The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien (Maigret Number 4), Georges Simenon, translated by Linda Coverdale. Penguin Books (ISBN: 9780141393452) 2014 (First published in 1931).

Summary: The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien, in which Maigret’s swap of a suitcase as he follows a suspicious character results in the man’s suicide.

Maigret is on business in Brussels when he notices a shabbily dressed man mailing a pile of bank notes in an envelope labeled “printed matter.” The man is carrying a cheap cardboard suitcase. He sees the address, a Paris address. His curiosity piqued, he follows the man. Then at a buffet, he manages to switch the suitcase for one filled with paper. Subsequently, he follows the man to a cheap hotel, getting a room next to him. When the man opens the suitcase, he cries in dismay. The next thing Maigret hears is a shot. The man has committed suicide and Maigret, unintentionally, is the cause.

But what was in the suitcase? When Maigret opens it, he finds an old suit, too large for the deceased, with dark stains on it, with a tailor’s label from Paris. Then Maigret goes to the morgue and a businessman, Van Damme shows up as well and offers to travel with Maigret. And he keeps showing up as Maigret explores the life of the deceased, Jean Lecocq d’Arneville. In Paris, when he meets several others connected to the deceased and each other and later in Liege, Van Damme is there. One of the others is a highly successful businessman, Belloir. Another, Janin is a sculptor. And a third, Jef Lombard, is a painter in whose studio are numerous paintings of hanging men.

There’s something they are keeping from Maigret. At times, it seems they are a step ahead, destroying records. At one point there is an attempt on Maigret’s life. And we wonder where the hanging man of Saint-Pholien in the title comes in and whether Lombard’s paintings have anything to do with that. Above all else, Maigret needs to find a satisfying explanation for why Jean Lecocq d’Arneville would kill himself over a suitcase of old clothes that weren’t even his.

This is a short novel that makes for a quick read. What I want to know if you’ve read this or when you do, is whether you liked the ending. I didn’t see it coming, but I liked it when it came.