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telephoned to ask him to come?”
    â€œI’m almost sure it wasn’t.”
    Some children of the neighborhood had their faces pressed against the window, and Maigret suggested:
    â€œWouldn’t you rather we went downstairs?”
    She led him through the kitchen, and they entered the little windowless room, which was very attractive, very cozy, with shelves of books all around, the table at which the couple had their meals and, in a corner, another table that served as a desk.
    â€œYou were asking me how my husband spent his time. He got up every day at six, winter and summer, and in winter the first thing he did was to go and stoke the furnace.”
    â€œWhy wasn’t it lit on the twenty-first?”
    â€œIt wasn’t cold enough. After a few freezing days the weather had turned mild again, and neither of us feels the cold much. In the kitchen I have the gas stove, which gives out enough heat, and there’s another one in the studio that Frans uses for his glue and his tools.
    â€œBefore shaving he would go round to the baker’s for croissants while I made the coffee, and we would have breakfast.
    â€œThen he would wash and get to work straight away. I would leave the house about nine, having finished most of my housework, to do the shopping.”
    â€œHe never went out to deliver finished jobs?”
    â€œHardly ever. People would bring work to him and call for it. When he had to go out I used to go with him, because those were just about our only outings.
    â€œWe had lunch at half past twelve.”
    â€œWould he go back to work at once?”
    â€œNearly always, after spending a few minutes in the doorway smoking a cigarette, because he didn’t smoke while he was working.
    â€œThis would go on until seven o’clock, sometimes half past seven. I never knew what time we’d have dinner, because he always wanted to finish the job he was on. Then he would put up the shutters, wash his hands, and after dinner we would read, in this room, until ten or eleven o’clock.
    â€œExcept on Friday evenings, when we went to the Saint-Paul Cinema.”
    â€œHe didn’t drink?”
    â€œA glass of brandy every night after dinner. Just one little glass, which would last him an hour, because he never took more than a sip at a time.”
    â€œAnd on Sundays? Did you go to the country?”
    â€œNever. He hated the country. We would loaf about all morning without getting dressed. He went in for carpentry a bit. He made these shelves himself and just about everything we have here. In the afternoons we’d go for a walk in the Francs-Bourgeois district or on the Île Saint-Louis, and we often had dinner at a little restaurant near the Pont-Neuf.”
    â€œIs he stingy?”
    She blushed and answered less spontaneously, with a question, as women do when they are embarrassed:
    â€œWhy do you ask me that?”
    â€œHe’s been working like this for more than twenty years, hasn’t he?”
    â€œHe’s worked all his life. His mother was very poor. He had an unhappy childhood.”
    â€œAnd yet he’s supposed to be the most expensive bookbinder in Paris and he turns away more orders than he asks for.”
    â€œThat’s true.”
    â€œOn what he earns you could live comfortably, with a modern flat and even a car.”
    â€œWhat would be the point?”
    â€œHe claims that he’s never had more than one suit at a time, and your wardrobe doesn’t seem any more extensive.”
    â€œI don’t need anything. We eat well.”
    â€œYou can’t spend more than a third of what he earns on living expenses.”
    â€œI don’t pay any attention to money matters.”
    â€œMost men work for some special goal. Some want a house in the country, others have dreams of retiring, others do it for the sake of their children. He had no children, had he?”
    â€œUnfortunately I can’t have