nothing?
âDo you drop by here sometimes for an aperitif?â
The voice was William Crosbyâs. He had approached Maigret and was offering him his cigarette case.
âNo thanks. I only smoke a pipe.â
âBut youâll have something to drink? Whisky?â
âIâve got a drink, as you see.â
Crosby looked slightly put out.
âDo you speak English, Russian and German?â
âJust French.â
âSo the Coupole must sound like the tower of Babel to you! Iâve never seen you here before. By the way, is there any truth in what theyâre saying?â
âWhat do you mean?â
âYou know â¦Â the murderer â¦?â
âOh thereâs no need to worry.â
Crosby let his eyes settle on him for a moment.
âCome on! Wonât you give us the pleasure of your company and have a drink with us? My wife would be delighted. Allow me to introduce Mademoiselle Edna Reichberg, daughter of a paper manufacturer in Stockholm. She was skating champion
last year at Chamonix. Edna, Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.â
The Russian girl in the black suit still had her nose deep in her newspaper, and the man with red hair was meditating, with his eyes shut, in front of the stone pot heâd scraped to get at the very last smudge of yogurt.
Through a forced smile, Edna said:
âSo pleased to meet you.â
She gripped Maigretâs hand firmly then returned, in English, to her conversation with Mrs Crosby while William said apologetically:
âDo you mind? Iâm wanted on the phone. Two whiskies, Bob â¦Â You will excuse me, wonât you? â¦â
Outside, the nickel-plated motor gleamed in the grey light and a pitiful figure shuffled round it, approached the Coupole, dragging one leg, and paused a moment outside the revolving door.
Red-rimmed eyes peered in while a waiter was already walking over to order this seedy tramp to move on.
The police, in Paris and elsewhere, were still hunting for the prisoner who had gone over the wall at the Santé prison.
And here he was, within hailing distance of the inspector!
5. The Man Who Liked Caviar
Maigret did not move. He did not even give a start. At his side, Mrs Crosby and the Swedish girl were chatting away in English, sipping cocktails. The inspector was so close to the latter, because the bar room was so small, that with every movement
she made her supple body brushed against his.
Maigret managed somehow to grasp that they were talking about someone named José, who had flirted with her at the Ritz and offered her cocaine.
They were both laughing. William Crosby, rejoining them from the phone booth, apologized again to the inspector:
âYou really must excuse me. It was about my car. I want to sell it and buy another one.â
He squirted a splash of soda water into their glasses.
âCheers!â
Outside, it seemed that the curious silhouette of the convicted criminal was being literally blown around the terrace of the bar.
In getting away from the Citanguette, Joseph Heurtin had apparently lost his cap, with the result that he was now bare-headed. His hair had been cropped very short in prison so that his ears now stuck out even more than ever. His shoes no longer
had either colour or shape.
And where had he slept that his suit should be so creased and covered with so much dust and mud?
If he had been holding his hand out to passers-by, that would have explained his presence there, for he looked like the most pitiful specimen of human flotsam. But he was not begging. And he wasnât selling shoe-laces or pencils.
He shambled up and down, tossed this way and that by the ebb and flow of the passing crowd, sometimes drifting away for a few metres then returning as though he were fighting against a strong current.
His cheeks were covered with brown stubble. He looked thinner.
But it was mainly the eyes which made him so unnerving, for he never
Ian Johnstone
Mayne Reid
Brenda Webb
Jamie Zakian
Peter James
Karolyn James
Peter Guttridge
Jayne Castle
Mary Buckham
Ron Base