Criminal Conversation

by Nicolas Freeling

  Van der Valk, sitting at the secretary’s table, was struck by Suzanne’s clothes. There is a lot of difference between a sixteen-year-old wearing blue jeans and a rebellious look and the same sixteen-year-old in a summer frock with stockings on and white high-heeled sandals, and Suzanne was carefully composed. She looked quite calm, was alone, and had appeared on the dot. The face was pretty, young and round. She behaved simply as though called up to the headmaster’s office. Van der Valk was curious to see how Mr Samson, who had an old-fashioned earthiness about his way with the public, would handle this girl.

  The old man was going through some mail, which he shuffled into a pile and pushed aside.

  “Good morning,” he said casually. “Sit down then, Miss Wilde.” He picked up a neglected cigar and drew on it a couple of times to get it going. There was a sputtering noise and a redhot fragment flew off, which the old man killed with a thick finger, wiping the cinders off carefully with someone’s envelope. Fifth of November, thought van der Valk. Or, as the French put it, fires of artifice…

  “Let me explain why I asked you to come and see me,” began Samson quietly. “You probably, in common with most of the public, think of the police as concerned with nothing but crime, and if the average person gets a summons to the bureau, he starts examining his conscience and wondering what he’s been caught at. Eh?”

  “Well, I did wonder…”

  “There you are, you see. Nobody ever thinks that our function is always first and foremost to protect the public. And of course a good deal of that is the prevention of what is loosely called crime. Beginning with the local district police who pick up somebody who drives while drunk and lock him up for the night. That sort of thing has nothing to do with us, here. If, however, they come across an involved tale, they call me, because they haven’t the time to spend on unwinding complicated stories. You might call this the department of involved stories, that may or may not have anything to do with crime but do involve the protection of the public. Eh? I don’t suppose you’ve ever had anything to do with the police and that’s why I’m telling you this. Eh?”

  All this paternalism seemed to be having the desired effect: the girl sat quietly and with relaxed muscles.

  “Very good. These complicated stories drag in all sorts of people, whom we have to pester because they may have heard or known something that helps us to understand. People quite uninvolved in anything disgraceful. Clear so far? Good. Happens that a man died recently, and there are some surrounding incidental circumstances we aren’t altogether happy about. They may all have a perfectly simple natural explanation and that’s why we’re trying to meet all the people who knew him, even slightly, and listen to anything however trivial or irrelevant they may be able to tell us. This man was a painter called Cabestan.”

  Watching the face that he could see in profile van der Valk could not see anything beyond an increase in attention, perhaps. It was nothing more than the face of a girl practically of student age who is accustomed to concentrating on spoken words. To her, Mr Samson appeared no more intimidating or important than her professor of Formal Design.

  “You are an art student as I understand, Miss Wilde?”

  “Yes.”

  “You go to a special school, where you learn languages and history and all the usual things, but with less emphasis on maths and physics and so on but special courses in the development of art or whatnot – is that all correct?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was small and shy, but apart from that she gave a poised, even an assured impression. She looked older than sixteen. One would have said eighteen, nineteen. Of course these girls wear much more sophisticated clothes than they used to. They have their hair done professionally, they study their make-up carefully and they have all that carefully cultivated air of worldly wisdom. Not really surprising, since these schools are forcing-grounds of their development.

  “Was it through this artistic atmosphere that you met Mr Cabestan?”

  “No – well, I should say not exactly.”

  “Can you tell me how it was?”

  “We have an art appreciation class, you see, and we often get sent or taken to exhibitions. At one of these we were in a group with Dr Geyl, who’s one of our professors, and he introduced us to a lady who was there who knew him, and she was talking to me, and because of something she said – I don’t know how to explain – she took me to a house…”

  “Apropos?”

  “Yes, that’s it, apropos, well, a house where there were some pictures and I met Mr Cabestan there.”

