Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 73, No. 3. Whole No. 424, March 1979

The Deadly Egg by Janwillem van de Wetering[1]

As of the time of this writing Janwillem van de Wetering has written six novels about the Amsterdam police, featuring Detective Adjutant Grijpstra and Detective Sergeant de Gier. The novels have been highly praised by critics, have sold to eleven foreign publishers, have been serialized and selected by book clubs; a motion picture is now in production in Holland, with the prospect of an American movie soon.

Mr. van de Wetering was born in The Netherlands in 1931. The German bombing of Rotterdam and the subsequent five years of military occupation strongly influenced his early thinking. After graduation from a business college he traveled extensively — Africa, South America, Australia, Japan. He studied philosophy in London and became a disciple of a Zen master in Kyoto, Japan, later writing two books on Zen.

In 1965 he returned to The Netherlands where he became an active member of the Special Constabulary of the Amsterdam Municipal Police (so he knows at first-hand what he’s writing about). He and his family at present live in the United States.

Now, meet for the first time in a short story (but not for the last time, we hope) the most famous pair of detectives in the Criminal Investigation Department (also called the Murder Brigade) of the Municipal Police of Amsterdam — Adjutant Grijpstra and Sergeant de Gier, two of the most human sleuths you have ever encountered in print. The crime they investigate on Easter Day is a fascinating double mystery — “a dead man dangling from a branch in the forest” and “a lady poisoned, presumably by a chocolate Easter egg”...

The siren of the tiny dented Volkswagen shrieked forlornly between the naked trees of the Amsterdam Forest, the city’s largest park, set on its southern edge: several square miles of willows, poplars, and wild growing alders, surrounding ponds and lining paths. The paths were restricted to pedestrians and cyclists, but the Volkswagen had ignored the many No Entry signs, quite legally for the vehicle belonged to the Municipal Police and more especially to its Criminal Investigation Department, or the Murder Brigade. Even so it looked lost and its howl seemed defensive.

It was Easter Sunday and it rained, and the car’s two occupants, Detective Adjutant Grijpstra and Detective Sergeant de Gier, sat hunched in their overcoats, watching the squeaky rusted wipers trying to deal with the steady drizzle. The car should have been junked some years before, but the adjutant had lost the form that would have done away with his aging transport, lost it on purpose and with the sergeant’s consent. They had grown fond of the Volkswagen, of its shabbiness and its ability to melt away in traffic.

But they weren’t fond of the car now. The heater didn’t work, it was cold, and it was early. Not yet nine o’clock on a Sunday is early, especially when the Sunday is Easter. Technically they were both off-duty, but they had been telephoned out of warm beds by Headquarters’ radio room. A dead man dangling from a branch in the forest; please, would they care to have a look at the dead man?

Grijpstra’s stubby index finger silenced the siren. They had followed several miles of winding paths so far and hadn’t come across anything alive except tall blue herons, fishing in the ponds and moats and flapping away slowly when the car came too close for their comfort.

“You know who reported the corpse? I wasn’t awake when the radio room talked to me.”

De Gier had been smoking silently. His handsome head with the perfect curls turned obediently to face his superior. “Yes, a gentleman jogger. He said he jogged right into the body’s feet. Gave him a start. He ran all the way to the nearest telephone booth, phoned headquarters, then headquarters phoned us, and that’s why we are here, I suppose. I am a little asleep myself — we are here, aren’t we?”

They could hear another siren, and another. Two limousines came roaring toward the Volkswagen, and Grijpstra cursed and made the little car turn off the path and slide into a soggy lawn; they could feel its wheel sink into the mud.

The limousines stopped and men poured out of them; the men pushed the Volkswagen back on the path.

“Morning, Adjutant, morning, Sergeant. Where is the corpse?”

“Shouldn’t you know too?”

“No, Adjutant,” several men said simultaneously, “but we thought maybe you know. All we know is that the corpse is in the Amsterdam Forest and that this is the Amsterdam Forest.”

Grijpstra addressed the sergeant. “You know?”

De Gier’s well modulated baritone chanted the instructions. “Turn right after the big pond, right again, then left. Or the other way round. I think I have it right, we should be close.”

