“Really? But the baboon left and you still are here.”
Bergen’s right hand played with die hem of his jacket.
“Yes. He surprised me. He got up and walked over to that typewriter over there and wrote his letter of resignation. It was very decent of him. He had the whole company in the palm of his hand for a minute but he blew it away. Even if he couldn’t have administered the business he could have found somebody else to do that part of the work. We were doing very well. He was, in fact, refusing a fortune.”
“And he left with nothing?”
“Just a few months’ wages. Elaine offered him a year’s income but he refused. I offered to accept his resignation in such a way that he would have qualified for unemployment benefits but he refused that too. He just shook my hand, kissed Elaine’s cheek, and left. I haven’t seen him since.”
“Not even in the street?”
“No.”
“And Mrs. Camet? Did he break with her too then?”
“Yes, but she tried to make contact again. I heard her phone him. He’s a good carpenter and she wanted him to fix something in her house. He may have come and the relationship may have continued in some way but I don’t know, I always preferred not to ask.”
The commissaris got up and walked over to a window. “Not the sort of man who would have pushed her down the garden stairs.”
“No. The baboon isn’t a violent man.”
“Are you, sir?” The commissaris had turned to ask the question. It was asked in the same level tone he had used before but bis eyes were fixed on Bergen’s face.
“Violent?”
“Yes. Are you a violent man?”
Bergen’s voice faltered. His left cheek seemed to sag more than before. The underlip had suddenly become slack and he was making an effort to answer the question. “No, no. I don’t mink so. I got into some fights at school and I had a scrap or two when I was in the army but that’s gone now, I think it’s not in me anymore.”
“We’ll have to ask you whether you can prove where you were last night, Mr. Bergen. I realize these are unpleasant questions but we have to ask them.”
“I was at home, it wasn’t the sort of night to go out.”
“Were you alone?”
“Yes, my wife is staying with relatives, she is having a little holiday in the country. My children are married already. I was alone.”
“No visitors? Nobody telephoned you?”
“No.”
“Well, that was only for the record.” The commissaris was going to elaborate on his statement, but the telephone rang and Bergen walked to his desk to answer it.
“Mr. Pullini? Has he come already? Ask Miss Gabrielle to talk to him for a little while, I’m busy now. And don’t send any calls through; if you take the numbers I’ll phone diem back.” He put the phone down with some unnecessary force and turned to face his visitors again. “Pullini,” he said slowly. “It’s a day of problems.”
De Gier’s eyes hadn’t left Bergen’s face for the last few minutes. He was studying the deterioration of the left side of the man’s head with fascination. The muscles of his cheek and mouth were slackening rapidly and he didn’t think that Bergen had modified what was happening to his face. The sergeant thought of drawing the commissaris’s attention to the phenomenon in some way when Bergen began to speak again.
“Pullini. If only the man himself had come again, but he sent his darling son.”
“You’re having trouble with your supplier? Pullini is still your main supplier, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, we buy more than half our stocks from him. A good factory, steady and quick deliveries, excellent quality, but his prices are too high these days. That’s why young Pullini is here, he has been here for two weeks already. I have found another factory in Milan that can supply us and they are more competitive than the Pullini concern. They also give a little more credit-credit is important to us, we have to hold large inventories.”
“And Pullini doesn’t want to come down in price?”
“Not so far.”
“So why doesn’t young Pullini leave? Or is he liking Amsterdam?”
Bergen grinned. The grin was definitely lopsided and de Gier wondered if the commissaris was aware of their suspect’s transformation. “Yes, he likes the high life here. Italians are still old-fashioned. The boy is having a good time, but he is hanging on for another reason. Old Pullini is also retired, like Elaine, and his concern is run by Francesco now, and Francesco has done a little underhanded maneuvering, or so I think, I can’t prove it.”
“Stealing from his father’s business?”
“Perhaps. Papa Pullini is a tough old bird. He keeps his son on a short leash and Francesco has expensive ways, a brand-new Porsche, the best hotels, a little gambling-you know how it goes. Since Francesco took over we are given two invoices for every purchase. An official ninety percent invoice and an under-the-table ten percent invoice. I don’t mind. On the ten percent invoices we have more credit; we keep them in a stack and pay them at the end of the year, in cash.”
“And the ten percent goes into Francesco’s pocket. I see. That’s probably why he can’t lower his prices, he’s taking ten percent off already.”
Bergen was nodding rapidly. He was evidently pleased that the commissaris saw the point so quickly.
“But,” the commissaris said and raised a finger, “you say that you pay at the end of the year and we are in June now.”
“I didn’t make last year’s payment. The money is still here, safely in the bank. I have been complaining about the Pullini price list and I have ignored Francesco when he kept on asking for his ten percent. I’m doing a little blackmailing, I suppose. It isn’t nice of me, but we aren’t always nice in business. I could switch over to the other company in Milan but I don’t really want to do that either. The other company is too big, they might want to start up their own office here sometime and cut me out.”
“Difficult,” the commissaris agreed.
The interview was over, and the commissaris was near the door when he turned around. “Mrs. Camet had a safe, Mr. Bergen, a small wall safe. We opened it with a key we found in her bag. There was a small amount in it, some three hundred guilders. You wouldn’t know if she kept large amounts in that safe, would you?”
Bergen was holding his cheek and massaging it. “No,” he said after awhile. “I know she had a safe and there may have been a lot of money in it from time to time, she did have large amounts of cash sometimes, but I wouldn’t know if there was any appreciable quantity in there last night. It’s not the sort of thing she would talk to me about. Our conversations of the past few years were mostly about what movies to see, we both like the same sort of films.'’
“You never had much social contact with Mrs. Carnet, had you?”
“Not really. I am married, my wife has always been rather jealous of Elaine, and later there was the baboon, of course.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bergen, you’ve been most helpful.”
“Did you notice his face, sir?” de Gier asked as they walked back to the car.
The commissaris was looking at a garbage boat mat was making a sharp corner in the canal. A young man, a boy almost, was turning its large wheel effortlessly and the heavy diesel engine controlling the barge’s screw was churning up a perfect arc of thick frothy waves. Workmen were sawing a broken tree on the other side of the canal, with the boat pulling cables so that the thick elm wouldn’t fall the wrong way.
'Two million trees down in the country, according to the radio,” the commissaris said. “Two million, I wonder how they can guess the number. The whole country is a mess and we have our own to play with. Yes, I noted Bergen’s facial paralysis, sergeant. It must have started before we came, but he was going through a crisis while we talked to him.”