Peg Leg Lapie, a crusty old sailor, is found mysteriously murdered in a most incongruous setting: a picturesque cottage near Paris, where he lived attended only by his young housekeeper, Felicie. But Lapie was not alone Maigret, chief inspector of the Paris police, is sure of it. A man at work in his garden, wearing clogs and a straw hat, does not suddenly drop his tools to go indoors and fetch a bottle of brandy...

Peg Leg Lapie, a crusty old sailor, is found mysteriously murdered in a most incongruous setting: a picturesque cottage near Paris, where he lived attended only by his young housekeeper, Felicie. But Lapie was not alone Maigret, chief inspector of the Paris police, is sure of it. A man at work in his garden, wearing clogs and a straw hat, does not suddenly drop his tools to go indoors and fetch a bottle of brandy to drink alone in the summerhouse. There must have been another glass that someone removed. But Félicie, in her red hat trimmed with an iridescent feather, proves a champion adversary, as skilled in innuendo and evasion as Maigret is in deduction.