The Caterpillar Cop

15

Square one was an appalling prospect-coming, as it did, so soon after Kramer’s heady exposition. They stood about the flag on the third green like three mountaineers who had planted it on the wrong peak.

“Sodding bloody hell,” said Pembrook after much deliberation.

“Too right,” Kramer concurred.

Zondi said nothing.

“Anyway, would two minutes have been enough for the killing, sir?”

“Huh? Well, there was that lift murder down in Durban.”

“Oldroyd?”

“The same. He got in with the tart on the ground floor, escaped at the fifth, and the people buzzing from the sixth couldn’t believe she was dead already.”

“Then couldn’t-”

“ Ach, man, for Christ’s sake! Oldroyd wasn’t setting anything up, he wasn’t trying to fool anyone. A crime of passion and he was caught the same night. The only relevance is the time factor.”

“But-”

“All this is beside the point, Pembrook.”

“You misunderstood, sir. I was going to apply what you told me earlier and suggest we take a look at this bloke Glen. He was there when Boetie spoke to Caroline; you never know what his reaction might have been. We seem to have overlooked him all down the line-not that he struck me as important before.”

Kramer had his notebook out and open before Pembrook finished speaking.

“Glen Humphries, of 24 Leafield Road, Greenside,” he read out. “Articled clerk with the law firm of Henderson and Blackwell. Shall we go?”

“Where, sir?”

“To the secretary, of course-find out first if this bugger also belongs to the club. Get some background. Better come along, too, Zondi, in case we want a check with the caddies again.”

Still Zondi said nothing.

“Wake up, kaffir! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“I was listening to all the noise from the car, boss. Never have I heard so many messages.”

“You don’t say. If it’s worrying you, go over and see what’s happening.”

Without further delay, Kramer made for the clubhouse with Pembrook marching smugly by his side.

Zondi shrugged.

The inquiry was over. Constable Hendriks, somewhat dazed, had been allowed to sit down.

Colonel Muller stood up and stalked out. He entered the control room just as the call to Kramer’s car was acknowledged.

“Give,” he ordered, grabbing the microphone away from the chief operator. “Receiving you, Zondi. Where is the lieutenant?”

Zondi’s voice replied from the speaker on the wall: “He is not here, Colonel; he is very busy.”

The Colonel kept his thumb off the speak button while uttering an imperative unfit for broadcasting. As guest of honor at the Rotary luncheon, he could hardly afford to be any later.

“Then take this down very carefully, Zondi,” he said, “and give the message to the lieutenant as soon as you can.”

“Sir!”

“It concerns a dead dog,” the Colonel began.

And frowned as the chief operator, strangely overcome by mirth, blew a mouthful of tea through his nose like an elephant.

In a state of acute distress, the secretary left Kramer and Pembrook to themselves in the office.

“Fits, sir, doesn’t it?” Pembrook said gleefully. “Glen was here in the morning as well as the afternoon-with Jarvis the nearest we got was that he had played a round on the pitch- and-putt the night before. Must say, these articled clerks do all right, don’t they? Tuesday’s a working day for most people.”

“They get time off to go to lectures,” Kramer replied, resting his foot on the old-fashioned safe. “Wait until we see him before jumping to any more conclusions. He could be on holiday, for all we know.”

Pembrook continued to pace about, leaving his fingerprints on the vast array of silver cups and his ash all over the carpet.

“Oh, come on, sir! If you hadn’t got the same feeling about this that I had, you wouldn’t have asked the secretary so few questions.”

“He said Glen was just out there in the car, so why should I?”

“Can I go and get him, sir? I mean, he might try and-”

“Sit down!” barked Kramer. “If my foot wasn’t so sore, I’d give you a good kick up the arse. How many times have I told you we have to go carefully in this sort of case? This isn’t one you’re going to solve with rough stuff. Any violence and we’ve made a mistake and that’s us finished. We play it cool all the way.”

From inside the winged chair Pembrook was heard to mutter, “It all bloody well fits.”

“What does? We’ve heard Glen was here and that he’s a fiery-tempered, spoiled little bastard who once clobbered a caddy for whistling. Huh! I bet you I could find ten others like him in this place any night of the week.”

