The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

“I couldn’t get her on the line,” he announced. “She’s left.”
“Has she gone back to Nice?”
“Probably not, as she told the hotel that she’d be back tomorrow morning in
time for the burial.”
The jetty, the small boats of all colors, the big yacht blocking the harbor, the
North Star, down beside a rocky promontory and people watching another boat,
which was arriving:
“That’s the Cormorant,” Lechat explained. “In other words, it’s just on five
o’clock.”
A youth with a cap bearing the words Grand Hotel in gold letters was waiting
for the future guests beside a barrow intended for luggage. The small white boat
approached, with silvered mustaches given it by the sea, and Maigret was not
long in spotting, in the bows, a female figure.
“Probably Ginette, coming to meet you,” the Inspector said. “Everyone at
Hyères must know you are here.”
It was a strange sensation to see the people in the boat slowly growing in size,
becoming more clearly defined as on a photographic plate. Above all, it was
distressing to see a woman with Ginette’s features, very fat, very portly, all in
silk, all made up, and no doubt heavily scented.
Truth to tell, when Maigret had met her in the Brasserie des Ternes, was he
not himself more lissom, and wasn’t she feeling at that moment the same
disappointment as he, as she watched him from the deck of the Cormorant?
She had to be helped down the gangway. Apart from her, there was no one on
board besides Baptiste, the captain, except the dumb sailor and the postman. The
lad with the peaked cap tried to take possession of her luggage.
“To the Arche de Noé!” she said.
She went up to Maigret, hesitated, perhaps on account of Mr. Pyke, whom she
didn’t know.
“They told me you were here. I thought you might like to speak to me. Poor
Marcel!…”
She didn’t say Marcellin, like the others. She didn’t affect any great sorrow.
She had become a mature person, sober and calm, with a glimmer of a
disillusioned smile.
“Are you staying at the Arche as well?”
It was Lechat who took her case. She seemed to know the island and walked
quietly, without haste, like one who easily gets out of breath, or who isn’t made