The Saint-Fiacre Affair (Inspector Maigret, 14) Georges Simenon (translated by Shaun Whiteside). Penguin (9780141394756) 2015 (first published in 1932). [Publication link is to American edition currently in print]

Summary: Maigret receives an anonymous note of a crime to take place in his home town, and though present, cannot prevent it.

“A crime will be committed at the church of Saint-Fiacre during the first mass of the Day of the Dead.”

Maigret received this anonymous message in Paris. Why does he go to Saint-Fiacre when no one else is available? Saint-Fiacre is his childhood home. Like many of us who visit childhood homes, the visit evokes memories, but also the sad awareness that so much has changed, and not for the better.

Maigret is present for Mass, with a small crowd, among whom is the Countess of Saint-Fiacre. When she opens her missal, it is obvious that something has disturbed her. She collapses…and is dead of a heart attack. No one had been near. Was this “of natural causes” since she had been in frail health? Or was this the crime?

After recovering the missal, which a young altar boy had secreted away, Simenon discovers what had disturbed the countess. There was a clipping announcing the death of Maurice de Saint-Fiacre. We soon learn this report is false when Maurice arrives to borrow money from his mother to keep his creditors at bay.

As Maigret investigates, along with the local police, he discovers the estate of Saint-Fiacre is in sad shape. At one time, his father had been estate manager. Now, the estate has been nearly all sold off. Jean Métayer was not only the Countesses secretary but her lover. Gautier, the current manager has been putting in his own money to keep things afloat. His son, Emile, who works at the local bank confirms the sad state of the accounts, nearly exhausted and insufficient to meet bills that are due. For various reasons, both the doctor and parish priest are suspects, as is Maurice himself.

The denouement is a classic dinner party with all the suspects present. Simenon is there as well, but he hasn’t called this gathering. And it is not he who solves the crime after a dramatic climax.

Maigret seems overcome with a curious passivity that seems to be a commentary on his disillusionment with what has become of his childhood home, a sad and tawdry place. Yet it is the manager’s son who is police commissioner and this wealthy house that is now destitute.

I still have one question. Why the anonymous note to Maigret in Paris? Was it hubris on the part of the murderer, or simply a device to get him to Saint-Fiacre? This did not strike me as one of Simenon’s best, perhaps because of the lassitude (possibly attributable to an incipient cold) that characterizes Maigret throughout. But perhaps everyone is entitled to their “off” day.

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