  Never thought to see the old man being so patiently gradual, van der Valk told himself. Learn something new each day.

  “The lady is called?”

  “Mrs van der Post. She knows an awful lot of painters and dealers and – oh, everybody.”

  “The house belongs to her?”

  “No, a sort of dealer – present day stuff. A Mr Simons. Well – “in rather a hurry – “Mr Cabestan was there and he was making jokes about a picture they all thought good and he said was no good. And he asked me more or less as a joke whether I thought it good, but I wanted to be serious and I said no, to be honest, I couldn’t see it, and he laughed like anything and told me I had good taste. Mr Simons was rude and said he was about as far behind modern taste as Ary Scheffer – Mr Cabestan I mean. I rather liked him. And then Mr Simons gave us a drink and said I had a lot to learn and I shouldn’t listen too much to Dr Geyl and – ach – it just happened I got to know him so. I can’t really explain any more.”

  “You don’t have to,” said Samson composedly. “That’s perfectly clear and reasonable. So you saw a bit of Mr Cabestan from then on.”

  “Oh yes, he took me to a few places, and to see his own work, and was always amusing and funny, though I thought, to be honest, he talked awful nonsense about most things.”

  “Um. And do you think he was just anxious to teach you about art?”

  She laughed. Without affectation, perfectly naturally.

  “Of course not. Oh, he talked about art all day, but he wanted to make love to me, of course. He was always trying to get me to pose for him.”

  This directness in the rising generation disconcerted the old man a bit and van der Valk had to grin.

  “In the nude?” he said a bit awkwardly.

  “What else? I didn’t, naturally. But I liked him in an odd way. He was a poor old fellow – nobody took him very seriously, I could see, but he had nice sides too. I thought he was even a pretty good painter once. He drank too much.”

  “And did you ever meet Mrs Post again?”

  “Yes, outside his house: I was there three or four times. He used to get amorous but I used to sort of shake him loose. Later I found she lived there, downstairs I mean, it’s a big house. She said hallo very nicely and asked me to have coffee with her in town. And I met her once at a party.”

  “Did Mrs Post know Casimir? I mean she obviously knew him but was there a closer acquaintance?”

  She laughed again clearly.

  “He couldn’t stick her. He called her the art whore. That was just spitefulness of course because she despised his work.”

  “You liked her yourself, though?”

  “Like, like, I don’t know her well enough: she was always polite and nice to me, like I say,” a little impatiently, as though she found the old man a wee bit obtuse.

  “She knew that you were friendly, or acquainted, with Cabestan, at least?”

  “Oh yes, of course. There wasn’t any secret about it.”

  “So your parents knew it as well.”

  Not quite so obtuse…first tiny sign of hesitancy and confusion in the girl’s manner. Van der Valk, quietly writing shorthand, could see her very well.

  “Now…to be honest, no. I mean they’re very reasonable about letting me go where I please and meet whom I choose, especially when it’s anything to do with work, but – well, it’s a question of tact really. I mean if I’d mentioned Casimir at home there might have
been a flap and questions and it might have led to a row and I just prefer to avoid that.”

  “That’s quite natural.” It was decidedly the first time van der Valk had ever known the old man being silky.

  “Would both your parents have been inclined to disapprove?”

  “Perhaps,” she said carefully. “My father’s more strict but he has to be because he’s very well known, you see. My mother wouldn’t really have minded much but she’d back him up, if you understand.”

  “But you find it reasonable that she should back him up, eh?”

  “A wife ought to back her husband up,” immediately, decidedly.

  “Have you ever met Dr Post?”

  Again a hesitation and this time tension. Slight; only noticeable because her answers had been coming so easily and loosely.

  “Well – met isn’t quite the word. He treated me a couple of months ago for anaemia.”

  “I thought he was a neurologist.”

  “I don’t know. My mother says he’s a good doctor. He certainly cured me.”

  “Ah, your mother suggested it. I don’t know why, I thought perhaps Mrs Post had suggested your consulting her husband.”

