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 A little old lady, Léontine Antoine, tries to see M at the Quai des Orfèvres. Lapointe interviews her and they learn that she believes someone has been in her apartment, as things have been moved around. She approaches M in the street and makes him promise to come, but before he has a chance, he learns she has been murdered in her apartment. Apparently she'd returned while the unknown intruder was there. If only M can learn what the mysterious intruder had been searching for, but she apparently had nothing of value in the house. The only strange item is a piece of paper with revolver grease found in her bedside table drawer. Her mannish masseuse niece, Angèle Louette, lives nearby, and her boyfriend turns out to be a petty criminal, Le Grand Marcel, but soon after M confronts him in her apartment, he leaves for Toulon; apparently they had a quarrel and have split up.
M calls his old friend Marella in Toulon to watch Marcel, and when he hears he's visited retired crime lord Pepito Giovanni, heads for the scene. M and Marella go to Giovanni's, and shortly after they see him head out to sea briefly in his launch. He has thrown the revolver into the sea. M returns to Paris where Marella calls him the next day to report that Le Grand Marcel was found shot to death. When M confronts Angèle Louette with this news, she reveals that Marcel had wanted her aunt's late husband's invention, a silencer-revolver, thinking he could sell it. He'd killed her when she returned while he was still there. Since it was an unpremeditated crime, she cannot be held as an accessory, and M decides to let her go free.
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Maigret of the Month: January, 2010
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