OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

272 MAINLY MAIGRET
5. Adile and Her Companion
THE telephone bell rang. Lion ran to answer it, and immediately
called Maigret.
" Hello! " said a bored voice at the other end of the wire. " Inspector
Maigret? This is the clerk at the Police Station. I've just
rung your hotel and they said I would perhaps find you at the
Rendezvous des Terre-Neuvas.... Sorry to bother you, Inspector.
I've been on the line half an hour ... I can't get the chief. ... As
for the superintendent of the Brigade Mobile, I'm wondering
whether he's left Fecamp.. .. Well, I've got two queer cards here
who have just come in, and it seems they've got some important
statement to make ... a man and a woman.. .."
" With a grey car? "
" Yes. Are those the ones you were looking for? "
Ten minutes later, Maigret arrived at the police station. The
offices were deserted, except for the inquiry office, which was
divided in two by a rail.
The clerk was writing and smoking a cigarette. Seated on a
bench, his elbows on his knees, his chin between his hands, a man
was waiting.
And finally there was a woman walking up and down, stamping
on the floor with her high heels.
When the inspector came in she marched up to him, and at the
same time the man rose with a sigh of relief, muttering between his
teeth:
" Well, you've kept us long enough! "
It was the Yport couple, even more ill-tempered dian during the
scene Maigret had witnessed.
" Will you follow me? ..."
And he took them into the superintendent's office, sat down on
his swivel-chair and lit a pipe, watching them all the time.
"You can sit down."
" Thank you! " said the woman, who was decidedly the more
nervous of the two. " We've been doing nothing else for a long
time."
He now saw her face to face by the strong light of an electric
lamp. It didn't need a long examination to place her. The portrait,
with only the bust left, had been quite enough.
A fine figure of a woman, in the popular acceptance of the word.