Plus One ‘You’ll agree perhaps, chief inspector, that it’s time we had a serious talk …’ The mayor had said this in a tone of icy formality, and Leroy did not know Maigret well enough yet to judge his reaction from the way he blew out his pipe smoke. A slender grey stream emerged slowly from the inspector’s half-open lips, and he blinked two or three times. Then he drew his notebook from his pocket and looked around at the pharmacist, the doctor, the bystanders. ‘At your service, Monsieur le Maire … Here is—’ ‘If you’d like to have a cup of tea at my house,’ the mayor interrupted hastily, ‘I have my car at the door. I’ll wait till you’ve given the necessary orders.’ ‘What orders?’ ‘But … the murderer, the drifter … that girl …?’ ‘Oh, yes! Well, if the police have nothing better to do, they can keep an eye on the railway stations round here.’ He wore his most ingenuous expression. ‘Leroy, wire Paris to send Goyard here.
