The King of the Rainy Country (2 page)

‘Send him up to me,' said Van der Valk.

It was a cold day in early March. Month of cold light dry days and cold wet blowy days. Month of colds. Van der Valk hadn't a cold, but his pockets were full of Kleenex tissues folded small and put there by his wife, which came flying out like a conjuror's pigeons every time he searched for an elastic band or an odd peppermint.

‘Are you the duty inspector?'

‘I am. Van der Valk is my name; would you like to sit down?'

Mr Canisius would like to sit down: he had not an athletic aspect and there had been two flights of stairs. Yes, he looked rich. The fur collar on the overcoat was black and sleek, his grey bird's-eye trousers were dim but expensive, his shoes were handmade. Nothing showed of his top half but a Paisley silk muffler, though the careful cut of the overcoat hid, Van der Valk rather thought, a prosperous little tummy. He had a grey trilby hat lined with white silk; it had a blonde leather band stamped with gold paint, looked as though bought ten minutes ago.

The face was not particularly memorable, but it was impressive – big and bald, a Roman nose and very black eyebrows, large flat ears with long drooping lobes, wide pale lips with a droop at the corners, drooping flesh under alert little dark eyes that did not
droop. Mr Canisius took his gloves off slowly to put in his hat, and at least threequarters of a carat of diamond winked from a pale bun of a hand with little bunches of black hair on it. The voice was veiled and rich, like a Wiener Melange coffee with chantilly cream floating on the top.

‘I must ask you to listen to a slightly unusual tale.' He was taking his time about lighting a short torpedo cigar, dark tobacco; Brazilian or something, thought Van der Valk. There was a faint flavour, not quite a smell, about Mr Canisius, of vanilla and expensive coffee beans, or was that just the force of suggestion? ‘I will develop the background briefly' – putting away a thin gold lighter. From a kind of inverted snobbery Van der Valk put a cheap French cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a match. He had a perfectly good lighter, which had needed a new flint for three days now. Words were coming rapidly from a practised lucid speaker.

‘You will have heard of the firm colloquially called the Sopexique. The founders made a considerable fortune in the last century, in undeveloped countries. It is a trade company with considerable interests in South and North America, and fewer, I am happy to say, in the Africa where it had its beginnings. The founder of this firm was called Marschal, a name unfamiliar to you. The name is still represented by a Monsieur Sylvestre Marschal, who inherited and expanded a very great fortune. There is real estate in Paris and Rome, in New York and Rio – I will quote no figures, but you may take my word for it that this is one of the largest fortunes in private hands anywhere. I say private, for it is distinct from the holdings of the company, in property and investments, which are themselves very considerable.' A short pause to let all this sink in.

‘Monsieur Marschal is a man still vigorous and active. He is now over eighty years of age, but he visits the Paris office daily. Some few years ago he settled, for reasons I need not go into, a very large proportion of his wealth upon his only son, a man at present forty-two years old. Jean-Claude Marschal lives in Amsterdam, where the office of the Sopex is administered by me,
and is the head of publicity and public relations, for the European offices.'

‘That sounds quite impressive,' said Van der Valk; there were bits of this story he felt he had heard before. ‘Is it?'

No smile, but a slight slow nod of appreciation.

‘I am pleased you asked; the question shows you to have some judgement. No, Inspector, it is not. The Sopex is largely an investment trust, and where trade is still carried on it is principally in raw materials. We make no electrical equipment, no washing powders, no breakfast foods. Our advertising budget is laughable and our public relations virtually non-existent. Everybody has heard of us and nobody knows quite what it is we do, which is just the state of affairs we like. However, I do not wish to give you a notion that Mr Marschal is an incompetent tolerated because of his name. He is an able and intelligent man. His work, which is largely meeting, entertaining and communicating with the men all over the world with whom the company does business, is extremely efficient. He draws an excellent salary. He also commands the very large fortune I have mentioned, income from which flows into balances held in banks throughout Europe, in many different names. An arrangement made at varying times throughout his life by his father, at times of political unrest.'

