Murder in High Places

by Hugh Pentecost

  "Forget it," I said.

  "And don't waste time being 'sore' at Hardy," Chambrun said. He'd come up behind us. "He's good at his job because he doesn't brush off even the most unlikely lead."

  "You know how it is, Mr. C. Not me! You, Mark-okay. But not me! That's crazy!"

  "Come in, Mike," the Man said. "I assume you've been playing detective and want to tell me about it."

  "Everybody on the staff is playing detective," Mike said. "Bob Ballard was liked. And Miss Harding, she

  never gave any of us the *big-star' treatment. Nice lady/' He glanced at me. *'Until she came here and Mark took up all her time, she just about played the field from one end to the other. I understand she excused it on the grounds she was looking for a brother who's dead or in Siberia."

  "Word seems to get around," Chambrun said.

  "She's just come from a couple of months in Washington," Mike said. "Stayed at the Wyndham. Fellow who has my job down there is an old friend. I called him to ask him what the gossip is. I thought maybe somebody she spent time with down there could be hanging around here."

  "Interesting thought," Chambrun said.

  "The bastard who did her in sure as hell hated her for some reason," Mike said. "I came up with two names, one of which you'll get a laugh on."

  "It'll have to be awfully funny for me to start laughing," Chambrun said.

  "My friend at the Wyndham says she had half the big shots in Washington on her string—judges, senators, the works. I'm sorry Mark, but that's the story."

  "I've heard it before," I said.

  "Well, the first name I got is Guy Morton," Mike said. "Covers the United Nations for a Washington newspaper. You know him, boss. He stays here whra the U.N. is in session. He's been in the Blue Lagoon damn near every night since the lady's been here, taking in her act, joining her at her table between shows."

  *'Last night?" Chambrun asked.

  *'He wasn't in the Lagoon last night," Mike said. "But I saw him come into the lobby a little after midnight and go straight to the elevators. His room is on the twenty-sixth floor."

  "He could have come back down to two," I said.

  "Anybody could have come down to two," Mike said. "Not on the elevators, though. Two was crawling with cops."

  "Not till after the lady was killed," Chambrun said.

  "Except for a friend of yours who was back and forth, Mr. C. And this is what I said would give you a laugh. One of Hilda's boyfriends in the Wyndham in Washington was Mitchell Prescott."

  Chambrun didn't laugh. His forehead was scarred by a deep frown.

  Mike laughed as if to try to get the humor going. "Hardy mentioned the flowers someone sent the lady last night—on your account, Mark! I've got him dizzy with that. *A token of my eternal gratitude. M.' He started playing with M is for 'Mark,' and M is for *Mike.' I gave him M is for 'Morton,' and M is for 'Mitch,' Hardy's like a one-armed juggler, playing with those." That didn't raise a laugh. "I saw Morton take off for the U.N. this morning and there wasn't a sign of blood on his hands!" That didn't get a laugh either.

  Instead Chambrun turned to me and told me to ask Jericho and Mrs. Haven to join us.

  **You want me to go, boss?" Mike asked.

  **Yes, Mike. And thank you for coming up. If Hardy really gets difficult, let me know.''

  I walked across the roof to Mrs. Haven's garden. "Chambrun wants you two to join him," I said.

  *'He's heard something?" Jericho asked.

  *'Who knows what he hears," I said.

  *'ril go as far as his terrace," Jericho said. "I don't want to be cut out of sight if Welch doesn't persuade his guest to stay."

  We wait back to Chambrun's place, under the awning that covers his terrace. I told Chambrun that Jericho didn't want to have Penthouse 3 out of sight.

  'Two heads are better than one," Chambrun said. ''Let's join him."

  Mrs. Haven was sitting in a wicker armchair. She'd taken off her garden hat and was fanning herself with it. Looking at her gaudy red hair, I realized Chambrun was right. There is no such color. Jericho stood at the edge of the terrace, looking down across the roof to Penthouse 3.

  Chambrun brought them up to date: the reports we'd had on Hilda's life-style from Max Rosen; the flowers that had been ordered by phone, using my name, and sent to Hilda's room; and, finally, Mike's report on what he'd learned from the bell captain at the Wyndham in Washington.

  "One thing we have to say for the late Miss Harding," Jericho said, "she bestowed her favors on peo-

  pie who could really help her in her search for her brother if they would. Guy Morton knows everyone worth knowing in the world of international diplomacy—both sides of the fence, friend or enemy. Mitch Prescott has all the resources of the CIA at his disposal."

  '*And Mark Haskell didn't have anything to offer, and wasn't asked for anything," I heard myself say with a touch of anger. No scheming in my world.

  Mrs. Haven gave me a gentle smile, an older person to a kid who was out of line. '*You have money in the bank, Mark, you can spend it for necessities, and you can spend it for just sheer pleasure. I'm sure you provided Hilda with something that she cherished." She looked out at the hazy summer sunshine. ''There was a time in my Hfe when I used what I had to offer both ways." Then she actually giggled. ''But can you imagine Mitch Prescott—in his Brooks Brothers suit, his Dunhill pipe—and that very glamorous young woman!"

  "You know him, Victoria?"

  "Of course," Mrs. Haven said. "I mean, he lives here when he's in town. Somebody introduced me to him in the Trapeze a few years ago. He often comes over to my table. We chat about what's going on in the world, places where we've both spent time in Europe, particularly the south of France. There's a little pension in Cannes where—"

  "Let's touch a few bases," Chambrun interrupted her. '*The whole New York City poHce force is looking for that character who has been drinking one vodka and tonic in the Trapeze for the last few days. Who first called him to our attention? Mitch Pres-cott, asking Mark about him. Who had him identified for the police as Bob Ballard's killer? Mitch Prescott's former girl friend. Who had access to the second floor, where that girl was killed, could come and go without arousing any suspicion? Mitch Pres-cott, who was using my office as a base for making phone calls in an effort to locate the real Martin Steams. And—Af could stand for *Mitch.' She did him a favor, for which he was grateful."

