The Murderer (1935), page 5
He might have told Neel to turn him out of the house. But he didn’t dare, fearing she might go with him. Indeed, there was every chance she would. Besides, if she once started talking…
On the other hand, he simply couldn’t bear the thought of her going upstairs to join her Karl. He listened to her regular breathing. One of her hands was touching his shoulder.
What was that blonde doing in Sneek? And what was she hanging around in the Onder den Linden for?
He wasn’t afraid. No, he wasn’t afraid of anything. Certainly not of Karl. In fact, at one moment he was seriously tempted to go up and talk to him, then and there, just to see what he was like.
Why shouldn’t he talk to the fellow? As things were…
All night long he never more than dozed, and next day the lack of sleep had a strange effect upon him. He had a feeling of emptiness, but at the same time of lightness. When he went into his office and put on his white coat, he wondered what was the use of it all. As in a dream, he opened the door to the waiting room and saw the old man with intercostal neutralgia, whom he’d been treating for two years.
“Good morning, Doctor… I’m afraid it’s no better… Last night I had to get up three times… Lying down it’s unbearable, and it looks as though I’ll end up standing all night…”
“Let me see… How old are you?”
“Sixty-four… Getting on for sixty-five… And until these pains came on two years ago, I was…”
The old man started undressing, unnoticed by Kuperus, who was getting out his case book and his instruments. When the latter at last looked around, he was confronted by a bare, scraggy chest.
“You can put your clothes on again.”
“Aren’t you going to look at me?”
“I examined you two weeks ago.”
“But I’m getting worse.”
“Just so!”
“What do you mean?”
A bleak note of anxiety came into the old man’s voice.
“You’ve had sixty-four years of life. It isn’t everybody that has so much.”
“You mean to say… ?”
“That it’s coming to an end… I’ll give you a month… Go on, you can get dressed.”
He’d had enough of all these people who were afraid of death! Wasn’t he a sick man himself? Hadn’t he been examined by a doctor in Amsterdam?
But that was before. Now, everything was changed. He no longer studied himself, no longer listened to the palpitations of his heart. He ate and drank everything that came his way, and indulged in nightly excesses.
There were tears in the old man’s eyes. More disgusted than ever, the doctor pushed him out of the room.
“Next, please!”
He was no longer afraid of the writer of the anonymous letter. He thought quite a lot about that person, but only because it amused him to do so. It was like a riddle.
Was it Neel? Van Malderen? Someone he didn’t know? He wanted to find out, to satisfy his curiosity. He scrutinized everyone who came near him, because he was convinced whoever it was would be anxious to see how he was taking it.
What really worried him were the other letters, the ones that had to be answered. There was one from his brother-in-law in Amsterdam, one from the aunt in Leeuwarden, and quite a number from Alice’s friends.
Her disappearance had been reported in the papers, and people wrote to him for further details. The Amsterdam brother-in-law was annoyed because he thought the scandal might affect his career. He was a schoolmaster. He even accused Kuperus of having had it put in the papers on purpose.
As for the artificial blonde in the Onder den Linden, her presence in Sneek had been explained. She had confided in Van Malderen, whose appearance suited him for the role of father confessor.
She was named Lina. Schutter had been in the habit of sending her two hundred guilders a month, and now and again he spent a week with her in Amsterdam.
Then the money had stopped, and she’d come to Sneek to see about it. Now she had less than ever — not even enough to pay for her fare back to Amsterdam or her hotel bill, which was mounting up day by day!
“I think she’s counting on one of us,” said
Van Malderen. “She’s not really a bad girl, you know, and if it wasn’t for my wife…”
His face belied his words, and Kuperus was convinced Van Malderen had already fallen to her charms and was providing her with pocket money.
“Hello!… Is that you, Doctor?… I’m sorry to disturb you, and I’d better say right away that I don’t want to raise any false hopes, but we’ve had news from London to say that a woman arrived at Dover yesterday wearing clothes similar to your wife’s. She had no identity papers… Of course there may be nothing in it…”
It was the superintendent of police.
“Should I go there?” asked Kuperus in just the right tone of voice.
“Not at present. There’d be no point in it. I’ve asked for a photograph of the woman in question to be sent…”
It couldn’t go on like that forever. The days passed. January gave place to February, and in the latter half of the month a slow thaw set in. It was just a question of time now. When the ice was gone, the bodies would come to the surface, and however deserted the spot might be, something was bound to be noticed, if only a bit of dress or overcoat.
Meanwhile, a meeting had taken place between Kuperus and Karl. The doctor had decided he really couldn’t go on living in the house without seeing the face of the lodger.
One morning when Neel went down to light the kitchen fire and make the coffee, he went up to the attic on tiptoe and suddenly burst in.
And, sure enough, there was someone in the bed, a very young man, unshaven, who slowly opened his eyes. When he saw Kuperus, he didn’t move, but a frown slowly gathered on his forehead.
