Maigret is called by an old colleague, Grandjean, because a murder suspect has fled to Paris. Maigret’s men get him, but Maigret is intrigued by the character and rather believes him when he says that he knows nothing about the murder, that he didn’t kill anyone and that he doesn’t know how the body ended up in his garage.The suspect is a strange man, a Danish man called Carl Andersen, who keeps by himself and leaves alone with his sister, and he keeps her locked in her room at night.
Maigret takes the lead of the investigation. Mrs Grandjean confides in Mrs Maigret that she’s worried he may want to leave her, she’s sure he has another woman, he’s had other women in the past but this time she thinks it’s different and he may leave her.
Mrs Maigret tells everything to her husband. She also says that she knows he’s different but she understands the difficulty of being married to a policeman and never knowing if he’ll get home safe.
Carl’s sister Elsa is rather provoking, I think as a sort of test for the kind of man Maigret is, but he keeps it professional. Towards the end, he calls his two men to his house to discuss in private the case. His wife had fallen asleep on the chair while waiting for him, and he says “I didn’t want to wake you” which is the only nonsense he’s ever told. Of course he intended to wake her up, he certainly couldn’t talk to his men with her asleep in the next chair. Maybe it was intended to mean that he rather hoped she might be asleep in the bedroom, in which case he wouldn’t have had to wake her... yeah maybe that’s it. Anyway, he takes out four bottles of beer. When Janvier and Lapointe arrive, she says that she’ll go and leave them alone to discuss their business but Maigret says “no please stay” and hands her a beer. That’s why he took four bottles. One was always for her.
Maigret need privacy because he suspects Grandjean to be involved in the case, maybe to be himself the murderer, so they must talk over a way to get him and his accomplices.
I so loved this scene, which more than any other scene explains the relationship between the Maigrets. He’s not an expansive man, but he values her and appreciates her, he includes her in his life and he listens to her opinions and what she has to say. I loved it, and wish there could be more space for Mrs Maigret in these films.
Back to the plot: Andersen wasn’t his real name, and he was reluctant to give his real one because he was the son of the Danish ambassador who had promised to never reveal his real identity. His sister had died and he was now living with a prostitute that he loves and wants to save. She was rather tired of being kept captive and had an affair with Grandjean. It’s not really that any of them loved the other, but Grandjean stole the jewels that the dead man tried to sell to him to afford a ticket to America for him and his wife, plus he had come to hate his wife Claire.
He had killed the jeweller, his constable had killed his wife who could have revealed his name, and two other men helped him in covering it all. One was arrested and the other got killed by a truck, I think.
Janvier-Shaun Dingwall
Lapointe-Leo Staar
Carl Andersen-Tom Wlaschiha
Elsa-Mia Jexen
Grandjean-Kevin McNally
Mrs Maigret-Lucy Cohu
Ambassador-Jonathan Newth
ITA Maigret: il crocevia delle tre vedove
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