Blond Baboon

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “CID, sergeant, go south, we are after a white motorboat, one man in it, man with a white jersey and a cap. A good-looking boat, old but well kept. A wooden boat.”

  The constable in the launch’s cabin shifted a small lever next to the steering wheel. The boat roared and began to cut through the river’s short bright waves, lifting its nose as it gathered speed. Grijpstra stumbled, but the water sergeant caught him by the shoulders.

  “Hold on, your Mend took a bath, did he?”

  “He did. The suspect removed his boat as my colleague jumped.”

  Hands were shaken as the policemen introduced themselves.

  “What’s the chase, Grijpstra? Is your suspect dangerous? Armed?”

  Grijpstra explained. De Gier had gone into the cabin and was checking his pistol, breaking it into parts and drying it with a rag. The constable gave him a fresh clip and de Gier inserted it. “It’ll work,” the constable said, “but you’d better take it to the arms room, there are a lot of little bits and pieces that’ll rust eventually. You plan to shoot your man, sergeant?”

  “I’d love to but I wouldn’t be thanked if I did. I don’t even know why he got away.”

  “You have a charge against him?”

  “He used to sleep with a lady we know.”

  The constable wasn’t listening anymore. A towboat had appeared, tugging asthmatically at a line of three gigantic barges. The barges were following unsteadily and the racing police-launch seemed to be attracted by the last vessel’s looming, rusty hull. The little lever on the dashboard was pushed further and the boat’s engines roared a shade deeper.

  “Missed her,” the constable said. “That’s a charge, sergeant? Sleeping with a lady you know?”

  “The lady is dead. We’re going around asking questions.”

  “And you land up in the river. Happened to me too. I was shoved off an ocean liner’s gangway last week. Part of the job. We keep dry clothes in that cupboard. Maybe they’ll fit you. A sergeant’s uniform. It’ll fit your rank if not your body.”

  The river was clear, and the constable relaxed and watched de Gier strip. “There’s a towel in there too, and underwear, and I have a pair of rubber boots here somewhere. We keep everything, even a small machine gun I can mount on the foredeck. There’s something wrong with the gun’s breech but it looks most impressive.” De Gier stepped into the boots. “No, thanks, 1 don’t think our man is armed. How do I look, constable?”

  The water sergeant and Grijpstra had come into the cabin and de Gier was admired. The uniform fitted.

  “Stunning,” Grijpstra said. “I prefer the gold trim to our silver. Why do the water police have gold trim anyway?”

  “Because gold is noble and so are we,” the water sergeant said. “The water may be polluted these days, but it can never be as dirty as the shore.”

  The sun had found an opening in the low clouds above the city and the river’s wide expanse, dotted here and there by the spotless white of floating sea gulls spread all around them. The launch was skimming over the short waves. The water sergeant unscrewed the top of a large thermos. “Fresh coffee, made less than half an hour ago.” The four men were grinning as the baboon’s boat showed up as a speck near the next bend of the river. “Not a bad life, this,” the water sergeant said, pouring the coffee. “I don’t know why you chaps prefer to work in the city. Narrow streets, no air, people everywhere. The people are the worst, they always want something.”

  “Don’t you deal with people?” Grijpstra asked.

  “Sometimes, but I usually manage to avoid them. I prefer fish. We do a fair bit of fishing, you know. And there are always the birds. Some of the birds are stupid, especially the ducks, but I would still rather deal with ducks than with people. People, bah!”

  Grijpstra looked up. “What happened to that boat? It was right in front of us just now.”

  The constable pointed and turned the wheel at the same time, making the police boat knife through the river’s curve. “Over there, moored to the jetty. That’s the baboon’s launch, I thought I recognized it before but I wasn’t sure. Is the baboon your suspect?”

  “Yes. You know him evidently.”

  The water sergeant had stepped to the dashboard and turned the key, cutting the boat’s engines so that it settled back into the water. “Yes, Grijpstra, we know the baboon, everybody on the water does. But he doesn’t seem to be on board.”

