Blond Baboon

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “A small Citroën.”

  “Aha,” the commissaris said.

  “But it’s brand-new, still under guarantee.”

  The commissaris turned around. “You won’t have any trouble, miss. Citroens are good cars. I’ve been driving them all my life. No trouble.” The black girl smiled and the commissaris turned back to his fried noodles.

  “No, sir?” Grijpstra whispered. “I thought you had a problem with your suspension a few weeks ago.’

  The commissaris’s fork came up and pointed at the adjutant’s face. “Minor. Little leak somewhere. They fixed it.”

  “And aren’t they always fiddling around with the timing? The garage sergeant was telling me about that. He said it was driving him crazy.”

  “Nothing wrong with the timing, the sergeant wanted something to do.”

  “And…”

  “Never mind. I think Cardozo wants to ask something, what is it, Cardozo?”

  “I want to know everything, sir. I’ve only been working on the poisoned dog angle. I know nothing about the murder investigation. Who are our suspects, sir, and what have we found out?”

  “Good. Adjutant, why don’t you tell him, and then de Gier can do his bit too. And Cardozo can finish up. I haven’t heard about Gabrielle Carnet and the hundred thousand guilders that popped up so conveniently. Go ahead, adjutant.”

  Grijpstra wanted mote beer but was given coffee and the discussion started. It lasted for an hour as more coffee was consumed and Grijpstra’s small black cigars smoldered away, making the restaurant’s owner cough politely and turn on an electric fan.

  “Do we know everything now?” the commissaris asked. “Yes, Cardozo?’

  Cardozo seemed very ill at ease. His lips, holding the cigar that Grijpstra had forced on him, twisted spasmodically.

  “Eh, sir, I would like to hear about that skeleton in the baboon’s apartment again. It had a cow’s skull, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did, uh, the skull have a hole in its forehead?”

  The commissaris thought. “Perhaps it did, yes. It was masked, a purple corduroy mask leaving the eye sockets open, but it seems that there was a sort of tear that exposed part of the forehead, a tear or a hole. Do you remember, sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. There was a hole in the skull’s forehead, I remember it exactly, between the eyes but a little higher. The skull must have been very old, there was some dried-out crusted moss around that hole. But why do you ask, Cardozo?” His voice was honey sweet. “You weren’t with us, Cardozo, so how do you know about that hole?”

  “Uh…” Cardozo squeaked.

  “Tell us, dear boy.”

  “Gabrielle was wearing a small object, on a nylon string,” Cardozo said rapidly. “The object was a cow’s skull, the size of, uh, like that.” He pointed to a button on de Gier’s denim jacket. “That size. It was carved out of walnut, I think, well done, a lot of detail. The eye sockets were quite deep and there was a third hole, I thought it was a fault of the wood.”

  “Amazing,” de Gier said, still in the same sweet voice. “And how do you know that? I also saw a piece of nylon around the young lady’s neck and I also saw a small object dangling on that nylon thread, but it was stuck way down into her blouse. I couldn’t see any detail on that object and yet you describe it so accurately.”

  “I saw her this evening, before I came here. I told you, didn’t I?”

  “But how did you manage to see something she keeps between her breasts? She must have been naked. Why was she naked, dear boy? Did she strip, or did you forget your manners and rape the young lady?”

  Grijpstra’s eyes stared; the commissaris was stirring his coffee. Cardozo had picked up a match and was digging at a noodle, stuck between the table’s boards.

  “Maybe you should tell us what happened exactly,” the commissaris said gently.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I did have, uh, intimate contact with the suspect. I am very sorry, sir.”

  “She seduced you, did she?”

  “No, sir, it was my own fault. I wasn’t alert, I’m afraid. It, uh, just happened. I just slipped into it.”

  “Into what?” Grijpstra asked, frowning furiously.

