On his way back from a meeting of the International Police Congress in Bordeaux, Maigret stops to visit his old school friend, Julien Chabot, in Fontenay-le-Comte. A man in the same train car, Hubert Vernoux, introduces himself and asks if Maigret has come to help solve the murder case. In fact, Vernoux's brother-in-law, Robert de Courçon had been murdered four days earlier, followed by the murder of the Widow Gibon in the same way, a blow to the head with a pipe. While Maigret is at Chabot's, a call comes in reporting a third murder, the drunkard Gobillard, in the same manner. Chabot is the Examining Magistrate for Fontenay-le-Comte. Maigret discovers that there are two cliques in the town, a clear class separation, and that the general feeling is suspicion of Alain Vernoux, Hubert's son, a non-practicing doctor. When it is discovered that Alain has a mistress, Louise Sabati, she is arrested and questioned, and soon after he commits suicide. By this time Maigret has realized that Hubert Vernoux was the likely murderer, and that the murders of Gibon and Gobillard were merely red-herring crimes to avoid suspicion. Maigret returns to Paris, and learns by letter from Chabot that Vernoux was in custody, had gone into a crazy fit, seemingly suicidal, and was being considered as likely insane...
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The review of this Book prepared by Dana Samson
