Les Scrupules De Maigret

THIS scarcely happens more than once or twice a year at the Quai des Orfevres, and sometimes it is over so soon that no one has time to notice it: suddenly, after a period of feverish activity, during which cases follow one after another without a breathing-space, when they are not cropping up three or four at a time, working the whole staff so hard that the inspectors, for want of sleep, end up haggard and red-eyed, suddenly there is a dead calm, a blank, one might say, barely punctuated by a few telephone calls of no importance.