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from knee down and one of the best jumpers in the country. Had it here in the thighs, that’s where it counts.’
    I don’t have it here in the thighs, thought Van der Valk, strolling back towards a police station, a police driver, a police Volkswagen. Was it
Twelfth Night
? Higher, sir, higher. Taurus, that is heart – no, sir, it is legs and thighs. Something like that. He was a Bull, but he disagreed. Power, in his book, sprang from the nape of the neck.
    He had another look at photographs. The ground was soft from rain, but there were dozens of foot and hoof prints. Nothing for Philo Vance to get hold of.
    He went home to supper, which was pizza (‘The trouble with Dutch tomatoes,’ said Arlette reflectively, ‘is that they look beautiful but they’ve got no taste’), watercress salad, and Camembert with an apple, and feeling comfortable with a cigar he picked up the phone to ring the hospital.
    â€˜Switchboard? Give me whoever’s on night duty at the desk. Hallo. Commissaris here, criminal brigade. I asked for an autopsy this afternoon; has it been done? No no no, the report can wait – I want to know who did it? Haversma? Will he be at home at this time? Put me through? – that’s kind of you but there’s no need, thanks.’ He knew those switchboard operators. He knew Doctor Haversma, too, and quite well. He and the Head of Pathology at the University Hospital played golf together – though they were the only ones that called it golf.
    â€˜Hallo, old son? The subject you worked on for me today – of course I couldn’t care less about the report, keep the rubbish for the file – but I’d like a little shop chat, and not on any phones. How about golf tomorrow? Tell me one thing now – is that young chap in Warmond talking through his hat?’
    No, the young fellow was not talking through his hat. If it had been a circus pony and a contortionist – but not the staid and venerable Hanoverian bought by Francis La Touche to carry two hundred pounds of restaurant owner. Van der Valk went to bed and slept peacefully.
    Francis La Touche was having breakfast in bed. The bed was a large and lavish affair, with a buttoned padded satin headboard and embroidered percale sheets. Francis was being fussed over, and he enjoyed being fussed over. The morning was a time for luxury, and on Sundays particularly so, because of the immense trouble and expense of getting English Sunday papers that early. He lay now in a wonderful litter. By his feet was a huge tray with the ravaged remnants of an Edwardian meal – he liked things like devilled kidneys, kedgeree, soft herring roes, and he would have had lamb cutlets were these not so difficult to get in Holland. Strong Indian tea in large Worcester cups with little roses on them, and the smell of kippers and airmail newsprint. Added to his Egyptian cigarettes the Ardeny scent of expensive perfumery that Marion had left in the room an hour earlier was almost gone, and to emphasize this air of masculine conquest Francis was now shaving with a busy sound that was also defensive, for Marion had said nothing yet, either last night or this morning. She was sitting on the bed reading theatre notices; Francis did not only read about The Horse, but went in for intellectual food, this kind of Sunday paper being quite a pleasant sugar-coated substitute for thinking. He had to turn the razor off at last.
    â€˜I don’t feel at all well.’
    â€˜There doesn’t seem much wrong with your appetite.’
    â€˜Find me my pills.’
    Obediently Marion walked across the carpet to where his breeches, jacket and pullover were flung in a heap; he never omitted this ritual of on-the-floor, just as he never forgot to put his shirt and underclothes into the bathroom basket.
    â€˜Not at all well.’
    â€˜I’d better phone Maartens then, had I?’
    â€˜No. I’m not at all certain I