Blond Baboon

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “What does your husband do, Mrs. de Bree?”

  “He’s retired in a way. He’s an engineer and has invented things, we have an income from royalties. Sometimes I wish he were still working.”

  They heard a key turn in the front of the house and Mrs. de Bree jumped up and rushed into the corridor, shutting the door behind her. The conversation took a full five minutes and de Bree’s voice gradually lost its anger. Mrs. de Bree was crying. He came in alone.

  “Mr. de Bree?”

  The policemen were on their feet. De Bree pointed at their chairs and thought of something to say. Tobias was bumping the door. “My cat, I’ll let him in.”

  De Bree sat down, he sighed, and all the air appeared to go out of him. The sigh seemed endless.

  “I’m sorry,” the commissaris said. “But what has to be done has to be done, sir. You weren’t getting anywhere when you refused my detective entry, surely you knew mat, didn’t you?”

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “No.”

  De Bree reached for his pipe rack and tobacco tin. The tobacco spilled as his trembling hands tried to fill the pipe. He couldn’t find a match and looked about helplessly. The commissaris gave him his lighter.

  “So why did you come?” de Bree asked between puffs.

  “lb obtain your confession, sir. It isn’t strictly needed, the evidence against you is conclusive, but a confession might help you, the judge will be better disposed.”

  “Judge? You’ll make me go to court?”

  “Yes.”

  Tobias walked past de Bree’s chair and de Bree grabbed the cat’s tail. It closed with strength and the cat pulled, finding support in the carpet. De Bree’s chair moved an inch but stuck on the carpet’s edge. The cat looked around, turned, and put a paw on de Bree’s hand. It purred and its good eye opened until it was a large shiny green disk. De Bree grunted and released the tail.

  “He must be very fond of you,” the commissaris said. “His nails didn’t come out.”

  “He’ll never scratch me. He did once, by mistake, and drew blood and he was sorry for a week. He followed me everywhere I went. He loves me, he even hunts for me. He is always bringing me birds and mice, rats even. Once he caught a crow, a big crow. Crows are hard to catch. He brought the bird to my bed, I was ill at the time, and dropped it on the blanket. Made a mess, my wife didn’t like that, but he loves her too.”

  “You like animals, don’t you?”

  “I like Tobias. I don’t get on with other animals, or with people. My wife and I live very much on our own, but we don’t mind. If they don’t bother us we don’t bother diem. I have my books. I am an engineer. I have a basement where I can work. I don’t need anybody anymore.”

  The commissaris had been looking at a large framed painting hanging in the shadows of the room.

  “That’s Tobias,” de Bree said. “My wife did it. It isn’t painted but embroidered, in very small stitches. We found a store where an artist will do a portrait on canvas and they sell you wool so that you can embroider the portrait yourself. People usually like to make portraits like that of their children but we don’t have any. I gave my wife the canvas for her birthday. It took her months to stitch it.”

  The commissaris had got up to study the gobelin. “Remarkable! An amazing likeness. Your cat has an interesting face.”

  Cardozo whipped out his handkerchief and began to blow his nose furiously.

  De Bree had lost interest. He was staring at the floor, his hand resting limply on the cat’s back.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Does mat help? If I say I am sorry? I’ll pay if you like. The Carnet ladies must have had some expenses, perhaps they want to put in a claim. I’ll pay for the vet and whatever you say I should pay on top of the vet’s bill for damages. I suppose I owe it to mem.”

  “The judge would like to hear you say that.” The commissaris had sat down and was stirring his tea. “But why did you want to kill Paul? Death through arsenic poisoning is very unpleasant, painful. The victim suffers cramps, vomits, he may suffer for a fairly long time until the coma finally sets in. You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. I didn’t think of it. Arsenic is the only poison I could find, they sell it to kill rats. I would have bought a better poison if it had been available.”

  “But why kill the dog?”