  “Never mind, go back a little and drop us off on the dike, out of sight of the jetty if possible. It could be that he hasn’t spotted us. We can sniff around a little. If we don’t catch him today we’ll catch him tomorrow.”

  “Sleuths,” the water sergeant said to his constable. “Intelligent hunting hounds. I hope you are observing and learning. We would just go away and take that old boat with us but we don’t have brains. Sure, the suspect will come back to his boat and walk into our friends’ arms.” He turned back to Grijpstra. “Are you certain he’s your man?”

  “Shouldn’t he be?”

  “No. Tell me again why you’re after him.”

  Grijpstra wrinkled his nose; he appeared to be lifting something heavy on his flat hands. “We know we are after him but we don’t know why exactly. He made my sergeant leap into the river, that’s one reason. And he used to sleep with a lady named Elaine Carnet and the lady died under suspicious circumstances. We went after him to ask some questions, routine questions, and he didn’t give us a chance to ask them. He took off.”

  “He’s a good man.” The water sergeant’s eyes seemed to be pleading. “I’ve known him for a few years now, on the water and in a few pubs. He is an artist in a way, restoring our part of the world. The baboon finds old boats, wrecks, there are plenty of them around, rotting and forgotten. He buys and repairs them. Some old men are working with him, retired men who have nothing to do. The baboon got them interested in living again. The municipality is interested in what he’s trying to do They’ve given him the use of a small city wharf up north. The old men are very proud of their work. They don’t work for money, but the baboon sees to it that they get something, and when a boat is in good order again he will sell it at a fair price to somebody he thinks will appreciate a good boat.”

  “He does? Does he own that old Rolls we saw parked in front of his address?”

  “Yes. Same story. Bought as a wreck, taken apart, and reassembled. Same with his house too. I believe he inherited the house, but it was in poor shape, and he remodeled it completely and lets the six lower stories at reasonable rents. He could be a shark, most house owners are, but he isn’t.”

  Grijpstra was listening intently, softly scratching around in his bristly short hair. De Gier, resplendent in his dark blue uniform, was listening too.

  “You hear that?” Grijpstra asked.

  “I heard, but I still have some weeds in my ears, so maybe I didn’t hear it all. A latter-day saint, eh? So why did this lovable gentleman who looks like an ape make me take a flying leap at the river? I wasn’t hustling him, was I? He barely gave me time to state my purpose, then whoosh … him away and me … In fact, I may have a charge for attempted manslaughter against him, or trying to cause serious injury. What else do you know about him? Nothing bad at all?”

  “No. I have no idea why he took off, but I know mat if you bother him you’ll have everybody against you, everybody out here, the people of the waterways.”

  The launch rubbed itself against the quayside and Grijpstra held on to a tree stump.

  “Give us a push, sergeant. We won’t harm your hero, unless we can prove you wrong, and even then we wouldn’t be too nasty.”

  De Gier jumped out too. “Thanks for the assistance, you’ll have your uniform back in the morning. I’ll try to keep it clean, but maybe your friend will have me in the river again.”

  The water sergeant grinned. “Not in that uniform, he’ll respect the gold.”

  The launch backed away and the two officers waved. It took the detectives a few minutes to walk to th
e jetty. The baboon had tied up his launch neatly but he wasn’t around.

  “You want to snoop around here a bit?”

  “May as well.”

  But they were ready to give up and catch a tram back to their car when Grijpstra suddenly whistled. “Over there, on the terrace.”

  The baboon was peacefully drinking tea. They stopped in front of his table.

  “Afternoon, Mr. Vleuten.”

  The baboon smiled as if welcoming old friends. “Well, I never. And in a water cop’s uniform too. Would you join me?”

  They sat down but they didn’t say anything, and the silence, awkward at first, lost its tension as the three men gazed at the river. De Gier took off his cap and put it on die table and a girl came and took their order.

  “I hope you didn’t hurt yourself,” the baboon said and offered a cigarette.

  “I did.”

  “Badly?”

  “No. A scratch. But I did get very wet and dirty.”

  The baboon touched de Gier’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. You came to see me about the fine, did you? I won’t pay it.”

