The Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon Page A

happening until a part of the market scene took on a different shape; a group had gathered to stare in the same direction. Because his window was closed he heard only a jumbled murmur.
    He looked farther off. On the quay, a few fishermen had been loading empty baskets and nets on to their boats. Suddenly they had stopped, and now made way for two
local policemen, who were leading a
prisoner towards the town hall.
    One of the policemen was young, still beardless. His face radiated eager innocence. The other had a large mahogany-coloured moustache, and his heavy eyebrows gave him an almost ferocious look.
    In the market, all chatter had stopped, as the crowd watched the three men approach. Some pointed to the handcuffs that bound the prisoner’s wrists to those of his captors.
    The man was a colossus! His forwards pitch made his shoulders look even broader. As he dragged his feet through the mud, he seemed to be towing the officers along in his wake.
    He was wearing an unprepossessing old jacket, and his bare head bristled with thick hair, short and dark.
    The waiting reporter darted up the hotel stairs, rattled a door and shouted to his sleeping photographer: ‘Benoît! Benoît! Quick, get up! You’ll miss a fantastic shot!’
    He didn’t know how right he was. For as Maigret, his eyes never leaving the square, wiped the last traces of shaving soap from his cheeks and reached for his jacket, a truly extraordinary thing happened.
    The crowd had quickly closed around the policemen and their prisoner. Suddenly, the captive, who must have been waiting for the chance, gave a violent jerk of his wrists.
    The inspector saw the puny ends of chain dangling from the policemen’s hands. The man plunged through the crowd. A woman was sent sprawling. People scattered. Before anyone had recovered from the surprise, the prisoner had darted into an
alleyway, twenty metres from the
Admiral, that ran alongside the vacant house from which the bullet had spat forth on Friday.
    The younger policeman nearly fired, but hesitated, then chased after him, with his gun at the ready. Maigret was afraid there might be an accident. A canopy on wooden struts gave way under the pressure of the escaping throng and its canvas roof
collapsed on to the blocks of butter.
    The young officer was brave, and he sprinted into the alley alone.
    Since Maigret knew the neighbourhood now, he finished dressing without haste. It would take a miracle to catch the fellow. The narrow passage, two metres wide, had two sharp dog-legs. Twenty houses faced on to either the quay or the square and had
their back entries on the alley. There were storage sheds as well, a marine supply yard, a cannery warehouse, a whole tangle of odd buildings, nooks and crannies, and roofs within easy reach. They would all make pursuit almost impossible.
    The crowd was keeping its distance now. Red with anger, the woman who had been knocked down was shaking her fist in all directions as tears trickled down her chin.
    The photographer darted from the hotel, a trenchcoat over his pyjamas, his feet bare.
    Half an hour later, just after the police lieutenant had sent his men to search the neighbouring houses, the mayor arrived. He found Maigret settled in the café with the young policeman, busily devouring toast. The town’s leading magistrate
was shaking with indignation.
    â€˜I warned you, inspector, that I would hold you responsible for … for … But you don’t seem to care! I’m going to send a telegram to the minister of the interior, to inform
him of … of … and to ask him … Have you any idea what’s happening out there? People are fleeing their homes. A helpless old man is howling with fear because he’s stuck on the second floor. People think they’re seeing
the criminal everywhere!’
    Maigret turned and saw Ernest Michoux huddling close behind him like a frightened child, trying to