'You see, I mainly work at night. I've ended up getting to know everybody. They're used to me in Pigalle, I exchange a few words with this person or that person. I go into the bars and cabarets where they give me a quarter bottle of Vichy without waiting for me to order anything.'

An anonymous tip-off regarding the death of a restaurant owner sends Maigret into the world of Parisian nightlife, a notorious criminal gang and a man known as 'the Flea'.

This novel has been pubished in a previous translation as Maigret and the Flea.