The police knew him as "Sad Freddie." The newspapers tagged him "the burglar on a bike." Once he had worked for a safe-manufacturing firm. Now he was In business for himself, cracking the safes he had once installed.

Tuesday night's job was to be his last. Then he and his wife would buy a place in the country. It was to have been a routine job, but on his way to the safe in a house in Neuilly. Freddie stumbled across something that was altogether out of his line: a dead woman, her chest covered with blood, holding a telephone in her hand.

When Maigret is called in, he finds that the house belongs to an overweight dentist and his elegant, ancient mother. After an exhaustive search, a psychological duel, a marathon interrogation. and innumerable glasses of Pernod, wine, cold beer, and brandy — a sure sign that this is no easy case — the famous French sleuth triumphs.