The three cars drove about for a few minutes more until they were waved down by a man dressed in what seemed to be long blue underwear. The jogger ran ahead, bouncing energetically, and led them to their destination. The men from the limousines brought out their boxes and suitcases, then cameras clicked and a videorecorder hummed. The corpse hung on and the two detectives watched it hang.

“Neat,” Grijpstra said, “very neat. Don’t you think it is neat?”

The sergeant grunted.

“Here. Brought a folding campstool and some nice new rope, made a perfect noose, slipped it around his neck, kicked the stool. Anything suspicious, gentlemen?”

The men from the limousines said there was not. They had found footprints — the prints of the corpse’s boots. There were no other prints, except the jogger’s. The jogger’s statement was taken, he was thanked and sent on his sporting way. A police ambulance arrived and the corpse was cut loose, examined by doctor and detectives, and carried off. The detectives saluted the corpse quietly by inclining their heads.

“In his sixties,” the sergeant said, “well dressed in old but expensive clothes. Clean shirt. Tie. Short gray beard, clipped. Man who took care of himself. A faint smell of liquor — he must have had a few to give him courage. Absolutely nothing in his pockets. I looked in the collar of his shirt — no laundry mark. He went to some trouble to be nameless. Maybe something will turn up when they strip him at the mortuary; we should phone in an hour’s time.”

Grijpstra looked hopeful. “Suicide?”

“I would think so. Came here by himself, no traces of anybody else. No signs of a struggle. The man knew what he wanted to do, and did it, all by himself. But he didn’t leave a note; that wasn’t very thoughtful.”

“Right,” Grijpstra said, “time for breakfast, Sergeant! We’ll have it at the airport — that’s close and convenient. We can show our police cards and get through the customs’ barrier; the restaurant on the far side is better than the coffee shop on the near side.”

De Gier activated the radio when they got back to the car.

“Male corpse, balding but with short gray beard. Dentures. Blue eyes. Sixty-odd years old. Three-piece blue suit, elegant dark gray overcoat, no hat. No identification.”

“Thank you,” the radio said.

“Looks very much like suicide. Do you have any missing persons of that description in your files?”

“No, not so far.”

“We’ll be off for breakfast and will call in again on our way back.”

“Echrem,” the radio said sadly, “there’s something else. Sorry.”

De Gier stared at a duck waddling across the path and trailing seven furry ducklings. He began to mumble. Adjutant Grijpstra mumbled with him. The mumbled four-letter words interspersed with mild curses formed a background for the radio’s well articulated message. They were given an address on the other side of the city. “The lady was poisoned, presumably by a chocolate Easter egg. The ambulance that answered the distress call just radioed in. They are taking her to hospital. The ambulance driver thought the poison was either parathion, something used in agriculture, or arsenic. His assistant is pumping out the patient’s stomach. She is in a bad way but not dead yet.”

Grijpstra grabbed the microphone from de Gier’s limp hand. “So if the lady is on her way to hospital who is left in the house you want us to go to?”

“Her husband, man by the name of Moozen, a lawyer, I believe.”

“What hospital is Mrs. Moozen being taken to?”

“The Wilhelmina.”

“And you have no one else on call? Sergeant de Gier and I are supposed to be off-duty for Easter, you know!”

“No,” the radio’s female voice said, “no, Adjutant. We never have much crime on Easter day, especially not in the morning. There are only two detectives on duty and they are out on a case too — some boys have derailed a streetcar with matches.”

“Right,” Grijpstra said coldly, “we are on our way.”

The old Volkswagen made an effort to jump away, protesting feebly. De Gier was still muttering but had stopped cursing. “Streetcar? Matches?”

“Yes. They take an empty cartridge, fill it with matchheads, then close the open end with a hammer. Very simple. All you have to do is insert the cartridge into the streetcar’s rail and when the old tram comes clanging along, the sudden impact makes the cartridge explode. If you use two or three cartridges the explosion may be strong enough to lift the wheel out of the rail. Didn’t you ever try that? I used to do it as a boy. The only problem was to get the cartridges. We had to sneak around on the rifle range with the chance of getting shot at.”

