The Night at the Crossroads by Georges Simenon

than I! The Belgian who was murdered …’
    â€˜No kidding!’
    â€˜Whose job was it to knock off the Danish fellow on the Compiègne road?’
    â€˜Somebody got knocked off?’
    No doubt about it: Maigret’s first impression was
panning out. He was up against a well-organized professional gang. And he soon had more proof. He heard a car coming, then a screech of brakes as it
stopped outside the iron shutter. The horn sounded urgently.
    Maigret rushed to the door, but before he could open it, the car sped away so fast he could not even guess its model.
    Clenching his fists, he went back to the mechanic.
    â€˜How did you warn him off?’
    â€˜Me?’
    And the fellow chuckled, holding up his wrists in their wire bonds.
    â€˜Talk!’
    â€˜Must be that it smells fishy here and that driver’s got a good nose …’
    Now Maigret was worried. He overturned the cot roughly, sending Jojo sprawling, and looked for a possible switch for a warning signal outside.
    He found nothing under the bed, however. He left the man lying on the floor, went outside and saw the five pumps lit up as usual.
    He was beginning to get really angry.
    â€˜There’s no phone in the garage?’
    â€˜Go and take a look!’
    â€˜You do know you’ll talk in the end …’
    â€˜I can’t hear you!’
    There was nothing more to be got from Jojo, a perfect example of a confident, experienced criminal. For a quarter of an hour, Maigret walked up and down fifty metres
of the main road, searching without
success for some possible signal.
    The upstairs light at the Michonnet villa had been turned off. Only the Three Widows house was still lit, and the presence of the policemen surrounding the property was discreetly felt.
    A limousine barrelled past.
    â€˜What kind of car does your boss have?’
    To the east, dawn announced itself with a whitish haze that barely cleared the horizon.
    Maigret studied the mechanic’s hands. They were not touching anything that might have sent a signal.
    A current of cool air came in through the little door standing open in the corrugated iron shutter over the garage.
    Hearing the sound of an engine, Maigret started to go out to the road, but just as he noticed the approach of an open four-seater touring car, which wasn’t doing more than thirty kilometres an hour and seemed about to pull in, the car
exploded with gunfire.
    Several men were shooting and bullets were rattling against the iron shutter.
    Nothing could be seen except the glare of the headlights and the immobile shadows – heads, rather – just showing above the body of the car. Then came the roar of the accelerator …
    Some broken windows … on the upper floor of the Three Widows house. The men in the car had kept shooting as they’d gone past.
    Maigret had thrown himself flat on the ground and now stood up, his mouth dry, his pipe gone out.
    He was certain: Monsieur Oscar had been driving the car that had just plunged back into the darkness.

8. Missing Persons
    Before the chief inspector even had time to get out on to the road, a taxi raced up and slammed on its brakes in front of the petrol pumps. A man jumped out – and collided with Maigret.
    â€˜Grandjean!’ exclaimed the chief inspector.
    â€˜Petrol, quick!’
    The taxi driver was a nervous wreck, because he’d been speeding at over a hundred kilometres an hour in a car meant to do eighty at most.
    Grandjean belonged to the highway patrol; there were two other inspectors in the taxi with him, and each man gripped a revolver in both fists.
    The petrol tank was filled with feverish haste.
    â€˜How far ahead are they?’
    â€˜About five kilometres …’
    The driver was waiting to take off again.
    â€˜You stay here!’ Maigret ordered Grandjean. ‘The other two will continue on without you.
    â€˜Don’t take any risks!’ he advised them.