Signed, Picpus - 23

Maigret dismantles an intricate network of lies stretching from Paris to Nice in book twenty-three of the new Penguin Maigret series.

Mechanically, he had put his pince-nez down on the blotter and looked at it there with his large, short-sighted eyes.

It is at that moment that the strange thing happens.

One of the lenses, acting as a mirror, reflected the criss-cross, hatched ink marks which had dried on the blotter and he could just make out a couple of words.