  De Bree shrugged. “There was no choice. Paul is a young strong dog. Terriers are fierce and quick on their feet. So is Tobias, but Tobias can only see on one side. The silly cat doesn’t know that the gardens around belong to others, he thinks they are all his private hunting ground. The other cats run away when they see him coming but Paul is a hunter too, and he has been out to kill Tobias for a while now. I have broken up some of their fights, but I can’t be in the garden all the time. So…”

  “No.” The commissaris had put down his cup and his hands grabbed the sides of his chair. “No, sir. You should have thought of another solution. A very high fence, for instance, there’s a limit to what cats can do. A carpenter could have constructed a fence that couldn’t have been scaled by Tobias. The point is that you didn’t want to restrict your cat. You can’t deny other people the right to have a pet because their pet is a threat to yours. You could also have moved to the country. You are not economically bound to the city. You have alternatives, Mr. de Bree.”

  De Bree’s eyelids sagged. “I said I was sorry.”

  “Yes.”

  Cardozo had brought out his notebook. “I’ll have to take your statement, sir. Would you describe what you did and tell us exactly when you did it. It can be a short statement, but it’ll have to be in your own words.”

  “On Wednesday, the first of June, at about twelve hundred hours…”

  De Bree’s voice was flat. Cardozo was writing furiously as the voice droned on. De Bree proved that his mind was trained in exactitude and had the ability to report logically connected events.

  Cardozo read the statement back and de Bree brought out his fountain pen.

  “Thank you,” the commissaris said, “and please thank your wife for her hospitality.”

  “Will I have to go to jail?” de Bree asked as the policemen stepped into the street.

  “It’s up to the judge, sir. I’m sorry, our task is finished now. Perhaps you should consult your lawyer when you receive the summons.”

  The door closed with an almost inaudible click.

  “A telephone, Cardozo. Is there a public booth around?’

  “Any news, dear?”

  He held the phone away from his ear as his secretary reported.

  “Grijpstra and the sergeant had some trouble, sir. The radio room says that they had to ask the water police for assistance. I’ve had a report from the water police too, but it isn’t very detailed. It only says that they chased a boat belonging to a Mr. Vleuten and that Mr. Vleuten wasn’t with his boat when they found it. Sergeant de Gier fell into the river somewhere along the chase but he wasn’t harmed.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, sir. And I’ve had a call from Gabrielle Carnet, she found a hundred thousand guilders under her mother’s mattress and thought you would like to hear about it.”

  “I would, yes. Anything else? Any news about Mr. Bergen and his facial trouble?”

  “Yes, sir, I asked Miss Carnet. The hospital referred Mr. Bergen to a private neurologist and the neurologist detected some serious trouble, it seems. Mr. Bergen will have further tests tomorrow. He is at home now, I have the address. He telephoned his office and Miss Carnet was there when the call came in.”

  The commissaris wrote down the address and the telephone number, fumbling on the small metal desk provided in the booth, and managed to drop his ball-point and bump his head as he came up again.

  “Oh, sir.”

  “Yes?” He had dropped his ball-point again and was rubbing his head.

  “There was a note on your desk that I don’t think you’ve seen. It was brought up from Grijpstra
’s room as it was addressed to you. A report on the adjutant’s visit to a portrait painter called Wertheym?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “It only says that Wertheym made two identical portraits for Mrs. Carnet. The ‘two’ is underlined.”

  “Thanks.” He hung up. Cardozo was staring at him foolishly, his nose pressed against the glass of the booth. The commissaris opened die door, slamming it into Cardozo’s arm. “Don’t stand there like an idiot, Cardozo, did I hurt you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Your friend the sergeant got himself into the Amstel River this afternoon, something to do with chasing the baboon, apparently. I wish they’d phoned in. I’ve no idea where they are now, looks as if I’ll have to run after my own assistants. My own fault. I’m pushing this case too hard.”