“Then there was Caroline’s attempt to keep you from interviewing him, which-”

“Say no more, Pembrook. I’m noticing quite a lot myself now but from here on we work strictly with facts. Fact one: Where was Glen on the night in question? Let him tell us that.”

The door opened and Glen Humphries, a very frightened-looking little bastard, was led in.

Zondi was caught napping, stretched out full length on the back seat and snoring softly. Not that anyone gave a damn what he was doing, but the double slam of the doors brought him round quicker than a kick. And the Chev’s almost instantaneous takeoff had him startled into an apology.

“ Ach, shut up, will you?” Kramer snarled. “If you want to sleep, sleep. I don’t care.”

Down through the plantation they bumped and skidded.

“That was the last thing I expected,” Pembrook said, making out he was addressing himself.

Kramer fumbled a cigarette into his mouth and accepted Zondi’s light for it without thanks. Probably it was the same two guinea fowl which reached safety only by turning themselves into polka-dotted cannon balls. At the gate a delivery van sidestepped into the ditch. Its Indian driver turned away, with his eyes screwed up, as the Chev plunged on to the dual highway behind him.

They reached the far lane safely.

“Christ,” whispered Pembrook, again to himself.

“Hey?”

“Nothing, sir. Just-”

“Look, Pembrook, don’t play around with me in this mood. Tell me what the trouble is.”

“Well-er-can we be sure that it was really there on the day?”

Kramer had never been asked a more fatuous question. Forgetting all about the routine checks that would doubtless confirm the claim made by Master Glen Humphries, the plaster cast encasing the fractured hand had been signed and dated by a score of inane acquaintances. It was in itself an affidavit, testifying that, for a period extending back at least three weeks, the bearer had been incapable of tying his own shoelaces-let alone strangling someone with a stout wire.

“Pembrook?”

“Sir?”

“If you don’t like the way I drive, you can get out and bloody well walk.”

Dismayed at being found so transparent, Pembrook shrank back, mumbling denials.

“Can I speak?” asked Zondi. “I have a message from the Colonel.”

“That’s all I need!”

“Boss?”

The rage in Kramer was having an effect on him more pronounced than half a bottle of peach brandy before breakfast. He no longer cared what he said or did. It was really quite pleasant, although potentially very dangerous unless he soon found some means of channeling it to advantage.

“Don’t tell me-the killer’s gone prancing in and confessed everything. Was it the Mayor?”

Zondi grinned into the mirror.

And Kramer eased back on the throttle.

“Okay, you tell me,” he said.

“Colonel’s radio message as follows: ‘It concerns dead dog mentioned during inquiry into death of Asiatic juvenile Danny Govender, arrested on suspicion by Housebreaking in Greenside area, Rosebank Road, three nights ago. Was held because story believed to be rubbish made up to cover real purpose there. Anyway, Govender alleged he was investigating the death of a very big dog, a bitch as big as himself, at the weekend.’ ”

“ You’re not making this up, kaffir? ”

“True’s God!”

“Go on, but I warn you…”

“Then the Colonel says: ‘I took an interest when told Govender alleged dog had been strangled by prowler.’ ”

Zondi paused for dramatic effect and then continued with a passable impersonation.

“‘Housebreaking made no attempt to verify this story at the time, but contacted the licensing department this morning at my request. I consider it more than a coincidence that the biggest dog in the neighborhood was a ridgeback Great Dane cross bitch belonging to Captain P. R. Jarvis. Suggest you now follow my advice, drop farfetched theories, and switch investigation from family to the criminal element. One last point: Housebreaking has apparently overlooked the burglar’s success despite number of watchdogs kept. This could indicate we should be looking for a white-even one living in Greenside.’ ”

Something odd happened to Pembrook’s expression. Kramer noticed it at once.

“You look as if you know about this?”

“No, sir! First I’ve heard about it.”

“Then how come the Colonel so obviously knows that the Jarvises have no dog at present?”

“He-he could have got the license people to make a casual inquiry. By phone.”

“Hmmm. Possible, I suppose. Always knows more than you think, that bloke. What do you make of his theory?”

A catch in Kramer’s voice made Pembrook swing round surprised. There was a disturbing smile on the face he examined.

“Pretty farfetched, too,” he said cautiously. “If the prowler was white and didn’t have trouble with dogs, why did he do this one in?”

