Lock No. 1 (2 page)

From where he sat, he could see the
drowned man. It was at him that his grumbling was directed. For he was blaming him
for something. He swore at him. He accused him of dark deeds and from time to time
even challenged him to come back and square up.

The girl in the nightdress tried to take
the bottle away from him, but all he said was:

‘Go to bed, you!'

He pushed her away, for she was
preventing him from seeing the man who had been rescued. They were about the same
height, but the other man was broader, bulkier, with an enormously thick neck and a
square-shaped head covered with a mass of hair.

There was the sound of a car engine.
People turned to look at the shadowy figures which emerged from it up on the quay
and then came down the stone steps. There were policemen and a doctor. Even before
they knew what had happened, the police were telling the onlookers to move back. The
doctor put his bag down on a concrete block.

An inspector in plain clothes who had
been talking to bystanders turned his attention to the old man, who had been pointed
out to him. But it was too late to question him. He had emptied half the brandy
bottle and was glaring suspiciously at everyone.

‘Is he your
father?' the inspector asked the girl in the nightdress.

She didn't seem to understand. Too
many things were going on at the same time. The landlord of the bar stepped in and
said:

‘Gassin was already pretty drunk.
He must have slipped off the gangplank.'

‘And the other man?'

The doctor was undressing the other
man.

‘Émile Ducrau, the one who owns
tugs and quarries. He lives over there.'

He motioned to the tall house. The
venetian blinds on the first floor were still leaking thin streams of light and the
windows on the second still showed pink.

‘On the second floor?'

Bystanders explained hesitantly:

‘First,' said one.

Another added mysteriously:

‘On the second too. I mean,
he's got somebody on the second floor.'

‘You mean he's been playing
house with somebody else?'

High above them the window of the pink
room shut, and the blind came down.

‘Anyone told the
family?'

‘No. We were waiting to know what
was happening.'

‘Go and put some stockings
on,' one boatman said to his wife. ‘And fetch me my cap.'

And so, from time to time figures were
observed moving from one boat to the next. Through hatches and portholes
oil-lamps could be seen, and even framed
photographs were visible hanging on pine walls.

The doctor said in the inspector's
ear:

‘You'd better call the
chief. This man was knifed before being thrown into the water.'

‘Is he dead?'

It was as if the drowned man had been
waiting for just that question to open his eyes and, with a gasp, cough up water. He
was seeing everything at an angle because he was lying on his back, so that his
horizon was the star-studded sky. From where he was, the people round him rose
giant-like into the heavens, legs resembling interminable columns. He said nothing.
Perhaps he was not yet thinking anything. He looked with eyes that were slow and
flinty, but gradually they relaxed and became less fixed.

His gasp must have been audible, for
everyone started forward at the same instant, and suddenly the policemen imposed the
usual, official order on proceedings, that is that they formed into a line, held
back the crowd and let through only those who needed to be there.

The man on the ground saw the space
around him empty and then a lot of police uniforms and silver-braided police
headgear. He continued dribbling greyish water, which ran over his chin down on to
his chest, while his arms were being continuously pumped. They were his arms. He
watched their movements out of curiosity and frowned when someone at the back of the
crowd said:

‘Is he dead?'

Old Gassin got to his feet, without
relaxing his hold on the bottle. He took three faltering steps, parked himself
between the rescued man's legs and
spoke to him. His speech so thick and his tongue so clotted that no one understood a
single word.

But Ducrau saw him. He did not take his
eyes off him. He was thinking. He seemed to be racking his memory …

‘Move further back!' the
doctor said crossly and he pushed Gassin so roughly that the drunk went sprawling on
the ground, broke his bottle and stayed where he was, moaning and fuming, as he
tried to fend off his daughter, who was bending over him.

Another car stopped on the quay above
and a new group formed around the police chief.

‘Is he fit to be
questioned?'

‘No harm trying.'

‘You think he'll pull
round?'

It was the man, Émile Ducrau, himself
who replied, with a smile. It was a peculiar smile, still not fully formed, more a
grimace, but everyone had a clear sense that it was an answer to the question.

Somewhat uncertainly the police chief
acknowledged him by removing his hat.

‘I'm glad to see that
you're feeling better.'

It was awkward speaking down from a
height to a man whose face was turned up to the sky above while the rescue team were
still working on him.

‘Were you attacked? Was it far
from here? Do you know where exactly you were stabbed and then thrown into the
water?'

