Free Maigret by Georges Simenon Page A

lights were
     already receding, and then it vanished down a side street. On the ground, the little
     man in black was struggling to raise himself up on his hands, gazing wild-eyed at
     Maigret.
    He looked like a madman
     or a child. His face was covered in dust and blood. His nose had changed shape,
     which distorted his entire face.
    He managed to sit up and raise a hand to
     his forehead, limply, as in a dream, grimacing.
    Maigret gathered him up and sat him down
     on the kerb, and, without thinking, went to pick up the hat that was sitting in the
     middle of the road. Then it took him a few moments to recover his own equilibrium,
     even though he had not been hit.
    There were no passers-by. A taxi could
     be heard, but it was a long way off, probably near Barbès.
    ‘You had a narrow escape!’
     grunted Maigret, leaning over the injured man.
    He probed Audiat’s head with his
     thumbs, slowly, to check whether his skull was fractured. He flexed his legs one
     after the other, for his trousers were torn, or rather ripped off below the right
     knee, and Maigret glimpsed an ugly wound.
    Audiat seemed to have lost not only the
     power of speech, but also his mind. His jaw worked up and down, as if to get rid of
     a nasty taste in his mouth.
    Maigret looked up. He had heard the
     sound of an engine. He was convinced it was Eugène’s car driving down a back
     street. Then the noise drew closer and the blue limousine shot across the boulevard
     barely a hundred metres from the two men.
    They could not stay there. Eugène and
     his sidekick would not go away. They wanted to know what was going to happen. They
     drove around the neighbourhood inanother big circle, the purring
     of the engine barely audible in the still night. This time, they drove along the
     boulevard within a few metres of Audiat. Maigret held his breath, expecting
     gunfire.
    ‘They’ll be back,’ he
     thought. ‘And next time …’
    He lifted Audiat, carried him across the
     road and sat him down on the ground behind a tree.
    And the car did drive past again. Eugène
     failed to spot the two men and pulled up a hundred metres further on. There must
     have been a brief discussion between him and the other man, and the outcome was that
     they gave up the chase.
    Audiat groaned and writhed as the light
     from a gas lamp revealed a huge pool of blood on the ground in the spot where he had
     been knocked over.
    There was nothing they could do but
     wait. Maigret did not dare leave the injured man to go off in search of a taxi, and
     he was loath to ring a doorbell and have a crowd gather. They only had to wait for
     ten minutes before a half-drunk Algerian came past, and Maigret got him to
     understand that he must fetch a taxi.
    The night was cold. The sky had the same
     icy tinge as the night Maigret had left Meung. From time to time the whistle of a
     freight train reached them from the Gare du Nord.
    ‘It hurts!’ said Audiat at
     last in a mournful tone.
    And he looked up at Maigret as if
     expecting him to alleviate his suffering.
    Fortunately, the Algerian had done as he
     had been asked and a taxi pulled up. The driver was wary:
    ‘Are you sure it
     was an accident?’
    He couldn’t make up his mind
     whether to turn off the engine and help Maigret or not.
    ‘If you don’t believe me,
     take us to the police station,’ Maigret replied.
    The driver was won over and a quarter of
     an hour later they pulled up opposite the Hôtel des Quais, where Maigret was
     staying.
    Audiat, who had not closed his eyes, was
     watching people and things with such an ineffable gentleness that the sight made
     people smile. The hotel doorman misinterpreted it.
    ‘Your friend looks as though
     he’s had one too many.’
    ‘Perhaps he was a bit drunk. A car
     knocked him over.’
    They carried Audiat up to the room.
     Maigret ordered a rum and had towels brought. He did not need any help for the rest.
     While people slept in the neighbouring room, he silently