Maigret 41: Maigret and the Man on the Bench (1987) by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon
Format: epub
Published: 1987-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

6

THE BEGGARS

What’s she doing?”

“Nothing. She’s sitting bolt upright, with her head held high, staring into space.”

She had chosen to sit not in one of the armchairs in the waiting room, but on a hard upright chair.

Maigret had intentionally left her to stew, as he put it. When Santoni had looked in, at about twenty minutes past nine, to tell him that Monique was in the waiting room, Maigret had growled:

“Leave her in the cage for a while.”

This was his name for the glass-walled waiting room, with its velvet armchairs, where so many before Monique Thouret had sat for hours, until their nerves gave way.

“How does she look?”

“She’s wearing mourning.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I almost had the feeling that she’d been expecting to find me there. I waited a few yards from the door of the offices in Rue de Rivoli. As soon as she arrived, I came forward to meet her, saying:

“‘Excuse me, Mademoiselle…’

“She screwed up her eyes and peered at me. I think she must be shortsighted. Then she said:

“‘Oh! It’s you.’

“‘The Chief Superintendent would like a word with you.’

“She didn’t protest. I hailed a taxi. She never opened her mouth all the way here.”

Not only was it not raining, but the sun was actually shining.

The light seemed even more diffused than usual, because of the humidity in the air.

Maigret, on his way to the daily briefing, had seen her from a distance sitting in a corner of the waiting room. Half an hour later, when he passed by on his way to his office, she was still there, exactly as before. Some time after that he had sent Lucas to see what she was doing.

“Is she reading?”

“No. She’s not doing anything.”

From where she sat, her view of Police Headquarters was similar to the view of a restaurant as seen from the kitchen area. She could see the long corridor with its many doors and the inspectors coming and going, with files under their arms, conferring with each other in their different offices and then returning to their own desks. Occasionally they would stop in their tracks to discuss some current problem with a colleague, and from time to time one would arrive escorting a handcuffed prisoner or a weeping woman.

Other people, who had arrived long after she did, had already been interviewed by those whom they had come to see, yet she still showed no signs of impatience.

The telephone in Rue d’Angoulême remained silent. Did Mariette Gibon suspect that it was being tapped?

Maybe the ruse of pretending he had forgotten his pipe had put her on her guard?

Neveu, who had by now been relieved by a local colleague, reported that he had observed nothing unusual while keeping watch on the house.

As for Albert Jorisse, it was now practically certain that he had still been in Paris at six o’clock the previous night. Police Constable Dambois, who, like everyone else, had been issued a description of him, had spotted him around that time at the junction of Place Clichy and Boulevard des Batignolles.

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