Water was still coming out of his mouth,
in weak spurts. Émile Ducrau was in no hurry to reply or even to try to
speak. He turned his head a little
because just then the girl in white passed through his field of vision, and his eyes
followed her until she reached the gangway.

She had gone, with the help of a
neighbour, to make coffee for her father, who resisted whenever anyone suggested he
should go home to bed.

‘Do you remember what
happened?'

And since he was still not responding,
the police chief took the doctor to one side and asked:

‘Do you think he
understands?'

‘I'd say so.'

‘But …'

They had their backs to the prone man
when they were stupefied to hear him say:

‘… you're hurting
me!'

All eyes turned to him. He was showing
signs of impatience. It seemed that trying to speak was a great effort to him.
Moving one arm painfully, he added:

‘Wanna go home.'

What his hand was trying to do was to
point at the house on six floors, a little way off behind him. The police chief
looked rather put out and hesitated.

‘Sorry to insist, but it's
my job. Did you see your attackers? Did you recognize them? Maybe they haven't
gone very far.'

Their eyes met. Émile Ducrau's
gaze was steady. Yet he did not answer.

‘There's going to have to be
an investigation, and the prosecutor's office is bound to ask me if
…'

What happened next
was unexpected. The shapeless bulk, which had looked so limp as it lay on the
light-coloured stones of the unloading wharf, roused itself briefly and pushed away
everything that cramped its movements.

‘… go home!' Ducrau said
again in a fury.

There was a feeling that if they went on
opposing his wishes he might turn very nasty and even summon up enough strength to
stand up and set about those crowding round him.

‘Go easy!' exclaimed the
doctor. ‘You'll make the wound bleed.'

But the man with the bull's neck
didn't care, he had suddenly had enough of lying flat on his back in the
middle of a lot of gawping people.

‘Take him home,' sighed the
police chief with a gesture of resignation.

The stretcher from Lock No. 1 had been
brought. Ducrau didn't want to be carried on a stretcher. He growled a
refusal. They had to carry him by his arms, legs and shoulders. While he was being
helped away, he looked angrily at the bystanders, and the bystanders made way
because they were afraid of him.

The procession crossed the street. The
police chief called a halt.

‘Hold it there. I must go up and
warn his wife.'

He rang the bell while the men who were
carrying him waited under the green gaslight which marked the stop for trams and
buses.

Meanwhile, a
number of boatmen were having a very hard time carrying old Gassin across the
gangplank of the
Golden Fleece.
He was dead drunk. He had also cut his hand
on a shard of glass from the bottle.

When, two days later, Detective Chief
Inspector Maigret stepped off the number 13 tram opposite the two bars, it was ten
in the morning and, standing on the kerb with the sun shining directly into his eyes
and his ears filled with noise, there he remained for some time, scowling, while
lorries white with cement dust thundered past between him and the canal.

He had not been present when the public
prosecutor's people visited the crime scene, and his knowledge of the area, as
of the case itself, was theoretical. On the small map which had been drawn for him,
it looked simple: canal to the right, with the lock and Gassin's boat moored
on the unloading wharf; to the left, the two bars, the tall house and, at the far
end, the dance hall.

Perhaps that was how it really was:
flat, a scene with no perspective, no depth, no life. But not quite: the barges, for
example. There were fifty in the reach above the lock, some lying next to the quay,
others tucked snugly against them and still more manoeuvring slowly in the sunshine.
And then there was the road, full of endless movement, led by heavy lorries, which
created noise wherever they went.

The soul of the townscape, however, was
elsewhere, or at least its heart was, for its beating made the air itself
pulsate. This heart was a tall misshapen
structure which stood by the water's edge, a tower of metal girders which by
night would be no more than a patch of grey but by day spat out noise through its
steel plates, iron girders and pulleys as it crushed stone which clattered down on
to screens and then was conveyed away, through the din, to be deposited on smoking
heaps of dust.

On the top of the tower could be made
out a blue enamel plate:
Émile Ducrau Enterprises.

Washing was drying on clothes lines
slung above the barges. A fair-haired young woman was throwing a bucket of water
over the deck of the
Golden Fleece
.

Another number 13 tram clanked by, then
another, and Maigret, who was basking in the warmth, his skin damp and sensual as it
never is except in the rays of the first April sunshine, set off dutifully towards
the tall house. He could not see anyone behind the glass windows of the
concierge's lodge. There was a stair carpet, dark-red and worn. The stairs
were varnished and the walls painted to look like marble. The landing, with its
three dark doors and the bright gleam of one highly polished brass door knob,
smelled of dust, mediocrity and respectability. A shaft of sunlight slanted across
an inner court and, sidling through a gable window, gilded the stairwell.

