Lock No. 1

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New York, New York 10014

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First published in French as
L'ecluse no. 1
in
Paris-Soir
, in instalments from 23 May to 16 June 1933

First published in book form by Fayard 1933

This translation first published in Penguin Books 2015

Copyright © 1933 by Georges Simenon Limited

Translation copyright © 2015 by David Coward

GEORGES SIMENON ® Simenon.tm

MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited

All rights reserved.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted.

ISBN 978-0-698-19466-3

Cover photograph (detail) © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos

Cover design by Alceu Chiesorin Nunes

Title Page

Copyright

About the Author

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

EXTRA: Chapter 1 from
Maigret

When you watch fish through a layer of
water which prevents all contact between them and you, you see that they remain
absolutely still for a long time, for no reason, and then, with a twitch of their
fins, they dart away so that they can do nothing again somewhere else, except more
waiting.

It was in the same state of stillness,
and as if for no reason too, that the last number 13 Bastille-Créteil tram, lit up
by its yellow lights, rumbled along the side of Carrières Wharf.

It looked as if it was going to stop at
a side-road, just by a streetlight, but the conductor yanked the bell pull, and the
vehicle clanked off towards Charenton.

In its wake, the wharf was left empty
and stagnant, like a drowned landscape. To the right, barges rocked on the canal
under the moon. A trickle of water escaped through a badly closed sluice. It was the
only sound under a sky which was more tranquil and deeper than a lake.

Two bars were still lit up. They faced
each other, each one on a street corner.

In one, five men were playing cards,
slowly, not speaking. Three were wearing sailors' or river pilots' caps,
and
the landlord, who was sitting with them,
was in shirt-sleeves.

In the other bar, no one was playing
cards. There were just three men inside. They were sitting around a table, staring
dreamily at small glasses of cheap brandy. The light was grey and smelled of sleep.
From time to time, the black-moustached landlord, who was wearing a blue pullover,
yawned before reaching for his glass with one hand.

Sitting opposite him was a short man
overrun by thick, flaxen hair, like dry hay. He was either brooding or befuddled, or
perhaps drunk? His rheumy eyes looked as though they were swimming through troubled
waters and at intervals he would nod his head as if agreeing with his inner
monologue while the man next to him, also a canal man, set his gaze free to wander
outside, in the dark.

Time fled soundlessly. There was not
even the tick of a clock. Next to the bar was a row of small, poky houses each with
a garden round it, but all their lights were out. Then at number 8, came a detached
house on six floors, already old and smoke-blackened, too narrow for its height. On
the first floor, a few gleams filtered through venetian blinds. On the second, where
there were no shutters, a crude blind made a rectangle of light.

Finally, directly opposite, on the canal
bank, a heap of stones, sand, a crane, a number of empty carts.

Yet music pulsated through the air. It
was coming from somewhere. It had to be found. Its source was further
along than number 8, set back from the road, a wooden shed
with a sign saying:
Dance Hall
.

No one was dancing. In fact the only
person there was the fat woman who owned it. She was reading a newspaper and got up
at intervals to feed a five-
sou
coin into the mechanical piano.

Sooner or later, somebody or something
was bound to make a stir. It turned out to be the very hairy bargee from the bar on
the right-hand side. He got to his feet unsteadily, stared at his empty glasses and
did the calculation in his head while he searched through his pockets. When he had
counted out the right money, he laid it on the smooth top of the wooden table,
touched the peak of his cap and set a wavering course for the door.

The other two men looked at each other.
The landlord winked. The fingers of the old man dithered uncertainly in thin air
before settling on the door handle, and he swayed as he turned to shut the door
behind him.

His footsteps were as audible as if the
pavement had been hollow. The sound was irregular. He took three or four paces then
stopped: he was either hesitating or concentrating on staying upright.

When he reached the canal, he collided
with the metal railing which clanged, started down the stone steps and found himself
on the unloading wharf.

The outlines of boats were clearly
picked out by the moon. Their names were as easy to read as in broad daylight. The
nearest barge, which was separated from the quayside by a plank which served as a
gangway, was called the
Golden Fleece
. There were other boats behind
it, both to the left and right, and they
were at least five rows deep, some with holds open near a crane, waiting to be
unloaded, others with their prows nudging the gates of the lock through which they
would pass at first light, and lastly those hulks which are always to be seen, God
knows why, loitering in and around canal ports, apparently having outlived their
usefulness.

The old man, all alone in this
motionless universe, hiccupped and stepped on to the plank, which bent under him.
When he got to the middle, it occurred to him to turn round, perhaps for a sight of
the windows of the bar. He managed the first part of the action, swayed,
straightened his back and found himself in the water, hanging on to the plank with
one hand.

He had not cried out. He hadn't
even gasped. There had been only a faint splash, which was already fading, for the
man was barely moving. His forehead was furrowed as if something was forcing him to
think. He braced his arms to haul himself up on to the plank. He failed, tried
again, eyes staring, breathing heavily.

On the quayside, pressed close against
the stone wall, two lovers listened, motionless, holding their breath. A car horn
sounded in Charenton.

All of a sudden there was a howl, an
extraordinary wail, which tore through the all-enveloping calm.

It was the old man in the water who was
straining his throat in panic. He was no longer making any attempt to think. He was
struggling like a madman, kicking out with his legs, making the water boil.

Then other sounds were heard round
about. There was
a stir on board a barge.
Elsewhere the voice of a still half-sleeping woman spoke:

‘Aren't you going to see
what that is?'

Doors opened higher up, on the quayside,
the doors of both bars. The couple under the wall moved apart, and the man said
under his breath:

‘Quick! Go home!'

He took a few steps, hesitated and then
called out:

‘Where?'

