The Carter of ’La Providence’ (10 page)

It was a cufflink, gold with a platinum hatching. Maigret had seen a pair just like it the day before, on Willy's wrists, when he was lying on his bed blowing cigarette smoke at the ceiling and talking so unconcernedly.

He took no more interest in the horse or the goose or
any of his surroundings. Moments later, he was turning the handle that cranked the phone.

‘Épernay … Yes, the mortuary! … This is the police!'

One of the Flemings was just coming out of the café. He stopped and stared at the inspector, who was extraordinarily agitated.

‘Hello? … Inspector Maigret here, Police Judiciaire … You've just had a body brought in … No, not the car accident, this is about the man drowned at Dizy … That's right … Find
the custody officer … Go through his effects, you'll find a cufflink … I want you to describe it to me … Yes, I'll hang on.'

Three minutes later, he replaced the receiver. He had the information. He was still holding the forage cap and the cufflink.

‘Your lunch is ready.'

He didn't bother to answer the girl with red hair, though she had spoken as politely as she could. He went out feeling that perhaps he was now holding one end of the thread but also fearing he would drop it.

‘The cap in the stables … The cufflink in the yard … And the YCF badge near the stone bridge …'

It was that way he now started walking, very fast. Ideas formed and faded in turns in his mind.

He had not gone a kilometre when he was astonished by what he saw dead ahead.

The
Southern Cross
, which had set off in a great haste a good hour before, was now moored on the right-hand side of the bridge, among the reeds. He couldn't see anyone on board.

But when the inspector was less than a hundred metres short of it, a car coming from the direction of Épernay pulled up on the opposite bank. It stopped near the yacht. Vladimir, still wearing
sailor's clothes, was sitting next to the driver. He got out and ran to the boat. Before he reached it, the hatch opened, and the colonel came out on deck, holding his hand out to someone inside.

Maigret made no attempt to hide. He couldn't tell whether the colonel had seen him or not.

Then things happened fast. The inspector could not hear what was said, but the way the people were behaving gave him a clear enough idea of what was happening.

It was Madame Negretti who was being handed out of the cabin by Sir Walter. Maigret noted that this was the first time he had seen her wearing town clothes. Even from a distance it was obvious that she was very angry.

Vladimir picked up the two suitcases which stood ready and carried them to the car.

The colonel held out one hand to help her negotiate the gangplank, but she refused it and stepped forward so suddenly that she almost fell head first into the reeds.

She walked on without waiting for him. He followed several paces behind, showing no reaction. She jumped into the car still in the same furious temper, thrust her head angrily out of the window and shouted something which must have been either an
insult or a threat.

However, just as the car was setting off, Sir Walter bowed courteously, watched her drive off and then went back to his boat with Vladimir.

Maigret had not moved. He had a very strong feeling
that a change had come over the Englishman.

He did not smile. He remained his usual imperturbable self. But, for example, just as he reached the wheelhouse in the middle of saying something, he put one friendly, even affectionate, hand on Vladimir's shoulder.

Their cast-off was brilliantly executed. There were just the two men on board now. The Russian pulled in the gangplank and with one smooth action yanked the mooring ring free.

The prow of the
Southern Cross
was fast in the reeds. A barge coming up astern hooted.

Lampson turned round. There was no way now he could not have seen Maigret but he gave no sign of it. With one hand, he let in the clutch. With the other, he gave the brass wheel two full turns, and the yacht reversed just far enough to free
herself, avoided the bow of the barge, stopped just in time and then moved forward, leaving a wake of churning foam.

It had not gone a hundred metres when it sounded its hooter three times to let the lock at Ay know that its arrival was imminent.

‘Don't waste time … Just drive … Catch up with that car if you can.'

Maigret had flagged down a baker's van, which was heading in the direction of Épernay. About a kilometre ahead they could see the car carrying Madame Negretti. It was moving slowly: the road was wet and greasy.

When the inspector had stated his rank, the van driver had looked at him with amused curiosity.

‘Hop in. It won't take me five minutes to catch them up.'

‘No, not too fast.'

Then it was Maigret's turn to smile when he saw that his driver was crouching over the steering wheel just like American cops do in car chases in Hollywood crime films.

There was no need to risk life and limb, nor any kind of complication. The car stopped briefly in the first street it came to, probably to allow the passenger to confer with the driver. Then it drove off again and halted three minutes later
outside what clearly was a rather expensive hotel.

Maigret got out of the van a hundred metres behind it, thanked the baker, who refused a tip and, having decided he wanted to see more, parked a little nearer the hotel.

A porter carried both bags in. Gloria Negretti walked briskly across the pavement.

Ten minutes later, Maigret was talking to the manager.

‘The lady who has just checked in?'

‘Room 9. I thought there was something not quite right about her. I never saw anybody more on edge. She talked fast and used lots of foreign words. As far as I could tell, she didn't want to be disturbed and asked for cigarettes and a
bottle of kümmel to be taken up to her room. I hope at least there's not going to be any scandal …?'

‘None at all!' said Maigret. ‘Just some questions I need to ask her.'

He could not help smiling as he neared the door with the number 9 on it, for there was lots of noise coming from inside. The young woman's high heels clacked on the wooden floor in a haphazard way.

She was walking to and fro, up and down, in all directions. She could be heard closing a window, tipping out a suitcase, running a tap, throwing herself on to the bed, getting up and kicking off a shoe to
the other end of the room.