“Some dogs won’t be friendly with anyone,” Kramer reminded him.

“Even then, the more unfriendly they are, the harder to get near their throats. Ach, I can see what the Colonel is getting at, all these factors strung together-dog strangled, Boetie strangled, prowler surprised a white burglar, a white murderer, coincidences-but it doesn’t hold together when you think about it. For a start, we know now what the Colonel doesn’t know-and that is what Boetie saw at the swimming bath. It wasn’t the prowler that time and Boetie was at home when the dog was killed. Makes your head spin.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Kramer replied. “Like you say, the Colonel’s got it all wrong. He’s been sitting at the inquiry with his mind on other things, just slinging together a few ideas. But it’s all there.”

“Hey? I can’t see anything to work on.”

The Chev slipped off the highway down a byroad. Half a mile later it was in Greenside.

“I’ve got you, boss!” Zondi exclaimed as they turned in to 10 Rosebank Road.

Which left Pembrook very indignant indeed, so indignant he rounded on the other passenger.

“Come on,” he snapped, “you tell me what I’m too thick to get from all this!”

“ Hau! But you are not stupid, Boss Pembrook. You said this thing yourself: that it is hard to get near the neck of a bad dog.”

“Unless,” Kramer intervened, “it’s your own dog-and it’s probably expecting you to put its collar on.”

“Not back to Jarvis again!”

“Why not? Doesn’t this give us our other body? One as big as a juvenile?”

The Trekkersburg Rotarians never got to hear the Colonel’s speech on the primary role of the police force as guardians of the security of the Republic, although they came very close to doing so.

The empty dishes had been whisked away, the cigars brought round, and the coffee served; he was about to stand up, curiously niggled by a feeling that he had not got that hunch of his about the dog quite right, when the hotel’s manager rushed in.

“I’m sorry but you’re wanted urgently at police headquarters,” he said.

“What on earth for?”

“Somebody’s running amuck there with a gun. Two shot already!”

“Nonsense!”

“That’s what the sergeant on the phone said. They’ve got him cornered in the billiard room.”

The Colonel’s second hunch of the day was fully substantiated: Constable Hendriks had cracked.

A bumblebee in the hollyhock beside the great wooden door fizzed no louder than the fuse to a bomb, and yet Kramer heard it. All of Greenside lay hushed; the beginning of a drowsy afternoon in a suburb so civilized that everyone rested indoors until the heat wore off and servants could serve tea.

But, for now, the heat was on. Kramer could feel it there in his belly, too, burning like peach brandy.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said, making a crude, brutal gesture with his hands.

Zondi gave a growl of approval.

“Surely you don’t mean that?” Pembrook asked.

“Nice and quick, boss,” Zondi said, smiling.

“Think I’m mad?”

“Then what…?” faltered the apprehensive Pembrook.

“There is more than one way of skinning a cat, son. Watch and you’ll find out. Know your job?”

“Keep the women away and try to get a statement from Mrs. Jarvis.”

“And you, Zondi?”

“Find the garden boy.”

Kramer knocked hard, once.

The maid opened up so promptly she gave herself away. Those diamond-shaped panes of glass had blobs in their centers like the lenses in peepholes.

Zondi questioned her. Captain Jarvis was in his study. Mrs. Jarvis was in her sewing room. Caroline was still in bed.

“Forget the daughter, then,” Kramer said to Pembrook. “I’ll be with you as soon as I can. Zondi, get this woman to take you to the garden boy.”

He led Pembrook in by the arm, unaware that his grip accounted for the brawny youth’s sudden pallor.

“For Christ’s sake don’t go soft on me,” he hissed.

“I’m okay, sir.”

“Sewing room’s on the landing. Keep it quiet as you can or Caroline’ll only complicate things. Now move!”

Kramer watched him start up the stairs, then he began opening every door in the passage, other than that leading to the drawing room, which he remembered was first on the right.

Third time lucky-Jarvis rose in surprise from behind his desk.

“Please don’t get up, sir. Just a few questions.”

“Really, this is getting beyond a joke!”

All the same, Jarvis lowered himself back into the chair. Maybe his legs had weakened.

“First question: Do you own a firearm?”

“Several.”

“And where are they?”

“The guns are locked away-my revolver’s in my bedroom. What’s all this about? They’re licensed.”

