The Carter of ’La Providence’ (6 page)

‘What time did you get up to see to your horses?'

‘Same time as always …'

Jean's shoulders were unusually broad and looked even broader because his legs were short.

‘Jean gets up every day at half past two!' the woman broke in. ‘Take a look at the horses. They are groomed every day like they're thoroughbreds. And of an evening, you won't get him to go near a drop of white wine
until he's rubbed them down.'

‘Do you sleep in the stable?'

Jean did not seem to understand. So it was again the woman who pointed to a structure, taller than the rest, in the middle of the boat.

‘That's the stable,' she said. ‘He always sleeps there. Our cabin is in the stern. Would you like to see it?'

The deck was spotlessly clean, the brasses more highly polished than those on the
Southern Cross
. And when the woman opened a double door made of pine with a skylight of coloured glass over it, Maigret saw a touching sight.

Inside was a small parlour. It contained exactly the same oak Henri III-style furniture as is found in the most traditional of lower-middle-class front rooms. The table was covered with a cloth embroidered with silks of various colours, and on it
were vases, framed photographs and a stand overflowing with green-leaved plants.

There was more embroidery on a dresser. Over the armchairs were draped thin dust covers.

‘If Jean had wanted, we could have rigged up a bed for him near us … But he always says he can only sleep in the stable, though we're afraid that he'll get kicked one of these days. No good saying the horses know him,
is it? When they're sleeping …'

She had started eating, like the housewife who makes other people's dinners and gives herself the worst portion without a second thought …

Jean had stood up and kept staring at his horses and then at the inspector while the skipper rolled a cigarette.

‘And you didn't see anything, or hear anything?' asked Maigret, looking the carter directly in the eye.

The man turned to the skipper's wife, who replied with her mouth full:

‘If he'd seen something, he'd have said, 'course he would.'

‘Here's the
Marie
!' said her husband anxiously.

The chugging of an engine had become audible in the last few moments. Now the form of a barge could be made out astern of the
Providence
.

Jean looked at the woman, who was looking uncertainly at Maigret.

‘Listen,' she said finally, ‘if you've got to talk to Jean, would you mind doing it as we go? The
Marie
has got an engine, but she's slower than us. If she gets in front of us before we get to the lock,
she'll hold us up for two days.'

Jean had not waited to hear her last words. He had already taken the feedbags containing the horses' oats from over their heads and was now driving them a hundred metres ahead of the barge.

The bargee picked up a tin trumpet and blew a few quavering notes.

‘Are you staying on board? Listen, we'll tell you what we know. Everybody on the canals knows who we are, from Liège to Lyons.'

‘I'll meet up with you at the lock,' said Maigret, whose bicycle was still on the bank.

The gangplank was stowed on board. A distant figure had just appeared on the lock gates, and the sluices started to open. The horses set off with a jangle of tinkling bells, and the red pompons tied to the top of their heads bobbed and
jounced.

Jean walked by the side of them, unconcerned.

Two hundred metres astern, the motor barge slowed as it realized it had come too late.

Maigret followed, holding the handlebars of his bicycle with one hand. He could see the skipper's wife rushing to finish eating and her husband, short, thin and frail, leaning, almost lying, on the long tiller, which was too heavy for
him.

‘I've had lunch,' said Maigret as he strode into the Café de la Marine, where Lucas was sitting at a table in the window.

‘At Aigny?' asked the landlord. ‘My brother-in-law's the inn-keeper at Aigny …'

‘Bring us two beers.'

It had been a narrow escape. The inspector, pedalling hard, was barely in sight of Dizy when the weather had turned overcast again. And now thick rain was being drawn like curtains over the last rays of the sun.

The
Southern Cross
was still in its berth. There was no one to be seen on deck. And no sound came from the lock so that, for the first time, Maigret was aware of being truly in the country. He could hear chickens clucking in the yard
outside.

‘Got anything for me?' he asked Lucas.

‘The Russian came back with supplies. The woman put in a brief appearance in a blue dressing gown. The colonel and Willy came for a drink before lunch. They gave me some odd looks, I think.'

Maigret took the tobacco pouch which his companion was holding out for him, filled his pipe and waited until the landlord, who had served them, had vanished into his shop.

‘I didn't get anything either,' he muttered. ‘Of the two boats which could have brought Mary Lampson here, one has broken down about fifteen kilometres from here, and the other is
ploughing along the canal at three kilometres an hour.'

‘The first one is iron-built, so no chance of the body coming into contact with pitch there.

‘The other one is made of wood … The master and his wife are called Canelle. A fat motherly sort, who tried her level best to get me to drink a glass of disgusting rum, with a pint-sized husband who runs round after her like a
spaniel.

‘Which leaves just their carter.

‘Either he's pretending to be stupid, in which case he does a brilliant turn, or else he's a complete half-wit. He's been with them for eight years. If the husband is a spaniel, he's a bulldog.

‘He gets up at half past two every morning, sees to his horses, downs a bowl of coffee and then starts walking alongside his animals.

‘He does his daily thirty or forty kilometres like that, every day, at the same pace, with a swig of white wine at every lock.

‘Every evening he rubs the horses down, eats without speaking a word and then collapses on to a straw truss, most times still in his clothes.

‘I've checked his papers. An old army pay book with pages so stuck together with filth they can hardly be opened. The name in it is Jean Liberge, born in Lille in 1869.