  They walked back to the car. The neighborhood was experiencing a short burst of liveliness as heads of families were coming home, welcomed by grateful wives. Everywhere around them car doors slammed, children rushed out of front doors, fathers put down their briefcases to embrace their offspring. The late afternoon sun was pouring a thick, diffuse light into the long, tree-lined street so that each object threw a tapered, clearcut shadow.

  The commissaris stopped to admire a creeper, heavily studded with clusters of white flowers, that had covered an entire wall and seemed ready to climb over it. “Beautiful. But we are still stuck, Cardozo. Remember that motive that was thrown at us? Mrs. Carnet’s eighty thousand guilders? Taken from the bank yesterday, in cash, in crisp notes? Nowhere to be found now?”

  “Yes, sir, you told me.”

  “Well, it grew to a hundred thousand and it has shown up again, under the lady’s mattress. Gabrielle found the money and was good enough to phone my office. Back where we started.”

  Cardozo, who had been nodding encouragingly, lost his smile. He looked so crestfallen that the commissaris cheered up again. “Never mind. Good luck comes to those who keep on trying. Hie old chief constable used to say that and he was right. Tell you what, Cardozo, you go to see Gabrielle now, she’s around the corner. Find out the details of the lucky find and phone your report to the radio room. You can go home afterward, perhaps you should stay home. If I manage to find the adjutant and the sergeant I’ll contact you and we may have a conference to finish off the day.”

  Cardozo almost came to attention, turned around, and marched down the street. The small figure in its shabby corduroy jacket, bouncing under a mop of curly hair, looked incongruous between the elegant houses. The commissaris nodded approvingly. Cardozo’s willingness to do his share showed. The young man was shaping up well, but he wasn’t a complete policeman yet. The commissaris remembered words spoken by his superiors, who had, since then, turned into old men and doddered into then-graves. A policeman is cunning but moderate. Sly as a snake, innocent as a dove. He said the word aloud. “Sly.” A good word. To be sly without malice. He would need his slyness now, to sort out this mess caused by uncontrolled but very human emotions. A poisoned dog and a clownish, frumped-up woman, dead in a pool of rainwater. He wondered what else they would find, for the emotions weren’t curbed yet. He knew that his main task was to prevent further manifestations and he would have to solve the present riddle to be able to do so.

  A large white motorcycle whizzed past, ridden by what looked to be a mechanical man, completely wrapped in white leather, his face hidden by a plastic visor. The Amsterdam police emblem, a naked sword resting on an open book, was painted on the motorcycle’s metal saddlebag. It also showed on the policeman’s helmet. The motorcycle’s presence kept drivers in line. The commissaris looked at his own image mirrored in a store window. The image peered back at him, a small man dressed in grays with a thin face and a glint of gold-rimmed spectacles. Chief of the murder brigade, gliding through the city almost transparent, completely unnoticed. “A sneak,” he said aloud. What could a sneak prevent? But he would do his best, this very best, and his mind was locked on the case again as he opened the door of the Citroen.

  \\ 11 /////

  THE COMMISSARIS POINTED THE SLEEK NOSE OF THE Citroën away from the curb and waited patiently for an opening. He sat poised at the wheel. The opening came and the car lurched forward and immediately lost the impact of its leap as it settled sedately, nudged into the homeward stream. The commissaris grinned at the success of his maneuver, but the grin faded away as pain activated the nerves in his thighs. He knew he should be home in bed, with his tube of medication on the night table and his wife hovering around, speaking to him soothingly, fluffing up his cushions, caring. The radio crackled.

  “Commissaris?”

  “Yes.”

  “The adjutant has telephoned, sir. They found their suspect, Mr. Vleuten, and are now on the river in the suspect’s boat. The interrogation will take place at Mr. Vleuten’s house, Amsteldijk One-seven-two.”

  “Thank you, I’ll go there now.”

  “Do you want your secretary to stay in your office, sir?”

  “No. Thank her for her assistance. Over and out.”

