The Carter of ’La Providence’ Page 9

  ‘Unfortunately no. But I came to ask a few more questions.’

  ‘Sit down. Fancy a drop of something?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Go on, say yes! Look, in weather like this it can’t do any harm. Don’t tell me you’ve come from Dizy on a bike?’

  ‘All the way from Dizy.’

  ‘But it’s sixty-eight kilometres!’

  ‘Is your carter here?’

  ‘He’s most likely out on the lock, arguing. They want to take our turn. We can’t let them push us around, not now. We’ve lost enough time already.’

  ‘Does he own a bike?’

  ‘Who, Jean? No!’

  She laughed and, resuming her work, she explained:

  ‘I can’t see him getting on a bike, not with those little legs! My husband’s got one. But he hasn’t ridden a bike for over a year. Anyway I think the tyres have got punctures.’

  ‘You spent last night at Omey?’

  ‘That’s right! We always try to stay in a place where I can buy my groceries. Because if, worse luck, you have to make a stop during the day, there are always boats that will pass you and get ahead.’

  ‘What time did you get there?’

  ‘Around this time of day. We go more by the sun than by clock time, if you follow me. Another little drop? It’s gin. We bring some back from Belgium every trip.’

  ‘Did you go to the shop?’

  ‘Yes, while the men went for a drink. It must have been about eight when we went to bed.’

  ‘Was Jean in the stable?’

  ‘Where else would he have been? He’s only happy when he’s with his horses.’

  ‘Did you hear any noises during the night?’

  ‘Not a thing. At three, as usual, Jean came and made the coffee. It’s our routine. Then we set off.’

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual?’

  ‘What sort of thing do you mean? Don’t tell me you suspect poor old Jean? I know he can seem a bit, well, funny, when you don’t know him. But he’s been with us now for eight years, and I tell you, if he went, the Providence wouldn’t be the same!’

  ‘Does your husband sleep with you?’

  She laughed again. And since Maigret was within range, she gave him a sharp dig in the ribs.

  ‘Get away! Do we look as old as that?’

  ‘Could I have a look inside the stable?’

  ‘If you want. Take the lantern. It’s on deck. The horses are still out because we’re still hoping to go through tonight. Once we get to Vitry, we’ll be fine. Most boats go down the Marne canal to the Rhine. It’s a lot quieter on the run to the Saône – except for the culvert, which is eight kilometres long and always scares me stiff.’

  Maigret made his way by himself towards the middle of the barge, where the stable loomed. Taking the storm lantern, which did service as a navigation light, he slipped quietly into Jean’s private domain, which was full of a strong smell of horse manure and leather.

  But his search was fruitless, though he squelched around in it for a quarter of an hour, during which time he could hear every word of what the skipper of the Providence was discussing on the wharf-side with the other men from the barges.

  When a little while later he walked to the lock, where, to make up lost time, all hands were working together amid the screech of rusty crank-handles turning and the roar of roiling water, he spotted the carter at one of the gates, his horse whip coiled round his neck like a necklace, operating a sluice.

  He was dressed as he had been at Dizy, in an old suit of ribbed corduroy and a faded slouch hat which had lost its band an age ago. A barge was emerging from the lock chamber, propelled by means of boat hooks because there was no other way of moving forward through the tangle of boats. The voices that called from one barge to another were rough and irritable, and the faces, lit at intervals by a navigation light, were deeply marked by fatigue.

  All these people had been on the go since three or four in the morning and now had only one thought: a meal followed by a bed on to which they would at last be able to drop.

  But they all wanted to be first through the congested lock so that they would be in the right place to start the next day’s haul. The lock-keeper was everywhere, snatching up documents here and there as he passed through the crowd, dashing back to his office to sign and stamp them, and stuffing his tips into his pocket.

  ‘Excuse me!’

  Maigret had tapped the carter on the arm. The man turned slowly, stared with eyes that were hardly visible under his thicket of eyebrows.

  ‘Have you got any other boots than the ones you’ve got on?’

  Jean didn’t seem to understand the words. His face wrinkled up even more. He stared at his feet in bewilderment.

  Eventually he shook his head, removed his pipe from his mouth and muttered:

  ‘Other boots?’

  ‘Have you just got those, the ones you’re wearing now?’

  A yes, nodded very slowly.

  ‘Can you ride a bike?’

  A crowd started to gather, intrigued by their conversation.

  ‘Come with me!’ said Maigret. ‘I want a word.’

  The carter followed him back to the Providence, which was moored 200 metres away. As he walked past his horses, which stood, heads hanging, rumps glistening, he patted the nearest one on the neck.

  ‘Come on board.’

  The skipper, small and puny, bent double over a boat hook driven into the bottom of the canal, was pushing the vessel closer to the bank to allow a barge going downstream to pass.

  He saw the two men step into the stable but had no time to wonder what was happening.

  ‘Did you sleep here last night?’

  A grunt that meant yes.

  ‘All night? You didn’t borrow a bike from the lock-keeper at Pogny, did you?’