“And your dog-is it licensed?”

“I don’t have one.”

“I see.”

Kramer took out an invoice he had received for a dozen red roses.

“What’s that?” Jarvis asked.

“The counterfoil of a dog license issued in your name by the Trekkersburg Municipality. It’s expired.”

“So I was informed this morning,” Jarvis said coldly. “But as the wretched animal itself expired about a week ago, I don’t see the point of all this. As a matter of fact, I-”

“Yes?”

While awaiting an answer, Kramer wheeled over an easy chair and then commandeered a small table for his foot. He made himself comfortable. And noted that now he was closer to Jarvis, the man reeked of strong drink.

“This is intimidation!” Jarvis declared.

“Asking about a dog license?”

“The hell with that. What are you really? Special Branch?”

“ Ach, no, just a bit of an all-rounder.”

Kramer lit a Lucky.

“Well?” challenged Jarvis, bringing a small tumbler out from behind a pile of books.

“Cheers!” said Kramer.

Jesus, it was bizarre. Only a genuine psychopath could have lasted as long in a situation engineered to disorientate a suspect and now having much that effect on Kramer himself. You had to be mad to treat it anything like normal-and to rationalize so fluently, as with the Special Branch remark. On another level, these were the responses of a man entirely confident of his position; nothing would be achieved by trying Boetie’s trick of flushing out fact with a well-aimed fistful of surmise. It would clatter off the cold-blooded bastard like pellets off a croc. The most Kramer could hope for would be a cynical, private admission of guilt, without any indication of where concrete evidence, fit for public judgment, could be found. For that sort of information, the abandon of high passion was required; this in turn meant a change in metabolism, something that would raise the body temperature high enough for careless talk. Kramer had a plan, based on first reverting Jarvis to basic behavior, that might or might not work. It was worth a try anyway.

“Going to sit there long, Lieutenant?”

“Just giving my foot a rest. I cut it yesterday.”

“Always a nasty business. What on?”

“With a sickle, actually.”

A gleam shone momentarily in Jarvis’s monocled eye. Then he leaned across his desktop.

“Isn’t it time you ran along, Lieutenant? It does seem as though we were just going to waste each other’s afternoon.”

“I’d hoped…”

There were slithering footsteps in the passageway outside.

“Just a minute, Captain Jarvis, I’ve got a small surprise for you before I go.”

Kramer went quickly over to the door, took a large zinc bath from Zondi, and returned with it to the desk. The stench which suddenly filled the room was incredibly awful.

“Good God! What have you there?”

Kramer let the bath fall on the desk with a thump.

Inside it was a shape, a long shape as shiny as a prune, only hairy in parts, and acrawl with a mass of maggots more numerous than the grains in an orphanage rice pudding. A snarl of teeth gleamed at one end.

But it was undoubtedly the smell that made Jarvis spew violently over himself as he turned his head away, ruining the right sleeve of his smoking jacket. Some of his lunch-barely digested-splattered more considerately into the wastepaper bin. If the stuff had its own smell, it was certainly not discernible against such competition.

Kramer switched to autopsy breathing and concentrated on the next phase of the operation. He tipped the bath up a little and shook it. The dead dog released gas bilaterally.

“Oh, my Christ!” gasped Jarvis, doubling up to dry retch.

Meanwhile, Kramer resumed his seat, sick to the stomach with the pain in his foot. He should have foreseen that carrying over the bath would place an agonizing weight on it every other step. But somehow he managed to maintain an air of bright interest in the proceedings.

“Sis, man, you’re disgusting!” he said finally, with a laugh. “Where’s the pride of the regiment now?”

This brought back the color to Jarvis’s puffing cheeks-and then some. His head became engorged with blood until it threatened to seep steaming through the pores. He gave a hoarse shout and lunged.

The black pupil of the Smith amp; Wesson stared him back to the far side of the desk, yet it could not silence Jarvis.

“You swine!” he said. “You filthy Boer bastard! Bringing a thing like that into a man’s house!”

Come to think of it, the incongruity alone was powerfully disturbing. There squatted the servants’ bath, smack in the center of a rosewood veneer clean enough to eat off and surrounded by such elegance as a silver inkstand; a crystal goblet containing a single, immaculate rose; an ivory paperweight carved with great delicacy; and a picture in a leather frame of a young woman with her two little girls.

