The Caterpillar Cop

by James McClure

  The black pupil of the Smith & Wesson stared him back to the far side of the desk, yet it could not silence Jarvis.

  “You swine!” he said. “You filthy Boer bastard! Bringing a thing like that into a man’s house!”

  Come to think of it, the incongruity alone was powerfully disturbing. There squatted the servants’ bath, smack in the center of a rosewood veneer clean enough to eat off and surrounded by such elegance as a silver inkstand; a crystal goblet containing a single, immaculate rose; an ivory paperweight carved with great delicacy; and a picture in a leather frame of a young woman with her two little girls.

  “Ach, yes, it would have been nicer to bring Boetie along, but his ma wouldn’t let me,” Kramer replied.

  Jarvis jarred, as if struck a blow by the words.

  “My God! Is there no limit to the way you Afrikaans scum behave? First the Junior Gestapo and now you.”

  “But you wouldn’t have killed him if you’d really thought he worked for us,” Kramer said quietly.

  “Oh, no? Prove it!”

  And there it was: that incautious bravado Kramer had planned on producing.

  “Mrs. Jarvis is already being a great help.”

  “Sylvia? She wouldn’t tell you a damn thing as long as I live.”

  “Don’t tempt me, Captain.”

  “I see, you’re going to build a case on bluff and bullshit.”

  “How come I decided to dig up this dog, then? You didn’t notice her at the window? Take a look at its throat now the fur has fallen off.”

  “But she couldn’t know anything else anyway—that’s not enough and you know it.”

  “I’ve got plenty. You should have treated her better.”

  “Me? Why, I—”

  Jarvis struggled out of his jacket, hurling it into one corner.

  “How shall I put it, Captain? Mrs. Jarvis has promised to help us with the Swanepoel case if we don’t reopen the Cutler one.”

  “The woman’s mad! It would all come out in court anyway.”

  “Not necessarily. She was expecting, for the sake of the family’s name, that you would—well, you know.”

  “And get strung up as a sex killer? Good God Almighty, what help would that be?”

  “The medical evidence is against that for a start—and the element of premeditation. If you like to fill in a few more details, maybe I’ll be able to think of something.”

  It seemed Jarvis was no longer aware of the seething corruption before him as he collapsed into his chair, shattered with the realization he had already talked too much. He was not his abnormal self.

  The sewing machine refused to keep a neat stitch. Pembrook, whose mother was a dressmaker, assured Mrs. Jarvis he could repair it in a trice.

  “You’re such a nice boy,” she said.

  All along she had been struggling to contain her hysteria with her stiff upper lip. But she had refused adamantly to make any statement, for fear of what her husband would do.

  “Be nice to us, then,” coaxed Pembrook. “We can’t help it if there is this order from New York through Interpol. It won’t be in any of the local papers.”

  “Will it work now?” she asked, putting an arm over his bowed shoulders.

  Kramer had Zondi remove the bath and then drew his easy chair up closer to the desk.

  “From what you tell me,” he said to Jarvis, “you planned the whole thing too well. Take the sickle, for instance, chucking it out of your car window where a wog would find it means we’ll never trace it now.”

  “Newspaper appeal?”

  “When not one in a hundred can read? That’s a fat hope. And then again, the way you carried the sickle off the course in the hang-down lid of your golf bag—using a plastic bag in there cut out all traces of blood, as you say.”

  “I was very careful,” murmured Jarvis, half a size smaller now, it seemed. “Was a police wallah m’self once, you know.”

  “I suppose, with a bit of luck, we might find the wire from the dog with a metal detector.”

  “I’m pretty sure I didn’t put it in the dustbin—threw it in the hedge, I think. After all, I hardly expected you …”

  “How did you get Boetie up to the plantation?”

  “Piffling. Informed him I had my suspicions but I couldn’t afford to reveal them where we might be overheard.”

  “So that’s how the cigarette got on the ground,” Kramer said softly. “Boetie chucked the bloody thing away—deliberately. Discarded it as irrelevant.”

  Jarvis toyed with a paper knife.

  “There’s no way of doing it without connecting the two cases, Lieutenant.”

  A short while back Jarvis had been ranting and yelling, and now he was sitting there discussing his future so dispassionately it could have been that of a stranger. Mad as a rabid bloody meerkat. Apparently quite unaware he had been sprinkling around enough information for Kramer to have the whole thing sewn up by nightfall—providing, of course, both cases were used in conjunction. No, wait a minute, Kramer had him anyway so he, too, was becoming confused. It was the corroborating statement about the Cutler case that needed attention. Plus the compulsion Kramer felt to make this double-barreled bastard suffer for all the trouble he had caused. Quite suddenly, a most satisfactory idea occurred to him.