“No,” de Gier said. “Pity. Never thought of it, and it sounds like a good game.”

He looked out of the window. The car had left the park and was racing toward the city’s center through long empty avenues. There was no life in the huge apartment buildings lining the old city — nobody had bothered to get up yet. Ten o’clock and the citizenry wasn’t even considering the possibility of slouching into the kitchen for a first cup of coffee.

But one man had bothered to get up early and had strolled into the park, carrying his folding chair and a piece of rope to break off the painful course of his life, once and for all. An elderly man in good but old clothes. De Gier saw the man’s beard again, a nicely cared-for growth. The police doctor had said that he hadn’t been dead long. A man alone in the night that would have led him to Easter, a man by himself in a deserted park, testing the strength of his rope, fitting his head into the noose, kicking the campstool.

“Bah!” he said aloud.

Grijpstra had steered the car through a red light and was turning the wheel.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Just bah.”

“Bah is right,” Grijpstra said.

They found the house, a bungalow, on the luxurious extreme north side of the city. Spring was trying to revive the small lawn and a magnolia tree was in hesitant bloom. Bright yellow crocuses set off the path. Grijpstra looked at the crocuses. He didn’t seem pleased.

“Crocuses,” de Gier said, “very nice. Jolly little flowers.”

“No. Unimaginative plants, manufactured, not grown. Computer plants. They make the bulbs in a machine and program them to look stupid. Go ahead, Sergeant, press the bell.”

“Really?” the sergeant asked.

Grijpstra’s jowls sagged. “Yes. They are like mass-manufactured cheese, tasteless; cheese is probably made with the same machines.”

“Cheese,” de Gier said moistly, “there’s nothing wrong with cheese either, apart from not having any right now. Breakfast has slipped by, you know.” He glanced at his watch.

They read the nameplate while the bell rang. H. F. Moozen, Attorney at Law. The door opened. A man in a housecoat made out of brightly striped towel material said good morning. The detectives showed their identifications. The man nodded and stepped back. A pleasant man, still young, 30 years or a bit more. The ideal model for an ad in a ladies’ magazine. A background man, showing off a modern house, or a mini-car, or expensive furniture. The sort of man ladies would like to have around. Quiet, secure, mildly good-looking. Not a passionate man, but lawyers seldom are. Lawyers practise detachment; they identify with their clients, but only up to a point.

“You won’t take long, I hope,” Mr. Moozen said. “I wanted to go with the ambulance, but the driver said you were on the way, and that I wouldn’t be of any help if I stayed with my wife.”

“Was your wife conscious when she left here, sir?”

“Barely. She couldn’t speak.”

“She ate an egg, a chocolate egg?”

“Yes. I don’t care for chocolate myself. It was a gift, we thought, from friends. I had to let the dog out early this morning, an hour ago, and there was an Easter bunny sitting on the path. He held an egg wrapped up in silver paper. I took him in, woke up my wife, and showed the bunny to her, and she took the egg and ate it, then became ill. I telephoned for the ambulance and they came almost immediately. I would like to go to the hospital now.”

“Come in our car, sir. Can I see the bunny?”

Mr. Moozen took off the housecoat and put on a jacket. He opened the door leading to the kitchen and a small dog jumped around the detectives, yapping greetings. The bunny stood on the kitchen counter; it was almost a foot high. Grijpstra tapped its back with his knuckles; it sounded solid.

“Hey,” de Gier said. He turned the bunny around and showed it to Grijpstra.

“Brwah!” Grijpstra said.

The rabbit’s toothless mouth gaped. The beast’s eyes were close together and deeply sunk into the skull. Its ears stood up aggressively. The bunny leered at them, its torso crouched; the paws that had held the deadly egg seemed ready to punch.

“It’s roaring,” de Gier said. “See? A roaring rabbit. Easter bunnies are supposed to smile.”

“Shall we go?” Mr. Moozen asked.

They used the siren and the trip to the hospital didn’t take ten minutes. The city was still quiet. But there proved to be no hurry. An energetic bright young nurse led them to a waiting room. Mrs. Moozen was being worked on; her condition was still critical. The nurse would let them know if there was any change.