  “Gentlemen!” the commissaris said sternly and raised a forbidding hand. “Now, constable, you can give us some details. Try and describe exactly what happened. You can spare us the physical details, of course. She did seduce you, didn’t she? I can’t imagine that you instigated the action.” The commissaris’s voice was gentle again, he was stirring his coffee once more. Cardozo talked for a while.

  “I see, well, never mind. Ah, I forgot to ask, did you see Francesco Pullini, de Gier? I want that passport.” De Gier produced the passport and the commissaris opened it and looked at the photograph. “Good, was he upset?’

  “Not particularly, sir, just a little, but Italians are rather excitable, I believe.”

  Cardozo picked up the passport and stared at the photograph. His eyes opened wide. “Sir!”

  “What is it now, Cardozo? Don’t tell me you know the man, you haven’t met him.”

  “But I do know him, sir. There’s a small portrait hanging behind the couch Gabrielle uses as a bed. An oil portrait. The face is very similar to this face, sir.”

  The commissaris breathed out slowly. His small wizened hand came out, reached across the table, and patted Cardozo’s shoulder.

  “Excellent, detective constable first class. You have now managed to link Gabrielle with bom the baboon and Francesco Pullini. Three suspects, one woman, two men, and each man has a sexual relationship with the woman. A lot of loose pieces should fit in now, all we have to do is find out how.” He waved for the bill. “Well, Grijpstra, how about your theory? I’m sure you and the sergeant have worked out an angle from which Mrs. Carnet’s death could be explained. Is your theory still standing?”

  Grijpstra touched de Gier’s sleeve. De Gier was staring at the black girl at the other table.

  “Yes,” de Gier said, “yes, sir. The theory still stands, but it isn’t strong enough to hold a suspect. I was thinking of doing some more work, tomorrow morning. I can’t do it tonight.”

  The commissaris paid the bill and complimented the Chinese on the quality of his food. He got up, scraping his chair energetically, but bent down to feel his thigh. His thin lips tightened.

  “I won’t ask you what your theory is, sergeant. I have my own, but it doesn’t stand up too well either as yet. I’ll have to go further too. I may be away tomorrow, possibly the day after tomorrow. Meanwhile you can go ahead, but I would appreciate your not making an arrest until I’m back. Ideally our theories should be identical and we should arrive at the same results, but we have been pushing the case and perhaps we should go slower now.”

  His pale eyes made contact with each of the three men in turn.

  “Good.”

  The dog was licking her private parts again as they left the restaurant. Cardozo tripped over her and stumbled into the prostitutes’ table. The black girl caught him.

  “Clumsy fellow, aren’t you?” de Gier asked.

  Grijpstra grinned. “Ignore him, Cardozo. I’ve seen the sergeant make such a mess here once that it took two waiters an hour to clean up after him.” Cardozo looked grateful.

  “I was making an arrest then,” de Gier said. “You always tell part of the story. We were trying to catch a fellow with a knife as long as your arm.”

  “Tut-tut-tut.”

  “Did he have a knife or didn’t he?”

  “We each had a pistol.”

  “Gentlemen,” the commissaris said from the open doorway, “it’s getting late. The door is open, there is a draft, me ladies will catch cold.”

  “Sir,” they said as they trooped into the street.

  \\ 15 /////

  IT WAS NEARLY ELEVEN O’CLOCK WHEN THE COMMISSARIS came home and his wife was waiting for him in the corridor.

  “Dear…”

  “Yes?”

  �
�You shouldn’t be out so late. I wish you would stay in, at least during the evening. You know what the doctor said.”

  “Yes. Rest. But I did rest.”

  “Just for two days, he said two weeks. Your bath will be ready in a few minutes.”

  “Good, any messages?”

  “Just one, a telephone call at nine o’clock. A Mr. de Bree.”

  “You have the number?”

  She pointed to the pad next to the telephone and he walked over to it and began to dial.

  “Mr. de Bree?”

  “Commissaris, I would like to come and see you if possible, something has come up.”

  “You could tell me over the telephone.”

  There was a pause. “I would rather come and see you. I have some information.”

  “Now?’

