Mr Hire's Engagement (Penguin Modern Classics) by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon [Simenon, Georges]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-10-27T04:00:00+00:00

7

‘A little courage!’ Mr Hire repeated to himself.

He was weaving through the crowd, mumbling, ‘Sorry … Sorry …’

It was raining buckets, and it was no longer a question of how to slip in between people but of how to manage one’s umbrella in a crowd of umbrellas. On the tram, Mr Hire had to dangle his from the end of his outstretched arm because the silk was so thoroughly drenched.

‘A little courage!’

The detective was sitting in front of him – not the short one with the beard, but the one who was always in the concierge’s kitchen – and Mr Hire looked at him without flinching. The bell rang, and the tram set off towards Paris. Despite the dreary weather and the scowling faces, Mr Hire stuck out his chest just as he had the night before, when he was bowling, and sat up very straight on his seat. Beneath thick, inky eyebrows, his eyes were set in the kind of threatening glare usually reserved for children who are misbehaving. When the conductor came by, he pulled off his glove, took his wallet from his pocket and extracted his carnet of tickets, his movements slow and solemn.

‘A little courage!’

At Porte d’Italie, he bypassed the Métro in favour of the bus, where he sat in first class while the detective stayed on the platform. The closer he got to his destination, the more he was overcome with impatience and giddiness. At Place du Châtelet, he literally tumbled out of the bus and ran the whole length of Quai des Orfèvres.

‘A little courage!’

It was only in the vast, dusty stairwell of Police Headquarters that he unfolded the letter summoning him for the following morning and looked at the name of the commissioner.

‘Commissioner Godet, please?’ he said an instant later, addressing the young office clerk.

‘Have you been summonsed?’

‘Yes … No … Give him my card.’

An hour went by. At the far end of a corridor that seemed to throb like a drum – full of people who were always walking around, stopping and starting again, opening doors, then walking off again – five people sat waiting in a window-lined room furnished with green armchairs. Then there were seven, then only six, then three, then five again. From time to time the bailiff would come asking for someone, but it was never Mr Hire.

‘You haven’t forgotten me?’

No! The bailiff shook his head at Mr Hire and went up to whichever young woman had most recently arrived.

‘You were asking to see Mr Godet? Please, follow me.’

It didn’t matter. Mr Hire surveyed the room with an air of importance, his briefcase under his arm, then camped out under a picture of policemen who had died for their country.

The bailiff returned at last, motioned with his chin and walked the length of the corridor without checking to see if Mr Hire was behind him. He opened a door, and vanished. A man was bent over a mahogany desk, signing forms, and didn’t even raise his head as he said, ‘Shut the door.

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