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thought of something to say. But he felt so devastated when he saw his chief’s sagging shoulders that all he could do was sniff and turn his head away.
    In his apartment overlooking the Champ-de-Mars, Coméliau the magistrate was hosting a dinner for twenty guests which was scheduled to be followed by an informal gathering where there would be dancing.
    Meanwhile, Dufour had been laid on a steel table, and one of the Grenelle doctors got into a white gown while he watched his instruments being sterilized.
    â€˜Do you think the scar will be visible?’ Dufour asked. The way he was lying meant that all he could see was the ceiling. ‘The skull’s not cracked, is it?’
    â€˜Of course not! It just needs a few stitches.’
    â€˜And will the hair grow back? … Are you sure? …’
    The doctor, his forceps gleaming in his hand, nodded to his assistant to hold the patient still.
    The patient choked back a cry of pain.

4. General Headquarters
    Maigret did not flinch once, did not register the slightest trace of protest or impatience.
    Solemn-faced, his features drawn, he listened to the end with deference and humility.
    Perhaps his Adam’s apple may have suddenly twitched at the moments when Monsieur Coméliau was at his most inflexible and vehement.
    Thin, excitable and tense, the examining magistrate was pacing up and down in his office. He spoke so loudly that remand prisoners who were waiting in the corridor to be seen must have overheard snatches of what he was saying.
    At times, he would pick up an object, which he briefly juggled in his hands before slamming it down again on his desk.
    The clerk of the court was embarrassed and lowered his eyes, Maigret stood there and waited, a full head taller than the magistrate.
    After a final reproving word, Coméliau scrutinized the face of the man before him but then looked away because, after all, Maigret was a man of forty-five who for twenty years had devoted himself to the most varied and delicate kinds of police
business.
    And above all, he was a man!
    â€˜But haven’t you got anything to say for yourself?’
    â€˜I have just informed my superiors that they will have my resignation within ten days if I have failed to deliver the guilty man to them.’
    â€˜In other words, failed to get your hands on Joseph Heurtin.’
    â€˜To deliver the guilty man to them,’ repeated Maigret simply.
    The magistrate jumped like a jack-in-the-box.
    â€˜So you still think …?’
    Maigret remained silent. Monsieur Coméliau snapped his fingers and said hurriedly:
    â€˜I think we’ll leave it there, if you don’t mind. Go on like this and you’ll drive me crazy … When you’ve got something, phone me.’
    The inspector made his farewell and walked along the familiar corridors. But before going down to the street, he climbed up to the top floor, under the eaves of the Palais de Justice, and pushed open the door of the police forensic labs.
    One of the specialists, seeing him suddenly standing in front of him, was struck by his appearance and, as he held out his hand, asked:
    â€˜Things not so good?’
    â€˜Everything’s fine, thanks.’
    He was staring, but at nothing in particular. He kept his dark overcoat on and his hands in its pockets. He looked like a man who, after a long journey, sees old, familiar places with new eyes.
    It was with those eyes that he glanced through the photographs which had been taken the previous evening in a flat which had been burgled and read the record cards which one of his colleagues had sent for.
    In one corner, a man, young, clean-shaven, tall and thin, with short-sighted eyes behind thick lenses, was watching him, looking surprised and apprehensive.
    On his bench were magnifying glasses in all strengths, scraper-erasers, tweezers, bottles of ink, reagents plus a glass screen lit by a strong electric lamp.
    The man was Moers, and