Louis Thouret, stable family man, once steady worker, is found stabbed to death--wearing a red tie and shoes unfamiliar to his virago of a wife--first indications that he was leading a life she knew nothing of. With another apartment, a mistress, and time spent sitting on park benches on which he devised a get-rich-slowly scheme of some originality. Good Simenon--like a Pulsar watch, easy to read and it doesn't vary more than a second in four months between appearances.