Read The Carter of ’La Providence’ for Free Online

beef.
    â€˜Eight out of ten horses have dark brown coats!’ sighed Maigret.
    In the café, Vladimir was asking what was the nearest place where he could buy the supplies he needed. There were three people who were telling him, including the cycling policeman from Épernay, who eventually set off with the Russian in the
direction of the stone bridge.
    Maigret, with Lucas in tow, headed for the stable, where, in addition to the landlord’s grey, a broken-kneed mare possibly intended for slaughter had been kept since the night before.
    â€˜It wasn’t here that she would have picked up traces of resin,’ said the inspector.
    He walked twice along the path that led round the buildings from the canal to the stable.
    â€˜Do you sell resin?’ he asked when he saw the landlord pushing a wheelbarrow full of potatoes.
    â€˜It’s not exactly proper resin … We call it Norwegian pitch. It’s used for coating the sides of wooden barges above the waterline. Below it they use coal-tar, which is twenty times cheaper.’
    â€˜Have you got any?’
    â€˜There are still about twenty cans in the shop … But in this sort of weather there’s no call for it. The bargees wait for the sun to come out before they start doing up their boats.’
    â€˜Is the
Éco-III
made of wood?’
    â€˜Iron, like most boats with motors.’
    â€˜How about the
Providence
?’
    â€˜Wood. Have you found out something?’
    Maigret did not reply.
    â€˜You know what they’re saying?’ said the man, who had set down his wheelbarrow.
    â€˜Who are “they”?’
    â€˜Everybody on the canal, the bargees, pilots, lock-keepers. Goes without saying that a car would have a hard time driving along the towpath, but what about a motorbike? A motorbike could come from a long way off and leave no more trace than
a pushbike.’
    The door of the
Southern Cross
’s cabin opened. But no one came out.
    For one brief moment, a patch of sky turned yellowish, as if the sun was at last about to break through. Maigret and Lucas walked up and down the canal bank without speaking.
    No more than five minutes had gone by before the wind was bending the reeds flat, and one minute later rain was coming down in earnest.
    Maigret held out one hand, an automatic reaction. With an equally mechanical gesture Lucas produced a packet of grey pipe tobacco from his pocket and handed it to his companion.
    They paused a moment by the lock. The chamber was empty but it was being made ready, for an invisible tug still some distance off had hooted three times, which meant that it was towing three boats.
    â€˜Where do you reckon the
Providence
is now?’ Maigret asked the lock-keeper.
    â€˜Half a mo’ … Mareuil, Condé … and just before Aigny there’s a string of about ten boats. That’ll hold her up … Only two sluices of the lock at Vraux are working … So I’d say
she’s at Saint-Martin.’
    â€˜Is that far?’
    â€˜Exactly thirty-two kilometres.’
    â€˜And the
Éco-III
?’
    â€˜Should be at La Chaussée. But a barge coming downstream told us last night that she’d broken her propeller at Lock 12. Which means you’ll find her at Tours-sur-Marne, which is fifteen kilometres upstream. It’s their own
fault … It’s clear. Regulations state no loads should exceed 280 tons, but they all go on doing it.’
    It was ten in the morning. As Maigret clambered on to the bicycle he had hired, he saw the colonel sitting in a rocking chair on the deck of the yacht. He was opening the Paris papers, which the postman
had just delivered.
    â€˜No special orders,’ he told Lucas. ‘Stay around here. Don’t let them out of your sight.’
    The showers became less frequent. The towpath was dead straight. When he reached the third lock, the sun came out, still rather