Grumpy as he was, Maigret filled his wet pipe with tobacco all the same, and wedged himself as best he could into a cranny in the wall … This was no place for a detective chief inspector of the Police Judiciaire. At most it was a job for a new recruit. Between the age of twenty-two and thirty he’d stood this sort of watch a hundred times over. He had a terrible time getting a match to light. The emery board on the side of the box was coming off in strips. If one of the sticks hadn’t finally ignited, maybe even Maigret would have given up and gone home.
