Friend of Madame Maigret by Georges Simenon Page B

her teeth with Pommery Brut! She dresses like a young girl, makes up like a doll, and spends most of every night in nightclubs.”
    â€œHer maid?”
    â€œI don’t know much about her. She’s always getting new ones. I hadn’t seen this one until this year. Last year she had a big girl with red hair, a professional masseuse, because she used to take a massage every day.”
    â€œDo you know the girl’s name?”
    â€œGloria something. I haven’t got her slip anymore, but they’ll tell you in the office. I don’t know if she’s Italian or just from the South, maybe even from Toulouse?”
    â€œSmall and dark?”
    â€œYes, a smart, decent, pretty girl. I didn’t see much of her. She lived in the suite, not in a servant’s room, and she had her meals with her employer.”
    â€œNo man?”
    â€œOnly the son-in-law, who came to see them from time to time.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œNot long before they left. Ask at the desk for the dates. He didn’t live in the hotel.”
    â€œDo you know his name?”
    â€œKrynker, I think. He’s a Czech or a Hungarian.”
    â€œDark, rather heavy, around forty?”
    â€œNo. On the contrary, very fair and much younger. I doubt that he’s more than thirty.”
    They were interrupted by a group of American women in evening dress depositing their keys and asking for a taxi.
    â€œAs for swearing that he was really a son-in-law . . .”
    â€œDid she have affairs?”
    â€œI don’t know. I can’t say yes or no.”
    â€œDid the son-in-law ever spend the night here?”
    â€œNo. But they went out together several times.”
    â€œWith the companion?”
    â€œShe never went out at night with the countess. I’ve never even seen her in evening dress.”
    â€œDo you know where they went?”
    â€œTo London, if I remember right. But just a minute. Something’s coming back to me. Ernest! Come here. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Didn’t Countess Panetti leave her heavy luggage behind?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    The porter explained:
    â€œIt often happens that our guests who are going away for a fairly long time leave some of their luggage here. We have a special baggage room for it. The countess left her trunks there.”
    â€œShe didn’t say when she would be back?”
    â€œNot that I know of.”
    â€œDid she leave alone?”
    â€œWith her maid.”
    â€œIn a taxi?”
    â€œYou’d have to ask my opposite number on the day shift about that. You’ll find him here tomorrow morning from eight o’clock on.”
    Maigret took out of his pocket the photograph of Moss. The hall porter merely glanced at it, pulled a face.
    â€œYou won’t find him here.”
    â€œDo you know him?”
    â€œPaterson. I did know him, under the name of Mosselaer, when I was working in Milan at least fifteen years ago. He’s barred from all the luxury hotels and he wouldn’t dare show his face in them. He knows they wouldn’t give him a room, wouldn’t even allow him to walk through the hall.”
    â€œYou haven’t seen him recently?”
    â€œNo. If I did run into him, I’d start by asking him for the hundred lire he borrowed from me years ago and never returned.”
    â€œIs the day porter on the telephone?”
    â€œYou can always try to ring him at his villa at Saint-Cloud, but he hardly ever answers. He doesn’t like to be disturbed in the evening and he usually takes the phone off the hook.”
    Nevertheless he did answer, and the music from the radio was audible over the telephone too.
    â€œThe head baggage-porter could give you more accurate information, I’m sure. I don’t remember having a cab called for her. Generally, when she leaves the hotel, she gets me to look after her Pullman or air tickets.”
    â€œYou didn’t do so this