Cocktail Talk: Maigret’s Revolver, Part I

My collecting of Inspector Maigret (the Parisian policeman made famous in an amazing array of novels by Georges Simenon) continues apace, as they say, if perhaps not at the speed they mean when saying it, most recently when I picked up a gem called Maigret’s Revolver. In it, a young nervous fella stops by to see our taciturn Inspector at home, but Maigret’s out. The cuddly Madame Maigret lets the young man wait, but when she’s out of the room, he lifts a revolver (a present from Americans, naturally) that Maigret had left out. From there, the chase is on, a chase the becomes more fervid when a murder victim turns up in trunk dropped off by the young man’s father – a victim that was shot, but with a different gun! Maigret eventually ends up in sunny London, after a fair amount of twists and turns. And Cocktail Talks (be sure to read the many past Maigret Cocktail Talks, too), including the below pastis sipping with an old colleague.
“Hello! What are you doing in Paris?”
Lourtie, one of his former inspectors, had recently transferred to the Flying Squad in Nice.
“Just passing through. I thought I might drop in, sniff the air of headquarters and shake hands with you. Do we have time for a pastis in the Brasserie Dauphine?”
“Yes, but it’ll have to be a quick one.”
He like Lourtis, a tall lanky fellow with the voice of a church cantor. In the brasserie, where they stood at the counter, there were already several other inspectors. They chattered about this and that. A pastis was exactly what was needed on a day like today. They had one, then another, then a third.
–Georges Simenon, Maigret’s Revolver