would boil people alive if they didn't kneel down in his presence.'
'Go on,' de Gier said. 'What else did he do?'
'He finally finished sniffing and climbed on my shoulder. Then he jumped into your bookcase and disappeared so I forgot about him until a lot of books dropped on my head.'
'Yes,' de Gier said, 'he does that. He wrings himself through a small hole somewhere and gets behind the books. Then he stretches out to his full length and shoves. He can move as many as twenty books in one shove. He does it to me too and then he looks down and grins.'
'You should hit him when he does that.'
'No,' de Gier said. 'I never hit him. I think he is an intelligent cat. I have never heard of cats shoving books onto people. Did he do anything else?'
'Yes,' Grijpstra said. 'He jumped on that antique cupboard you have and stalked about for a while, pretending he was a tiger, but he annoyed me so I suddenly clapped my hands and yelled and he got a fright and forgot his act. Haha, you should have seen him, he tried to jump in two directions at once and fell off the cupboard. He really fell and he looked bloody silly when he scrambled about on the floor.'
'Frightening a poor little animal,' de Gier said contemptuously.
'Yes,' Grijpstra said. 'I frightened him out of his royal wits. About time somebody did.'
'He'll bite you next time,' de Gier said.
'If he bites me,' Grijpstra said solemnly, and patted the large automatic pistol attached to his belt, 'I will shoot him right between the eyes.'
'If you shoot him,' de Gier said solemnly, and patted the small automatic pistol stuck into a shoulder holster, 'I will shoot you, right through the heart.'
'Yes,' Grijpstra said, 'let's do that. I hope Sietsema and Geurts will be sent to investigate.'
'They'll never catch me,' de Gier said.
'Of course they will catch you,' Grijpstra said.
They had walked back to their office and were now sitting down, each behind his own gray steel desk.
'They wouldn't, you know,' de Gier said.
'You have thought of some brilliant strategy of escape?'
'Yes,' de Gier said.
'Would you tell me?'
'Why should I?'
'Because I am your friend,' Grijpstra said sweetly.
De Gier nodded. 'Yes, you are my friend. I don't believe in friendship because, as Mr. IJsbrand Drachtsma explained this afternoon, nothing lasts and everything comes to an end and is, therefore, illusionary and without any real substance. But, for the time being anyway, you are my friend.'
'So tell me how we wouldn't catch you.'
'You would be dead,' de Gier said.
'Ah, true. How Sietsema and Geurts wouldn't catch you.'
'Because I know how the city computer works. I would put on a white coat and mix with the other white coats and press a few buttons and I would have a new name. And then I would hire another flat. And then I would get a job as a trashman and the city would give me one of those clever motorized carrier cycles and a broom and I would be out in the sun all day and loaf a lot and talk to people and I would be happy.'
'And we would never spot you?'
'You would be dead,' de Gier said reproachfully.
'I keep forgetting. So the police would never spot you?'
'Never,' de Gier said.
'They probably wouldn't,' Grijpstra said. 'Good idea. Thank you.'
'You are going to try it out?' de Gier asked.
Grijpstra had picked up his drumsticks and sounded a hesitant roll.
'Good,' de Gier said, and took out his flute. They played until the telephone rang.
'Mr. Holman has arrived,' Grijpstra said, softly hitting the side of his drum. 'The commissaris is waiting for us; he had him taken to his own room.'
'What's all this?' de Gier asked. 'I thought we were supposed to work on this case.'
'Allow an old man his pleasure,' Grijpstra said.
Mr. Holman's hand was flabby and moist but he tried to put some power in his grip. He was putting on a brave show. The commissaris had placed his guest in a low chair and the three policemen were looking down at their victim, who squirmed.
Grijpstra felt sorry for the fat man. He sat down himself and smiled.
Mr. Holman smiled back; the smile hovered on his thick lips, disappearing as soon as it had come.
'I read about Mrs. van Buren's death in the newspaper,' he said in a high voice. 'I was very sorry to learn that she was killed. She was a nice lady.'
De Gier remembered that he had read Mr. Holman's file that morning. Two convictions. One for embezzlement some ten years ago, and one for causing grievous injuries. He had also studied the details of the two cases. Mr. Holman had, when he still worked for a boss, failed to hand in a few thousand guilders which a customer had paid for goods received. There had been no invoice but Mr. Holman had signed a receipt. Three months in jail of which two were suspended. And a year later he had hit his neighbor's son. The boy had been trampling on some young plants in Mr. Holman's garden. The boy had fallen against a fence post and had been taken to hospital. A slightly cracked skull. Three months in jail.
'A shifty violent character,' de Gier thought but what he saw didn't agree with the conclusion he had drawn from the file. Like many fat men Mr. Holman looked jolly. 'A jolly chap,' the commissaris was thinking. 'Pity he is so nervous.'
Grijpstra was also thinking but vaguely. He had remembered that Mr. Holman sold nuts. Grijpstra liked nuts, especially cashew nuts which he sometimes bought in small tins. But the nuts were expensive. 'If I were corrupt,' Grijpstra thought, 'I would make him give me a whole jute bag full of cashew nuts and I would go home and eat them.'
'What was your relationship to Mrs. van Buren, Mr. Holman?' the commissaris asked.
'I just knew her,' Mr. Holman said. There was a squeak in his voice which he tried to hide by clearing his throat.
'Tell us about it,' the commissaris said pleasantly. 'We are interested. She was killed as you know, murdered, and the more we know about her the easier it will be for us to find her killer. If she was a friend of yours you would want us to find her killer, wouldn't you?'
'Yes,' Mr. Holman said, 'yes, she was a friend of mine. But not a very good friend. It was all because of my little boy and his ball.'
'Ball?' the commissaris asked.
'Yes. He dropped it into the Schinkel, into the river. He likes me to take him for a walk on Sunday mornings and we drive out to the Schinkel and park the car and then we walk. Sometimes we play with his ball. I don't like playing ball so usually he throws it about by himself, and one Sunday morning it went into the river. He is only four years old and he was very upset. I said I would buy him a new bait because it had floated out of reach but he began to howl so I knocked on Mrs. van Buren's door thinking I might reach the ball from her boat. I didn't know her then.'
'And she asked you in?'
'Yes. She was very helpful.'
'And did you get the ball?'
Mr. Holman suddenly giggled. 'Yes, we got it in the end, but meanwhile my little son had managed to fall into the Schinkel. He fell out of the window.'
'That must have been a nice morning,' Grijpstra said, thinking of the many walks his children had forced him to make on Sunday mornings.
'A very complicated morning,' Mr. Holman was saying. 'We had to get his clothes off and dry them and I couldn't leave.'
'Did you mind?' the commissaris asked.
