Maigret s’amuse

The Chief Inspector is on leave, but the case catches up with him — or rather, he takes his amusement from it: from his armchair on the rue de Turenne, in the apartment he shares with Madame Maigret, he reads the papers, listens to the rumors, and follows from a distance an investigation he is not conducting. The case of a naked woman’s body found in a doctor’s office becomes the stage for an invisible ballet, in which the actions of others — policemen, journalists, suspects — are enough to bring the truth to light. Thus Inspector Janvier, helped along by a few anonymous nudges from Maigret, manages to conclude his first case entirely on his own. But to show the Chief Inspector that he was not at all fooled by his little subterfuge, he sends him an anonymous letter bearing just two words: “Merci, patron…”

A thoroughly atypical Maigret, yet one that has become a reference point, standing as a meditation on intuition and rigor of thought in solving a mystery — even one followed from afar.