telephone, in the booth over there. It must have been early this morning, around four o'clock, the doctor said. Maybe he saw the killer walking about in the street here. Perhaps he thought he was safe, dressed up like an old lady, and all. He got into the telephone booth and got a knife in his back.'
'Yes,' the commissaris said. 'She was trying to telephone me but she didn't get through. Poor Elizabeth. She must have been dialing my number as the killer knifed her. Elizabeth was a 'she,' de Gier, you shouldn't refer to her as a 'he.' She was a nice old lady, and courageous too. I should never have asked her to help us. She should have been in bed last night, with Tabby warming her old feet.'
'She wasn't,' de Gier said. 'She was right here, watching the killer return to the scene of the crime. And I should have been here too. And Grijpstra. She was dragged from that booth to the water; we found blood traces on the cobblestones. The killer had all the time in the world. He didn't just dump the body. If he had it would have floated and somebody would have found it almost immediately. He tied it up with a bit of string. It's amazing the Water Police found it so quickly. It was welt hidden between the quay and the houseboat over there.'
'So you didn't notice anything special, did you? Apart from the blood traces?'
'Yes, sir. The knots in the string. They were professional knots, made by a sailor or an experienced fisherman. Which reminds me, sir…'
'Yes?'
'I think I know a little more about the spiked rubber ball which killed Abe Rogge.'
Tell me.'
'I saw some kids playing with a ball attached to an elastic string once, sir. The string was held by a weight placed on the street. I think the ball which killed Rogge was attached to a string too. The killer pulled it back afterward, which explains why we didn't find it. And I think the killer wasn't in the street; he was on the roof of the old houseboat moored opposite the Rogges' house. Perhaps he had hidden himself behind the chimney. You can see it over there, sir.' De Gier pointed to the other side of the Straight Tree Ditch.
'Yes,' the commissaris said. 'So the riot police in the street didn't see him maybe. That's what you mean, don't you? But there were riot police patrolling this side of the canal too. Shouldn't they have seen him?'
'He must have been quick, sir. Hid himself in the houseboat, sneaked through one of its windows at the right moment, threw the ball, pulled it back, sneaked back into the boat's window and disappeared later when the constables were at the other end of the street. They would have let him through easily enough. He probably looked like an ordinary citizen and they wouldn't have thought that he was a rioter. I think they took him for someone who lived in the street and who had come out to do a little shopping or go somewhere.'
The killer could have been a woman,' the commissaris said. 'Abe Rogge had a lot of girlfriends. A jealous woman or a humiliated woman. I am supposed to see two of them today. You gave me the names and addresses, remember? I am sure they are both young and strong and capable of throwing balls.'
De Gier shook his head.
'You don't think the killer might have been a woman, sergeant?'
'Could be, sir, why not? But I can't understand the deadly aim of the ball. Even from the roof of that houseboat there's quite a distance to cover and the ball hit Rogge smack in the face. Now if the ball had been shot… I think we are dealing with a hellish machine, sir.''
The commissaris grimaced.
'Well, it could be, couldn't it sir?'
The commissaris nodded.
'But a machine which throws or shoots a ball makes a sound. Or would it have used a spring perhaps? A crossbow maybe? But then there is still some sort of twang. A loud sound, I would say. The patrolling constables should have heard it.'
'A person on the roof of a houseboat handling some strange noisy device while riot police are close…' The commissaris' voice sounded doubtful.
'Perhaps not,' de Gier agreed.
'But I agree with your thought of the ball being connected to string, elastic or otherwise,' the commissaris said. 'Very clever to think of that, sergeant. You started off right, all you have to do now is continue your line of reasoning. I'll help. And so should Grijpstra and Cardozo. It's probably quite simple. Everything is simple once you understand it.' He grimaced again.
'Something funny, sir?'
The commissans groaned and robbed his thighs. 'Yes. I was thinking of something which happened die other day. My wife bought a newfangled type of folding chair and brought it home. She had forgotten how it worked and I fussed with it for a while but it only squeezed my hand. Then the neighbor's daughter came in. She is retarded but her lack of brain didn't stop her from having a go at the damned chair and she had it standing up in no time at all. I asked her to show me how she had done it but she didn't know. Evidently she could only solve a problem very quickly, without thinking about it.'
'You think this killing device is like your folding chair, sir?'
'Perhaps,' the commissaris said. 'Maybe we should just concentrate on the problem and the solution will pop up. Thinking might take too long. We haven't got much time.'
'Yes,' de Gier said. 'You are looking ill, sir, shouldn't you go home?'
'I'll go home now. I want you to check out two women sometime this afternoon or tonight. Grijpstra has their names and telephone numbers. They are call-girls and they were with Klaas Bezuur from about nine o'clock last night till about five o'clock this morning. Grijpstraf
Grijpstra came ambling up.
'Sir?'
'I am going home for a while, I don't feel so well. Telephone the two ladies we are supposed to see today; set up appointments for late this afternoon or this evening. Once you have set up the appointments you can contact my driver and he'll pick you up and then you can come fetch me. It would be best if one of the girls is available before dinner and the other after dinner. That way you and I can eat together sometime. I want to make up for calling you out today.'
Grijpstra brought out his notebook and wrote down the names and addresses of the two girls.
'Yes, sir. They used to be Mr. Rogge's girlfriends, right, sir?'
'Right.'
'Constable,' the commissaris shouted.
'Sir.'
'Home,' the commissaris whispered. It was all he could say. He was almost fainting with pain.
Grijpstra found de Gier contemplating a tree trunk. The lithe body of the sergeant swayed slightly as he stood, hands folded on his back, staring moodily at the elm's green bark.
Cardozo was watching the sergeant too. 'Don't disturb him,' Cardozo said, holding Grijpstra back. 'He is busy. He is swaying. Look.'
'So he is,' the adjutant said.
'He isn't Jewish, is he?' Cardozo asked.
'Not that I know of,' Grijpstra said. 'Although, yes, I think he told me once that he has a Jewish grandmother.'
'You see,' Cardozo said. 'He is Jewish. If his grandmother was Jewish his mother was too and that makes him a Jew. It goes via the female line, very wisely. Nobody ever knows who his father was but you can be sure about your mother. And Jews sway, they always sway. When they have a problem, that is, or when they are concentrating on something. They do it during prayer. Back and forth, back and forth. The Spanish Inquisition used to catch us because we swayed. We couldn't help ourselves. And they'd burn us. A strange habit, isn't it?'
'No,' Grijpstra said. 'The sergeant is an ordinary man, like me. He is swaying because he feels like swaying. Not because he has Jewish blood. Maybe he hasn't got any, maybe somebody else told me he had a Jewish grandmother.'
'Holland had only one philosopher,' Cardozo said, speaking very slowly, articulating every syllable. 'Spinoza. He was a Jew and he didn't even write in Dutch, he wrote in Latin.'
'Why didn't he write in Dutch?'
'He couldn't do it. Have you ever tried to express subtle thoughts in Dutch?'
'I never have subtle thoughts,' Grijpstra said, 'but it's about time we had some.'
