OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

38 MAINLY MAIGRET
" You can carry forward the difference," he had said.
He had glimpses of the newspaper, the Gazette de Charleroi,
a local daily printed on spongy paper in exceedingly small type.
As usual, Madame Baron was on her feet most of the time,
occasionally stopping to eat a few mouthfuls. It was she who waited
on Elie.
" Won't you finish your cutlets? "
" Sorry, but this awful cold I have seems to have killed my
appetite."
Baron looked up from his paper.
"An influenza epidemic is raging all over Europe," he announced.
" I see that the death-rate in London went up thirty per
cent, last week."
He had a slow, oracular way of speaking. Each time he puffed
out the pipe-smoke his long moustache streamed forward from his
lips.
" Have they caught the murderer yet? " Antoinette asked.
Though he knew this referred to him, Elie didn't turn a hair,
and looked up with no more show of interest than the others.
" No, not yet. But the police are on his tracks, it seems, and an
early arrest may be expected. They've made enquiries at Van der
Cruyssen's bank and got the numbers of the banknotes."
Baron looked round the room, and a change came over his
appearance; he became the vigilant employee of the Belgian State
Railways, whose duty it was to go from carriage to carriage
checking tickets.
" And to think there's some folks say there aren't any risks in our
job!" he exclaimed. " Why, that fellow might easily have killed
the guard as well! "
He seemed put out by the faint smile, quickly repressed, that rose
to Elie's lips.
'" Aye, it's a dangerous job, whatever you may think. And in
spite of that they've put back our retiring age to sixty, just like the
fellows who work in the office. It ain't fair."
Elie's smile had been no more than a nervous reflex. While
Baron was speaking, he had been observing Madame Baron, and
had noticed a slight change in her expression, as if a vague suspicion
—less than that, an unformulated thought—had crossed her mind.
And he had guessed its cause: that reference to the banknotes. The
thousand-franc note he had given her must be still in the house.
" Some coffee? "