twenty minutes ago.’
‘Van Rees, clutching his millions, relaxing in the first class?’
‘Yes.’
‘And no grounds for extradition. No charges against him. In fact, no hard
evidence against him. That we’ll get the evidence, I don’t doubt. Then
I’ll go and get him. When all this is over, I mean.’
‘Your illegal penchants are well known, Lieutenant.’
‘Yes, sir. Meantime, I suggest that my penchants, your blackballing and
the fact that van Rees is at the present moment probably entering French
air space are not quite of primary importance. What does matter is that
van Rees – who has by this time passed over to the dyke-breakers all
they’ll ever want to know about sluices, weirs and locks so that they
won’t even miss him now – was also tied in with the would-be palace
bombers. And we are as convinced as can be that the Annecy brothers are
in league with the bombers. It was Julie who first expressed the
possibility of this idea, how too much of a coincidence can be too much
of a coincidence, although I must say – with all due
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modesty and not with hindsight – that this possibility had occurred to me
before.’
‘Your modesty does you credit, Lieutenant.’
‘Thank you, sir. Well, what we’re faced with now is the probability – I
would put it as high as certainty – that we are faced not with three
different organizations but only with one. That should make things much
simpler for us and easier to cope with.’
‘0: .. Of course, of course.’ De Graaf gave van Effen the kind of looi