Lock No. 1 (10 page)

‘What is
it?'

‘Madame is asking if you'll
go up.'

He could not bring himself to answer.
This was too much! Instead, he poured himself a full glass of cognac, which he drank
off in one.

‘You were saying?'

‘I was saying that at least three
people believe that you are a deeply unpleasant man. Aline locks herself up in her
cabin when she sees you coming and cries when your name is mentioned. Her father
keeps his eye on you and is only waiting for tangible proof to take his revenge.
Then there's your son. He puts himself through hell the way only very neurotic
people can. Didn't he say something at one point about becoming a
monk?'

‘Six months ago. But who told
you?'

‘It doesn't matter. You
crushed him. You stifled him. The only happiness he had in life was during those
three months he spent recuperating on the
Golden Fleece
.'

‘Get to the point!'

He mopped his face and poured himself
more cognac.

‘That's all. At least
I've explained why he committed suicide.'

‘I'd like to know
how.'

‘When he learned that you'd
been attacked and pushed off the barge into the water in the middle of the night, he
had no doubt who'd done it: Aline, who had rebelled, and had perhaps been
assaulted …'

‘Why couldn't he have talked
to me about it?'

‘Did he ever talk to you? Does
your daughter talk to you? Since he was not allowed to take up a monastic life and
believed himself to be entirely
worthless, he wanted at least to make one grand gesture in his life. It's the
sort of dreams adolescents in attic rooms have all the time. Fortunately, they
don't always put them into practice. Your son did. He saved Aline! He took the
blame! You might not be able to understand it, but any youngster of a certain age
would!'

‘What about you? How did you work
it out?'

‘Oh, I'm not the only one.
You have to realize that while Gassin was crawling from one bar to the next, drunk
to the world and not speaking to anyone, he was struggling with this same problem.
Last night, he didn't sleep on the boat. He left Aline by herself. He took a
room overlooking the barge.'

Suddenly Ducrau got to his feet and
lifted the curtain, but he could see nothing because of the brightness of the light
in the drawing room.

‘Did you hear a noise?'

‘No.'

‘What are you going to do about
it?'

‘I don't know,' said
Maigret baldly. ‘When two men are going to fight, people try to separate them.
But the law does not allow me to step in when two men are getting ready to kill each
other. It only allows me to arrest a murderer.'

Ducrau craned forward.

‘To do that, you need
proof!'

‘Meaning?'

‘Nothing! As of midnight on
Wednesday, I won't be in the police any more. You reminded me of that fact
earlier
on. You wouldn't happen to
have any black tobacco, would you?'

He helped himself from a stone jar which
Ducrau pointed out to him and, after filling his pipe, he replenished his pouch.
There was a knock at the door. It was Decharme, who came in without waiting for an
answer.

‘Sorry to interrupt. My wife has
asked me to present her excuses for not coming down to dinner. She's a little
unwell. It's her “condition” …'

He made no move to leave, looked round
for somewhere to sit and was surprised to see the cognac glasses.

‘Wouldn't you rather have
aperitifs instead?'

By some miracle, Ducrau did not jump
down his throat, indeed he didn't even seem to notice that he was there. He
had picked his pipe up off the carpet. It had not shattered. There was only a white
scuff-mark on the meerschaum bowl, and he rubbed it with a finger he had wetted with
saliva.

‘Is my wife upstairs?'

‘She's just come down.
She's in the kitchen.'

‘Would you excuse me a moment,
inspector …?'

Ducrau looked as if he were expecting
that the inspector would not excuse him. It didn't happen.

‘He's an odd
character!' sighed Maigret when the door had closed.

Decharme, who was very uncomfortable in
the armchair into which he had folded his long body but did not dare get up out of
it, gave a little cough and murmured:

‘He can be strange at times, as
you've probably noticed. Actually, he has good moments as well as bad
ones.'

Maigret, again
behaving as if he were at home, closed the curtains but left a small gap through
which at intervals he looked out at the courtyard.

‘It takes a lot of
patience.'

‘And you have enough!'

‘Take now, for instance. My
position is rather delicate. I have a commission, as you know. It's obvious
the Army cannot be dragged into certain matters, certain tragic events which
…'

‘Which …?' prompted Maigret
who was in no mood to show mercy.

‘I don't know. I'd
like your advice. Like me, you serve the public good. Now your presence here,
combined with certain rumours …'

‘What rumours?'

‘I'm not sure. But let us
suppose … This is very hard for me … We're just supposing, right? Suppose that
a man in a certain profession is put in a position … a position …'

‘Would you like a
cognac?'

