Lock No. 1 (3 page)

‘Next question.'

‘That's it. It's not
too late.'

‘Do you have anything else to say
to me?'

‘No.'

Maigret got up and, his pupils made
smaller by the sun, stood stock still by the open window.

‘Mathilde! Mathilde!'
shouted the man in the chair. ‘First, you must try to come when I call.
Second, put on a clean apron. Now, off you go and fetch a bottle of champagne. One
of the eight bottles at the back on the left-hand side.'

‘I don't drink
champagne,' said Maigret when the maid had gone.

‘You'll drink this one.
It's an 1897 Brut, sent to me by the manager of the biggest vintners in
Rheims.'

He was mellower
now. There even stirred in him a flicker of excitement, though it was barely
perceptible.

‘What are you looking
at?'

‘Gassin's boat.'

‘Gassin is an old friend, you
know, the only one who still treats me like in the old days!

‘The first time we went to sea, we
went together. I gave him command of one of my boats which does the Belgian run
mainly.'

‘He's got a pretty daughter
…'

It was merely an impression, for the
distance was too great for Maigret to see more than a silhouette. And yet it was
enough to make it certain that the girl was good-looking.

Yet she was just a hazy figure! A black
dress and a white apron, and feet bare in her clogs.

Ducrau did not respond and after a few
moments of silence he barked as if he had reached the end of his patience:

‘Go on! The woman upstairs, the
serving girl and the rest of them! I know where you're headed …'

The kitchen door opened. Before fully
emerging, Madame Ducrau coughed discreetly and said hesitantly:

‘Shall I go for some
ice?'

He became incandescent:

‘Why don't you traipse all
the way to Rheims for the champagne?'

She vanished without a word. The door
stayed partly open while Ducrau resumed:

‘This is the way of it. On the
second floor, directly above
this room,
I've installed a young woman, name of Rose, who used to be a hostess at the
Maxim.'

He made no effort to keep his voice
down, the very opposite. His wife must have heard. There was a rattle of glasses
from the kitchen. The maid, in a clean apron, entered carrying a tray.

‘If you want to know more, I give
her two thousand francs a month plus dresses, but she makes nearly all of them
herself. That'll do, girl! Just put it down and get out! Would you like to
open the bottle, inspector?'

Maigret was getting used to being there.
He was hardly aware of the noise either of the crusher or of the street, which
mingled with the buzzing of two large bluebottles in the room.

‘We were talking about the day
before yesterday. My daughter and her idiot of a husband were here, as usual. I went
out after we'd had dessert. I can't stand pests, and my son-in-law is a
pest. Here's to you!'

He smacked his lips and sighed:

‘That's all. It was around
ten o'clock. I walked along the pavement. I had a drink with Catherine, who
runs the dance hall a little way along the street. Then I went on and reached the
corner of the narrow alley, further along, where there's a streetlamp. I much
prefer drinking a beer or two with tarts than being with my son-in-law.'

‘When you left that establishment,
did you notice if anyone was following you?'

‘I never saw anything at
all.'

‘Which way did you go
next?'

‘No idea.'

It was curt. His
voice had turned aggressive again. Ducrau, taking too large a gulp of champagne,
spluttered, coughed, then spat on the faded carpet.

The medical report said that the wound
in the barge-owner's back was superficial and that he had been in the water
for three or four minutes and had perhaps surfaced once or twice.

‘Of course, you don't
suspect anybody?'

‘I suspect everybody!'

He had a strange face. His head was
large, fleshy and slack-featured and yet he gave out an impression of hardness and
exceptional strength. When he was watching out for a reaction from Maigret, he had
the look of old peasants who clinch deals at farmers' fairs, but a
split-second later the expression in his blue eyes was disarmingly naive.

One minute he was threatening, yelling,
cursing and the next it was far from clear if he wasn't behaving that way
because it amused him.

‘That was what I wanted to make a
point of telling you. Because I'm entitled to suspect everybody: my wife, my
son, my daughter, her husband, Rose, the maid, Gassin …'

‘… and his daughter …'

‘Yes, Aline too if you
like.'

But there was a subtle difference in his
voice.

‘And there's something else
I will add. You have my permission to make life unpleasant for all these people
connected to me. I know the police. I know they'll go sniffing around, even in
their dustbins. We might as well make a start now. Jeanne! … Jeanne! …'

His wife appeared
looking surprised and very apprehensive.

‘Come in, for God's sake!
It's no good meeting company behaving like a servant. Get yourself a glass. Go
on! And clink with the inspector. Now, can you guess what he wants to
know?'

Pale and impassive, she was badly
dressed, her hair was badly combed, and she had aged as badly as the furniture in
the living room. The sun hurt her eyes, and after twenty-five years of marriage she
still jumped each time her husband raised his voice.

‘He wants to know what we talked
about all through dinner when Berthe came with her husband.'

