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any.”
    â€œAnd before your time?”
    â€œNo. He never knew any women, in a manner of speaking. He made do with you know what, and that’s how I met him.”
    â€œWhat does he do with his money?”
    â€œI don’t know. I expect he invests it.”
    They had, in fact, discovered a bank account in Steuvels’s name at the O Branch of the Société Géndérale, in the rue Saint-Antoine. Nearly every week the bookbinder would deposit petty sums that corresponded to the amounts received from customers.
    â€œHe worked for the pleasure of working. He’s a Fleming. I’m beginning to know what that means. He was capable of spending hours on a binding just for the joy of producing something out of the ordinary.”
    It was odd: sometimes she would speak of him in the past tense, as if the walls of the Santé Gaol had already cut him off from the world, sometimes in the present, as if he would be home any minute.
    â€œHe kept in touch with his family, did he?”
    â€œHe never knew his father. He was brought up by an uncle, who placed him in a charity home when he was very young, which was lucky for him, because that’s where he learned his trade. They were badly treated, and he doesn’t like to talk about it.”
    There was no exit from the flat except the workshop door. To reach the courtyard it was necessary to go out into the street and under the archway, past the concierge’s lodge.
    It was amazing, at the Quai des Orfèvres, to hear Lucas rattling off all these names, which Maigret could hardly keep straight, Madame Salazar the concierge, Mademoiselle Béguin, the fourth-floor tenant, the cobbler, the umbrella shopkeeper, the dairy woman and her maid; he talked about one and all as though he had always known them and could list their various idiosyncrasies.
    â€œWhat are you preparing for him for tomorrow?”
    â€œRagout of lamb. He likes his food. Just now you seemed to be asking me what his chief interest is, apart from work. It’s probably eating. And although he’s sitting down all day and gets no fresh air nor exercise, I’ve never seen a man with such an appetite.”
    â€œBefore he met you had he any men friends?”
    â€œI don’t think so. He’s never mentioned them.”
    â€œDid he live here then?”
    â€œYes. He kept house for himself. Except that once a week Madame Salazar would come and clean up properly. It may be because we don’t need her any more that she’s never liked me.”
    â€œDo the neighbors know?”
    â€œWhat I used to do? No; at least, not until Frans was arrested. It was the reporters who brought that up.”
    â€œAre they cutting you?”
    â€œSome of them. But Frans was so well liked that they’re more inclined to be sorry for us.”
    This was true on the whole. If a count had been made in the street of those for them and those against, the “fors” would certainly have won.
    But the residents of the neighborhood didn’t want it to be over too soon, any more than the newspaper readers did. The deeper the mystery, the more bitter the contest between Police Headquarters and Philippe Liotard, the more delighted people were.
    â€œWhat did Alfonsi want you for?”
    â€œHe didn’t have time to tell me. He’d just arrived when you came in. I don’t like the way he comes in here as if it were a public place, with his hat on his head, saying tu to me and calling me by my Christian name. If Frans were here he’d have put him out long ago.”
    â€œIs he jealous?”
    â€œHe doesn’t like familiarities.”
    â€œHe loves you?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know. Perhaps because I love him.”
    He didn’t smile. He hadn’t kept his hat on, as Alfonsi had. He wasn’t being rough and he wasn’t wearing his crafty expression either.
    There in the basement, he