Dead body first thing in the morning. In the wardrobe. How outrageous - and how American!
When a strangled American woman in a black gown falls out of metal locker number 89 in the staff quarters of a posh hotel, the reputation of the establishment near the Champs-Élysées is in jeopardy.
The scribes are already swooping down on the scene like vultures, and so the hastily summoned Maigret must first of all determine what has induced the lady who is staying here, together with her son, his governess and her teacher, to descend to the cellar. And why is the victim's wealthy husband, who was supposedly doing business in Rome at the time, so distant - is he having an affair? Why were three workers sleeping in the changing rooms, even though the regulations forbade it even in the 1930s? If only the bike of Prosper Donge, the café manager, hadn't cracked in the morning and he was late for his shift, missing the killer at his locker by a minute. Or is this a cover story?
A search ace from the Goldsmiths' Embankment would have solved the complex case much more easily if it had been free of ambiguities about the boy's real father, racketeering schemes, inspections of prostitutes and mistaken identities. All the indications are that Maigret is now confronted by a perhaps inconspicuous, perhaps frightened, but cunning criminal.
