Lock No. 1 (9 page)

The son-in-law was blond, formal in
manner and resigned.

‘A small glass of port?' he
asked his wife.

‘What did you have,
inspector?'

At the window, Ducrau drummed his
fingers with impatience. Maybe he was searching for something wounding to say? But
at all events, he turned suddenly and growled:

‘The inspector was asking me for
information about you. And since he knows that you have debts, he pointed
out to me that my death would have
solved your problem. And Jean's death would have doubled your
expectations.'

‘Oh, Father!' cried his
daughter, dabbing her eyes with a black-edged handkerchief.

‘“Oh, Father!”'
he mimicked. ‘Well? Am I the one with debts? Is it me who wants to go off and
live in the Midi?'

The couple were used to it, and Decharme
was very well practised: he merely smiled a faint, sad smile, a smile which was
hardly there, as if he thought that such comments were a joke or the effect of a
passing mood of ill-humour. He had dainty hands, pale and long, which he played with
as he fiddled with his platinum wedding-ring.

‘Did I mention that they're
expecting a child?'

Berthe Decharme hid her face in her
hands. It was embarrassing. Ducrau knew it, but he was doing it on purpose. The
chauffeur walked across the courtyard and was heading towards the steps leading up
to the front door. Ducrau opened the window and called to him:

‘What is it?'

‘You told me, sir, to …'

‘Yes, yes! Out with it!'

Disconcerted, the chauffeur pointed to
the nondescript figure of a man sitting on the grass outside the gate who was at
that moment taking a hunk of bread out of his pocket.

‘Cretin!'

He shut the window. Outside, the maid,
who had put on a white apron, was laying the table on the terrace, which was shaded
by a red umbrella.

‘I don't suppose you even
know what we'll be eating?'

His daughter
took advantage of the moment to leave the room while Decharme pretended to leaf
through a pile of piano scores.

‘Do you play?' asked
Maigret.

It was Ducrau who answered him:

‘Him? Not a note! No one in this
house can play! The piano is just for show, like the rest of the stuff!'

And though it was rather cold in the
room, his forehead was covered in sweat.

The neighbours on the left were still
playing tennis and a liveried servant was bringing out refreshments when the Ducraus
were having lunch on their terrace. The umbrella was not keeping off enough of the
sun, and damp semi-circles were showing under the arms of Berthe's black silk
dress. Ducrau was so tense that it was draining to see. Everything he said,
everything he did was excruciating.

When the fish was brought to the table,
he asked to see the dish. He sniffed it, poked it with the end of his forefinger and
barked:

‘Take it away!'

‘But Émile!'

‘Take it away!' he
repeated.

When his wife returned from the kitchen,
her eyes were red. He, on the other hand, turned to Maigret and said doggedly:

‘So you're retiring on
Wednesday. Is that Wednesday morning or Wednesday evening?'

‘Wednesday midnight.'

He turned to his son-in-law, going on
the attack:

‘Know how
much I offered him to work for me? A hundred and fifty thousand. If he holds out for
two hundred, he'll get it!'

He was still keeping an eye on the
comings and goings outside the gate. He was afraid. And Maigret, the only one there
who knew, was even more uncomfortable than the others, for the spectacle of this man
fighting off panic was tragic but also rather ridiculous and contemptible.

Over coffee, Ducrau came up with
something else.

‘Now this,' he said, waving
one hand at the group sitting round the table, ‘is what is called a family.
First, there's a man who carries the full weight on his shoulders, who always
has and will go on bearing the burden until the day he dies. Then there's the
rest, with their hooks in him, hangers-on, all of them.'

‘You're not going to start
again,' said his daughter, rising.

‘You're right. Why
don't you go for a little walk. This could be your last peaceful
Sunday.'

She gave a start. Her husband, who was
wiping his mouth with his serviette, looked up. Madame Ducrau, on the other hand,
had not perhaps heard.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Nothing! I don't mean
anything! Just you carry on making your preparations for your trip to the
Midi.'

The son-in-law, who clearly had no sense
of timing, remarked quietly:

‘Berthe and I have been thinking.
The Midi is rather far away. If we could find something on the banks of the Loire
…'

‘Very
good! All you have to do is ask the inspector to winkle out a house near his and
he'll do it like a shot, just for the pleasure of having the pair of you as
neighbours!'

‘Do you live by the Loire?'
asked Decharme eagerly.

‘He's going to live there.
Perhaps.'

Slowly, Maigret turned towards him and
he wasn't smiling now. He had just been kicked in the chest by a sensation
which made his lips tremble. For days he had been floundering in a state of
sickening uncertainty and now everything had become clear by the magic of one small
word:

‘
Perhaps!
'

Ducrau returned his look with the same
gravity, the same awareness of the significance of the moment.

