Maigret

Back in October I noticed the recreational use of ether at reference 1.

Today I discover more about this in the story called 'Maigret', from Volume 5 of the collected works, dated 1933.

In the margins of the story, relevant to the tone but not to the action, we have a short digression about a girl picked up at a Parisian night club by three young men and taken to a hotel for a spot of ether. The form seemed to be that the young men took it in turns to pop into the local late night chemist and buy a little flask of the stuff, after which they all retire to a room in a nearby hotel and take their clothes off. The young men take their ether, which leads to the bed bugs on the bed taking on interesting proportions, but not much else. Girl gets dressed and makes her way home - or perhaps back to the club for a better class of action.

From all of which, given that one of the meanings of piquer has to do with injections, I deduce that the girl's contemptuous ejaculation of 'Des piquées', terminating her account to Maigret, might be loosely translated as 'Bloody druggies'.

PS: gmaps does not answer to 'Rue Fontaine', given as the address of the club in question, but it does have a 'Rue Pierrre Fontaine', a long road running south which eventually leads into 'Rue Montmartre', given as the address of the chemist. Perhaps Simenon is a bit careless with his Parisian geography.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/the-staff-of-life.html.