  “I can be with you in five minutes, I have my car.”

  “Very well.”

  The commissaris hung up. His wife was standing next to him, her arm around his shoulders. “Please, dear, not now, call him and tell him to come tomorrow. You’ve had such a long day and you look so pale. Why don’t you go and have your bath, surely the matter can wait till tomorrow.”

  “No, dear, it’s a bad case and I’ve been pushing it, it’s my own fault. The man won’t stay long, I promise.”

  The doorbell rang and the commissaris peeked from behind a curtain before he went to open the door. Mr. de Bree had arrived in a brand-new Mercedes and had left the car in the driveway. He had forgotten to close the car door and its lights were on.

  The bell rang again. The commissaris didn’t hurry. He opened the door and looked down on de Bree’s sweaty, bare skull, gleaming under the light of the driveway’s lantern.

  “Yes, Mr.de Bree?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, sir, but my information may be of interest to you and I thought…”

  “That’s quite all right, I hadn’t gone to bed yet. Please come in.”

  They walked through the long corridor and the commissaris led the way into his study. It was a hot evening and the garden doors were still open.

  “Perhaps we can sit outside, it’ll be pleasant in the garden.”

  They faced each other in two old cane chairs. The commissaris offered his flat tin and lit his visitor’s cigar. De Bree puffed nervously.

  “You said you had some information?”

  “Yes. You remember Paul, the terrier that belongs to the Carnets?”

  “The information has to do with the dog?”

  “No, but…”

  De Bree’s cigar showed a red-hot end; the commissaris could hear the tobacco crackle as more air was sucked into it.

  “Go ahead, Mr. de Bree, take your time.”

  “The dog. I went to see my lawyer as you suggested and he says it is a bad business…”

  “It is a bad business, Mr. de Bree.”

  “Yes. Quite. But I have some information, as I said just now, and it has to do with Mrs. Camet’s death. My lawyer said I should give it to you and…”

  “Maybe I would forget about the bad business with the dog?”

  “Yes.” De Bree looked much relieved. He was smiling broadly. The glowing cigar hung in his limp hand.

  The commissaris’s thin eyebrows met above the bridge of his nose. “No. Absolutely not. We won’t forget about Paul. You’ll go to court, Mr. de Bree, and get your verdict And I still want your information. If you don’t give it you will be in even more trouble. I am surprised your lawyer didn’t tell you that. I am sure he did tell you but perhaps you weren’t listening. If you have information mat concerns the Carnet death, and if a crime is involved in that death—and there is a crime involved, I assure you, Mr. de Bree—and if you withhold that information, men you are committing a crime yourself.”

  De Bree was sucking on his cigar again. “Really?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “But if I don’t tell you about what I saw then there is no information, commissaris. You won’t know what I saw. Maybe I saw nothing. You can’t accuse me because of something that does not exist.”

  “Your information does exist. You have told me twice already, once when I opened the door for you and once just now. Beg your pardon, you told me three times. You also told me on the phone. I am a police officer, I don’t need witnesses. If I write a report and state that you told me three times that you had information about the Carnet death and that you refused to give it to me afterward, then you are withholding evidence and my report, signed under oath, will be irrefutable proof, acceptable to the court.”

  “Is that so?” de Bree asked softly.

  There was an uneasy silence, accentuated by a slight rustle as a turtle came out of the weeds near the commissaris’s feet. De Bree looked down at the small armored creature that was plodding steadily forward. “A turtle!”

  “He lives here. Well, Mr. de Breer

  De Bree breathed out sharply; his nostrils widened and pointed threateningly, like the barrels of a miniature shot-gun.

