Monsieur La Souris (1942)

Antonin Ramatuel, who became a vagrant after a romantic disappointment and is known as “Monsieur La Souris,” occasionally works as a doorman outside the Paris cabaret Le Gai Moulin. One evening, he opens the door of a car parked not far from the entrance, and its driver falls out dead. He runs to fetch young Émile, an attendant at the cabaret; as the two men arrive, the car starts up and drives away as if nothing had happened. Shortly afterward, alone again, Monsieur La Souris finds a wallet where the car had been parked and, after asking his companion “Monsieur Cupidon” for advice, decides to hide what he has found. Soon, the newspapers report the disappearance of financier Edgard Negretti. The police investigate: Inspector Lognon and Commissioner Lucas are intrigued by the vagrant’s behavior and suspect the missing man’s associates—his brother Simon, his ward Dora, his personal secretary Frédéric Muller, and Christian Osting, to whom he had just sold his shares in the company chaired by his brother…