‘Where is your
property?'

But the son-in-law's voice was
just a buzzing noise to which neither of them paid the slightest attention. Louder
was the breathing of Ducrau, whose nostrils flared, and the light of battle lit his
gleaming face.

They had circled round each other for
long enough. They had got each other's measure but hadn't struck a
blow.

Maigret was also breathing more easily.
He filled his pipe, and there was sensual pleasure in the way his fingers burrowed
into his tobacco pouch.

‘Personally, I wouldn't mind
the area around Cosnes or Gien …'

Balls were hit back and forth on the red
clay court by girls in fluttering tennis whites. A small motor-boat made inroads
into the current of the Seine, purring like a contented tomcat.

Madame Ducrau rang a bell to summon the
maid, but
none of it mattered now to the
two men who had finally made contact.

‘Why don't you go to your
wife, who is probably in her room crying her eyes out?'

‘You think so? Personally, I
reckon it's her condition that makes her on edge.'

‘That's it, go, you
moron!' laughed Ducrau as his son-in-law left the room, still apologizing.
‘And what do you think you're doing, waggling your little
bell?'

‘Rosalie forgot to bring the
liqueurs.'

‘Don't bother. When we want
liqueurs we'll serve ourselves, isn't that right, Maigret?'

He hadn't said
‘inspector'. He had said Maigret. Ducrau wiped his lips with his
serviette and stuck out his chest as he surveyed the countryside. He was filling his
lungs and he too was purring contentedly.

‘What do you make of
it?'

‘Make of what?'

‘Everything! All this! The
weather's good! Look, even the lock-keeper is eating outside with his family!
When I was on horse-drawn boats, right at the beginning, I used to have a bite of
something with Gassin on the canal embankment. Since horses are supposed to be
rested for a couple of hours, we used to snooze flat out on the grass with
grasshoppers jumping over our heads.'

It was as if each of his pupils had
divided into two. There was one look which was hazy and lingered blithely over the
landscape. Then there, right in the centre, sharp, focused, grim, was another kind
of look, which was quite independent of the first.

‘Fancy a
short walk to help lunch go down?'

He made for the gate and opened it. But
before going out on to the towpath, he reached his hand into his back pocket, took
out his Browning with a flourish and checked the magazine.

It was theatrical, puerile, but still it
was impressive. Maigret did not blench and made no sign that he had noticed
anything. Voices floated down from the room upstairs, one of them raised in
anger.

‘What did I tell you?
They're arguing.'

With his revolver back in his pocket, he
walked alongside Maigret, at a leisurely pace, chest out, like a Sunday stroller.
When they reached the lock he stopped briefly to look at the water spurting through
the numerous leaks in the gate and at the family sitting around a table by their
front door.

‘What's the date?'

‘Thirteenth of April.'

He gave Maigret a suspicious look.

‘The thirteenth? Right!'

And they resumed their walk.

It was that time of day when the colours
are deeper but less vibrant, for things retreat into themselves as they wait for the
approaching dusk. The eye could now stare directly into the red sun, which hung over
the wooded hills. The reflections in the water were more generous, gorgeous, yet
were tinged with something cold and dead.

Just above the lock, strollers were
watching a young man trying to start the engine of a motor-boat. They heard it turn
over once or twice, suck in air and splutter, and then the exasperated growl of the
crank-handle was repeated.

It was Ducrau, hands behind his back,
who stopped all of a sudden as he surveyed a row of buildings which lined the
riverbank at this spot. Maigret had not noticed anything unusual.

‘Look, inspector.'

The buildings were restaurants and
rather expensive houses, and there was a long line of cars parked at the kerb. But
between two restaurants there was a narrow bar which doubtless served meals for the
cars' chauffeurs and outside which, it being Sunday, three or four tables had
been set up to constitute a terrace.

Maigret stared, trying to see what he
was supposed to be looking at. The passers-by cast enormously long,
spindly shadows. Already a few boaters and many light
dresses were in evidence. Eventually, Maigret's eye was caught by a familiar
figure, that of Lucas, who was sitting on the small terrace with a glass of beer
before him. Lucas had also seen Maigret and smiled at him from across the road. He
seemed perfectly happy to be there, on a fine Sunday, under the red and yellow
striped awning which gave him shade, where he sat next to a laurel in a
container.

To his right, at the other end of the
terrace, Maigret had already spotted old Gassin, who, elbows on a round table, which
was too small, was busy writing a letter.

