The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

The Methods Of Maigret
CHAPTER 1
You were standing in the doorway of your club?”
“Yes, officer.”
It was no good remonstrating with him. Four or five times Maigret had tried to
make him say “Inspector.” What did it matter anyway? What did all this matter?
“A gray sports car stopped for a moment and a man got out, with a flying leap
almost, that’s what you said, isn’t it?”
“Yes, officer.”
“To get into your club he must have passed close to you, and even brushed
against you. Now there’s a luminous neon sign above the door.”
“It’s purple, officer.”
“So what?”
“So nothing.”
“Just because your sign is purple you are incapable of recognizing the
individual who, seconds later, tore aside the velvet curtain and emptied his
revolver into your barman?”
The man was called Caracci or Caraccini (Maigret was obliged to consult the
dossier each time). He was small, with high heels, a Corsican head (they still
bear a faint resemblance to Napoleon), and he wore an enormous yellow
diamond on his finger.
This had been going on since eight o’clock in the morning and it was now
striking eleven. In actual fact it had been going on since the middle of the night,
as all the people who had been rounded up at the club in Rue Fontaine where the
barman had been shot down had spent the night in the police station. Three or
four detectives, including Janvier and Torrence, had already been working on
Caracci, or Caraccini, without getting anything out of him.
It was May, but for all that the rain was falling as in the heaviest of autumn
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