Friend of Madame Maigret Read Online Free PDF

behavior.
    Since there wasn’t even a corpse, for certain, but merely two teeth, the whole thing was not at all tragic and it seemed rather like a game.
    Maigret got out of the cab opposite the Grand Turenne, glanced inside, saw no one from Headquarters, walked a few steps, and found himself in front of the bookbinder’s workshop, where the shutters had been up and the door closed for the last three weeks. There was no bell, and he knocked, knowing that Fernande ought to be at home.
    It was in the morning that she went out. Every day since the arrest of Frans, in fact, she would leave at ten o’clock, carrying three small casseroles that fitted onto one another and were held by a frame surmounted by a handle.
    It was her husband’s meal that she carried to the Santé Gaol in this way, by métro.
    Maigret had to knock a second time and saw her emerge from the staircase that connected the workshop with the basement. She recognized him, turned round to speak to someone out of sight, and finally came to let him in.
    She was in slippers and wore a check apron. Seeing her like this, a bit overweight, her face bare of makeup, no one would have recognized the woman who once walked the little streets adjoining the boulevard de Sébastopol. She looked for all the world like a domesticated woman, a meticulous housewife, and in normal times she was probably a cheerful soul.
    â€œIs it me you want to see?” she asked, not without a suggestion of weariness.
    â€œIs anyone with you?”
    She did not answer, and Maigret walked over to the stairs, went down a few steps, leaned over, and frowned.
    He had already been informed of the presence in the neighborhood of Alfonsi, who liked to drink an aperitif with the journalists in the Tabac des Vosges, but avoided setting foot in the Grand Turenne.
    He was standing, very much at home, in the kitchen, where something was simmering on the stove, and even though he was slightly embarrassed he managed an ironical smile for the chief inspector.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?”
    â€œYou can see for yourself: paying a visit, like you. I have a right to, haven’t I?”
    Alfonsi had been attached to Police Headquarters but not in Maigret’s department. For a few years he had been in the Vice Squad, where it had finally been made clear to him that in spite of all his political pull he was unwanted.
    Short in stature, he wore very high heels to make himself taller, possibly with a pack of cards inside his shoes, as some people hinted, and he was always dressed with exaggerated elegance, a big diamond, genuine or paste, on his finger.
    He had opened a private detective agency, in the rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, of which he was both proprietor and sole employee, assisted only by a vague secretary who was primarily his mistress and with whom he was to be seen in the evenings in nightclubs.
    When Maigret had been told of his presence in the rue de Turenne, the chief inspector had at first thought that the ex-detective was trying to pick up bits of information that he could later sell to newspapermen.
    Then he had discovered that he was in the pay of Philippe Liotard.
    It was the first time he had crossed his path in person, and he muttered:
    â€œI’m waiting.”
    â€œWhat are you waiting for?”
    â€œFor you to go.”
    â€œThat’s too bad, because I’m not through yet.”
    â€œSuit yourself.”
    Maigret made as though to leave.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?”
    â€œCall one of my men and put a tail on you day and night. I have a right to do that, too.”
    â€œAll right! That’s fine! No need to get nasty, Monsieur Maigret!”
    He set off up the stairs, with an air of being quite at home in the underworld, winking at Fernande before he left.
    â€œDoes he come here often?” asked Maigret.
    â€œThis is the second time.”
    â€œI advise you not to trust him.”
    â€œI know. I know his