Read The Late Monsieur Gallet for Free Online Page B

here, and writing up his accounts and so forth took him only an hour or two in the morning …’
    Maigret was opening drawers at random. He saw a large pink file in one of them, with the word ‘Soleil’ written on it.
    â€˜Some of my father’s papers,’ explained Madame Gallet. ‘I don’t know why we kept them. There are copies of all the numbers of the journal in that cupboard, right up to the last one. My father sold his bonds to bring
that out.’
    â€˜May I take this file away?’
    She turned to the door as if to consult her son, but
Henry had not followed them. ‘But what can it possibly tell you? It’s a kind of relic … Still, if you think. … Oh,
but listen, inspector, it surely must be impossible that Monsieur Niel said … I mean, it’s like those postcards! I had another one yesterday, and in his writing, I’m sure of it. Sent from Rouen, like the other card. Read it!
All going well. Will be home on
Thursday …
’ Once again some emotion broke through, but with difficulty. ‘I shall almost be expecting him. Thursday is tomorrow.’ And she suddenly burst into a fit of tears, but an extraordinarily brief one, just two or three hiccups. She raised her
black-bordered handkerchief to her mouth and said in a muted voice, ‘Well, let’s not stay here.’
    They had to go through the bedroom again with its walnut furniture – ordinary but of good quality: a wardrobe with a full-length mirror on it, two bedside tables and an imitation Persian carpet.
    Down in the ground-floor corridor, Henry was watching the upholsterers loading the draperies into a van without seeming to see them. He did not even turn his head when Maigret and his mother descended the polished staircase, causing the stairs to
creak.
    There was an untidy look to the house. The maid came into the sitting room, carrying a litre of red wine and glasses. Two men in overalls were dragging the piano back into it.
    â€˜Won’t do us any harm!’ one of the men was saying indifferently.
    Maigret had an impression that he had never had before, and it unnerved him. It seemed to him that the whole truth was here, scattered round him, and everything he saw had its meaning. But to understand it, he would have
had to see it clearly, not through a sort of fog that distorted the view. And the fog persisted, created by this woman who resisted her emotions, by Henry whose long face was as impregnable as a safe, by the black draperies now on their way out, in fact by
everything and most of all by Maigret’s own discomfort, out of place as he was in this house.
    He felt ashamed of the pink file that he was taking away like a thief, and he would have had difficulty in explaining why it might come in useful. He would have liked to stay upstairs for some time, alone in the dead man’s study, and wander
round the shed where Émile Gallet worked on perfecting his fishing equipment.
    There was a moment of wavering, with everyone coming and going in the corridor at once. It was lunchtime, and it was obvious that the Gallets were only waiting for the police officer to leave. A smell of fried onions came from the kitchen. The
maid was as distraught as the others. All anyone could do was watch the upholsterers restoring the sitting room to its usual state. One of them found the photo of Gallet underneath a tray of liqueurs.
    â€˜May I take that with me?’ Maigret intervened, turning to the widow. ‘I may need it.’
    He sensed that Henry’s eyes were following him with more scorn than ever.
    â€˜If you must … I don’t have many photographs of him.’
    â€˜I promise to let you have it back.’
    He could not bring himself to leave. At the moment when the workmen were unceremoniously carrying in an enormous fake Sèvres vase, Madame Gallet hurried forwards.
    â€˜Careful! You’re going to collide with the