The Carter of ’La Providence’ Read online

  Maigret followed them in to take a look at the room which had been prepared for him. It was next door to the landlord’s. He remained there for about ten minutes, changed his shoes and cleaned his pipe.

  At the same time as he was going back downstairs, a yacht steered by a man in oilskins close to the bank slowed, went into reverse and slipped neatly into a slot between two bollards.

  The man carried out all these manoeuvres himself. A little later, two men emerged from the cabin, looked wearily all round them and eventually made their way to the Café de la Marine.

  They too had donned oilskins. But when they took them off, they were seen to be wearing open-necked flannel shirts and white trousers.

  The watermen stared, but the newcomers gave no sign that they felt out of place. The very opposite. Their surroundings seemed to be all too familiar to them.

  One was tall, fleshy, turning grey, with a brick-red face and prominent, greenish-blue eyes, which he ran over people and things as if he weren’t seeing them at all.

  He leaned back in his straw-bottomed chair, pulled another to him for his feet and summoned the landlord with a snap of his fingers.

  His companion, who was probably twenty-five or so, spoke to him in English in a tone of snobbish indifference.

  It was the younger man who asked, with no trace of an accent:

  ‘You have still champagne? I mean without bubbles?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Bring us a bottle.’

  They were both smoking imported cork-tipped Turkish cigarettes.

  The watermen’s talk, momentarily suspended, slowly started up again.

  Not long after the landlord had brought the wine, the man who had handled the yacht arrived, also in white trousers and wearing a blue-striped sailor’s jersey.

  ‘Over here, Vladimir.’

  The bigger man yawned, exuding pure, distilled boredom. He emptied his glass with a scowl, indicating that his thirst was only half satisfied.

  ‘Another bottle!’ he breathed at the young man.

  The young man repeated the words more loudly, as if he was accustomed to passing on orders in this way.

  ‘Another bottle! Of the same!’

  Maigret emerged from his corner table, where he had been nursing a bottle of beer.

  ‘Excuse me, gentlemen, would you mind if I asked you a question?’

  The older man indicated his companion with a gesture which meant:

  ‘Talk to him.’

  He showed neither surprise nor interest. The sailor poured himself a drink and cut the end off a cigar.

  ‘Did you get here along the Marne?’

  ‘Yes, of course, along the Marne.’

  ‘Did you tie up last night far from here?’

  The big man turned his head and said in English:

  ‘Tell him it’s none of his business.’

  Maigret pretended he had not understood and, without saying any more, produced a photograph of the corpse from his wallet and laid it on the brown oilcloth on the table.

  The bargees, sitting at their tables or standing at the bar, followed the scene with their eyes.

  The yacht’s owner, hardly moving his head, looked at the photo. Then he stared at Maigret and murmured:

  ‘Police?’

  He spoke with a strong English accent in a voice that sounded hoarse.

  ‘Police Judiciaire. There was a murder here last night. The victim has not yet been identified.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ the other man asked, getting up and pointing to the photo.

  ‘In the morgue at Épernay. Do you know her?’

  The Englishman’s expression was impenetrable. But Maigret registered that his huge, apoplectic neck had turned reddish blue.

  The man picked up his white yachting cap, jammed it on his balding head, then muttered something in English as he turned to his companion.

  ‘More complications!’

  Then, ignoring the gawping watermen, he took a strong pull on his cigarette and said:

  ‘It’s my wife!’

  The words were less audible that the patter of the rain against the window panes or even the creaking of the windlass that opened the lock gates. The ensuing silence, which lasted a few seconds, was absolute, as if all life had been suspended.

  ‘Pay the man, Willy.’

  The Englishman threw his oilskin over his shoulders, without putting his arms in the sleeves, and growled in Maigret’s direction.

  ‘Come to the boat.’

  The sailor he had called Vladimir polished off the bottle of champagne and then left, accompanied by Willy.

  The first thing the inspector saw when he arrived on board was a woman in a dressing gown dozing on a dark-red velvet bunk. Her feet were bare and her hair uncombed.

  The Englishman touched her on the shoulder and with the same poker face he had worn earlier he said in a voice entirely lacking in courtesy:

  ‘Out!’

  Then he waited, his eye straying to a folding table, where there was a bottle of whisky and half a dozen dirty glasses plus an ashtray overflowing with cigarette ends.

  In the end, he poured himself a drink mechanically and pushed the bottle in Maigret’s direction with a gesture which meant:

  ‘If you want one …’

  A barge passed on a level with the portholes, and fifty metres further on the carter brought his horses to a halt. There was the sound of bells on their harness jangling.

  2. The Passengers on Board the Southern Cross

  Maigret was almost as tall and broad as the Englishman. At police headquarters on Quai des Orfèvres, his imperturbability was legendary. But now he was exasperated by the calm of the man he wanted to question.

  Calm seemed to be the order of the day on the boat. From Vladimir, who sailed it, to the woman they had roused from her sleep, everyone on board seemed either detached or dazed. They were like people dragged out of bed after a night of serious drinking.

