There could be no possible doubt about it; she had been strangled.
He went out on the landing again and, his voice harsh and anxious, said, ‘Someone find me a local police officer.’
Five minutes later, he was phoning from the glazed telephone booth of a nearby bistro.
‘Hello? Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, yes … Who’s this on the phone? All right … Tell me, young man, has Cécile come back? … Then go to the public prosecutor’s office … Try to see the public prosecutor himself … Tell him … Are you listening?. … No, I’m staying here. Hello! And tell Criminal Records … If by some miracle Cécile does turn up there … What was that? No, young man, this is no time for silly jokes …’
When he left the bistro, after drinking a quick glass of rum at the bar, fifty people were stationed outside the apartment building in a formation like a rectangular block of ice cream.
In spite of himself, he looked around for Cécile.
Not until five in the afternoon was he to learn that Cécile was dead.
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Maigret Page 13
