Friend of Madame Maigret by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page B

you, Maigret? And your Steuvels?”
    From their smiles it was obvious that they had all read the morning’s story; once more, and again just to please them, he pretended to be disgruntled.
    It was half past nine. The telephone rang, the director answered, handed the receiver to Maigret.
    â€œTorrence wants to speak to you.”
    Torrence’s voice at the other end of the line was excited.
    â€œIs that you, chief? You haven’t found the lady in the white hat? The Paris paper’s just arrived, and I’ve read the story. Well, the description fits someone I’m on the track of here.”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œSince there’s no way of getting anywhere with the fool of a postmistress here, who claims she can’t remember a thing, I started a search in the hotels, the boardinghouses, questioning garagemen and railway station employees.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œThe season hasn’t started yet, and most of the people arriving at Concarneau are local residents or people who are more or less familiar, commercial travelers and . . .”
    â€œMake it short.”
    For conversation had been broken off all around him.
    â€œI was thinking that if someone had come from Paris or somewhere else in order to send off the telegram . . .”
    â€œYes, I see all that.”
    â€œWell, there’s a young lady in a blue suit and a white hat who arrived the very evening the telegram was sent off. She came in by the four o’clock train, and the message was handed in at a quarter to five.”
    â€œDid she have any luggage?”
    â€œNo. Wait. She didn’t stop at the hotel. Do you know the Hôtel du Chien Jaune down by the pier? She had dinner there and sat around in a corner of the café until eleven o’clock. In other words, she left again on the 11:40 train.”
    â€œHave you verified that?”
    â€œI haven’t had time yet, but I’m certain of it because she left the café at exactly the right time, and she had asked for the railway timetable immediately after dinner.”
    â€œDidn’t she speak to anyone?”
    â€œOnly to the waitress. She read the whole time, even while she was eating.”
    â€œHave you been able to find out what kind of book she was reading?”
    â€œNo. The waitress maintains that she had a foreign accent, but she doesn’t know what it was. What shall I do?”
    â€œGo back and see the postmistress, of course.”
    â€œAnd after that?”
    â€œRing me or ring Lucas if I’m not in the office, then come back.”
    â€œAll right, chief. Do you think it’s the same woman, too?”
    When he hung up Maigret had a little spark of glee in his eye.
    â€œMaybe Madame Maigret will have put us on the track,” he said. “Will you excuse me, chief? I have some urgent checking to do myself.”
    By chance Lapointe was still in the inspectors’ office, visibly worried.
    â€œYou there, come with me!”
    They took one of the taxis from the rank on the Quai, and young Lapointe still didn’t feel any more confident, for it was the first time the chief inspector had taken him out with him like this.
    â€œCorner of the place Blanche and the rue Lepic.”
    It was the time of day when, in Montmartre, and especially in the rue Lepic, barrows were lined up along the pavements, piled high with vegetables and fruit fragrant with the smell of soil and springtime.
    Maigret recognized on his left the little table d’hôte restaurant where the taxi driver had had lunch and, opposite, the Hôtel Beauséjour, only the narrow doorway of which was visible between two shops, a delicatessen and a grocer’s.
    Rooms by the month, week, or day. Running water. Central heating. Moderate charges.
    There was a glass door at the end of the corridor, then a staircase with a sign on the wall: Office. A hand drawn in black ink pointed upstairs.
    The office was on the first floor, a