  “No, no,” emphatically. “She knew nothing about it.”

  “She never introduced you to her husband?”

  “I’d never seen him. I supposed he wasn’t interested in pictures. That’s to say I’d never thought about it.”

  “Um. You know Mrs Post and your mother knows Dr Post but your paths just hadn’t crossed, uh?”

  She just looked a little puzzled.

  “I don’t think my mother knows him all that well. She’d consulted him one time, she told me and I suppose she found him good.”

  “Exactly. Now this Mr Simons; did you ever meet him again?”

  She was going to balk; he could see it. Mr Samson lit another of his terrible cigars: van der Valk got a cigarette out one-handed, awkwardly.

  “You are pretty inquisitive about all my doings, aren’t you?”

  “But that’s our work, you see. Just like painting pictures, or building a wall, come to that,” poking with his burnt match-point to get a better draught in the horrible thing.

  “Can’t you tell me what it’s all about, then?”

  “I may,” said Mr Samson briefly. “We’d got to Mr Simons.”

  “I met him a couple more times. You know how it is – you get into a sort of group.”

  “You’ve been to his house again?”

  “I don’t know who can have told you that.”

  “Nobody told me; that’s why I ask.”

  “A couple of times, yes.”

  “When was it that you heard Cabestan was dead?”

  “I hadn’t heard anything of him in a while and I supposed he’d just got tired of trying to make me. A couple of the boys told me he was dead. It was a shock because – ja, it always is, isn’t it? – I mean hearing someone is dead. I mean one knows people die, of course, but you don’t expect people you know ever to die. But I wasn’t terribly surprised because I knew he wasn’t well. He drank much too much, and he used to go a funny colour and breathe heavily, after climbing all those stairs.”

  “You said a couple of the boys.”

  “Yes, at school, but not the same class. They heard at the arts club, they said. Casimir used to go there. He took me once but I didn’t care for it – all that unwashed crowd of pseudos.”

  Mr Samson, beginning to look more recognisable to van der Valk now, made another of his swerves.

  “Did your mother know you had met Mrs Post? You would have had no especial reason to be tactful about meeting her, I take it?”

  “Well, I suppose not, but I don’t think I ever mentioned it; I suppose it just never came up,” lamely.

  “I see… Did you know that Simons found Cabestan dead?”

  “I haven’t seen Mr Simons in quite a while,” very cold.

  “But you knew the two were friends?”

  “I don’t know anything of the sort. I don’t think they were friends.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know… Casimir never talked about him as a friend – not to me, anyhow.”

  “He talked about him, then?”

  “Oh well…because we’d met at his house… I really hardly know Mr Simons.”

  “I get the impression – correct me if I’m wrong – that Mr Simons is not a pleasant subject of thought to you.”

  “I don’t care for him much.”

  “Had he ever made any advance towards you?”

  “No.” She blushed. She hadn’t blushed at Cabestan’s advances being mentioned.

  “Cabestan and Simons hadn’t, perhaps, had a disagreement - maybe about you?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “And you wouldn’t know why Simons went to Cabestan’s house, on the occasion he found him dead?”

  “No. Are you thinking someone killed Casimir?” suddenly. Had it really only just struck her?

  “Somebody would like us to believe that.” His voice was very calm.

  “And you think it might have been Harry Simons?” The intonation sounded as though the thought did not displease her. Samson did not answer: he knocked the ash off his cigar.

  “You don’t think I killed poor old Cas, for heavens’ sake?”

  “You’d prefer we thought it was Simons, no doubt,” without irony. She wriggled, disconcerted. She was looking a lot more her age, now.

  “Mr Cabestan,” he said, dry, “had been blackmailing your father. Demanding money from him on the strength of a pretended secret that would cause your father great embarrassment if it were to become public. Any idea what that would be?” She went flaming scarlet.