She tried to smile. The hand holding her
glass of champagne shook. Maigret noticed her fingers, which were wrinkled from
working in the kitchen.

‘Answer. Have a drink
first.'

‘We talked about all
sorts.'

‘That's not true.'

‘I'm sorry, inspector, but I
don't understand what my husband means.'

‘Of course you do! Listen,
I'll help you …'

She was standing up, next to the red
armchair in which Ducrau was so firmly ensconced that he and it looked as if they
were one and the same.

‘Berthe started it. Try and
remember. She said …'

‘Émile!'

‘Don't Émile me! She said
she was afraid to have a baby, and that if they did Decharme couldn't stay in
the army because he doesn't earn enough to pay for a wet-nurse and
all the rest of the things they'd
need. I advised him to get a job selling peanuts. Is that true or not?'

She smiled weakly and tried to make
excuses for him.

‘You should get some rest
…'

‘And what did that great booby
suggest? Answer! What did he suggest? That part of my estate should be divided up
now, since it's going to have to be done sooner or later! And with his share,
he would move to Provence, where it seems the climate would best suit his progeny.
Meanwhile, we could go and visit them in the holidays.'

He was not worked up. This was no
passing rage. The very opposite! He doled out his words slowly, harshly, one after
the other.

‘And what did he add when I was
putting my hat on? I want you to say it.'

‘I can't
remember.'

She was near to tears. She put her glass
down so that she would not upset it.

‘Say it!'

‘He said you were spending a lot
of money on other things.'

‘He didn't say “other
things”.'

‘On …'

‘Well?'

‘On women …'

‘Go on.'

‘On her upstairs.'

‘Did you hear that, inspector?
Isn't there anything else you want to ask her? I ask because she's going
to start crying, and that's no fun for anybody. You can go!'

He sighed again, a
long sigh which could only have sprung from that barrel chest.

‘That was just a sample. If you
find it entertaining, you can carry on by yourself, without me. I'll be back
on my feet tomorrow, whatever the doctor says. You'll find me where I am every
morning from six onwards, on site. Another glass? You've forgotten to take
some cigars. Gassin has just brought five hundred through for me, smuggled them in
on his boat. As you see, I have no secrets from you.'

He got heavily to his feet, pushing
himself up on the arms of his chair.

‘Thank you for all your
assistance,' said Maigret who had tried to find the most prosaic form of
words.

There was amusement in Ducrau's
eyes. In the inspector's too. They stood looking at each other with the same
stifled mirth which was full of unspoken thoughts, perhaps of defiance and maybe too
of an odd respect.

‘Shall I call the girl to show you
out?'

‘No thanks. I know the
way.'

They did not shake hands, and that also
happened as if by mutual consent. Ducrau remained by the open window, a black shadow
against the brightness outside. He was doubtless more tired than he wished to
appear, for he was breathing quickly.

‘Good hunting! Maybe you'll
win the twenty thousand francs yourself!'

As he passed the kitchen door, Maigret
heard crying coming from inside. He let himself out on to the landing, went down a
few steps, stopped in the shaft of sunlight,
which had changed place, in order to look at a document
from the file he had in his pocket. It was the pathologist's report, which,
among other things, said:

The tentative hypothesis of suicide
should be discarded since it is impossible for a man to stab himself with a
knife in the place where the wound is situated.

Someone was moving around in the
semi-darkness inside the concierge's lodge. She had just got back.

Emerging on to the pavement outside was
like stepping into a bath of heat, light, noise, coloured dust and movement. A
number 13 stopped then set off immediately. The bell on the door of the bar to the
right rang out, while stones clattered down inside the crushing mill and a small tug
with a blue triangle hooted as loudly as it could, venting its fury at the sluice of
the lock, which had just been slammed shut in its face.

Above the steam vessel in the middle of
the dazzling-blue sign-board flew a swarm of seagulls, and underneath were the
words: ‘Eagles' Rest. Marne and Haute-Seine River Pilots'
Bar.'

It was the bar on the right. Maigret
pushed the door open and sat down in a corner, while silence closed in all around
him. There were only five men there, sitting around a table, their legs crossed,
chairs tilted back, caps pulled down over their eyes because of the sun's
glare. Four were wearing blue jerseys with high necks, and all had the same
well-tanned skin, with lines so fine they scarcely showed, and hair which was
greying on the back of their necks and at the temples.

The man who got up and came over to
Maigret was the landlord.

‘What'll it be?'

The café was clean. There was sawdust on
the floor, the metal surface of the counter gleamed, and everywhere there was that
bittersweet smell which signals the aperitif hour.

‘Aha!' muttered one of the
men as he relit his half-smoked cigarette.

