The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

The page from the Grand Hotel was there as well, and the porter with the
uniform cap.
The Cormorant was now just midway in the channel and would reach the
disembarkation point in a quarter of an hour.
“You’ve had a long conversation with old Benoit?”
“When I saw you just now near the hut, I thought you would ask me that.
You’ll question Benoit in your turn. I can’t stop you but I can tell you in advance
that he knows nothing. At any rate, that’s what I gathered, for it’s not easy to
interpret his language. Perhaps, after all, you’ll be luckier than I was.”
“You are trying to find out something?”
“Perhaps the same thing as you.”
It was a challenge almost, thrown out with good humor.
“What makes you think it could be of interest to you? Did Marcellin talk to
you?”
“No more than to the others. He was always a little embarrassed in front of
me.”
Maigret joined in the game, spoke also in an undertone, lightly, as though
uttering words of no consequence.
“Do you know why Marcellin was killed, Charlot?”
“I know almost as much as you. And, indeed, I probably draw the same
conclusions, but with different ends.”
He smiled, crinkling up his eyelids in the sun.
“Has Jojo talked to you?”
“To me? Haven’t you been told that we hate one another like cat and dog?”
“Have you done something to her?”
“She didn’t want me to. That’s just what’s separating us.”
“I wonder, Charlot, if you wouldn’t do better to return to Pont au Las.”
“And I, with all due respect for your advice, prefer to remain.”
A dinghy was detaching itself from the North Star, and Moricourt’s silhouette
could be recognized at the oars. He was the only person aboard. Like the others,
he was doubtless coming over for the arrival of the Cormorant, and would go up
as far as the post office to collect his mail.
Charlot, following Maigret’s gaze, seemed at the same time to be following
his thoughts. As the Chief Inspector had turned toward the Dutchman’s boat, he
declared: