Maigret in Vichy (Harvest Book) by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon [Simenon, Georges]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780156551403
Amazon: 0156551403
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 1969-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

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5

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The two men stayed where they were after the telephone girl had left, Maigret puffing reflectively at his pipe, and Lecoeur smoking a cigarette that looked as if it were going to set fire to his mustache at any minute. The smoke rose, spread out, and hung above their heads. Down below in the yard, they could hear a squad of policemen drilling.

For a time, neither spoke. They were both old hands, and there was little anyone could teach them about their trade. They had had dealings with every sort of criminal, every sort of witness.

“There’s no doubt that it was he calling her,” Lecoeur said at last, with a sigh.

Maigret did not reply at once. His reaction was different. It wasn’t so much a question of method—a term they both disliked—as of approach to a problem.

Thus, since the strangling of the lady in lilac, Maigret had given very little thought to the murderer. It was not deliberate, but simply because he was haunted by the recollection of this woman, sitting on her yellow chair near the bandstand, haunted by the memory of her long jaw line, and by her gentle smile, which belied the hard expression of her eyes.

Little details had been added to his picture of her as a result of his visits to her house in Rue du Bourbonnais. He had learned something, though not much, of her stay in Nice, her life in Paris, and a great deal about her taste in literature.

The strangler was still a very shadowy figure, a tall, heavily built man, whom Madame Vireveau claimed to have seen, walking very rapidly, at the corner of the street, and who had been glimpsed by the proprietor of a bar, who could not describe his features.

Almost without realizing it, he began thinking about him.

“I wonder how he found out that Francine Lange was staying at the Hôtel de la Gare.”

The newspapers, which had announced the arrival in Vichy of the victim’s sister, had given no address.

Maigret was feeling his way forward cautiously, one step at a time.

“Come to think of it, there was nothing to prevent him from ringing one hotel after another, and asking for Mademoiselle Lange.”

He could picture him poring over a classified directory. The list of hotels in a place like this would be a long one. Had he gone through it in alphabetical order?

“You might try one of the hotels beginning with the letter ‘A’ or ‘B.’”

With a twinkle in his eye, Lecoeur picked up the receiver.

“Get me the Hôtel d’Angleterre, will you? No, not the manager or the desk—I want the switchboard operator. Hello! Is that the switchboard of the Hôtel d’Angleterre? I’m a police officer… Can you tell me if anyone has been asking to speak to Mademoiselle Lange?… No, not the murdered woman… Her sister, Francine Lange… That’s right… Perhaps your colleague would know…”

He turned to Maigret:

“There are two girls on the switchboard… It’s a huge place… Five or six hundred rooms… Hello,

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