  “My father knows – no, Casimir…”

  “Yes, Miss Wilde? You must tell me. This is extremely important. What did your father know?”

  “That I…” Freeze. “No – Casimir didn’t know,” desperately; it was a wail.

  “Yes, Miss Wilde?”

  She burst into hysterical sobs. Samson made a face at van der Valk, who got up and came back with a glass of water. He put it on the desk; she sent it across the room with a furious slap. Neither policeman paid any notice: Blom-boy, as Mr Samson called him, could mop that up.

  “That Cabestan had seduced you, Miss Wilde, I think you want to say.”

  “No. No. No.” Mounting inflection of passionate emphasis. Van der Valk opened his mouth suddenly wide, got a nasty look from his superior officer, and shut it again hurriedly.

  “Van der Valk, make out an official form of interrogatory summons to Harry Simons.”

  The girl gave a great gulping sob, straightened up and looked at him terrified.

  “Harry Simons had seduced you, Miss Wilde.” She made an effort and got a nod made. “That was what your father knew?”

  “I would like some water.”

  “Van der Valk.”

  Sighing slightly, he had to go and get another glass. There wasn’t one, but he found a tea-cup.

  “I’m sorry if I sound inexorable,” said Mr Samson quite kindly. “I do not wish to bully or frighten you. This won’t last much longer but we must have these facts. Of course nobody suspects you of anything criminal, not even knowledge. But I must know the truth here. Would you like some more water? Very well, Simons seduced you. Cabestan was jealous, I think.”

  “No. He didn’t know. Not from me, anyhow.”

  “Good, he didn’t know. You encouraged him a little – I see – to help make a break from Simons – no, all right, that doesn’t matter for the moment. Ah… Did Simons by any chance become a little jealous of Cabestan? Think maybe that you were too familiar with him? As I have heard, Cabestan had a bad reputation with young girls like yourself, and what you say about telling your parents rather confirms that you knew that – hm?”

  She nodded hesitantly. He thought for a while and then made his mind up.

  “Very well, very well. I’ve no wish at all t
o seem rough with you, Miss Wilde, and I’m sorry you’ve had a hard time. It’s over now. If you like, there’s a washroom along the passage. Thank you very much for coming and for being extremely helpful; you’re free of course to go, whenever you like. Show her, van der Valk… By the way, Miss Wilde?”

  She turned, dazed still from tears.

  “I don’t think you’ll want to say anything about this at home, will you? Did you mention that you were coming here to see me?”

  She shook her head.

  “So much the better then. I’ll say nothing about it either, then, to your parents. Hm? That console you a little.”

  “I won’t say anything. You mean it, really? You won’t tell my father I was here?”

  “No I won’t. You have my word.”

  When he got back, Mr Samson was trying to read his shorthand.

  “Type this up. I want to read it.”

  Meekly, he sat down at Blom’s typewriter.

  Thirteen

  Mr Samson read the transcript carefully; van der Valk, with the carbon under his eyes, did the same: there was silence, broken only by the old man’s characteristic trick of taking his glasses off, throwing them on the desk with a clatter, staring out of the window, heaving a sigh, and putting the glasses on again.

  Van der Valk thought about Mrs van der Post, whom he had never seen. That imbecile De Vries had undeniably had talent. There was something vivid about his ridiculous ‘sketch’ that could be seen more clearly after listening to the remarks of a teenage girl, more vivid still because she had not only talent, but the perceptive naïveté that opened windows on obscurity as nothing else could have done. He was full of admiration for Samson, who had known this without ever having met any of these persons.

  Was it purely coincidence that the frau Post had crystallised the interrelation between these people? If the girl had not met her at a gallery and through her met Simons she would never have met Cabestan. Who had plainly detested the Post woman – the ‘art whore’. Had Post himself had any idea of all this? He had treated the girl for anaemia, but had he seen anything in her but the daughter of a woman he knew? His mistress, certainly, but was that important?