“Can we smoke?” Grijpstra asked.

“If you must.” The nurse smiled coldly, appraised de Gier’s tall wide-shouldered body with a possessive feminist glance, swung her hips, and turned to the door.

“Any coffee?”

“There’s a machine in the hall. Don’t smoke in the hall, please.”

There were several posters in the waiting room. A picture of a cigarette pointing to a skull with crossed bones. A picture of a happy child biting into an apple. A picture of a drunken driver (bubbles surrounding his head proved he was drunk) followed by an ambulance. The caption read: “Not if you have an accident, but when you have an accident.”

De Gier fetched coffee and Grijpstra offered cigars. Mr. Moozen said he didn’t smoke.

“Well,” Grijpstra said patiently and puffed out a ragged dark cloud, “now who would want to poison your wife, sir? Has there been any recent trouble in her life?”

The question hung in the small white room while Moozen thought. The detectives waited. De Gier stared at the floor, Grijpstra observed the ceiling. A full minute passed.

“Yes,” Mr. Moozen said, “some trouble. With me. We contemplated a divorce.”

“I see.”

“But then we decided to stay together. The trouble passed.”

“Any particular reason why you considered a divorce, sir?”

“My wife had a lover.” Mr. Moozen’s words were clipped and precise.

“Had,” de Gier said. “The affair came to an end?”

“Yes. We had some problems with our central heating, something the mechanics couldn’t fix. An engineer came out and my wife fell in love with him. She told me — she doesn’t like to be secretive. They met each other in motels for a while.”

“You were upset?”

“Yes. It was a serious affair. The engineer’s wife is a mental patient; he divorced her and was awarded custody of his two children. I thought he was looking for a new wife. My wife has no children of her own — we have been married some six years and would like to have children. My wife and the engineer seemed well matched. I waited a month and then told her to make up her mind — either him or me, not both, I couldn’t stand it.”

“And she chose you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the engineer?”

A vague pained smile floated briefly on Moozen’s face. “Not personally. We did meet once and discussed central heating systems. Any further contact with him was through my wife.”

“And when did all this happen, sir?”

“Recently. She only made her decision a week ago. I don’t think she has met him since. She told me it was all over.”

“His name and address, please, sir.”

De Gier closed his notebook and got up. “Shall we go, Adjutant?”

Grijpstra sighed and got up too. They shook hands with Moozen and wished him luck. Grijpstra stopped at the desk. The nurse wasn’t helpful, but Grijpstra insisted and de Gier smiled and eventually they were taken to a doctor who accompanied them to the next floor. Mrs. Moozen seemed comfortable. Her arms were stretched out on the blanket. The face was calm. The detectives were led out of the room again.

“Bad,” the doctor said, “parathion is a strong poison. Her stomach is ripped to shreds. We’ll have to operate and remove part of it, but I think she will live. The silly woman ate the whole egg, a normal-sized egg. Perhaps she was still too sleepy to notice the taste.”

“Her husband is downstairs. Perhaps you should call him up, especially if you think she will live.” Grijpstra sounded concerned. He probably was, de Gier thought. He felt concerned himself. The woman was beautiful, with a finely curved nose, very thin in the bridge, and large eyes and a soft and sensitive mouth. He looked at her long delicate hands.

“Husbands,” the doctor said. “Prime suspects in my experience. Husbands are supposed to love their wives, but usually they don’t. It’s the same the other way round. Marriage seems to breed violence — it’s one of the impossible situations we humans have to put up with.”

Grijpstra’s pale blue eyes twinkled. “Are you married, Doctor?”

The doctor grinned back. “Very. Oh, yes.”

“A long time?”

“Long enough.”

Grijpstra’s grin faded. “So am I. Too long. But poison is nasty. Thank you, Doctor.”

There wasn’t much conversation in the car when they drove to the engineer’s address. The city’s streets had filled up. People were stirring about on the sidewalks and cars crowded each other, honking occasionally. The engineer lived in a block of apartments, and Grijpstra switched off the engine and lit another small black cigar.

“A family drama. What do you think, Sergeant?”

