Maigret and the Man on the Boulevard Read Online Free Page B

mademoiselle, and thank you.”
    Maigret went to the door with her, and closed it behind her.

2
THE PUG-NOSED VIRGIN
    Maigret, though he could not say why, had always had a special affection for the section of the Grands Boulevards that stretches from the Place de la République to the Rue Montmartre. To put it another way, he felt that he was on his home ground. It was here, in the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, just a few hundred yards from the passageway in which Louis Thouret was killed, that Maigret and his wife went to the pictures almost every week. Arm in arm, they walked the short distance from their flat to what they regarded as their local cinema. And opposite was the brasserie where he enjoyed going for a plate of choucroute .
    Further on, approaching the Opéra and the Madeleine, the boulevards were more spacious and elegant. In the area between the Porte Saint-Martin and the Place de la République the streets were narrower and darker, and so densely packed with people on the move as to make one feel dizzy.
    He had left home at about half-past eight, and, walking at a leisurely pace in the gray morning light, had taken barely a quarter of an hour to reach the intersection of the Rue de Bondy and the Boulevard, which formed a little square dominated by the Théâtre de la Renaissance. The weather was less damp than on the previous day, but colder. Maigret was looking for the premises of the firm of Kaplan et Zanin where, according to his wife, Louis Thouret had spent the whole of his working life, including his last day on earth.
    The number he had been given was that of a very old building, visibly subsiding. On either side of the gateway, which was wide open, were a number of white enamel plaques, with black lettering, indicating that among the lessees were a mattress-maker, a secretarial college, a wholesaler in feathers (third floor, on the left, Staircase A), an upholsterer and a qualified masseuse. The concierge in the lodge, which faced the archway, was engaged in sorting the mail.
    â€œCould you please direct me to Kaplan et Zanin?” he asked her.
    â€œMy dear sir, they closed down three years ago, three years next month.”
    â€œWere you here then?”
    â€œI shall have been here twenty-six years in December.”
    â€œDid you know Louis Thouret?”
    â€œKnow him? Why of course I knew Monsieur Louis. By the way, what has become of him? It must be all of four or five months since he last called in to say hello to me.”
    â€œHe’s dead.”
    Abruptly, she pushed the letters aside.
    â€œBut he was such a healthy man! What did he die of? A heart attack, I’ll be bound, the same as my husband.”
    â€œHe was stabbed with a knife, not far from here, yesterday afternoon.”
    â€œI haven’t seen a paper today.”
    Anyway, there was nothing much in the papers, just a few terse lines reporting the murder, as if it were an everyday occurrence.
    â€œWhoever could have wanted to kill a fine man like him?”
    She was a worthy soul herself, a little creature, but full of life.
    â€œFor more than twenty years he went past this lodge four times a day, and never once did he fail to stop and say a pleasant word or two. When Monsieur Kaplan gave up the business, he was so shattered that…”
    She had to stop, to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
    â€œIs Monsieur Kaplan still alive?”
    â€œI can give you his address if you like. He lives in the Rue des Acacias, near the Porte Maillot. He’s a fine man, too, in his own way. I believe old Monsieur Kaplan is still alive.”
    â€œWhat did the firm deal in?”
    â€œYou mean you don’t know?”
    She seemed to think that the whole world ought to have heard of the firm of Kaplan et Zanin. Maigret explained:
    â€œI’m from the police. I have to find out all I can about Monsieur Thouret and everything to do with him.”
    â€œWe always called him Monsieur Louis.