Féret

Detective Sergeant Féret is a former colleague of Maigret whose work in Nice opens a crucial line of inquiry into Louise Laboine’s family. Transferred there at his own request because of his wife’s health, he becomes the investigator who finds Louise’s mother, Germaine Laboine, and reports what she says about her past. His contribution is not a complete solution to the case: it is a carefully situated piece of testimony that connects Louise’s Paris story to an older, unsettled history.

Identity and Professional Connection

Féret had previously worked under Maigret before asking to be transferred to Nice. The reason given is personal and specific: his wife’s health. The narrative offers no extended portrait of him outside his work, but this background establishes a professional connection to Maigret and explains why Maigret can turn to him when the investigation reaches the South of France.

Their relationship is practical rather than ceremonial. Féret contacts Maigret with news and answers questions about the woman he has located. The established familiarity between the two officers lets the exchange move quickly from the discovery of Louise’s mother to the details of her residence and history. Féret is an out-of-town colleague, but not a stranger to the inquiry’s central investigator.

Finding Germaine Laboine

Féret’s decisive contribution begins with a search that takes him to Monte Carlo. He tells Maigret that he had to go there to find Louise’s mother. The discovery arrives after the Paris investigation has been waiting for new information, and Maigret recognizes from the excitement in Féret’s call that the Nice inquiry has produced a significant lead.

Féret does not simply pass on the discovery and stop there. After learning that Germaine Laboine has a furnished room on Rue Greuze, near Boulevard Victor Hugo, he plans to visit her when she returns. She gets back from the Monte Carlo Casino late at night, and Féret goes to her lodging at once. His account therefore places the identification of the mother alongside the direct follow-up that makes her available for questioning.

The setting he describes is a boardinghouse inhabited largely by older women, many of them retired performers. He recalls a former circus trick rider among the residents and a landlady who claimed to have sung at the opera. In the evenings, those not at the Casino play cards in the drawing room. Féret’s description gives Maigret more than an address: it situates Germaine among people whose lives, like hers, are marked by former careers and present-day routines. His report also notes that she is alone and wears a dress and hat that appear to be at least ten years old.

What His Inquiry Reveals

Féret asks Germaine about her life, including whether she had been married. Her answer, as he relays it, resists a simple yes-or-no account. She says she had been an artist and had toured for years under the stage name Lili France, travelling through the Near East and Asia Minor. These details give the investigation a history that Louise’s immediate Paris circumstances alone could not supply.

Germaine’s account leads to Istanbul, where she said she met Julius Van Cram when she was thirty-eight. She described him as a Dutchman who looked like a gentleman and was staying at the Pera Palace. Féret presents these particulars as her account, not as independently verified facts. That distinction matters: his report establishes what Germaine told him, while leaving the truth and completeness of her memories open to further inquiry.

He also explains the pattern of Germaine’s visits to the Monte Carlo Casino. She is among people who make a living from small, repeated stakes and modest winnings, and who may be paid out when the tables are full. Féret’s account of this routine helps explain why reaching her required a trip to the Casino and why she was not simply available at home. It makes her gambling a concrete part of the search rather than a decorative detail in her biography.

Role in the Investigation

Féret is candid about the limits of his knowledge: he says he knows the case only from what has appeared in the newspapers and is unsure which details are important. That admission keeps his contribution in proportion. He is not presented as having solved the murder or reconstructed all of Louise’s movements; his value lies in locating Germaine and eliciting the past she can describe.

The result is a useful division of investigative labor. Féret’s work in Nice supplies a living witness and a family narrative; Maigret can then weigh that information alongside evidence gathered in Paris. Féret’s account broadens the inquiry without erasing uncertainty, because its most striking revelations depend on Germaine’s recollection. In the novel’s accumulating investigation, he is the colleague who turns a distant lead into a conversation—and gives Maigret a new route into Louise’s history.