  One detail among many: as she got up and looked round for a packet of cigarettes, the woman noticed the photo which the Englishman had put down on the table. During the short walk from the Café de la Marine to the yacht, it had got wet.

  ‘Mary?’ She put the question scarcely batting an eye.

  ‘Yes. Mary.’

  And that was it! She went out through a door which opened into the cabin and presumably was the door to the bathroom.

  Willy appeared on deck and poked his head in through the hatchway. The cabin was cramped. Its varnished mahogany walls were thin and anyone forward could hear every word, for its owner looked first in that direction, frowning, then at the young man saying impatiently:

  ‘Come in … and sharp about it!’

  Then, turning to Maigret, he added curtly:

  ‘Sir Walter Lampson, Colonel, Indian Army, retired.’

  He accompanied this introduction of himself with a stiff little bow and a motion of the hand towards the bench seat along the cabin wall.

  ‘And you are …?’ said the inspector, turning towards Willy.

  ‘A friend … Willy Marco.’

  ‘Spanish?’

  The colonel gave a shrug. Maigret scanned the young man’s visibly Jewish features.

  ‘My father is Greek and my mother Hungarian.’

  ‘Sir Walter, I’m afraid I have to ask you some questions.’

  Willy had sat down casually on the back of a chair and was rocking backwards and forwards, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  But just as Maigret was about to open his mouth, the yacht’s owner barked:

  ‘Who did it? Do you know?’

  He meant the perpetrator of the crime.

  ‘We haven’t come up with anything so far. That’s why you can be useful to o
ur inquiries by filling me in on a number of points.’

  ‘Was it a rope?’ he continued, holding one hand against his throat.

  ‘No. The murderer used his hands. When was the last time you saw Mrs Lampson?’

  ‘Willy …?’

  Willy was obviously his general factotum, expected to order the drinks and answer questions put to the colonel.

  ‘Meaux. Thursday evening,’ he said.

  ‘And you did not report her disappearance to the police?’

  Sir Walter helped himself to another whisky.

  ‘Why should I? She was free to do whatever she pleased.’

  ‘Did she often go off like that?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  The sound of rain pattered on the deck overhead. Dusk was turning into night. Willy Marco turned the electric light on.

  ‘Batteries been charged up?’ the colonel asked him in English. ‘It’s not going to be like the other day?’

  Maigret was trying to maintain a coherent asked questioning. But he was constantly being distracted by new impressions.

  Despite his best efforts, he kept looking at everything, thinking about everything simultaneously. As a result his head was filled with a jumble of half-formed ideas.

  He was not so much annoyed as made to feel uneasy by this man who, in the Café de la Marine, had cast a quick glance at the photo and said without flinching:

  ‘It’s my wife.’

  And he recalled the woman in the dressing gown saying:

  ‘Mary?’

  Willy went on rocking to and fro, a cigarette glued to his lips, while the colonel was worrying about the boat’s batteries!

  In the neutral setting of his office, the inspector would have doubtless conducted a properly structured interview. But here, he began by taking off his overcoat without being invited to and picked up the photo, which was disturbing in the way all photographs of corpses are disturbing.

  ‘Do you live here, in France?’

  ‘In France, England … Sometimes Italy … Always on my boat, the Southern Cross.’

  ‘And you’ve just come from …?’

  ‘Paris!’ replied Willy who had got the nod from the colonel to do the talking. ‘We stayed there two weeks after spending a month in London.’

  ‘Did you live on board?’

  ‘No. The boat was moored at Auteuil. We stayed at the Hotel Raspail, in Montparnasse.’

  ‘You mean the colonel, his wife, the lady I saw just now, plus yourself?’

  ‘Yes. The lady is the widow of a member of the Chilean parliament, Madame Negretti.’

  Sir Walter gave an impatient snort and lapsed into English again:

  ‘Get on with it or else he’ll still be here tomorrow morning.’

  Maigret did not flinch. But from then on, he put his questions with more than a touch of bloody-mindedness.

  ‘So Madame Negretti is no relation?’ he asked Willy.

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘So she is not connected in any way with you and the colonel … Would you tell me about accommodation arrangements on board?’

  Sir Walter swallowed a mouthful of whisky, coughed and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Forward are the crew’s quarters. That’s where Vladimir sleeps. He’s a former cadet in the Russian navy … He served in Wrangel’s White Russian fleet.’

  ‘Any other crew? No servants?’

  ‘Vladimir does everything.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Between the crew’s quarters and this cabin are, on the right, the galley, and on the left the bathroom.’

  ‘And aft?’

  ‘The engine.’

  ‘So there were four of you in this cabin?’

  ‘There are four bunks … First, the two that you see. They convert to day couches … Then …’

  Willy crossed to a wall panel, pulled out a kind of deep drawer which was in fact a bed.

  ‘There’s one of these on each side … Do you see?’

  Actually, Maigret was indeed beginning to see a little more clearly. He was beginning to feel that it wouldn’t be long before he got to the bottom of these unusual living arrangements.

