The Late Monsieur Gallet is the third novel featuring Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, focusing on a seemingly impossible puzzle.
In the heat of summer, and the Superintendant had gone to Prague, his deputy to Normandy, and all available inspectors are out of town for the visit of the King of Spain. Maigret told his men to open the windows and doors, regardless if they slammed or papers blew off the tables.
A telegram announces the death of a Monsieur Emile Gallet, travelling salesman of cheap silverware, murdered at a hotel in Sancerre. He visits the widow at her home, a pompous woman who doubts his news. Her husband had been travelling the same route for 20 years and always sent her postcards. Here, look at this one posted yesterday from Rouen. They travel to the hotel to view the body - tall, thin, and sickly the best of times - it is her husband. Their grown son is also in the area, visiting his mistress, and also does nothing to appear likeable. Gallet had been in his room, overlooking a disused lane overgrown with nettles, when he was shot in the head at close range, then stabbed in the neck. Where was the weapon? How could the murderer succeed and leave no clues?
Maigret spends time in Gallet's room, even bringing in an expert to painstakingly reconstruct a letter burned in the fireplace. The staff and family are interviewed - but no one associated with Monsieur Gallet was even in the area when it happened.
"Maigret had an impression he had never had before, and it unnerved him. It seemed to him the whole truth was here, scattered around him, and everything he saw had its meaning. But to understand it, he would have to see it clearly, not through a sort of fog that distorted the view."
This seems a non-descript case with nothing interesting about it, but things turn quickly when Maigret learns Gallet always checked into the same hotel as 'Monsiuer Clement', a man of private means. He had not worked for the silverware company for over 18 years. And he was not mailing the postcards. Yet, he somehow managed to put away 20,000fr a month towards a 300,000fr life insurance policy.
Maigret is now 45, and had seen all types of cases working vice squad, drug squad, gambling squad, traffic, and railway police. This mystery is particularly baffling - presenting an insular puzzle that offers few clues, yet Maigret does make headway, albeit slightly unfairly. Yes, it makes perfect sense, but there is a second half of the story we readers did not know about, another crime entirely involving Monsiuer Gallet. So, we are told the whys and hows, without being able to discover the murderer ourselves.
All is forgiven when the writing is as enjoyable as Simenons, and the mystery so complex.
Again, I am amazed how this remains timeless, as it was written in 1931.
The sign of classic writing.
My other reviews for Georges Simenon:
1931 / Tradeback / 155 pages
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