" Maigret was wearing his stubbornest, grouchiest expression, but the truth was that he was basking almost voluptuously in this investigation that had fallen into his lap, right here in Luçon, where he had been exiled. He was like a seal that had been juggling in circuses and now found itself back in the icy seas of the North! How long had it been since he had last entered a house, as he had done earlier, and sniffed about, come and gone, heavily, patiently, until the souls of both people and things no longer held any secrets for him? "

― Georges Simenon , The Judge's House (Maigret, #21)