‘And that's it … no, just a moment. The
Providence
would have had to get Mary Lampson on board on Thursday evening at Meaux. So she was alive then. She was still alive when she got here on Sunday evening.

‘It would be physically impossible to hide a grown woman for two days against her will in the stable on the boat.

‘In which case all three of them would be guilty.'

The scowl on Maigret's face showed that he did not believe that was the case.

‘But let's suppose the victim did get on the boat of her own free will. Do you know what you are going to do, Lucas? You're going to ask Sir Walter what his wife's maiden name was. Then get on the phone and find out what
you can about her.'

There were two or three patches of sky where the sunlight still lingered, but the rain was coming down more and more heavily. Lucas had hardly left the Café de la Marine and was heading towards the yacht, when Willy Marco stepped off it, wearing
a suit and tie, loose-limbed and casual, looking at nothing in particular.

It was definitely a trait shared by all the passengers on the
Southern Cross
that they always looked as though they hadn't had enough sleep or as if large amounts of alcohol did not agree with them.

The two men passed each other on the towpath. Willy appeared to hesitate when he saw Lucas go aboard. Then, lighting a fresh cigarette with the one he had just finished, he made straight for the café.

He was looking for Maigret and did not pretend otherwise.

He did not take off his soft felt hat but touched it absently with one finger as he murmured:

‘Hello, inspector. Sleep well? I wanted a quick word …'

‘I'm listening.'

‘Not here, if it's all the same to you. Could we possibly go up to your room, do you think?'

He had lost nothing of his relaxed, confident manner. His small eyes sparkled with something not far from gleeful elation, or perhaps it was malevolence.

‘Cigarette?'

‘No thanks.'

‘Of course! You're a pipe man.'

Maigret decided to take him up to his room, though it hadn't yet been cleaned. After a glance out at the yacht, Willy sat down at once on the edge of the bed and began:

‘Naturally you've already made inquiries about me.'

He looked round for an ashtray, failed to locate one and flicked his ash on to the floor.

‘Not much to write home about, eh? But I've never claimed to be a saint. Anyway the colonel tells me what a rotter I am three times a day.'

What was remarkable about this was the completely frank expression on his face. Maigret was forced to admit that he was beginning to warm to Willy, who he hadn't been able to stomach at first.

A strange mixture. Sly and foxy. Yet at the same time a spark of decency which redeemed the rest, plus an engaging touch of humour.

‘But you will have noted that I went to Eton, like the Prince of Wales. If we'd been the same age, we would have
been the best of pals. But the truth is my father is a fig wholesaler in
Smyrna. I can't bear the thought! I've been in some scrapes. The mother of one of my Eton friends, if you must know, got me out of one of them.

‘You do understand if I don't give you her name, don't you? A delectable lady … But her husband became a government minister, and she was afraid of compromising his position.

‘After that … They must have told you about Monaco, then that unpleasantness in Nice. Actually the truth isn't as bad as all that … Here's a tip: never believe anything you're told by a middle-aged
American woman who lives it up on the Riviera and has a husband who arrives unexpectedly from Chicago. Stolen jewels have not always been stolen. But let's move on.

‘Now, about the necklace. Either you know already or maybe you've not yet heard. I would have preferred to talk to you about it last night, but in the circumstances it might not have been the decent thing to do.

‘The colonel is nothing if not a gentleman. He may be a touch over-fond of whisky, I grant. But he has some justification.

‘He should have ended up a general. He was one of the men most in the public eye in Lima. But there was a scandal involving a woman, the wife of a highly placed local bigwig, and he was pensioned off.

‘You've seen him. A magnificent specimen, with vigorous appetites. Out there, he had thirty native boys, orderlies, secretaries and God knows how many cars and horses for his own use.

‘Then all of a sudden, all gone! Something like a hundred thousand francs a year, wiped out.

‘Did I say that he'd already been married twice before he met Mary? His first wife died in India. Second time round, he got a divorce by taking all the fault on himself after finding his lady in bed with one of the boys.

‘A real gentlemen!'

Willy, now leaning well back, was swinging one leg lethargically, while Maigret, his pipe between his teeth, stood with his back against the wall without moving.

‘That's how it goes. Nowadays, he passes the time as well as he can. Down at Porquerolles, he lives in his old fort, which the locals call the Petit Langoustier. When he's saved up enough money, he goes to Paris or London.

‘And just think that in India he used to give dinners for thirty or forty guests every week!'

‘Was it about the colonel you wanted to talk to me?' murmured Maigret.

Willy did not bat an eyelid.

‘Actually, I was trying to put you in the picture. I mean, you've never lived in India or London or had thirty native servants and God knows how many pretty girls at your beck and call … I'm not trying to get under
your skin …

‘Be that as it may, I met him two years ago.

‘You didn't know Mary when she was alive … An adorable creature but a brain like a bird's … And a touch loud. If you weren't waiting hand and foot on her all the time, she'd have a fit or cause a
scene.

‘By the way, do you know how old the colonel is? Sixty-eight.

‘She wore him out, if you follow me. She happily indulged his fantasies – he's not past it yet! – but she could be a bit of a nuisance.

‘Then she got a thing about me. I quite liked her.'

‘I take it that Madame Negretti is Sir Walter's mistress?'

‘Yes,' the young man agreed with a scowl. ‘It's hard to explain … He can't live or drink on his own. He has to have people round him. We met her when we put in once at Bandol. The next morning, she
didn't leave. As far as he's concerned, that was it. She'll stay as long as she likes.