“I see.”
“But then we decided to stay together. The trouble passed.”
“Any particular reason why you considered a divorce, sir?”
“My wife had a lover.” Mr. Moozen’s words were clipped and precise.
“Had,” de Gier said. “The affair came to an end?”
“Yes. We had some problems with our central heating, something the mechanics couldn’t fix. An engineer came out and my wife fell in love with him. She told me — she doesn’t like to be secretive. They met each other in motels for a while.”
“You were upset?”
“Yes. It was a serious affair. The engineer’s wife is a mental patient; he divorced her and was awarded custody of his two children. I thought he was looking for a new wife. My wife has no children of her own — we have been married some six years and would like to have children. My wife and the engineer seemed well matched. I waited a month and then told her to make up her mind — either him or me, not both, I couldn’t stand it.”
“And she chose you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know the engineer?”
A vague pained smile floated briefly on Moozen’s face. “Not personally. We did meet once and discussed central heating systems. Any further contact with him was through my wife.”
“And when did all this happen, sir?”
“Recently. She only made her decision a week ago. I don’t think she has met him since. She told me it was all over.”
“His name and address, please, sir.”
De Gier closed his notebook and got up. “Shall we go, Adjutant?”
Grijpstra sighed and got up too. They shook hands with Moozen and wished him luck. Grijpstra stopped at the desk. The nurse wasn’t helpful, but Grijpstra insisted and de Gier smiled and eventually they were taken to a doctor who accompanied them to the next floor. Mrs. Moozen seemed comfortable. Her arms were stretched out on the blanket. The face was calm. The detectives were led out of the room again.
“Bad,” the doctor said, “parathion is a strong poison. Her stomach is ripped to shreds. We’ll have to operate and remove part of it, but I think she will live. The silly woman ate the whole egg, a normal-sized egg. Perhaps she was still too sleepy to notice the taste.”
“Her husband is downstairs. Perhaps you should call him up, especially if you think she will live.” Grijpstra sounded concerned. He probably was, de Gier thought. He felt concerned himself. The woman was beautiful, with a finely curved nose, very thin in the bridge, and large eyes and a soft and sensitive mouth. He looked at her long delicate hands.
“Husbands,” the doctor said. “Prime suspects in my experience. Husbands are supposed to love their wives, but usually they don’t. It’s the same the other way round. Marriage seems to breed violence — it’s one of the impossible situations we humans have to put up with.”
Grijpstra’s pale blue eyes twinkled. “Are you married, Doctor?”
The doctor grinned back. “Very. Oh, yes.”
“A long time?”
“Long enough.”
Grijpstra’s grin faded. “So am I. Too long. But poison is nasty. Thank you, Doctor.”
There wasn’t much conversation in the car when they drove to the engineer’s address. The city’s streets had filled up. People were stirring about on the sidewalks and cars crowded each other, honking occasionally. The engineer lived in a block of apartments, and Grijpstra switched off the engine and lit another small black cigar.
“A family drama. What do you think, Sergeant?”
“I don’t think. But that rabbit was most extraordinary. Not bought in a shop. A specially made rabbit, and well made, not by an amateur.”
“Are we looking for a sculptor? Some arty person? Would Mr. Moozen or the engineer be an artist in his spare time? How does one make a chocolate rabbit, anyway?”
De Gier tried to stretch, but didn’t succeed in his cramped quarters. He yawned instead. “You make a mold, I suppose, out of plaster of Paris or something, and then you pour hot chocolate into the mold and wait for it to harden. That rabbit was solid chocolate, several kilos of it. Our artistic friend went to a lot of trouble.”
“A baker? A pastry man?”
“Or an engineer — engineers design forms sometimes, I believe. Let’s meet this lover man.”
The engineer was a small nimble man with a shock of black hair and dark lively eyes, a nervous man, nervous in a pleasant childlike manner. De Gier remembered that Mrs. Moozen was a small woman too. They were ushered into a four-room apartment. They had to be careful not to step on a large number of toys, spread about evenly. Two little boys played on the floor; the eldest ran out of the room to fetch his Easter present to show it to the uncles. It was a basketful of eggs, homemade, out of chocolate. The other boy came to show his basket, identical but a size smaller.
“My sister and I made them last night,” the engineer said. “She came to live here after my wife left and she looks after the kids, but she is spending the Easter weekend with my parents in the country. We couldn’t go because Tom here had measles, hadn’t you, Tom?”
“Yes,” Tom said. “Big measles. Little Klaas here hasn’t had them yet.”
Klaas looked sorry. Grijpstra took a plastic truck off a chair and sat down heavily after having looked at the engineer who waved him on. “Please, make yourself at home.” De Gier had found himself a chair too and was rolling a cigarette. The engineer provided coffee and shooed the children into another room.
“Any trouble?”
“Yes,” Grijpstra said. “I am afraid we usually bring trouble. A Mrs. Moozen has been taken to hospital. An attempt was made on her life. I believe you are acquainted with Mrs. Moozen?”
“Ann,” the engineer said. “My God! Is she all right?”
De Gier had stopped rolling his cigarette. He was watching the man carefully; his large brown eyes gleamed, but not with pleasure or anticipation. The sergeant felt sorrow, a feeling that often accompanied his intrusions into the private lives of his fellow citizens. He shifted and the automatic pistol in his shoulder holster nuzzled into his armpit. He impatiently pushed the weapon back. This was no time to be reminded that he carried death with him, legal death.
“What happened?” the engineer was asking. “Did anybody hurt her?”
“A question,” Grijpstra said gently. “A question first, sir. You said your sister and you were making chocolate Easter eggs last night. Did you happen to make any bunnies too?”
The engineer sucked noisily on his cigarette. Grijpstra repeated his question.
“Bunnies? Yes, or no. We tried, but it was too much for us. The eggs were easy — my sister is good at that. We have a pudding form for a bunny, but all we could manage was a pudding. It is still in the kitchen, a surprise for the kids later on today. Chocolate pudding — they like it.”
“Can we see the kitchen, please?”
The engineer didn’t get up. “My God,” he said again, “so she was poisoned, was she? How horrible! Where is she now?”
“In the hospital, sir.”
“Bad?”
Grijpstra nodded. “The doctor said she will live. Some sort of pesticide was mixed into chocolate, which she ate.”
The engineer got up; he seemed dazed. They found the kitchen. Leftover chocolate mix was still on the counter. Grijpstra brought out an envelope and scooped some of the hardened chips into it.
“Do you know that Ann and I had an affair?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you told that she finished the affair, that she decided to stay with her husband?”
“Yes, sir.”
The engineer was tidying up the counter mechanically. “I see. So I could be a suspect. Tried to get at her out of spite or something. But I am not a spiteful man. You wouldn’t know that. I don’t mind being a suspect, but I would like to see Ann. She is in the hospital, you said. What hospital?”