Maigret's Dead Man by Georges Simenon Page A

the man before he gave Lucas
the slip.

5.
    As the pace of the pursuit grew faster, Maigret
had a growing feeling that he had done it all before. It was something that occasionally
happened to him in dreams, the kind of dreams which even when he was a boy he had feared most.
He would be proceeding through some generally ambiguous surroundings and suddenly feel that he
had been there before, that he had already done the same things and spoken the same words. It
made his head spin, especially when he was aware that he was actually living through situations
he had already lived through once before.
    He had already followed the course of this
manhunt, which now began on Quai de Charenton, from his office when Albert’s panicky voice
had kept him abreast hour by hour of the progress of his growing fear. And now the tension was
mounting again. Along the whole length of Quai de Bercy, now almost deserted, the man who was
walking past the row of wrought-iron gates with long, springy strides would turn round from time
to time and then accelerate away when he invariably saw the stocky figure of Lucas.
    Maigret, sitting next to the driver of his taxi,
followed at a distance and was struck by the difference between the two men! There was something
animal-like about the first man’s walk and the way he kept looking over his shoulder.Even when he started to run, his movements remained graceful.
    Hot on his heels, Lucas, flabby, his paunch
sticking out a little as usual, made him think of those mongrel dogs which look like sausages
with legs but stay with the scent of the boar better than the most renowned breeds of
bloodhounds.
    You would have backed the redhead over him every
time. Maigret too: when he saw that the man was making the most of the fact that there was no
one about on the Quai to forge ahead, he told the driver to go faster. But there was no need.
The odd thing was that Lucas did not look as if he was running. He retained his conventional air
of a respectable Parisian out for a stroll and just went waddling on.
    When the stranger heard the sound of footsteps
behind him, when he half-turned his head and saw Maigret in a taxi drawing almost level with
him, he realized that there was nothing to be gained from getting out of breath and attracting
attention to himself and slowed to a more normal pace.
    During the course of that afternoon, thousands of
people would pass them in the streets and public squares and, as had been the case with Albert,
not one of them would have any inkling of the drama which was being played out.
    By the time they were crossing Pont
d’Austerlitz, the foreigner – in Maigret’s mind, he was definitely a foreigner
– was beginning to look more anxious. He continued along Quai Henri-IV. He was getting
ready to make hismove, that much was clear from his manner. Then, just as
they reached the Saint-Paul district, with the taxi still following him, he took off again, this
time darting into the maze of narrow streets which stretches between Rue Saint-Antoine and the
embankment.
    Maigret almost lost him when a lorry blocked one
of the alleyways.
    Children playing on the pavement watched the two
men run past. Maigret eventually caught up with them two streets further on. Lucas had barely
raised a sweat and still looked very respectable in his buttoned-up overcoat. He even had the
presence of mind to wink at Maigret as if to say:
    â€˜Not to worry!’
    He was not to know that the hunt, followed by
Maigret from the front seat of a car without tiring himself out, would last for several hours.
Nor that it would turn more relentless the longer it went on.
    It was after the phone call that the man began to
lose his confidence. He had walked into a small bar in Rue Saint-Antoine. Lucas had followed him
in.
    â€˜Is he going to arrest him?’ asked
the taxi-driver, who knew Maigret.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    To his mind, a man who is being followed is a man
who will be