Free The Two-Penny Bar by Georges Simenon Page B

of you, you know.’ He gave a forced laugh. ‘I know the score. You could rough me up a bit, but I’d tell the papers how the police beat up a poor invalid with one lung …’
    â€˜Are you finished?’
    â€˜Don’t think you’ll find the truth on your own. If you ask me, 30,000 francs is not much to pay …’
    â€˜Are you finished?’
    â€˜And if you think I’m stupid enough to go after the guy if you let me go, you’ve got another think coming. I won’t write to him, I won’t ring him …’
    His tone had changed now. He felt the ground slipping under him, but he was still trying to put on a brave face.
    â€˜Anyway, I want to see a lawyer. You can’t keep me here more than twenty-four hours.’
    Maigret blew out a little puff of smoke, thrust his hands in his pockets and left the cell. On the way out he said to the warder:
    â€˜Lock him in.’
    He was angry, and now he was on his own he could let it show in his face. He was angry because he had this idiot in his grasp, at his mercy, but he couldn’t get anything out of him.
    And that was because he was an idiot, because he thought he was cunning and tough!
    He thought he could use his lung as a form of blackmail!
    Three or four times during this interview, the inspector had almost struck him across the face, to knock some sense into him, but had managed to restrain himself.
    In truth, his hand was not a strong one. Legally, he had nothing on Victor.
    He had plenty of previous form, for sure; he’d led his whole life going from one petty crime to the next. But there was nothing new, except a vagrancy charge, that Maigret could get him on.
    And he was right about the lung. He’d have everyoneon his side. The newspapers would devote several column inches to portraying the police as monsters.
Dying man beaten by police!
    So he stood there calm as you like, demanding to be paid 30,000 francs! And he was right when he said they would soon have to release him!
    â€˜Let him out tonight at around one o’clock. Tell Sergeant Lucas to follow him and not to let him out of his sight.’
    And Maigret clenched his teeth round the stem of his pipe. Victor knew, and he only had to say one word. Now Maigret was stuck with having to concoct theories out of diverse, and sometimes contradictory, evidence.
    He hailed a taxi and barked at the driver:
    â€˜To the Taverne Royale!’
    James wasn’t there. Eight o’clock came and he still hadn’t turned up. The doorman at the bank confirmed that he had left at five as usual.
    Maigret had a meal of
choucroute
, then phoned his office around 8.30.
    â€˜Has the prisoner asked to see me?’
    â€˜Yes. He says he’s given the matter more thought and he’s willing to come down to 25,000. That’s his final offer. And he wants it put on the record that a man in his condition shouldn’t be fed bread without butter
and be forced to stay in a cell where the temperature never gets above sixteen degrees.’
    Maigret put down the receiver. He went for a short walk in the Boulevards, then caught a taxi to Rue Championnet, where James lived. His block was enormous, like a barracks. It contained small apartments inhabited by office
workers, commercial travellers and small investors.
    â€˜Fourth, on the left.’
    There was no lift, so the inspector slowly climbed the stairs, catching a whiff of cooking or hearing children’s voices from behind the doors on each landing.
    James’s wife answered the door. She was dressed in a pretty royal-blue dressing gown – it wasn’t particularly luxurious, but it didn’t look that cheap either.
    â€˜You wish to speak to my husband?’
    The entrance hall was barely wider than a dining-table. On the walls were pictures of sailing-boats, bathers, young men and women in sporting garb.
    â€˜It’s for you, James!’
    She pushed open a door, ushered Maigret