People were coming back from some gala
or other for they were walking almost in a procession and raising clouds of dust. No
one noticed that two men in the crowd had stopped or heard one of them ask as he put
his hand in his pocket:

‘Could this be called
self-defence?'

Ducrau was not joking. He could not take
his eyes off the old man, who occasionally looked up to think about what he was
going to write next but appeared oblivious to his surroundings.

Maigret did not answer. He merely
signalled to Lucas and started walking towards the lock while Ducrau followed him
reluctantly.

‘Did you hear what I
asked?'

The motor-boat was finally under way,
gliding over the water, leaving a wake of eddying arabesques.

‘Here I am, sir.'

It was Lucas who stared down at the
water just as the others were doing.

‘Is he
armed?'

‘No. I searched his room. There
was no revolver there. And he didn't stop off anywhere on his way
here.'

‘Has he spotted you?'

‘I don't think so.
He's too busy with his own thoughts.'

‘Make good and sure you get that
letter. Off you go!'

‘You still haven't
answered,' Ducrau said insistently as they set off again.

‘And you heard: he's not
armed.'

They continued walking, and the white
mansion kept getting closer.

‘So in short,' said Ducrau
sarcastically, ‘we've both got our own guardian angel. It would be
better if you stayed for dinner. And also if you accepted a bed for the night
…'

He opened the gate. His wife, his
daughter and his son-in-law were on the terrace, drinking tea. The chauffeur was
mending an inner tube which lay on the gravel of the courtyard like a large,
assertively red wreath.

They were ensconced in wicker chairs at
a table on which there were bottles and glasses. They had not joined the rest of the
family on the terrace. Instead, they had stayed in the courtyard, near the door to
the drawing room, which, at their backs, was already being invaded by shadows. The
streetlamps of Samois had been turned on much too early for in this light they were
no more than splashes of white, while the Sunday crowd was thinning and being
absorbed by the railway station.

‘Do you think,' said Maigret
in his calmest voice, ‘that
a man
who has killed another man and is worried for his own safety will hesitate for long
about killing another man and, if needs be, a third?'

Ducrau was smoking an enormous
meerschaum pipe with a long cherry-wood mouthpiece and had to support the bowl in
his hand. He stared at his companion, and it was some time before he said
quietly:

‘What are you driving
at?'

‘Nothing special. I'm
thinking that here we are sitting out on a lovely Sunday evening. The cognac is
good. Our pipes are drawing well. Meanwhile old Gassin must be on to his aperitifs
by now. Come Wednesday evening, all that's bothering us will have ceased to be
a concern. The problem will have been solved.'

He spoke in a dreamy voice while on the
terrace above them Decharme struck a match, whose flame danced briefly against the
pale sky.

‘So you see, what I'm
wondering is, who won't be around then?'

Ducrau gave a start, which he could not
hide. He preferred not to try.

‘You have an ominous way of
putting it!'

‘Where were you last
Sunday?'

‘Here. We come every
Sunday.'

‘And your son?'

Ducrau's features hardened. He
said:

‘He was here too. He spent a
couple of hours trying to make the wireless work. It hasn't been any better
since.'

‘And now he's dead and
buried. Bébert is dead. This why
I'm thinking about this chair and who'll be
sitting in it next Sunday.'

They could not see each other clearly.
The smell of the two pipes spread across the courtyard. Ducrau jumped when someone
got off a bicycle just outside the gate and it was from a distance that he
called:

‘What do you want?'

‘It's for Monsieur
Maigret.'

It was a local boy, and he poked a
letter for the inspector through the bars of the gate.

‘A man gave me this for you near
the tobacconist's.'

‘I know. Thanks.'

Ducrau had not moved. The ladies were
going inside because they were getting cold, and it was obvious that Decharme,
lingering by the balustrade, was in two minds about whether or not to join the other
two men as he would dearly have liked to.

Maigret tore open the first envelope
with his name on it and inside found the letter which Gassin had been writing a
little earlier. It was addressed to ‘Madame Emma Chatereau, Café des
Maraîchers, Larzicourt (Haute-Marne)'.

‘We could put the light on in the
drawing room,' muttered Ducrau, who did not dare to ask any questions.

‘I can still see well
enough.'

The paper was the kind supplied in a
bar, the ink was purple, the writing was very small to begin with and twice as big
by the end:

Dear Emma,

I'm writing to let you know
that I am well and I hope that
this
finds you likewise. But I want to tell you that if anything happens to me
I'd like to be buried at home, near our mother, not at Charenton as I said
before. So you must not go on paying for that plot there. About the money in the
savings bank, you'll find the pass-books and all the papers in the drawer
of the dresser. It's all for you. You'll finally be able to have
that extra storey built on. As for everything else, no problem, because I know
what I have to do.

