OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

238 MAINLY MAIGRET
" What shall I do all day? "
In the end she took some sewing and crochet-work.
" Well, don't ask me to bathe. I warn you of that now."
•
They arrived at the Hotel de la Plage at five o'clock, and Madame
Maigret immediately began rearranging their room to her taste.
Then they dined.
And now Maigret, all alone, was pushing open the frosted glass
door of a harbour cafe, Au Rendezvous des Terre-Neuvas.
Just opposite, the trawler Ocian was moored to the quay near a
line of trucks. Acetylene lamps hung from the rigging, and in the
harsh light people were moving about unloading the cod, which
was passed from hand to hand and piled up in the trucks after being
weighed.
There were ten of them working there, men and women, dirty,
ragged, saturated with salt. And in front of tlie weighing-machine,
a very clean young man, with a sea-cap over one ear and a note-book
in his hand, was checking the weights. A rank, nauseating smell,
which did not get less as you went away from it, and which the heat
made heavier still, seeped into the bar.
Maigret sat down on a bench in an empty corner. The atmosphere
around him was one of hubbub and excitement. The bar was full of
sailors, some standing, others sitting, with their glasses on the
marble tables.
" What will you have? "
" Beer."
The proprietor came up after the barmaid*
" You know, IVe another room across there for visitors. Here
they make such a noise. ..."
He gave a wink.
" After three months at sea one can understand, eh? "
" They're the crew of the Ocian? "
" Most of then*. ... The other boats haven't come back yet.
.. . You mustn't mind them. There are some chaps who haven't
been sober for three days. Are you staying here? You're a painter,
I bet. . . . They come every now and again and sketch. Look! One
of them did my head there, above the cash-desk."
But the inspector gave so little encouragement to his chatter that
he went off, quke put outs.