Crimson plush seats, wall mirrors, marble tables. The waiter nods, the band strikes up a jazz tune. A couple are dancing. Adele is trying to get a customer to drink. Welcome to the Gai-Moulin, a nightclub in Liege. At closing time, two teenagers wait on the basement steps in back to rob the place. But on their way to the bar, sneaking in the dark, they stumble upon a body. It's the foreigner, the one they saw talking with Adele earlier that evening. For the local police it is at first an open and that case. But then not so open and shut. New suspects appear, old ones disappear, and the body turns up at the Zoo, stuffed in a wicker basket. Into this puzzle steps Inspector Maigret of Paris, in one of the most dramatic entrances of his career.