Maigret knocked.

‘Come in!'

Her voice was shaking with anger and impatience. Madame Negretti had not been there ten minutes and yet she had found time to change her clothes, to muss up her hair and, in a word, to revert to the way she had looked on board the
Southern
Cross
, but to an even messier degree.

When she saw who it was, a flash of rage appeared in her brown eyes.

‘What do you want with me? What are you doing here? This is my room! I'm paying for it and …'

She continued in a foreign language, probably Spanish, unscrewed the top off a bottle of eau de Cologne and poured most of the contents over her hands before dabbing her fevered brow with it.

‘May I ask you a question?'

‘I told them I didn't want to see anybody. Get out! Do you hear?'

She was walking around in her silk stockings. She was most likely not wearing garters, for they began to slide down her legs. One had already uncovered a podgy, very white knee.

‘Why don't you go and put your questions to people who can give you the answers? But you don't dare, do you? Because he's a colonel. Because he's
Sir
Walter!
Don't you just love the
Sir
! Ha ha! If I told you only half of what I know …

‘Look at this!'

She rummaged feverishly in her handbag and produced five crumpled 1,000-franc notes.

‘This is what he just gave me! For what? For two years, for the two years that I've been living with him! That …'

She threw the notes on the carpet then, changing her mind, picked them up again and put them back in her bag.

‘Of course, he promised he'd send me a cheque. But everybody knows what his promises are worth. A cheque! He won't even have enough money to get him to Porquerolles … though that won't stop him getting drunk on
whisky every day!'

She wasn't crying, but there were tears in her voice. There was something unnerving about the distress exhibited by this woman who, when Maigret had seen her previously, had always seemed steeped in blissful sloth, supine in a hothouse
atmosphere.

‘And his precious Vladimir's just the same! He tried to kiss my hand and had the cheek to say: “It's adieu, madame, not au revoir.”

‘By God, they've got a nerve … But when the colonel wasn't around, Vladimir …

‘But it's none of your business! Why are you still here? What are you waiting for? Are you hoping I'm going to tell you something?'

‘Not at all!'

‘But you can't deny that I'd be perfectly within my rights if I did …'

She was still walking up and down agitatedly, taking things out of her case, putting them down somewhere then a moment later picking them up again and putting them somewhere else.

‘Leaving me at Épernay! In that disgusting hole, where it never stops raining! I begged him at least to take me to Nice, where I have friends. It was on his account that I left them.

‘Still, I should be glad they didn't kill me.

‘I won't talk! Got that? Why don't you clear off! Policemen make me sick! As sick as the English! If you're man enough, why don't you go and arrest him?

‘But you wouldn't dare! I know all about how these things work …

‘Poor Mary! She'll be called all sorts now. Of course, she had her bad side and she'd have done anything for Willy. Me, I couldn't stand him.

‘But to finish up dead like that …

‘Have they gone? … So who are you going to arrest, then? Maybe me?

‘Well, you just listen. I'll tell you something. Just one thing and you can make of it whatever you like. This morning, when he was getting dressed to appear before that magistrate – because he's forever trying to impress people
and flashing his badges and medals – when he was dressing, Walter told Vladimir, in Russian, because he thinks I don't understand Russian …'

She was now speaking so quickly that she ran out of breath, stumbled over her words and reverted to throwing in snatches of Spanish.

‘He told him to try and find out where the
Providence
was. Are you with me? It's the barge that was tied up near us at Meaux.

‘They want to catch up with it and they're afraid of me.

‘I pretended I hadn't understood.

‘But I know you'd never ever dare to …'

She stared at her disembowelled suitcases and then around the room, which in only a few minutes she had succeeded in turning into a mess and filling with her acrid perfume.

‘I don't suppose you've got any cigarettes? What sort of hotel is this? I told them to bring some, and a bottle of kümmel.'

‘When you were in Meaux, did you ever see the colonel talking to anybody from the
Providence
?'

‘I never saw a thing. I never paid attention to any of that … All I heard was what he said this morning. Why otherwise would they be worrying about a barge? Does anybody know how Walter's first wife died in India? The second
one divorced him, so she must have had her reasons.'

A waiter knocked at the door with the cigarettes and a bottle. Madame Negretti reached for the packet and then hurled it into the corridor yelling:

‘I asked for Abdullahs!'

‘But madame …'

She clasped her hands together in a gesture which seemed like the prelude to an imminent fit of hysterics and shrieked:

‘Ah! … Of all the stupid … Ah!'

She turned to face Maigret, who was looking at her with interest, and screamed at him:

‘What are you still doing here? I'm not saying any more! I don't know anything! I haven't said anything! Got that? I don't want to be bothered any more with this business! … It's bad enough knowing
that I've wasted two years of my life in …'

As the waiter left, he gave the inspector a knowing wink. And while the young woman, now a bundle of frayed nerves, was throwing herself on to the bed, he too took his leave.

The baker was still parked in the street outside.

‘Well? Didn't you arrest her?' he asked in a disappointed voice. ‘I thought …'

Maigret had to walk all the way to the station before he could find a taxi to take him back to the stone bridge.

When the inspector overtook the
Southern Cross
, whose wash left the reeds swaying long after it had passed, the colonel was still at the wheel, and Vladimir, in the bow, was coiling a rope.