The Late Monsieur Gallet by Georges Simenon & Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon & Georges Simenon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

‘I should let that be for now, old fellow!’

‘You told me yourself it was urgent, inspector. Anyway I hardly feel a thing!’

Good man, Moers! The doctor had given his ear a dressing as complicated and thick as if he had six bullets in his head. The sparkling bright glass of his pince-nez looked strange in the middle of all that white linen.

Maigret had not felt anxious about him until seven in the evening, knowing that his injury was not a severe one – and now he found him just where he had spent the morning, in front of his sheets of glass, his candle and his spirit stove.

‘I haven’t found out anything else about Monsieur Jacob. I’ve just reconstructed a letter signed Clément addressed to I don’t know whom, and talking about a present intended for a prince in exile. The word bution comes in twice, and loyalism once.’

‘That’s of minor interest now,’ said Maigret. For all this was obviously to do with the swindle on which Gallet had embarked. The pink file had provided him with information on that subject, as well as several phone calls to the owners of chateaux and manor houses in the Berry and Cher areas. At some time or other, probably three or four years after his marriage, and one or two years after his father-in-law’s death, Émile Gallet had decided that it would be a good idea to make use of the old documents relating to the Le Soleil material that he had inherited.

The journal, its text from the pen of Préjean himself, had a very small print run, reserved almost exclusively for the few who subscribed to it, and it kept the hope of seeing a Bourbon back on the throne of France alive in the hearts of a few country squires.

Maigret had leafed through the Soleil material, noticing that half a page was always devoted to subscription lists, sometimes on behalf of an old family that had fallen on hard times, sometimes for the propaganda fund, or again in the cause of celebrating an anniversary worthily.

That was what had given Gallet the idea of swindling the legitimists. He had their addresses, he even knew from the lists what sum of money could be got from them and how to appeal to each of them individually for contributions.

‘Have you found the same handwriting on the other papers?’ Maigret asked.

‘Yes, the same,’ said Moers. ‘In fact Professor Locard, who trained me, would tell you more. Calm, careful handwriting, but with signs of agitation and discouragement at the ends of words. A graphologist would say unhesitatingly that the man who wrote those letters was ill and knew it.’

‘Good heavens, that’ll do, Moers! You can take a rest now!’

Maigret was looking at two holes in the canvas blind – the holes made as the bullets passed through it. ‘Would you go and sit back where you were just now?’

He had no difficulty in reconstructing the trajectory of the bullets.

‘The same angle,’ he concluded. ‘Firing from

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