The Late Monsieur Gallet Read Online Free PDF Page A

him.
    â€˜It was a young man sitting over there, to the left of that pillar. He had an unhealthy complexion.’
    It was beginning to get hot, and Maigret no longer felt the same bored indifference as he had early in the morning.
    â€˜Did he have a long face? Thin lips?’
    â€˜Yes, a kind of a wide mouth with a scornful look to it. He didn’t want coffee or a liqueur or anything … some guests are like that, you know …’
    What had made Maigret think of the photograph of the lad dressed for his First Communion?
    The inspector was forty-five years old. He had spent half his life in various branches of the police force: Vice Squad, Traffic, Drug Squad, Railway Police, Gambling Squad. It was quite enough to dispel any vaguely mystical ideas and kill faith
in intuition stone dead.
    But all the same, for almost twenty-four hours he had been haunted by those two portrait photographs, father and son, and also by an ordinary little phrase from Madame Gallet: ‘He was on a diet …’
    It was without any very clear idea in his mind that he made for the post office and a telephone, and asked for the town hall of Saint-Fargeau.
    â€˜Hello. Police Judiciaire … can you tell me when Monsieur Gallet’s funeral is taking place?’
    â€˜At eight o’clock tomorrow.’
    â€˜In Saint-Fargeau?’
    â€˜Here, yes.’
    â€˜One more question! Who am I speaking to?’
    â€˜The Saint-Fargeau schoolteacher.’
    â€˜Do you know Monsieur Gallet junior?’
    â€˜Well, I’ve seen him several times. He came for the papers this morning.’
    â€˜What does he look like?’
    â€˜How do you mean?’
    â€˜Is he tall, thin?’
    â€˜Yes … yes, rather.’
    â€˜Does he wear glasses?’
    â€˜Wait a minute. Yes, now I remember. Horn-rimmed glasses.’
    â€˜You don’t happen to know if he’s unwell?’
    â€˜How would I know? He’s pale, certainly.’
    â€˜Thank you very much.’
    Ten minutes later, the inspector was back at the Commercial.
    â€˜Madame, can you tell me whether your guest at lunch on Saturday wore glasses?’
    The cashier searched her memory and finally shook her head. ‘Yes … well, no, I can’t remember. We get so much passing trade in the summer! It was his mouth I noticed most. In fact, I even said to the waiter, that man has a
mouth like a toad’s …’
    It took Maigret longer to track the road-mender down, because he was busy drinking his fifty francs away with some friends in a little bistro tucked away behind the church.
    â€˜You told me that the man you saw wore glasses.’
    â€˜The young one, that’s right. Not the old one.’
    â€˜What sort of glasses?’
    â€˜Well, round, know what I mean? With dark rims …’
    On getting up that morning, Maigret had been glad to hear that the body had been taken away. And Madame Gallet, the magistrate, the doctor and the local police officers had also left. He hoped that now he could focus on an objective problem at
last, and put the strange appearance of the old man with the beard out of his mind.
    He took the train for Saint-Fargeau at three in the afternoon.
    For a start all he had seen of Émile Gallet was a photograph. Then he had seen half his face.
    Now all he would find would be a coffin permanently closed. And yet, as the train moved away, he had the disagreeable feeling that he was running after the dead man.
    Back in Sancerre a disappointed Monsieur Tardivon told his regulars as he offered them a glass of Armagnac:
    â€˜A man who looked the serious kind … a man of our own age! And he heads off without even going into the room! Do you want to see the place
where he died
? Funny thing, that. However, the Nevers police are no
better … when they took the body away they drew its outline on the floor first, in chalk. Mind you don’t