Maigret and the Spinster by Georges Simenon Page B

postponing the time when he would have to return to the harsh realities of life. By rights, he ought to be hurrying back to the Quai des Orfèvres, where Lucas was no doubt grappling with his Pole.
    Instead, he ordered a ham sandwich and went on gazing dreamily at the passing crowds. Just now in the movie it had taken him a while, as much as a quarter of an hour perhaps, to identify the cause of his uneasiness, namely, the disparity between the lip movements on the screen and the words on the sound track.
    How long would it take him to pinpoint the jarring element in the Bourg-la-Reine case? The sandwich was tasty. The beer was good. He ordered another glass.
    Almost invariably, when he was engaged on a sensational inquiry, some newspaper or other would print a piece on “The Methods of Chief Superintendent Maigret.” It might almost be called a tradition.
    Well! Journalists were welcome to their opinions, like anyone else! Maigret came out of the movies…He had a sandwich…He drank beer…Sitting beside the steamy window of La Coupole, he might have been a substantial property owner from the provinces, dazzled by the bustle of the streets of Paris.
    To tell the truth, his mind was a blank…He was on Boulevard Montparnasse, and yet he was not, because wherever he happened to be, the wedge-shaped house was always right there with him. He was forever going in and out of it. Spying on Madame “Saving-Your-Presence” in her lair. Climbing the stairs and coming down again.
    Fact number one: the old woman with dyed hair had been strangled…Fact number two: her money and her papers had disappeared…
    Eight hundred thousand francs…
    To be precise, eight hundred thousand francs in one-thousand-franc bills. He tried to picture the thickness of such a bundle of bills.
    Cécile sitting down to wait in the “aquarium” at the Quai des Orfèvres at eight o’clock in the morning.
    It was odd, but he was already having difficulty in recalling her face, distinctive and familiar though it had been. He could see the black coat, the green hat, and the bag on her lap, that enormous ridiculous bag that she was never without, and which looked like a small trunk.
    Now Cécile too had been killed, and the bag had vanished.
    Maigret sat there, holding up his glass, wholly unaware, needless to say, of what was in it. If anyone had spoken to him just then, he would have had to make a long journey back to the present.
    What was it that did not ring true?
    He must not go too fast, or the elusive truth might be frightened away before he had time to grasp it.
    Cécile…the bag…the broom closet…
    The strangled aunt…
    Because the young woman with the squint had also been strangled, it had been assumed that the two murders…
    He heaved a sigh of relief and took a deep draught of frothy beer.
    Everybody, himself included, had been looking for a single murderer, and that was why they were going around in circles, like a sightless horse on a merry-go-round.
    But why not two? He had had vague doubts from the start.
    “
L’Intransigeant,
late extra!
L’Intransigeant,
late extra! Read all about it!”
    He bought the paper. The picture on the front page caused him to frown. It was of himself, looking fatter than he believed himself to be, biting fiercely on his pipe, with his hand on the shoulder of a young man in a trench coat, who was none other than Gérard. He could not remember having put his hand on Cécile’s brother’s shoulder. Presumably it had been a reflex action.
    The reporter had thought it significant. The caption read as follows:
Does this mean nothing, or can it be that Chief Superintendent Maigret is laying his heavy hand on a cringing murderer
?
    “Idiot!…Waiter!…My bill!”
    He was furious and yet, at the same time, pleased. He left La Coupole with a lighter tread than when he had gone in there from the movies. Taxi. What the hell! What if the accounts department did query it on the grounds that the métro was the