Free Félicie by Georges Simenon

Place Pigalle, a jazz
musician named as Jacques P … was hit in the chest by a bullet fired by an unknown
assailant, who got away in a taxi. A manhunt was set up immediately but all efforts to
apprehend the armed aggressor proved fruitless.
    It is thought that the affair involved a
settling of accounts or a crime of passion.
    The victim, who is in a critical
condition, was taken to Beaujon Hospital. The police are pursuing their inquiries.
    This is incorrect. The police do not always
issue factually accurate statements to the press. But it is true that Jacques Pétillon is
in Beaujon Hospital. It is also true that his condition is serious, so serious that it is not
sure that he will live. His left lung was punctured by a large-calibre bullet.
    The manhunt is another invention. When he arrives
in the office of the commissioner of the Police Judiciaire to give his morning report, Maigret
speaks bitterly:
    â€˜It was all my fault, sir. I felt like a
beer. I also wanted the kid to pull himself together a bit before coming here with me. He was
ready to snap. He’d been led a merry dance all day. But I was wrong, obviously …
    â€˜But I’ll say one thing: whoever it
was who took advantage of this situation wasn’t born yesterday …
    â€˜When I heard the shot,
my first thought was to look after the boy. I let the uniformed officer lead the pursuit.
You’ve read his report? The taxi led him at high speed to the other end of Paris, to Place
d’Italie, where it pulled up suddenly. There was no passenger inside.
    â€˜We’ve arrested the taxi-driver,
despite his protests. All the same, I’ve been well and truly had …’
    He runs a furious eye over the statement made by
the taxi-driver after he was interviewed:
I was parked up in Place Pigalle when a man I
never saw before offered me 200 francs to play a trick on one of his friends, his very words
… He was going to let off a cracker – that’s the actual word he used –
and, when I heard it go bang, all I was to do was take off as fast as I could and drive all the
way to Place d’Italie …
    Which sounds rather too unvarnished coming from
a cabbie who works nights! But it will be difficult to prove that he’s lying.
I didn’t get much of a look at the man,
who was standing in shadow by the bushes round the fountain, holding his head down. He was
broad in the shoulder and wore a dark suit and a grey hat.
    A description which could apply to any number of
men!
    â€˜This is one shambles that I won’t
forget in a hurry, I can assure you,’ growls Maigret. ‘Whoever thought up a stunt
like that is … He crouches between two taxis or in a patchof shadow.
He fires. At the same moment the taxi drives off, and naturally everybody assumes the assassin
is in it, and someone sets off in pursuit, while our man has had all the time in the world to
make his escape or even to blend in with the crowd … The other taxi-drivers who were
parked there have been questioned. None of them saw anything. One, an old hand I’ve known
for years, thinks he saw a figure walking round the fountain.’
    Imagine! The saxophone player was ready to talk,
in a mood to tell everything even when he was still in the Pelican, and Maigret was responsible
for not letting him speak! Now, God only knows when he’ll be fit for questioning, if, that
is, he ever will be.
    â€˜What are you planning to do
now?’
    There is the classic approach. The attempted
murder took place in Montmartre, within a defined perimeter. Fifty or so people to interview,
all already known to the police, who just happened to be in the area, in fact all those who
reacted liked crabs in a basket when news of the presence of Detective Chief Inspector Maigret
went the rounds of Rue Pigalle.
    Of that number a few are not snow-white lambs. By
pushing them, by threatening them and looking more closely into their petty dealings, it