Murder in High Places

by Hugh Pentecost

  "What did the man you think was Martin Steams advise you to do with your material?"

  Welch held up his drink to the light and then swallowed it in one gulp. "He advised me to bum what I showed him and any copies of it I might have and forget about it. He knows I propose consulting one or two other experts, but he urged me not to do that, not to let anyone else see what I have. If what I've discovered leaks, not only is there the chance of a world upheaval, but I would almost certainly be inviting my own death."

  "And you told him?"

  Larry's smile was grim. "I told him I wanted a second opinion. My funeral, he told me. So you see, if he was Martin Stearns, I'm all right. If he wasn't, if he

  was someone impersonating Steams, the wrong people know exactly what Fve got and I may have a very short time left to live. They know where I am, and they obviously know how to get at me. I have to get out of here, as secretly as you can help me do it, and find myself some other place to hole up."

  **I can't help you,'' Chambrun said.

  Larry gave him a startled look. '*A ride to the basement, a car with a trustworthy driver to take me— somewhere?*'

  *'I can't let you go," Chambrun said.

  "My dear fellow, with or without your help, I've got to get away from here. You can't stop me."

  ^'I'm certainly going to try, Mr. Welch," Chambrun said. He turned to me and gestured toward the phone. ''Ask Mrs. Haven and her guest if they'd mind coming over here, Mark."

  I realized that the one way he could stop Larry short of locking him in Penthouse 3 and throwing away the key, was to tell him the truth.

  ''I haven't got time to socialize," I heard Larry say as I went to the phone.

  ''This is going to be about as unsocial as anything you've ever encountered," Chambrun said.

  I got through to Penthouse 2. Mrs. Haven answered her phone and I told her Chambrun and I were next door and that he wanted her and Jericho to come over on the double.

  *'Your life may be in danger, Mr. Welch," Cham-brun was saying as I rejoined him and Larry. "But there is also another life, very precious to me, hanging in the balance."

  '*! don't understand," Larry said.

  **So listen!" Chambrun drew a deep breath. He was gambling for Betsy Ruysdale's life. '*This morning my secretary, Betsy Ruysdale, who is also my very dear friend, didn't show up for work. I was in the process of trying to find out why she hadn't appeared when you arrived in my office. Shortly after Mark had settled you up here I had a phone call. Ruysdale had been kidnapped. The ransom for her release was not money. I was to handle your presence here in a certain way— or else."

  ''A certain way?" Larry asked. He looked stunned.

  *'I was to change no routines, I was to offer you no special protection. I was warned that every move I made was watched, and if I did anything unusual, Ruysdale would have had it."

  **So you were prepared to trade my Hfe for hers?" Larry asked very quietly.

  *'That's how it was put to me."

  "So you let a fake Martin Steams get to me."

  "I had no way of knowing that, if that's what happened," Chambrun said. "Your visitor was checked out, regular routine. My man saw the ED that you saw and had no reason to question it. Neither did you. But

  I didn't follow my instructions to the letter, Mr. Welch/'

  *'Oh?"

  ''Have you ever heard of an artist named John Jericho?"

  ''Jericho? Of course. A brilliant artist, but more famous for being a sort of Lone Ranger against terrorism everyplace he touches down. The kind of storybook hero every ten-year-old boy dreams he can become."

  "Well, he has touched down on this roof, Mr. Welch, and he's on his way here now." Chambrun stretched his fingers as though they felt stiff and numb. "I found myself facing a dilemma this morning that outdid anything I have ever come against in my life. I could do what Ruysdale's kidnappers ordered me to do and endanger your life; I could protect you, warn you, which was really my duty as the manager of this hotel and as a decent human being, and that way put Ruysdale's neck on the block. It—it was an impossible choice to make. I didn't make one, I compromised. I couldn't tell you what I've just told you because you would do just what you've threatened to do, pack up and leave. End of Ruysdale. Neither could I let you be a sitting duck. John Jericho is an old friend of mine and I asked him for help. We set up something—he is painting Mrs. Haven's portrait. Famous lady, famous artist. We made a big to-do about it, as though it had been planned for a long

  time. He's staying with her in Penthouse Two, ostensibly so he can catch her in the right moods, the right light. But he's here to protect you, to watch anyone who comes to the roof without an explanation."

