Mr Hire's Engagement by Georges Simenon

took a stroll, and on reaching a point where he could see through the open door, he spotted his inspector talking to the waiter. He smiled and looked at his watch.
    'You say he comes the first Monday of every month?'
    'That's the club day. Some members practise on other days, but not him.'
    The waiter was surprised, looked suspiciously at the inspector.
    'If you're from the police you ought to know him, he's a police officer too, in fact he must be pretty high up in the force.'
    'Oh! So he says he belongs to the police?'
    'Everybody thought so even before he mentioned it. He looks as though he did.'
    'Has he been a member of the club for long?'
    'About two years. I remember, because I was already the waiter for the bowling-room. He came in timid-like, just the way you did, one evening, and he asked me if it was open to the public. He sat down over there, with his briefcase on his knee, and ordered a café crème. The game interested him so much that he stayed there for two hours; then, when everybody had left, he stood the skitties up and had a go, all by himself. He went red in the face when he saw me watching, and it was me who advised him to join, seeing it only costs thirty francs a year . .
    Mr. Hire was looking at them from a distance.
    'And he was the one who mentioned the police?'
    'For months we were wondering what his job could be. He's not the chatty kind. Even now he's the best player in the club, he doesn't meet any of the others except here. Anyhow, one day the Treasurer had made a bet that he'd find out, and he asked him point-blank.'
    'Asked him what?'
    'He said to him, "You're a big hat in the police, aren't you?"
    'Mr. Hire blushed, and that gave him away. Then somebody remembered that police officers sometimes get free seats for theatres, and asked him if he had any to spare. He brings some along nearly every time now . . .'
    When the inspector went back to the bowling-room, Mr. Hire was finishing his second game; and as the award of the monthly poultry prize depended on it, everybody was crowding round. To-day's prize was a turkey, which the Treasurer had put out on a table near the players. People had come in from the billiard-tables, to watch the end of the match.
    Mr. Hire went to and fro, in his shirt sleeves, with well-curled moustache and red lips. All his movements were marked by a preternatural ease. His feet trod at the exact spot where they ought to tread. His arm made the ball describe a trajectory of geometrical precision.
    The club President's wife stood waiting for her husband, buttoning her grey cotton gloves and gazing at the turkey, whose yellow breast she had already pinched.
    'Nine!'
    There was a mechanical accuracy about it. Mr. Hire was unconscious of the spectators. They were only a background, a row of statues to either side of the game. While waiting for the skittles to be re-erected, he went so far as to toss the ball casually in the air, catching it again with three fingers in the holes. The inspector was one of the nearest onlookers, and it was perhaps for his benefit that Mr. Hire added a touch of bravado to his style, whirling his arm three times before finally making his shot.
    'Nine!'
    At this he held out a hand towards the crowd.
    'A scarf,' he requested tersely.
    Someone produced a grey scarf and he tied it round his head, blindfolding himself. He reached out his hand again, groping to find the ball. 'Eight!'
    Applause broke out as he pulled off the scarf and murmured hesitantly:
    'Whose is this?'
    He had one more shot to play, and he was trying to think of some other fantastic trick, no matter what. He was bound to bring it off! He was no longer skipping. He was bouncing, light as a balloon.
    'Three more points and you've won,' announced the Secretary.
    For a moment he stood still, as though scared; then he walked to the end of the board along which the ball must run, turned his back to it, straddled his legs apart. He saw the poor little inspector standing in front of him.