The Methods of Maigret ( PDFDrive )

“He’s a strange fellow, but I don’t think it’s him.”
“You refer to Marcellin’s murderer?”
“One can hide nothing from you. Bear in mind that the murderer doesn’t
interest me in himself. Only, except in the case of a fit, one doesn’t kill someone
without any reason, does one? Even and above all if that someone proclaims to
whoever wants to hear that he’s the friend of Chief Inspector Maigret.”
“Were you at the Arche when Marcellin mentioned me?”
“Everyone was there—I mean all the people you are busying yourself with.
And Marcellin, especially after a few drinks, had a rather penetrating voice.”
“Do you know why he said that on that particular evening?”
“There you are. You may imagine that that was the first question I asked
myself when I learned that he was dead. I wondered who the poor fellow was
speaking to. Do you understand?”
Maigret understood perfectly.
“Did you find a satisfactory reply?”
“Not so far. If I had found one, I should have returned to Pont au Las by the
next boat.”
“I didn’t know you liked playing amateur detective.”
“You are joking, Inspector.”
The latter still persisted, with an air of utter indifference, in trying to make the
other say something he was refusing to say.
It was a strange sort of game, in the sun on the jetty, with Mr. Pyke playing
the part of an umpire and remaining strictly neutral.
“So you have definitely abandoned the idea that Marcellin was killed without
any reason?”
“As you say.”
“Supposing the murderer was trying to appropriate something which
Marcellin had in his possession?”
“Neither you nor I suppose anything of the sort, or else your reputation is
enormously overrated.”
“Someone wanted to shut his mouth?”
“You’re getting very warm, Inspector.”
“He had made a discovery which had endangered someone?”
“Why are you so anxious to know what I think, when all the time you know as
much about it as I do?”