The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

“Another question. Just now, have you got any money?”
“I told you, I’ve sold a picture to Mrs. Wilcox.”
“You’ve been aboard her yacht?”
“Several times.”
“What do people do aboard yachts?”
“I don’t know.”
Then, with a hint of contempt:
“You drink. We drank. Is that all?”
Lechat cannot have had to go far to find Monsieur Émile, for the two men
were standing in a patch of shade a few yards from the little town hall. Monsieur
Émile looked older than his sixty-five years and he gave an impression of
extreme frailty. He only moved with great care, as if afraid of breaking himself.
He spoke low, economizing every grain of energy.
“Come in, Monsieur Émile. We’ve met before, I think?”
As Justine’s son was eying a chair, Maigret went on:
“You can sit down. Did you know Marcellin?”
“Very well.”
“You were in constant touch with him? Since when?”
“I couldn’t say exactly how many years. My mother should be able to tell you
exactly. Since Ginette’s been working for us.”
There was a brief silence. It was very strange. One might have thought a
bubble had just burst in the peaceful air of the room. Maigret and Mr. Pyke
looked at one another. What had Mr. Pyke said as they left Paris? He had
mentioned Ginette. He had been amazed—discreetly, as in all things—that the
Chief Inspector had not inquired what had become of her.
Now there was no need for inquiries, or ruses. Quite simply in his opening
remarks it was Monsieur Émile who mentioned the woman whom, once upon a
time, Maigret had sent to a sanatorium.
“You say she works for you? That means, I suppose, in one of your houses.”
“At the one in Nice.”
“Just a minute, Monsieur Émile. It’s a good fifteen years since I met her at the
Ternes, and she wasn’t a young girl then. If I’m not mistaken, she was well past
thirty, and tuberculosis wasn’t making her any younger. Now she must be…”
“Between forty-five and fifty.”
And Monsieur Émile added in the most natural way imaginable: