Signed, Picpus by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780141980690
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2015-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

Isn’t that also true in some degree of himself? The Seine flows on, wrapped in a veritable aura of absolute glory. The spectacle of pedestrians scuttling like ants is enough to make it seem as if the whole of Paris has surrendered to the sheer joy of being alive. Elsewhere anglers are fishing, the swimming pools are crowded with bathers, a symphony of car horns fills streets and boulevards and rises with the fine, golden dust into a sky of perfect blue.

Though storm at sea …

What a strange job he does! Two strikes with a knife in the back of a woman he has never met … An old man who sweats with fear … A clerk who jumps off the Pont-Neuf into the Seine … A calendar of stunning vulgarity in a café in Place de la République …

‘What do we do now, sir?’

‘What about Monsieur Blaise?’

‘Around now he’ll be heading to the Stock Exchange, just as he does every day … Ruel is tailing him …’

The search for the green convertible and the dark man with the gold teeth has drawn a blank. Emma, the girl from the dairy, spends every day with an eye on the street, where she still hopes to see her handsome motorist drive up, and has failed to recognize him in any of the photographs she has been shown.

‘Will you get me the travel agent’s near the Madeleine …’

He is still worried. He picks up the phone.

‘Hello? … Mademoiselle Berthe? … It’s Maigret … Yes … No, no … On the contrary … He’s getting along well, give him a few days and he’ll be over it … What time do you finish work? … Twelve? … Would you find it too dull to have lunch with me in some small restaurant near you? … Didn’t catch … Good … I’ll see you later …’

He takes a taxi and gets out at the hour when, as on most days of the week, workers from the offices around the Madeleine and the Boulevards are flooding out into the streets. He soon spots the little red hat and the fresh face with dimples, which now has a careworn look.

‘You can take it from me, nothing terrible is happening … It was just that I wanted to talk to you …’

Passers-by turn to look at the two of them and tell each other that there’s one middle-aged man who has the luck of the devil …

‘Do you like hors-d’oeuvres?’

‘Very much …’

He chooses a small restaurant frequented by regulars, which has a wide selection of tasty hors-d’oeuvres. They find a table near the window. It could be a cosy tête-à-tête and all the more so because Maigret orders a bottle of Alsace wine, the long neck of which rises out of an ice-bucket.

‘Tell me, Mademoiselle Berthe, after your parents died and you continued your studies with financial help from Mascouvin … Would you like a few mushrooms? … As I was saying … I assume he paid for you to board somewhere?’

‘With nuns, at Montmorency.

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