Read Maigret in New York for Free Online Page A

covers, and at last an arm reached out to seize the water pitcher at first
before the phone was found and a voice growled, ‘Hello …’
    Sitting on his bed, uncomfortably (for he had not
had time to adjust the pillow and was obliged to hold the damned phone), he was already –
humiliatingly – sure, despite O’Brien’s doubtless ironic remarks on the diuretic virtues of
whisky, that he had a headache.
    ‘Maigret, yes … Who’s calling? …
What?’
    It was MacGill, and that wasn’t at all agreeable
either, to be awakened by this fellow whom he did not care for in the least. Particularly when
the other man, aware from his voice that he was still in bed, took the liberty of inquiring
brightly, ‘A late night, I bet? Did you at least … have a pleasant evening?’
    Maigret looked around for his watch, which he
usually placed on his night table but which was not there. He
finally spotted a recessed electric wall clock, and his eyes
popped: it said eleven.
    ‘Tell me, inspector … I’m calling on behalf
of Mr Maura. He would be very glad if you could drop in to see him this morning … Any time
now, yes … I mean, whenever you’re ready … We’ll see you soon. You remember the
floor, right? The eighth, all the way at the end of corridor B … See you soon.’
    He looked everywhere for a bell on a cord by the
bed, the kind used in France, to call the maître d’, the valet, anyone, but saw nothing like
that and for a moment felt lost in his ridiculously large suite. Finally he remembered the
telephone and had to request three times, in his semblance of English, ‘I would like my
breakfast, miss … Yes,
breakfast
… What? … You do not understand?
… Coffee …’
    She said something he couldn’t quite catch.
    ‘I am asking you for my small lunch!’
    He thought she then hung up, but she was
transferring him to another line, on which a new voice announced, ‘Room service …’
    It was quite simple, obviously, but only if one
knew what to do, and at that instant he was angry at all America for not having had the
elementary idea of installing bells on cords in hotel rooms.
    To cap it all, he was in the bathtub when someone
knocked at the room door and although he kept yelling ‘Come in!’ the knocking continued. There
was nothing for it: dripping wet, he had to put on his dressing gown
to go and open the door, because he had locked it. What did the
waiter want now? Fine, he had to sign a slip. But now what? The man was still waiting, and at
last Maigret realized that he expected a tip. And his clothes were in a heap on the floor!
    He was about to explode when, half an hour later,
he knocked at John Maura’s door. MacGill greeted him, as elegant as always, flawlessly turned
out, but the inspector sensed that he had not slept much, either.
    ‘Come in, sit down for a moment … I’ll tell
him you’re here.’
    He seemed preoccupied. He wasn’t bothering to be
amiable. Paying no attention to Maigret, he walked into the next room without closing the door
behind him.
    The second room was a sitting room, which he
crossed. Then came a very large bedroom. And still MacGill kept going, to knock at one last
door. Maigret hadn’t time to see very well. What struck him, though, after the series of
luxurious rooms, was how bare the last one looked. And it was later in particular that he
realized this, trying to reconstruct the sight he’d had an instant before his eyes.
    He would have sworn that the bedroom the
secretary entered at the end looked more like a servant’s room than a St Regis hotel room.
Wasn’t Little John sitting at a simple pine table and was it not an iron bedstead that Maigret
glimpsed behind him?
    A few words exchanged in low tones, and the two
men came towards him one behind the other, Little John still tense, his movements deliberate,
seemingly
filled with prodigious energy he was
forced to hold in reserve.
    Entering the office, like his secretary he was
none too welcoming, and this time