The Carter of ’La Providence’

 

THE CARTER OF
LA PROVIDENCE
Translated by David Coward

1. Lock 14

2. The Passengers on Board the Southern Cross

3. Mary Lampson's Necklace

4. The Lover

5. The YCF Badge

6. The American Sailor's Cap

7. The Bent Pedal

8. Ward 10

9. The Doctor

10. The Two Husbands

11. Right of Way

EXTRA: Chapter 1 from
The Yellow Dog

Georges Simenon was born on 12 February 1903 in Liège, Belgium, and died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life. He published seventy-five novels and twenty-eight short stories featuring Inspector
Maigret.

Simenon was very fond of boats and spent six months in 1928 navigating the rivers and canals of France.
The Carter of
La Providence is one of several novels written on board his boat the
Ostrogoth
.

‘I had my second boat built at Fécamp, the
Ostrogoth
. I brought it first to Paris, where I had it christened (on a whim) by the priest of Notre Dame … then Belgium, Holland, Germany.'

PENGUIN CLASSICS

‘I love reading Simenon. He makes me think of Chekhov'

William Faulkner

‘A truly wonderful writer … marvellously readable – lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with the world he creates'

Muriel Spark

‘Few writers have ever conveyed with such a sure touch, the bleakness of human life'

A. N. Wilson

‘One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century … Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories'

Guardian

‘A novelist who entered his fictional world as if he were part of it'

Peter Ackroyd

‘The greatest of all, the most genuine novelist we have had in literature'

André Gide

‘Superb … The most addictive of writers … A unique teller of tales'

Observer

‘The mysteries of the human personality are revealed in all their disconcerting complexity'

Anita Brookner

‘A writer who, more than any other crime novelist, combined a high literary reputation with popular appeal'

P. D. James

‘A supreme writer … Unforgettable vividness'

Independent

‘Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'

John Gray

‘Extraordinary masterpieces of the twentieth century'

John Banville

The facts of the case, though meticulously reconstructed, proved precisely nothing – except that the discovery made by the two carters from Dizy made, frankly, no sense at all.

On the Sunday – it was 4 April – it had begun to rain heavily at three in the afternoon.

At that moment, moored in the reach above Lock 14, which marks the junction of the river Marne and the canal, were two motor barges, both heading downstream, a canal boat which was being unloaded and another having its bilges washed out.

Shortly before seven, just as the light was beginning to fade, a tanker-barge, the
Éco-III
, had hooted to signal its arrival and had eased itself into the chamber of the lock.

The lock-keeper had not been best pleased, because he had relatives visiting at the time. He had then waved ‘no' to a boat towed by two plodding draught horses which arrived in its wake only minutes later.

He had gone back into his house but had not been there long when the man driving the horse-drawn boat, who he knew, walked in.

‘Can I go through? The skipper wants to be at Juvigny for tomorrow night.'

‘If you like. But you'll have to manage the gates by yourself.'

The rain was coming down harder and harder. Through his window, the lock-keeper made out the man's stocky figure as he trudged wearily from one gate to the other, driving both horses on before making the mooring ropes fast to the
bollards.

The boat rose slowly until it showed above the lock side. It wasn't the barge master standing at the helm but his wife, a large woman from Brussels, with brash blonde hair and a piercing voice.

By 7.20 p.m., the
Providence
was tied up by the Café de la Marine, behind the
Éco-III
. The tow-horses were taken on board. The carter and the skipper headed for the café where other boat men and two pilots from Dizy had already
assembled.

At eight o'clock, when it was completely dark, a tug arrived under the lock with four boats in tow.

Its arrival swelled the crowd in the Café de la Marine. Six tables were now occupied. The men from one table called out to the others. The newcomers left puddles of water behind them as they stamped the mud off their boots.

In the room next door, a store lit by an oil-lamp, the women were buying whatever they needed.

The air was heavy. Talk turned to an accident that had happened at Lock 8 and how much of a hold-up this would mean for boats travelling upstream.

At nine o'clock, the wife of the skipper of the
Providence
came looking for her husband and their carter. All three of them then left after saying goodnight to all.

By ten o'clock, the lights had been turned out on most of the boats. The lock-keeper accompanied his relations as far as the main road to Épernay, which crosses the canal two kilometres further on
from the lock.

He did not notice anything out of the ordinary. On his way back, he walked past the front of the café. He looked in and was greeted by a pilot.

‘Come and have a drink! Man, you're soaked to the skin …'

He ordered rum, but did not sit down. Two carters got up, heavy with red wine, eyes shining, and made their way out to the stable adjoining the café, where they slept on straw, next to their horses.

They weren't exactly drunk. But they had had enough to ensure that they would sleep like logs.

There were five horses in the stable, which was lit by a single storm lantern, turned down low.

At four in the morning, one of the carters woke his mate, and both began seeing to their animals. They heard the horses on the
Providence
being led out and harnessed.

At the same time, the landlord of the café got up and lit the lamp in his bedroom on the first floor. He also heard the
Providence
as it got under way.

At 4.30, the diesel engine of the tanker-barge spluttered into life, but the boat did not leave for another quarter of an hour, after its skipper had swallowed a bracing hot toddy in the café which had just opened for business.

He had scarcely left and his boat had not yet got as far as the bridge when the two carters made their discovery.

One of them was leading his horses out to the towpath.
The other was ferreting through the straw looking for his whip when one hand encountered something cold.

Startled, because what he had touched felt like a human face, he fetched his lantern and cast its light on the corpse which was about to bring chaos to Dizy and disrupt life on the canal.

Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Flying Squad was running through these facts again, putting them in context.

It was Monday evening. That morning, magistrates from the Épernay prosecutor's office had come out to make the routine inspection of the scene of the crime. The body, after being checked by the people from Criminal Records and examined by
police surgeons, had been moved to the mortuary.

It was still raining, a fine, dense, cold rain which had gone on falling without stopping all night and all day.

Shadowy figures came and went around the lock gates, where a barge was rising imperceptibly.

The inspector had been there for an hour and had got no further than familiarizing himself with a world which he was suddenly discovering and about which, when he arrived, he had had only mistaken, confused ideas.