Maigret by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page B

shouted out their measurements like sales assistants
     in a department store announcing a sale at the till.
    There was a smell of sweat and filth.
     Most of the men were bewildered, awkward in their nakedness, allowing themselves to
     be shoved around from pillar to post and trying to obey instructions, many of them
     confused because they did not speak French.
    Maigret cordially shook hands with the
     staff and heard the inevitable platitudes:
    ‘Popping in to
     say hello?’ ‘How’s life in the country?’ ‘It must be
     gorgeous in this weather!’
    The neon lamp shed a crude light in the
     little room where the photographer worked.
    ‘Were there a lot of women, this
     morning?’
    ‘Seven.’
    ‘Have you got their
     records?’
    They were lying on a table since they
     had not yet been filed. The third one was Fernande’s, with the prints of her
     five fingers, a clumsy signature and a horribly realistic mug shot.
    ‘Did she say anything? Did she
     cry?’
    ‘No. She was very
     docile.’
    ‘Do you know where she’s
     been taken?’
    ‘I don’t know whether they
     let her go or whether they’ll make her do a few days in
     Saint-Lazare.’
    Maigret’s gaze roved over the
     naked men who stood in rows like soldiers. He raised his hand to his hat and
     said:
    ‘Goodbye!’
    ‘Are you leaving so
     soon?’
    He was already on the stairs, where
     there was not a single step that he hadn’t trodden a thousand times. Another
     staircase, to the left, narrower than the first, led to the laboratory whose every
     nook and cranny, every vial, he knew.
    He was back on the second floor just
     after the troop of inspectors had left. Visitors began to take their places outside
     various doors – people who had been summoned, or who had come to lodge a complaint,
     or who had something they wanted to report.
    Maigret had spent most of his life in
     this atmosphere but now he looked around him with a sort of disgust.
    Was Philippe still in
     the chief’s office? Probably not! By now he would have been arrested and two
     of his colleagues would be escorting him to the examining magistrate’s
     chambers!
    What had been said to him, behind the
     padded door? Had they spoken to him honestly and plainly?
    ‘You have committed a blunder. The
     evidence against you is such that the public would not understand if you remained at
     liberty. But we will endeavour to uncover the truth. You will remain one of
     us.’
    That was probably not what had been
     said. Maigret thought he could hear the chief, uncomfortable while waiting for
     Amadieu, mutter between coughs:
    ‘Inspector, I am extremely
     displeased with you. It was easier for you to get into the police than for anyone
     else thanks to your uncle. Have you shown yourself worthy of that favour?’
    And Amadieu would go further:
    ‘As of now, you are in the hands
     of the examining magistrate. With the best will in the world, there is nothing we
     can do for you.’
    And yet this Amadieu, with his long pale
     face and his brown moustache, which he was always tapering, was not a bad man. He
     had a wife and three children, including a daughter he wanted to provide with a
     dowry. He had always believed that everyone around him was scheming, that they all
     wanted his job and were constantly seeking to compromise him.
    As for the chief, in two years’
     time he would reach retirement age and until then it was best to avoid trouble.
    This was a standard
     gangland killing, in other words, a run-of-the-mill case. Were they going to risk
     complications by protecting a rookie inspector who had gone astray and was
     Maigret’s nephew to boot?
    Cageot was a crook and everyone knew it.
     He himself didn’t even hide it. He cashed in on all sides. And when he sold
     someone to the police, it was because that person was no longer useful to him.
    Nevertheless, Cageot was a dangerous
     criminal. He had friends, connections. And above all, he was good at protecting
     himself. They