De Gier dug into its contents with a spoon and tasted it. It was no hash. He dug a hole into the paste and Beuzekom produced a long meatfork so that de Gier could get right to the bottom.
Meanwhile Ringma opened the other four casks.
"Convinced?" Beuzekom asked in the end.
"Can we search the house?" Grijpstra asked.
"But of course," Ringma said. "We have nothing to hide. But don't make a mess, please. I'll have to tidy it all up again if you do."
"You are the woman about the house?" de Gier asked.
Ringma giggled. "Yes."
They didn't find anything except cupboards full of expensive clothes, antique furniture, luxurious wall-to-wall carpets, and a few paintings of the lesser old masters.
"Let's give in," Grijpstra said. "Can you explain that mizo-soup business?"
"No," de Gier said.
"It's illogical," Grijpstra said. "What would these men do with the mizo-soup paste? And what happened to the rest of it? Didn't those Hindist Society people tell us that Piet sold them various lots of twenty casks each? Perhaps we can prove the sale, there should be purchase invoices in Piet's bookkeeping files. We might get some statements signed by those boys in the houseboat. If Johan and Eduard declare that Piet Verboom didn't use more than one cask a month in his restaurant and that he sold his surplus and that these men here were the buyers…"
De Gier wasn't impressed.
"It will never hold in court if the public prosecutor would allow it to get into court. All right, so these men bought mizo soup from Piet. Well, they still have it don't they? And who cares about mizo soup anyway? If we want to make it stick we have to produce evidence of dealing in drugs."
"Yes," Grijpstra said thoughtfully. "Hash is only a soft drug but sixty casks of it is a lot of soft drug. The prosecutor would be very interested. But where are the sixty casks? These five we found were planted here, in case we would ever discover the link between these dealers and Piet's Society. Mizo soup? Sure, here is mizo soup. The real stuff must have been sold as fast as it got here, maybe it never got here. Maybe they have another address, the inner city if full of little cellars."
"Well," Beuzekom asked when the detectives had returned to the living room, "did you find anything?"
"No," Grijpstra said.
"So you must be satisfied that we are in the clear. Another lemonade?"
"Not for me," Grijpstra said.
"I'll have a drink," de Gier said. "You go home, Grijpstra. I think I'll have another little chat with Mr. Beuzekom and his friend."
He winked at Grijpstra behind Beuzekom's back.
"All right," Grijpstra said. "I'll see you in the morning. Try and be on time. It can be done, you know, you mustn't give up. It's all a matter of habit."
Beuzekom had relaxed in his velvet chair and Ringma was stretched out on the settee. Grijpstra had been gone for more than two hours. Of the two bottles on the bar one was empty and one half full.
"Are you allowed to drink when you are on duty?" Beuzekom asked. He spoke with some difficulty but his grammar was still impeccable.
"I am not on duty now," de Gier said. "I only work eight hours a day, just like everybody else. I am visiting, visiting good friends."
"Ha," Ringma said, "filthy fuzz!"
"Now, now," Beuzekom said, "be nice to the guests, little mate. Maybe this gentleman is filthy fuzz but now he is here at our invitation. You can call him names when you meet him in the street. 'Fascist,' or 'SS man,' that sort of thing, and then run for it."
Ringma began to cackle.
"Mizo soup hahaha," Ringma cackled, "and they are looking for hash. They are suckers, aren't they Beuz?"
"Shut up, little mate," Beuzekom said. "We don't even know what the gentleman are looking for. And you must respect another fellow's job. If you hadn't been so lazy at school you might have joined the police yourself."
"Come off it," Ringma cackled and fell off the settee.
De Gier waited until Ringma's cramps had subsided.
"What you told me is very interesting," de Gier said, "the story of your life I mean. So you graduated in psychology, did you?"
"Yes," Beuzekom said, "and I graduated in the shortest possible number of years. I was, the professors said, a remarkably intelligent student. But I never got a job. Well, I did get a sort of job, assistant to somebody's assistant, at about the same pay a bus driver gets. So I got myself fired. I hadn't studied to become a clerk."
"So you aren't working now," de Gier said.
"No," Beuzekom said, "I don't work. I get unemployment pay, eighty percent of my last wage."
"Nonsense," de Gier said, "this is an expensive house and you are living in style."
"Part of a house," Beuzekom corrected.
"An expensive part of a house," de Gier repeated. "Sorry. But it is expensive. High rent. And you must have things in it worth at least fifty thousand."
"Where?" Ringma asked. He jumped off his settee and began to run around the room. "Where? Where? Fifty red backs. You see fifty red backs anywhere Beuz?"
"Easy now," Beuzekom said. "We don't have fifty thousand worth of things in the house. Our guest is dreaming aloud."
"Balls," de Gier said. "Color TV, three thousand at least, antique furniture, restored, worth twenty thousand, carpets worth eight, old paintings worth fifteen. Clothes, at least five. I am over fifty thousand already, do you want me to go on?"
"You can go on forever," Beuzekom said, "but you talk rubbish. Ten thousand would just about cover the lot. The TV was bought new but I got a nice discount. The other stuff was all bought at auctions, or at factory prices, or in some other intelligent way. You don't think I am the type who allows himself to be robbed by shopkeepers do you? You can save about seventy percent markup if you know how to go about it."
"Maybe you can save thirty percent," de Gier said, "and then I can still count up to fifty thousand in this house."
"I inherited some money from my father," Beuzekom said.
"Are you working, Ringma?" de Gier asked.
Beuzekom had gone to the bar to fill his glass again and turned around halfway.
"I am a pimp, sir," he said, "but don't tell anyone. My little mate earns a lot of money. But not illegally, he even declares his income. We occasionally have a sugar uncle who visits our little mate. How much did you write in your taxform last year, Ringma?"
"Twenty," Ringma said.
"So you see?" Beuzekom asked. "My nice little self-employed charmer. Twenty red backs he earned, all with his little bottom. And some of it we spent on furniture and what have you, and it's all around you. We don't deal in drugs. Drugs are dangerous. You people caught me once. I don't like being caught. I am still a dealer, but not in drugs."
"Aren't you driving around in a little Mercedes bus?" de Gier asked. "Those buses aren't cheap, you know."
"Don't be an utter bore," Beuzekom said. "Your lot never know where to stop. On and on and on and on. That Mercedes camper is in my brother's name. He bought the bus for his holidays but his garage is full, you can't put three cars into one garage. So I have the bus when he doesn't need her for his holidays. I have a garage and I look after the car. I am his only brother and he likes me. Do you want to see the car's registration?"
"Please," de Gier said.
Beuzekom lost his temper.
"All right, I'll show it to you. But after that you can clear out. I haven't done anything, I won't do anything and I'll never do anything that would land me in jail again. I didn't get my brains for nothing. I deal in antique furniture, in Persian rugs, in odd lots, in anything that'll give me a good profit. Within a year I'll register my business. I have been at it for more than a year now and I am a hardworking and patient man. The turnover is growing. I thought you were a pleasant fellow when you came in and you have your job to do but you shouldn't make an ass of yourself."