The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

wearing a butcher’s yellowish apron had taken to the ironmonger’s gray smock.
He wore it very long, almost down to his ankles. Was he wearing trousers
underneath? Or did he leave them off on account of the heat? The fact remained
that if the trousers were there, they were too short to project below the smock, so
that the mayor looked as if he were in a nightshirt. More precisely—and the
species of skullcap he sported added to the impression—he had something
medieval about him, and one had the impression of having seen him before
somewhere in a stained-glass window.
“I presume you won’t be needing me, gentlemen?”
Standing in the doorway of the dusty room, Maigret and Mr. Pyke looked at
one another in some surprise, then looked at Lechat, and finally at Félicien. For
on the table, the one used for council meetings and elections, was laid a white
wooden coffin which seemed to have lost something of its brand-newness.
In the most natural way in the world Monsieur Jamet said to them:
“If you would like to give me a hand, we can shove it into its corner.”
“What is this coffin?” Maigret asked in surprise.
“It’s the municipal coffin. We are obliged by law to provide for burial of
destitutes and we’ve only got one carpenter on the island. He’s very old and
works slowly. In summer, with the heat, the bodies can’t be kept waiting.”
He spoke of it as the most banal thing in the world, and Maigret studied the
Scotland Yard man out of the corner of his eye.
“Have you many destitute people?”
“We’ve got one, old Benoit.”
“So that the coffin is destined for Benoit?”
“Theoretically. However last Wednesday it was used to take Marcellin’s body
to Hyères. There’s no need to be afraid. It’s been disinfected.”
There were only some very comfortable deck chairs in the place.
“May I leave you now, gentlemen?”
“Just a moment. Who is Benoit?”
“You must have seen him, or else you soon will; he wears his hair down to his
shoulders, with a shaggy beard. Look: through that window you can see him
having his siesta on a bench near the bowls players.”
“Is he terribly old?”
“Nobody knows. Nor does he. According to him he’s getting on for a
hundred, but he must be telling stories. He hasn’t any papers. His real name isn’t
known. He landed on the island a very long time ago, when Morin-Barbu, who