Maigret by Georges Simenon

any notice of him.’
    ‘And then?’
    ‘And then I
     left. The cinema gave me a headache, so I went for a stroll along the boulevards. As
     I was crossing the road, I was hit by a vehicle and I ended up sitting at the base
     of a tree, injured. That gentleman was there. He told me I’d been knocked down
     by a car. I asked him to take me home, but he refused and took me to a hotel
     room.’
    A door had opened to admit the chief of
     the Police Judiciaire, who stood silently, leaning against the wall.
    ‘What did you tell him?’
    ‘Nothing at all. He’s the
     one who did all the talking. He spoke of people I don’t know and he wanted me
     to come here and state that they were friends of mine.’
    A chubby blue pencil in his hand,
     Amadieu scribbled the occasional note on his blotting pad, while the secretary
     recorded the full statement.
    ‘Excuse me!’ broke in the
     chief. ‘This is all very well. But tell us what you were doing at three in the
     morning on Boulevard de La Chapelle.’
    ‘I had a headache.’
    ‘I wouldn’t try and be
     clever, if I were you. When you’ve got four convictions already—’
    ‘Excuse me! For the first two, I
     was granted an amnesty. You’re not allowed to mention them.’
    Maigret merely watched and listened. He
     smoked his pipe, the smell filling the office while the smoke curled upwards in the
     sunshine.
    ‘We’ll see about that in a
     few minutes.’
    Audiat was taken into a neighbouring
     room. Amadieu telephoned:
    ‘Bring in Eugène
     Berniard.’
    The latter entered,
     smiling and relaxed. He glanced quickly around the room to identify who was sitting
     where, and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.
    ‘What were you doing last
     night?’ repeated Amadieu listlessly.
    ‘Well, inspector, I had a
     toothache, so I had an early night. Why don’t you ask the night watchman from
     the Hôtel Alsina?’
    ‘What time did you go to
     bed?’
    ‘Midnight.’
    ‘And you didn’t drop in to
     the Tabac Fontaine?’
    ‘Where’s that?’
    ‘Just a moment! Do you know a
     certain Audiat?’
    ‘What does he look like? One meets
     so many people in Montmartre!’
    Maigret was finding it increasingly
     difficult to sit still.
    ‘Bring in Audiat!’ said
     Amadieu into the telephone.
    Audiat and Eugène stared at each other
     with curiosity.
    ‘Do you know each
     other?’
    ‘Never seen him before!’
     grunted Eugène.
    ‘Pleased to meet you!’ joked
     Audiat.
    They barely bothered to put on an act.
     Their eyes were laughing, belying their words.
    ‘So you weren’t playing
belote
together last night at the Tabac Fontaine?’
    One stared wide-eyed, the other burst
     out laughing.
    ‘I’m afraid you’re
     mistaken,
monsieur l’inspecteur
.’
    The fellow from Marseille had just
     arrived, and was brought in to face the other two. He held out his hand to
     Eugène.
    ‘Do you know each
     other?’
    ‘Of course! We
     were together.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘At the Hôtel Alsina. Our rooms
     are next to each other.’
    The chief of the Police Judiciaire
     signalled to Maigret to follow him.
    They paced up and down one end of the
     corridor where Louis was still waiting, not far from Germain Cageot.
    ‘What do you intend to do?’
     The chief shot his companion an anxious look.
    ‘Is it true they tried to kill
     you?’ he asked.
    Maigret did not answer. Unfazed, Cageot
     watched him with the same irony as Audiat and Eugène.
    ‘If only I could have questioned
     them myself,’ Maigret sighed at length.
    ‘You know that isn’t
     possible. But we’ll carry on with the face-to-face confrontations for as long
     as you wish.’
    ‘Thank you, chief.’
    Maigret knew that it would be pointless.
     The five men were in cahoots. They had taken precautions. And it wasn’t the
     questions that Amadieu was asking in his lugubrious tone that would force them to
     confess.
    ‘I don’t know whether you
     are right or wrong,’ the chief added.
    They walked past