Maigret et la vieille dame

A story from Simenon’s full “American period,” Maigret et la vieille dame was written between 29 November and 8 December 1949 in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, and published in 1950. As often in these years, Simenon wrote far from the novel’s setting — here Étretat and the Alabaster Coast — yet captured its grey light and westerly winds perfectly. The novel, never adapted for film, tells the story of Valentine Besson, a widow living in Étretat, who comes to the quai des Orfèvres: her maid, Rose, has died after drinking the sleeping draft intended for her mistress. At the request of his superiors (alerted by the minister’s office, anxious to avoid scandal since a deputy from the Besson family is implicated in the affair), Maigret agrees to “a few days by the sea.” Two days of investigation are enough for him to untangle a web of poisons, sleeping pills and resentments, in which lost money weighs as heavily as wounded pride.