  Kramer stood up.

  “Captain,” he said, “we have overlooked one certain solution to your problem. In its way, it is also a solution to our own. Let us treat this as a matter of honor, as you would in the regiment, if you get my meaning. It would cause the least amount of damage to the family name and you will be required to undergo no indignity.”

  He picked up his revolver, which had been lying on the desk, and broke it open. Jarvis leaned forward and saw each chamber was loaded. The revolver was snapped shut.

  “In passing,” Kramer said, “I might point out that head injuries cause immense distress to those left behind. Now, having chatted amiably with you, as I shall tell the Colonel when he arrives in a minute, I’ll go up to the lavatory. Have I your understanding?”

  He placed the revolver nonchalantly on the desk.

  Jarvis got unsteadily to his feet—Kramer had encouraged him to drink freely during their lengthy discussion.

  The two men stood looking at each other in silence; shoulders back, stomachs in, chins out.

  “Spoken like a gentleman, sir!” said Jarvis.

  Kramer shook hands and left.

  Pembrook was very proud of his repair work and equally peeved when he found Kramer so inattentive while he gave a full explanation of what it had entailed.

  “He was sweet about it,” Mrs. Jarvis said. “Far, far better than that little man I usually get in when things go wrong.”

  “I think you’d better get down to helping him with his statement then,” Kramer said.

  “Oh, I can’t! I’ve told you why, I simply can’t.”

  “Come on, madam, sit down and Constable Pembrook will make it all very simple.”

  “But, sir—Christ!”

  A single shot had sounded from downstairs.

  Mrs. Jarvis began to laugh in that crazy way once again. When she overdid it, Kramer slapped her.

  “Was that Peter?” she asked, her broad smile remaining.

  Kramer nodded.

  “But how the—”

  “When you feel up to it, your statement, please, Mrs. Jarvis.”

  Pembrook looked in amazement from one face to the other.

  “Oh, but I must first go and tell Caroline it was nothing to worry about,” she said. “Don’t go away, young man.”

  “And I’d better go down and see what has happened,” Kramer added.

  They parted company on the landing.

  * * *

  Zondi, who had run in from the servants’ quarters, met Kramer at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hau! Who is shooting?” he asked, bewildered.

  “Boss Jarvis. Let’s inspect the damage.”

  Kramer seemed absurdly jolly and
this left Zondi considerably apprehensive. He followed him down the passage and into the study.

  There, on the far side of the big desk, Captain Jarvis lay slumped in his chair, a huge powder burn on his shirt front over the heart. From his right hand hung a .38 Smith & Wesson with distinctive ivory embellishments.

  “It’s your gun, boss! How can this be?”

  “Must have left it behind after our nice little talk—stupid of me. Can’t remember doing that.”

  “He’s breathing!”

  “I should bloody well hope so.”

  “Boss?”

  Unable to restrain himself, Zondi rushed forward and then realized there was no blood to be seen.

  Kramer worked the trigger guard off Jarvis’s finger and broke open the revolver. He cleared the chambers and a stunted spent cartridge, plus five others with curiously crimped noses, jumped into his hand.

  Blanks.

  “I’ve had them in there ever since the gala,” he admitted, winking.

  Then Zondi recalled that, when locked in mortal combat with an oversexed witch doctor, he had seen a blond phantom making no attempt to use the firearm it carried. Sudden comprehension slid icily like a hailstone down his spine. He shuddered.

  “You’re crazy, boss!”

  “Why so? There was never any real likelihood of violence in this case. All kid gloves and romance in the bloody moonlight.”

  So saying, Kramer put the rose between his teeth and poured the contents of the crystal vase over Jarvis. It was too warm for an immediate effect but they did not have to wait overlong.

  “Where’m I?” Jarvis slurred—nobody expected for a moment he would come out with anything original.

  “Guess,” said Kramer.

  Jarvis’s lids parted briefly.

  “My study,” he mumbled.

  “Wrong,” said Kramer.

  “Where then?”

  “Hell,” replied Kramer. “Just improvising, you understand, until we get the noose on you. After that, who knows? I never take chances.”

  This time Jarvis opened his eyes wide and kept them open.

  “You Afrikaner scum,” he said, with such hatred Zondi feared for the worst.

  But Kramer laughed. “Don’t blame me, Captain—blame Professor Aardvark.”

  And he thoroughly enjoyed his little in-joke.

  Zondi was able to share his amusement. It was he who had shown the lieutenant that the first word in any English dictionary was, in fact, Cape Dutch.