  *'Who knows the truth?" Larry asked.

  *'Mark, Jerry Dodd—my security chief—Victoria, and Jericho."

  Larry was silent for a moment. *Trom what I know about Jericho I couldn't feel safer if I were surrounded by an army. Prescott doesn't know?"

  **No. If he did, the CL might move in—end of the game."

  ''My impulse," Larry said, ''is to get away from here as far as I can as fast as I can. If the man I spent the afternoon with wasn't Martin Steams, not only is my life in danger, but a dangerous conspiracy I am prepared to reveal can be covered up, buried, hidden, approached from some new angle. Maybe—just maybe—the safest thing I can do is stay put here, take whatever protection you can offer."

  "If Prescott finds out it was Steams, then a large portion of your trouble drifts away," Chambmn said.

  "Except I am still a target for your Miss Ruysdale's kidnappers."

  The front doorbell sounded and I crossed the room to let in Mrs. Haven, Jericho—and Toto.

  "I've had to tell Mr. Welch the whole story," Chambrun said.

  Jericho looked grim behind his flaming red beard. '*Since youVe done it, Pierre, there isn't any point in discussing the wisdom of it. But why?"

  Mrs. Haven sat down in one of the apartment's modem armchairs, which surprised you by being comfortable, Toto on her lap. ''I'm sure Pierre had a reason that makes sense," she said.

  Larry Welch offered drinks, but only the lady took him up on it—white wine on the rocks with a twist of lonon. Chambrun laid out the facts for Jericho: the strong possibility that the Martin Steams who had gotten to Larry was a fraud, the consequences to Larry Welch if he was.

  *'You're not willing to tell us what this 'conspiracy' you've unearthed is, Larry?" Jericho asked. He and Welch are the kind of people who get instantly on a first-name basis.

  Larry shook his head slowly. "It isn't that I don't tmst you all, John," he said. "But what I have is so hot that if I were to decide not to break the story, then anyone who knows what I know could be in real danger."

  "And so will you," Jericho said, "unless you decide to spend the rest of your life on some deserted Pacific island."

  "Unfortunately that may be true."

  "This man who may or may not have been Steams advised you to deep-six what you had and forget about it?"

  ** Would the real Steams be likely to give you such advice?"

  "Yes. That's why I planned to consuh him and two other men who are due here tomorrow/'

  *'But you would still be hung out to dry?"

  "I didn't know, and Steams, if he was the real Steams, didn't know about Miss Ruysdale. I didn't know—and he didn't if he was real—that what you might call *the enemy' knew what I was up to."

  **What you were up to, where you were, what you planned. I understand Pierre installed you here at the request of a mutual friend."

  "Yes. Qaude Perrault, a Frenchman we both know well."

  "He knew what you were cooking up?"

  "Yes. In fact, he helped me gather the material I have."

  "Youtmsthun?"

  "With my life," Larry said.

  "I second that," Chambmn said.

  "Until you told Chambran, and Mark and Jerry Dodd and Victoria and I were given some hints, who else but this Perrault knew what you were working
at?"

  "Only Perrault knows," Larry said. "Chambmn and the rest of you don't know what it is—just that there is something. As I told you, Perrault really

  knows what I have, helped me dig it out, put it together."

  **Could he have inadvertently let it slip to someone? Because someone knows. The kidnappers of Betsy Ruysdale know. Have you tried to contact this Perrault?"

  **I have," Chambrun said. *'He's out of touch at the moment. He works for the Paris Surete. He's on assignment, his wife doesn't know where."

  '*Look, Larry, either Perrault let it slip or you let it slip somehow," Jericho said. ''If your Steams was a fake, they know just how much trouble they're in. That adds up to your being a dead chicken!"

  '*I know," Larry said quietly.

  ''Let's try to pick a few nits," Jericho said. "Steams, or the fake Steams, came here to see you. Dick Berger, the man on the roof car, checked him out. You checked him out. He stayed here for three hours and then he left. Was there anything special about his leaving?"

  Larry shrugged. "I called the roof car on that special phone, told the man on the other end—who was Ballard, I guess—that Martin Steams was ready to leave, and would he please come up and get him."

