The Hotel Majestic Read Online Free Page A

loud burst of music from near at hand in the grill-room, and the dancing began. Prosper Donge, looking exhausted, filled rows of minute teapots, and microscopic milk jugs, and then came anxiously up to the glass partition once more, casting nervous glances in Maigret’s direction.
    At five o’clock his three women went off duty and were replaced by two others. At six he took a wad of bills and a sheet of paper, which was obviously his accounts for the day, to Jean Ramuel. Then he in turn went into the cloakroom, came out in his street clothes and fetched his bicycle, the puncture having been repaired by one of the bellboys.
    Outside it was now dark. The Rue de Ponthieu was congested. Prosper Donge made for the Champs-Élysées, weaving his way between taxis and buses. When he was almost at the Étoile, he suddenly did an about-turn, bicycled back to the Rue de Ponthieu, and went into a radio shop, where he handed over three hundred odd francs to the cashier as one of the monthly instalments which he had contracted to pay.
    Back to the Champs-Élysées. Then on to the regal calm of the Avenue Foch, with only the occasional car gliding silently past. He pedalled slowly, with the air of one who has a long way to go yet—an honest citizen pedalling along the same route at the same time every day.
    A voice from behind, speaking quite close to him: “I hope you don’t mind, Monsieur Donge, if I go the rest of the way with you?”
    He braked so violently that he skidded and almost collided with Maigret on his bicycle. For it was Maigret who was bicycling along beside him, on a bike which was too small for him, which he had borrowed from a bellboy at the Majestic.
    â€œI can’t think,” Maigret continued, “why everyone who lives in the suburbs doesn’t go by bicycle. It’s so much more healthy and agreeable than going by bus or train!”
    They were entering the Bois de Boulogne. Soon they saw the shimmer of street-lights reflected in the lake.
    â€œYou were so busy all day that I didn’t like to disturb you in your work . . .”
    And Maigret, too, was pedalling along with the regular rhythm of someone who is used to bicycling. Now and then there was the click of a gear.
    â€œDo you know what Jean Ramuel did before he came to the Majestic?”
    â€œHe was a bank accountant . . . The Atoum Bank, in the Rue Caumartin . . .”
    â€œHmm! . . . The Atoum Bank . . . Doesn’t sound too good to me . . . Don’t you think he has rather a shifty look about him?”
    â€œHe’s not very well . . .” Prosper Donge mumbled.
    â€œLook out . . . You were nearly on the pavement . . . There’s something else I’d like to ask you, if you won’t think it impertinent . . . You’re the still-room chef . . . Well, I was wondering what made you take up that profession . . . I mean . . . I feel it isn’t a vocation, that one doesn’t suddenly say to oneself at fifteen or sixteen: ‘I’m going to be a still-room chef . . .’
    â€œLook out . . . If you swerve like that you’ll get mown down by a car . . . You were saying? . . .”
    Donge explained, in a dejected voice, that he had been a foster child, and that until he was fifteen he had lived on a farm near Vitry-le-François. Then he had gone to work in a café in the town, first as an errand-boy and then as a waiter.
    â€œAfter doing my military service, I wasn’t very fit, and I wanted to live in the South of France . . . I was a waiter in Marseilles and Cannes. Then they decided, at the Miramar, that I didn’t look right to wait at table . . . I looked ‘awkward, ’ was the word the manager used . . . I was put in the still-room . . . I was there for years and then I took the job of still-room chef at the Majestic.”
    They were crossing the Pont de Saint-Cloud. After turning down two or three narrow streets they reached the bottom of a