The Misty Harbour (4 page)

Maigret saw perfectly. He had spent
several hours in Joris' modest, cosy, neat little house. And now he considered
the regulars at the Buvette de la Marine, a rowdier, more unbuttoned crew. This was
a place for hearty drinking, where voices surely grew boisterous, the atmosphere
thick with smoke, and the talk a touch coarse.

Joris came here simply to play cards,
never chatted about his personal life, had only the one drink before leaving.

‘She's been at his house for
about eight years now. She was sixteen when she arrived, a little country girl,
bedraggled and badly dressed …'

‘And
now …'

The waitress arrived as if on cue with a
bottle of home-made brandy and poured another shot into the glasses, where only a
little coffee remained. This, too, appeared to be the custom of the place.

‘Now? She is what she
is … At our dances, for example, she won't step out on the floor
with just anyone. And in the shops, when she's treated with easy familiarity,
like a maid, she gets angry. It's hard to explain … Even though her
brother …'

The head lock-keeper gave the customs
man a sharp look – but Maigret caught him at it.

‘Her brother?'

‘The inspector will find out
anyway!' continued the man, who was obviously not on his first spiked coffee
of the day. ‘Her brother did eight years in prison. He was drunk, one night,
in Honfleur. With a few others, loud and disorderly in the streets. When the police
stepped in, the fellow hurt one officer so badly that he died the next
month.'

‘He's a sailor?'

‘He served on ocean-going vessels
in the foreign trade before coming back home. He's currently sailing on a
schooner out of Paimpol, the
Saint-Michel
.'

Captain Delcourt had begun fidgeting
nervously.

‘Let's go!' he
announced. ‘It's time …'

‘Before the steamer's even
in the lock!' sighed the customs officer, clearly in less of a hurry.

Only three men were left. Maigret
signalled to the waitress, who returned with her bottle.

‘Does the
Saint-Michel
sometimes come through here?'

‘Sometimes,
yes.'

‘Was she here on the 16th of
September?'

‘Well, it's going to be
right there for him in the lock-keeper's log,' the customs man remarked
to his neighbour and turned to Maigret: ‘Yes, she was here. She even had to
stay in the outer harbour on account of the fog and left only at
daybreak.'

‘Going where?'

‘Southampton. I'm the one
who looked over their papers. The cargo was grindstone grit, from Caen.'

‘And Julie's brother
hasn't been seen here since?'

This time the customs officer sniffed
thoughtfully and paused before draining his glass.

‘You'll have to ask those
who claim to have spotted him yesterday … Me, I haven't seen a
thing.'

‘Yesterday?'

A shrug. An enormous steamer came
gliding between the stone walls of the lock, a vast black mass towering over the
countryside, its funnel taller than the trees lining the canal.

‘I've got to get over
there …'

‘Me too …'

‘How much does it come to,
mademoiselle?' Maigret asked the waitress.

‘The landlady isn't here
just now, but I'm sure you'll be back.'

The people still waiting outside the
captain's cottage for something to happen now gratefully turned their
attention to the English steamer passing through the lock.

As Maigret left the bar, a man was
arriving from the village; the inspector assumed he was the mayor, whom he had seen
only briefly the night before.

A somewhat beefy
fellow between forty-five and fifty, quite tall, with a rosy complexion. He was
wearing a grey hunting coat and aviator gaiters. Maigret went over to him.

‘Monsieur Grandmaison? I am
Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Police Judiciaire.'

‘Pleased to meet you,' came
the casual reply.

The mayor looked at the Buvette de la
Marine, then Maigret, then the tavern again as if to say, ‘Strange company for
an important official to keep!'

And he kept walking towards the lock on
his way to the cottage.

‘Joris is dead, I hear?'

‘It's true,' replied
Maigret, who did not much like the man's attitude.

An attitude that could hardly have been
more traditional: that of the big fish in a small pond, someone who thinks himself
the centre of the world, dresses like a country gentleman and pays a token tribute
to democracy by shaking hands half-heartedly with his fellow citizens, saluting them
with mumbled greetings and the occasional inquiry after their children's
health.

‘And you've caught the
murderer? Since it was you who brought Joris here and who – excuse
me …'

He went over to speak to the water
bailiff, who apparently attended him when he went duck hunting.

‘The left-hand reeds of the blind
need straightening. And one of the decoys is useless, it looked half dead this
morning.'

‘I'll see to it,
sir.'

The mayor rejoined Maigret, pausing en
route to shake the harbourmaster's hand with a murmured greeting.

‘How are
you?'

‘Fine, sir.'

‘Where were we, inspector? Ah!
What's all this I hear about a patched-up fractured skull, insanity and so
on?'

‘Were you a particular friend of
Captain Joris?'