  "You said, 'Martin Stearns is leaving'? Or did you say, 'My guest is leaving'?"

  Larry hesitated. "I think—I'm almost sure I said, 'Martin Stearns is leaving.' I had the impression the car operator kept a record of who came up, and would

  check out that person when he left." He glanced at Chambrun. '*Am I wrong?"

  **Each operator keeps a record sheet of comings and goings," Chambrun said.

  **So what does Ballard's record sheet say?" Jericho asked.

  "It's gone," Chambrun said. **He never got to turn it in, and it wasn't found in the car or on him. Ballard didn't take Steams—if it was Steams—up. Dick Ber-ger did, checked his credentials, tumed in his sheet when he went off at three o'clock. Not having taken Steams up, Ballard wouldn't have recognized him when he brought him down."

  Jericho's eyes were very bright. *'Just a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel," he said. ''Maybe, by some chance, Ballard knew the real Steams by sight. When he is told he is to come up here and take down Martin Steams, he instantly spots the fake! He questions the man and he has to be silenced."

  *'But it was the dark man in the Trapeze who took care of Bob Ballard," I said. ''Hilda Harding saw him."

  "Has anyone ever suggested that we are dealing with only one villain?" Jericho said.

  "It's a possibility," Chambmn said. "Ballard had a job in Washington before he came to work here. Steams works out of Washington. He could have known the real Steams by sight!"

  "So, let's take that and mn with it," Jericho said.

  THREE

  That was a figure of speech because nobody was going to run anywhere with the possible exception of me. Larry Welch, Jericho, and Victoria Haven were anchored to the Beaumont's penthouse level. Cham-brun wouldn't leave the hotel or put himself out of reach of a phone there. Betsy Ruysdale's abductors might try to reach him with new demands. Jerry Dodd, the other member of our team, was anchored to Lieutenant Hardy's police investigation. The man in the Trapeze had to be found and questioned. Any number of people had seen him in the Trapeze for the last few days. Hilda Harding had seen him on the tenth floor shoving Bob Ballard into the area where he was murdered. How had he gotten up to ten? None of the elevators is automatic at that time of day. If he had been wandering around in the back service areas, he would almost certainly have been seen by some of the housekeeping staff or the maintenance people. Jerry Dodd's tedious task was to ask questions of dozens of people, some of whom had gone off duty since the critical time when the man with the black glasses must have been circulating.

  I got the assignment to ''run with it," Jericho's phrase. Did Bob Ballard's wife—widow, wasn't

  she?—know if Bob had ever mentioned Martin Steams? When I left the hotel and took a taxi up to the Bronx, Mitchell Prescott had still not come up with anything definite. The normal workday was over in Washington. The people who man telephones and occupy offices in the evening and the early hours of the morning were not high enough to reveal anything that might be a department secret.

  "Chambrun's theory could hold water," Prescott told me. I had stopped in the second-floor office on my way out and Prescott was still there, chewing on his pipe and waiting for someone to call him from Washington. *'A man in Stearns's job could choose to be out of sight, out of touch with anyone but his inmie-diate superiors. He could be covered by a story that he's out of town, overseas somewhere, and only one or two people would know the truth. I'm trying to find one of those people. So far, no luck. One of the things I did learn from one of the secretaries there is that the message Welch left asking Steams to call is on his desk in his private office. If Stearns ever saw it, he just left it there. I'll bet my next paycheck he never got that message. Someone saw it, passed on the word, and a substitute for Steams was set up and prepared to take his place. Anything new developed upstairs?"

  I told him no and felt a little ridiculous doing it. Ruysdale's life was at stake, Larry Welch was in equal danger, and we had Prescott, with the CIA at his disposal, and Lieutenant Hardy, with the city police force

  at his, and we told them nothing. When it was too late we would have an army of professional crime fighters at our disposal.

  I wasn't eager to face Anne Ballard and her two small children in their Bronx apartment. The police must already have been at her, and talking to a stranger would be the last thing in the world she'd want just now. Her husband had been brutally butchered only some three hours ago.