Quite so.

‘And he's in trouble, is he?' It sounded banal. The spoilt child become the spoilt man. What had he done, knocked a pedestrian over while drunk driving?

‘We do not know whether he is in any trouble. He has chosen to disappear. If there is trouble, naturally we wish to prevent it. We do not wish his father, an elderly gentleman in frail health, to know of it. We wish to safeguard a number of things. Health, property, good name.'

‘He could not interfere much with company affairs, if I have understood.'

‘Naturally not, since decisions are taken in concert. However, the fortune, while of course private, is also a company heritage, if I may put it so. We should not like to see it damaged. There are also
personal relationships, informal business footings and connexions – I need not elaborate.'

‘Has he any reason or motive to act purposely in a prejudicial way?' bluntly: he was making notes now.

‘None.'

‘You sketch a man of no great parts, restricted to inconsequential activities in a company he owns, in a manner of speaking. He might feel slighted? Some real or imagined grievance, that might urge him to launch an attack of some kind?'

‘You have not quite the right picture,' unruffled. ‘I understand that such a conclusion might be drawn, but to say that Monsieur Marschal has no great parts is inexact. He has unquestioned ability. A far greater say in affairs, numerous positions of real responsibility, have been open to him at all times and repeatedly offered. He has always rejected them. I do not pretend to understand why. Business matters have no grasp, possibly, upon his mind. He has always been content with the work he chose. I have only one criticism of him, that he preferred to use his charm rather than his mind.'

‘What were his interests? What did engage his mind?'

‘That is a puzzling question. I have asked it myself. When young, the usual amusements of a sportive nature. I know nothing of such. He was an excellent horseman, skier, pilot of racing cars. He played polo, sailed yachts –all the conventional pursuits. He was very gifted at all of them, I am told. I am also told that he lacked perseverance, and always loosened the rein at the moment he should have tightened it. He did not want to win enough. It is too easy for me, he used to exclaim.'

‘He's married?'

‘Yes. I will forestall you and state that it is not a stormy marriage and that there have been no upheavals nor scandals.'

‘Does he chase women?'

‘In a lacklustre way.'

‘You mean that he's occasionally seen in restaurants with other people's wives but nobody has ever got in an uproar?'

‘Yes.'

‘It comes down to this: he has vanished, without fuss or furore, quite simply, with no indication where or why.'

‘That is exact.'

‘And you simply want him found.'

‘Equally. It is puzzling, you understand. There may have been a rootlessness, a restlessness, but it has been replaced by many years of calm and stability. He has shown no evidence of emotional disturbance, is not given to extravagance or a parade of wealth, and is in perfect health.'

‘There is one thing I do not see, Mr Canisius, and that is why you come to me. You confirm that he has done nothing illegal. There is no suggestion of fraud or false pretence. He is just missing, and since there is a fortune involved, that is disturbing. I can see that, but isn't this a job for a private detective?'

Mr Canisius smiled then, very slightly, for the first time. He got up and settled his coat, though it had remained precisely buttoned throughout the interview. He picked up his hat and examined it for signs of contamination. Finding none he put it on his head. He drew on his glove.

‘I do not think I need answer that question, Mr Van der Valk. I think, though, that you may receive an answer to it.' He bowed slightly with perfect politeness, opened the door, and was gone.

*

Van der Valk shrugged. He scratched his jaw, then behind his ear, reading over the notes he had made. There were any number of possibilities. The man could have had a row with his wife without it being public. He could have done something to make him the victim of a blackmail attempt. He could have just felt like getting away from it all for a while and forgotten to tell anyone. Mr Canisius might have told him a lot of eyewash. Good grief, there were a million tensions or disturbances that might exist in the life of a very rich man to explain his bunking. None of them were of much interest to him: his job was the detection and prevention of infringements of the criminal code in the city of Amsterdam.

