and
stretched.
‘If you’d like to come into my pad
… but I warn you it stinks and the ceiling’s low. While I was here on my own,
I thought it best to be out here and bar the way,
you understand?’
‘How did you manage to
telephone?’
‘Exactly … I’d been waiting for
an opportunity all morning. ’Cause we’ve been here a while. Since six o’clock
this morning.’
He opened the door of number 13, and Maigret
glimpsed an iron bedstead painted black and an ugly reddish blanket, a straw-bottomed chair and
a basin with no jug on a pedestal table. The third-floor rooms were under the eaves and, from
the centre of the room, you had to stoop.
‘Let’s not stay here because
he’s as slippery as an eel. He’s already tried to run off twice this morning. At one
point I thought he might try and escape over the rooftops, but I realized that it’s
impossible.’
The gas works opposite, with its coal-blackened
yards. Mimile had the tousled look of someone who hadn’t slept and hadn’t
washed.
‘We’re actually better off on the
stairs and it doesn’t smell so bad. Here it stinks of sick flesh, don’t you find?
Like the smell of an old dressing.’
Georges-Henry was asleep, or was pretending to
be, because when they pressed their ears to the door, they could not hear a sound from his room.
The two men stayed on the staircase and Mimile explained, chain-smoking to catch up:
‘First of all, how I managed to telephone
you. I didn’t want to leave my stakeout, as you police call it. But on the other hand, I
had to contact you, as we’d agreed. At one
point, at around nine o’clock, a woman came down, the one
from number 14. I thought of asking her to give you a call, or to get a message to Quai des
Orfèvres. Except that here, it might not be a very good idea to mention the police and I
might have got myself thrown out.
‘“Better wait for another
opportunity, Mimile,” I said to myself. “This is no time to get into a
fight.”
‘When I saw the fellow from number 11
coming out of his room, I knew at once that he was a Pole. When it comes to Polish, I’m
your man, I speak a bit of their language.
‘I started to chat to him and he was very
happy to hear his lingo. I told him some story about a chick. That she was in the room. That she
wanted to ditch me. In short, he agreed to stand guard for the few minutes I needed to go
downstairs and telephone.’
‘Are you sure the kid is still in
there?’
Mimile gave him a cheeky wink and took from his
pocket a pair of pliers with which he gripped the tip of the key that was on the inside of the
door but was protruding slightly from the keyhole.
He beckoned to Maigret to come over quietly and,
with an extraordinarily gentle movement, he turned the key and opened the door a crack.
Maigret peered in and, in a room just like the
one next door, whose window was open, he saw the young man stretched out fully clothed across
the bed.
He was asleep, there was no doubt about it. He
slept as boys of that age sleep, his features relaxed, his mouth half-open in a childlike pout.
He had not taken his shoes off and one of his feet hung over the end of the bed.
Mimile shut the door again just as gently.
‘Now let me tell you what happened. That
was a brilliant idea of yours to have me take my bicycle. And an even more brilliant idea of
mine to hide it near the level crossing.
‘You remember how he raced off. A real
rabbit. He zigzagged through the gardens and dived into the undergrowth hoping to shake me
off.
‘At one point, we went through a hedge, one
after the other, and I still didn’t manage to catch sight of him. It was the sound that
told me that he was making for a house. Not exactly towards the house, but towards a sort of
shed from which I saw him take out a bicycle.’
‘His grandmother’s house,’
added Maigret. ‘The bike must have been a woman’s bike, the one belonging to his
cousin Monita.’
‘A woman’s bike, yes. He jumped on
stretched.
‘If you’d like to come into my pad
… but I warn you it stinks and the ceiling’s low. While I was here on my own,
I thought it best to be out here and bar the way,
you understand?’
‘How did you manage to
telephone?’
‘Exactly … I’d been waiting for
an opportunity all morning. ’Cause we’ve been here a while. Since six o’clock
this morning.’
He opened the door of number 13, and Maigret
glimpsed an iron bedstead painted black and an ugly reddish blanket, a straw-bottomed chair and
a basin with no jug on a pedestal table. The third-floor rooms were under the eaves and, from
the centre of the room, you had to stoop.
‘Let’s not stay here because
he’s as slippery as an eel. He’s already tried to run off twice this morning. At one
point I thought he might try and escape over the rooftops, but I realized that it’s
impossible.’
The gas works opposite, with its coal-blackened
yards. Mimile had the tousled look of someone who hadn’t slept and hadn’t
washed.
‘We’re actually better off on the
stairs and it doesn’t smell so bad. Here it stinks of sick flesh, don’t you find?
Like the smell of an old dressing.’
Georges-Henry was asleep, or was pretending to
be, because when they pressed their ears to the door, they could not hear a sound from his room.
The two men stayed on the staircase and Mimile explained, chain-smoking to catch up:
‘First of all, how I managed to telephone
you. I didn’t want to leave my stakeout, as you police call it. But on the other hand, I
had to contact you, as we’d agreed. At one
point, at around nine o’clock, a woman came down, the one
from number 14. I thought of asking her to give you a call, or to get a message to Quai des
Orfèvres. Except that here, it might not be a very good idea to mention the police and I
might have got myself thrown out.
‘“Better wait for another
opportunity, Mimile,” I said to myself. “This is no time to get into a
fight.”
‘When I saw the fellow from number 11
coming out of his room, I knew at once that he was a Pole. When it comes to Polish, I’m
your man, I speak a bit of their language.
‘I started to chat to him and he was very
happy to hear his lingo. I told him some story about a chick. That she was in the room. That she
wanted to ditch me. In short, he agreed to stand guard for the few minutes I needed to go
downstairs and telephone.’
‘Are you sure the kid is still in
there?’
Mimile gave him a cheeky wink and took from his
pocket a pair of pliers with which he gripped the tip of the key that was on the inside of the
door but was protruding slightly from the keyhole.
He beckoned to Maigret to come over quietly and,
with an extraordinarily gentle movement, he turned the key and opened the door a crack.
Maigret peered in and, in a room just like the
one next door, whose window was open, he saw the young man stretched out fully clothed across
the bed.
He was asleep, there was no doubt about it. He
slept as boys of that age sleep, his features relaxed, his mouth half-open in a childlike pout.
He had not taken his shoes off and one of his feet hung over the end of the bed.
Mimile shut the door again just as gently.
‘Now let me tell you what happened. That
was a brilliant idea of yours to have me take my bicycle. And an even more brilliant idea of
mine to hide it near the level crossing.
‘You remember how he raced off. A real
rabbit. He zigzagged through the gardens and dived into the undergrowth hoping to shake me
off.
‘At one point, we went through a hedge, one
after the other, and I still didn’t manage to catch sight of him. It was the sound that
told me that he was making for a house. Not exactly towards the house, but towards a sort of
shed from which I saw him take out a bicycle.’
‘His grandmother’s house,’
added Maigret. ‘The bike must have been a woman’s bike, the one belonging to his
cousin Monita.’
‘A woman’s bike, yes. He jumped on
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