The Hotel Majestic Read Online Free PDF Page A

if I hadn’t got so fat, I wouldn’t have needed to work in the cloakroom in a club in the Rue Fontaine . . . Oh, Prosper . . . did you remember the payment on the wireless?”
    â€œYes, it’s all done . . .”
    An agricultural programme was announced on the radio and Charlotte switched it off, noticed that her dressing-gown was open and pinned it together with a large nappy pin. Some leftovers were heating in a pan on the stove. Charlotte wondered whether to lay the table. And Prosper Donge didn’t know what to do or where to go.
    â€œWe could go into the sitting-room . . .” he suggested.
    â€œYou forget there’s no fire there . . . You’ll freeze! . . . If you two want to talk, I can go up and get dressed . . . You see, superintendent, we play a sort of game of musical chairs . . . When I get back, he goes out . . . When he gets back it’s almost time for me to go, and we just about have time to have something to eat together . . . And even our days off hardly ever seem to coincide, so that when he has a free day he has to get his own lunch . . . Would you like a drink? . . . Can you get him something, Prosper? . . . I’ll go up . . .”
    Maigret hurriedly interrupted: “Not at all, madame . . . Do please stay . . . I’m just off . . . You see a crime was committed this morning, at the Majestic . . . I wanted to ask your . . . your friend a few questions, as the crime occurred in the basement, at a time when he was almost the only person down there.”
    He had to make an effort to continue the cruel game, because Donge’s face—did he look like a fish, or was it a sheep?—Donge’s face expressed so much painful anguish. He was trying to keep calm. He almost succeeded. But at the cost of how much inner turmoil?
    Only Charlotte seemed unmoved, and calmly poured out the drinks in small gold-rimmed glasses.
    â€œSomething to do with one of the staff?” she said with surprise, but still unperturbed.
    â€œIn the basement, but not one of the staff . . . That is what is so puzzling about the whole affair . . . Imagine to yourself a hotel guest, from one of the luxury suites, staying at the Majestic with her husband, her son, a nanny and a governess . . . A suite costing more than a thousand francs a day . . . Well, at six o’clock in the morning she is strangled, not in her room, but in the cloakroom in the basement . . . In all probability, the crime was committed there . . . What was the woman doing in the basement? Who had lured her down there, and why? . . . Especially at a time when people of that sort are usually still fast asleep . . .”
    It was barely noticeable: a slight knitting of the brows, as if an idea had occurred to Charlotte and was immediately dismissed. A quick glance at Prosper who was warming his hands over the stove. He had very white hands, with square fingers, covered with red hairs.
    But Maigret continued relentlessly: “It won’t be easy to find out what this Mrs. Clark had come down to the basement to do . . .”
    He held his breath, forced himself to remain motionless, to look as if he were studying the oilcloth tablecloth. You could have heard a pin drop.
    Maigret seemed to be trying to give Charlotte time to regain her composure. She had frozen. Her mouth was half open, but no words came out. Then they heard her make a vague noise which sounded like: “Ah!”
    Too bad! It was his job. His duty.
    â€œI was wondering if you knew her . . .”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œNot by the name of Mrs. Clark, which she has only been called for a little over six years, but under the name of Émilienne, or rather Mimi . . . She was a hostess, in Cannes, at the time when . . .”
    Poor plump Charlotte! What a bad actress she was. Looking at the ceiling like that as if she were racking her memory. Making her eyes look much too rounded and innocent!
    â€œÃ‰milienne? . . . Mimi? . . . No! I