The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

trembling in your place, beside the old woman who keeps you alive. It was I
who asked Polyte to give you a hiding because I wanted to know your reactions,
because I wasn’t yet sure.”
“Are you planning to hit me again?”
He was trying to sneer, but one could feel that he was transfixed with fear.
“There are various species of rat, Moricourt, and unfortunately there are some
that one somehow never manages to send to prison. I will tell you straight away
that I shall do all in my power to get you there.”
Ten times he turned back toward the young man in his chair, and each time
the latter made an instinctive gesture to protect his face.
“Admit that the idea of the pictures was yours. You’ll end by confessing, even
if I have to spend three days and three nights at it. I knew a tougher nut than you.
He sneered, too, when he arrived at the Quai des Orfèvres. He was well dressed
like you. It was a long business. We took it in relays of five or six for thirty-six
hours before he gave in.”
He looked at de Moricourt’s beautiful white trousers, then ordered him pointblank:
“Take off your tie.”
“Why?”
“Do you want me to do it myself? Good! Now, undo your shoes. Remove the
laces. You’ll see, in a few hours you’ll begin to look a bit more guilty.”
“You haven’t the right…”
“I take it! You asked yourself how to pump money from the mad old woman
you had attached yourself to. Your lawyer will probably plead that it’s immoral
to allow fortunes to remain in the hands of women like her and will claim that
it’s an irresistible temptation. That doesn’t concern us for the moment. All that’s
a matter for the jury. Because she bought pictures and didn’t know anything
about them, you told yourself that there was big money to be made and you got
together with De Greef. I wonder whether it wasn’t you that made him come to
Porquerolles.”
“De Greef is a little saint, isn’t he?”
“Another kind of rat. How many forgeries did he make for your old woman?”
“I warn you that I shall say nothing.”
“The Van Gogh can’t have been the first. Only it happens that somebody
spotted that particular one, probably when it wasn’t quite finished. Marcellin
moved around a bit everywhere. He would have climbed on board De Greef’s