Mrs. Maigret's friend

Was a human body burned in the bookbinder's furnace? After receiving an anonymous letter, the Paris police search the house of the bookbinder Steuvels on Rue de Turenne. The same evening, Commissioner Maigret arrests him: two human teeth were found in the radiator of his workshop. However, the arrested man denies any wrongdoing, despite several pieces of incriminating evidence: the disappearance of a mysterious suitcase and blood-stained clothes. Three weeks later, Mrs. Maigret goes to her dentist. She waits for her appointment on a park bench, where she is already regularly and very happy to meet a young woman and two-year-old Karlik. On this particular day, however, the young woman entrusts the child to her "for a minute" - she returns two hours later in a taxi and takes the child away without further explanation. When Maigret begins to investigate, it becomes clear that the two incidents may be linked. The story, in which Maigret's wife intervenes crucially in the case, was adapted for British television in 1962 as The White Hat, directed by Andrew Osborne and starring Rupert Davies as Inspector Maigret. It was made for French television in 1977 by director Marcel Cravenn under the title Maigret and the Headless Body, with Jean Richard as Maigret and Annick Tanguy as Madame Maigret. "A writer who is as comfortable with reality as with fiction, with passion as with reason." - John Le Carré "Mrs. Maigret is, in short, charming." - Critiques Libres "What little one? Little who?" "I told you about the lady in blue and her little baby, but you never listen to me. The one I met on the bench while waiting for it to be time to go to the dentist. This morning she suddenly got up abruptly and left, asking me to look after the child for a while." "She has not returned? What have you done with the boy?" "She just got back a quarter of an hour ago. I took a taxi back." "What did she say to you when she came in?" "The beautiful thing is, she didn't say anything. I was standing in the middle of the park like a weather vane, with a screaming boy who was annoying the passers-by. Finally, I saw a taxi pull up on the street corner and recognized the white hat. She didn't even bother to get out. She opened the door and nodded to me. The boy was running ahead of me and I was afraid he was going to stretch. He ran to the cab first and the door closed before I got close." "Tomorrow," she shouted at me. "Tomorrow I will explain everything to you. Forgive..." - excerpt from the book