Tumbleweed

glance of him. He must have stayed in his lair, sharpening his fangs with a file and doing physical exercises to keep fit.'

'Some story,' the constable said in a loud voice.

'Shhh, you'll wake up the commissaris,' de Gier whispered. 'I haven't finished yet. The commissaris was frustrated of course, but he didn't give in. He never does. He locked himself into his room for two days and thought and nobody was allowed to disturb him, not even his pet driver whom he was very fond of. And after two days he came out with a plan.'

'A plan,' the constable repeated.

'A psychological plan. He called Grijpstra and myself and three other men and told Grijpstra that he would have to go into the inner city by himself that night. Grijpstra did. We followed him, of course, but at a distance. Grijpstra had been given a large paper bag of the very best freshly roasted peanuts and we were all carrying bags as well, to give to Grijpstra in case he shouldn't have enough. The commissaris had told him that he should be eating peanuts all the time and talk to himself. He had to say, 'marvelous peanuts these' and 'very fresh, these peanuts, nice and crackly' and 'boy! I have never eaten such delicious peanuts in all my life.''

'Peanuts,' the constable repeated in a suspicious voice.

'Peanuts. Grijpstra had eaten four bags of peanuts and just started on his fifth when the killer rushed him. All we saw was a dark shadow flashing past. He tried to hit Grijpstra in the neck and to grab the bag at the same time but Grijpstra was alert and sidestepped and tripped him up. We were all on him at the same time and we threw a net over him, a special net which the commissaris had ordered from a firm which makes nets for catching sharks. It was a terrible fight and he nearly got away but we did manage to subdue him. Even Grijpstra helped although he was suffering from shock and full of peanuts and finally we overpowered the killer.'

'Who was he?' the constable asked.

'I'll tell you some other time,' de Gier said, changing his voice to normal. 'You can drop me off here, I live in this street. You actually managed to reach Amsterdam. Congratulations.'

The car stopped and the commissaris woke up. 'Are you getting out, de Gier?' he asked.

'Yes, sir. I live here.'

'Why don't you come home with me, you and Grijpstra. I live close by and you can walk home afterwards and Grijpstra can take a taxi. We'll have a drop of brandy and discuss what we should do tomorrow.'

'Sir,' de Gier said and got back in the car.

His mood improved when the commissaris raised his glass. The brandy smelled good, very good, and the commissaris was charming. He had apologized for keeping them so late and had flattered the two detectives by saying that he was enjoying working with them. He had gone to the kitchen and filled two bowls with chips and he had given Grijpstra the best chair in the room.

'Now,' the commissaris said, 'we don't seem to have achieved much tonight. It was clear that Mr. Wauters, our Belgian diplomat friend, wasn't prepared to tell us more than he had to. It was also clear that he didn't have an alibi.'

De Gier took another sip and made the brandy roll on his tongue. He saw the noncommittal face of the diplomat again. The diplomat had been very polite. He had spent Saturday night in his bachelor flat, by himself. He had watched a little TV and gone to sleep early. He hadn't left his flat, he hadn't gone to Amsterdam, and he hadn't killed Mrs. van Buren.

'He admitted that Maria van Buren was his mistress,' the commissaris said, 'and he admitted that he paid her a monthly sum. He wouldn't say how much. He knew, he said, that she had other friends but he had always pretended not to know. An arrangement between her and him. Very convenient. Live and let live. Avoid costly confrontations. A true diplomat.'

'He didn't seem sorry she had died,' de Gier said.

'Yes,' the commissaris said, 'that's an important observation. I noted the same reaction when I saw the American colonel this morning. The colonel was relieved, and so was Mr. Wauters. They saw the woman regularly, they went there to see her on their own accord, they spent money on her, a lot of money in the colonel's case and possibly also in the diplomat's case, but they were relieved to hear that they wouldn't have to go to see her again.'

'Strange,' Grijpstra said.

'A witch,' de Gier said.

'Beg pardon?' the commissaris asked.

'A witch, sir. She cultivated funny plants, we mentioned it in our report and the doctor confirmed that the plants we found in her houseboat were poisonous. Belladonna and nightshade and something else, I forgot the name.'

'Ah yes,' the commissaris said, 'I saw the report. Herbs. The third was thorn apple. Herbs are a craze nowadays, everybody cultivates them. But people cultivate them for their kitchens and for medicinal purposes. Nobody would cultivate poisonous plants.'

'Mrs. van Buren did,' Grijpstra said.

'You are suggesting that she was brewing poisons?' the commissaris said, looking at de Gier, 'brews which she made her victims drink and which paralyzed their will power in some way so that they were forced to come back to her?'

De Gier didn't answer.

'Could be,' the commissaris said. 'Maybe she cast a spell on them. Perhaps the spell consisted of her own sexual power and whatever she made them drink or eat or smoke. Or perhaps she burned a powder and they inhaled the poison.

The one force would enhance the other and they would only be satisfied if they got the two together. But it is far-fetched. It's romantic, of course.'

'De Gier is very romantic,' Grijpstra said.

The commissaris chuckled and refilled their glasses. 'Your health, gentlemen.' They drank.

'Nostalgic is the word,' the commissaris said. 'We are being taken back to the Middle Ages, the dark times when people lived in small communities in great forests. It's a time we have forgotten but it's still in the memory of the people, hidden, but alive. Lately it is coming up again, I have seen it in the hippies. Some of them must look exactly like wizards' disciples, pure fourteenth century. Do you ever go to bookshops?'

'No, sir,' Grijpstra said, 'not very often.'

'Yes, sir,' de Gier said.

'You must have noticed that books on herbs are very popular. I have read some of them. Collected rubbish I would say, stuff you can find in the encyclopedia, but then bunched together and with a couple of drawings thrown in. The real books are not for sale. The old hermits had books but you could only use them if the hermit was prepared to train you, and you had to live with him for years and he would really teach you about plants. One could also find out by oneself I daresay, by trying to grow herbs and by studying them. I spend some time in my garden every day, it's amazing what you can learn. Do you have a garden?'

'I have some plants on my balcony, sir,' de Gier said.

'What do you have?' the commissaris asked, looking very interested.

'Geraniums,' de Gier said, 'and something called asylum, a small plant with lots of little white flowers, it smells of honey.'

'Alyssum,' the commissaris said. 'Do you ever look at your plants?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And what do you see?'

'They are beautiful.'

'Yes,' the commissaris said slowly. 'They are beautiful. Even geraniums are beautiful, almost everybody has them and they are beautiful. It's the first lesson to learn.'

He had spoken with some emotion and the silence had come back into the room. It was a pleasant silence and Grijpstra suddenly felt very peaceful. De Gier was sitting on the edge of his chair, the brandy glass in his hand, waiting for the commissaris to speak.

'But I am not prepared to believe that Mrs. van Buren was a witch. She may have had the plants for some other reason. Maybe she liked the look of them. She had lots of other plants as well. She had the colonel in her power and I am sure she had our Mr. Wauters under her spell. But she was a beautiful sexy woman. Women have