saw him in town in the afternoon, after the ferry left, the last ferry. He couldn't have gone to Amsterdam that evening. There's no way to get off the island, no airport, nothing.'
'His yacht?' Grijpstra asked. 'Surely the yacht is fast, it could get to the coast as quick as the ferry, and it only takes two hours in a fast car to Amsterdam. He has a fast car, a Citroen. He could have been back in his villa the same evening.'
'Yes,' the adjutant said, 'but I think the yacht was here. I'll have to ask my colleague, he was out in the launch that evening. It was a nice night I remember, he often goes out, just for the fun of it. But Drachtsma could have used another boat, of course. There are a lot of boats in the harbor and anybody would lend him a boat if he asked for it.'
'Maybe he didn't ask,' de Gier said. 'If he knew the boats he could have used one and the owner would never know.'
Adjutant Buisman thought for a while. 'He could have. But these German chaps say they spent the evening at his house and he was there with them. Your commissaris will have their names and addresses and he has probably asked the German police to check. Contacts with the foreign police are good nowadays, they tell me.'
'Yes,' Grijpstra said.
Buisman ordered another round and they drank for a while and smacked their lips and looked at each other.
'Suppose he did send a man to do the job for him, how will you go about proving it? You would have to find the man, wouldn't you?'
'He might be from the island, an old friend from the war days perhaps, somebody who could use a lot of money or somebody who admired him.'
'Ah,' Buisman said. 'The knife. A fighting knife it was, a soldier's knife, and it was thrown. I could find out who knows how to throw a knife. I wouldn't know offhand. The rangers of the reserves have knives but they wouldn't throw them, and we have knives, we are often on the sea and a knife is always handy in a boat.'
''We, the police,' you mean?' de Gier asked.
'No,' Buisman laughed. 'I mean 'we, the people who sail boats.' I have a sailing boat of my own, you know.'
'Perhaps you could find out,' Grijpstra said. 'I admit that we haven't got much to stand on. Perhaps we are only here because we don't know what else to do and the commissaris has gone to . He'll be back soon and he'll probably tell us to come back as soon as he sees the note on his desk.'
'That's better,' the adjutant said. 'Let's make a little holiday out of it. I'll see if I can find a knife thrower and you have a bit of a rest and a bit of a walk. You mentioned birdwatching, this is the right time of the year for it. What say if you go to bed early and I pick you up early tomorrow morning. It's mating time now and I can show you some marvelous sights, sights you will never see in the city. How about that?'
Buisman's face was wreathed in smiles and Grijpstra didn't have the heart to refuse, but he tried.
'My friend here is very interested in birds, he was telling me all about it on the ferry. Why don't you go together and I'll see you later tomorrow. I have a bit of a cold.' He coughed a few times.
'No,' de Gier said quickly. 'You come as well. Maybe we'll see some mallards.'
'Yes, you come too,' Buisman said, getting up. 'Mallards you can see anywhere but here I can show you six or seven different types of duck and there are others, really rare birds which I want to show you. See you tomorrow.'
'What time will you be here?' Grijpstra asked, trying his best to make his voice sound eager.
'Early,' Buisman said. 'It'll have to be early or we won't see anything. I'll be here at three-thirty sharp; I'll wait in the street. Put some warm clothes on. Have you got binoculars?'
De Gier nodded.
'You, Grijpstra?'
'No,' Grijpstra said, 'I haven't got any binoculars.'
'Never mind. I'll borrow a pair from the police station. They are heavy but they are better than mine. You'll have to be careful for they cost a fortune. Well, have a good time.'
'Shit,' Grijpstra said as the door closed behind the adjutant. 'Shit and shit again. Now why did you have to get me into it? You got me sick on the boat with your revolting sausage, peeling the skin off it as if it were a boiled monkey's pecker, and now you want me to stump through the mud in the middle of the night to see a lot of floppy birds jumping at each other. A joke is a joke but this is ridiculous. Sometimes you overdo it, you know.'
He was red in the face and thumping the table with his fist.
'Do you think I like it?' de Gier said, his face just as red. 'And who was telling the adjutant that I liked birds. You know I was only egging you on on the ferry. What do I know about coot and cormorants and whatnots? Just a few names I happened to remember. We need this man, don't we? And we can't upset him by refusing his invitations? I don't like drinking jenever in the middle of the day but I accepted just to please him. And I don't like playing billiards. And I am damned if I'll walk through the mud while you are stinking and snoring in your bed.'
Grijpstra had begun to laugh and de Gier, after having tried unsuccessfully to stare him down, joined him. Soon they were hiccuping and helplessly patting the table.
Grijpstra shouted for more jenever and they finished up playing billiards, giggling at each other.
'Three-thirty in the morning,' de Gier said.
'Promise never to tell anyone.'
'I promise,' de Gier said.
They shook hands and went to the dining room for a late lunch.
By nine o'clock that night they were fast asleep, worn out by thirty games of billiards and some seven or eight glasses of old cold jenever each.
13
'Excuse me,' a pleasant well-modulated voice said. 'Do you mind if I sit down at your table for a moment?'
The commissaris looked up from his plate of fried noodles and shrimps. He had been eating and looking at the map, spread out on the table next to his plate, at the same time. He felt a little perturbed by the interruption; he had refused Silva's invitation to lunch in order to be by himself and he had, after having walked about for a few minutes, found a cheap clean-looking Chinese restaurant where he could enjoy his favorite food. And now there was someone else, standing patiently next to him and wanting something.
'Please,' the commissaris said, 'please sit down.' He shook hands.
'Van der Linden,' the neatly dressed man said. 'I saw you at the airport yesterday, I saw you again in the lounge of the hotel last night and now I see you for the third time in two days. In it is quite unheard of to meet the same man three times in two days without knowing his name, so I have taken the liberty of making your acquaintance.'
The commissaris smiled, looking at the face of the old gentleman. Mr. van der Linden would probably be close to seventy but a pair of very alive eyes twinkled in his face which seemed to be covered with old white-yellowish leather.
'I am a tourist,' the commissaris said. 'Surely you must see thousands of tourists wandering through your city.'
Mr. van der Linden smiled and the waxed ends of his mustache vibrated. 'No, sir. Excuse me for contradicting you. You are not a tourist.'
'No?' the commissaris asked.
'No. A tourist has no purpose. He wanders about, looking at the shop windows. He wears an open shirt with a flower pattern, or striped, and he talks in a loud voice. He has to, for otherwise he loses his identity.'
'Ah.'
'A tourist doesn't wear a shantung suit with a waistcoat. Your waistcoat intrigues me. I haven't seen anyone wear a waistcoat for years.'
The commissaris looked down at his waistcoat. 'It went with the suit,' he said guiltily, 'and it isn't warm. It
