The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

could be heard. Only the movement of their lips could be seen. Then Ginette had
risen with a sigh and gone off to fetch a game of checkers from a cabinet under
the phonograph.
They played. One felt that it might have been like that every day for years on
end, that the people could grow old without changing their places, without trying
any gestures other than the ones they were to be seen making now.
No doubt in five years Maigret would find the dentist in front of the same
anisette, with the same smile, at once ferocious and satisfied. Charlot worked the
crane with movements of an automaton, and there was no reason for that to stop
at a given moment.
The engaged couple moved the pawns about on the checkerboard, which they
contemplated with unreal gravity between each move, and the major emptied
glass after glass of champagne, while he recounted stories to Mr. Pyke.
No one was in a hurry. No one seemed to think that tomorrow existed. When
she hadn’t any customer to serve Jojo went over to the counter and, leaning chin
on hand, gazed thoughtfully in front of her. Several times Maigret felt her eyes
fixed on him, but the moment he turned his head she would look away.
Paul, the patron, still in his cook’s attire, went from table to table, and at each
he offered a round of drinks. It must have cost him a lot, but it is to be presumed
that he made good in the long run.
As for his wife, a small person with faded blond hair, hard-faced, who was
scarcely noticed, she had settled down by herself at a table and was doing the
day’s accounts.
“It’s like that every evening,” Lechat had told the Chief Inspector.
“And the islanders, I mean the fishermen?”
“They hardly ever come after dinner. They go out to sea before daybreak and
retire early to bed. At any rate, in the evening they wouldn’t come to the Arche.
It’s a sort of tacit agreement. In the afternoon, the morning as well, everyone
mixes. After dinner the islanders, the real inhabitants, prefer to go to other
cafés.”
“What do they do?”
“Nothing. I’ve been to see them. Sometimes they listen to the radio, but that’s
fairly unusual. They have a small drink in silence, staring in front of them.”
“Here, is it always as calm?”
“It all depends. Listen. It can happen from one moment to another. It takes a
mere nothing, a remark in the air, a round of drinks offered by one person or