely concerned.
    â€˜Don’t you think you went a little
too far?’
    â€˜Too far in what direction?’
    â€˜Admit it: you were having him
on.’
    â€˜Not at all.’
    â€˜But you kept making fun of him.’
    â€˜Do you think so?’
    He seemed genuinely surprised. Indeed, the truth
was that, for all his banter, he had been deadly serious. Everything he had said was true,
including the doubts he had about his state of health. This happened to him fromtime to time, out of the blue, when an investigation was not moving forwards the way he
would like: he would take to his bed or stay in his room. He would then be pampered, and
everyone would walk by on tiptoe. This way he escaped from the bustle and hubbub of the Police
Judiciaire, from the questions fired at him from left and right, the countless daily
irritations. But now colleagues came to visit him or phoned him up. Everyone was patient with
him. They kept asking him how he was. And in exchange for a few cups of herbal tea, which he
drank with sulky bad grace, he managed to extract a few grogs from the ever solicitous Madame
Maigret.
    It was true that he had various things in common
with his dead man. Fundamentally – the thought suddenly crossed his mind – it was
not so much the business of moving house that alarmed him but the fact that he would moving to
fresh pastures, the prospect of not seeing the words ‘Lhoste & Pépin’ when
he woke and of not following the same route every morning, normally on foot. The dead man and he
were both solidly rooted in their settings. It was a thought that pleased him. He emptied his
pipe and filled another.
    â€˜Do you really think he’s the
proprietor of a bar?’
    â€˜I may have exaggerated slightly by being
so definite, but I said it and would like it to be true. It all holds together, don’t you
see?’
    â€˜What holds together?’
    â€˜Everything I told him. At the start, I
didn’t think I’d tell him as much as I did. I was thinking out loud. But then I felt
that it was all coming together. So I carried on.’
    â€˜And what if he was a cobbler or a
tailor?’
    â€˜Dr Paul would have
told me. Moers too.’
    â€˜How would they have known?’
    â€˜Dr Paul would have known by studying the
hands, the calluses and any tell-tale signs; Moers by analysing the particles found in his
clothes.’
    â€˜And what if it turns out that he was
anything but a man who ran a bar?’
    â€˜It would be just too bad. Pass me my
book.’
    That was another of his habits when he was not
feeling well: to lose himself in a novel by Alexandre Dumas
père.
He owned a set
of his complete works in an old, cheap edition with yellowing pages and romantic engravings. The
mere smell of those volumes brought back memories of all the times when he had been briefly laid
up.
    There was the muted purr of the stove as it drew
and the click of knitting needles. Whenever he looked up he saw the brass pendulum swinging in
its dark oak case.
    â€˜You should take some more
aspirins.’
    â€˜As you wish.’
    â€˜Why do you think he phoned someone
else?’
    Loyal Madame Maigret! She would so much have
liked to help him. Usually, she consciously refrained from asking questions about his work, even
about the time he would