  “Fine?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t come to see you about a fine, we came to ask you some questions. A Mrs. Camet died. Elaine Carnet. We were told you knew her.”

  “Ah.” The baboon sighed. “I might have known. I read about Elaine’s death but the journalist said it was an accident. Wasn’t it?”

  “Perhaps. What is this business about a fine, Mr. Vleuten?”

  “Call me baboon. I don’t like the word but it has stuck to me for a long time. That fine is a conglomeration of parking fines. Some parking police constable is irritated by my Rolls-Royce, he goes out of his way to plaster tickets all over it. I’ve complained to his chief but nothing happens. I don’t mind paying an occasional fine like everybody else, but I’m damned if I’ll have one every day. There aren’t enough parking places in the city and I have a car, so have a hundred thousand others.”

  “But why associate us with your fines?”

  “I’ve been bothered by you before, not by you personally, but by detectives. They keep ringing my bell in the early morning and shouting at me through the microphone at the front door.”

  “Different branch, you must be referring to personnel from the court. They will be after you to try and get you to die court’s cashier and they have powers to hold you until you pay—if you open your door to them, that is. They aren’t authorized to break it down or to grab you in the street. They’ll have to take you from your house and you have to be willing to be taken.”

  “I am not.”

  De Gier was watching the baboon’s calm face. “You might be in trouble now, you know. You made me suffer a bad fall.”

  “Can you arrest me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you?”

  “Not just now. But we’ll have to question you. Where do you want to be questioned? Here?”

  They had finished their tea and the baboon called die girl and paid. “No, not here. And I am sorry about your fall. I thought you were sent by the parking police and I feel badly about this nonsense. A misunderstanding. I apologize, do you accept?”

  De Gier nodded. “Maybe I will.”

  “Then be my guests a little longer, gentlemen. We can take the boat back to my house and you can question me there, but I may not have much to say. I had no reason to kill Elaine, and I wouldn’t have killed her if I’d had a reason. Maybe there’s never a reason to kill, except to avoid old age, and Elaine wasn’t old.”

  Grijpstra felt the little hairs in his neck bristle. He had detected the tremendous strength that seemed to come out of the baboon’s being, waves of strength that enveloped the detectives and neutralized their own force. Grijpstra remembered other occasions when he had been almost hypnotized by suspects. He had felt it during some arrests and also, once or twice, when he had been a witness for the prosecution in court. He had seen high police officers, lawyers, judges even, wilt while an unruffled criminal pleaded his case, made statements, proved himself to be innocent. But the criminals had been guilty.

  They ambled across the quay together and de Gier lowered himself carefully into the launch. He was looking at some rubbish floating under the jetty as the baboon started the launch’s engine.

  “Bah,” de Gier said. “Look at that mess. That water sergeant is a chauvinist. His part of the world is dirtier than ours.”

  The baboon looked too. “We’re making an effort. The river is getting cleaner, it was much worse before.”

  “Bah. People used to swim in the river.”

  “They will again.”

  “I was swimming in it just now.”

  The baboon laughed. “I said I was sorry.”

  “Sure,” de Gier said. “That was very nice of you.”

  \\ 10 /////

  “HE ISN’T IN,” THE SQUARE LADY IN THE FLOWERED DRESS said, “but he’s due back any moment. Could you come again in half an hour, perhaps?”

  The conunissaris and Cardozo had stood for quite a while on the porch of the de Bree house while Mrs. de Bree peered at them through the door’s peephole and tried to make up her mind whether or not to open the door. She had seen Cardozo before and knew he was a policeman. Her husband had told her not to let in the police. But the other man was much older than the boyish detective, and he didn’t seem to be the sort of man who could be sent away. She had decided that the conunissaris looked, in an unobtrusive way, both dignified and intelligent, and she had taken the risk. But now she was stuck again.

  “We won’t go away, Mrs. de Bree,” the commissaris said softly, “and you will have to let us in.”

  “My husband says that the home is private and that…”

  “The home is private, your husband is right.”

  She faltered and blushed. “So…?”