  He was almost home, but he took the first road on the left and headed for the river. To be driving around, straining himself, pushing a case that could just as well be solved by his assistants, was pure idiocy. Or sanity, if his choice was between activity and the slow senseless existence of some delicate plant in a greenhouse. He had been ill for a long time now, with no real hope of recovery, although he kept trying to convince his wife of the opposite. Activity might kill him, but it would keep him alert meanwhile.

  The car shot through an orange light, turned again, and began to follow the river. He glanced at the house numbers; another block to go. He found the mooring and parked under a row of elms that had survived the gale. The pain in his thighs had reached a steady level and he could bear with it. He got out, content to wait. A tanker came chugging up the river and he admired its strong sturdy lines under the superstructure of artfully intertwined tubes painted a brilliant white. He leaned against a tree and returned the tanker’s greeting, a slow solemn wave of the man at the wheel. A heron, balanced on a partly submerged log saw the commissaris’s arm move and lifted a long leg but decided to stay where it was and pointed its beak at the water again. Some fat coots were rowing about busily, only a few yards away, headed for a patch of duckweed, rippling in the river’s flow. The commissaris was still leaning against the elm when the baboon’s boat arrived and touched the quayside with a tire hung over its gunwale.

  An ape man, definitely, the commissaris thought as he watched Vleuten move the tiller. De Gier was standing next to the suspect; the baboon’s golden mane stood out against the sergeant’s uniform. The commissaris caught the rope thrown by Grijpstra and held it while he waited for the three men to join him.

  “Mr. Vleuten, sir. Mr. Vleuten, please meet our chief.”

  They shook hands and crossed the street in pairs, Grijpstra and the baboon going ahead.

  “Have you arrested him, de Gier?”

  “No, sir. He has been very well behaved.”

  “The radio room says that you fell into the river. If that event was caused by your suspect an arrest would be warranted.”

  De Gier explained and the commissaris nodded. “Good. No vengeance.”

  The commissaris thought back. He was a young inspector again, long ago, thirty years ago. He had been beaten up by a suspect and the suspect was subsequently caught. When he went to the station a constable had taken him down to the cell block where his man was chained to a pipe, cowering. The constable had told him to go ahead and had turned and left the basement. He had been tempted, but he had released the suspect and taken him to a cell and gone upstairs.

  “No vengeance,” he said again. “That’s very good, de Gier.”

  Some surprise showed on the sergeant’s face. “I thought it would be better not to ruffle him, sir. This way he may talk easier.”

  “You’ll lay charges against him later?”

  De Gier looked uncomfortable. “I can
’t, sir. I more or less accepted his apology. A case of mistaken identity, really. He mistook me for an officer from the court. He has some parking fines he has been protesting and the court constables have been bothering him.”

  “Good. Is this our man’s house?”

  “Yes, sir, and that’s his car.”

  The commissaris took a moment to observe the seventeenth-century house and the Rolls-Royce.

  “A nineteen thirty-six model I would say, sergeant, but very well kept. It should be worth some money, and the house is very valuable, of course. So he isn’t badly off, your baboon. That would explain why he resigned so easily from Carnet and Company. Still, he did refuse unemployment benefits, Mr. Bergen told me. Most unusual. He would qualify and they are eighty percent of previous income and will be paid for several years now, I believe. And he turned it down. Most unusual.”

  The baboon had opened the door and gone in with Grijpstra, and the commissaris and the sergeant began to climb the stairs slowly, pausing on the landings. Even so the commissaris was exhausted when they finally reached the seventh floor. The baboon’s apartment was open and the commissaris sunk into the first chair he saw. The baboon was busying himself at the kitchen counter.

  Grijpstra looked at the commissaris. “Do you want to ask the questions, sir?”

  The commissaris shook his head. He had closed his eyes, his breath was still coming in gasps. “Go ahead, adjutant.”

  The baboon served coffee and sat down. “Gentlemen?”

  Grijpstra phrased his questions slowly and precisely and the baboon’s answers connected promptly.

  “Yes, I visited her last night, early in the evening.”

  “Why, Mr. Vleuten?”