While Maigret is visiting the Emergencies Room, chatting with his nephew Daniel, a call comes in from the 18th. Someone had broken an alarm box, shouted "Merde to the cops" and then a shot. Arriving at the scene they found the dead man, Michel Goldfinger, a diamond merchant with a heavy debt due the next day. And the inspector in charge, Lognon, the "Grouser". But something about the shouted message troubles Maigret, since it resembles the last words of Stan the Killer, a message that had not been published in the papers.
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Goldfinger had lived with his wife, Mathilde Goldfinger, and his sister-in-law, Eva. He had a large insurance policy in his wife's name, payable even in the event of suicide, if a year had passed. It was 13 months. Gastinne-Renette, the ballistics expert, told Maigret that a silencer had recently been fitted onto the gun, and so the suspicions of murder were growing. Only how did Mathilde Goldfinger communicate with her accomplice? She never left the building, never telephoned. Finally Maigret remembers a short-term detective, Mariani, who been on the Stan the Killer case, and tells Lognon, to finish up the case. Mariani had taken an apartment above the Goldfinger's, and so she'd merely gone upstairs to communicate with him.
The review of this Book prepared by Dana Samson