“I don’t think. But that rabbit was most extraordinary. Not bought in a shop. A specially made rabbit, and well made, not by an amateur.”

“Are we looking for a sculptor? Some arty person? Would Mr. Moozen or the engineer be an artist in his spare time? How does one make a chocolate rabbit, anyway?”

De Gier tried to stretch, but didn’t succeed in his cramped quarters. He yawned instead. “You make a mold, I suppose, out of plaster of Paris or something, and then you pour hot chocolate into the mold and wait for it to harden. That rabbit was solid chocolate, several kilos of it. Our artistic friend went to a lot of trouble.”

“A baker? A pastry man?”

“Or an engineer — engineers design forms sometimes, I believe. Let’s meet this lover man.”

The engineer was a small nimble man with a shock of black hair and dark lively eyes, a nervous man, nervous in a pleasant childlike manner. De Gier remembered that Mrs. Moozen was a small woman too. They were ushered into a four-room apartment. They had to be careful not to step on a large number of toys, spread about evenly. Two little boys played on the floor; the eldest ran out of the room to fetch his Easter present to show it to the uncles. It was a basketful of eggs, homemade, out of chocolate. The other boy came to show his basket, identical but a size smaller.

“My sister and I made them last night,” the engineer said. “She came to live here after my wife left and she looks after the kids, but she is spending the Easter weekend with my parents in the country. We couldn’t go because Tom here had measles, hadn’t you, Tom?”

“Yes,” Tom said. “Big measles. Little Klaas here hasn’t had them yet.”

Klaas looked sorry. Grijpstra took a plastic truck off a chair and sat down heavily after having looked at the engineer who waved him on. “Please, make yourself at home.” De Gier had found himself a chair too and was rolling a cigarette. The engineer provided coffee and shooed the children into another room.

“Any trouble?”

“Yes,” Grijpstra said. “I am afraid we usually bring trouble. A Mrs. Moozen has been taken to hospital. An attempt was made on her life. I believe you are acquainted with Mrs. Moozen?”

“Ann,” the engineer said. “My God! Is she all right?”

De Gier had stopped rolling his cigarette. He was watching the man carefully; his large brown eyes gleamed, but not with pleasure or anticipation. The sergeant felt sorrow, a feeling that often accompanied his intrusions into the private lives of his fellow citizens. He shifted and the automatic pistol in his shoulder holster nuzzled into his armpit. He impatiently pushed the weapon back. This was no time to be reminded that he carried death with him, legal death.

“What happened?” the engineer was asking. “Did anybody hurt her?”

“A question,” Grijpstra said gently. “A question first, sir. You said your sister and you were making chocolate Easter eggs last night. Did you happen to make any bunnies too?”

The engineer sucked noisily on his cigarette. Grijpstra repeated his question.

“Bunnies? Yes, or no. We tried, but it was too much for us. The eggs were easy — my sister is good at that. We have a pudding form for a bunny, but all we could manage was a pudding. It is still in the kitchen, a surprise for the kids later on today. Chocolate pudding — they like it.”

“Can we see the kitchen, please?”

The engineer didn’t get up. “My God,” he said again, “so she was poisoned, was she? How horrible! Where is she now?”

“In the hospital, sir.”

“Bad?”

Grijpstra nodded. “The doctor said she will live. Some sort of pesticide was mixed into chocolate, which she ate.”

The engineer got up; he seemed dazed. They found the kitchen. Leftover chocolate mix was still on the counter. Grijpstra brought out an envelope and scooped some of the hardened chips into it.

“Do you know that Ann and I had an affair?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were you told that she finished the affair, that she decided to stay with her husband?”

“Yes, sir.”

The engineer was tidying up the counter mechanically. “I see. So I could be a suspect. Tried to get at her out of spite or something. But I am not a spiteful man. You wouldn’t know that. I don’t mind being a suspect, but I would like to see Ann. She is in the hospital, you said. What hospital?”

“The Wilhelmina, sir.”

“Can’t leave the kids here, can I? Maybe the neighbors will take them for an hour or so... yes. I’ll go and see Ann. This is terrible.”

