DeKok and the Sorrowing Tomcat Read Online Free Page A

on a truck is usually between four and five hundred thousand. The rest is checks and papers. This time the amount of cash was extremely high. The robbers were lucky.”
    DeKok grinned. It transformed his craggy face into that of a mischievous schoolboy. Few people could resist a grinning DeKok.
    â€œSometimes,” he said mysteriously, “sometimes Lady Luck receives a helping hand.”
    Vledder looked at him, wondering.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    DeKok shrugged.
    â€œJust exactly what I’m saying. Sometimes Lady Luck gets a helping hand. B&G has been transporting money for more than twenty years. For twenty years one transport follows another, one run after another, without incidents. Nothing happens. Don’t you think it’s rather coincidental that suddenly, the one time they carry a larger than usual amount of cash, they’re robbed? A bit too convenient, don’t you think?”
    Vledder came from behind his desk in a highly agitated state of mind. His round, somewhat boyish face showed he was excited.
    â€œWhy?” he questioned loudly, “Why should it be too much of a coincidence. It’s possible, after all. I interrogated the guards thoroughly, I can assure you. There’s no question of complicity. They’re completely innocent.”
    DeKok looked at Vledder for long moments. Then he smiled.
    â€œCome on, Dick,” he said amicably, “get your coat. We have an appointment with Mr. Bent.”

3
    DeKok and Vledder were standing in the enormous hall of the B&G building. A bit lost, they looked around.
    A large, tall black granite column rose up in the middle of the hall, supporting an enormous, bronze bust of the late Mr. Josephus Johannes Maria Goossens, the co-founder of the Company. He had died childless. The current Bent was the third President of Bent & Goossens by that name. On either side of the statue, wide marble staircases wended upstairs in a curve before meeting at an elaborate balcony overlooking the hall. Glistening crystal chandeliers hung from the high ceiling and the walls reflected the light from expensive marble. It was very beautiful and impressive.
    DeKok pressed his lips together.
    Interiors that were aimed at impressing visitors, had exactly the opposite effect on DeKok. He would not be impressed, or awed, or influenced by it. It only aroused in him feelings of inexplicable rebellion. Part, if not most, of that was caused by the puritanical soul of the civil servant and his Calvinistic childhood.
    He took another look around and felt the dissatisfaction and discontent grow within him.
    A neatly dressed gentleman in a dark suit caught the attention of the two police inspectors. From a glass booth he moved a crooked index finger in a beckoning gesture.
    DeKok had a long standing dislike of beckoning gentlemen in glass booths. Therefore he did not make any effort to obey the beckoning finger, but instead beckoned back with his own crooked index finger. He smiled pleasantly and persisted in that attitude until the authoritarian gentlemen left his cage, dark red with rage.
    â€œYou are supposed to report to me.” The man’s voice was excited.
    DeKok’s eyebrows performed one of their famous dances. For once the effect was lost on the subject of his gaze.
    â€œWhy?” asked DeKok mildly.
    The man in black made a vague gesture.
    â€œI’m the doorman,” he said.
    â€œSo, what?”
    The man swallowed.
    â€œYou have to report to me, first.”
    DeKok shook his head.
    â€œNo way,” he replied stubbornly. “First of all, a doorman is supposed to look like an admiral and stand at the door. It simply isn’t done to sit in a glass booth in the middle of a reception hall. Secondly, our Commissaris said nothing about reporting to a doorman. We have an appointment with Mr. Bent.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œYes, he’s waiting for us.”
    The gentleman in black performed a measured bow.
    â€œIn