'Of, course. You need to know a price. But I have no price, not today. There are several shareholders, and I'll have to round them up and make them talk sense. The effort will take time. You have some time, sir?'
'A few days.'
'And where can I reach you?'
'In Cape Orca. I am going back to my sister's house this afternoon. She has a telephone.'
Symons got up. 'Very well, sir. Let me write the number and your name down and you'll hear from me. Within a few days, no doubt about that.'
'Another front, sir,' the sergeant said as they walked back to the hotel.
'Yes, sergeant. If he hadn't been drinking he would have betrayed himself easily, but the alcohol kept his mind steady and made him come up with a good enough answer. He'll be telephoning Astrinsky now, trying to find out who we are. And Astrinsky will tell him. Symons won't be over-worried. On the contrary, he might be pleased. Our visit may have given him an opportunity for blackmail. Symons knows who the real owner is behind Cape Orca. He may be able to charge money for keeping the name a secret.'
'We can find out, sir. There'll be a chamber of commerce here. Boston Better Holdings will be registered, and the name or names of its owners should be on file.'
It took a while to find the chamber of commerce, and it took longer for the clerk to give them the required file. De Gier and the commissaris both smiled at the same time. 'Bahama Better Holdings Company,' the commissaris read. 'How's that, sergeant? Do you want to fly to the Bahamas?'
'And find another company behind that one, sir?'
'Very likely. But there will be an end to the maze, sergeant. If we keep at it we'll find our way out.'
'The Bahamas are British I believe, sir, or independent by now. It might be a bit of a job to trace the shareholders. We might telephone the Dutch consul on the islands.'
'No, sergeant. If we do that we have to go through Amsterdam headquarters, and the chief constable isn't even aware that we are involved in an investigation. We should also remember that our boss is the sheriff of Woodcock County, Maine, USA. The investigation isn't ours at all. We are free-lance detectives employed by the Jameson sheriff's department.'
De Gier grinned. 'Are we, sir?'
'Of course.'
'But your sister wants the right price for her house, sir.'
The commissaris' voice dropped to a hissing whisper. 'Really, sergeant. That's private business. If the sheriff had shown no interest in Cape Orca I would have advised Suzanne to take her thirty thousand and get out while the going is good. But it so happens that the sheriff is interested and we can bring him some positive information now. Astrinsky is shaken and Boston Better Holdings is a front. That Mr. Symons is a bad egg, not a very bad egg though. He is too weak to be evil. Just rotten. Yes, I think we can advise the sheriff to push a little further.'
'Where do you think Astrinsky stands, sir?'
The commissaris waved his cane. 'Astrinsky? Either a middleman or a true criminal. I would think that he is a middleman. I can't understand yet why Astrinsky consented to play the game in the first place. He isn't courageous by any means. I wonder what the connection between Astrinsky and the wanted party is. Just greed?'
'Half the people I have arrested were breaking the law to make money, sir.'
'Yes, sergeant. But the desire to make money is a symptom of all sorts of emotional disturbances-greed is only one of them. Mr. Astrinsky, yes, hmmm… I would like to think that his part in the game is a little more complicated than it seems to us now. Not just greed. I would be disappointed if we uncovered nothing else. The stories his daughter told you are fascinating. She should be an unusual girl. And if that assumption is true, her father might have more depth than we have given him credit for.'
They had to cross the park again to reach the hotel, and the commissaris walked slowly, stopping every now and then to study the trees. Most trees were adorned with small name plates, and the commissaris mumbled the Latin words, following the English classifications. Three men with long black beards sheltered under an impressive oak. They eyeballed the commissaris solemnly and greeted him by holding up three identical flat, unlabeled bottles.
'One, two, /top!' the tallest man said, and the three bottles pierced the three beards.
De Gier nudged the commissaris' arm. 'Let's go, sir. When they have swallowed that they'll be looking for trouble.'
The commissaris quickened his step. 'No more trouble, sergeant, no more than is strictly due to us. You're right.'
But they ran into a little more trouble before the day was over. There were other passengers on the plane to Jameson: several hunters and Michael Astrinsky. Astrinsky raised a hand when he boarded but made no effort to start a conversation. The commissaris dozed and de Gier smoked and looked out the window. Nothing but clouds, nothing happened, they didn't even hit any air pockets.
When the plane landed the cruiser was waiting. The sheriff didn't smile when the commissaris limped up to him.
'Good to see you, sir. I was waiting for you. I've just come back from the scene of a crime. Bob and Bert are still there. I think I'll have to call in die state police for sure now. Bernie got himself shot in the head this morning, on a road that goes nowhere, north of Cape Orca. His head is almost off. The weapon was a shotgun, fired from close quarters. Perhaps you'd like to have a look at his corpse before I sound the alarm and call in the supercops. You might see something we've missed.'
15
The snow,' the Sheriff said. 'It does help to cover it all up.'
Nearly two feet of snow had transformed Bernie's cruiser into an indeterminate, sparkling white shape in a curve of the narrow road.
'The engine was still running when we arrived this morning.'
The commissaris was studying a disturbed area at the side of the road. 'You found the chief deputy's corpse over here, sheriff?'
'Yes, sir. Albert thought there was still a chance that Bernie might be alive, so he moved the body. And tampered with the evidence, of course.'
'Albert?'
'He telephoned from a house further along, a few miles from here on the way to town. I came out at once. Albert was here when I arrived.'
'Did Albert have anything to do with this?'
'He said he was driving along in his little truck, saw the cruiser, stopped, and found Bernie's body.'
'Did you arrest Albert?'
'He's in the jailhouse now. I don't know what charges to bring against him yet. I'm just holding him. But Albert is in trouble all right. Bernie had been looking for him, after having checked Tom's alibi. Tom was in town when the sergeant was shot at. Old Beth swears he was in her restaurant around eight-thirty the day before yesterday, and her daughter says so too. But nobody could find Albert, and Albert has a sign on the door of his cabin: OUT HUNTING. So Bernie went on looking for Albert and then Albert finds Bernie and Bernie is dead.'
'And the fox?'
'I am holding the fox too, sir. He can't explain his movements either. He's very vague about where he has been. Bernie must have got himself shot early this morning. The fox says he was wandering around in Cape Orca looking for dead pines. Nobody saw him and he saw nobody. He could have been anywhere.'
The commissaris walked over to Bernie's cruiser. Its passenger door was open and a shotgun had slipped between the front seat and the wheel.
'Bernie's gun?'
'Yes, sir. We found an empty shell. Bernie shot something, or at something.'
'Did Albert have a shotgun in his truck?'
'Yes.'