‘He was in my employ for
twenty-eight years, a fine man, assiduous in his duties.'

‘Honest?'

‘Almost all my employees
are.'

‘What was his salary?'

‘That would depend, because of the
war, which disrupted things everywhere. Enough for him to buy his little house, in
any case. And I wager he had at least twenty thousand francs in the bank.'

‘No more?'

‘Oh, perhaps five thousand francs
or so more, at most.'

The upstream lock-gate was opening to
let the steamer into the canal; another ship, coming down from Caen, would take its
place and head out to sea.

The day was beautifully calm. Everyone
was watching Maigret and the mayor. Up on their ship, the English sailors glanced
nonchalantly at the crowd while going about their duties.

‘What is your opinion of Julie
Legrand?'

The mayor hesitated for a moment before
grumbling, ‘A silly creature who had her head turned because Joris treated her
far too nicely. She thinks she's … How shall I … Anyway,
she fancies herself better than she is.'

‘And her brother?'

‘Never laid eyes on him. I'm
told he's a scoundrel.'

They had left the
lock behind and were approaching Joris' front gate, where a few kids were
still playing and hoping to see some interesting developments.

‘What did the captain die
of?'

‘Strychnine!'

Maigret was wearing his most pigheaded
expression. He walked slowly, hands in his pockets, pipe clenched in his teeth. And
this pipe seemed to match his big face, for it held a quarter-packet's worth
of shag tobacco.

The white cat, stretched full-length in
the sunshine atop the garden wall, leaped down in a flash as the two men
arrived.

‘You're not going in?'
asked the mayor in surprise when Maigret stopped short at the cottage gate.

‘Just a moment. In your opinion,
was Julie the captain's mistress?'

‘How would I know that!'
exclaimed Monsieur Grandmaison impatiently.

‘Did you often visit the captain
here?'

‘Never! Joris was one of my
employees. So you see …' And he smiled in what he imagined to be a lordly
manner. ‘If it's all the same to you, inspector, we'll deal with
this as swiftly as possible. I'm expecting guests for lunch.'

‘Are you married?'

Frowning in concentration, Maigret kept
pursuing his thought, his hand still on the front-gate latch.

Monsieur Grandmaison, who was just over
six feet tall, looked down at the inspector, who noticed that although the mayor
wasn't exactly cross-eyed, his irises were slightly asymmetrical.

‘I should
warn you, sir,' said the mayor, ‘that if you continue to address me in
that tone, you might well come to regret it. Now show me what it is you wish me to
see.'

And after pushing open the gate himself,
he walked up to and through the front door, where the policeman on guard stepped
swiftly out of his way.

Through a glass panel in the kitchen
door Maigret could see right away that something was amiss: the two women were
there, but he did not see Julie.

‘Where is she?'

‘She went up to her room! Locked
herself in and refused to come down.'

‘Just like that, out of the
blue?'

‘She was doing better,'
explained the lighthouse-keeper's wife. ‘Still crying, but not as hard,
and was talking with us a little. I told her she should eat something, so she opened
the cupboard …'

‘And?'

‘I don't
know … She seemed frightened! She dashed up the stairs, and next thing, we
heard the key to her bedroom turning in the lock.'

There was nothing in the cupboard but
crockery, a few apples in a basket, a dish of marinating herrings and two greasy
plates that had probably held some cold meat.

‘I am still waiting!'
snapped the mayor, who had stayed out in the front hall. ‘It is eleven thirty.
What that young woman has been up to should hardly …'

Maigret locked the cupboard, pocketed
the key and walked heavily to the stairs.

‘Julie, open up!'

No reply, but the sound of someone
collapsing on a bed.

‘Open this door!'

Nothing. So Maigret slammed his shoulder
into the door – and the screws popped out of the lock plate.

‘Why didn't you open the
door?'

She was not crying. She was not
agitated. No, she was curled up on her bed staring fixedly straight in front of her.
When the inspector came too close, she jumped down and attempted to reach the
door.

‘Leave me alone!' she said
loudly.

‘Well then, give me the note,
Julie.'

‘What note?'

She spoke aggressively, hoping to
camouflage her lie.

‘Did the captain allow your
brother to come and visit you?'

No answer.

‘Which means that he did not
permit it! Your brother used to come and see you anyway. It seems he came here the
night Joris disappeared …'

A hard, almost hateful look.

‘The
Saint-Michel
was in
that day. So it was only natural that he would come and see you. One question: when
he comes, he usually has something to eat, doesn't he?'

‘You're horrible!' she muttered between
her teeth.

‘And he came here while you were
in Paris. Not finding you at home, he left you a note. To make sure that no one else
but you would find it, he left it in the kitchen cupboard. Now give me the
note …'

‘I don't have it any
more!'

Maigret looked at the empty fireplace,
the closed window.

