86 - Maigret and the Black Sheep by Georges - Simenon

Author:Georges - Simenon [Simenon, Georges -]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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5

Had it rained a long time during the night? Maigret had no idea, but he was pleased to find, when he awoke, the blackish pavements still glistening in places where real clouds were reflected in them: not the small, puffy pink clouds of the last few days, but clouds with dark edges, heavy with rain.

He wanted to be done with summer, with vacations, and to find everyone back to normal again. He frowned whenever he caught sight of a young woman in the street still wearing tight-fitting slacks suitable for some beach, and walking nonchalantly through the streets of Paris in sandals, with bare sun-tanned feet.

It was Saturday. He had intended, when he woke up, to go and see Jouane again on Rue du Saint-Gothard, without knowing exactly why. He wanted to see them all again, not so much to ask them precise questions as to rub elbows with them, to get a better feel of the environment in which René Josselin had lived.

Something, no question about it, was escaping him. It now seemed certain that the murderer had come from outside and this widened the field of possibilities. But did it widen it that much? The fact remained that the automatic had been taken from the drawer, the key from the nail in the kitchen, and the man had gone deliberately to that room on the 6th floor.

Maigret walked to his office, as he quite often did; yet today he purposely went on foot, in order to linger with his thoughts. The air was cooler. People were already looking less sun-tanned and appeared to be back to their usual routine.

He arrived at the Quai just in time for the daily briefing and, with dossier under his arm, met the other department heads in the Commissioner’s office. Each informed the Commissioner of recent cases. The head of the License Bureau, for example, suggested closing down a nightclub about which he received complaints almost every day. Darrui, on the other hand, who was head of the Vice Squad, had organized a night raid on the Champs-Elysées and three or four dozen prostitutes were in custody waiting for their fate to be decided.

“And what about you, Maigret?”

“I’m embroiled in a case involving decent people … ” He grumbled fretfully.

“No suspect?”

“Not yet. Nothing but fingerprints not on record in our files, in other words, the fingerprints of an honest man … ”

There had been a new crime during the night, almost a downright massacre. It was Lucas, just back from vacation, who was handling it. For the moment he was still shut in his office with the murderer, trying to understand his explanations.

It had happened between two Poles, in a hovel near Porte d’ltalie. A laborer who spoke bad French, rather a wretched, puny man called Stéphane, whose last name was unpronounceable, lived there, as far as one could gather, with a woman and four small children.

Lucas had seen the woman before she had been taken to the hospital and claimed she was a splendid creature.

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