Maigret rang twice or three times. After
the second ring he heard sounds from inside, but five minutes went by before the
door opened.

‘Does Monsieur Ducrau live
here?'

‘He does. Come in.'

The maid was red-cheeked, too flustered
and Maigret
smiled as he looked at her,
though he could not have said why exactly. She was plump and inviting, especially
when seen from behind, for her features, which were coarse and of a hard, irregular
cast, were a disappointment.

‘Who shall I say is
calling?'

‘Police Judiciaire.'

She headed for a door but had to stoop
to pull up one stocking. She took another couple of steps and then, judging that she
was hidden by the door, she refastened her suspender and pulled her girdle down
while Maigret's smile grew broader. Whispering came from the next room. The
girl returned.

‘Please come this way.'

The smile on Maigret's face was
not entirely down to the sun. It rose to his lips from deep down, and he stood there
beaming. Already in the hallway, virtually as soon as he set foot on the doormat, he
had sensed what was going on and by the time he spoke he was absolutely sure:

‘Monsieur Ducrau?'

His eyes were laughing; his lips
instinctively formed into an amused curl, and from that moment the truth was tacitly
admitted by the two men. Ducrau looked at the maid, at his visitor and then at his
red plush armchair. Then he tidied his thick mop of hair, which did not need
tidying, and smiled back, a smile of gratification which was slightly awkward but
pleased all the same.

Sunshine streamed through three
windows. One of them was wide open and let in so much noise from the street and the
racketing crushing mill that when Maigret
tried to speak he could hardly hear the sound of his own
voice.

Émile Ducrau had resumed his seat in his
armchair with a sigh of relief. It was obvious that despite appearance he was not
yet back to full strength. A dew of perspiration remained on his forehead after his
gambol with the maid, and his breathing was rapid. Even so, the evening before, the
prosecutor's investigators had been amazed to see sitting up in an armchair a
man they had fully expected to find prostrate in his bed.

He was wearing slippers and a nightshirt
with red embroidery on the collar under his old jacket, and the same shabby
anything-goes attitude was visible in every detail of his living room, with its
unremarkable furniture which was thirty or forty years old, in the black and gold
frames containing photographs of tugs, and the roll-top desk which stood in one
corner.

‘Are you the one who's in
charge of the investigation?'

His smile steadily faded. Ducrau grew
serious again, his gaze inquisitive and a hint of aggression already in his
voice.

‘I suppose you've already
got your own theory about what happened? No? That's good, though I'm
surprised to hear that coming from a policeman!'

He had not set out to be disagreeable.
It was just the way he was. From time to time, he scowled, probably because the
wound in his back was giving him pain.

‘You must have something to drink.
Mathilde! … Mathilde! … For God's sake, Mathilde!'

In the end the girl came, her hands
covered with soap suds.

‘
Pour two glasses of white wine! The good
stuff!'

He filled the chair with his bulk. That
and the fact that his feet were resting on an embroidered cushion made his legs look
shorter.

‘Well, then, what have they been
telling you?'

He had the habit, when speaking, of
darting little glances out of the window, towards the lock. Suddenly he growled:

‘Ach! They've let themselves
be overtaken by one of Poliet & Chausson's cement boats!'

Maigret saw a loaded barge, its hull
painted yellow, slowly nosing its way into the chamber of the lock. Behind it,
another barge, marked with a blue triangle, was hove to on the canal and some
people, three or four of them, were waving their arms and clearly shouting insults
at each other.

‘All boats showing a blue triangle
belong to me,' Ducrau explained, pointing the maid, who had just come in, to a
chair, saying:

‘Put the bottle and the glasses
down there. We don't stand on ceremony, here, inspector … Now what was I
saying? Ah yes! I'm curious to know what people are making of this
business.'

Beneath his bluff good humour lay an
undercurrent of malevolence, and the longer he looked at Maigret the more apparent
this malevolence became, perhaps because physically the inspector was as burly and
powerful as he was, only on a bigger scale, and because in the apartment his
calmness suggested a large, immovable object.

‘I was given the case file this
morning,' he said.

‘Have you
read it?'

