Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

She shrugged. “Max knows that I would be glad to do it, but he says I mustn’t. He is stubborn, something terrible. It’s a waste of money to send you, that’s all.”

“That’s not the only reason. I think I ought to know.”

“I’ve told you, there’s nothing else. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll go along without you.”

“Why should I mind?” In the harsh light of the street lamp she looked a little older than she had in Max’s softly-lit domain, but only by an hour or two. Max’s property.

I bent my head and kissed her forehead. I said, “I’ll bet you were a beautiful woman.”

“I am a beautiful woman,” said Anna serenely. She patted my arm and walked off down the street.

Forty-eight hours later I turned the key in the door of my apartment in Amsterdam and threw open the windows to the familiar maritime air. For the past two years I’ve rented the ground floor of a skinny old house on Verimus Straat that belongs to a youngish widow who lives on the upper floors. We maintain a pleasant, if formal, relationship. Our paths cross occasionally in the little entrance hall we share, and when they do we talk about the weather. My part of the house consists of a sunny, bow-windowed front room that serves me as office and sitting room and a small bedroom opening off it. At the very back there’s a tiny kitchen, and at the back of that a window looks out over a walled garden. A narrow road, little used, runs past the end of the garden, and beyond lies a stretch of low, open land — whence the sea-tasting breezes. I have no staff working for me there, but I keep duplicates of the files on current contracts. It’s a useful, peaceful place, and quite handy to Piet Bonta’s factory.

I slept until mid-afternoon, then I drove out in the direction of the coast along the road that took me to Ihmuiden, turning off to the north, as instructed, just past the ISOL Works on a potholed road through land that appeared unstable and was surely empty. Over my head a pewter sky hung heavy, wide, and unsupported — there appeared to be nothing to keep it from moving downward in a swift, enveloping motion. I told myself not to be fanciful. I had been under a lot of grey Dutch skies and none had ever fallen on my head.

Still, land and weather were oppressive, and my worries returned. I asked myself why they had sent me here and why I’d been fool enough to come. Besides the cash, of course. It must be very nice to be rich and not have to do foolish things for money.

Five miles beyond the turnoff I came to a cluster of little houses, then emptiness again, and then, alone in the fields, Gerrit Till’s house, a small, ill-proportioned place too tall for its base, standing in a stretch of empty fenland. I pulled to the side of the road and got out of the car. The place was dead quiet except for the whine of the wind in the wires over my head. What a place to live! I crossed the road, climbed the steps, and rang the bell.

Gerrit Till opened the door and I recalled Max’s reference to an Indonesian background. Dark Oriental eyes, sparkling with welcome, looked out at me from a round Dutch face, surmounted by a thatch of fair and greying hair.

“I’m Peter Hessberg.”

“Of course! I am expecting you. Come in!” His voice was deep, his English, like Anna’s, without accent but European in its cadences. He showed me into a room jammed with books and papers and heavy Dutch furniture. There was a smell of turpentine in the air. Business, said Gerrit Till, could wait a moment. First we must have a drink together — and he poured the inevitable portions of Genever. I accepted mine, smiling, very much at my ease — I found him charming, likeable.

He was talkative. How were Max and Anna? What did I think of the art market? Did I know there was quite a market suddenly in the paintings of Albert Boertson? Very odd. What did I think, was there any merit in them? It was so very good of me to come. He hoped I had had a pleasant journey. We talked, we drank. “Now,” he said, “if you will excuse me for a moment.”

He went out through a door toward the rear of the room, shutting it behind him. There would be a kitchen back there, I supposed — the usual layout. I realized with surprise that we were not alone in the house. I heard his voice, at least I supposed it to be his — just a murmur through the heavy door — and then a woman laughed, and I thought I heard her say es niet stom, es niet stom! — don’t be silly! — and then a man’s voice, his, no doubt, the words indistinguishable.

A moment later he came back into the room. The painting was under his arm. He placed it across the arms of a chair and stooped to look at it, grunting.