The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

and yet the two men did not speak the same language; their thoughts followed
different channels in their passage through the brain.
“They’re very dangerous, those fellows,” the Scotland Yard Inspector
emphasized.
There was no doubt that he would not have wished, for anything in the world,
even to appear to be intervening in Maigret’s case. He hadn’t asked him any
questions about what had happened in Ginette’s room. Was he under the
impression that his colleague was hiding something from him, that Maigret was
trying to cheat? Or worse still, after what he had just said about the customs of
the French, did he imagine that Maigret and Ginette… ?
The Chief Inspector grunted:
“She announced her engagement to Monsieur Émile. It has to be kept secret
because of old Justine, who would attempt to stop the marriage even after her
death.”
He noticed that by contrast with the telling phrases of Mr. Pyke his speech
was vague, his ideas even vaguer.
In a few words the Englishman had said what he had to say. From half an hour
spent with De Greef, he had formulated definite ideas, not only about the latter,
but on the world in general.
As for Maigret, he would have been hard put to it to express a single idea. It
was quite different. He sensed something. He sensed a whole heap of things, as
he always did at the start of a case. But he couldn’t have said in what form this
mist of ideas would, sooner or later, resolve itself.
It was rather humiliating. It was a loss of face. He felt himself heavy and dullwitted
beside the clear silhouette of his colleague.
“She’s a strange girl,” he mumbled, in spite of everything.
That was all he could find to say of someone he had met before, whose whole
life story he almost knew, and who had spoken to him openly.
A strange girl! She attracted him in some ways and in others she disappointed
him, as she had herself sensed perfectly well.
Perhaps, later on, he would have a definite opinion about her?
After a single game of chess and a few remarks exchanged over the pieces,
Mr. Pyke had made a definitive analysis of his opponent’s character.
Was it not as though the Englishman had won the first rubber?