‘No thanks. I never drink
spirits.'

Despite the interruption, he stuck to
his guns. He had made up his mind to see this through and was not making it up as he
went along. He had his little speech all ready.

‘When an officer has failed in his
duty, it is traditional that it falls to his comrades to let him know where his
honour lies and they leave him alone with a revolver. It avoids scandalous public
comment …'

‘Who do you have in
mind?'

‘No one in particular. But I
cannot help but be worried.
I came to
ask you once and for all either to reassure me or to say if we must expect to
…'

But he had no intention of being any
more explicit. He rose to his feet, feeling relieved. He smiled as he waited for the
reply.

‘Are you asking me if your
father-in-law is a murderer and if I'm going to arrest him?'

He had given no hint that he had been
concerned for one moment by the absence of Ducrau, who now returned, his face
looking fresher and his hair damp at the temples like a man who has just washed his
face.

‘We'll ask him.'

Maigret was drawing deep on his pipe,
holding his glass of cognac in one hand and studiously avoiding looking at Decharme,
who had blenched but did not dare say a word.

‘Ah, Ducrau, your son-in-law has
been asking me if I think you're a murderer and if I'm planning to
arrest you.'

They must have heard him from upstairs
because the sound of footsteps above their heads stopped dead. Despite his
composure, Ducrau stopped breathing.

‘You mean he's asking … if I
…'

‘Don't forget that he has a
commission in the Army. As it happens, he was reminding me about standing practice
in cases like this. When an officer fails in his duty, as he elegantly put it, his
best friends leave him alone in a room with a revolver.'

Ducrau never once took his eyes off
Decharme, who was now moving, aimlessly it seemed, to the far end of the room.

‘Ah! He said …'

For one brief
moment, it seemed that things might turn nasty. But Ducrau's face relaxed
slowly, perhaps as the result of a heroic effort of self-control. He smiled. His
grin grew broader. Then he laughed! He laughed so hard that he slapped his
thighs.

‘It's hilarious!' he
managed to say eventually, his eyes streaming with tears of laughter. ‘Oh,
Decharme, my boy! What a very charming fellow you are! But come on, you two,
we'll go in to dinner. Officers who … When somebody has failed in his …
Decharme, you prize idiot! And to think we're now about to sit down to eat
together!'

Maigret's shirt was sticking to
his skin, but no one observing him empty his pipe into the ashtray and slip it into
its case before putting it back in his pocket would have suspected a thing.

The maid brought the tureen of soup just
as Ducrau, with a sigh of contentment, was tucking a generous portion of his
serviette between his detachable collar and his skin. There was no fire lit, and
Madame Ducrau, who felt the cold, had wrapped round her shoulders a black knitted
shawl which resembled a large candle-snuffer.

Berthe's empty chair was directly
opposite Ducrau, who said to the servant:

‘Go and tell my daughter to come
down.'

He helped himself to soup and placed an
enormous piece of bread next to his plate.

Because his wife kept sniffing, he
frowned two or three times before finally losing patience.

‘Have you caught a
cold?'

‘I think so,' she stammered,
turning her head away so no one would see that she was about to start crying
again.

Meanwhile, Decharme was keeping an ear
open for sounds from upstairs as he plied his spoon most elegantly.

‘Well, Mélie?'

‘Madame Berthe says to say she
can't come down.'

Ducrau slurped his soup noisily.

‘You can
go back up and tell her again that I want her to come down whether or not
she's ill. Have you got that?'

Decharme left the room, and Ducrau
seemed to be looking round for someone else to persecute.

‘Mélie, open the
curtains.'

He was sitting opposite two windows
which gave on to the courtyard, the gate and the Seine. Leaning the full weight of
his torso against the table, he ate his bread as he looked out into the blackness of
the night. On the floor above, there were urgent sounds, whispers, sobs. When
Decharme reappeared it was to say:

‘She's coming.'

And so she was. His wife walked in just
moments later. She had not taken the trouble to cover up the shiny redness of her
face with powder.

‘Mélie!' called Ducrau.

He paid no attention to Maigret or the
others. It was if he was leading a separate life and following some prepared plan
with detached unconcern.

‘Serve the next course!'

As she leaned across the table to reach
the soup tureen he patted her on the rump.

If their servant at Charenton was young,
this one was of indeterminate age and lacking in both spirit and charm.

‘By the by, Mélie, when was the
last time we slept together?'

