The Two-Penny Bar by Georges Simenon Page B

of a damp cellar. The stooping old woman went down into it while the customer never took his eyes off Maigret.
    He was a pale, thin young man of about twenty-five with blond stubble on his cheeks. He had deep-set eyes and thin, colourless lips.
    But what was most striking about him was what he was wearing. He wasn’t dressed in rags, like a vagabond. Nor did he have that insolent look of the professional tramp.
    No, he displayed a strange mixture of shyness and self-confidence. He was humble and aggressive at the same time. He was both clean and dirty.
    His clothes were neat and well kept, even though he looked as if he had been on the road for days.
    â€˜Show me your papers, please.’
    Maigret had no need to identify himself as a policeman. The boy had grasped that straight away. He took a grubby army identity card from his pocket. The inspector read the name under his breath:
    â€˜Victor Gaillard!’
    He calmly closed the card and returned it to its owner. The old woman came back up from the cellar and closed the trapdoor.
    â€˜Nice and cold,’ she said, opening the bottle of beer.
    And she went back to peeling potatoes while the two men began talking in a steady, dispassionate tone.
    â€˜Last address?’
    â€˜The municipal sanatorium in Gien.’
    â€˜When did you leave?’
    â€˜A month ago.’
    â€˜And since then?’
    â€˜I’ve been broke, on the road. You could arrest me forvagrancy, but they’d just put me back in a sanatorium. I’ve only got one lung left.’
    There was nothing self-pitying in his tone. On the contrary, it was as if he were presenting his credentials.
    â€˜Did you get a letter from Lenoir?’
    â€˜Who’s Lenoir?’
    â€˜Stop messing about. He told you you’d find your man at the Two-Penny Bar.’
    â€˜I’d had enough of the sanatorium.’
    â€˜And thought you’d squeeze a bit more out of the guy from the Canal Saint-Martin!’
    The old woman listened without understanding, without showing any surprise. It was as if they were having an everyday conversation in this rundown country kitchen, where a hen had wandered in and was pecking away around their feet.
    â€˜Have you got nothing to say?’
    â€˜I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    â€˜Lenoir told me everything.’
    â€˜I don’t know any Lenoir.’
    Maigret shrugged his shoulders, lit his pipe and repeated:
    â€˜Stop messing about! You know I know what you’re up to.’
    â€˜What’s the worst they can do? Send me back to the sanatorium.’
    â€˜I know, I know … you’ve only got one lung.’
    Some canoes glided past on the river.
    â€˜What Lenoir told you is true. Your man is here.’
    â€˜I’m not saying anything.’
    â€˜So much the worse for you. If you haven’t changedyour mind by this evening, I’ll have you locked up for vagrancy. After that, we’ll see …’
    Maigret looked him in the eye. He could read him like a book. He’d met his sort before.
    A different kettle of fish entirely from Lenoir. Victor was the sort who rode on the back of the bigger villains, the one who’s always put on lookout duty and gets the smallest share of the loot.
    He was one of those types who is easily led astray and doesn’t have the strength of character to get back on the rails. He had started hanging around the streets and the dance halls at the age of sixteen. With Lenoir, he had landed on his
feet that night at the Canal Saint-Martin, and had managed to live off the proceeds of his blackmail as if it were a regular salary.
    But for his tuberculosis, he would probably have become a stooge in Lenoir’s gang. But his ill health meant he ended up in the sanatorium. He must have driven the doctors and nurses to despair with his thieving and petty misdemeanours.
Maigret guessed that he had faced the courts on more than one occasion and had been