Friend of Madame Maigret by Georges Simenon Page B

deserted staircase, to the attic floor of the Palais de Justice, where the laboratories and records were housed.
    It was already nearly dark, and in the badly lighted staircase, which was like some hidden stairway in a castle, Maigret was preceded by his own gigantic shadow.
    In a corner of an attic under the mansard roof, Moers, a green eyeshade on his forehead, his thick spectacles before his eyes, was working under a lamp that he would move closer to or farther away from his work by pulling a wire.
    This was someone who had not been to the rue de Turenne to question the locals, nor to drink Pernods and white wine in one of the three bars. He had never shadowed anyone in the street, nor spent the night keeping watch outside a closed door.
    He never got upset, didn’t turn irritable, yet perhaps tomorrow morning would find him still hunched over his desk. Once he had even spent three consecutive days and nights at it.
    Maigret, without saying a word, had drawn up a cane-bottomed chair, sat down near the inspector, and lighted his pipe, on which he was puffing gently. Hearing a rhythmic sound on a skylight above his head, he realized that the weather had changed and it had begun to rain.
    â€œLook at these, Chief,” Moers was saying, handing him, like a pack of cards, a stack of photographs.
    It was a magnificent job he had turned out, alone in his corner. From the vague specifications that he had been given he had somehow brought to life, endowed with personality, three people of whom almost nothing was known: the fat, dark foreigner, with the elegant clothes, the young woman with the white hat, and finally the accomplice who “looked like a man who sells fancy postcards.”
    To achieve this he had at his disposal hundreds of thousands of record cards, but he was certainly the only person who carried enough of their data in his head to be capable of the job he had just patiently achieved.
    The first batch, which Maigret was examining, contained around forty photographs of stout, well-groomed men, Greeks or Levantines in type, with sleek hair, rings on their fingers.
    â€œI’m not too pleased with those,” sighed Moers, as if he had been faced with selecting the ideal cast for a film. “You can give them a try anyhow. As far as I’m concerned, I like these better.”
    There were only about fifteen photos in the second batch, and every one of them made one feel like applauding, they bore such a resemblance to one’s mental picture of the person described by the manageress of the Beauséjour.
    Turning them over, Maigret learned the profession of the subjects. Two or three were racecourse tipsters. There was a pickpocket who was especially familiar to him because he had personally arrested him on a bus, and an individual who hung around the doors of big hotels touting for certain specialized establishments.
    A satisfied little spark was dancing in Moers’s eyes.
    â€œIt’s amusing, isn’t it? I’ve hardly got anything on the woman, because our photos never show hats. But I’m keeping at it.”
    Maigret, who had slipped the photographs into his pocket, stayed a few minutes longer just because he felt like it, then, with a sigh, went on to the laboratory next door, where they were still working on the food contained in Fernande’s casseroles.
    They hadn’t found anything. Either the story was a complete fabrication for some purpose which he couldn’t guess, or they hadn’t had time to introduce the poison, or else it had been in the section that had all been spilled in the métro carriage.
    Maigret avoided going back through the Headquarters offices and came out into the rain on the Quai des Orfèvres, turned up his coat collar, walked toward the Pont Saint-Michel and had to hail about ten taxis before one stopped.
    â€œPlace Blanche. Corner of the rue Lepic.”
    He felt out of sorts, dissatisfied with himself and with the way the case was