She gave a start, tried vainly to smile,
looked apprehensively
at her employer
and then at his wife. As for Ducrau, he merely shrugged and gave a pitying
smile.

‘Here's another woman who
thinks all that sort of thing is important. You can go. Actually, it was this
morning, when we were down choosing wine in the cellar.'

He could not stop himself casting a
glance at Maigret to gauge the effect he had produced, but the inspector looked as
if he was far above such matters.

Madame Ducrau had not reacted. She had
sunk a little further into her knitted candle-snuffer and was staring closely at the
tablecloth while her daughter kept dabbing her red nose with her handkerchief.

‘Have you noticed?' Ducrau
asked Maigret, motioning with his chin towards the courtyard and the gate.

There was just one gas lamp, and it cast
a small circle of light just by the postern. And inside this circle stood a
motionless figure. It was barely ten metres away.

The man was leaning on the gate and
could not have missed anything that happened in the brightly lit dining room.

‘It's him!' said
Ducrau.

Maigret, whose eyesight was very good,
could just make out a second figure a little further back, on the bank of the Seine.
The maid, tense with fear, brought in the meat and mashed potato while the
inspector, who had taken a notebook from his pocket, tore a page from it, on which
he scribbled a few words.

‘Would you mind if I make use of
your maid? Thanks.
Mélie, I want you to
go across the courtyard. On the other side of the gate, the first thing you'll
see is an old man. Ignore him. A few metres further on you'll find somebody
else, a man about thirty years old. Give him this note and wait for an
answer.'

The maid hardly dared move. Ducrau went
on carving the leg of mutton. Madame Ducrau, who was awkwardly placed, was twisting
and turning so that she could see outside.

‘Rare, inspector?'

His hand was steady and the look in his
eye unconcerned, and yet there was something in his bearing, some note of pathos
that didn't belong in this everyday scene of a group of people sitting around
a dinner table.

‘Got any money put by?'
Ducrau suddenly barked at his son-in-law.

‘Me?' was all a stunned
Decharme could find to say.

‘Now look here …' began his
daughter who was shaking with exasperation or anger.

‘I advise you to keep your mouth
shut. And I request that you remain seated. I have my reasons for asking your
husband if he has any savings. Well, what's the answer?'

‘Of course I don't have
any.'

‘Too bad! This mutton is
disgusting. Was it you who cooked it, Jeanne?'

‘It was Mélie.'

His eyes reverted to the window, but he
was unable to see much in the dark and only just made out the white fleck of the
maid's apron as she walked back; soon after,
she was handing Maigret a piece of paper. There were
drops of water in her hair.

‘Is it raining?'

‘Yes. Drizzling. It's just
started.'

Lucas had replied using the same scrap
of paper on which Maigret had written: ‘Is he armed?' Diagonally across
it was a single word: ‘No'.

As if he could see through the paper,
Ducrau asked:

‘Armed?'

Maigret hesitated and then nodded a yes.
Everyone had heard. Everyone had seen. Madame Ducrau swallowed a piece of meat
whole, without chewing it.

Even Ducrau, so full of swagger,
throwing out his chest, eating with simulated appetite, gave a little start.

‘We were talking about your
savings …'

Maigret realized that he was launched.
He had hit his stride. Nothing now could stop him and he started by pushing his
plate away to make more room for his elbows.

‘Too bad! Suppose that sometime
soon, maybe tomorrow or some other time, I were to die. You're thinking that
you'll be rich because even if I wanted to I don't have the right to
disinherit my wife and my daughter.'

His chair was now tilted on its back
legs, and he looked like a guest telling stories at the end of a dinner.

‘Well, I can tell you now that
none of you will get a penny!'

His daughter watched him coldly, trying
to understand, while her husband seemed to be concentrating entirely on eating.
Maigret, who now had his back to the window, was
thinking that from where Gassin was, in the drizzling
rain, the brightly lit dining room must seem a haven of family peace.

Meanwhile, Ducrau went on, his eyes
switching from one face to another:

‘You won't get a penny
because, to make sure you don't, I have signed a contract which will come into
force only at my death, which will transfer all my business interests to the General
Canal Company. Forty million, in round figures! Only the forty million won't
be payable for twenty years!'

He laughed, though he did not in the
least feel like laughing, and then turned to his wife:

‘You, old girl, will be well dead
by then!'

‘Please, Émile!'

Although she was sitting up straight and
dignified, it was clear that she was at the end of her tether, that at any moment
she might start swaying and fall off her chair.

