Superintendent Maigret’s investigation begins in the office of the manager of The Hotel Majestic. One of the hotel’s guests; the young, pretty Madame Clark, has been found strangled; her body stuffed into a staff locker. Her husband has disappeared and the manager is relying on Maigret’s discretion to protect the public reputation of the hotel.

Maigret asks the manager to lead him straight to the body and we follow him down a narrow staircase that plunges into the noisy, bustle of a working kitchen. Bells ring constantly, kettles and chefs, waiters and cellar men currying between saucepans and service lifts. Maigret doesn’t direct an investigation from an office, he likes to get his hands dirty; likes to see the setting of a crime and immerse himself in the world of the people who surround it.

Maigret’s approach is unique. He meets Prosper Donge, our first witness, a tall, shy red-haired stillroom chef who found the body but instead of starting a formal interrogation he stays in the basement, pacing slowly; pipe clenched between his teeth. Maigret walks around; talking to everyone he bumps into, asking questions about the kitchen and the hotel, wandering the back corridors as if he were a hotel inspector rather than a Superintendent in charge of a murder investigation. All the time he watches Prosper Donge and when the middle aged man leaves work on his bicycle, Maigret borrows a bellboy’s bike and cycles inconspicuously after him.