Liberty Bar by Georges Simenon Page A

couldn’t see any
     within reach!
    ‘Then whatever you like … A
     port maybe …’
    Maigret poured some liquid or other in the
     first glass he could find. The man barely sipped it.
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Two francs.’
    Maigret alternately observed the street,
     still bathed in
warm sunshine, the small bar opposite, where he could
     see moving shapes, and the back room, where Jaja had sat down again.
    The customer left, wondering what sort of
     place he had landed up in, and Maigret returned to the back room and sat down astride
     his chair.
    Jaja’s demeanour had changed
     somewhat. Earlier, she had looked worried, and it was obvious she didn’t know what
     to think. Now, her anxiety seemed more focused. She looked at Sylvie pensively, a look
     of pity with a barb of rancour. She seemed to be saying: ‘It’s a fine mess
     that you have got yourself into! It won’t be easy to find a way out of
     it!’
    She said out loud:
    ‘You know, inspector … Men can
     be strange …’
    Her words lacked conviction, and she knew
     it. As did Sylvie, who shrugged her shoulders.
    ‘He saw her at the funeral this
     morning and he must have desired her … He is so rich that …’
    Maigret sighed, lit another pipe and let
     his gaze wander to the window.
    There was an ominous atmosphere in the
     room. Sylvie was keeping her mouth shut for fear of making things worse. She
     wasn’t crying, wasn’t moving, just waiting for who knows what.
    Only the small alarm clock kept working,
     pushing its black hands, which seemed too heavy for it, laboriously round its pale clock
     face.
    Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock
     …
    Jaja was not made for such dramas. She got
     up and went to fetch a bottle of alcohol from the cupboard. As if nothingwere going on, she filled three glasses and slid one across to
     Maigret, another to Sylvie, without saying a word.
    The twenty thousand francs were still on
     the table, next to the handbag.
    Tick tock, tick …
    And so it went on, for an hour and a half!
     An hour and a half of silence, interspersed only by Jaja’s sighs. As she drank,
     her eyes became glassy.
    Occasionally some children would play and
     shout out in the street. At other times there was the insistent sound of a tram bell
     somewhere in the distance. The door of the bar opened. An Arab poked his head through
     the gap and called out:
    ‘Peanuts?’
    He waited a moment then, receiving no
     response, closed the door again and left.
    It was six o’clock before the door
     opened again, and this time the stir it created in the back room suggested that this was
     the moment Maigret had been waiting for. Jaja was about to get up to run to the bar, but
     a look from him stopped her in her tracks. Sylvie turned her head away, feigning
     indifference.
    The second door opened. Joseph came in. He
     saw Maigret’s back first of all, then the table, the glasses, the bottle, the open
     handbag, the banknotes.
    The inspector turned round slowly, and the
     new arrival, quite motionless, merely muttered:
    ‘Damn!’
    ‘Close the door … Take a seat
     …’
    The waiter closed the door, but he
     didn’t sit. He scowled,
looked annoyed, but he didn’t lose
     his cool. Quite the opposite: he went up to Jaja and kissed her on the forehead.
    ‘Hello …’
    Then he did the same to Sylvie, who
     didn’t raise her head.
    ‘What’s going on?’
    From that moment Maigret realized that he
     was on the wrong track. But, as always in such situations, he pressed on even more
     stubbornly as he felt himself become more entangled.
    ‘Where have you come
     from?’
    ‘Guess!’
    And he took a wallet from his pocket and
     took out a small card, which he handed to Maigret. It was an identity card, the sort
     given to foreigners resident in France.
    ‘I was late … I went to renew
     it at the Préfecture …’
    The card did indeed bear today’s
     date, the name: ‘Joseph Ambrosini, born Milan, profession: hotel
     employee’.
    ‘Did you meet Harry