\\ 16 /////
The Chief Inspectorsat behind his desk, watching his cactus, which showed signs of growing a branch. The future branch was still no more than a slight swelling and might be a mere bump, some sort of infection, a wound perhaps, but it might also be a bud. Perhaps the cactus was trying to develop a flower. The ehief inspector was considering whether he should cut if off. The bump, wound, growth or bud was spoiling the straightness of his plant.
He shook his head irritably. Perhaps the growth would be interesting. He closed the small penknife that had been lying on his desk for some time and put it back into his pocket.
The room was stuffy, filled with a damp heat being wafted through the open windows by a listless draft that might, later in the day, develop into a breeze. The heat had a slight smell of a hospital.
The chief inspector opened his nostrils and breathed deeply.
The smell made him think again of the Papuan who had been sitting at the other side of his desk, a little while ago. The Papuan had been flanked by his two captors. He brought some order in his thoughts.
'They caught him,' he thought. 'They had to shoot him to catch him but they merely winged him. Good work. An insignificant wound that is healing already. And they took him here. An arrested murderer. Took a long time though, three weeks is a long time. But he was clever. An intelligent man. And a dangerous man, no doubt about it. A trained killer, properly trained. And now they say he is trustworthy.'
He closed his eyes and the orderly thoughts flaked off into a hazy pattern of hardly connected and only partly formed images. Papuans, he thought, wild men from the early ages. He saw the wild men from the early ages who once populated the swamp that, now, today, was called Holland. Powerful small men, bearded and lowbrowed, huddled near their campfires, exhausted from a buffalo hunt or an attack on a competing tribe's close-by village.
'Then the Romans came,' the chief inspector thought. 'In New Guinea the Dutch came. Some of our wild men must have joined the Roman army and some of them must have seen Rome. And now a Papuan has come to Amsterdam.'
He got up and looked out of the window.
Grijpstra had made a proposition, a proposition inspired by an idea of the Papuan. The Papuan had lost his rights, he had been arrested, a prisoner's requests are of little consequence.
He looked at his cactus again, the enormous green phallus, the thorned phallus.
He had been requested to release a murderer, for a limited period of time of course. But a free man can escape. He turns a corner, he runs, he catches a streetcar or jumps on a bicycle. There are a lot of bicycles in Amsterdam.
He picked up his phone.
'The commissaris is ill today, sir,' a girl's voice said. The chief inspector put his hand over the phone, swore, took his hand off the phone, thanked the girl, and rang off.
He dialed again.
'My husband is suffering of an attack of rheumatism, he is in the bath. It eases the pain, he says. Can I give him a message?'
The chief inspector thought.
'I really have to speak with-your husband, madame,' he said.
'One moment.'
The chief inspector waited.
'Could you come here?'
'Right away,' the chief inspector said. 'I'll be with you in fifteen minutes.'
The chief inspector sat on a wooden footstool and looked at the commissaris' head. He had placed himself in such a position that he couldn't see more than the commissaris' head. The commissaris was in his bath, stretched out on his back, hands folded on his small, round, old man's belly which, if the chief inspector could have seen it, would have reminded him of an old-fashioned pith-helmet. 'Well?' the commissaris asked.
The chief inspector spoke for some ten minutes. The commissaris interrupted him only once. He wanted one of his small cigars, from a box which the chief inspector found on the bathroom floor. The chief inspector lit the cigar and placed it carefully between the commissaris' thin bloodless lips.
The commissaris inhaled, puffed, and began to cough. The chief inspector removed the cigar.
'All right,' the commissaris said.
'All right,' Grijpstra said and put the phone down.
De Gier jumped from his chair.
'They agree?' he asked unbelievingly.
Grijpstra nodded.
'But if anything goes wrong the case is all ours again.'
De Gier laughed.
'What would you expect?' he asked.
Grijpstra smiled. 'I didn't expect them to agree.'
'No,' de Gier said. 'I didn't expect them to agree either but perhaps they should have agreed. The police have always used methods like that.'
Grijpstra nodded, and rubbed his chin. The tough short hairs bristled against the inside of his hand. He hadn't shaved that morning and he hadn't had time to sneak off to the upstairs toilet where he kept an old tin containing a much better razor than he had at home, and a tube of shaving cream. Mrs. Grijpstra didn't approve of shaving cream, ordinary soap is much cheaper.
'You haven't shaved,' de Gier said.
'No,' Grijpstra frowned and a deep line formed between his eyebrows.
'Faulty discipline, hey?' de Gier asked.
'Yes yes.'
'But you should shave. Why didn't you? Did you oversleep?'
'I like shaving,' Grijpstra said, 'but they shouldn't shout at you when you are shaving.'
De Gier nodded. 'You are quite right. They shouldn't.'
'Because if they shout at you,' Grijpstra explained, 'you may become a little annoyed, and throw your brush on the floor.'
'And leave the house,' de Gier said, 'and bang the door.'
'Now I'll shave,' Grijpstra said. 'I'll be a little while. I'll have to get some hot water from the canteen. You go and fetch van Meteren. I hope he slept well. The doctor should have come and seen him meanwhile. He is a strong chappie all right, a little heap of misery yesterday and full of beans today according to the guards.'
'He had a good cell,' de Gier said, 'and I saw to it that they looked after him. Clean sheets, extra pillows, cups of tea, and the drunks next door were taken downstairs. I think he had a long quiet night.'
De Gier was back within half an hour with van Meteren, who lit one of Grijpstra's cigars, drank the coffee that de Gier fetched, and looked through the telephone book that he found on de Gier's desk.
'Hello,' van Meteren said, 'is that you, Mr. de Kater? This is van Meteren.'
Grijpstra had pressed a switch and a microphone attached to the telephone made de Rater's voice audible to the detectives.
'Morning. Mr. van Meteren,' de Kater's civilized voice was saying. 'How are you? I hope you found a good room?'
'Certainly. Close by, too. I am living around the corner from my old address, on the top floor of an old house on the Brouwersgracht, I am quite comfortable here.'
'I am glad to hear it. I am sorry about having had to ask you to move but you will understand that I bought the house at the Haarlemmer Houttuinen to sell it again, and an empty house is easier to sell. What can I do for you, Mr. van Meteren?'
'A small favor Mr. de Kater. I am planning to leave the country in the near future and I need a little money. I worked it out and I could use some twenty thousand, in small notes, twenty fives and hundreds perhaps.'
'Yes?' de Kater asked politely.
