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forthcoming?"
    The commissaris fetched more fresh rolls from the kitchen.
    "A busy park within the metropolis," Katrien said. "A man has a heart attack. Wouldn't people notice?"
    The commissaris agreed.
    "What age was Grijpstra's pal's dead uncle?" Katrien asked.
    "Seventy, Katrien."
    "Enjoying good health, apart from the heart condition?"
    The commissaris said he would inquire.
    "Not a drunk? Or an addict? So why would he wear rags?"
    The commissaris planned to find out.
    Katrien, frustrated, ate something after all—thinly sliced cheese—and drank coffee, no cream, no sugar.
    The commissaris played with his roll, then handed the rest to her.
    "Looks like it is all over," Katrien was saying. "What do you expect to come up with, Jan? Old people don't respond well to shock. They tend to just keel over. Remember my father?"
    "Uncle Bert wasn't married," the commissaris said.
    Katrien interrupted her eating. "Meaning what, my sweet?"
    The commissaris meant that when Katrien's father died, he hadn't just switched off. He had been gradually worn down by seventy years of irritation caused by life's vicissitudes. That he was also hit by a truck was because, exhausted, he was paying no attention.
    Katrien stared at her husband.
    "I don't mean that you irritate me," the commissaris said. "Don't worry, Katrien. I'm sure the case is simple, even if it seems puzzling when we look at it from here. I'll check the details, ask around a little bit, study the location, go into this Uncle Bert's background. I'm sure my final report will put complainant's mind at rest."
    "You'll be mugged," Katrien said. "You've been very sickly lately. You hardly sleep at night. You don't even enjoy napping. You keep taking pain pills. And I can't go with you because of our daughter's due date. I won't let you go."
    Soon, the commissaris said, he would be retired. All the rest a man could ask for. He would wallow in nondoing.
    "I'll go with you," Katrien decided.
    "You promised to be here for the grandchildren's birth."
    There was that—twins were about to be born to Katrien and Jan's youngest daughter. The birth was predicted to entail some complications. Katrien had promised support.
    "I'll be fine," the commissaris said.
    Katrien wanted to do something. The police convention accommodations consisted of a room in a Holiday Inn. Katrien had inherited a small fortune in tax-free jewels from a tax-evading aunt who had left her the key and authorization to enter a Swiss bank's safety deposit box. Katrien never wore "trinkets." She had sold the stashed rubies.
    "I'll get you a nice hotel room. Right on the park. That will be pleasant. Maybe that place near that enormous museum. The Cavendish? I'll get you a suite. You can rest and enjoy room service."
    The commissaris didn't hear her.
    "You are thinking of something," Katrien said.
    His attitude didn't change.
    "Stop stirring your coffee, dear." She took away his spoon.
    He looked at her over the rim of his cup.
    "You don't have a premonition, do you?" Katrien asked. "I have one myself. Or was it that dream you were going to finish telling me about this morning? About the driver of a Number Two streetcar? You did tell me something but I kept dozing off."
    "The Angel of Death," the commissaris said. "The driver was an angel. The message had to do with death, but not mine, I don't think."
    "Good," Katrien said. She worried—about his frail health, the strenuous journey he was about to undertake, his coming retirement.
    He helped his wife wash up.
    "Will you tell me about that dream now?"
    The commissaris busied himself stacking plates in the cupboard.
    "Don't put that funny look on," Katrien said. "I know that look. That streetcar driver was a woman, wasn't she now? I know the one you mean."
    "Which one?" he asked.
    "That blonde? Long legs in the glass driver's cabin, glass all the way down to the street. On the new type of streetcar. You forget we were together when you noticed that lady driver. You were all