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herself.
    And she, still suspicious, replied:
    ‘What’s it to you?’
    ‘To the harbour?
     … Is that where …?’
    ‘There and other places!’
    ‘Was there anyone else in the
     bar?’
    ‘No one … It was a hot day
     … I had a nap on the chair for an hour.’
    Yet William didn’t arrive back at
     Antibes in his car until after five o’clock!
    ‘Did he go to other bars like this
     one?’
    ‘No, never. Besides, there are no
     other bars like this one.’
    Quite so! Maigret himself, who had only
     been there for an hour, felt as if he had known it for ever. Maybe because there was
     nothing personal. Or maybe because of its relaxed, lazy ambience. You couldn’t
     summon up the determination to get up and leave. Time flowed by slowly. The hands of the
     alarm clock ticked around the pale clock face. And the rectangle of sun at the window
     slowly faded.
    ‘I read the papers … I
     didn’t even know William’s surname … But I recognized the photo
     … We cried, Sylvie and me … What on earth was he doing with those two women?
     … In our situation, you shouldn’t get involved in things like that, should
     you? … I expected the police to turn up at any time … When you came out of
     the bar across the road, I thought this might be it …’
    She spoke slowly. She topped up the drinks.
     She drank her alcohol in small mouthfuls.
    ‘Whoever did it was a nasty piece of
     work, because men like William are few and far between … And I should
     know!’
    ‘Did he ever talk to you about his
     past?’
    She gave a sigh. Hadn’t Maigret got
     it yet? This was the bar
where nobody talked about the past
!
    ‘All I can tell you
     is that he was a gentleman. A man who was once very rich, and perhaps still was …
     I don’t know … He had a yacht, a load of servants.’
    ‘Was he unhappy?’
    She sighed again.
    ‘Can’t you understand? …
     You’ve seen Yan … Is he unhappy? … But it’s still not the same
     thing … Am I unhappy? … It doesn’t mean that we don’t have a
     drink and talk aimlessly and feel a need to cry …’
    Sylvie gave her a censorious look. Of
     course, she had only been drinking coffee while Big Jaja was already on her third
     glass.
    ‘I’m glad you came, because now
     I can be shot of it … Nothing to hide, nothing t0 reproach myself about …
     Although with the police, you know it’s not that simple … If it had been the
     Cannes police, I’m sure they’d have had me locked …’
    ‘Was William a big
     spender?’
    Was she exasperated at her inability to
     make him understand how it was?
    ‘He spent money but he didn’t
     … He gave us cash to buy things to eat and drink … Sometimes he paid the gas
     or electricity bill, or else he gave Sylvie a hundred francs to buy some
     stockings.’
    Maigret was hungry. And there was that
     delicious leg of mutton just a few centimetres from his nostrils. There were two slices
     lying on the dish. He picked one up with his fingers and ate it as he spoke, as if he
     too were now one of the regulars.
    ‘Did Sylvie bring
     her clients back here?’
    ‘No, never! That would have got us
     closed down … There are plenty of hotels in Cannes for that sort of
     thing!’
    Looking Maigret in the eye, she added:
    ‘Do you believe it was his women who
     …’
    At the same moment she turned her head
     away. Sylvie stood up so as to see through the net curtain over the door. The outside
     door had been opened. Someone walked across the bar, pushed open the other door and
     stopped, surprised, when he saw a new face.
    Sylvie had got up. Jaja, looking a little
     pink in the cheeks, said to the new arrival:
    ‘Come in! This is the police
     inspector who is in charge of William’s case …’
    And to Maigret:
    ‘A friend … Joseph …
     He’s a waiter at the casino.’
    That was evident from the white shirt front
     and the knot of black tie that Joseph wore under a grey suit and his polished shoes.
    ‘I’ll come back