Signed, Picpus

A thin, colorless man comes to Commissaire Maigret. He discovered, on a blotting paper at a café, a sentence saying that tomorrow at five the fortune-teller will be killed. The signature reads: “Pickpuss.” The police are put on alert, and several hundred fortune-tellers are placed under surveillance, but everyone thinks it’s just someone’s stupid joke. Maigret risks becoming a laughingstock. However, at the start of six, a message arrives about the death of Mademoiselle Jeanne—a fortune-teller—by knife wounds…