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handing in his room key at reception.
“Sylvie’s? What’s that?” asked the photographer, taking a
new picture.
“You’ll have to work that out for yourselves,” said Van
Veeteren.
    Detective Chief Inspector Bausen took charge of the assembled journalists and immediately stamped his authority on the
proceedings. He started by waiting for several minutes until
you could have heard a drop of sweat fall in the packed conference room. Then he started to speak, but stopped the moment
anybody whispered or coughed and fixed the perpetrator with
a beady eye. If anybody dared to interrupt him, he delivered
the warning that a repeated offense would result in the sinner’s
being ejected from the room forthwith by Kropke and Mooser.
And he himself would help out if need be.
    But he answered calmly and methodically the questions
that were put to him, adopting a precisely judged degree of
superiority that exposed and established the limited intellectual faculties of the questioner. Always assuming he had any.
The man must have been an actor, thought Van Veeteren.
    “When do you think you will have the murderer under lock
and key?” asked a red-nosed reporter from the local radio station.
“About ten minutes after we’ve found him,” said Bausen.
“Have you any theories you’re working on?” wondered
Malevic, chief reporter on de Journaal.
“How else do you think we operate?” asked Bausen. “We’re
not working for a newspaper.”
“Who’s actually in charge of the investigation?” asked the
man sent by the Neuwe Blatt. “Is it you or DCI Van Veeteren?”
“Who do you think?” responded Van Veeteren, contemplating a comprehensively chewed toothpick. He didn’t answer
anything else, referring all direct questions to Bausen by nodding in his direction. If he was smiling inwardly, nobody could
have told that from the expression on his face.
After twenty minutes most of the questions seemed to
have been asked, and Bausen began issuing instructions.
“I want the local newspapers and the radio to urge everybody who was in town last Tuesday night between eleven
o’clock and midnight, give or take a few minutes, in the area
around The Blue Ship, Hoistraat, the steps down to Fisherman’s Square and the Esplanade leading to the municipal
woods to get in touch with the police from tomorrow onward.
We’ll have two officers on hand at the station to deal with all
the information we receive, and we shall not turn a blind eye if
anybody who was out then fails to report to us. Don’t forget
that we’re dealing with an unusually violent killer.”
“But won’t you have a vast number of responses?” somebody wondered.
“When you’re hunting a murderer, Miss Meuhlich,” said
Bausen, “you have to accept a few minor inconveniences.”
“What do you think, Chief Inspector?” asked Cruickshank.
“Just between you and me.”
“You, me and two others, if I’m not much mistaken,” said
    Van Veeteren. “I don’t think anything.”
“The Bausen guy seems to like throwing his weight around,”
said Müller. “Do you think you’ll be able to work with him?”
“You can bet your life,” said Van Veeteren.
“Have you anything to go on?”
“You can write that we have.”
“But you haven’t, in fact?”
“I never said that.”
“How long is it since you last had to leave a case unsolved?”
asked Cruickshank.
“Six years,” said Van Veeteren.
“What was that, then?” asked the photographer, curious.
“The G-file . . .” Van Veeteren stopped chewing and stared
out of the window.
“Oh, yes, I remember,” said Cruickshank. “I wrote about
that one—”
Two young ladies came in and were about to sit at the next
table, but Müller drove them away.
“Sit in the corner instead,” he urged them. “There’s a
terrible stink here!”
“Well,” began Cruickshank, “are we dealing with a madman, or is it planned?”
“Who says that madmen don’t plan?” said Van Veeteren.