Maigret watched Ducrau, looking for some
sign of emotion or hesitation, but on the contrary he grew even harder, maybe
because he had made up his mind that he wouldn't show his feelings.

‘Still think I should go quietly
by taking the honourable way out?' he asked his son-in-law, whose jaw started
to tremble.

‘I swear I …'

‘Don't swear! You know very
well that you're a rat, a well-bred, dirty little rat, which is the worst
sort. But what I'm wondering is: which of you is the more worthless, my
daughter or you? Would you like a
little bet? For some weeks now you've been making a great hoo-ha about this
baby that's on the way. Well, if you fancy a flutter, why don't I call a
doctor? I'll give you a hundred thousand francs if Berthe is really
pregnant!'

Madame Ducrau's eyes opened wide,
for they were suddenly seeing the truth, but her daughter continued to stare at
Ducrau with hate-filled calm.

‘Well lookee here!' he said
getting to his feet with his pipe clenched between his teeth. ‘One, two,
three! An old woman, a daughter and a son-in-law! Hardly enough to fit round a small
table, and yet it's all I have, or rather should have, that's mine and
at my side …'

Dispassionately, Maigret moved his chair
back a little and started filling his pipe.

‘Now I'd like to say
something, in the presence of the inspector, because his word wouldn't count:
there are no other witnesses, since a man's relatives cannot testify against
him, that's the situation! … I am a murderer! With these two hands, I
…'

His daughter jumped. His son-in-law
stood up stammering:

‘Oh really!'

His wife did not move. Perhaps she had
stopped hearing what was being said. She wasn't crying. Her head was resting
on her clasped hands.

Ducrau was pacing around heavily. He
crossed from one wall to another, smoking his large pipe.

‘Want to know why and how I did
away with him?'

Nobody asked to be told. But clearly he
needed to tell
it, though without
dropping his threatening manner. Suddenly he sat down opposite Maigret and held out
one hand across the table.

‘I'm bigger than you,
aren't I? Anyone would say so if they saw the two of us together. In twenty
years I've never come across anyone who could beat me at arm wrestling. Hold
out your hand!'

He grabbed it with such frenzy that
Maigret felt the force of the man's feverish intensity. And did this contact
not trigger a corresponding release of Ducrau's own feelings and did his voice
not become warmer?

‘Know how to play this? The winner
is whoever wrestles his opponent's arm down on the table. You mustn't
move your elbow.'

The veins on his head stood out, his
cheeks turned crimson, and Madame Ducrau watched him as if all she was thinking
about were his chances of getting a seizure.

‘You're not using all your
strength!'

It was true. But when Maigret turned up
the power he was amazed to find his opponent's resistance crumble, for his
muscles slackened under the slightest pressure. His hand touched the table and
Ducrau remained in that position for a moment, his arm limp.

‘That's how the whole thing
started …'

He walked to the window and opened it.
The damp breath of the river flooded into the room.

‘Gassin! Hey! Gassin!'

Something moved near the gas lamp, but
no crunch of footsteps was heard on the courtyard gravel.

‘I wonder
what he's waiting for. Deep down, he is the only one who ever liked
me.'

As he said the words, he looked directly
at Maigret as if to say:

‘Because you couldn't bring
yourself to …!'

There was only red wine on the table. He
poured himself two glassfuls in quick succession.

‘Listen to me: it doesn't
matter if I spell it all out because tomorrow, if I want, I'll deny
everything. One evening, I was on Gassin's boat—'

‘Going to see your
mistress,' broke in his daughter.

He merely gave a shrug and intoned in an
indefinable cadence:

‘Stupid girl! … I was saying,
Maigret, that one evening I turned up at Gassin's boat, feeling sickened
because the squalid pair you see here had tried yet again to fleece me. I was
surprised not to see the full circle of light in the porthole. I went closer, and
what did I see but some bastard lying flat on the deck watching my daughter
undressing …'

As he said
my daughter
he
looked around at them defiantly, but neither word produced a reaction.

‘I bent down quietly. I grabbed
him by the wrist and squeezed and turned it and forced him to twist like an eel
until half his body was hanging over the side of the boat …'

He had resumed his station by the window
and was talking into the rainy night, so that it required an effort to hear what he
was saying.

‘Until then, I'd always got
the better of the strongest
men. This
time, it didn't work. I'd got soft! The swine stopped wriggling and
squirming. He took something out of his pocket and suddenly I felt a blow in the
back. It took him a moment to regain his balance, and then with a nudge of the
shoulder he tipped me into the water …'