Maigret and Monsieur Charles by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon [Simenon, Georges]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Georges Simenon
ISBN: 9780241023600
Amazon: 0241023602
Goodreads: 1566868
Publisher: Hamilton
Published: 1971-12-31T11:00:00+00:00

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5

« ^ »

Maigret paid another visit to the concierge in his lodge.

“Tell me, didn’t the solicitor have a dog when he got married?”

“Yes, a beautiful Alsatian; he was very fond of it and the dog was devoted to him.”

“Did it die?”

“No. They gave it away a few days after they came back from Cannes, where they had spent their honeymoon…”

“Didn’t you think it odd?”

“I hear the dog would snarl at Madame Sabin-Levesque every time she came near. It almost bit her once and tore the hem of her dress. She was terrified of it and so she made her husband give it away…”

When he got back to his office, Maigret sent for the photographer who worked for the Criminal Identity Department. He produced the snapshot of the couple with the dog in Cannes.

“Can you enlarge this for me?”

“The result won’t be perfect, but you’ll be able to recognize the people in it…”

“What about this one?”

He took out the passport photograph.

“I’ll do my best. When do you want them for?”

“Tomorrow morning…”

The photographer sighed. The chief superintendent always wanted things done in a hurry. He was used to it by now.

Madame Maigret looked at her husband a little anxiously, the way she always did when he was conducting a difficult investigation. She was used to his silences and his grumpy manner. He would wander about the flat, not knowing what to do with himself.

Sometimes, when he was eating in an absent-minded way, his wife would ask him, smiling:

“Are you there?”

In fact, his thoughts had wandered far away. His wife recalled a conversation between Pardon and her husband one evening, when they were having dinner at the doctor’s home. Pardon had said:

“There’s one thing I just can’t understand. You’re the exact opposite of most policemen; why, you seem to hate having to arrest a criminal.”

“Yes, that’s sometimes true…”

“Yet you carry out your investigations as though the outcome affected you personally…”

Maigret had answered:

“That’s because each case is a personal experience in which I become involved. When you go to visit an unknown patient, don’t you get emotionally involved too? Don’t you struggle with death as though the patient were someone dear to you?”

He was weary and in a bad mood. The sight of the corpse on the Quai de Grenelle had been enough to upset even a forensic doctor like Grenier.

Maigret was fond of Sabin-Levesque, even though he had never met him personally. At school, he had known a boy who was rather like the solicitor, light-hearted and unconcerned. This boy had been the most undisciplined pupil in the class, interrupting the teacher or drawing in his exercise books during lessons.

When the teacher sent him out of the room for an hour, he would look in through the window and make faces at the class.

In spite of this, the teachers did not bear him a grudge and they even ended up by laughing at his antics. But then of course, he was also one of the three top boys in his class at every exam.

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