The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

Inspector’s instructions, and must then have been busy with the two sailors.
The latter were not English as one might have supposed, but came from Nice,
probably of Italian origin, to judge by their accents.
“Sit down, Mr. Pyke,” said Maigret, since Philippe omitted to invite them.
Maigret’s grandmother always used to go to the first Mass at six o’clock in
the morning, and when everyone else got up they found her in a black silk dress
with a white bonnet on her head, with a fire blazing in the hearth, and breakfast
served on a starched tablecloth.
Old women had been to the first Mass here, and others would now be making
their way diagonally across the square, heading for the open door of the church,
with its smell of incense.
As for Mrs. Wilcox, she had already had a drink of beer and in the morning
more of the white roots must have been visible in her dyed hair. She went to and
fro on the other side of the partition, without being able to be of any assistance to
her secretary.
The latter, his cheek slightly swollen where, the evening before, Polyte had
struck with his fist, looked like a sulky schoolboy in his striped pajamas. For just
as there is in every class a large boy who resembles an India-rubber ball, there is
invariably the pupil who spends his free time silently preening himself in his
corner while his schoolmates say:
“He’s a phony!”
On the walls were hung engravings, but the Chief Inspector was unable to
pronounce on their quality. Some of them were fairly erotic, but without
exceeding the limits of good taste.
They looked, Mr. Pyke and himself, rather as though they were in a waiting
room, and the Englishman held his straw hat between his knees.
Maigret finally lit his pipe.
“How old is your mother, Monsieur de Moricourt?”
“Why do you ask me that?”
“No reason. Judging by your age she must be in her fifties?”
“Forty-five. She had me very young. She married at sixteen.”
“Mrs. Wilcox is older than her, isn’t she?”
Mr. Pyke lowered his head. Anyone might have thought the Chief Inspector
was doing it deliberately to make everyone feel more uncomfortable. Lechat was
more at ease outside seated on the rail, chatting with one of the two sailors, who
was manicuring his nails in the sun.