The front door opened, someone walked
through the hall and came into the room. It was a woman of about fifty, thin,
sad-looking, who was carrying a net shopping bag. She spoke apologetically:

‘I'm sorry, I didn't
know …'

Maigret was already on his feet.

‘Madame Ducrau, I assume? Very
pleased to meet you.'

She gave an awkward nod and left the
room backwards. She could be heard talking to the maid, and that same smile of
Maigret's came back, for he could now imagine the details of the
morning's goings-on more clearly than earlier.

‘My wife has never managed to get
out of the habit of doing housework,' muttered Ducrau. ‘She could pay
ten servants if she wanted to but she still does all the shopping
herself!'

‘You began as master of a tug, I
believe?'

‘I started the way everybody
starts, at the bottom! The tub was called the
Eagle
. I acquired her by
marrying the owner's daughter, who you've just met. As of now, the fleet
of
Eagles
has reached number twenty-four. In this port alone, there are two
who are going up as far as Dizy today, and I've been told there are five
coming downstream. All the river pilots in both the bars down below work for me.
I've already bought up eighteen barges, some store-boats, two dredgers
…'

His eyes grew narrower and narrower
until all they were seeing were Maigret's eyes.

‘Is that what you wanted to
know?'

Then, turning
towards the door:

‘Keep quiet out there!' he
yelled to the two invisible women, whose voices could be heard no louder than a
murmur.

‘Your very good health! They must
have told you that I'm offering the police a reward of twenty thousand francs
if they catch the man who attacked me, which is why, I imagine, they've sent
me a top man. What are you looking at?'

‘Nothing special. The canal, the
lock, the boats …'

Through the windows the bright, glowing
landscape was positively bustling with life. Seen from above, the barges seemed more
ponderous, as though they were bogged down in water that was too dense. Standing in
his wherry, a boatman was putting a coat of grey bitumen paint on the hull of his
boat which rose two metres out of the water. And there were dogs, chickens in a
wire-netting coop, and the girl with fair hair was on deck, polishing the brasses.
People came and went past the sluices, and the boats which had gone down through the
lock appeared to hesitate before letting themselves be taken by the current of the
Seine.

‘So in a word, all that is in a
manner of speaking yours?'

‘No, not all. But all the people
you see down there depend in some way or other on me, especially since I bought the
chalk quarries, out in the sticks, in Champagne.'

All the furniture in the apartment
looked like the furniture which is piled high in auction rooms to be sold off on
Saturdays, when the hard-up come in search of a second-hand table or washstand. A
smell of onions frying
wafted in from the
kitchen. It was accompanied by the sizzling sound of butter on the stove.

‘One question, if I may. The
report states that you don't remember anything that happened before the moment
they pulled you from the water.'

Ducrau, wary-eyed, was clipping the end
of a cigar.

‘At what time exactly did you stop
remembering? Could you, for example, tell me what you did on the evening before
last?'

‘My daughter and her husband came
here to dinner. Her husband is an infantry captain based at Versailles. They come
every Wednesday.'

‘You also have a son?'

‘Yes. He's at the École de
Chartes in Paris, but we don't see a lot of him at home. I've given him
his own room on the fifth floor.'

‘So you didn't see him that
evening?'

Ducrau did not reply at once. He did not
take his eyes off Maigret and, as he puffed slowly on his cigar, he weighed each
question he was asked and every word he spoke.

‘Listen, inspector. I'm
going to say something important and I advise you not to forget it if you want us to
get along together. No one ever gets the better of Mimile! That's me, Mimile.
It's what they called me when I had my first tug, and to this day there are
lock-keepers in the Haute-Marne who don't know me as anything else. Do you
understand me? I'm no more of a fool than you are. In this business, I'm
the one who has paid! I'm the one who was knifed! I'm the one who
brought you here!'

Maigret did not
bat an eyelid, but for the first time in ages he was revelling in the company of
someone who was really worth knowing.

‘Drink up. Have a cigar. Put a few
in your pocket for later. Go ahead! Do your job but no fancy tricks. When the people
from the prosecutor's office came to see me yesterday, there was an examining
magistrate, a real martinet, who walked around in cream-coloured gloves as if he was
afraid to get his hands dirty. So what did I do? I told him to take his hat off and
put his cigarette out, while I blew smoke in his face. Are you with me? Now
I'm listening.'

‘My turn to ask a question. Do you
still intend to pursue your case? Yes? And do you really want me to find the guilty
man?'

The shadow of a smile flickered on
Ducrau's lips. Instead of answering, he murmured: