Maigret in New York by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page B

You have someone available? … You’ll telephone? … Yes, absolutely,
as of this evening … I’m in fine fettle, tip-top, in spite of your whiskies …
Although I did inaugurate my new room in the Berwick by treating myself to a two-hour nap
…
    ‘In which milieux will I be making my inquiries?
I thought you would have guessed … Naturally … That’s right …
    ‘I’ll wait for your call. I’ll talk to you soon
…’
    He went to open the window and, as expected, saw
the aforementioned Bill chewing his gum about twenty metres from the hotel and looking none too
happy.
    The room was perfectly ordinary, with enough old
things and shabby carpeting to make it resemble a rented room in any city in the world.
    Before ten minutes had passed the telephone rang.
O’Brien announced to Maigret that he’d found him a detective, one Ronald Dexter, and recommended
that he not let him drink too much.
    ‘Because he can’t handle whisky?’
    And O’Brien replied with angelic sweetness,
‘Because he cries …’
    The placid redhead was not joking. Even when he
hadn’t been drinking, Dexter gave the impression of a man who goes through life saddled with
immeasurable sorrow.
    He arrived at the hotel at seven that evening.
Maigret met him in the lobby just as the detective was asking for him at the desk.
    ‘Ronald Dexter?’
    ‘That’s me.’
    And he seemed to be saying, ‘Alas!’
    ‘Has my friend O’Brien brought you up to
date?’
    ‘Shh!’
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘No last names, please. I am at your service.
Where do you want us to go?’
    ‘Outside, to begin with … Do you know that
gum-chewing gentleman out there with an apparently lively interest in passers-by? That’s Bill
… Bill who? I’ve no idea. All I’ve got is his first name, but what I do know is that he’s
one of your colleagues who’s been told to follow me … I mention this so that you won’t
worry about his comings and goings. He can follow us as much as he likes. It’s of no importance,
you understand?’
    Dexter either did or didn’t understand. In any
case he adopted a resigned expression and seemed to say to heaven above, ‘If it’s not one thing,
it’s another!’
    He must have been about fifty; his grey clothing
and mangy trenchcoat did not plead in favour of prosperity.
    The
two men walked the hundred metres or so to Broadway, with Bill falling imperturbably in behind
them.
    ‘Are you familiar with theatrical folks?’
    ‘Somewhat.’
    ‘More precisely, variety acts, cabarets?’
    Then Maigret realized the extent of O’Brien’s
sense of both humour and practicality, as Dexter sighed, ‘I was a clown for twenty years
…’
    ‘A sad one, no doubt? If you like, we can go to a
bar and have a drink.’
    ‘I wouldn’t mind.’
    Then, with disarming simplicity, ‘I thought you’d
been warned …’
    ‘About what?
    ‘I can’t hold my liquor very well. Oh …
Just one drink, right?’
    They sat off in a corner, while Bill came in as
well and settled in at the bar.
    ‘If we were in Paris,’ Maigret explained, ‘I’d
find the information I want right away, because around the Porte Saint-Martin area we have shops
that date back to another era. Some of them sell popular song sheets, and today you can still
find the tunes sung on every street corner in 1900 or 1910 … In one place I know, a
wigmaker’s boutique, you’ll see every kind of beard, moustache and wig worn by actors since time
immemorial … And in some seedy neighbourhoods, the most unlikely impresarios organize
tours through small provincial towns …’
    As Maigret was speaking, Ronald Dexter gazed at
his glass with a deeply melancholy eye.
    ‘You see what I mean?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Good. On the walls of such offices, it would not
be hard to find posters for vaudeville and cabaret acts from thirty or forty years ago …
And, sitting on the waiting-room benches, a dozen old ham actors, washed-up comedians or cabaret
canaries—’
    Breaking off, the