Maigret's Holiday Read Online Free

of
glaring at him that did not make one want to play with him.
    Depaty, the estate agent,
who handled mainly private homes and housing developments, was livelier, with
mischievous eyes that belied his seventy years.
    Then there was a building contractor, a
judge, a boat-builder and the deputy mayor.
    The youngest player must have been between
forty-five and fifty. He was just finishing a game. He was thin and wiry, with sharp
eyes and lustrous brown hair, and he dressed with studied elegance, if not with
affectation.
    When he had played his last card, he stood
up, as he usually did, and went over to the telephone booth. Maigret glanced up at the
clock. It was four thirty. Each day, at the same time, that player made a telephone
call.
    Chief Inspector Mansuy, who changed places
with his neighbour for the next game, leaned towards his colleague and murmured:
    â€˜It’s his sister-in-law who died
…’
    The man who telephoned his wife every day
during the game was Doctor Bellamy. He lived less than three hundred metres away, the
big white house after the casino, exactly halfway between the casino and the pier, in
one of the town’s most beautiful residences. It could be seen from the bay window.
With its calm dignity, the immaculate, even façade with its big, high windows was
reminiscent of the convent hospital.
    Doctor Bellamy was walking back, impassive,
to the table where the others were waiting for him and the cards had already been dealt.
Monsieur Lourceau, who did not like futile questions to interrupt the solemnity of
bridge, gave a shrug. Things had probably gone on like this for years.
    The doctor was not a man to
allow himself to be intimidated. Not a muscle in his face moved. He scanned his hand at
a glance, and called:
    â€˜Two clubs …’
    Then, during the game, he began for the
first time to examine Maigret covertly. It was barely noticeable. His glances were so
fleeting that Maigret only just intercepted them in passing.
    For pity’s sake …
    Why were words forming unconsciously in
Maigret’s mind that would then nag away at him during the rest of the game?
In
any case, there is one man who won’t have any pity …
    He had rarely seen eyes that were so hard
and at the same time blazing, a man so in control of himself, so capable of betraying
nothing of his feelings.
    On previous days, Maigret had not waited for
the game of bridge to end. Other ‘corners’ awaited him. He was horrified at
the thought of the slightest change to his routine.
    â€˜Will you still be here at six
o’clock?’ he asked Chief Inspector Mansuy.
    The latter looked at his watch, a pointless
action, before replying that he would.
    Le Remblai, right to the end of the
promenade this time, past Doctor Bellamy’s house, which was typical of those
residences that passers-by gaze at with envy, saying:
    â€˜It must be so lovely to live there
…’
    Then the port, the
yacht-builder’s yard with its sails spread over the pavement, the ferryman, the
boats coming in and mooring alongside each other opposite the fish market.
    Here, there was a little café painted
green, with four steps, a dark bar, two or three tables covered with brown oilcloth and
nothing but men wearing blue, their high rubber waders turned down over their
thighs.
    â€˜A small glass of white wine
…’
    â€¦Which did not taste the same as the
wine at the Hôtel Bel Air, or that of the covered market, or the white wine at the
Brasserie du Remblai
.
    Now all he had to do was to walk to the end
of the quayside, then turn right and make his way back through the narrow streets where
the single-storey houses were teeming with life, noise and smells.
    When, at six o’clock, he reached the
Brasserie du Remblai, Chief Inspector Mansuy, who had just emerged, stood winding up his
watch as he waited for Maigret.

2.
    It took half an hour, and the wait was not
unpleasant, on the contrary. Chief