Cécile is Dead by Georges Simenon Page B

receive Charles Dandurand
     and discuss her investments in institutions that were, to say the least, unedifying. It
     was improper, but it was human. In the course of his career, Maigret had encountered
     other phenomena of that sort.
    And other men like Dandurand.
    So what was it that jarred? What was not
     quite natural about the set-up?
    The old woman had been strangled, no doubt
     when, after Dandurand had left, she was about to go to bed. She was still wearing one
     stocking.
    Must he assume that there was a third key,
     and it was in the hands of Monsieur Charles? Should he think that Monsieur Charles had
     gone back up to the apartment to kill the old lady?
    He had done well out of the association.
     Juliette was worth more to him alive than dead.
    What about his underworld friends? They
     weren’t
beginners, cowardly thugs ready
     to try anything, but men who had made it, who were well established in life and were not
     at all anxious to take risks. They were sincere when they said they were upset by the
     murder and it did them harm.
    Gérard Pardon?
    Maigret almost exploded. ‘For
     heaven’s sake keep quiet!’ His neighbours in the seats next to him were
     really going too far; they were acting as if they were alone in the huge, dark
     auditorium.
    â€¦ Gérard, hidden in his sister’s room
     since seven in the evening … Gérard listening in, without revealing himself, on the
     conversation between Juliette Boynet and Monsieur Charles, perhaps seeing the wads of
     banknotes and deciding to grab them once his aunt was on her own.
    If so, then he must assume that, having
     committed the crime, Gérard had stayed in the apartment until morning, since the
     concierge had not opened the front door of the building to anyone.
    He must also assume that it was Gérard whom
     Cécile had come to denounce, when she was waiting for Maigret in the Aquarium at Quai
     des Orfèvres.
    Finally, he must then suppose that it was
     Gérard who had followed her to the broom cupboard.
    How could Gérard Pardon, who had never had
     anything to do with the police, have known not only about that cupboard, but about the
     door giving access to the Palais de Justice from the Police Judiciaire?
    A sudden movement beside him, a skirt being
     pulled down, the words ‘The End’ on the screen, and at the
same time all the lights coming on, and there was much
     stamping of feet.
    Standing up like everyone else, Maigret
     followed the rest of the audience out and looked curiously at his neighbour. He saw a
     calm little face, a fresh complexion, round cheeks and innocently smiling eyes. He had
     been right about the man with her: he was about forty and wore a wedding ring.
    Still dazed, the inspector found himself in
     noisy, teeming Boulevard Montparnasse. It must be six o’clock. Night had fallen.
     Dark shapes walked swiftly past brightly lit shop-window displays. He felt thirsty, went
     into La Coupole, sat down by a window and ordered a beer.
    A kind of weariness had come over him. He
     delayed the moment of returning to the harsh light of reality. The right thing to do
     would have been to make haste to Quai des Orfèvres, where Lucas was grappling with his
     Poles.
    Instead, he ordered a ham sandwich, and his
     eyes went on wandering aimlessly over the busy crowd passing by. It had taken him a few
     minutes just now – perhaps quarter of an hour – to work out what had shaken him in the
     cinema: the lack of synchronization between the movements of the actors’ lips and
     the words on the soundtrack.
    How much time would it take him to find out
     what was wrong in the Bourg-la-Reine case? The sandwich was a good one. The beer was
     good as well, and he ordered another.
    In the course of every notably successful
     investigation, or almost every one of them, there was at least one journalist who
     published a column on what had now to some
extent become a traditional