"We won't keep you longer man necessary," the commissaris said softly. "Let me tell you why we invited you to come here."
The colonel relaxed a little. The commissaris had made a good impression.
"I know why I am here," the colonel said. "I was told by your colleagues. Maria van Buren is dead. Somebody murdered her. She was a friend of mine."
"Quite," the commissaris said. "She was your girl friend. We found her with a knife in her back. A dagger, in fact. A military knife. She was killed between eight P.M. and twelve P.M. last Saturday according to our police doctor."
The colonel thought. He thought for a full minute and broke out in a wide smile. "Last Saturday I was in Dusseldorf, I spent the night there, with friends. I don't think I spent a minute by myself that day and I wasn't alone during the night either. And I can prove what I am telling you."
"Good," the commissaris said, "I am very pleased on your behalf."
But the colonel wasn't listening. He was looking out of the window, the wide smile still on his face. When he had finished looking out of the window he turned and faced the two military police officers.
"Ha," he said, "you are wasting your time on me. If you had waited I could have proved my alibi in Germany."
The commissaris didn't give his colleagues a chance to answer back. "Now, now," he said smoothly, "we didn't invite you to come here to prove that you have committed a murder. At this stage of the investigation we merely want information. We know almost nothing about the dead woman. You knew her well. Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling us about her."
"Please, colonel," the man from the embassy said. The commissaris glanced at the man from the embassy. A nice young man, he thought. Very helpful.
"O.K., O.K.," the colonel said, "please excuse me. I didn't want to be difficult but I have been under some strain ever since these two gentlemen came to see me and never left me for a minute. I think they even kept me under observation when I went to the toilet in the plane. Thought that I might squeeze through the window."
The military policemen laughed politely and stopped laughing at the same moment.
"O.K. I'll help. I knew Maria well, intimately as they say. For three years now. Used to come to Amsterdam at least once a month. I am stationed just across the border, it isn't a very long drive. I am sorry she is dead."
"Please excuse me," the commissaris said, "but you don't look sorry."
The colonel scratched his knee. "I don't?"
"No. You look relieved."
"Well, I am relieved that I can prove that I didn't kill her."
"I see," the commissaris said.
"All right," the colonel said, "maybe I am relieved. I don't have to go and see her anymore."
"Were you tiring of her?"
"You speak very good English, you know," the colonel
The commissaris smiled. "Most Dutchmen do. We have to; this is a small country in a big world and nobody speaks Dutch, except us."
"Would you like to pour us all another cup of coffee?" the commissaris asked the young man from the embassy. The young man jumped from his chair, eager to oblige.
"Were you tiring of her?"
"Tiring," the colonel said, "no. But I did want to get away from her."
"But that would be easy," the commissaris said, "all you had to do was stop seeing her."
The colonel was scratching his knee again.
"Are you married?" the commissaris asked.
"Yes. In the States. My wife used to be with me in Germany but she went home again. She knew about Maria, if that's what you mean. Maria wasn't blackmailing me, she couldn't because I told my wife about her."
"Would she have blackmailed you if you hadn't told your wife?"
The colonel began to scratch his other knee. "She might have."
"Would you say that Maria van Buren wasn't a very nice woman?" the commissaris asked.
The colonel nodded. "Yes," he said slowly, "I could say mat. But she was very attractive. Beautiful too, but a lot of women are beautiful without being attractive. Beauty becomes boring sometimes."
"Are you an expert?" the commissaris asked.
The colonel laughed. "I am supposed to be an expert in the army. I should know something about atomic warheads. Maybe I also know something about women."
"So Mrs. van Buren attracted you and you went to see her regularly but now you are pleased that you don't have to see her again. Perhaps you could explain your relationship a little."
The colonel shifted in his chair. He had stopped scratching his knees and his hands were looking for some other activity. He became aware of his hands and put them in the pockets of his jacket.
"Were you paying the lady, sir?" the youngest military policeman asked.
"Yes, I was paying her."
"A lot?" the commissaris asked.
"She wasn't cheap."
"How much were you paying her?"
"All right," the colonel said, "she was a whore, if you must know. A high-class whore. She charged five hundred a night, payable in advance. Cash on the barrelhead or no fun and games. But her fun and games were good."
"Dollars?"
"No, guilders. But five hundred guilders is a lot of money. And there were extras. Perfume, a ring, a dress. A fur coat too. The fur coat was two thousand dollars, but I wanted her very badly then."
The face of the older military policeman moved. It moved for a few seconds and suddenly a question popped out of the face.
"Did she ever show any interest in your job, sir?"
"No," the colonel snapped, "she never asked me about atomic warheads."
"These questions must be very unpleasant for you," the commissaris said, "and we won't ask many more, but I have been calculating a little. If you knew the lady for three years, and if she charged five hundred guilders per visit, and if you saw her at least once a month, and if you gave her expensive presents, you must have spent some ten thousand dollars on her."
"That's correct," the colonel said. "I worked it out myself on the plane. Ten thousand."
"That's real money," the commissaris said. "Would you mind telling us how and where you met her?"
"I met her at a party. I often used to come to Amsterdam before I met Maria. Amsterdam is a good town for us, better than Germany. The atmosphere is just right here. I used to come with friends of mine and one of them knew some people here. There's an old gable house on the Leidse Gracht which belongs to a rich Dutchman, a man called Drachtsma. His first name is Ice, I think, something like that. The name suits him, he is a very cool guy. There were a lot of people at the party, some of them pretty famous, I believe. Musicians, painters, businessmen, professors. They like to have foreigners at the house. Maria was the star of the party and I was careful because she seemed to be Ice's girlfriend but she made it real easy for me. I took her to her houseboat that night and stayed."
"Did she make you pay?"
"She did," the colonel said. "It made me feel silly all right. I thought I was making a big impression but I had to pay."
"And you kept going back," the commissaris said, "even when you didn't really want to anymore. That's right, isn't it?"
"That's right," the colonel said.
"Illogical, isn't it?"
"Yes. I can't explain it. It wasn't love. It was sex, of course, but I can get sex in Germany."
"Do you know of any other men who were interested in Mrs. van Buren?" the commissaris asked.
"Anybody who knows her, I would guess," the colonel said. "You would have been if you had known her."
The commissaris smiled. "I am an old man," he said, "and I suffer from rheumatism."
"She would have cured it perhaps."
"Yes. She might have. But she is dead."
"Well, Ice was interested in her, the man who gave the party and who owned the house. Big roan with a bald head. A big powerful man. I am sure she was his mistress as well."