Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

152 Air. Monday and Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

grave.'That, and a lot more of such trash. I let him go home in the end. He's just left my office."

"So you are giving up?"

"No," Oreste said abruptly. "I don't intend to do so at all. That Bronkema is a spy, there's still no doubt in my mind about it.This afternoon I'll have someone looking around his flat, and when he comes home from work I'll have him picked up again. I am sure he hid something there, he was scared stiff."

"What will you say to him then?" I asked.

"First I am going to present him with a detailed description of an execution by hanging. Did you ever witness such an execution, Meyer? I have, several times. I am in the habit of accompanying my customers during their last stroll to the gallows so that I can personally deliver them back to their mother."

Back to their mother!

"And from each of them I keep a souvenir. I have a cigarette case from one of them and a little mirror from another spy whom I caught. I am really fond of my little souvenirs, and so I'll tell Jan Gerrit Bronkema. I'll show him the cigarette case and the mirror and all my other little remembrances. Then I'll tell him how I hunted down these spies, how they looked when they confessed, how they spent their last hour in their cell. And I will tell him that I will stand in the corridor when he passes on his way to his mother as well."

That night, Oreste phoned me again. "I know enough" he told me. "When I started questioning him again this afternoon he first acted very brazenly, but when I showed him my souvenirs he got shaky. So I went on. Finally. I gave