“Excuse me,” said the doctor automatically.
It was a silly thing to say, but he hadn’t thought of anything else. He listened to Karl’s breathing, then said:
“Are you ill?”
“A little,” answered the other in German.
“Since when?”
“I stayed in bed all yesterday.”
Kuperus felt his pulse, put his hand on his forehead.
“Influenza. Nothing more. But it could easily develop into bronchitis. Has Neel brought you up hot drinks?”
“Some grog.”
“I suppose you’re staying in bed today?”
“I think I better.”
There was nowhere to sit except on the edge of the bed, so that’s where Kuperus installed himself.
“I understand you haven’t been able to find work.”
Karl merely sighed, as much as to say:
“What’s the use of pretending. You know as well as I do that I’m not looking for work.”
He was a nice-looking fellow. His features were well drawn and sensitive. His mouth had an ironical, even a sarcastic, twist. His clothes were in a heap on the floor.
“They haven’t found your wife?”
“Not yet.”
This time the doctor winced. He found the young man’s eyes disconcerting.
“Why didn’t you take any notice of Neel before? Why all of a sudden?”
“I didn’t think about her.”
“And of course there was your wife! She nearly found out about me once, but I said I’d come to read the gas meter.”
There were a lot of things Kuperus hadn’t known before that were now coming to light.
“I’ll send you up some aspirin,” he said, going to the door.
That was February 2. In the course of the morning Mme Costens called from Leeuwarden to ask if there was any further news of her niece. And then at eleven o’clock a policeman came to the door. The doctor was in the middle of his consultations, but he was urgently requested to come to the Town Hall.
Sending his patients away, he put on his fur coat and, with it, all his dignity. At the Town Hall they were waiting for him, the mayor, the superintendent of police, and two or three others, who shook his hand with unusual solemnity. He was asked to sit down.
“You must excuse us, Doctor… We have a very painful task to perform, and you may be assured you have all our sympathy in the ordeal that’s in store for you…”
He was pale that day, which happened to be just right.
“Your wife has been found… Or, rather, I should say her body has…”
The mayor turned his eyes away, so forcibly did Kuperus, grim and rigid, give the impression of great suffering nobly borne. As a matter of fact, without his wanting it to, his mind had reverted to Karl.
“I’m afraid we must ask you to accompany us.”
The canal had thawed. They went in the mayor’s car toward Schutter’s cottage, but they had to do the last part on foot, for fear the car would get stuck in the mud. As they approached, they saw two boats on the canal and a little group of people on the bank, standing near a small cart.
For the rest of the way, the mayor held Kuperus’s arm affectionately.
“Courage, dear friend… I’d like to have spared you this, but you know how things are: you’ve got to identify the body.”
The sky was dull and colorless except for a gap lit bv a patch of sunshine. Though thawing, it was still cold. Underfoot was a slush of melting snow and mud. As they came up, the little crowd moved aside, and Kuperus could see on the cart a covered form that looked like a body.
Someone was shaking him by the hand. It was Moers, the police doctor, whom he knew well.
“Just a formality… I’m afraid there’s no room for doubt.”
He lifted up a corner of the tarpaulin. Kuperus stared glassily, without wincing. He was being held up on both sides, in case he fainted.
“My dear colleague, may I have a couple of words with you?”
Moers took him aside. Kuperus noticed that they were dragging the canal.
“Your wife was murdered… Before being thrown in the canal, she had already been killed by a revolver bullet in the chest…”
What would Neel say about it? And Karl?… He’d had a funny way of talking that morning about his wife’s disappearance.
Next, it was the turn of the superintendent to take him aside. Everybody turned to look at them as they walked up and down.
“I’d better come to the point right away… You’ve already shown great self-control… The thing is, there’s every likelihood of our finding another body shortly… You must forgive me if I mention a name, but I have no choice… A hat has been found, and the initials in it are Schutter’s… When you consider that they both disappeared the same day… We’re dragging the canal…”
Kuperus said nothing. He wasn’t expected to say anything, and everyone was glad he didn’t. It was so much more dignified.
“The question will no doubt arise whether this is a case of double suicide — for things like that do happen, you know — or whether it’s one of murder… Perhaps you’d like to go home now?”
“I’ll stay until they finish searching.”
And he stayed, walking up and down by himself, followed by inquisitive glances. A hundred times he passed within a yard of the cart on which Alice’s remains were laid.
He thought of nothing, or, rather, of nothing in particular. His thoughts roamed all over. For instance, he recalled the arguments he’d had with Alice, who always said it was his fault they had no children, whereas he maintained it was hers… He almost smiled at the recollection…
Suppose he had a child with Neel?
He heard the voices of the boatmen as they went on dragging. At two o’clock a diver arrived. They screwed on his helmet, and a man worked the air pump.
A photographer came to take pictures of the scene for an Amsterdam paper. He was a local man, at whose shop Kuperus had his film developed.
