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efforts to
align the two slits, which logically should have been located one exactly above the other.
    â€˜That’s it!’ exclaimed Maigret,
as if he had just solved an intricate mathematical equation.
    â€˜You mean that when he was killed he
wasn’t wearing his raincoat?’
    â€˜It’s virtually certain.’
    â€˜But there’s a slit in the raincoat
that looks as if it was made with a knife.’
    â€˜It was done afterwards, to make it look
right. Now no one wears a raincoat in a house or a restaurant. By going to the trouble of
doctoring the gaberdine, someone was trying to make us believe that the stabbing took place in
the open air.’
    â€˜â€¦ whereas the crime was actually
carried out indoors,’ said Moers, completing his thought.
    â€˜And for the same reason, the same person
also took the risk of dumping the body in Place de la Concorde, where the murder was not
committed …’
    He knocked his pipe out on his heel, retrieved
his tie,looked some more at the manikin, which seemed even more alive now
that it was seated. From the back or the side, when its featureless, colourless face was
invisible, the effect was striking.
    â€˜Have you found any leads?’
    â€˜Almost nothing so far. I haven’t
finished. But in the arch of the sole I did find small quantities of some very interesting mud.
It’s soil impregnated with wine, the sort you might find in the wine cellar of a house in
the country where a cask has just been broached.’
    â€˜Carry on. Phone me in my
office.’
    When he went in to see the commissioner he was
greeted with:
    â€˜Well, Maigret? And how is
your
dead man
?’
    It was the first time the expression had been
used. The head of the Police Judiciaire must have been informed that Maigret had had his claws
in the case since two in the morning.
    â€˜So they managed to get him after all, eh?
I admit that yesterday I was more or less convinced that you were dealing with a practical joker
or a lunatic.’
    â€˜I didn’t see it that way. I believed
what he said from the first time he phoned.’
    Why was that? Maigret could not have put it into
words. It certainly wasn’t because the man had asked for his help rather than anyone
else’s. As he spoke to the commissioner, he allowed his eyes to stray out across the river
to the opposite bank, which was in full sunlight.
    â€˜The public prosecutor has decided the
examining magistrate for this case is to be Coméliau. They’ll both bedropping in at the Forensic Institute this morning. Do you intend to join them?’
    â€˜What would be the point?’
    â€˜At least see Coméliau, or call him.
He can be touchy.’
    Maigret was quite well aware of this.
    â€˜You don’t think it was some gangland
score being settled?’
    â€˜I don’t know. I’ll find out,
though it doesn’t feel like it to me. The criminal fraternity aren’t in the habit of
going to the trouble of hanging their victims out to dry in Place de la Concorde.’
    â€˜As you wish. Do whatever you think best. I
expect someone will recognize him sooner or later.’
    â€˜I’d be surprised.’
    This was another feeling which he would have been
hard pressed to explain. In his mind, it made perfect sense. But as soon as he tried to pin it
down, even for his own satisfaction, the waters grew muddy.
    But there was no getting away from Place de la
Concorde. It followed that someone wanted the body to be found, and found quickly. It would have
been easier and less dangerous, for example, to throw it into the Seine, where it might have
remained for days if not weeks before it was fished out.
    The victim was not a rich man or a famous person
but a nonentity, a man of no importance.
    So why, if they wanted the police to get
interested in him, rearrange his face after he was dead and empty his pockets of everything
which might have been used to identify