Read Maigret in Montmartre for Free Online Page A

spoke like a small, sulky boy, and Maigret smiled.
    “Come over here and sit down,” he said.
    Lapointe hesitated, as though he felt resentful towards Maigret too. Then, reluctantly, he came and sat down on the chair opposite his chief’s desk. He still hung his head, staring at the floor, while Maigret sat gravely puffing at his pipe. The two looked rather like a father and son in solemn colloquy.
    “You’ve not been here very long yet, but you must have realized by now that if we had to give police protection to everyone who comes to us with an accusation, you’d often have no time for sleep or even to swallow a sandwich. Isn’t that so?”
    “Yes, sir. But…”
    “But what?”
    “She was different.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, you can see she wasn’t just talking for the sake of talking.”
    “Tell me about it, now you’re feeling a bit calmer.”
    “Tell you about what?”
    “Everything.”
    “How I got to know her?”
    “Yes. Begin at the beginning.”
    “I was with a chap from Meulan, an old school-friend who’s not often been to Paris. First of all we went out with my sister, then we took her home and went up to Montmartre together, just the two of us. You know the sort of thing. We went into two or three joints and had a drink in each, and as we came out of the last of them, a kind of gnome pushed a card at us.”
    “Why do you call him a kind of gnome?”
    “Because he looks about fourteen years old, but his face is all wrinkled in fine lines—the face of a man who’s past his youth. At a short distance you’d take him for a little street arab, and I suppose that’s why they call him the Grasshopper. My friend had been disappointed with the places we’d tried so far, and I thought he might get more of a kick out of Picratt’s; so we went there.”
    “How long ago was this?”
    He thought for a moment and seemed quite astonished and rather upset by what his memory told him; but he was forced to admit:
    “Three weeks.”
    “And that was how you met Arlette?”
    “She came to sit at our table. My friend, who isn’t used to that kind of thing, took her for a tart. We had a row when we got outside.”
    “About her?”
    “Yes. I’d realized at once that she was different from the others.”
    Maigret let this pass without a smile; he was cleaning one of his pipes with the greatest care.
    “And you went back there the following night?”
    “Yes—to apologize for the way my friend had spoken to her.”
    “What had he actually said?”
    “He’d offered her money to sleep with him.”
    “And she refused?”
    “Of course. I got there early, to make sure of finding the place more or less empty, and she allowed me to stand her a drink.”
    “A drink, or a bottle?”
    “A bottle. The proprietor won’t let them sit down at a table if they’re only offered a drink. It has to be champagne.”
    “I see.”
    “I know what you’re thinking. All the same, she came and told the police what she knew, and she’s been strangled.”
    “Did she say anything to you about being in danger?”
    “Not in so many words. But I knew there were some mysteries in her life.”
    “Such as?”
    “It’s difficult to explain, and no one will believe me, because I was in love with her.”
    He spoke the last few words in a lower voice, raising his head and looking his chief straight in the face—ready to take offence at the slightest suggestion of irony.
    “I wanted to get her to drop the life she was leading.”
    “You wanted to marry her?”
    Lapointe hesitated; he was visibly embarrassed.
    “I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t suppose I’d have married her right away.”
    “But you wanted her to stop showing herself naked in a cabaret?”
    “I know it made her miserable.”
    “Did she tell you so?”
    “It wasn’t as simple as that, sir. Of course I understand it looks différent from your point of view: I know what sort of women one generally meets in places like that.
    “But for one thing