“A telephone, Cardozo. Is there a public booth around?’
“Any news, dear?”
He held the phone away from his ear as his secretary reported.
“Grijpstra and the sergeant had some trouble, sir. The radio room says that they had to ask the water police for assistance. I’ve had a report from the water police too, but it isn’t very detailed. It only says that they chased a boat belonging to a Mr. Vleuten and that Mr. Vleuten wasn’t with his boat when they found it. Sergeant de Gier fell into the river somewhere along the chase but he wasn’t harmed.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir. And I’ve had a call from Gabrielle Carnet, she found a hundred thousand guilders under her mother’s mattress and thought you would like to hear about it.”
“I would, yes. Anything else? Any news about Mr. Bergen and his facial trouble?”
“Yes, sir, I asked Miss Carnet. The hospital referred Mr. Bergen to a private neurologist and the neurologist detected some serious trouble, it seems. Mr. Bergen will have further tests tomorrow. He is at home now, I have the address. He telephoned his office and Miss Carnet was there when the call came in.”
The commissaris wrote down the address and the telephone number, fumbling on the small metal desk provided in the booth, and managed to drop his ball-point and bump his head as he came up again.
“Oh, sir.”
“Yes?” He had dropped his ball-point again and was rubbing his head.
“There was a note on your desk that I don’t think you’ve seen. It was brought up from Grijpstra’s room as it was addressed to you. A report on the adjutant’s visit to a portrait painter called Wertheym?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“It only says that Wertheym made two identical portraits for Mrs. Carnet. The ‘two’ is underlined.”
“Thanks.” He hung up. Cardozo was staring at him foolishly, his nose pressed against the glass of the booth. The commissaris opened die door, slamming it into Cardozo’s arm. “Don’t stand there like an idiot, Cardozo, did I hurt you?”
“No, sir.”
“Your friend the sergeant got himself into the Amstel River this afternoon, something to do with chasing the baboon, apparently. I wish they’d phoned in. I’ve no idea where they are now, looks as if I’ll have to run after my own assistants. My own fault. I’m pushing this case too hard.”
They walked back to the car. The neighborhood was experiencing a short burst of liveliness as heads of families were coming home, welcomed by grateful wives. Everywhere around them car doors slammed, children rushed out of front doors, fathers put down their briefcases to embrace their offspring. The late afternoon sun was pouring a thick, diffuse light into the long, tree-lined street so that each object threw a tapered, clearcut shadow.
The commissaris stopped to admire a creeper, heavily studded with clusters of white flowers, that had covered an entire wall and seemed ready to climb over it. “Beautiful. But we are still stuck, Cardozo. Remember that motive that was thrown at us? Mrs. Carnet’s eighty thousand guilders? Taken from the bank yesterday, in cash, in crisp notes? Nowhere to be found now?”
“Yes, sir, you told me.”
“Well, it grew to a hundred thousand and it has shown up again, under the lady’s mattress. Gabrielle found the money and was good enough to phone my office. Back where we started.”
Cardozo, who had been nodding encouragingly, lost his smile. He looked so crestfallen that the commissaris cheered up again. “Never mind. Good luck comes to those who keep on trying. Hie old chief constable used to say that and he was right. Tell you what, Cardozo, you go to see Gabrielle now, she’s around the corner. Find out the details of the lucky find and phone your report to the radio room. You can go home afterward, perhaps you should stay home. If I manage to find the adjutant and the sergeant I’ll contact you and we may have a conference to finish off the day.”
Cardozo almost came to attention, turned around, and marched down the street. The small figure in its shabby corduroy jacket, bouncing under a mop of curly hair, looked incongruous between the elegant houses. The commissaris nodded approvingly. Cardozo’s willingness to do his share showed. The young man was shaping up well, but he wasn’t a complete policeman yet. The commissaris remembered words spoken by his superiors, who had, since then, turned into old men and doddered into then-graves. A policeman is cunning but moderate. Sly as a snake, innocent as a dove. He said the word aloud. “Sly.” A good word. To be sly without malice. He would need his slyness now, to sort out this mess caused by uncontrolled but very human emotions. A poisoned dog and a clownish, frumped-up woman, dead in a pool of rainwater. He wondered what else they would find, for the emotions weren’t curbed yet. He knew that his main task was to prevent further manifestations and he would have to solve the present riddle to be able to do so.
A large white motorcycle whizzed past, ridden by what looked to be a mechanical man, completely wrapped in white leather, his face hidden by a plastic visor. The Amsterdam police emblem, a naked sword resting on an open book, was painted on the motorcycle’s metal saddlebag. It also showed on the policeman’s helmet. The motorcycle’s presence kept drivers in line. The commissaris looked at his own image mirrored in a store window. The image peered back at him, a small man dressed in grays with a thin face and a glint of gold-rimmed spectacles. Chief of the murder brigade, gliding through the city almost transparent, completely unnoticed. “A sneak,” he said aloud. What could a sneak prevent? But he would do his best, this very best, and his mind was locked on the case again as he opened the door of the Citroen.
\\\\\ 11 /////
The Commissaris pointed the sleek nose of the Citroen away from the curb and waited patiently for an opening. He sat poised at the wheel. The opening came and the car lurched forward and immediately lost the impact of its leap as it settled sedately, nudged into the homeward stream. The commissaris grinned at the success of his maneuver, but the grin faded away as pain activated the nerves in his thighs. He knew he should be home in bed, with his tube of medication on the night table and his wife hovering around, speaking to him soothingly, fluffing up his cushions, caring. The radio crackled.
“Commissaris?”
“Yes.”
“The adjutant has telephoned, sir. They found their suspect, Mr. Vleuten, and are now on the river in the suspect’s boat. The interrogation will take place at Mr. Vleuten’s house, Amsteldijk One-seven-two.”
“Thank you, I’ll go there now.”
“Do you want your secretary to stay in your office, sir?”
“No. Thank her for her assistance. Over and out.”
He was almost home, but he took the first road on the left and headed for the river. To be driving around, straining himself, pushing a case that could just as well be solved by his assistants, was pure idiocy. Or sanity, if his choice was between activity and the slow senseless existence of some delicate plant in a greenhouse. He had been ill for a long time now, with no real hope of recovery, although he kept trying to convince his wife of the opposite. Activity might kill him, but it would keep him alert meanwhile.
The car shot through an orange light, turned again, and began to follow the river. He glanced at the house numbers; another block to go. He found the mooring and parked under a row of elms that had survived the gale. The pain in his thighs had reached a steady level and he could bear with it. He got out, content to wait. A tanker came chugging up the river and he admired its strong sturdy lines under the superstructure of artfully intertwined tubes painted a brilliant white. He leaned against a tree and returned the tanker’s greeting, a slow solemn wave of the man at the wheel. A heron, balanced on a partly submerged log saw the commissaris’s arm move and lifted a long leg but decided to stay where it was and pointed its beak at the water again. Some fat coots were rowing about busily, only a few yards away, headed for a patch of duckweed, rippling in the river’s flow. The commissaris was still leaning against the elm when the baboon’s boat arrived and touched the quayside with a tire hung over its gunwale.