Free The Carter of ’La Providence’ by Georges Simenon Page B

colonel’s account had not been clear. His wilfully ambiguous statement let it be supposed that Marie Dupin, or Ceccaldi, was at that time virtually destitute and living on the generosity of a few friends, though without ever actually
selling her body.
    He had married her during a trip to London, and it was then that she had obtained from France a copy of her birth certificate in the name of Marie Dupin.
    â€˜She was a most enchanting woman.’
    In his mind’s eye Maigret saw the colonel’s fleshy, dignified, ruddy face as he said these words, without affectation and with a sober simplicity which had seemed to impress the magistrate favourably.
    He stepped back to allow the stretcher carrying Willy’s body to pass.
    Suddenly he shrugged his shoulders and went into the café, sat down heavily on a bench and called:
    â€˜Bring me a beer!’
    It was the girl who served him. Her eyes were still red, and her nose shone. He looked up at her with interest and, before he could question her, she looked this way and that to make sure no one was listening, then murmured:
    â€˜Did he suffer much?’
    She had a lumpish, unintelligent face, thick ankles and red beefy arms. Yet she was the only one who had given a second thought to the suave Willy, who perhaps had squeezed her waist as a joke the evening before – if, indeed, he had.
    Maigret was reminded of the conversation he had had with the young man when he had been half stretched out on the unmade bed in his room, chain-smoking.
    The girl was wanted elsewhere. One of the watermen called to her:
    â€˜Seems like you’re all upset, Emma!’
    She tried to smile and gave Maigret a conspiratorial look.
    The canal traffic had been held up all morning. There were now seven vessels, three with engines, tied up outside the Café de la Marine. The bargees’ wives came to the shop, and each one made the door bell jangle.
    â€˜When you’re ready for lunch …’ the landlord said to Maigret.
    â€˜In a while.’
    And from the doorway, he looked at the spot where the
Southern Cross
had been moored only that morning.
    The previous evening, two men, two healthy men, had stepped off it. They had walked off towards the stone bridge. If the colonel was to be believed, they’d separated after an argument, and Sir Walter had gone on his way along the three
kilometres of empty, dead-straight road which led to the first houses of Épernay.
    No one had ever seen Willy alive again. When the colonel had returned in a cab, he had not noticed anything unusual.
    No witnesses! No one had heard anything! The butcher at Dizy, who lived 600 metres from the bridge, said his dog had barked, but he hadn’t investigated and could not say what time it had been.
    The towpath, awash with puddles and pools, had been used by too many men and horses for there to be any hope of finding any useful tracks.
    The previous Thursday, Mary Lampson, also fit and well to all appearances, had left the
Southern Cross
, where she had been alone.
    Earlier – according to Willy – she had given him a pearl necklace, the only valuable item of jewellery she owned.
    After this there was no trace of her. She had not been seen alive again. Two days had gone by when no one had reported seeing her.
    On Sunday evening, she lay strangled under a pile of straw in a stable at Dizy, a hundred kilometres from her point of departure, with two carters snoring just feet from her corpse.
    That was all! The Épernay magistrate had ordered both bodies to be transferred to cold storage in the Forensic Institute.
    The
Southern Cross
had just left, heading south, for Porquerolles, for the Petit Langoustier, which was no stranger to orgies.
    Maigret, head down, walked all round the building of the Café de la Marine. He beat off a bad-tempered goose which bore down on him, its beak open and shrieking with rage.
    There was no lock on the stable door, only a simple wooden