“ Ach, yes, it would have been nicer to bring Boetie along, but his ma wouldn’t let me,” Kramer replied.

Jarvis jarred, as if struck a blow by the words.

“My God! Is there no limit to the way you Afrikaans scum behave? First the Junior Gestapo and now you.”

“But you wouldn’t have killed him if you’d really thought he worked for us,” Kramer said quietly.

“Oh, no? Prove it!”

And there it was: that incautious bravado Kramer had planned on producing.

“Mrs. Jarvis is already being a great help.”

“ Sylvia? She wouldn’t tell you a damn thing as long as I live.”

“Don’t tempt me, Captain.”

“I see, you’re going to build a case on bluff and bullshit.”

“How come I decided to dig up this dog, then? You didn’t notice her at the window? Take a look at its throat now the fur has fallen off.”

“But she couldn’t know anything else anyway-that’s not enough and you know it.”

“I’ve got plenty. You should have treated her better.”

“ Me? Why, I-”

Jarvis struggled out of his jacket, hurling it into one corner.

“How shall I put it, Captain? Mrs. Jarvis has promised to help us with the Swanepoel case if we don’t reopen the Cutler one.”

“The woman’s mad! It would all come out in court anyway.”

“Not necessarily. She was expecting, for the sake of the family’s name, that you would-well, you know.”

“And get strung up as a sex killer? Good God Almighty, what help would that be?”

“The medical evidence is against that for a start-and the element of premeditation. If you like to fill in a few more details, maybe I’ll be able to think of something.”

It seemed Jarvis was no longer aware of the seething corruption before him as he collapsed into his chair, shattered with the realization he had already talked too much. He was not his abnormal self.

The sewing machine refused to keep a neat stitch. Pembrook, whose mother was a dressmaker, assured Mrs. Jarvis he could repair it in a trice.

“You’re such a nice boy,” she said.

All along she had been struggling to contain her hysteria with her stiff upper lip. But she had refused adamantly to make any statement, for fear of what her husband would do.

“Be nice to us, then,” coaxed Pembrook. “We can’t help it if there is this order from New York through Interpol. It won’t be in any of the local papers.”

“Will it work now?” she asked, putting an arm over his bowed shoulders.

Kramer had Zondi remove the bath and then drew his easy chair up closer to the desk.

“From what you tell me,” he said to Jarvis, “you planned the whole thing too well. Take the sickle, for instance, chucking it out of your car window where a wog would find it means we’ll never trace it now.”

“Newspaper appeal?”

“When not one in a hundred can read? That’s a fat hope. And then again, the way you carried the sickle off the course in the hang-down lid of your golf bag-using a plastic bag in there cut out all traces of blood, as you say.”

“I was very careful,” murmured Jarvis, half a size smaller now, it seemed. “Was a police wallah m’self once, you know.”

“I suppose, with a bit of luck, we might find the wire from the dog with a metal detector.”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t put it in the dustbin-threw it in the hedge, I think. After all, I hardly expected you…”

“How did you get Boetie up to the plantation?”

“Piffling. Informed him I had my suspicions but I couldn’t afford to reveal them where we might be overheard.”

“So that’s how the cigarette got on the ground,” Kramer said softly. “Boetie chucked the bloody thing away-deliberately. Discarded it as irrelevant.”

Jarvis toyed with a paper knife.

“There’s no way of doing it without connecting the two cases, Lieutenant.”

A short while back Jarvis had been ranting and yelling, and now he was sitting there discussing his future so dispassionately it could have been that of a stranger. Mad as a rabid bloody meerkat. Apparently quite unaware he had been sprinkling around enough information for Kramer to have the whole thing sewn up by nightfall-providing, of course, both cases were used in conjunction. No, wait a minute, Kramer had him anyway so he, too, was becoming confused. It was the corroborating statement about the Cutler case that needed attention. Plus the compulsion Kramer felt to make this double-barreled bastard suffer for all the trouble he had caused. Quite suddenly, a most satisfactory idea occurred to him.

Kramer stood up.

