‘This — this is fantastic.’ Fantastic or not the colour still wasn’t back in Goodbody’s cheeks, ‘This is outrageous. This is — ‘
‘Be quiet,’ I said. ‘We have your prints and cephalic index. I must say that he has, in the American idiom, a sweet set-up going for him here. Incoming coasters drop heroin in a sealed and weighted container at a certain off-shore buoy. This is dragged up by barge and taken to Huyler, where it finds its way to a cottage factory there. This cottage factory makes puppets, which are then transferred to the warehouse here. What more natural — except that the very occasional and specially marked puppet contains heroin.’
Goodbody said: ‘Preposterous, preposterous. You can’t prove any of this.’
‘As I intend to kill you in a minute or two I don’t have to prove anything. Ah yes, he had his organization, had friend Catanelli. He had everybody from barrel-organ players to strip-tease dancers working for him — a combination of blackmail, money, addiction and the final threat of death made them all keep the silence of the grave.’
‘Working for him?’ De Graaf was still a league behind me. ‘In what way?’
‘Pushing and forwarding. Some of the heroin — a relatively small amount — was left here in puppets: some went to the shops, some to the puppet van in the Vondel Park — and other vans, for all I know. Goodbody’s girls went to the shops and purchased those puppets — which were secretly marked — in perfectly legitimate stores and had them sent to minor heroin suppliers, or addicts, abroad. The ones in the Vondel Park were ^old cheap to the barrel-organ men — they were the connections for the down-and-outs who were in so advanced a condition that they couldn’t be allowed to appear in respectable places — if, that is to say, you call sleazy dives like the Balinova a respectable place.’
‘Then how in God’s name did we never catch on to any of this?’ de Graaf demanded.
‘Ill tell you in a moment. Still about the distribution. An even larger proportion of the stuff went from here in crates of Bibles — the ones which our saintly friend here so kindly distributed gratis all over Amsterdam. Some of the Bibles had hollow centres. The sweet young things that Goodbody here, in the ineffable goodness of his Christian heart, was trying to rehabilitate and save from a fate worse than death, would turn up at his services with Bibles clutched in their sweet little hands — some of them, God help us, fetchingly dressed as nuns — -then go away with different Bibles clutched in their sweet little hands and then peddle the damned stuff in the night-clubs. The rest of the stuff — the bulk of the stuff — went to the Kasteel Linden. Or have I missed something, Goodbody?’
From the expression on his face, it was pretty evident that I hadn’t missed out much of importance, but he didn’t answer me. I lifted my gun slightly and said: ‘Now, I think, Goodbody.’
‘No one’s taking the law into his own hands here!’ de Graaf said sharply.
‘You can see he’s trying to escape,’ I said reasonably. Goodbody was standing motionless: he couldn’t possibly have reached his fingers up another millimetre.
Then, for the second time that day, a voice behind me said: ‘Drop that gun, Mr Sherman.’
I turned slowly and dropped my gun. Anybody could take my gun from me. This time it was Trudi, emerging from shadows and only five feet away with a Luger held remarkably steadily in her right hand.
‘Trudi!’ De Graaf stared at the young happily-smiling blonde girl in shocked incomprehension. ‘What in God’s name — ‘ He broke off his words and cried out in pain instead as the barrel of van Gelder’s gun smashed down on his wrist. De Graaf’s gun clattered to the floor and as he turned to look at the man who had struck him de Graaf’s eyes held only stupefaction. Goodbody, Morgenstern and Muggenthaler lowered their hands, the last two producing guns of their own from under their pockets: so vastly voluminous was the yardage of cloth required to cover their enormous frames that they, unlike myself, did not require the ingenuity of specialized tailors to conceal the outline of their weapons.
Goodbody produced a handkerchief, mopped a brow which stood in urgent need of mopping, and said querulously to Trudi: ‘You took your time about coming forward, didn’t you?’
‘Oh, I enjoyed it!’ She giggled, a happy and carefree sound that would have chilled the blood of a frozen flounder. ‘I enjoyed every moment of it!’