Grijpstra marched to the front door with de Gier trailing behind him. “Don’t move from the house today if you please, sir, not until we telephone or come again. We’ll try and be as quick as we can.”

“Nice chap,” de Gier said when the car found its parking place in the vast courtyard of headquarters. “That engineer, I mean. I rather liked Mr. Moozen too, and Mrs. Moozen is a lovely lady. Now what?”

“Go back to the Moozen house, Sergeant, and get a sample of the roaring bunny. Bring it to the laboratory together with this envelope. If they check we have a heavy point against the engineer.”

De Gier restarted the engine. “Maybe he is not so nice, eh? He could have driven his wife crazy and now he tries to murder his girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend. Lovely Ann Moozen who dared to stand him up. Could be, do you think so?”

Grijpstra leaned his bulk against the car and addressed his words to the emptiness of the yard. “No. But that could be the obvious solution. He was distressed, genuinely distressed, I would say. If he hadn’t been and if he hadn’t had those kids in the house, I might have brought him in for further questioning.”

“And Mr. Moozen?”

“Could be. Maybe he didn’t find the bunny on the garden path; maybe he put it there, or maybe he had it ready in the cupboard and brought it to his wandering wife. He is a lawyer — lawyers can be devious at times. True?”

De Gier said, “Yes, yes, yes...” and kept on saying so until Grijpstra squeezed the elbow sticking out of the car’s window. “You are saying yes, but you don’t sound convinced.”

“I thought Moozen was suffering too.”

“Murderers usually suffer, don’t they?”

De Gier started his “Yes, yes,” and Grijpstra marched off.

They met an hour later, in the canteen in headquarters. They munched rolls stuffed with sliced liver and roast beef and muttered diligently at each other.

“So it is the same chocolate?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean much. One of the lab’s assistants has a father who owns a pastry shop. He said that there are only three mixes on the market and our stuff is the most popular make. No, not much of a clue there.”

“So?”

“We may have a full case on our hands. We should go back to Mr. Moozen, I think, and find out about friends and relatives. Perhaps his wife had other lovers, or jealous lady friends.”

“Why her?”

Grijpstra munched on. “Hmm?”

“Why her?” de Gier repeated. “Why not him?”

Grijpstra swallowed. “Him? What about him?”

De Gier reached for the plate, but Grijpstra restrained the sergeant’s hand. “Wait, you are hard to understand when you have your mouth full. What about him?”

De Gier looked at the roll. Grijpstra picked it up and ate it.

“Him,” de Gier said unhappily. “He found the bunny on the garden path, the ferocious bunny holding the pernicious egg. A gift, how nice. But he doesn’t eat chocolate, so he runs inside and shows the gift to his wife and his wife grabs the egg and eats it. She may have thought he was giving it to her, she was still half asleep. Maybe she noticed the taste, but she ate on to please her husband. She became ill at once and he telephoned for an ambulance. Now, if he had wanted to kill her he might have waited an hour or so, to give the poison a chance to do its job. But he grabbed his phone, fortunately. What I am trying to say is, the egg may have been intended for him, from an enemy who didn’t even know Moozen had a wife, who didn’t care about killing the wife.”

“Ah,” Grijpstra said, and swallowed the last of the roll. “Could be. We’ll ask Mr. Moozen about his enemies. But not just now. There is the dead man we found in the park — a message came in while you were away. A missing person has been reported and the description fits our corpse. According to the radio room a woman phoned to say that a man who is renting a room in her house has been behaving strangely lately and has now disappeared. She traced him to the corner bar where he spent last evening, until two A.M. when they closed.

“He was a little drunk according to the barkeeper, but not blind drunk. She always takes him tea in the morning, but this morning he wasn’t there and the bed was still made. But she does think he’s been home, for she heard the front door at a little after two A.M., opening and closing twice. He probably fetched the rope and his campstool then.”

“And the man was fairly old and has a short gray beard?”

“Right.”

“So we go and see the landlady. I’ll get a photograph — they took dozens this morning and they should be developed by now. Was anything found in his clothes?”

“Nothing.” Grijpstra looked guiltily at the empty plate. “Want another roll?”

“You ate it.”

