The Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon

downpour, to the hotel. The town was dark except for two or three distant lighted windows. Then on the square, at the corner by the quay, the Admiral Hotel’s three square windows shone out, though their green
panes made the place look like a huge aquarium.
    As Maigret drew near, he heard voices, the telephone ringing, and then the roar of a car starting up.
    â€˜Where are you heading?’ he asked the reporter in it.
    â€˜The phone is tied up. I’m going to look for another one. In ten minutes it’ll be too late to make my Paris edition.’
    Standing in the café, Leroy looked like a teacher monitoring prep. Men were writing without pause. The travelling salesman watched, bewildered but excited by a scene that was entirely new to him.
    Glasses still stood on the tables – stemware for aperitifs, beer mugs slick with foam, small liqueur glasses.
    â€˜When did you last clear the tables?’
    Emma thought back. ‘I can’t say exactly. I picked up some glasses as I went by. Others are left from this afternoon.’
    â€˜What about Monsieur Le Pommeret’s?’
    â€˜What did he drink, Dr Michoux?’ she asked.
    It was Maigret who answered: ‘A brandy-and-water.’
    She looked at the saucers, one after another, checking the prices on them. ‘This one says six francs … 
But I served one of those men a whisky, and that’s the same
price … Maybe that glass over there? … Maybe not …’
    The photographer, sticking to business, was taking pictures of the glassware spread on the marble tabletops.
    â€˜Go and get the pharmacist,’ the inspector ordered Leroy.
    And from then on it was a long night of glasses and plates. Some were brought from the vice-consul of Denmark’s house. The reporters made themselves at home in the pharmacist’s laboratory, and one of them, a former medical student, even
helped out with the analyses.
    The mayor, by telephone, merely remarked sharply: ‘Entirely your responsibility.’
    The proprietor suddenly appeared and asked, ‘What’s become of the dog?’
    The place where he had been lying on straw was empty. The yellow dog was incapable of walking, or even crawling, because of the cast immobilizing his hindquarters, but he had vanished.
    The glasses revealed nothing.
    â€˜Monsieur Le Pommeret’s may have been washed already … I can’t tell in all this commotion!’ said Emma.
    At his landlady’s, too, half the dishes had already been washed in warm water.
    Ernest Michoux, his face ashen, was more disturbed over the dog’s disappearance. ‘Someone came through the courtyard and took him! There’s a way through to the quay, a kind of alleyway … That gate has to be sealed,
inspector! Or else … To think that someone got in without anybody knowing! And then left with that animal in his arms!’
    It looked as if the doctor didn’t dare move from his corner, as if he was keeping as far as possible from the doors.

5. The Man at Cabélou
    It was eight in the morning. Maigret, who hadn’t gone to bed, had taken a bath and was now shaving at a mirror dangling from the window latch.
    It had turned colder, and the rain was mixed with sleet. A reporter was waiting downstairs for the Paris newspapers. The 7.30 train had sounded its whistle, and soon the newsboys would arrive with the latest sensational issues.
    Below the inspector’s window, the square overflowed with the weekly market. Yet the usual liveliness of a market was missing: people talked in low voices; farmers looked uneasy.
    In the open square stood some fifty stalls, piled with butter, eggs, vegetables, pairs of braces, silk stockings. To the right, carts of all kinds were lined up. And the whole scene was dominated by the wing-like movement of the broad white-lace
headdresses of the local women.
    Maigret didn’t notice that something was