  Anne Ballard was a pleasant surprise, if I can use the word pleasant in connection with someone who has obviously been ravaged by grief and shock. She answered the doorbell in her Bronx apartment, a pretty young woman except for tear-reddened brown eyes. She had reddish brown hair, worn shoulder length. She spoke before I could tell her who I was.

  **If you are a reporter," she said, '*rve been instructed by the police not to talk to anyone yet."

  I told her who I was and that Chambrun had sent me. She stepped out into the hall, leaving the door almost closed behind her. **rve just gotten my two children off to bed, Mr. Haskell," she said. ''I haven't told them yet what's happened. Bob wouldn't normally be home at this time—they didn't see him on a normal workday till breakfast. I just haven't figured out how to tell them yet."

  *'I understand," I said. *'It's not something you're prepared for in advance."

  *'Oh God!" she said. She was fighting to hang onto her control. *'Richard is five, Marilyn is three. They don't even know what death is! They found me crying. I told them I was sick, had a tummyache. They cry when they have tummyaches. It seemed natural to them. But in the morning—"

  'Tm sorry, but I need to ask you—"

  **I just wanted you to know," she said. **If one of them should pop out of bed, wanting something, I didn't want you to be the one to tell them—"

  '*I promise," I said.

  'Tlease come in," she said.

  The hving room was a pleasant, homey, unstylish place. Comfortable furniture, a few pictures on the wall, one of a college football team on which Bob had played. A Uttle orange light glowed on a Mr. Coffee machine on the sideboard.

  **I can't offer you a drink," Anne said. *'But if you'd care for some coffee? ..." When I nodded she poured some into a china mug for me. ''Cream? Sugar?"

  "Just the way it comes," I said. The coffee tasted wonderfully refreshing. I realized I hadn't had anything but a drink in the Trapeze since breakfast. It was now about a quarter to nine in the evening. "I think you can understand why Mr. Chambrun isn't able to leave the hotel just now. But he asked me to bring you a message. You're not to worry about money, or making arrangements—any help you need."

  *'I haven't been able to think about what I'm going to need," she said. "But tell Mr. Chambrun I'm grateful for his offer."

  **The
police are still trying to check back on what happened," I said. "They have a lead to the man who killed Bob, an eyewitness—"

  "Who? Who killed him and why?" She was suddenly a tigress.

  "A girl who's singing in the nightclub in the hotel heard some kind of conmiotion in the hall outside her room. She looked out and saw Bob and this strange man in an argument. She called out to ask what was wrong and this strange man pushed Bob into the service area where, a few minutes later, he was shot."

  "The poUce know who this man is?"

  "They haven't caught up with him yet," I said. "He's been drinking in the Trapeze the last few afternoons, but no one seems to know who he is."

  "Those children in there!" she waved toward the rear of the apartment. "They have no father now!"

  "The last passenger we know of that Bob brought down from the roof on his car has dropped out of sight. We've been trying to find him to find out if Bob said anything to him, perhaps about the man our witness saw with Bob later. Has Bob ever mentioned someone named Martin Steams to you."

  She frowned, obviously finding it hard to focus on anything but her tragedy. "I don't think I ever heard that name," she said.

  **I understand that Bob, before he came to work at the Beaumont, had a job in Washington, D.C. This Martin Steams works out of Washington."

  *'It doesn't ring any kind of a bell, Mr. Haskell."

  "What was Bob's job in Washington?" I asked.

  **It was in a sort of State Department office building," she said.

  I felt a little jolt of excitement. **Martin Steams works for the State Department," I said.

  "I suppose Bob might have known someone by that name," she said. **But unless there was something special about him, there wouldn't have been any reason for him to mention this Steams to me. Bob came out of the army—Vietnam. He tried to find a job through friends and connections he'd made in the service. Someone recommended him for this job in Washington. It was kind of like a receptionist. He sat at a desk in the lobby of this building. There was no-no—what do you call it, name board? If someone wanted to call on someone in the building, they had to ask Bob. He would check on the phone to see if whoever the caller wanted to see was in and available. It bored him to death. He just sat at a desk calling people on the telephone. It was called a 'security' job, but it wasn't what Bob had dreamed of. He was in army intelligence in Vietnam. Then Johnny Thacker, who works for you at the Beaumont, got in touch and told Bob there might be something at the hotel for him. You know Johnny?"