"Maigret Has Doubts" - Maigret questions certainty. Doubt becomes his sharpest investigative tool.

Описание: Classic Old Time Radio, Vintage radio shows, the Golden Age of radio, murder, mystery, drama, comedy, sci-fi, westerns.

"Maigret Has Doubts", episode 12 of the BBC Radio 4 series, first aired July 3, 1977:

Adrien Josset, a respectable businessman, is accused of murdering his wife. The evidence seems damning, and Josset’s own evasive answers only deepen suspicion. Yet Maigret, called in late to the case, finds himself unsettled by the neatness of the narrative. Something about Josset’s demeanor and the prosecution’s confidence doesn’t sit right.

As Maigret retraces the investigation, he begins to question not just the facts but the assumptions behind them. His doubts lead him into a quiet but persistent reexamination of motive, opportunity, and character. In a case where everyone else is certain, Maigret’s uncertainty becomes his greatest asset—revealing a truth that others were too eager to overlook.

12) 'Maigret Has Doubts' (Sunday 3rd July 1977)

Dining at the Pardons', Maigret tells the story of a case from a few years back, in which Adrien Josset was found guilty and executed for the murder of his wife, Christine Josset. She had been much wealthier than he, and had set him up in business. Maigret had had but one chance to interview him before the Examining Magistrate, Judge Coméliau, having decided he was guilty, took over the case.

Josset claimed he found his wife in her room, stabbed many times, and panicked, feeling he would be accused, and left the house, taking with him a dagger he thought would implicate him, which he claimed he threw off a bridge. He wandered around, drank heavily, and finally changed his mind and reported the crime to the local police station. It became known that he had a mistress, his young secretary, Annette Duché, and that the night before there had been a confrontation with her father, Martin Duché. When the father returned to his town, he was confronted by a newspaper reporter, and committed suicide, further moving public opinion against Josset. It became even stronger when it came out that his Annette had had an abortion.

Circumstantial evidence, an impatient examining magistrate and a public outcry combine to override his reservations, but the case still haunts Maigret and poses a question which can never be answered.

First published in 1959 as "Une confidence de Maigret". Translated in 1968 as "Maigret Has Doubts" by Lyn Moir and adapted for radio by Edward Bruce.

With Maurice Denham [Chief Inspector Jules Maigret], Michael Gough [Georges Simenon], Sean Barrett [Inspector Janvier], John Rye [Inspector Albert Lapointe], Robin Soans [The Newsboy], Alan Rowe [Adrien Josset], Richard Hampton [Coméliau, the Examining Magistrate], Malcolm Edwards [Pressman], David Strong [Dr. Pardon], Jeffrey Segal [Dr. Paul], Bruce Beeby [Dupont], and Nicolette McKenzie [Annette Duché].

Produced and directed by Christopher Venning
45 minutes

Georges Simenon, the prolific Belgian writer who created the iconic detective Jules Maigret. Simenon wrote 75 Maigret novels and 28 short stories, blending psychological depth with atmospheric settings and understated suspense. His work has been translated into more than 50 languages and adapted across radio, television, and film—making him one of the most widely read European authors of the 20th century.