“Captain,” he said, “we have overlooked one certain solution to your problem. In its way, it is also a solution to our own. Let us treat this as a matter of honor, as you would in the regiment, if you get my meaning. It would cause the least amount of damage to the family name and you will be required to undergo no indignity.”

He picked up his revolver, which had been lying on the desk, and broke it open. Jarvis leaned forward and saw each chamber was loaded. The revolver was snapped shut.

“In passing,” Kramer said, “I might point out that head injuries cause immense distress to those left behind. Now, having chatted amiably with you, as I shall tell the Colonel when he arrives in a minute, I’ll go up to the lavatory. Have I your understanding?”

He placed the revolver nonchalantly on the desk.

Jarvis got unsteadily to his feet-Kramer had encouraged him to drink freely during their lengthy discussion.

The two men stood looking at each other in silence; shoulders back, stomachs in, chins out.

“Spoken like a gentleman, sir!” said Jarvis.

Kramer shook hands and left.

Pembrook was very proud of his repair work and equally peeved when he found Kramer so inattentive while he gave a full explanation of what it had entailed.

“He was sweet about it,” Mrs. Jarvis said. “Far, far better than that little man I usually get in when things go wrong.”

“I think you’d better get down to helping him with his statement then,” Kramer said.

“Oh, I can’t! I’ve told you why, I simply can’t.”

“Come on, madam, sit down and Constable Pembrook will make it all very simple.”

“But, sir- Christ! ”

A single shot had sounded from downstairs.

Mrs. Jarvis began to laugh in that crazy way once again. When she overdid it, Kramer slapped her.

“Was that Peter?” she asked, her broad smile remaining.

Kramer nodded.

“But how the-”

“When you feel up to it, your statement, please, Mrs. Jarvis.”

Pembrook looked in amazement from one face to the other.

“Oh, but I must first go and tell Caroline it was nothing to worry about,” she said. “Don’t go away, young man.”

“And I’d better go down and see what has happened,” Kramer added.

They parted company on the landing.

Zondi, who had run in from the servants’ quarters, met Kramer at the bottom of the stairs.

“ Hau! Who is shooting?” he asked, bewildered.

“Boss Jarvis. Let’s inspect the damage.”

Kramer seemed absurdly jolly and this left Zondi considerably apprehensive. He followed him down the passage and into the study.

There, on the far side of the big desk, Captain Jarvis lay slumped in his chair, a huge powder burn on his shirt front over the heart. From his right hand hung a. 38 Smith amp; Wesson with distinctive ivory embellishments.

“It’s your gun, boss! How can this be?”

“Must have left it behind after our nice little talk-stupid of me. Can’t remember doing that.”

“He’s breathing!”

“I should bloody well hope so.”

“Boss?”

Unable to restrain himself, Zondi rushed forward and then realized there was no blood to be seen.

Kramer worked the trigger guard off Jarvis’s finger and broke open the revolver. He cleared the chambers and a stunted spent cartridge, plus five others with curiously crimped noses, jumped into his hand.

Blanks.

“I’ve had them in there ever since the gala,” he admitted, winking.

Then Zondi recalled that, when locked in mortal combat with an oversexed witch doctor, he had seen a blond phantom making no attempt to use the firearm it carried. Sudden comprehension slid icily like a hailstone down his spine. He shuddered.

“You’re crazy, boss!”

“Why so? There was never any real likelihood of violence in this case. All kid gloves and romance in the bloody moonlight.”

So saying, Kramer put the rose between his teeth and poured the contents of the crystal vase over Jarvis. It was too warm for an immediate effect but they did not have to wait overlong.

“Where’m I?” Jarvis slurred-nobody expected for a moment he would come out with anything original.

“Guess,” said Kramer.

Jarvis’s lids parted briefly.

“My study,” he mumbled.

“Wrong,” said Kramer.

“Where then?”

“Hell,” replied Kramer. “Just improvising, you understand, until we get the noose on you. After that, who knows? I never take chances.”

This time Jarvis opened his eyes wide and kept them open.

“You Afrikaner scum,” he said, with such hatred Zondi feared for the worst.

But Kramer laughed. “Don’t blame me, Captain-blame Professor Aardvark.”

And he thoroughly enjoyed his little in-joke.

Zondi was able to share his amusement. It was he who had shown the lieutenant that the first word in any English dictionary was, in fact, Cape Dutch.