The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

uncombed, his eyes still puffy with sleep.
“What do you want?” he asked sulkily.
“A word with Mrs. Wilcox.”
“She’s not up yet.”
“That’s not true. I’ve just seen her.”
Philippe was wearing silk pajamas with blue stripes. There were a few steps to
go down in order to reach the cabin, and Maigret, heavy and obstinate, was not
expecting to be invited.
“May we come in?”
It was a strange mixture of luxury and disorder, of the refined and the sordid.
The deck was meticulously scrubbed and all the brasses gleamed, the ropes were
carefully coiled, the captain’s bridge, with its compass and nautical instruments,
was as clean as a Dutch kitchen.
Going down the steps, the visitors immediately found themselves in a cabin
with mahogany walls, a table fixed to the floor, two benches with red leather
upholstery, but with bottles and glasses lying about on the table, and there were
crusts of bread, a half-eaten tin of sardines, playing cards; a nauseating smell
hung in the air, a mixture of alcohol and beds.
The door of the next cabin, which served as a bedroom, must have been shut
in a hurry, and in her flight, Mrs. Wilcox had left a satin slipper upon the floor.
“Please excuse the intrusion,” Maigret said politely to Philippe. “You were
probably in the middle of breakfast?”
He was looking, without irony, at the half-empty bottle of English beer, a
piece of bread which had been bitten into, a scrap of butter in some paper.
“Is this an official search?” questioned the young man, running his fingers
through his hair.
“It’s whatever you want it to be. Just now, as far as I am concerned, it’s a
straightforward visit.”
“At this hour?”
“At this hour, there are people who are still tired!”
“Mrs. Wilcox is in the habit of rising late.”
The sound of water could be heard on the other side o£ the door. Philippe
would have liked to go away and put on something decent, but that would have
meant revealing the too intimate disorder of the second cabin. He had no
dressing gown to hand. His pajamas were crumpled. Mechanically he swallowed
a mouthful of beer. Lechat had remained on the deck, following the Chief