He shut the notebook and picked up a file he had been
interrupted in reading. He then felt a tickle in the middle of his back; a hair must be lodged there. This was altogether more complicated and interesting; with his free hand he dragged at his tie, undid his collar-button and poked a pencil down the back of his neck. Mr Canisius was interesting, and so no doubt was Mr Jean-Claude Marschal, and it was all very mysterious, but the tickle was altogether more urgent.

The pencil was not long enough. There was a wooden ruler somewhere; he was hunting for it in a drawer when the phone rang.

‘Van der Valk.' There it was; he slid it down luxuriantly and slalomed with both shoulders.

‘Hoofd Commissaris here,' an elderly fussy tone, familiar to him. He left the ruler sticking where it was; this was the head of the Amsterdam Police, and his Commander in Chief.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘You're the desk duty officer over there, are you?'

‘Yes sir.'

There was a long pause as though he were talking to someone with his hand on the mouthpiece. Old boy's voice sounded a scrap querulous. Had there been a complaint again about the towels in the washroom getting dirty so quickly? This was just the kind of thing that would bring out all his Highness' administrative and detective talents. Van der Valk hated those towels; they were the horrible mechanical type that buzzed and clicked when you pulled at them, and then let you have a grudging ten centimetres. Last week he had given a brisk jerk, and brought the whole damn lot out like a huge hateful roll of lavatory paper.

‘You have had a call from a certain Mr Canisius.'

So there the wind lay.

‘Yes sir. Missing person.'

‘You will act upon this request, Van der Valk. Yourself, personally, immediately. You are detached from your normal duties; your superiors will be notified. You will take steps to find this missing person.'

Well … That was categorical enough. Was it really his Highness
that had decided he would be a good choice for finding missing millionaires? Or was it conceivably Mr Canisius?

‘Ha-hm. You are not permitted to use official transport or official channels. Your expenses will be allowed, within reason. You need no help. You will work quietly, discreetly. Courtesy, Van der Valk, caution, tact – quiet. You understand, hm? Is that clear? Despatch, energy, acuity – but quiet. Hm?'

‘Perfectly clear, sir.'

‘You may be called on to cross the frontier. That is authorized. No authorization for any appeal to the administration in this or any other country unless circumstances expressly demand it.'

‘Yes sir.'

‘You can begin at once. The sub-inspector will take over your duty. The Commissaire will be in his office this afternoon.'

‘Understood, sir.'

The voice had a rasping, nagging note, worse than lavatory towels.

‘Mr Canisius expects you at his office at two this afternoon.'

‘Very well, sir.' The phone had clanked crossly. Well … Thunder on the left was, as far as he could recall, considered a bad omen by the Roman augurs.

Mr Canisius, or the Sopexique, whichever way you cared to read it, possessed one hell of a drag. They didn't need publicity; oh dear no. They picked up the telephone, and asked for the Minister.

Big firms did that, of course; there wasn't anything immoral about it. He recalled a recent case, not unlike this one; a fairly important brick in one of the huge industrial pyramids who vanished on his way back from a conference in Paris. The whole police apparatus of the entire country had been turned out, with remarkable speed, and the man had been found a week later in an obscure waterside village. The very simple explanation was that the poor bugger had gone off the rails with overwork and had been within a sheet of paper's thickness of going mataglap; his psychiatrist had prescribed an immediate complete break and a fishing-rod. So distraught had the wretched fellow been – pity the poor executive – that he had forgotten even to tell his wife. She had rushed
about bedevilled with anxiety and the press had got the whole tale.

The press hadn't got this one.

There is also a difference, he thought, between ringing the bell for a rabble of country gendarmerie and going on tiptoe to the Chief of Police with instructions to detach a full inspector of the criminal brigade, quietly, courteously, tactfully. With all his expenses paid, of course! Poor old Highness must have really had his arm twisted.

The inference was, presumably, that the Sopexique had just as much drag or more as a firm that was a household word over the entire world. If whatever was good for General Motors was good for the nation it was also a logical conclusion that whatever was bad for the Sopex was bad, very, for several nations.