Lenoir has a story to tell, about a murder witnessed years before and tells Maigret the place that he should go to find the killer… the ‘guinguette à deux sous’ on the banks of the river just outside Paris.
A month later, standing in a hat shop, on his way to the station to leave Paris for his own holiday he overhears a customer mention the ‘guinguette à deux sous’. Suddenly, Maigret has the scent of the investigation and jumps in a taxi to follow the customer; a businessman called Monsieur Basso. He trails Basso through the streets of Paris, to his mistress’s apartment, waiting for him until he returns to pick up his wife and small boy and follows him again as he drives out of Paris, along the river to a holiday villa, with a bar nearby on the bank of the river… END; $par_title = <<
The next day on the river, Maigret meets everyone: Monsieur Basso, a wealthy coal-merchant, rough and ready from working class stock; Monsieur Feinstein, a haberdasher who calls himself Marcel and is always well groomed everyone’s favourite, the loud and friendly James who came alive at night but is bored when sober. They spend their days boating and fishing until they take over the guingette to drink until the early hours of the morning and Maigret joins in, slowly understanding the group and the hints of underlying tensions between them.
Then an afternoon of bridge is broken by a murder. Like a badly acted slow-mo scene from a film, Monsieur Feinstein is shot and M. Basso is found with the gun in his hand, but can’t tell Maigret what happened. The police can’t tell whether Feinstein himself or Basso fired the gun. Maigret senses something is wrong and the case plods along slowly with Maigret depressed by the oppressive late summer heat in Paris and heavy evening thunderstorms. This is a case where the weather and the setting overwhelm the characters in the story. We learn through Maigret that the people themselves and the nature of their loud, raucous parties are the key to solving the crime.
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The Victim
Monsieur Feinstein - Who had a grudge against him?
The Key Suspects
James - What does he know?
Monsieur Basso - What secret is he hiding?
Page photos: © GSFR
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