He heard the cry. It came again. Other
voices came nearer, and people leaned over the railing.

‘What's happened?'

The young man broke into a run and
answered:

‘I don't know yet.
It's that way … In the water …'

His girlfriend remained where she was,
her hands clasped together, not daring to advance or retreat.

‘I can see him! … Come
quick!'

As the shouts grew feebler, they turned
into desperate gurgles. The young man could make out hands clinging to the plank and
a head sticking out of the water, but he had no idea what to do. He waited, with his
face turned towards the steps that led down to the wharf, and kept repeating:

‘Come quick!'

A voice said tonelessly:

‘It's Gassin.'

Seven men now arrived, the five drinkers
from one bar and two from the other.

‘Come nearer … You take one arm
and I'll get the other.'

‘Go careful on
the plank.'

It sagged beneath their weight. From a
hatch on the barge a female figure all in white, with fair hair, started to
emerge.

‘Have you got him?'

The old man was no longer shouting. He
hadn't passed out. He was staring straight in front of him, uncomprehendingly,
making no attempt to help his rescuers.

They hauled him up out of the water by
stages. He was so limp that he had to be dragged on to the wharf.

The figure in white walked across the
gangplank. She was young, wearing a long nightdress, with nothing on her feet, and
the moonlight which lit her from behind picked out the lines of her naked body under
the cotton. Only she still stared down at the water, which was becoming calm again,
and then it was her turn to scream as she pointed at something as hazy and pallid as
a jellyfish.

Two of the men who were tending the
boatman turned to look, and when they too saw the milky patch on the black water
they felt the same chill run up and down their spine.

‘Over there! … There's a
…'

They all looked, forgetting the boatman,
who lay flat out on the stones of the wharf, which was criss-crossed by water
runaways.

‘Bring us a boat-hook!'

It was the girl who fetched one from the
deck of the barge and handed it to them.

It was no longer the same. Neither the
atmosphere. Nor
even the temperature of the
night air! It felt suddenly colder, with pulses of warm air.

‘Have you got him?'

The iron tip of the boat-hook moved
through the water, prodding the shapeless mass in an attempt to hook it. One man
lying flat on his stomach on the plank was stretching with one hand, trying to get
hold of the clothes on the body.

And in the night, on the barges, there
was a stir. People were there, standing, waiting and not speaking.

‘Got him!'

‘Pull him in … gently
now.'

On the wharf water was draining out of
the old boatman as out of a sponge, while the body of a drowned man, bigger,
heavier, more deeply inert, was being hauled up. From a tug some way off came a
voice which asked simply:

‘Dead?'

The girl in the nightdress watched while
the men lay the body down on the wharf, a metre from the first one. She did not seem
to understand: her lips trembled as though she were about to burst into tears.

‘Good God! It's
Mimile!'

‘Ducrau!'

Men who were upright stood over men who
were prone but none knew which way to look. They were shaken, shocked. They wanted
to do something and they all looked scared.

‘We should … straight away
…'

‘Yes … I'll go …'

One of them ran off
towards the lock. They heard him knock with both hands on the lock-keeper's
door and shout:

‘Quick! Get your first-aid box!
It's Émile Ducrau!'

Émile Ducrau … Émile Ducrau …
Mimile?
The words were spoken, repeated from barge to barge. People
clambered over rudders and gangplanks while the landlord of the bar kept raising and
lowering the arm of the drowned corpse.

The old man was forgotten. No one even
noticed that he had sat up, obscured by the legs which hemmed him in, and was
looking around him in a daze.

The lock-keeper arrived at a run. A man
scurried down the stone steps just ahead of a policeman.

A window opened on the second floor of
the tall house and a woman leaned out, coloured pink by a rose-coloured silk
lampshade.

‘Is he dead?' people
whispered.

No one knew. They could not know. The
lock-keeper set up his respirator. They could hear the regular pulsing of the
pump.

In the midst of the confusion, the
half-formed words, the muttered orders, the sound of soles crunching on gravel, the
boatman half propped himself up on his hands, slumped and collided with a man
standing next to him, who helped him to his feet.

It was all insubstantial and blurred,
muffled, distorted, as if it was all happening under water.

The old man, who was just managing to
stay upright, stared down at the other body as if he were dreaming it
all. He panted, still drunk, his breath reeking more
strongly of alcohol than ever.

‘He tried to grab me down
there!'

Seeing him standing up and, even more,
hearing him speak was as strange as if he had been a ghost. He gazed at the body,
the artificial respirator and the water, especially the water just under the
gangplank.

‘The swine wouldn't let go
of me!'

They listened but didn't believe
him. The girl in white tried to put a scarf around his neck, but he pushed her away
and stayed rooted to the same spot, ruminating, suspicious, as if he had come up
against a superhuman problem.

‘It came up from the
bottom,' he muttered to himself. ‘Something grabbed my legs. I gave it a
good kicking, but the more I kicked the more it wrapped itself around me.'

One of the boatmen's wives brought
a bottle of brandy, poured a glass and held it out to the old man, who spilled more
than half of it, for he couldn't take his eyes off the body and went rambling
on.

‘What exactly happened
here?' asked the policeman.

But the old man just shrugged his
shoulders and continued his one-track monologue, more quietly, in the thickets of
his beard.

Apart from those who were working the
pump, people hung around in groups on the wharf. They were waiting for the
doctor.

‘Go back to bed,' someone
said to his wife.

‘Will you come and tell me if
…?'

No one had noticed
the old man purloin the brandy, which had been left on a block of dressed stone. He
was now sitting by himself with his back against the wall of the quay, drinking from
the bottle and thinking such bitter thoughts that his face was screwed up tight.