Maigret and the Fortuneteller by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon [Simenon, Georges]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Georges Simenon
ISBN: 9780156551632
Google: hDGSAAAAIAAJ
Amazon: 0156551632
Goodreads: 140733
Publisher: Harvest
Published: 1943-12-31T11:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Six

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The name Picpus had by now become famous. Not only had innumerable experts looked through their microscopes at the upstrokes and downstrokes of his blotted words, but millions searched daily for his name in the headlines of their morning papers. The name had become a standing joke.

“You haven’t seen Picpus?”

“Well, how’s Picpus today?”

And taxi drivers, ever resourceful, added a new epithet, for their careless fellow drivers: “What do you think you’re doing, Picpus?”

It was a fly, a common house fly, that betrayed his identity. Maigret had got up later than usual that morning, because he hadn’t left the countess’s until two in the morning. The air had not lost its morning coolness, however, though the sun was already gilding the houses in a way that promised another stifling day.

Maigret always loved wandering through the streets while Paris made its morning ablutions and, instead of going straight from Boulevard Richard-Lenoir to the Quai des Orfèvres, he made a detour through Place de la République.

He had cut an absurd figure the evening before on Rue des Pyramides. The moment he arrived, the countess had rushed up to him in a swirl of floating gauze, which gave her the appearance of a grande coquette of the Théâtre-Français.

“Hush! Don’t say a word! Come this way, my dear Superintendent… If you only knew what a flutter I’m in to receive such a celebrated person in my home…”

She led him into her boudoir. She talked. She went on talking. She begged Maigret not to make a scandal in her salon… The members of the club were such well-educated people, such well-connected people…

“Only just now I was saying to the prince…”

Her hands were loaded with rings encrusted with imitation jewels. One hand stayed on the superintendent’s knee as she looked appealingly into his face, while he stared back.

“Would you really like to spend the evening with us?… No, I don’t know a Monsieur Biaise… Sometimes a member brings a friend along… No, I can’t remember anybody like that… We’re really quite a small circle… The whole thing’s entirely friendly, though of course everyone contributes something toward the expenses in these difficult times…”

Five minutes later she was introducing Maigret as a retired colonel, regardless of the fact that his photograph appeared regularly in the papers. Then she sat him down at her own table, the one for beginners, to give him a lesson.

Between hands she found time to visit all the other tables, to say in a dramatic stage whisper: “You know who he is, of course… He’s the famous Superintendent Maigret. Only he’s here incognito, to get my advice about something.”

Now, as he wandered along the street, he told himself that Paris was full of strange people, mysterious or amazing, who never came to light until something happened.

He reached the Café des Sports on Place de la République and went in. Hesitating between the bar and the lounge, he finally chose the latter, and as he looked for a table it suddenly occurred to him to sit in Joseph Mascouvin’s favorite place.

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