“That’s true, and the canteen is out of rolls; we got the last batch. Never mind, Sergeant. Let’s go out and do some work. Work will take your mind off food.”

“That’s him,” the landlady with the plastic curlers said. Her glasses had slipped to the tip of her blunt nose while she studied the photograph. “Oh, how horrible! His tongue is sticking out. Poor Mr. Marchant, is he dead?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“For shame, and such a nice gentleman. He has been staying here for nearly five years now and he was always so polite.”

Grijpstra tried to look away from the glaring pink curlers, pointing at his forehead from the woman’s thinning hair.

“Did he have any troubles, ma’am? Anything that may have led him to take his own life?”

The curlers bobbed frantically. “Yes. Money troubles. Nothing to pay the taxman with. He always paid the rent, but he hadn’t been paying his taxes. And his business wasn’t doing well. He has a shop in the next street; he makes things — ornaments he calls them, out of brass. But there was some trouble with the neighbors. Too much noise, and something about the zoning too; this is a residential area now, they say. The neighbors wanted him to move, but he had nowhere to move to, and he was getting nasty letters, lawyers’ letters. He would have had to close down, and he had to make money to pay the taxman. It was driving him crazy. I could hear him walk around in his room at night, round and round until I had to switch off my hearing aid.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“He was alone,” the woman said and shuffled with them to the door. “All alone, like me. And he was always so nice.” She was crying.

“Happy Easter,” de Gier said, and opened the Volkswagen’s door for the adjutant.

“The same to you. Back to Mr. Moozen again — we are driving about this morning. I could use some coffee again. Maybe Mr. Moozen will oblige.”

“He won’t be so happy either. We aren’t making anybody happy today,” the sergeant said and tried to put the Volkswagen into first gear. The gear slipped and the car took off in second.

They found Mr. Moozen in his garden. It had begun to rain again, but the lawyer didn’t seem to notice that he was getting wet. He was staring at the bright yellow crocuses, touching them with his foot. He had trampled a few of them into the grass.

“How is your wife, sir?”

“Conscious and in pain. The doctors think they can save her, but she will have to be on a stringent diet for years and she’ll be very weak for months. I won’t have her back for a while.”

Grijpstra coughed. “We visited your wife’s, ah, previous lover, sir.” The word “previous” came out awkwardly and he coughed again to take away the bad taste.

“Did you arrest him?”

“No, sir.”

“Any strong reasons to suspect the man?”

“Are you a criminal lawyer, sir?”

Moozen kicked the last surviving crocus, turned on his heels, and led his visitors into the house. “No, I specialize in civil cases. Sometimes I do divorces, but I don’t have enough experience to point a finger in this personal case. Divorce is a messy business, but with a little tact and patience reason usually prevails. To try and poison somebody is unreasonable behavior. I can’t visualize Ann provoking that type of action — she is a gentle woman, sensuous but gentle. If she did break her relationship with the engineer she would have done it diplomatically.”

“He seemed upset, sir, genuinely upset.”

“Quite. I had hoped as much. So where are we now?”

“With you, sir. Do you have any enemies? Anybody who hated you so badly that he wanted you to die a grotesque death, handed to you by a roaring rabbit? You did find the rabbit on the garden path this morning, didn’t you, sir?”

Moozen pointed. “Yes, out there, sitting in between the crocuses, leering, and as you say, roaring. Giving me the egg.”

“Now, which demented mind might have thought of shaping that apparition, sir? Are you dealing with any particularly unpleasant cases at this moment? Any cases that have a badly twisted undercurrent? Is anyone blaming you for something bad that is happening to them?”

Moozen brushed his hair with both hands. “No. I am working on a bad case having to do with a truckdriver who got involved in a complicated accident; his truck caught fire and it was loaded with expensive cargo. Both his legs were crushed. His firm is suing the firm that owned the other truck. A lot of money in claims is involved and the parties are becoming impatient, with me mostly. The case is dragging on and on. But if they kill me the case will become even more complicated, with no hope of settlement in sight.”

“Anything else, sir?”

