"We thought of that, the police in Paramaribo have been alerted."
"If we can think of it he can guess our thoughts," the commissaris said. "No. He'll pick an original way, the man is intelligent, very intelligent. I think he'll make it. He'll be in his own country soon. New Guinea. They call it West Irian now, I think. There must be a few million Papuans running about over there and he can lose himself in the crowd, stick a bone through his nose and a couple of feathers in his hair. Didn't you say that he may want to become a hermit on an island?"
The chief inspector was looking at the sky.
"Or a king? De Gier was telling me about King Doodle the First. A powerful native king with a fleet of war canoes. I have seen pictures of those canoes, big boats, forty warriors to the boat. They go in for piracy and quick fights and they eat their victims. Long pig. Campfires. Drums. Full moon. Getting drunk on palm wine. Maybe it's a good life.
"Yes," the chief inspector said. "Or he may have become influenced by his sojourn over here and try to create a socialist state."
The commissaris shifted his legs slowly.
"No, no," he said, "I think he is too clever to go in for power. Power weighs you down, there's nothing worse than becoming important. I would rather imagine him as a hermit, sitting by himself on a small island; there must be thousands of islands over mere where no one ever goes, no one to bother him and all space and time for himself."
"And what would he be doing with himself over there?" the chief inspector asked. "Masturbate and go crazy?"
The jenever came to an end. The chief inspector asked the question.
"Well," the commissaris said, "there have been hermits before in the world and there must be quite a few around right now. They are not crazy, you know. They meditate, mat's what they do. They find a quiet spot and sit on it, and they breathe in a certain way and keep their backs straight and concentrate. Wasn't he doing that here as well? That Hindist Society was some sort of a meditation thing, wasn't it?"
"That Hindist Society was all balls," the chief inspector said. "Nonsense, another way to make money."
"Everything is nonsense," the commissaris said slowly.
The chief inspector hadn't heard him.
"Force majeure," the chief inspector said. "You said that just now. Force majeure makes us blameless. We did our best but something happened that we couldn't have forseen. Caused by a power beyond us. Force majeure means an act of God."
"Ah yes," the commissaris said. "God."