The police visited the cottage and returned arguing hotly. One of them was sure there’d been a third person in the place; the others swore there’d been only two.
Kuperus looked at them as coldly as if he’d been called upon to perform a post-mortem on some unknown person.
The funniest thing was that the mayor sent his car back with a flask full of tea and some sandwiches for him.
* * *
FOUR
« ^ »
The mystery began suddenly and for no apparent reason. It seemed to condense out of nothing, like an autumn fog, and before he knew where he was, Kuperus was in the thick of it. There it was all around him, blotting out or distorting all reality, putting all human contacts out of focus.
It must have been about six o’clock. Kuperus was very tired, having spent the whole afternoon on his feet by the waterside. He was now following a canal, not the one by the cottage, but the one that ran in front of his house, where the quays were paved with flagstones.
It was still thawing fast. Drops trickled from every roof, and the reflections of the street lamps flickered once more on the rippling water.
He was getting near the house. He could already see the lighted window of the grocer’s, which was only three doors away. In it were packs of chocolate and long sticks of macaroni tied by a red ribbon so they would stand up like a sheaf of corn.
Between the window and the shop was a low screen, so low that anyone inside could easily see over it into the street. There were three people in the shop, and as he passed, three pairs of eyes stared at him.
He took out his key and inserted it in the lock. As he did so a new question flashed into his mind:
What were they thinking?
He had already wondered what Neel might think, and Karl. Now for the first time he was concerned with the world at large, with the people in the street…
What were they thinking?
Yes, what were they thinking about him, those three women in the shop? What were they saying about him, as they stood at the white marble counter doing their shopping or waiting to be served?
He shut the front door behind him, and paused with a frown in the outer hall, finding the house in darkness. He only had to switch the light on — it was done in a second — but he was nonetheless put out by the chilly reception.
For sixteen years he had been living in that house. He went up the three white stone steps and pushed open the glass-paneled door to the inner hall. There he stopped in front of the coat stand, beside which stood an umbrella stand made of imitation delft.
“Neel!” he called.
The little jar to his nerves he’d experienced on passing the grocer’s turned into a vague uneasiness. The house seemed empty, dead. On the ground floor were two big rooms, the living room and dining room, then, beyond the stairs, the kitchen and laundry. A window at the back of the hall opened on a little whitewashed courtyard.
The waiting room and office were on the entresol, and up to that floor the red stair-carpet was covered with a strip of canvas, because few patients bothered to wipe their feet.
“Neel!”
There was no light in the kitchen, and Neel knew he didn’t like her to go out shopping in the evening. He went into the living room, but stood there frowning, feeling out of place. The next moment, however, there was a noise upstairs, the slam of a door, then steps on the attic stairs.
When Neel came into the room, she was rather red and she looked hesitantly at the doctor.
“So, Madame is dead…” she said.
He nodded gravely, at the same time looking at her intently, asking himself the same question as before:
What would Neel think?
“Where were you?” he asked.
“In my room. I was giving Karl a cup of tea.”
“And you told him, I suppose?”
She didn’t say no. Neel must have heard about it from the people next door or from tradesmen coming to the house.
So she and Karl had been talking it over! On an impulse, he decided to make an experiment. He walked rapidly up to her without giving the least hint of what he was going to do.
She watched him approach without any sign of surprise. She allowed him to caress her, merely saying:
“How could you think of that… now?”
The important thing was that she hadn’t shrunk from his touch.
But what did that prove? Did it prove anything? Couldn’t she have remained as calm as that even if she thought him a murderer?
“Get my dinner ready…”
She seemed relieved as she went out, but that certainly didn’t prove anything either, since she always seemed relieved when she left him.
How could he know? And not only with her, but with all the others?
Schutter’s body had been found just as the light began to fail. The absence of his wallet was noticed immediately. An inquiry was opened.
He tried again next day, with one of his patients, a fat woman who sold cheese and who had a wen. Before opening the door to her, he deliberately set his features into a stony stare. He treated her brusquely, almost roughly.
And all the time he watched her carefully, asking himself:
Is she afraid of me?
She wasn’t. Not in the least. Only rather surprised. She didn’t seem to understand, or she may have thought he was ill himself.
“I won’t be seeing any patients tomorrow or the next day, because of the funeral…”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Has there been a death in the family?”
She didn’t even know!
Drawing a blank with her did not discourage him, however. He tried with the others. His manner became stiff and jerky, his speech curt. Suddenly he would look keenly, fiercely into their eyes to ferret out their secret thoughts.
The brother-in-law came from Amsterdam, and the aunt from Leeuwarden, and a few other relations, one of whom was a weedy young man with a red nose who was already in mourning for his father and who had such a bad cold that he looked all the time as though he’d been crying.
Kuperus had been before the examining magistrate, his friend Anton Groven, who received him with great cordiality and many apologies, after which he asked him a few questions of minor importance.
“Now that the post-mortem’s over, there’s no reason why the funeral shouldn’t take place…”
