The Mouse (Simenon novel)
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Monsieur La Souris (1938, English: The Mouse) is a 'roman dur' by Georges Simenon. It is the story of a tramp who finds a wallet with a handsome amount of money and his plan of keeping the money by giving in to the police, to claim it later as the honest finder. The novel has been called a Maigret without Maigret, as such, it is an atypical 'roman dur'.
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Plot
While opening the door of a car parked in the Champs-Elysées district to ask for alms, a tramp, nicknamed Mouse, finds himself in front of a dead body. A wallet falls near the body; he grabs it and runs away. Cleverly, he keeps the matter quiet, hides the wallet, but gives the police the money (about 150,000 francs, almost all of it in dollars), hoping that it will be returned rightfully, unclaimed after one year. But he also keeps a photo of a woman and an old envelope addressed to a mysterious person, Sir Archibald Landsburry.
Inspector Lognon begins to follow him, discovers the documents and identifies the young woman in the photo as the Parisian friend of a great financier from Basel, Loëm, who has just been reported missing. She, however, was unaware of Loëm's true identity. The police officer Lucas is put on the case, which seems to be complicated without any trace of the alleged victim. Dora Staori, the fiancée of Müller, Loëm's deputy, denounces him as the murderer. But Lucas thwarts the plot: the young woman, through her friend, was trying to put pressure on Loëm to interest her father - a compromised lawyer - in the "Basel Group".
Only one lead remains, that of Mouse, whom the murderers are apparently trying to contact through classified ads. Lognon has already been molested by one of them in place of the old tramp. However, Lucas, throwing him a second time as bait, manages to stop the gang (there are three of them). Everything becomes clear: Loëm had a postage stamp of exceptional value, the Hawaii 1851, in duplicate, and had decided to sell it. The advertisement he had published gave criminals, including a dealer in rare stamps, the idea of a swindle. At the rendezvous, they killed Loëm, but they were immediately disturbed by Mouse who had taken the wallet containing the envelope carrying the famous stamp and addressed to Sir Archibald, an English botanist of the last century, specialist of the flora of the Pacific. The body of Loëm is later found, unrecognizable, after several months, with his car fished out of the Seine. As for Mouse, he will never have enough money to buy the disused presbytery in his village of Bischwiller-sur-Moder, which he dreamed of when he set up his scheme.
Special aspects of the novel
The story tells, in the limited time of a police investigation, the story of a perfect crime. The investigation is sometimes described in accordance with the picturesque personality of the main hero.
Description of the work
Space and time
Space
[Paris (district of the Champs-Elysées, the Opera, the Madeleine, etc.)
Time
Contemporary era.
The characters
Main character
Ugo Mosselbach, Alsatian, nicknamed Mouse. Tramp, former music teacher. 68 years old.
Other characters
- Edgard Loëm, Swiss financier, president of the "Basel Group
- Frédéric Müller, one of Loëm's representatives
- Dora Satori, Müller's fiancée, daughter of a Hungarian lawyer
- Inspector Lognon (nicknamed by Mouse "Inspector Malgracieux")
- Commissioner Lucas.
Editions
- Pre-publication in serial form in the daily newspaper Le Jour, no. 66-100 from March 7 to April 10, 1937 with illustrations by Sogno.
- Original edition: Gallimard, 1938
- Tout Simenon, tome 21, Omnibus, 2003 Template:ISBN
- Folio Policier, n° 559, 2009 Template:ISBN
- Romans durs, tome 4, Omnibus, 2012 Template:ISBN
Adaptations
- Monsieur La Souris by Georges Lacombe (1942), with Raimu, Aimé Clariond, Charles Grandval, and Micheline Francey
Source
- Maurice Piron, Michel Lemoine, L'Univers de Simenon, guide des romans et nouvelles (1931-1972) de Georges Simenon, Presses de la Cité, 1983, pp. 74-75 Template:ISBN
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