Maigret by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online

her, instinctively. It was on my way home. But on her way
     out of the café, she was yelled at by inspectors from the vice squad and bundled
     into a meat wagon.’
    ‘You tried to step in, I’ll
     bet!’
    Philippe looked shamefaced.
    ‘What did they say?’
    ‘That they knew what they were
     doing.’
    ‘Off you go now,’ sighed
     Maigret, hunting for his tie. ‘Don’t worry.’
    He put his hands on Philippe’s
     shoulders, kissed him on both cheeks and, to cut the scene short, suddenly pretended
     to be very busy. Only when the door had opened and closed behind Philippe again did
     he look up, hunch his shoulders and mutter a few garbled syllables.
    The first thing he did once on the
     riverbank was to buy the
Excelsior
from a news kiosk and look at the photo
     which was indeed on the front page with the caption:
Inspector Philippe Lauer, accused of killing Pepito Palestrino, who was
     under surveillance.
    Maigret walked slowly over the
     Pont-Neuf. The previous evening, he had not gone inside the Floria but had paid avisit to Rue des Batignolles to sniff around Cageot’s place.
     He lived in a residential building dating from the 1880s, like most of the apartment
     blocks in the neighbourhood. The corridor and the staircase were poorly lit. It was
     easy to imagine the dark, dismal apartments, grubby curtains at the windows and
     furniture with faded velvet upholstery.
    Cageot’s apartment was on the
     mezzanine. There was no one around at this time of day and Maigret had entered the
     building as if he were a regular visitor. He wandered up to the fourth floor and
     then came back down again.
    There was a safety lock on
     Cageot’s door, otherwise Maigret might have given in to temptation. He walked
     past the lodge and the concierge, face pressed up against the window, stared after
     him for a while.
    What could that matter? Maigret crossed
     almost the entire city on foot, his hands in his pockets, the same thoughts going
     round and round in his head.
    Somewhere – at the Tabac Fontaine or
     elsewhere – there was a small group of crooks who were happily going about their
     illicit business. Pepito had been one of them. Barnabé too.
    And one by one, Cageot, the big boss,
     was eliminating them, or having them eliminated.
    Gangland killings! The police would
     hardly have bothered about them if that idiot Philippe—
    Maigret had arrived at Quai des
     Orfèvres. Two inspectors on their way out greeted him with unconcealed surprise, and
     he went through the entrance, crossed the courtyard and walked past the vice
     squad.
    Upstairs it was time for the morning
     briefing. In the vastcorridor, fifty police officers stood in
     huddles, speaking in loud voices and passing on intelligence and records. Sometimes
     an office door opened and a name was yelled and summoned inside.
    Maigret’s arrival caused a few
     moments’ silence and unease. But he sauntered past the groups looking
     perfectly at home, and the officers resumed their confabs to keep up
     appearances.
    To the right was the chief’s
     waiting room furnished with red velvet armchairs. Sitting in a corner, a lone
     visitor was waiting. Chin cupped in his hands, Philippe stared fixedly ahead of
     him.
    Maigret walked off in the opposite
     direction, reached the end of the corridor and knocked at the last door.
    ‘Come in!’ answered a voice
     from inside.
    And everyone saw him enter Detective
     Chief Inspector Amadieu’s office, hat in hand.
    ‘Hello, Maigret.’
    ‘Hello, Amadieu.’
    They touched fingertips as they used to
     do when they saw each other every morning. Amadieu signalled to an inspector to
     leave, then murmured:
    ‘Did you want to talk to
     me?’
    Maigret perched on the edge of the desk
     in a familiar pose and picked up a box of matches from the table to light his
     pipe.
    His colleague had pushed back his chair
     and tilted it backwards.
    ‘How’s country
     life?’
    ‘Fine, thanks.
     How are things here?’
    ‘Still