This ‘Aha!' was clearly
intended for Maigret who had ordered a beer and was gently pressing tobacco down in
his pipe. Directly facing him in the
group was a shrunken old man with a yellowish beard who drank the contents of his
glass in one gulp and as he wiped his moustache grunted:

‘Fill her up again,
Fernand!'

There was a bandage round his right arm,
and this confirmed that he was old man Gassin. The others had started making knowing
signs to each other as they nodded in the direction of the boatman who was glaring
at Maigret with such venom that the hairy skin of his face was screwed up tight.

He had been drinking, as was obvious
from the fuddled clumsiness of his movements. In Maigret he had smelled police, and
his comrades sniggered at his agitated state.

‘Happy days, Gassin!'

By now he was fuming.

‘Seems like you got something to
say, a tale to tell to this gentleman!'

And one of the men gave Maigret a wink
which meant:

‘Pay no attention! You can see the
state he's in!'

The landlord was perhaps the only one
who felt slightly uneasy, but his customers were enjoying themselves hugely, and
there was a feeling of genuine friendliness in the air. Through the window, only the
railing of the quay was just about visible, along with the masts and helms of
barges, and the roof of the lock-keeper's house.

‘When are you off, then,
Gassin?'

Then another man said, in a whisper:

‘Go on, tell him!'

It seemed that his
advice would be followed. The old man stood up and with the forced casualness of
drunks shambled to the counter.

‘Another one, Fernand!'

He was still watching Maigret. There was
something very complex in his expression, for in his look there was a hint of
insolence to be sure but also a degree of underlying hopelessness.

The inspector tapped the table with a
coin to summon the landlord.

‘What do I owe you?'

Fernand, leaning over the table, told
him the amount then added in a whisper:

‘Don't provoke him.
He's been drunk for two days.'

The words were only half spoken, but
from where he was sitting the old man thundered:

‘What you saying?'

Maigret was on his feet. He wasn't
looking for trouble. He put on his most inoffensive expression and made for the
door. When he had crossed the road, he turned and saw Gassin, who was now at the
window, glass in hand, watching his every move.

The air was warmer now, and dark gold in
colour. A sleeping tramp lay stretched out on the stone flags of the quayside. There
was a newspaper over his head.

Cars drove past along with the trucks
and trams, but by now Maigret had realized that they were not important. Whatever
roared by like this along the road was not part of the landscape. Paris came this
way to get to the banks of the Marne, but it was just traffic noise. What really
counted
was the lock, the hooting of the
tugs, the stone-crusher, the barges and the cranes, the two pilots' bars and
especially the tall house where he could make out Ducrau's red chair framed by
a window.

People felt at home out of doors.
Workmen from a crane were sitting on a pile of sand, having a bite to eat. A woman
was setting up a table on the deck of her barge, and her neighbour was doing the
washing.

The inspector walked unhurriedly down
the stone steps and rediscovered the same slow, strong rhythm of things he had felt
once before when investigating a crime in Haute-Marne. Even the distinctive smell of
the canal prompted images to flash into his mind of barges gliding without breaking
the surface of the water.

He was nearly at the
Golden
Fleece
, with its hull built of wood coated with red-coloured resin. The
deck, which had just been washed, was drying in patches, and the young woman was
nowhere to be seen.

Maigret took a couple of steps on the
gangplank, turned, saw the old man leaning down over the railing above him. He went
on and, once on board, called out:

‘Anyone about?'

On a nearby boat, the woman who was
doing her washing watched him as he headed towards a double door with blue and red
glass panes.

‘Hello?'

A short flight of stairs led down to
what he could dimly make out as a clean, neat room. In one corner, he could even see
a table with a cloth on it.

He continued down the stairs and, when
he reached the
last step, he came face to
face with the young woman with fair hair, who was sitting on a straw-bottomed chair
holding a baby to her breast.

It was so unexpected and at the same
time so natural a thing that the inspector removed his hat awkwardly, stuffed his
still hot pipe into a pocket and took a step back.

‘Oh, I'm sorry …'

The young woman must have felt scared.
She scrutinized him as if she were trying to guess his intentions, but she did not
move from where she was, and the child's tiny mouth remained clamped on her
breast.

‘I didn't know … I'm
in charge of the investigation and I came on board to ask you for some
information.'

As Maigret looked at her he felt vaguely
uneasy. Some sort of misgiving took root, though he could not say what it was
exactly.

Around him, the room was big, with
varnished pine everywhere. In one corner was a bed with a quilt over it, and above
the headboard hung an ebony crucifix. The middle section of the cabin was used as a
dining area, and the table was laid for two.

‘Sit down,' said the young
woman.

Her voice too was quite unexpected, and
yet, from Ducrau's window, Maigret had already had had a sense of
Aline's strangeness. From a distance, there seemed to be something ethereal
about her.

But she was not slim, nor was she
fragile And close to, her body was noticeably healthy and firm, fully alive. Her
features were regular, and her tanned complexion formed a contrast with the fairness
of her hair.