  “But there are exceptions to any rule, madame. A crime has been committed and the police have been asked to investigate. In such circumstances the police have the right to enter any dwelling by force if a warrant has been issued or if an officer of a certain rank wants to visit the home.”

  “I see.” She didn’t want to ask for the commissaris’s rank, but he had given her a card and she glanced at it. She didn’t know anything about police ranks. “Well, would you come in then, please. I hope you’ll explain to my husband when he comes…”

  “We will.”

  Cardozo stepped aside and the commissaris marched into the corridor and waited for Mrs. de Bree to lead the way. They were taken to a room in the rear of the house, similar to the enclosed porch in the Camet house. Evidently the same architect had been used for all the homes in the two streets sharing the enclosed garden area. Mrs. de Bree offered tea and gratefully retired to the kitchen.

  Cardozo jumped out of his chair the minute they were alone. “My witnesses live over there, sir. They have the top floor of the house, there with the balcony, behind the geraniums. Two old ladies with binoculars, ideal witnesses, they have a full view of both this garden and the Carnet garden opposite. And there’s the liguster hedge and Mr. de Bree must have stood next to that rhododendron bush when he fed Paul. With binoculars my witnesses could have seen that he was feeding him chopped meat. With the laboratory test that proves that there was both chopped meat and arsenic in Paul’s stomach, and with the matching times of the witnesses’ statements and Gabrielle Carnet’s complaint plus the statement of the veterinarian we have an airtight case against de Bree.”

  The commissaris had come to the window. “Yes, good work, Cardozo. I wonder if I can smoke here. Does de Bree smoke?”

  Cardozo looked around. “There’s a pipe rack on die wall, sir, and several ashtrays.”

  “Then I’m sure Mrs. de Bree won’t mind. Hey!”

  A cat had landed on the balcony outside. It had dropped from a tree branch with such a thud that Cardozo, who was still studying the pipe rack, had turned around. The cat was oversize, not only fat but enormous in proportions.
A lynx with tufted ears, with thick fur spotted with black and orange and with a cruel square head, bright orange on one side, deep black on the other. The line dividing the two colors didn’t run in the exact middle of the face, shortening the black half slightly, with the result that his expression was startlingly weird.

  “That’s a cat, sir?”

  “I think so. But perhaps it has a small panther or an ocelot as an ancestor, although I do believe that some breeds of domesticated cats grow rather large. All of twenty pounds, I would say, more perhaps.”

  The cat walked to the window and stood up, pressing its face and front paws against the glass. The soles of its feet were heavily haired.

  “It’s purring,” the commissaris said. “Perhaps it means well. Should we let it in, Cardozo?”

  Mrs. de Bree was with them again, carrying a tray. “Ah, Tobias. Would you mind opening the door, sir? Poor thing must be hungry. He probably tried to come in before but I was vacuum-cleaning upstairs and didn’t hear him. He’s been out all morning.”

  The commissaris released the door’s latch and Tobias rushed in, forcing the door out of his hand. He ran across the room and loped off into the corridor.

  “An amazing animal, madame. Very big, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. But he’s getting old and is blind in one eye now and not too well. We had him operated on for cancer last year and he recovered, but the vet says that the cancer may still be there and that a second operation wouldn’t do any good. My husband is very upset about it. Tobias is like a child and we have had him fourteen years—we don’t have any real children, you see. And Tobias is so clever!”

  The commissaris stirred his tea. The room was pleasant and quiet; there was no sound in the house except a rattling in the kitchen where Tobias was gulping his food and pushing its container around.

  “You know why we came, don’t you, Mrs. de Bree?”

  She was sitting unnaturally upright and playing with a lace handkerchief. There were tears in her mild eyes, enlarged by the thick lenses of her gold-rimmed spectacles. “Yes, sir, you came about Paul. I’m so saddened about that. I don’t know what got into my husband, he’s never done anything like that before. He won’t admit what he did to Paul, but he knows that I know. He hasn’t talked to me much since it happened. And the old ladies opposite saw him do it, Alice came to see me about it an hour ago. She said they had told the police and that they were sorry but they couldn’t help it, so I was expecting you, you see.”