Your ever loving brother

Maigret, still standing, looked up from
the small sheet of paper and scrutinized Ducrau who was pretending to be thinking of
something else and went on puffing at his pipe.

‘Bad news?'

‘It's the letter Gassin was
writing earlier.'

Ducrau kept control of himself, crossed
then uncrossed his legs, watched his son-in-law from a distance and finally, making
every effort not to betray his impatience, said:

‘May I read it?'

‘No.'

Maigret folded the letter then slipped
it into his wallet. Without particularly wanting to, he caught himself several times
glancing at the gate, behind which there was only a gulf of blackness.

‘Who is it addressed
to?'

‘His sister.'

‘Emma? Whatever became of her? She
lived on her brother's boat for a while, and I think I must have been in love
with her once. But she married a schoolteacher in the Haute-Marne, and I believe he
died shortly afterwards.'

‘She runs
an inn in the village where she lives.'

‘It's getting really cold,
wouldn't you say? Would you mind if we went in?'

Ducrau switched the light on in the
drawing room, shut the door, began closing the shutters, then changed his mind.

‘May I know what Gassin wrote to
his sister?'

‘No.'

‘Should I be afraid?'

‘You know the answer to that
better than I do.'

Ducrau smiled and wandered round the
room, not knowing where to put himself, while Maigret, very much at home, went out
into the garden and returned with the bottle of cognac and their glasses.

‘Suppose there are these two
men,' he said, serving himself a drink, ‘one who has already killed and
as a result could find himself locked up for the rest of his life, or worse, and the
other who never harmed a fly. They circle each other like fighting cocks: which, in
your opinion, is the more dangerous?'

The only response was an even more
leaden smile.

‘All that's left now is to
find out who hanged Bébert. What do you reckon, Ducrau?'

Maigret was still friendly, but there
was a new gravity in every word, every syllable he uttered, as if every one of them
was heavy with meaning.

Ducrau had finally opted to settle into
an armchair, his short legs straight out and his pipe resting on his chest. His
position gave him a triple chin, and his half-closed lids were like shutters over
his eyes.

‘Do you
know what simple question that sort of thinking finally leads to? It is this: who
took advantage of Aline's simple-mindedness one day and left her expecting a
baby?'

This time, his companion leaped to his
feet like a shot, his cheeks turning red.

‘Well?' he asked.

‘Well, it wasn't you, of
course. It wasn't Gassin either, because he's always believed he was her
father. It wasn't your son Jean, who had strong feelings for her and who, as
it happens …'

‘Who did what? What are you
getting at?'

‘Nothing bad. I've had
inquiries made about him. Tell me, Ducrau, after you had your first daughter by your
wife, didn't you get ill?'

The only response was a grunt, and
Maigret saw a back turned towards him.

‘It could be the explanation. The
fact is that Aline is simple-minded. As for your son, he was a sickly child, highly
strung and so sensitive that he was given to having hysterical episodes. According
to his friends, who joked about it, he wasn't much of a man. Hence the
emotional but utterly pure friendship between him and Aline.'

‘What are you driving
at?'

‘At this: if Bébert was killed it
was because he was the one who took advantage of her. The
Golden Fleece
is
often tied up at Charenton for weeks on end. Gassin spent every evening in bars. The
assistant lock-keeper was a loner and as he prowled round the barges he spotted
Aline one evening …'

‘Shut your mouth!'

Ducrau's
neck flushed deep red, and he hurled his pipe into a corner of the room.

‘Is it true?'

‘I've no idea.'

‘Maybe he didn't even have
to use force because she's not aware of her actions. And nobody knows! Until
the day Aline gave birth … There were three men close to Aline … Who do you think,
Ducrau, that Gassin suspects?'

‘Me!' came the reply.

As he spoke he gave a start, walked
heavily to the door and flung it open, revealing his daughter. He raised his hand.
She screamed. But instead of hitting her, he simply slammed the door in her
face.

‘What else is there?'

He bore down on Maigret like a lion in
an arena.

‘I noticed that Aline was afraid
of you, even more than afraid. Gassin must have thought the same thing. So when he
caught you prowling around her …'

‘Oh, yes, and what else is
there?'

‘Why couldn't somebody else
have thought the same thing, especially since he knew all about your inability to
keep your hands off women?'

‘Who? Out with it!'

‘Your son …'

‘What about him?'

They heard the sound of footsteps and
voices coming from the room above. It was a tearful Berthe telling her mother and
her husband about what had happened. Shortly after this, the maid came in, looking
scared.