  The carter had the unhappy, cowering look of a simpleton who is being tormented or a dog which has always been well treated and then brutally thrashed for no good reason.

  He raised one hand and pushed his hat back, scratching his head through his white mop, which grew as coarse as horse hair.

  ‘Take off your boots.’

  The man did not budge but looked out at the bank, where the legs of his horses were visible. One of them whinnied, as if it knew the carter was in some sort of trouble.

  ‘Boots! And quick about it!’

  And joining the action to the word, Maigret made Jean sit down on the plank which ran along the whole length of one wall of the stable.

  Only then did the old man become amenable. Giving his tormentor a look of reproach, he set about removing one of his boots.

  He was not wearing socks. Instead, strips of canvas steeped in tallow grease were wound round his feet and ankles, seeming to merge with his flesh.

  The lantern shed only a dim light. The skipper, who had completed his manoeuvre, came forward and squatted on the deck so that he could see what was going on inside the stable.

  While Jean, grumbling, scowling and bad-tempered, lifted his other leg, Maigret was using a handful of straw to clean the sole of the boot he held in his hand.

  He took the left pedal from his pocket and held it against the boot.

  A bemused old man staring at his bare feet made a strange sight. His trousers, which either had been made for a man even shorter than he was or had been altered, stopped not quite halfway down his calf.

  And the strips of canvas greasy with tallow were blackish and pock-marked with wisps of straw and dirty sweepings.

  Maigret stood close to the lantern and held the pedal, from which some of the metal teeth were missing, against faint marks on the leather.

  ‘Last night, at Pogny, you took the lock-keeper’s bike,’ he said, making the accusation slowly, without taking his eyes off t
he two objects in his hands. ‘How far did you ride?’

  ‘Ahoy! Providence! … Move up! … The Étourneau is giving up its turn and will be spending the night here, in the lower reach.’

  Jean turned and looked at the men who were now rushing about outside and then at the inspector.

  ‘You can go and help get the boat through the lock,’ said Maigret. ‘Here! Put your boots on.’

  The skipper was already pushing on his boat hook. His wife appeared:

  ‘Jean! The horses! If we miss out turn …’

  The carter had thrust his feet into his boots, was now on deck and was crooning in a strange voice:

  ‘Hey! … Hey! … Hey up!’

  The horses snorted and began moving forward. He jumped on to the bank, fell into step with them, treading heavily, his whip still wound round his shoulders.

  ‘Hey! … Hey up!’

  While her husband was heaving on the boat hook, the bargee’s wife leaned on the tiller with all her weight to avoid colliding with a barge which was bearing down on them from the opposite direction, all that was visible of it being its rounded bows and the halo around its stern light.

  The voice of the lock-keeper was heard shouting im-patiently:

  ‘Come on! … Where’s the Providence? … What are you waiting for?’

  The barge slid silently over the black water. But it bumped the lock wall three times before squeezing into the chamber and completely filling its width.

  8. Ward 10

  Normally, the four sluices of any lock are opened one after the other, gradually, to avoid creating a surge strong enough to break the boat’s mooring ropes.

  But sixty barges were waiting. Masters and mates whose turn was coming up helped with the operation, leaving the lock-keeper free to take care of the paperwork.

  Maigret was on the side of the lock, holding his bicycle in one hand, watching the shadowy figures as they worked feverishly in the darkness. The two horses had continued on then stopped fifty metres further along from the upper gates, all by themselves. Jean was turning one of the crank handles.

  The water rushed in, roaring like a torrent. It was visible, a foaming white presence, in the narrow gaps left vacant by the Madeleine.

  But just as the cascading water was running most strongly, there was a muffled cry followed by a thud on the bow of the barge, which was followed by an unexplained commotion.

  The inspector sensed rather than understood what was happening. The carter was no longer at his post, by the gate. Men were running along the walls. They were all shouting at the same time.

  To light the scene there were only two lamps, one in the middle of the lift-bridge at the front of the lock and one on the barge, which was now rising rapidly in the chamber.

  ‘Close the sluices!’

  ‘Open the gates!’

  Someone passed across an enormous boat hook, which caught Maigret a solid blow on the cheek.

  Men from even distant boats came running. The lock-keeper came out of his house, shaking at the thought of his responsibilities.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The old man …’

  On each side of the barge, between its hull and the wall, there was less than a foot of clear water. This water, which came in torrents through the sluices, rushed down into those narrow channels then turned back on itself in a boiling mass.

  Mistakes were made: for instance, when someone closed one sluice of the upper gate, which protested noisily and threatened to come off its hinges until the lock-keeper arrived to correct the error.

  Only later was the inspector told that the whole lower stretch of canal could have been flooded and fifty barges damaged.

  ‘Can you see him?’

  ‘There’s something dark. Down there!’

  The barge was still rising, but more slowly now. Three sluices out of four had been closed. But the boat kept swinging, rubbing against the walls of the chamber and maybe crushing the carter.

  ‘How deep is the water?’

  ‘There’s at least a metre under the boat.’

  It was a horrible sight. In the faint light from the stable lamp, the bargee’s wife could be seen running in all directions, holding a lifebuoy.

