The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien by Georges Simenon Page B

five in the
     afternoon. A citizen of Liège who’s made it big abroad even though he’s
     still quite a young man! His father was a doctor, and him, he’s got a fine
     business going, in Germany.’
    â€˜Joseph Van Damme?’
    â€˜The very man! But no matter how
     hard he looked, he couldn’t find what he wanted.’
    â€˜Would you
     show me?’
    It was a green index-book of daily
     reports bound in numerical order. Five entries were listed for 15 February: two for
     drunkenness and breach of the peace at night, one for shoplifting, one for assault
     and battery and the last one for breach of close and stealing rabbits.
    Maigret didn’t bother to look at
     them. He simply checked the numbers at the top of each form.
    â€˜Did Monsieur Van Damme consult
     the book himself?’
    â€˜Yes. He took it into the office
     next door.’
    â€˜Thank you!’
    The five reports were numbered 237, 238,
     239, 241 and 242.
    In other words, number 240 was missing
     and had been torn out just as the archived newspapers had been ripped from their
     bindings.
    A few minutes later, Maigret was
     standing in the square behind the town hall, where cars were pulling up to deliver a
     wedding party. In spite of himself, he was straining to catch the faintest sound,
     unable to shake a slight feeling of anxiety that he didn’t like at all.

8. Little Klein
    He had made it just in time: it was nine
     o’clock. The employees of the town hall were arriving for work, crossing the
     main courtyard there and pausing a moment to greet one another on the handsome stone
     steps, at the top of which a doorkeeper with a braided cap and nicely groomed beard
     was smoking his pipe.
    It was a meerschaum. Maigret noticed
     this detail, without knowing why; perhaps because it was glinting in the morning
     sun, because it looked well seasoned and because for a moment the inspector envied
     this man who was smoking in voluptuous little puffs, standing there as a symbol of
     peace and joie de vivre.
    For that morning the air was like a
     tonic that grew more bracing as the sun rose higher into the sky. A delightful
     cacophony reigned, of people shouting in a Walloon dialect, the shrill clanging of
     the red and yellow streetcars, and the splashing of the four jets in the monumental
     Perron Fountain doing its best to be heard over the hubbub of the surrounding Place
     du Marché.
    And when Maigret happened to see Joseph
     Van Damme head up one side of the double staircase leading to the main lobby, he
     hurried after him. Inside the building, the two staircases continued up on opposite
     sides, reuniting on each floor. On one landing, the two men found themselves face to
     face, panting from their exertion, struggling to appear
perfectly at ease before the usher with his silver chain
     of office.
    What happened next was short and swift.
     A question of precision, of split-second timing.
    While dashing up the stairs, Maigret had
     realized that Van Damme had come only to make something disappear, as he had at
     police headquarters and the newspaper archives.
    One of the police reports for 15
     February had already been torn out. But in most cities, didn’t the police send
     a copy of all daily reports to the mayor the next morning?
    â€˜I would like to see the town
     clerk,’ announced Maigret, with Van Damme only two steps behind him.
     ‘It’s urgent …’
    Their eyes met. They hesitated. The
     moment for shaking hands passed. When the usher turned expectantly to the
     businessman from Bremen, he simply murmured, ‘It’s nothing, I’ll
     come back later.’
    He left. The sound of his footsteps died
     away as he crossed the lobby downstairs.
    Shortly afterwards, Maigret was shown
     into an opulent office, where the town clerk – ramrod straight in his morning coat
     and a
very
high collar – quickly began the search for the ten-year-old
     daily police