Maigret has to meet again with one of his formers “clients”, Frederic Michaux, known in Paris as Fred the Boxer, whom he arrested ten years earlier, along with his wife, Julia. Now he investigates a crime at the inn Le Pont du Grau, owned by Frederic. There, two men had come from out of the town for the auction of the farm of Groux. One of them had been playing cards all night long, together with Frederic, Pere Nicolas and Gentil. The other one, Borchain had been murdered in his bed while the four men were playing cards and the two women at the inn, Julia, the owner's wife and Therese, the maid, were in or out of the kitchen. It seems that except for Canut, the other buyer, everyone had had the chance to bludgeon Borchain and steel his wallet because the robbery was clearly the reason of the murder as the deceased had had a lot of money with him and his wallet was missing.
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After two days of useless trying to reconstruct the events, Maigret realizes that he missed an important point that completely changes the situation: Frederic was planing to runaway with Therese in Panama. This was to happen when he would turn 50 and collect his insurance policy. Did he want to fulfill his plans earlier and needed the money or his jealous wife had someway found out and wanted to stop him?
The review of this Book prepared by Dana Samson
