The Carter of ’La Providence’ (14 page)

One of the wooden panels over the stable had been slid open. The head of one of the horses showed above it, sniffing the wind.

Maigret looked down through it and made out a dark shape lying on straw. And close by, the skipper's wife was crouching with a bowl of coffee in one hand.

Her manner was motherly and oddly gentle. She murmured:

‘Come on, Jean! Drink it up while it's hot. It'll do you good, silly old fool! Want me to raise your head up?'

But the man lying by her side did not move. He was looking up at the sky.

And against the sky Maigret's head stood out. The man must have seen him.

The inspector had the impression that on that face latticed with strips of sticking plaster there lurked a contented, ironic, even pugnacious smile.

The old carter tried to raise one hand to push away the
cup which the woman was holding close to his lips. But it fell back again weakly, gnarled, calloused, spotted with small blue dots which must have
been the vestiges of old tattoos.

‘See? He's come back to his burrow. Dragged himself, like an injured dog.'

Did the skipper's wife realize how seriously ill the man was?

Either way, she did not seem to be unduly concerned. She was as calm as if she were caring for a child with 'flu.

‘Coffee won't do him any harm, will it? But he won't take anything. It must have been four in the morning when me and my husband were woken up by a lot of noise on board … I got the revolver and told him to follow me
with the lantern.

‘Believe it or not, it was Jean, more or less the way he is now … He must have fallen down in here from the deck … It's almost two metres.

‘At first, we couldn't see very well. For a moment, I thought he was dead.

‘My husband wanted to call the neighbours, to help us carry him and lie him down on a bed. But Jean twigged. He started gripping my hand, and did he squeeze! It was like he was hanging on to me for dear life!

‘And I saw he was starting to, well, whimper.

‘I knew what he was saying. Because he's been with us for eight years, you know. He can't speak. But I think he
understands what I say to him. Isn't that right, Jean? Does it
hurt?'

It was difficult to know whether the injured man's eyes were bright with intelligence or fever.

She removed a wisp of straw which was touching the man's ear.

‘My life, you know, is my home, my pots and pans, my sticks of furniture. I think that if they gave me a palace to live in, I'd be as miserable as sin living in it.

‘Jean's life is his stable … and his horses! Of course, there's always days, you know, when we don't move because we're unloading. Jean don't have any part in that. So he could go off to some bar.

‘But no! He comes back and lies down, just here. He makes sure that the sun can get in …'

In his mind, Maigret imagined himself stretched out where the carter was lying, saw the pitch-covered wall on his right, the whip hanging from one twisted nail, the tin cup on another, a patch of sky through the hatch overhead and, to the right,
the well-muscled hindquarters of the horses.

The whole place exuded animal warmth, a dense, many-layered vitality which caught the throat like the sharp-tasting wines produced by certain slopes.

‘Will it be all right to leave him here, do you think?'

She motioned the inspector to join her outside. The lock was working at the same rate as the evening before. All around were the streets of the town, which were filled with a bustle that was alien to the canal.

‘He's going to die, though, isn't he? What's he done?
You can tell me. I couldn't say anything before, could I? For a start I don't know anything. Once, just once, my
husband saw him with his shirt off when he wasn't looking. He saw the tattoos. They weren't like the ones some sailors have done. We thought the same thing as you would have …

‘I think it made me even fonder of him for it. I told myself he couldn't be what he seemed, that he was on the run …

‘I wouldn't have asked him about it for all the money in the world. You surely don't think it was him that killed that woman? If you do, listen: if he did do it, I'd say she asked for it!

‘Jean is …'

She searched for the word that expressed her thought. It did not come.

‘Right! I can hear my husband getting up. I packed him off back to bed. He's always had a weak chest. Do you think that if I made him some strong broth …'

‘The doctors will be on their way. Meanwhile, maybe it would be best to …'

‘Do they really have to come? They'll hurt him and spoil his last moments, which …'

‘It cannot be avoided.'

‘But he's so comfortable here with us! Can I leave you here for a minute? You won't bother him again, will you?'

Maigret gave a reassuring nod of his head, went back inside the stable and from his pocket took a small tin. It contained a pad impregnated with viscous black ink.

He still could not tell if the carter was fully conscious.
His eyes were half open. The look in them was blank, calm.

But when the inspector lifted his right hand and pressed each finger one after the other against the pad, he had a split-second impression that the shadow of a smile flickered over his face.

He took the fingerprints on a sheet of paper, watched the dying man for a moment, as though he were expecting something to happen, looked one last time at the wooden walls and the rumps of the horses which were growing restive and impatient, then
went outside.

Near the tiller, the bargee and his wife were drinking their morning
café au lait
fortified with dunked bread. They were looking his way. The
Southern Cross
was moored less than five metres from the
Providence.
There
was no one on deck.

The previous evening, Maigret had left his bicycle at the lock. It was still there. Ten minutes later he was at the police station. He despatched an officer on a motorcycle to Épernay with instructions to transmit the fingerprints to Paris by
belinograph.

When he was back on board the
Providence
, he had with him two doctors from the hospital with whom he had a difference of opinion.

The medics wanted their patient back. The skipper's wife was alarmed and looked pleadingly at Maigret.

‘Do you think you can pull him through?'

‘No. His chest has been crushed. One rib has pierced his right lung.'

‘How long will he live for?'

‘Most people would be dead already! An hour, maybe five …'

‘Then let him be!'

