The death penalty

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The death penalty (original title Peine de mort ) is a story by Georges Simenon , in which Commissioner Maigret follows a murder suspect to Brussels. The work belonging to the series of Maigret novels and stories was written in October 1936 in Neuilly-sur-Seine . It was preprinted on November 15 and 22, 1936 in the Paris-Soir- Dimanche newspaper and in 1944 in the anthology Les nouvelles enquêtes de Maigret by Gallimard .

In the German translation by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau, the story appeared for the first time in 1976 under the title The death penalty at Kiepenheuer and Witsch in the anthology Neues von Maigret , in Diogenes in a new translation by Anna von Planta and Margaux de Weck in the 2009 edition All of the Maigret stories .

action

Boulevard des Batignolles, Paris

Jehan d'Oulmont, a young man from a wealthy Belgian family, is suspected of murdering and robbing his uncle Adalbert d'Oulmont, a former diplomat who was well known in Paris society. During the interrogation by the Paris police, he denies the crime. For lack of evidence he has to be let go, but Maigret has him shadowed.

Hôtel Beauséjour, on Boulevard des Batignolles: Jehan d'Oulmont and his lover Sonia Lipchitz leave the hotel, take a taxi to the train station to take the train to Brussels. Maigret and his team are pretty quickly certain that the nephew, who does not have any great feelings for his uncle and whose death does not seem to hurt him very much, is a prime suspect for the murder. The commissioner follows him through hotels, restaurants, cinemas and nightclubs over the next twelve days. It turns out that Jehan d'Oulmont, also from a good family, was cast out because he got involved with Sonja Lipschitz. This woman did not have a good reputation and was tolerated by a merchant from Antwerp . The son now had to watch how he got along: the fact that he had started to study law but was fired from the University of Leuven because of bad behavior did not give a good picture . As a result, he drove around and impressed with an invented title of count.

In Brussels, the commissioner waits until the couple run out of money and are forced to act. The Belgian police are also investigating the murder case. Suddenly, in a bar, Jehan wants to shoot Maigret with a revolver hidden in Sonja's pocket, but his Belgian colleague has switched the gun. This attack has the value of an admission of guilt; because (unlike France) the death penalty has been abolished in Belgium , he saves his head and remains imprisoned in Belgium.

expenditure

After its first publication in Paris-Soir (1936) and in Les nouvelles enquêtes de Maigret (Paris, Gallimard, NRF., 1944), the story was published in 1992 in the Simenon edition of Tout Simenon (Paris, Presses de la Cité, 1988–1993) and in Tout Simenon (Paris, Omnibus, 2002-2004). It is also available in German translation in the anthology Complete Maigret Stories ( ISBN 978-3-257-06682-1 ) published by Diogenes in 2009 .

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