Janwillem De Wetering - Blond Baboon

“I see.” She didn’t want to ask for the commissaris’s rank, but he had given her a card and she glanced at it. She didn’t know anything about police ranks. “Well, would you come in then, please. I hope you’ll explain to my husband when he comes…”

“We will.”

Cardozo stepped aside and the commissaris marched into the corridor and waited for Mrs. de Bree to lead the way. They were taken to a room in the rear of the house, similar to the enclosed porch in the Camet house. Evidently the same architect had been used for all the homes in the two streets sharing the enclosed garden area. Mrs. de Bree offered tea and gratefully retired to the kitchen.

Cardozo jumped out of his chair the minute they were alone. “My witnesses live over there, sir. They have the top floor of the house, there with the balcony, behind the geraniums. Two old ladies with binoculars, ideal witnesses, they have a full view of both this garden and the Carnet garden opposite. And there’s the liguster hedge and Mr. de Bree must have stood next to that rhododendron bush when he fed Paul. With binoculars my witnesses could have seen that he was feeding him chopped meat. With the laboratory test that proves that there was both chopped meat and arsenic in Paul’s stomach, and with the matching times of the witnesses’ statements and Gabrielle Carnet’s complaint plus the statement of the veterinarian we have an airtight case against de Bree.”

The commissaris had come to the window. “Yes, good work, Cardozo. I wonder if I can smoke here. Does de Bree smoke?”

Cardozo looked around. “There’s a pipe rack on die wall, sir, and several ashtrays.”

“Then I’m sure Mrs. de Bree won’t mind. Hey!”

A cat had landed on the balcony outside. It had dropped from a tree branch with such a thud that Cardozo, who was still studying the pipe rack, had turned around. The cat was oversize, not only fat but enormous in proportions. A lynx with tufted ears, with thick fur spotted with black and orange and with a cruel square head, bright orange on one side, deep black on the other. The line dividing the two colors didn’t run in the exact middle of the face, shortening the black half slightly, with the result that his expression was startlingly weird.

“That’s a cat, sir?”

“I think so. But perhaps it has a small panther or an ocelot as an ancestor, although I do believe that some breeds of domesticated cats grow rather large. All of twenty pounds, I would say, more perhaps.”

The cat walked to the window and stood up, pressing its face and front paws against the glass. The soles of its feet were heavily haired.

“It’s purring,” the commissaris said. “Perhaps it means well. Should we let it in, Cardozo?”

Mrs. de Bree was with them again, carrying a tray. “Ah, Tobias. Would you mind opening the door, sir? Poor thing must be hungry. He probably tried to come in before but I was vacuum-cleaning upstairs and didn’t hear him. He’s been out all morning.”

The commissaris released the door’s latch and Tobias rushed in, forcing the door out of his hand. He ran across the room and loped off into the corridor.

“An amazing animal, madame. Very big, isn’t he?”

“Yes. But he’s getting old and is blind in one eye now and not too well. We had him operated on for cancer last year and he recovered, but the vet says that the cancer may still be there and that a second operation wouldn’t do any good. My husband is very upset about it. Tobias is like a child and we have had him fourteen years-we don’t have any real children, you see. And Tobias is so clever!”

The commissaris stirred his tea. The room was pleasant and quiet; there was no sound in the house except a rattling in the kitchen where Tobias was gulping his food and pushing its container around.

“You know why we came, don’t you, Mrs. de Bree?”

She was sitting unnaturally upright and playing with a lace handkerchief. There were tears in her mild eyes, enlarged by the thick lenses of her gold-rimmed spectacles. “Yes, sir, you came about Paul. I’m so saddened about that. I don’t know what got into my husband, he’s never done anything like that before. He won’t admit what he did to Paul, but he knows that I know. He hasn’t talked to me much since it happened. And the old ladies opposite saw him do it, Alice came to see me about it an hour ago. She said they had told the police and that they were sorry but they couldn’t help it, so I was expecting you, you see.”

“What does your husband do, Mrs. de Bree?”

“He’s retired in a way. He’s an engineer and has invented things, we have an income from royalties. Sometimes I wish he were still working.”

They heard a key turn in the front of the house and Mrs. de Bree jumped up and rushed into the corridor, shutting the door behind her. The conversation took a full five minutes and de Bree’s voice gradually lost its anger. Mrs. de Bree was crying. He came in alone.

“Mr. de Bree?”

The policemen were on their feet. De Bree pointed at their chairs and thought of something to say. Tobias was bumping the door. “My cat, I’ll let him in.”

De Bree sat down, he sighed, and all the air appeared to go out of him. The sigh seemed endless.

“I’m sorry,” the commissaris said. “But what has to be done has to be done, sir. You weren’t getting anywhere when you refused my detective entry, surely you knew mat, didn’t you?”

“Are you arresting me?”

“No.”

De Bree reached for his pipe rack and tobacco tin. The tobacco spilled as his trembling hands tried to fill the pipe. He couldn’t find a match and looked about helplessly. The commissaris gave him his lighter.

“So why did you come?” de Bree asked between puffs.

“lb obtain your confession, sir. It isn’t strictly needed, the evidence against you is conclusive, but a confession might help you, the judge will be better disposed.”

“Judge? You’ll make me go to court?”

“Yes.”

Tobias walked past de Bree’s chair and de Bree grabbed the cat’s tail. It closed with strength and the cat pulled, finding support in the carpet. De Bree’s chair moved an inch but stuck on the carpet’s edge. The cat looked around, turned, and put a paw on de Bree’s hand. It purred and its good eye opened until it was a large shiny green disk. De Bree grunted and released the tail.

“He must be very fond of you,” the commissaris said. “His nails didn’t come out.”

“He’ll never scratch me. He did once, by mistake, and drew blood and he was sorry for a week. He followed me everywhere I went. He loves me, he even hunts for me. He is always bringing me birds and mice, rats even. Once he caught a crow, a big crow. Crows are hard to catch. He brought the bird to my bed, I was ill at the time, and dropped it on the blanket. Made a mess, my wife didn’t like that, but he loves her too.”

“You like animals, don’t you?”

“I like Tobias. I don’t get on with other animals, or with people. My wife and I live very much on our own, but we don’t mind. If they don’t bother us we don’t bother diem. I have my books. I am an engineer. I have a basement where I can work. I don’t need anybody anymore.”

The commissaris had been looking at a large framed painting hanging in the shadows of the room.

“That’s Tobias,” de Bree said. “My wife did it. It isn’t painted but embroidered, in very small stitches. We found a store where an artist will do a portrait on canvas and they sell you wool so that you can embroider the portrait yourself. People usually like to make portraits like that of their children but we don’t have any. I gave my wife the canvas for her birthday. It took her months to stitch it.”

The commissaris had got up to study the gobelin. “Remarkable! An amazing likeness. Your cat has an interesting face.”