Maigret in Montmartre by Georges Simenon Page B

time entirely for the benefit of the newcomers, waving her leg in the air right in front of their noses and ending up with a kiss on the bald pate of one of them. Before going away to change she sat on the other man’s knee and took a sip of champagne from his glass.
    Was that how Arlette went on? She was probably more subtle in her methods.
    The men spoke a little French, but not much. Betty kept repeating to them: ‘ Cinq minutes…Cinq minutes…Moi revenir …” and holding up the fingers of one hand. She did come back a few minutes later, wearing her spangled dress, and called to Désiré of her own accord to bring another bottle.
    Tania, meanwhile, was busy with a solitary client whose gloom deepened as he drank; he held her by one bare knee and was no doubt confiding his conjugal misfortunes to her at great length.
    The two Dutchmen’s hands moved to and fro, but never let go of Betty. They were laughing loudly, their faces growing gradually redder, and bottles were arriving at their table in rapid succession. Once emptied, these bottles were put under the table, and Maigret finally realized that some of them had already been empty when they were brought. That was the trick—as Fred’s glance admitted.
    Maigret had got up once and gone to the cloakroom. There was a lobby here, with brushes, combs, and powder and rouge laid out on a shelf, and Rose had followed him in.
    “I’ve remembered something that may perhaps help you,” she said. “It was seeing you come in here that reminded me. It’s usually here that the girls get talking to me, while they’re doing themselves up. Arlette was no chatterbox, but she did tell me a few things about herself, and I guessed others.”
    She offered him soap and a clean towel.
    “She certainly didn’t come from the same class as the rest of us. She never talked about her family to me, or to anyone else so far as I know, but she several times mentioned the convent where she had been to school.”
    “Do you remember what she said?”
    “If anyone spoke about some woman being harsh and unkind—especially about the sort of woman who puts on a good-natured air to cover her mean ways, Arlette would say softly:
    “ That’s like Mother Eudice .”
    “And one could tell she spoke from unhappy memories. I asked her who Mother Eudice was, and she said she was the person she hated most in all the world, and she had done her the most harm. She was the Mother Superior of the convent, and she’d taken a dislike to Arlette. I remember the girl once said:
    “ I’d have gone to the bad if it was only to spite her .”
    “She never told you what convent it was?”
    “No, but it can’t have been far from the sea, because she often talked in a way that showed she’d lived by the seaside as a child.”
    Funnily enough, all the time she was talking, Rose was treating Maigret like a client, automatically brushing his coat-collar and shoulders.
    “I believe she hated her mother, too. That was less definite, but it’s the sort of thing a woman notices. One evening there were some real swells here, doing the rounds in style—including a Cabinet Minister’s wife who really did look like a great lady. She seemed depressed and absent-minded; took no interest in the show, drank very little, and hardly listened to what the others were saying.
    “I knew all about her, and I said to Arlette—in here, as usual, while she was doing up her face:
    “It’s brave of her to go about like this—she’s been having all kinds of trouble lately.”
    “At which Arlette said, with a sneer:
    “I distrust people who’ve had troubles, especially women. They make that an excuse for trampling on other people.”
    “It’s only a hunch, but I’d swear she was thinking of her mother. She never spoke of her father—if that subject came up, she’d turn her head away.
    “That’s all I can tell you. I always thought she was a girl from a good family, who’d kicked over the traces. They’re the