  “Very well. That night, the night of the gale, the night of Mrs. Carnet’s death, I was in my garden. I was looking for Tobias. He hadn’t come in, and I was also worried about the trees, a lot of trees fell that night. While I was outside I heard a terrible screaming and shouting coming from Mrs. Carnet’s porch. There were several people shouting at the same time, but her voice was the loudest. I couldn’t hear what she said, but she appeared to be hysterical, completely out of control. And then the door of her porch opened and I saw her fall. She had a flowered dress on, which made her body stand out against the lights coming from the porch. Mrs. Carnet fell with such force that she must have been pushed, ‘shoved’ might be a better word. She came hurtling down and a man fell with her. He rolled over her, it seemed. He was holding on to her, so he must have pushed her to the door and the momentum of his push made him fall with her. I saw the two at the top of the stairs. I couldn’t see the complete fall for there were bushes in the way, and the hedge and some small trees, and the gale was blowing everything about. It happened very quickly, of course. There were more than two people in the Carnet house for I saw a shadow, a silhouette, move behind the windows of the porch, not very clearly, again, for there are curtains that are draped in such a way that more than half the surface of the windows is obscured.”

  “Did you see the man who fell with Mrs. Carnet go back into the house again?”

  “Yes. He was in pain. He was dragging himself up.”

  “Big man? Small man? Did you recognize him?”

  “I didn’t know him. He didn’t seem too big, but there was some distance and I couldn’t see too clearly. I had seen enough anyway. I went back into my house after that. Tobias had shown up and I didn’t want to hang around.”

  “Didn’t you realize that what you had seen made you a valuable witness to a crime?”

  De Bree shrugged. “Who wants to be a witness? It’s a lot of bother. You have to go to court and waste a lot of time, and some shyster tries to ask smart questions and show you up for a nitwitted fool. What other people do is other people’s concern. I hardly knew the Camets. Maybe they were having a party. And you mustn’t forget that I had no idea Mrs. Carnet was dead, I thought she just fell, twisted her ankle perhaps. There aren’t all that many steps to the stairs in these gardens. And if she had been in trouble the other people with her would have helped her.”

  “You knew there had been a crime later, when you learned that we had initiated an investigation.”

  De Bree wiped his face. “Yes, perhaps, but then you had got to me too, about the dog. I didn’t want to attract any more attention to myself until my lawyer suggested …”

  “I see. How was the man who fell with Mrs. Carnet dressed?”

  “I don’t remember. I saw a dark shape going down with her. It looked male. I think it wore a dark jacket, but ladies also wear dark jackets. Come to think of it now, I couldn’t even swear in court that the shape was male.”

  “And who was left o
n the porch? Male or female?”

  “Female, I think, but there again I can’t be sure, for I only had a glimpse of something moving. But mere had been a man involved in the fight, for when the screaming was going on there was a male voice.”

  “You say you didn’t hear any words. Do you remember what language they were screaming in?”

  “No. Dutch, I imagine, but I’m not sure. Mrs. Carnet is French, isn’t she? Originally, I mean?”

  “Belgian, but she did speak French.”

  De Bree got up. The turtle had reached a large rock and was standing against it, nibbling at a lettuce leaf that had been put out on a tray.

  “Your pet?”

  “Yes, and it doesn’t chase cats, all it does is try to destroy my wife’s herb garden.”

  De Bree smiled ruefully. “I really am sorry about that business with Paul, you know.”

  The commissaris smiled back. “I am sure, Mr. de Bree, and I hope your regret will show in court. Don’t forget to offer to pay damages before the judge mentions it, but I think your lawyer has given you the same advice already.”

  “Your bath,” his wife said as he came back from the front door.

  “Yes. But I want to phone the airport. I’ll be flying to Italy tomorrow, dear, a nice easy trip. I won’t be long, a day and a night at the most.”

  “Oh…”

  “Did you run the bath?” He was on his way up the stairs. “And by the way, did you remember to buy that cane?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you show it to me?”

  She went into the living room and came back carrying a bamboo cane with a silver handle.

  “Very nice, just what I had in mind. I’ll take it to Italy with me. This limp is beginning to be a nuisance. I can still hide it at headquarters where the doctor can see me but I think I’ll use the cane whenever I’m sure he isn’t around. I’ll keep it in the car, it’ll be safe there.”