"Why didn't you cut the rope?" asked de Gier.
"He was dead."
"How did you know?"
Van Meteren didn't answer.
"Are you a doctor?" Grijpstra asked.
"No," van Meteren said, "but I have seen a lot of corpses in my life. Piet is dead. Dead is dead. I could feel it. A dead body has no feel."
"Did you touch it?"
Van Meteren shrugged his shoulders. "I don't have to feel a corpse to know it is dead."
"So why didn't you cut the rope?" asked de Gier again.
"I couldn't do it by myself," van Meteren said. "Somebody would have had to hold the body. Besides, I wanted you to find it the way it was. Perhaps it will give you a lead."
De Gier looked again at the corpse. He had an idea that he had seen the man before and searched his memory. De Gier's memory was well organized and he knew his way around his files. After a while he knew that he hadn't seen the man before but that the strong chin, the long hair and the heavy mustache reminded him of a portrait he had seen in a museum in The Hague. A portrait of a Dutch statesman of the sixteenth century, a statesman and a warrior, on his way to do battle. The warrior had been sitting on a horse and had a sword in his hand. A leader. Very likely this man had also been a leader, a boss. A little boss in charge of a small society. Discipline, de Gier thought. That's it. This house and this room reek of discipline. Everything is neat and clean. The girls in the kitchen are clean too, reasonably clean. Van Meteren is clean. There would be some connection between the corpse and van Meteren. Perhaps van Meteren is an employee of the Society. But why do I observe this? de Gier asked. The answer came immediately. He hadn't expected cleanliness when he had read the sign on the door. HINDIST SOCIETY. He had associated the words with a mess. The new wisdom coming from the East is a messy business. He thought of the dirty doped vague shadowy people he had arrested in the street and interrogated at Police Headquarters. Petty theft, drug dealing in a small silly way, runaway minors, prostitution. All suspects stank. He had made them empty their pockets before locking them up and had been appalled at the dirty rags, the broken trinkets, the lack of money. He had seen the photographs they carried around with them. Pictures of "holy men," "gurus" or "yogis." Skeletons with long matted hair and craay eyes. The masters preaching the way.
He had associated the word HINDIST with Hinduism or Buddhism. The religions of the East. Before he had begun to arrest the crazy tramps the words had had a different association. Peace and quiet, some form of detachment. Real wisdom. But gradually "messiness' had crept in.
And now he had to admit that this place, this nest of nonsensical imitation faith, was, after all, clean. And he had been surprised. De Gier's thoughts took a few seconds only and meanwhile Grijpstra had sighed again. The body was dead, no doubt about it, and they would have to cut the rope. They had to assume that the body was still alive. Only a doctor can determine death. He looked over his shoulder and nodded at de Gier.
"You can telephone headquarters, if you like."
There was no need to say it. De Gier was dialing the number already. He didn't have to say much. At headquarters the machine was already in operation. Within a few minutes they would be arriving. Doctor, ambulance and the experts.
While de Gier telephoned Grijpstra picked up the stool and put it right and climbed on top of it. He cut the rope with his switchblade, an illegal weapon that he carried against all regulations. The rope wasn't thick and the knife very sharp. De Gier wanted to catch the corpse but van Meteren was quicker. He put the corpse down, very carefully, on the bed. No one thought that Piet would start breathing again.
He didn't.
Grijpstra bent down and looked at the dead face. "Have a look."
De Gier looked. "Ach, ach," he said.
Van Meteren looked as well.
"A bruise," van Meteren said, "near the temple, slightly swollen."
"You saw that very quickly," de Gier said.
"He has been hit," van Meteren continued, "with a stick, or perhaps a fist. The doctor will be able to tell us."
"What exactly do you do in this house?" de Gier asked.
Van Meteren straightened his back and rubbed it. He thought. The low forehead became wrinkled and the nose seemed to flatten itself even more. Suddenly de Gier knew what this man had to be. Not a Negro, but a Papuan. He remembered the photographs in his geography book at school. Papuan sitting on the beach, sharpening spears. But not a fullblooded Papuan, the nose wasn't flat enough and the face showed other properties. Perhaps three-quarters Papuan or seven-eighths. That would explain the Dutch name. The Papuan's language was pure Dutch, impeccable, overcorrect even. De Gier knew the way the Dutch Negroes spoke and the Indonesians. Van Meteren's way of talking was more guttural.
"I live here," van Meteren said. "That's all. I do nothing here. Piet ran the Society. I think that the girls will take over now, or Eduard or Johan. But Johan is in the bar and hasn't been told yet and Eduard took the day off."
"All right," de Gier said, "in that case I will go down. For the time being nobody is allowed to leave the premises. The cars from Headquarters can arrive any minute now. They'll be sending more detectives and probably uniformed policemen as well. It'll be the usual hullabaloo."
De Gier ran down the stairs. Hullabaloo was the right word. Day after day nothing to do but to drive around and look around a little and now suddenly two corpses in one evening. They had found the first corpse early that evening, or rather, they had seen a body change into a corpse. The woman was still alive when they found her, naked and bleeding in the shabby whorehouse at the canal. A knife in her belly. She died in the doctor's arms; he had come immediately answering de Gier's emergency call. The woman had been able to describe her killer, while she kept her hands pressed against her body in a vain attempt to stop both pain and blood. An aging whore, a reasonably sweet person. De Gier had found the young man under a tree, right opposite the whorehouse. The boy was resting his back against an old elm tree and was staring into the canal's murky water. The knife was still in his hand. He confessed at once. A pleasant boy, but not to be trusted with knives and middle-aged women who reminded him of his mother. They had taken him with them in the car and locked him up after they had taken his statement. Another job for the municipal psychiatrist. Most likely the boy wouldn't even have to face court but be taken to an asylum straight away to rot there for the rest of his life while he filled his time making feltdolls and swallowing pills. Or they might release him after a while and put him on national assistance and the state's money would buy another knife and another middle-aged woman would die.
The dead prostitute hadn't taken much of their time and Grijpstra and de Gier had gone out for another ride hoping to be able to fill the rest of their night's shift with peacefully ambling about, with a cup of coffee in a quiet cafe somewhere. And now this.
De Gier strode into the restaurant. He found the amplifier and turned the knob the wrong way. The loudspeakers screeched and some forty startled faces stared at him. One of the faces, a heavily bearded one, lost its temper.
"Look here," the face said, "would you mind leaving that amplifier alone? We are listening to that music!"
De Gier walked up to the man and put a hand on his shoulder. "Never mind the music. I am a police officer I have to request everybody here to stay put."
He raised his voice.
"Something unpleasant has happened in this house tonight. Please remain seated. My colleagues will be here any minute now and we will have to ask some questions. It's only a formality and we won't keep you long. II anyone knows anything about what happened upstairs earlier tonight or this afternoon he can come and speak to me."