‘Give it to me!'

She was rigid in protest, but not like
an intelligent woman would be, and she so resembled an angry child that the
inspector, catching one of her outraged looks, grumbled softly, ‘Silly
goose!'

The note was simply under her pillow,
where Julie had been lying a minute before. Instead of giving up, however, she went
back on the attack, trying to snatch the note from the inspector with a fury that
amused him.

Pinioning her hands, he said sternly,
‘Are you done now?'

And he read these lines of wretched
handwriting, riddled with mistakes.

If you comm back with yor boss be
carefull with him for theres bad fellos that have got it in for him. I wil be
back in 2 or 3 days with the ship. Dont look for the cuttletts I ate them. Yor
brother for life.

Maigret bowed his head, thrown so
off-balance that he paid no further attention to Julie.

Fifteen minutes later, Captain Delcourt
was telling him that the
Saint-Michel
was probably in Fécamp and that if
the north-westerly winds held steady, the
ship would arrive the following night.

‘Do you know the position of every
single vessel?'

And Maigret, uneasy, looked out at the
shimmering sea, with only a single plume of smoke visible in the distance.

‘The ports are all in contact with
one another,' replied the harbourmaster. ‘Look! There is the list of all
the ships due in today.'

He pointed to a blackboard hanging on
the wall of the office, with the list written out in chalk.

‘Have you discovered something?
Well, don't rely too much on what people say. Even important people! If you
only knew how much petty jealousy can flourish around here …'

After waving to the captain of a
freighter heading out to sea, the harbourmaster looked out of his office window at
the Buvette de la Marine and sighed.

‘You'll
see …'

By three o'clock, the officials
from the public prosecutor's office had finished their work. A dozen or so men
filed out of Joris' cottage and walked through the little green gate towards
the four cars that awaited them, surrounded by onlookers.

The deputy public prosecutor gazed
around him appreciatively.

‘The duck hunting here must be
superb!' he remarked to Monsieur Grandmaison.

‘We've had a disappointing
season. But last year—'

The mayor suddenly dashed over to the
first car as it was pulling away.

‘You'll all stop in at my house for a moment,
I hope? My wife will be expecting us …'

When Maigret was the only man left, the
mayor turned to him with just enough bonhomie to appear polite.

‘Ride back with us, inspector. You
are invited as well, naturally.'

Only Julie and the two women remained in
Captain Joris' cottage, along with the local policeman at the door, to await
the hearse that would deliver the body to Caen.

The atmosphere in the cars had already
taken on the festive air that often enlivens the trip when convivial companions
return from a funeral. While Maigret perched uncomfortably on a jump seat, the mayor
was chatting with the deputy public prosecutor.

‘If it were up to me, I would stay
here all year round, but my wife is not that fond of country living. So we spend
most of our time at our house in Caen – although my wife has only just got back from
Juan-les-Pins, where she spent a month with the children.'

‘How old is your boy
now?'

‘Fifteen.'

The lock workers watched the cars drive
by. And almost immediately, on the road to Lion-sur-Mer, they arrived at the
mayor's residence, a large Norman villa on a property surrounded by white
fencing and strewn with animal lawn ornaments.

Standing in the front hall in a dark
silk dress, Madame Grandmaison welcomed her guests with the delicately aloof smile
befitting her station in life. The drawing room
was at their disposal; cigars and liqueurs were set out
on a table in the smoking room.

All these people knew one another. The
social elite of Caen were having a reunion. A maid in a white apron took
everyone's hats and coats.

‘Really, judge: you've never
visited Ouistreham – and you've lived in Caen for
how
long?'

‘Twelve years, dear
madame … Ah! Here's Mademoiselle Gisèle!'

A girl of fourteen had come in to
curtsey slightly to the guests, already holding herself like quite the lady – and,
like her mother, acutely conscious of her social position. Meanwhile, however, no
one had remembered to introduce Maigret to the mistress of the house.

Turning to the deputy public prosecutor,
that lady inquired, ‘I suppose that after what you've all just been
through you would prefer something a little stronger than tea? A liqueur brandy,
then? … And your wife, is she still in Fontainebleau?'

Everywhere, people were talking. Maigret
heard snatches of conversations.

‘No, ten ducks per night is the
limit … But I assure you, it isn't cold at all! The blind is
heated …'

On another side: ‘… hit hard
by the drop in business?'

‘That depends on the company. Here
we've been relatively unaffected. Locally, none of our vessels is in trouble.
The smaller concerns, on the other hand, especially those with only schooners for
the coastal trade, are beginning to suffer. I might even say that those companies
depending
on schooners are in general
looking to sell them, for they cannot cover their expenses …'

‘No, madame,' insisted the
deputy public prosecutor soothingly, ‘there is no reason for alarm. The
mystery – if there is one – of this man's death will soon be resolved.
Isn't that so, inspector? … But … Haven't you been
introduced? May I present Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, a man of stellar
reputation from the Police Judiciaire.'