  The colonel’s eyes were a dull grey and watered like a drunk’s. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation.

  ‘What happened at Meaux? But first, when exactly did you get there?’

  ‘Wednesday evening … Meaux is a one-day stage from Paris. We’d brought along a couple of girls, just friends, with us from Montparnasse.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The weather was marvellous. We played some records and danced outside, on deck. Around four in the morning I took the girls to their hotel, and they must have caught the train back the next morning.’

  ‘Where was the Southern Cross moored?’

  ‘Near the lock.’

  ‘Anything happen on Thursday?’

  ‘We got up very late, we were woken several times in the night by a crane loading stone into a barge nearby. The colonel and I went for a drink before lunch in town. Then, in the afternoon, let me see … the colonel had a nap … and I played chess with Gloria … Gloria is Madame Negretti.’

  ‘On deck?’

  ‘Yes. I think Mary went for a walk.’

  ‘And she never came back?’

  ‘Yes she did: she had dinner on board. The colonel suggested we all spend the evening at the palais de danse. Mary didn’t want to come with us … When we got back, which was around three in the morning, she wasn’t here.’

  ‘Didn’t you look for her?’

  Sir Walter was drumming his fingers on the polished top of the table.

  ‘As the colonel told you, his wife was free to come and go as she pleased. We waited for her until Saturday and then we moved on … She knew our route and could have caught up with us later.’

  ‘Are you going down to the Mediterranean?’

  ‘Yes, to the island of Porquerolles, off Hyères. It’s where we spend most of the year. The colonel bought an old fort there. It’s called the Petit Langoustier.’

  ‘Did everybody stay on board all day Friday?’

  Willy hesitated for a moment then almost blurted out his answer:

  ‘I went to Paris.’

  ‘Why?’

  He laughed unpleasantly, which gave his mouth an odd twist.

  ‘I mentioned our friends, the two girls … I wanted to see them again. Or at least one of them.’

  ‘Can you give me their names?’

  ‘First names … Suzy and Lia … You’ll find them any night at La Coupole. They live at the hotel on the corner of Rue de la Grande-Chaumière.’

  ‘Working girls?’

  ‘They’re both decent sorts …’

  The door opened. It was Madame Negretti. She had put on a green silk dress.

  ‘May I come in?’

  The colonel answered with a shrug. He must now have been on to his third whisky and was drinking them more or less neat.

  ‘Willy … Ask him … The formalities …’

  Maigret had no need to have it translated to understand. But this roundabout, offhand way of being asked questions was beginning to irritate him.

  ‘Obviously as a first step you will be expected to identify the body. After the post-mortem, you will no doubt be given a death certificate authorizing burial. You will choose the cemetery and …’

  ‘Can we go now, straightaway? Is there a garage around here where I can hire a car?’

  ‘There’s one in Épernay.’

  ‘Willy, phone for a car … right now.’

  ‘There’s a phone at the Café de la Marine,’ said Maigret while the young man badtemperedly put on his oilskin jacket.

  ‘Where’s Vladimir?’

  ‘I heard
him come back a little while ago.’

  ‘Tell him we’ll have dinner at Épernay.’

  Madame Negretti, who was running to fat and had glossy black hair and very light skin, had found a chair in a corner, under the barometer, and had observed what was happening with her chin cupped in one hand. She looked as if her mind was elsewhere or perhaps she was deep in thought.

  ‘Are you coming with us?’ asked Sir Walter.

  ‘I’m not sure … Is it still raining?’

  Maigret was already bristling, and the colonel’s last question did nothing to calm him down.

  ‘How many days do think you’ll need us for? To wind everything up?’

  To this came the blunt answer:

  ‘Do you mean including the funeral?’

  ‘Yes … Three days?’

  ‘If the police doctors produce a burial certificate and if the examining magistrate has no objection, you could be all done in practical terms inside twenty-four hours.’

  Did the colonel feel the bitter sarcasm of the words?

  Maigret needed to take another look at the photo: a body that was broken, dirty, crumpled, a face which had once been pretty, carefully made up, with scented rouge applied to lips and cheeks, and a macabre grimace which you couldn’t look at without feeling an icy chill run up and down your spine.

  ‘Like a drink?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘In that case …’

  Sir Walter stood up to indicate that he considered that the interview was over. Then he called:

  ‘Vladimir! … A suit!’

  ‘I’ll probably have to question you again,’ the inspector said. ‘I may even need to have your boat thoroughly searched.’

  ‘Tomorrow … Épernay first, right? … How long will the car be?’

  ‘Will I have to stay here by myself?’ said Madame Negretti in alarm.

  ‘With Vladimir … But you can come …’

  ‘I’m not dressed.’

  Willy suddenly burst in and shrugged off his streaming oilskins.

  ‘The car will be here in ten minutes.’

  ‘Perhaps, inspector, if you wouldn’t mind …?’

  The colonel motioned to the door.

  ‘We must dress.’

  As he left, Maigret felt so frustrated that he would gladly have punched someone on the nose. He heard the hatch close behind him.