  Visibly distressed, she was shouting:

  ‘I don’t think he can swim!’

  Maigret heard a sober voice close by him say:

  ‘Just as well! He won’t have suffered as much …’

  This went on for a quarter of an hour. Three times people thought they saw a body rising in the water. But boat hooks were directed to those places in the water, with no result.

  The Madeleine moved slowly out of the lock, and one old carter muttered:

  ‘I’ll bet whatever you fancy that he’s got caught under the tiller! I seen it happen once before, at Verdun.’

  He was wrong. The barge had hardly come to a stop not fifty metres away before the men who were feeling all round the lower gates with a long pole shouted for help.

  In the end, they had to use a dinghy. They could feel something in the water, about a metre down. And just as one man was about to dive in, while his tearful wife tried to stop him, a body suddenly burst on to the surface.

  It was hauled out. A dozen hands grabbed for the badly torn corduroy jacket, which had been snagged on one of the gate’s projecting bolts.

  The rest unfolded like a nightmare. The telephone was heard ringing in the lock-keeper’s house. A boy was despatched on a bicycle to fetch a doctor.

  But it was no good. The body of the old carter was scarcely laid on the bank, motionless and seemingly lifeless, before a barge hand removed his jacket, knelt over the impressive chest of the drowned man and began applying traction to his tongue.

  Someone had brought the lantern. The man’s body seemed shorter, more thick-set than ever, and his face, dripping wet and streaked with sludge, had lost all colour.

  ‘He moved! I tell you, he moved!’

  There was no pushing or jostling. The silence was so intense that every word resounded as voices do in a cathedral. And underscoring it was the never-ending gush of water escaping through a badly closed sluice.

  ‘How’s he doing?’ asked the lock-keeper as he returned.

  ‘He moved. But not much.’

  ‘Best get a mirror.’

  The master of the Madeleine hurried away to get one from his boat. Sweat was pouring off the man applying artificial respiration, so someone else took over, and pulled even harder on the waterlogged man’s tongue.

  There was news that the doctor had arrived. He had come by car along a side road. By then, everyone could see old Jean’s chest slowly rising and falling.

  His jacket had been removed. His open shirt revealed a chest as hairy as a wild animal’s. Under the right nipple was a long scar, and Maigret thought he could make out a kind of tattoo on his shoulder.

  ‘Next boat!’ shouted the lock-keeper, cupping both hands to his mouth. ‘Look lively, there’s nothing more you can do here.’

  One bargee drifted regretfully away, calling to his wife, who had joined some other women a little further off in their commiserations.

  ‘I hope at least that you didn’t stop the engine?’

  The doctor told the spectators to stand well back and scowled as he felt the man’s chest.

  ‘He’s alive, isn’t he?’ said the first life-saver proudly.

  ‘Police Judiciaire!’ broke in Maigret. ‘Is it serious?’

  ‘Most of his ribs are crushed. He’s alive all right, but I’d be surprised if he stays alive for very long! Did he get caught between two boats?’

  ‘Most probably between a boat and the lock.’

  ‘Feel here!’

  The doctor made the inspector feel the left arm, which was broken in two places.

  ‘I
s there a stretcher?’

  The injured man moaned feebly.

  ‘All the same, I’m going to give him an injection. But get that stretcher ready as quick as you can. The hospital is 500 metres away …’

  There was a stretcher at the lock. It was regulations. But it was in the attic, where the flame of a candle was observed through a skylight moving to and fro.

  The mistress of the Providence stood sobbing some distance from Maigret. She was staring at him reproachfully.

  There were ten men ready to carry the carter, who gave another groan. Then a lantern moved off in the direction of the main road, catching the group in a halo of light. A motorized barge, bright with green and red navigation lights, gave three whistles and moved off on its way to tie up at a berth in the middle of town, so that she would be the first to leave next morning.

  Ward 10. It was by chance that Maigret saw the number. There were only two patients in it, one of whom was crying like a baby.

  The inspector spent most of the time walking up and down the white-flagged corridor, where nurses ran by him, passing on instruction in hushed voices.

  Ward 8, exactly opposite, was full of women who were talking about the new patient and assessing his chances.

  ‘If they’re putting him in Ward 10 …’

  The doctor was plump and wore horn-rimmed glasses. He walked by two or three times in a white coat, without speaking to Maigret.

  It was almost eleven when he finally stopped to have a word.

  ‘Do you want to see him?’

  It was a disconcerting sight. The inspector hardly recognized old Jean. He had been shaved so that two gashes, one on his cheek and the other on his forehead, could be treated.

  He lay there, looking very clean in a white bed in the neutral glare of a frosted-glass lamp.

  The doctor lifted the sheet.

  ‘Take a look at this for a carcass! He’s built like a bear. I don’t think I ever saw a skeletal frame like it. How did he get in this state?’

  ‘He fell off the lock gate just as the sluices were being opened.’

  ‘I see. He must have been caught between the wall and the barge. His chest is literally crushed in. The ribs just gave way.’