Maigret in New York Read Online Free PDF

your expressions in
mind and often repeat them to my colleagues … Ah! Yes: As for that other matter,
let
it go
.
    ‘I know perfectly well you won’t do that. So, if
you feel like it, you could come by now and then for a chat.
    ‘I can’t keep a man like you from asking me
questions, can I?
    ‘And there are some questions it’s very hard not
to answer.
    ‘For example! Look, I’m sure you’d like to see my
office … I remember yours, with the windows overlooking the Seine. The view from mine is
more prosaic: a big black wall and a parking lot.
    ‘Admit it: the Armagnac is excellent and this
little bistro, as you folks call it, isn’t bad at all.’
    As
in certain Paris restaurants, they had to compliment the
patronne
(and even the chef,
whom she’d fetched from the kitchen), promise to come again, have one last drink and finally
sign a somewhat greasy guest book.
    A little later the two men piled into a taxi, and
O’Brien barked an address at the driver.
    They both smoked their pipes in the back seat
during a rather long silence. They both happened to open their mouths to speak at the same
instant and turned towards each other, smiling at the coincidence.
    ‘What were you going to say?’
    ‘And you?’
    ‘Probably the same thing you were.’
    ‘I was about to say,’ the American began, ‘that,
judging from what you’ve told me, MacGill did not want you to meet his boss.’
    ‘My thought exactly. Yet I was surprised not to
find Little John any more anxious than his secretary to obtain news of his son. You follow
me?’
    ‘And then it’s MacGill who goes to a lot of
trouble – or pretends to – trying to find the young man.’
    ‘And who put himself out on my behalf. He told me
he would call by tomorrow morning with any news.’
    ‘Does he know we’re having this discussion
tonight?’
    ‘I did not mention it to him.’
    ‘He suspects something. Not that you’re meeting
me, just someone from the police. Given the contacts you’ve had with the American authorities,
that’s inevitable … And in that case …’
    ‘In that case?’
    ‘Nothing … Here we are.’
    They entered a large building and a few moments
later emerged from an elevator into a corridor with numbered doors. O’Brien unlocked one and
switched on the light.
    ‘Sit down … I’ll show you around the
premises another time because right now you wouldn’t see the place at its best. Will you forgive
me if I leave you on your own for a few minutes?’
    Those few minutes turned into a long quarter of
an hour, during which Maigret found himself thinking of nothing but Little John. It was odd:
he’d seen the man for only a few brief moments. Their conversation had been, in fact, fairly
banal. Nevertheless, as the inspector was suddenly realizing, Maura had made a strong impression
on him.
    He could still see him: short, thin, dressed
almost too correctly. There was nothing special about his face. So what was it about him that
had struck Maigret so forcefully?
    He was intrigued. He concentrated on remembering,
recalled the slightest actions of the lean and tense little man.
    And he abruptly remembered his gaze, his first
look above all, when Maura had not yet known that he was being observed, as he half-opened the
door to the other room.
    Little John had cold eyes!
    Maigret would have been hard put to explain what
he meant by that, but he knew it nonetheless. Four or five times in his life, he had met people
with cold eyes, those eyes
that can stare at you
without establishing any human contact, without giving any sense of the universal human need to
communicate with one’s fellow man.
    The inspector had come to speak to the man about
his son, this boy to whom he sent letters as tender as love notes, and Little John was observing
him without any curiosity or emotion, as if he were looking at a chair or a stain on the
wall.
    ‘You’re not annoyed that I left you alone so
long?’
    ‘No, because I think I’ve just