The Misty Harbour Read Online Free PDF Page A

speaking ill of him
     when I say that he didn’t entirely fit in with the rest of us. He wasn’t
     a prideful man, no, that’s not the right word! But he paid attention to
     appearances, you understand? He’d never have come on duty in clogs, like
     Delcourt sometimes does. He played cards here of an evening, but never came by
     during the day. He never spoke familiarly to the lock workers … I
     don’t know if you see what I’m getting at …’
    Maigret saw perfectly. He had spent
     several hours in Joris’ modest, cosy, neat little house. And now he considered
     the regulars at the Buvette de la Marine, a rowdier, more unbuttoned crew. This was
     a place for hearty drinking, where voices surely grew boisterous, the atmosphere
     thick with smoke, and the talk a touch coarse.
    Joris came here simply to play cards,
     never chatted about his personal life, had only the one drink before leaving.
    ‘She’s been at his house for
     about eight years now. She was sixteen when she arrived, a little country girl,
     bedraggled and badly dressed …’
    ‘And
     now …’
    The waitress arrived as if on cue with a
     bottle of home-made brandy and poured another shot into the glasses, where only a
     little coffee remained. This, too, appeared to be the custom of the place.
    ‘Now? She is what she
     is … At our dances, for example, she won’t step out on the floor
     with just anyone. And in the shops, when she’s treated with easy familiarity,
     like a maid, she gets angry. It’s hard to explain … Even though her
     brother …’
    The head lock-keeper gave the customs
     man a sharp look – but Maigret caught him at it.
    ‘Her brother?’
    ‘The inspector will find out
     anyway!’ continued the man, who was obviously not on his first spiked coffee
     of the day. ‘Her brother did eight years in prison. He was drunk, one night,
     in Honfleur. With a few others, loud and disorderly in the streets. When the police
     stepped in, the fellow hurt one officer so badly that he died the next
     month.’
    ‘He’s a sailor?’
    ‘He served on ocean-going vessels
     in the foreign trade before coming back home. He’s currently sailing on a
     schooner out of Paimpol, the
Saint-Michel
.’
    Captain Delcourt had begun fidgeting
     nervously.
    ‘Let’s go!’ he
     announced. ‘It’s time …’
    ‘Before the steamer’s even
     in the lock!’ sighed the customs officer, clearly in less of a hurry.
    Only three men were left. Maigret
     signalled to the waitress, who returned with her bottle.
    ‘Does the
Saint-Michel
sometimes come through here?’
    ‘Sometimes,
     yes.’
    ‘Was she here on the 16th of
     September?’
    ‘Well, it’s going to be
     right there for him in the lock-keeper’s log,’ the customs man remarked
     to his neighbour and turned to Maigret: ‘Yes, she was here. She even had to
     stay in the outer harbour on account of the fog and left only at
     daybreak.’
    ‘Going where?’
    ‘Southampton. I’m the one
     who looked over their papers. The cargo was grindstone grit, from Caen.’
    ‘And Julie’s brother
     hasn’t been seen here since?’
    This time the customs officer sniffed
     thoughtfully and paused before draining his glass.
    ‘You’ll have to ask those
     who claim to have spotted him yesterday … Me, I haven’t seen a
     thing.’
    ‘Yesterday?’
    A shrug. An enormous steamer came
     gliding between the stone walls of the lock, a vast black mass towering over the
     countryside, its funnel taller than the trees lining the canal.
    ‘I’ve got to get over
     there …’
    ‘Me too …’
    ‘How much does it come to,
     mademoiselle?’ Maigret asked the waitress.
    ‘The landlady isn’t here
     just now, but I’m sure you’ll be back.’
    The people still waiting outside the
     captain’s cottage for something to happen now gratefully turned their
     attention to the English steamer passing through the lock.
    As Maigret left the bar, a man was
     arriving from the village;