The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

CHAPTER 5
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He had thought about the smell right away, when he still imagined he was going
to go to sleep at once. In actual fact, there were several smells. The principal
one, the smell of the house, which one inhaled immediately on crossing the
threshold of the café, he had been trying to analyze since that morning, for it was
a smell which was unfamiliar to him. It struck him every time as he went in, and
each time he would dilate his nostrils. There was a basis of wine of course, with
a touch of anis, then the usual kitchen odors. And, since it was a Mediterranean
kitchen, with foundations of garlic, red peppers, oil and saffron, this made it
differ from the normal smell.
But what was the point of worrying about all this? His eyes closed, he wanted
to sleep. It was no use calling to mind all the Marseilles or Provençal restaurants
where he happened to have eaten, in Paris or elsewhere. The smell wasn’t the
same, let it rest at that. All he had to do was sleep. He had had enough to drink to
plunge into a leaden sleep.
Hadn’t he been to sleep immediately after lying down? The window was open
and a noise had intrigued him; he had finally realized it was the rustling of
leaves in the trees on the square.
Strictly speaking, the smell downstairs could be compared with that of a small
bar in Cannes, kept by a fat woman, where he had once been on a case and
where he had idled away many hours.
The one in the bedroom was unlike anything. What was there in the mattress?
Was it, as in Brittany, varec, which gave off the iodized smell of the sea? Other
people had been in the bed before him, and he thought at odd moments that he
could detect the smell of the oil with which women smear themselves before
sun-bathing.
He turned over heavily. It was at least the tenth time, and there was still
someone about, opening a door, walking down the passage, and going into one
of the lavatories. There was nothing extraordinary about that, but it seemed to
him that far more people were going there than there were in the house. Then he
began counting the occupants of the Arche. Paul and his wife slept over his head
in an attic which one reached by a sort of ladder. As for Jojo, he didn’t know
where she slept. At any rate there was no room for her on the first floor.
She, too, had a special smell of her own. It came partly from her oiled hair,