‘A touching pair, aren’t they?’ I said to van Gelder. ‘Herself and her saintly pal here. This quality of trusting child-like innocence — ‘
‘Shut up,’ van Gelder said coldly. He approached, ran his hand over me for weapons, found none. ‘Sit on the floor.
Keep your hands where I can see them. You, too, de Graaf.’
We did as we were told. I sat cross-legged, my forearms on my thighs, my dangling hands close to my ankles. De Graaf stared at me, his face a mirror for his absolute lack of understanding.
‘I was coming to this bit,’ I said apologetically. ‘I was just on the point of telling you why you’ve made so little progress yourselves in tracing the source of those drugs. Your trusted lieutenant, Inspector van Gelder, made good and sure that no progress was made.’
‘Van Gelder?’ De Graaf, even with all the physical evidence to the contrary before him, still couldn’t conceive of a senior police officer’s treachery. ‘How can this be? It can’t be.’
‘That’s not a lollipop he’s pointing at you,’ I said mildly. Van Gelder’s the boss, van Gelder’s the brain. He’s the Frankenstein, all right: Goodbody’s just the monster that’s run out of control. Right, van Gelder?’
‘Right!’ The baleful glance van Gelder directed at Goodbody didn’t augur too well for Goodbody’s future, although I didn’t believe he had one anyway.
I looked at Trudi without affection. ‘And as for your little Red Riding-hood, van Gelder, this sweet little mistress of yours — ‘
‘Mistress?’ De Graaf was so badly off balance that he no longer even looked stunned.
‘You heard. But I think van Gelder has rather fallen out of love with her, haven’t you, van Gelder? She has, shall we say, become too much of a psychopathic soulmate for the Reverend here.’ I turned to de Graaf. ‘Our little rosebud is no addict. Goodbody knows how to make those marks on her arms look real. He told me so. Her mental age is not eight, it’s older than sin itself. And twice as evil.’
‘I don’t know.’ De Graaf sounded tired. ‘I don’t understand — ‘
‘She served three useful purposes,’ I said. ‘With van Gelder having a daughter like that, who would ever doubt that he was a dedicated enemy of drugs and all the evil men who profit by them? She was the perfect go-between for van Gelder and Goodbody — they never made contact, not even on the phone. And, most important, she was the vital link in the drug supply line. She took her puppet out to Huyler, switched it there for one loaded with heroin, took it back to the puppet van in the Vondel Park and switched it again. The van, of course, brought it here when it returned for more supplies. She is a very endearing child, is our Trudi. But she shouldn’t have used belladonna to give her eyes that glazed addict look. I didn’t catch on at the time, but give me time and clobber me over the head with a two-by-four and eventually I’ll catch on to anything. It wasn’t the right look, I’ve talked to too many junkies who had the right look. And then I knew.’
Trudi giggled again and licked her lips. ‘Can I shoot him now? In the leg. High up?’
‘You’re a charming little morsel,’ I said, ‘but you should get your priorities right. Why don’t you look around you?’
She looked around her. Everybody looked around him. I didn’t, I just looked straight at Belinda, then nodded almost imperceptibly at Trudi, who was standing between her and the open loading doors. Belinda, in turn, glanced briefly at Trudi and I knew she understood.
‘You fools!’ I said contemptuously. ‘How do you think I got all my information? I was given it! I was given it by two people who got scared to death and sold you down the river for a free pardon. Morgenstern and Muggenthaler.’
There were some pretty inhuman characters among those present, no doubt about that, but they were all human in their reactions. They all stared in consternation at Morgenstern and Muggenthaler, who stood there with unbelieving eyes and mouths agape and it was with mouths agape that they died, for they were both carrying guns and the gun I now had in my hand was very small and I couldn’t afford just to wound them. In the same moment of time Belinda flung herself back against an off-guard Trudi, who staggered backwards, teetered on the edge of the loading sill, then fell from sight.