The Mind-Murders Read Online Free PDF Page A

know; married women sometimes leave their homes without asking permission."
    "While removing all household goods?"
    "So what? Maybe it makes it special but not very special. You still haven't got a case. What does de Gier think about your theory?"
    Grijpstra gestured. "Not much, but de Gier is never impressed by subtle reasoning."
    "He consents to going ahead?"
    "Of course. He's a simple sergeant and I'm an adjutant. I'm telling him what to do. He wants to work, he can't sit still in his present predicament. That's why he wouldn't come in with me. He's outside somewhere, watching tobacconists' windows."
    "A murder," Sergeant Jurriaans said. "All right. I'm a simple sergeant too and I can't see your view; you have an elevated position. But I would think that you need serious suspicions. I learned that when I still learned. Nobody can be designated as a suspect without serious suspicions that the person has committed a crime. You don't have any."
    Grijpstra grunted. "No? If a lady disappears, suddenly and without leaving a note, while all household goods are removed —that's a nice clause, I'm keeping it for my report—then I have serious suspicions."
    "No," Jurriaans said.
    "No what?"
    "It's not a nice clause. Household goods are pots and pans. You're talking about everything, including the tiling that keeps the door from slamming against the wall and the chromium nut that prevents the toilet-paper bar from slipping."
    "You know better words?"
    "All contents of the house."
    "Thanks."
    "See? I'm quite willing to help you. I can help you too, for I know the suspect."
    "Because you've got him in your dungeon here?'* Grijpstra asked.
    "No, I let him go this morning, with a sermon. But I've known him for years. I know the other actors on your stage too. I've been around for a while, adjutant, the environment is familiar to me and cafe" Beelema is where I go when the universal guilt becomes too much to carry."
    "You know," Grijpstra said slowly, "when I hear that a woman has gone completely, and that nobody, except one particular person, has the slightest idea where she may have gone to, if such knowledge comes to me and I notice that the husband of the lady behaves in a most unusual manner ..."
    "What do you mean, unusual?"
    "What? You weren't there. Frits Fortune didn't just behave strangely, he misbehaved. De Gier was trying to save his life ... I mean, really . . . and the man was actually trying to brain my sergeant with his crutch."
    "Man kills wife," said Jurriaans, "it has happened before in my practice. The other day, for instance. Man goes to his work, to some horrible daily drudge, and just before he leaves the apartment, his wife thrusts a verbal barbed dagger in his neck, liberally dipped in poison. The man wheels around, grabs the shrew by the neck, presses and shakes ..."
    "Dead? No!"
    "As dead as a doornail. Man drops the body, telephones us and sits in a chair until my constables rush to him. Ketchup and Karate, of course, there happened to be nobody else available. They were throwing up when they came back. Ketchup had to visit the shrink a few times; he kept breaking into tears. That's odd behavior in a police station, I won't put up with it."
    "Were you ever tempted to throttle your wife?" Grijpstra asked.
    "Sure. Why?"
    "Just thought I'd ask."
    A slight tenderness moved the lines on Jurriaans's face. "She isn't too bad, and she's beautiful too, much younger than I am. She's been looking for a last fling lately, but she doesn't dare to make the break. Makes things awkward at times."
    Grijpstra coughed.
    "I don't help much," Jurriaans continued. "I have similar thoughts myself. As you know."
    "Right," Grijpstra said. "Didn't mean to pry really. So you let Frits Fortune go. Pity, in a way. After a night in the drunks' cell, suspects interrogate easily."
    "True, weakens their defenses. He didn't look in great shape, a little crumpled and his mouth was all dry and caked with filth."
    "De Gier says he was blowing