So why did the sum
of the parts suggest frailty and make one want to protect and console her?

‘Is the child yours?'

For something to say, Maigret nodded
towards the baby, whose turned-wood cradle stood next to him.

‘My godson.'

She smiled politely, with a lingering
trace of fear.

‘You're Gassin's
daughter, aren't you?'

‘Yes.'

She had a child's voice and the
meekness of a good little girl who is answering the questions she is being
asked.

‘I'm sorry to disturb you at
this time. Since you were here the day before yesterday when the incident occurred,
I would like to know if anyone came on board earlier that evening. Such as Émile
Ducrau.'

‘Yes.'

Maigret had not been expecting her
response at all and wondered if she had understood the question.

‘You're sure Ducrau came
here on the evening he was attacked?'

‘I didn't open the door to
him.'

‘Did he come on board?'

‘Yes. He called. I was about to go
to bed.'

Maigret glimpsed a second cabin,
narrower than the first, and the fixed bunk in it. As she spoke, the young woman
gently eased the child away from her breast, wiped its chin and then buttoned her
blouse.

‘What time was that?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Was it a long time before your
father fell into the canal?'

‘I
don't know.'

She was, for no apparent reason,
becoming frightened. She got up to lay the baby in his cradle and as he was opening
his mouth and starting to cry, she gave him a red rubber dummy.

‘Do you know Ducrau
well?'

‘Yes.'

She stoked the fire in the stove and
added salt to a saucepan of potatoes. It was then that for Maigret, as he watched
each of her movements closely, the penny dropped. She was not mad perhaps, but there
was a veil between her and the external world. Everything about her was insulated,
damped down, her actions, her voice, her smile, for she smiled apologetically when
she stepped directly in front of her visitor.

‘Do you know what Ducrau came
for?'

‘Always the same thing!'

Maigret's unease deepened, and it
made his hands feel clammy. Each of the girl's words might have serious
consequences. With every question he asked, the mystery was becoming less tangled,
and yet he was afraid of questioning her. Did she really understand what she was
telling him? Would she say yes to every question?

‘Are you talking about
Ducrau's son?' he said, to test the hypothesis.

‘Jean didn't
come.'

‘So is it his father who's
been coming to … see you?'

For a moment her eyes settled on
Maigret's face. Then she looked away.

He wanted to finish this quickly. He was
too close to a possible breakthrough to stop now.

‘When he
comes here, that's what he's after, isn't it? He pesters you. He
tries to …'

He stopped abruptly, for she was crying,
and he did not know what to say next.

‘I'm sorry. Don't
think about it any more.'

She was so close to him that, without
thinking, he patted her on her shoulder. But that only made it worse. With a start
she recoiled and ran into the second cabin, closing the door behind her. He could
still hear her sobbing inside. And the baby who had dropped its dummy started crying
too. With an awkward fumble, Maigret replaced the dummy in the child's
mouth.

There was nothing more to be done except
leave. The stairs were low, and he banged his head on the top of the hatch. He was
expecting to find the old man on deck, but there was no one about except neighbours
sitting round a table near the helm, who watched him leave.

There was no sign of Gassin on the
quayside either. When he was back up on the pavement, Maigret saw a car pull up
outside the tall house. It was an average model, with a medium-sized engine. It had
a Seine-et-Oise number plate, and the inspector had only to take one look at the
woman who got out to understand what was happening.

It was Ducrau's daughter. She had
her father's boorish manner and vigour. Her husband, narrow-shouldered in a
dark suit, was not in uniform. He closed the car doors and put the key in his
pocket.

But they had forgotten something. The
woman was already almost over the threshold when she turned. The husband reached for
the key again, opened one of the car
doors
and took out a small packet, which probably contained Spanish grapes, the kind which
are bought for invalids.

Eventually the couple entered the house.
They were bickering. They were vulgar and without distinction.

Maigret, who was standing at the green
tram stop, failed to raise his hand to flag the one that clattered past. His head
was full of half-finished thoughts, and he felt as if there was some slight
imbalance inside him which he was anxious to correct. The pilots emerged from the
bar and shook hands before going their separate ways. One of them, a large man with
an open face, walked towards Maigret, who stopped him.

‘Excuse me, may I ask you a
question?'

‘I wasn't there, you
know.'

‘It's not about that. You
know Gassin, don't you? Who is the father of his daughter's
child?'

The pilot burst out laughing.

‘But it's not
hers!'

‘Are you sure?'

‘It was old man Gassin who brought
it home one day. He's been a widower for fifteen years. He must have had the
kid up north somewhere, with some woman who runs a bar or keeps a lock.'

‘So his daughter has never had a
baby?'

‘Aline? Haven't you seen
her? By the way, go gently with her. She's not quite like other
girls.'