“The usual. I collect bad debts, so sometimes I have to get nasty. I write threatening letters, sometimes I telephone people or even visit them. I act tough — it’s got to be done in my profession. Usually they pay but they don’t like me for bothering them.”

“Any pastry shops?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Pastry shops,” Grijpstra said, “people who make and sell confectionery. That rabbit was a work of art in a way, made by a professional. Are you suing anybody who would have the ability to create the roaring rabbit?”

“Ornaments!” de Gier shouted. His shout tore at the quiet room. Moozen and Grijpstra looked up, startled.

“Ornaments! Brass ornaments. Ornaments are made from molds. We’ve got to check his shop.”

“Whose shop?” Grijpstra frowned irritably. “Keep your voice down, Sergeant. What shop? What ornaments?”

“Marchant!” de Gier shouted. “Marchant’s shop.”

“Marchant?” Moozen was shouting too. “Where did you get that name? Emil Marchant?”

Grijpstra’s cigar fell on the carpet. He tried to pick it up and it burned his hand, sparks finding their way into the carpet’s strands. He stamped them out roughly.

“You know a Mr. Marchant, sir?” de Gier asked quietly.

“No, I haven’t met him. But I have written several letters to a man named Emil Marchant. On behalf of clients who are hindered by the noise he makes in his shop. He works with brass, and it isn’t only the noise but there seems to be a stink as well. My clients want him to move out and are prepared to take him to court if necessary. Mr. Marchant telephoned me a few times, pleading for mercy. He said he owed money to the tax department and wanted time to make the money, that he would move out later; but my clients have lost patience. I didn’t give in to him — in fact, I just pushed harder. He will have to go to court next week and he is sure to lose out.”

“Do you know what line of business he is in, sir?”

“Doorknobs, I believe, and knockers for doors, in the shape of lions’ heads — that sort of thing. And weathervanes. He told me on the phone. All handmade. He is a craftsman.”

Grijpstra got up. “We’ll be on our way, sir. We found Mr. Marchant this morning, dead, hanging from a tree in the Amsterdam Forest. He probably hanged himself around seven A.M., and at some time before he must have delivered the rabbit and its egg. According to his landlady he has been behaving strangely lately. He must have blamed you for his troubles and tried to take his revenge. He didn’t mean to kill your wife, he meant to kill you. He didn’t know that you don’t eat chocolate and he probably didn’t even know you were married. We’ll check further and make a report. The rabbit’s mold is probably still in his shop, and if not we’ll find traces of the chocolate. We’ll have the rabbit checked for fingerprints. It won’t be difficult to come up with irrefutable proof. If we do, we’ll let you know, sir, a little later today. I am very sorry all this has happened.”

“Nothing ever happens in Amsterdam,” de Gier said as he yanked the door of the Volkswagen open, “and when it does it all fits in immediately.”

But Grijpstra didn’t agree.

“We would never have solved the case, or rather I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t thought of the rabbit as an ornament.”

“No, Grijpstra, we would have found Marchant’s name in Moozen’s files.”

The adjutant shook his heavy grizzled head. “No, we wouldn’t have checked the files. If he had kept on saying that he wasn’t working on any bad cases I wouldn’t have pursued that line of thought. I’d have reverted to trying to find an enemy of his wife. We might have worked for weeks and called in all sorts of help and wasted everybody’s time. You are clever, Sergeant.”

De Gier was studying a redheaded girl waiting for a streetcar.

“Am I?”

“Yes. But not as clever as I am,” Grijpstra said and grinned. “You work for me. I personally selected you as my assistant. You are a tool in my expert hands.”

De Gier winked at the redheaded girl and the girl smiled back. The traffic had jammed up ahead and the car was blocked. De Gier opened his door.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“It’s a holiday, Adjutant, and you can drive this wreck for a change. I am going home. That girl is waiting for a streetcar that goes to my side of the city. Maybe she hasn’t had lunch yet. I am going to invite her to go to a Chinese restaurant.”

“But we have reports to make, and we’ve got to check out Marchant’s shop; it’ll be locked, we have to find the key in his room, and we have to telephone the engineer to let him off the hook.”

“I am taking the streetcar,” de Gier said. “You do all that. You ate my roll.”