The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

that it was all futile, that he ought to have tackled it differently. For example, he
would have liked to be on the square, in the sunshine, smoking his pipe and
watching the bowls players, who had started a big match; he would have liked to
roam about the harbor watching the fishermen repairing their nets; he would
have liked to know all the Gallis and the Morins whom Lechat had just touched
on in conversation with him.
“I believe that in your country, Mr. Pyke, investigations are carried out in a
very orderly fashion, aren’t they?”
“It all depends. For example, after a crime committed two years ago near
Brighton one of my colleagues stayed eleven weeks in an inn, spending his days
fishing and his evenings drinking ale with the locals.”
That was exactly what Maigret would have liked to do, and what he was not
doing on account of this very Mr. Pyke! When Lechat came in he was in a bad
temper.
“The major wouldn’t come,” he announced. “He’s in his garden, doing
nothing. I told him you were asking him to step along here. He replied that if you
wanted to see him you had only to go and drink a bottle with him.”
“He’s within his rights.”
“Who do you want to question now?”
“Nobody. I’d like you to telephone to Hyères. I presume there is a telephone
at the Arche? Ask for Ginette, at the Hotel des Palmes. Tell her from me that I
would be glad if she would come and have a chat with me.”
“Where shall I find you?”
“I don’t know. Probably at the harbor.”
They walked slowly across the square, Pyke and he, and people followed
them with their eyes. One might have thought it was with some distrust, but it
was only that they didn’t know how to approach the famous Maigret. The latter,
on his side, felt an étranger, as they say in the country. But he knew that it
would not take much for every one of them to start talking freely, perhaps too
freely.
“Don’t you find you have the impression of being miles away, Mr. Pyke?
Look! That’s France you can see over there, twenty minutes away by boat, and
I’m as lost as if I was in the heart of Africa or South America.”
Some children stopped playing so as to examine them. They reached the
Grand Hotel, caught sight of the harbor, and Inspector Lechat was back with
them already.