Friend of Madame Maigret by Georges Simenon Page A

when she left, because I saw her.”
    â€œWas she intimate with your tenant?”
    â€œYou mean did they sleep together? I’m not sure. From certain signs I think they did sometimes. They have a right to, haven’t they?”
    â€œWhat nationality did Monsieur Levine put on his slip?”
    â€œFrench. He told me he’d been in France a long time and was naturalized.”
    â€œWhere did he come from?”
    â€œI don’t remember. Your Hotels man called for the slips yesterday, as usual on Tuesdays. From Bordeaux, if I’m not mistaken.”
    â€œWhat happened yesterday at noon?”
    â€œI don’t know about noon.”
    â€œDuring the morning then?”
    â€œSomeone called and asked for him about ten o’clock. The lady and the kid had been gone quite a while.”
    â€œWho called?”
    â€œI didn’t ask him his name. An ordinary little man not very well dressed, a bit shabby.”
    â€œFrench?”
    â€œCertainly. I told him the room number.”
    â€œHe’d never been here before?”
    â€œNo one had ever called, except the nurse.”
    â€œDid he have a southern accent?”
    â€œMore like a Paris accent. You know, the kind of man who stops you in the street trying to sell you fancy postcards or take you Lord knows where.”
    â€œDid he stay long?”
    â€œWell, he waited by himself while Monsieur Levine was getting ready to leave.”
    â€œWith his luggage?”
    â€œHow did you know? I was amazed to see him carrying his luggage out.”
    â€œDid he have much?”
    â€œFour suitcases.”
    â€œBrown ones?”
    â€œNearly all suitcases are brown, aren’t they? Anyhow, these were good quality, and at least two of them were real leather.”
    â€œWhat did he say to you?”
    â€œThat he had to go away unexpectedly, that he’d be leaving Paris that day, but he’d be back in a little while for the child’s things.”
    â€œHow much later did he come back?”
    â€œAbout an hour. The lady was with him.”
    â€œWeren’t you surprised not to see the little boy?”
    â€œSo you know about that too?”
    She was growing more cautious because she was beginning to suspect that the matter was of some importance, that the police knew more about it than Maigret wanted to tell her.
    â€œAll three of them stayed in the room quite a time and they were talking pretty loud.”
    â€œAs if they were quarrelling?”
    â€œAs if they were arguing at least.”
    â€œIn French?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid the Parisian take part in the conversation?”
    â€œNot much. Anyhow, he went out first, and I didn’t see him again. Then later Monsieur Levine and the lady left. As they passed me on their way out, he thanked me and told me he expected to be back in a few days.”
    â€œDidn’t it seem queer to you?”
    â€œIf you’d kept a hotel like this one for eighteen years, nothing would seem queer to you.”
    â€œDid you clean up their room yourself afterward?”
    â€œI helped the maid.”
    â€œYou didn’t find anything?”
    â€œCigarette ends all over the place. He smoked more than fifty a day. American cigarettes. Newspapers too. He bought just about all the papers published in Paris.”
    â€œNo foreign newspapers?”
    â€œNo. I thought of that.”
    â€œSo you were curious?”
    â€œOne always likes to know what’s going on.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œThe usual rubbish, a broken comb, torn underclothes . . .”
    â€œAny initials?”
    â€œNo. It was the kid’s underclothes.”
    â€œGood quality?”
    â€œPretty good, yes. Better than I’m used to seeing around here.”
    â€œI’ll be back to see you again.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œBecause some details that escape you at present will certainly come back to you when you think it over. You’ve