Free Maigret's Dead Man by Georges Simenon Page A

that night and one in the morning. They can’t have just gone driving
around the countryside. Shall I bring the old woman round now?’
    â€˜Yes. Get a taxi and hang on to it. Bring
an inspector with you. He can wait downstairs with the old woman.’
    â€˜You’re going to leave your
house?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜But what about your bronchitis?’
    It was kind of Lucas: he said
‘bronchitis’ instead of ‘cold’, which made it sound more serious.
    â€˜Don’t you worry about
that.’
    Madame Maigret began stirring on her chair and
almost said something.
    â€˜Tell the inspector not to let her run off
while you’re coming up the stairs. Some people get sudden urges to change their
minds.’
    â€˜I don’t think she’s one of
them. She’s keen to see her photo in the papers along with all her titles and
qualifications. She wanted to know where the photographers were.’
    â€˜Well, have her photographed before you
leave. She’ll like having her picture taken.’
    He hung up, gave Madame Maigret a look full of
gentle irony then lowered his eyes to his Alexandre Dumas, which he hadn’t finished and
probably wouldn’t finish this time round. It would have to wait until he was ill on some
other occasion. He also spared a glance, but one of disdain, for the cup of herbal tea.
    â€˜To work!’ he
exclaimed as he stood up and made straight for the cupboard, from which he produced the decanter
of calvados and a liqueur glass with a gilt rim.
    â€˜It was worth filling you full of aspirin
so that you would sweat it out!’

4.
    In the annals of the Police Judiciaire are a
number of ‘stake-outs’ which are invariably trotted out for the benefit of new
recruits. Among them is one of Maigret’s, now fifteen years old. It was late autumn, at
the very worst time of year, especially in Normandy, where the low, leaden sky makes the days
even shorter. For three days and two nights, Maigret had remained outside the garden gate on a
deserted road on the outskirts of Fécamp, waiting for a man to emerge from the house
opposite. There were no other houses in sight, only fields. Even the cows were under cover. To
ask to be relieved, he would have had to walk two kilometres to find a phone. No one knew he was
there. He had not told anyone where he would be. For three days and two nights it had poured
unrelentingly, and the icy rain had swamped the tobacco in his pipe. Perhaps all told, three
farm labourers in clogs had walked past. They had stared at him suspiciously and hurried on
their way. Maigret had had nothing to eat with him, nothing to drink and, worst of all, by the
end of day two, he ran out of matches for his pipe.
    Lucas had another under his belt, as part of what
was called The Case of the Halfwit Invalid. To keep watch on a small hotel – to be
specific, it was on the corner of Rue de Birague, just off Places des Vosges – he had beeninstalled in a room on the other side of the street, disguised as a
paralysed old relic. Every morning a nurse sat him down by the window, where he stayed all day.
He wore a fan-shaped false beard. He was fed with a spoon. That had lasted for ten days, and
afterwards he could hardly use his legs.
    Maigret now recalled these and a few other such
tales and sensed that the stake-out he was beginning would become no less famous. At any rate,
one to be savoured – especially by him.
    It was almost a game, but he was playing it with
total seriousness. At about seven o’clock, for example, just as Lucas was about to leave,
he had asked him quite casually:
    â€˜Care for a little glass of
something?’
    The shutters of the bar were closed, as they had
been when he had got there. The lights were on. The atmosphere inside was like that of any small
bar after hours, with the tables set out and sawdust scattered on the floor.
    Maigret went to get the drinks from the shelves
behind the