A Man's Head by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page B

form of public transport. Nor did he take a taxi. His
three-wheeled carrier never left his employer’s premises in Rue de Sèvres.
    â€˜And he wouldn’t have had time to come back on foot. If he had, he would have had to run all the way without stopping!’
    The streets of Montparnasse were bustling with life. It was half past twelve. Though it was autumn, the terraces of the four large cafés which stood in a row just by Boulevard Raspail were heaving with customers, eighty per cent of whom were
foreigners.
    Maigret walked to the Coupole, found the entrance to the American Bar and went in.
    There were just five tables, all taken. Most of the customers were perched on high bar stools or stood at the counter.
    The inspector heard someone ordering:
    â€˜A Manhattan!’
    And he added casually:
    â€˜Same here.’
    He belonged to the generation that was raised on brasseries and beer. The bartender pushed a dish of olives under his nose, which he ignored.
    â€˜Do you mind if I …?’ asked a young Swedish girl with hair that was more yellow than blonde.
    The place was crawling with people. A hatch in the rear wall was constantly opening and closing, and from the kitchen came a stream of olives, potato chips, sandwiches and hot drinks.
    Four waiters shouted orders constantly amid a clatter of plates and the rattle of glasses, while customers called out to each other in a variety of languages.
    And the overall impression was that customers, barmen, waiters and décor fused and formed a single, homogeneous identity.
    The crowd intermingled as if they knew each other, and everybody – from the young woman, the big industrialist who had stepped out of his limousine with a group of high-spirited friends to the Estonian art student – called the head bartender
Bob.
    People talked to each other without being introduced, like old friends. A German spoke English with an American, and a Norwegian used a mix of three different languages as he tried to make himself understood by a Spaniard.
    There were two women whom everyone knew, and one of them Maigret recognized, though she was less slender now, older, but dressed in furs, as the young girl he’d once been ordered to escort to Saint-Lazare women’s prison after the police
had carried out a raid in Rue de la Roquette.
    Her voice was hoarse, her eyes looked tired, and people shook her hand as they passed. She held court at her table, as if she embodied in her sole person the uneasy mix that surged around her.
    â€˜Do you have anything I can write with?’ Maigret asked a barman.
    â€˜Not when we’re serving aperitifs. You’ll have to try in the brasserie.’
    Among the noisy groups were a few customers who were alone. It was perhaps the most striking aspect of the place.
    On the one hand, there were people who talked in loud voices, were never still, ordered round after round of drinks and drew attention to themselves in clothes which were as luxurious as they were eccentric.
    On the other, there were individuals who seemed to have come from the four corners of the earth solely to be part of this brilliant company.
    There was, for example, one young woman who could not have been more than twenty-two. She wore a slim-fitting black suit, well cut and comfortable, but it had obviously been pressed many times.
    She cut an odd figure, weary and unsure of herself. She had put a sketch pad down beside her. And in the middle of all those people drinking aperitifs costing ten francs each, she sipped a glass of milk and nibbled a croissant.
    This at one o’clock in the afternoon! It was obviously her lunch. She made the most of being there to read a Russian newspaper which the management made available for customers.
    She neither heard nor saw anything. She ate her croissant slowly and from time to time drank a mouthful of milk, oblivious of the group sitting at her table, who were on to their fourth cocktail.
    No less