The White Hat

Saw this on the Talking Pictures channel (UK -- old films and TV). A good episode, with the supporting actors including some later stalwarts from many other shows.

Maigret draws together several apparently unrelated incidents, but had some help from a couple of coincidences in the plot.

However, my OH tells me that she'd read the book recently, and that plot had been tweaked to try and tell the story for TV in the fifty-something minutes running time they had available!

As is usual with these old BBC dramatisations it has some tweaks to the plot to fit the broadcast time but is faithful to the spirit of the book. Davies remains, for all the competition, a definitive M. Enjoying finally getting to see these episodes.

It starts off with an incident where a nagging woman is shot dead.

Maigret is looking at an incident where someone's teeth have been found in a furnace.

With no body, the owner of a bookshop called Steuvals is arrested. Maigret trie to get information from his wife.

Meanwhile Mrs Maigret gets lumbered looking after a baby in a park by what looks like a distraught young woman.

All these occurrences are linked. It all points to a nasty villain.

It is interesting to see how the connections are made by Maigret and his team.

It is another story where there is a role for the investigating magistrate. There is also a theme of honour as Maigret exposes a crooked lawyer.