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that’s why I took it easy. I’ve some pals waiting for me on the coast and I haven’t even tried to telephone them. Your little inspector with the dainty manner has been keeping his eye on me and for the last two days has been itching to put me inside. Well! I’ll tell you straight, to save you making a blunder: it’d be a big mistake.
    â€œThat’s all. After which, I’m at your service.”
    Maigret waited for Charlot to go out, a toothpick at his lips, to ask quietly of his Scotland Yard colleague:
    â€œDoes it ever happen over there, that you make friends among your clients?”
    â€œNot in quite the same way.”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    â€œWe haven’t a lot of people like that. Certain things don’t happen in quite the same way. Do you follow me?”
    Why did Maigret think of Mrs. Wilcox and her young secretary? Indeed certain things did not happen in quite the same way.
    â€œFor example, I had dealings, you might call them cordial, for a long time with a notorious jewel thief. We have a lot of jewel thieves. It’s something of a national speciality of ours. They are nearly always educated men who come from the best schools, and belong to the smartest clubs. We have the same difficulty as you do with people like this man, or the one called Monsieur Émile: it is to catch them in the act. For four years I kept on the track of the thief I was telling you about. He knew it. We often had a whisky at the bar together.
    â€œWe played a number of games of chess together, too.”
    â€œAnd did you get him?”
    â€œNever. In the end we came to a gentleman’s agreement. You know the expression? I got rather in his way, so much so, in fact, that last year he wasn’t able to try anything on, and he was genuinely hard up. On my side, I wasted a lot of time on his account. I advised him to go and exercise his talents elsewhere. Is that how you say it?”
    â€œDid he go and steal jewels in New York?”
    â€œI rather think he’s in Paris,” Mr. Pyke corrected him calmly, selecting a toothpick in his turn.
    A second bottle of the island’s wine, which Jojo had brought without being asked, was more than half-empty. The patron came over to suggest:
    â€œA little marc? After the garlic mayonnaise, it’s essential.”
    It was balmy, almost cool in the room, while a heavy sun, humming with flies, beat down on the square.
    Charlot, probably for the sake of his digestion, had just begun a game of pétanque with a fisherman, and there were half a dozen others to watch them play.
    â€œWill you be doing your interrogations at the town hall?” inquired little Lechat, who didn’t seem at all sleepy.
    Maigret all but answered:
    â€œWhat interrogations?”
    But he mustn’t forget Mr. Pyke, who was swallowing his marc almost without distaste.
    â€œAt the town hall, yes…”
    He would have preferred to go and take a siesta.

3
    Monsieur Félicien Jamet, the mayor (of course people just called him Félicien), came along with his key to open the town-hall door for them. Twice before, seeing him cross the square, Maigret had asked himself what it was about his appearance that was abnormal, and he suddenly realized: perhaps because he also sold lamps, kerosene, galvanized wire and nails, Félicien, instead of wearing a grocer’s yellowish apron, had taken to the ironmonger’s gray smock. He wore it very long, almost down to his ankles. Was he wearing trousers underneath? Or did he leave them off, on account of the heat? The fact remained that if the trousers were there, they were too short to project below the smock, so that the mayor looked as if he were in a nightshirt. More precisely—and the species of skull cap he sported added to the impression—he had something medieval about him, and one had the impression of having seen him before somewhere in a stained-glass window.
    â€œI