Mr Hire's Engagement by Georges Simenon

lodge, and Mr. Hire was fixing him with an unblinking stare. The tram jangled its bell and set off towards Paris. In spite of the depressing weather and the sullen faces around him, Mr. Hire stuck out his chest as he had done the night before when he was playing skittles, and sat very upright on his bench. He looked out from under his inky-black eyebrows with the glare that grown-ups turn on noisy children to frighten them into silence. With slow, ceremonious movements, when the conductor approached, he took off his glove, brought out his pocket-book, and produced his season-ticket from it.
    'Boldness does it!'
    At the Port d'Italie he ignored the Métro and seated himself in a bus, in the first-class section, while the inspector stayed outside on the platform. As he drew near to his destination, he was overcome by a kind of giddy impatience. In the Place du Châtelet he literally flung himself out of the bus and scampered along the Quai des Orfèvres.
    'Boldness does it!'
    Not till he was mounting the dusty expanse of stairs in Police Headquarters did he unfold the paper summoning him there for the following day, and read the superintendent's name.
    'Superintendent Godet, please?' he was asking the office-boy a moment later.
    And he shot a piercing glance at the lad, sighed, fidgeted a little with his feet, like a gentleman in a great hurry who ought to be admitted at once.
    'Were you sent for?'
    'Yes . . . No . . . Take him my card . . .'
    An hour went by. At first there were five visitors waiting in the glass-panelled room furnished with green armchairs, at the end of a passage that echoed like a drum, along which people were continually walking, stopping, starting off again, opening doors and walking further. Then there were seven visitors, then only six, then three, then five again. The messenger came from time to time to call one of them, but it was never Mr. Hire.
    'You aren't forgetting me?'
    No! The messenger shook his head, and went up to a nondescript young woman who had been the last to arrive.
    'Was it you who asked to see Monsieur Godet? Will you please come this way?'
    All the same, it was with an air of importance that Mr. Hire paced up and down the waiting-room, his briefcase under his arm, or paused under the tablet bearing the names of policemen killed in the war. At last the messenger came back, jerked his chin at him, and went off along the corridor without attempting to see whether anyone was following him. He opened a door and stood back. A man seated at a mahogany desk, bending over some papers he was signing, said without looking up:
    'Shut the door. Sit down.'
    He went on signing, while Mr. Hire, his briefcase on his knees, made a last attempt to puff out his chest.
    'What do you want?'
    'I had a summons to come here to-morrow.'
    'I know that. Well?'
    He was still signing away. He had not once raised his head, and could hardly know what his visitor looked like.
    'I thought the best thing would be to make a frank, sincere approach . . .'
    The superintendent glanced at him for a fraction of a second, his indifferent expression touched with the merest shade of surprise.
    'You mean you've come to confess?' he inquired simply, as he resumed his writing.
    Mr. Hire made a superhuman effort and spoke in a confident voice.
    'I came of my own accord to talk to you as man to man, and I give you my word of honour, as man to man, that I am innocent and that I never set eyes on that woman who was murdered. We're wasting your time and mine. For the last three days your inspectors have been following me about, searching my drawers and ...'
    'Now wait a minute!'
    The superintendent looked up, his eyes still full of the work he had just been doing.
    'Do you want your interrogation to take place to-day?'
    'I was saying . . .'
    'If so, would you prefer a lawyer to be present?'
    'Since I am innocent, and as I shall explain to you . . .'
    The superintendent touched a bell. Mr. Hire opened his mouth, but the other signed to