Maigret stood stiffly with a most
unwelcoming expression on his face, and when young Gisèle smilingly held out to him
a plate of petits fours, he gave her an odd look.

‘No, thank you.'

‘Really? You don't like
cakes?'

‘To your good health!'

‘Here's to our charming
hostess!'

The public prosecutor, a tall, thin man
of about fifty who could barely see through the thick lenses of his glasses, now
took Maigret aside.

‘I'm giving you carte
blanche, of course. But telephone me every evening to keep me up to date. What do
you think of this case? A sordid affair, is it not?' Noticing Monsieur
Grandmaison approaching, he added in a louder voice, ‘And besides, you are
lucky to be dealing with a mayor like Grandmaison here, who will be of great
assistance in your inquiry. Is that not so, dear friend? I was just telling the
inspector …'

‘If he wants,' replied the
mayor, ‘we'd be delighted to have him stay in our house. I suppose you
are at present at the hotel?'

‘I
am,' replied the inspector, ‘and thank you for your invitation, but the
hotel is so conveniently situated …'

‘And you believe you will ferret
something out at the tavern? A word of warning, inspector! You don't know
Ouistreham! Consider what people who spend their lives in a tavern can conjure up
through sheer imagination! They'd point the finger at their own parents simply
to have a good tale to tell.'

‘Why don't we talk about
something else?' suggested Madame Grandmaison with a gracious smile.
‘Inspector, a petit four? … Really? … You don't like
sweets?'

For the second time! Unbelievable! And
Maigret was almost moved to pull out his big fat pipe in protest.

‘If you will excuse me. There are
some matters I must attend to.'

No one tried to detain him. All things
considered, they were no more enamoured of his presence than he was of theirs.
Outside, he filled his pipe and walked slowly back to the harbour. The local people
knew him now, knew that he had stood a round of drinks at the bar, so they greeted
him with a hint of friendliness.

As he approached the quay, he noticed
the hearse carrying the captain's body drive away towards Caen and saw
Julie's face, framed in a downstairs window at the cottage. The other women
were trying to cajole her back into the kitchen.

A fishing boat had just come in, and
people gathered around it as the two fishermen sorted out their catch. The customs
officials up on the bridge parapet whiled away the slow hours of their shift.

‘I've
just had a confirmation!' called out Captain Delcourt, hurrying over to
Maigret. ‘The
Saint-Michel
will arrive tomorrow! She was laid up for
three days in Fécamp having her bowsprit repaired.'

‘Say, tell me: does she ever carry
salted cod's roe as cargo?'

‘Cod's roe? No. The
Norwegian roe comes in on Scandinavian schooners or small steamers. They don't
unload at Caen, though, they make directly for the sardine ports, like Concarneau,
Les Sables-d'Olonne, Saint-Jean-de-Luz …'

‘What about seal oil?'

This time the captain stared at him in
surprise.

‘Why would they carry
that?'

‘I don't really
know …'

‘The answer's no, in any
case. These coasters almost always carry the same cargo: vegetables, and onions in
particular, for England, coal for the Breton ports, stone, cement,
slates … By the way, I asked some lock workers about the
Saint-Michel
's last call here. On the 16th of September, she came
in from Caen at the tail end of the tide, when everyone was about to go off duty.
Joris pointed out that the water in the channel was too low for safe access to the
sea, especially when it was so foggy. The skipper insisted on going through the lock
anyway, though, so that he could leave the next morning at first light. She spent
the night here, in the outer harbour, moored to some pilings. At low tide, they were
high and dry, couldn't leave until nine the next morning.'

‘And Julie's brother was
aboard?'

‘He must
have been! There were only three of them: the skipper, who also owns the boat, and
two crew. Big Louis—'

‘He's the
ex-convict?'

‘Yes. He's called Big Louis
because he's big, bigger than you are and could strangle a man with one
hand …'

‘A bad sort?'

‘If you ask the mayor or anyone
well-to-do in these parts, they'll say yes. Me, I never knew him before he
went off to prison. He doesn't turn up here very often. All I know is, he has
never caused any trouble in Ouistreham. He does drink, of course.
Although … It's difficult to tell, he always seems half-soused. He
hangs around the harbour. He's gimpy in one leg and his head and shoulders are
hunched to one side, which makes him look a bit shifty. Still, the skipper of the
Saint-Michel
is happy enough with him.'

‘He was here yesterday, while his
sister was in Paris.'

Not daring to deny it, Captain Delcourt
looked away. And Maigret understood then and there that there was a fraternal bond
among these men of the sea, that they would never tell him all they knew.