The old man had not moved, had not even winced. As Maigret passed in front of the wife of the skipper, she touched his hand, shyly, her way of showing her gratitude.

The doctors walked down the gangplank, looking very unhappy.

‘Leaving him to die in a stable!' grumbled one.

‘Yes, but they also let him live in one …'

Even so, the inspector posted a uniformed officer near the barge and the yacht, with orders to inform him if anything happened.

From the lock he phoned the Café de la Marine at Dizy, where he was told that Inspector Lucas had just passed through and that he had hired a car at Épernay to drive him to Vitry-le-François.

Then there was a good hour when nothing happened. The master of the
Providence
used the time to apply a coat of tar to the dinghy he towed behind the barge. Vladimir polished the brasses on the
Southern Cross
.

Meanwhile the skipper's wife was constantly on deck, toing and froing between the galley and the stable. Once, she was observed carrying a dazzlingly white pillow. Another time it was a bowl of steaming liquid, doubtless the broth which she
had insisted on making.

Around eleven, Lucas arrived at the Hotel de la Marne, where Maigret was waiting for him.

‘How's things, Lucas?'

‘Good. You look tired, sir.'

‘What did you find out?'

‘Not a lot. At Meaux, I learned nothing except that the yacht caused a bit of a rumpus. The barge men couldn't sleep for all the music and singing and they were talking of smashing the yacht up.'

‘Was the
Providence
there?'

‘It loaded not twenty metres from the
Southern Cross
. But nobody noticed anything unusual.'

‘And in Paris?'

‘I saw the two girls again. They admitted it wasn't Mary Lampson who gave them the necklace but Willy Marco. I had it confirmed in the hotel, where they recognized his photo, but no one had seen Mary Lampson. I'm not sure but I
think Lia Lauwenstein was closer to Willy than she's letting on and that she'd already been helping him in Nice.'

‘And Moulins?'

‘Not a thing. I went to see the baker's wife. She really is the only Marie Dupin in the whole area. A nice woman, straight as a die. She doesn't understand what's been happening and is worried that this business is not
going to do her any good. The copy of the birth certificate was issued eight years ago. There's been a new clerk in the registry for the last three years, and the previous one died last year. They trawled through the archives but didn't come up with anything involving this
particular document.'

After a silence, Lucas asked:

‘How about you?'

‘I don't know yet. Maybe nothing, maybe the jackpot.
It could go one way or the other at any time. What are they saying at Dizy?'

‘They reckon that if the
Southern Cross
hadn't been a yacht it wouldn't have been allowed to leave. There's also talk that the colonel has been married before.'

Saying nothing, Maigret led Lucas through the streets of the small town to the telegraph office.

‘Give me Criminal Records in Paris.'

The belinogram with the carter's fingerprints should have reached the Prefecture two hours ago. After that, it was a matter of luck. Among 80,000 other sets, a match might be found straightaway, or it might take many hours.

‘Listen with the earpiece, Lucas … Hello? … Who is this? … Is that you, Benoît? … Maigret here … Did you get the telephotograph I sent? … What's that? … You did the
search yourself? … Just a moment.'

He left the call-booth and went up to the Post Office counter.

‘I may need to stay on the line for quite some time. So please make absolutely sure I'm not cut off.'

When he picked up the receiver again, there was a gleam in his eye.

‘Sit down, Benoît. You're going to give me everything in the files. Lucas is standing here next to me. He'll take notes. Go ahead …'

In his mind's eye, he could see his informant as clearly as if he had been standing next to him, for he was familiar with the offices located high in the attics of the Palais de Justice, where metal cabinets hold files on all the convicted
felons in France and a good number of foreign-born gangsters.

‘First, what's his name?'

‘Jean-Évariste Darchambaux, born Boulogne, now aged fifty-five.'

Automatically Maigret tried to recall a case featuring the name, but already Benoît, pronouncing every syllable distinctly, had resumed, and Lucas was busy scribbling.

‘Doctor of medicine. Married a Céline Mornet, at Étampes. Moved to Toulouse, where he'd been a student. Then he moved around a lot … Still there, inspector?'

‘Still here. Carry on …'

‘I've got the complete file, for the record card doesn't say much … The couple are soon up to their eyes in debt. Two years after he married, at twenty-seven, Darchambaux is accused of poisoning his aunt, Julia
Darchambaux, who had come to live with them in Toulouse and disapproved of the kind of life he led. The aunt was pretty well off. The Darchambaux were her sole heirs.

‘Inquiries lasted eight months, for no formal proof of guilt was ever found. Or at least the accused claimed – and some experts agreed with him – that the drugs prescribed for the old woman were not themselves harmful and that their use was
an ambitious if extreme form of treatment.

‘There was a lot of controversy … You don't want me to read out the reports, do you?

‘The trial was stormy, and the judge had to clear the court several times. Most people thought he should be
acquitted, especially after the doctor's wife had given evidence. She stood up and
swore that her husband was innocent and that if he was sent to a penal settlement in the colonies, she would follow him there.'

‘Was he found guilty?'

‘Sentenced to fifteen years' hard labour … Now, don't hang up! That's everything in our files. But I sent an officer on a bike round to the Ministry of the Interior … He's just got
back.'

He could be heard speaking to someone standing behind him, and then there was a sound of papers being shuffled.

‘Here we are! But it doesn't amount to much. The governor of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in French Guiana wanted to give Darchambaux a job in one of the hospitals in the colony … He turned it down … good
record … “docile” prisoner … just one attempt to escape with fifteen others who had talked him into it.