  ''You don't know that," Mrs. Haven said.

  ''M could stand for 'Mitch,'" Jericho said.

  "Grateful and then killed her?" Mrs. Haven asked. "Aren't you reaching pretty far, Pierre?"

  "A lot of coincidences have a way of adding up," Chambrun said.

  "It seems to me you have a simple approach," Mrs. Haven said. "The police have taken fingerprints from all over Mark's apartment. Tell Hardy what you suspect, and he'll take Mitch's prints and match them up. If they match, you've solved the case. If they don't— well, then you start over."

  "One of the things that surprises me about you, Victoria," Chambrun said, "is that you often don't think things through to the end of the line."

  She smiled at him. **So I'm still in the suburbs. Guide me into town.''

  *'Ruysdale!" Chambrun said. *'If Prescott is part of that and we even nod our heads in his direction, Ruysdale will pay for it."

  **And you've already said, Pierre, that even if you do nothing, Ruysdale won't be set free," Mrs. Haven said. ''Would it help you to be surer about Prescott? Why not ask Larry Welch if Prescott is one of the names he hasn't wanted to mention. How much better located could an American traitor be than in the CIA?"

  ''I think, my fair lady," Jericho said, "the fact is Pierre doesn't need anything more to convince him about Prescott. The door to Mark's apartment wasn't forced, the lock wasn't picked. Prescott is around the second floor. The girl meets him, invites him in for a conversation. He's grateful for a favor she did him, let us say *out of bed.' Now she lets him know she wants to be paid for that favor. He can't afford
the price and 'Good-night lady!'"

  "You and Pierre ought to be writing soap operas," Mrs. Haven said. "You're far more imaginative than their regular people. What about Guy Morton?"

  "He's an also-ran," Jericho said. "He couldn't have been wandering around the second floor without being noticed."

  "The Harding girl could have taken him up with her."

  '*But she didn't. Mike Maggio and Company would have noticed."

  '*So you've convinced me," Victoria Haven said. She gave her straw hat a twirl and put it back on her head. **You've also convinced me you can't do anything about it without endangering Miss Ruysdale. All you can do is wait and watch. So, let's get back to work, Jericho."

  Jericho didn't move. **Ruysdale," he said quietly, **one way or the other. She's alive because they may need her to convince Pierre to keep playing ball their way. When they don't need him anymore? ..." Jericho shrugged his huge shoulders. ''I vote for a collision course." He looked steadily at Chambrun. I had a feeling the plan they'd already discussed in terms of Larry Welch's possible fake guest was being considered by Jericho for Mitchell Prescott.

  Mrs. Haven seemed to be in on it, too. ''If you're wrong about Prescott, it can't do any harm," she said. ''If you're right?..."

  "When you have to gamble," Jericho said, "you have to risk losing. But if you're going to lose anyway if you don't gamble, you don't have much of a choice."

  Chambrun sat with his hands raised to his mouth, as though that would hide some kind of weakness. He was being torn apart by a decision he had to make. He lowered those hands.

  **So be it/' he said. He stood up. ''Mark, see if you can locate Prescott somewhere in the hotel.'*

  **If he's an honest man, he will have gone to work," Victoria Haven said.

  **When you find him, Mark," Chambrun said, ignoring the old woman's comment, **ask him, very politely, if he'd mind coming up here for a few minutes—that I need his help."

  Mrs. Haven gave me a sweet smile. "You can't hang a man, Mark, unless he's present for the occasion."

  I DONT quite know now, long afterwards, exactly what I was feeling when I set out to find Mitch Prescott. All the talk had sounded reasonable enough, added up, certainly, to grounds for suspicion, and yet I think I simply couldn't swallow the idea that this man, this citizen, this important citizen, whom I'd known as a guest of the Beaumont for some years, could possibly be a traitor to his country, a kidnapper, and a murderer! Not good old Mitch, with his pleasant smile, his expensive wardrobe, his reassuring pipe. I think I remembered some old advertisement about "You can trust a man who smokes a pipe," Doctor Watson's Cube-Cut Burley. I'd had drinks with him, passed jokes with him, provided him with special little services for a special guest. Not Mitch! I think I may have had some uncomfortable fantasies about good old Mitch enjoying himself in the hay with

  Hilda. And then killing her? It just wasn't for real— not just then.

  I found him, and instantly thought of Mrs. Haven's remark that if he were an honest man, he'd be at work. He was sitting in the Grill Room, a silver coffeepot and a cup at his elbow, a copy of the Times propped up in front of him, his pipe providing a little halo of smoke around his bald head. When I spoke he looked up at me over the top of the half-glasses he wore for reading.

  **Mark," he said, '*my dear fellow. What a ghastly business for you." He gestured toward the paper. ''Join me? I'll order some more coffee."

  ''I was actually looking for you," I said. "Cham-brun wonders if you'd mind coming up to his penthouse. He says he needs your help with something."

  ''More about Martin Steams?" he asked.

  ''I suppose. He didn't tell me."

  Good old Mitch signaled to the waiter for his check. He gestured to the Times again. ''According to this, you found Hilda."

  "Yes."

  "God," he said, "how awful." He took the check from the waiter and signed it. His credit rating was Al in the hotel. "Did you know that I knew her, Mark? Washington. She was at Blue Haven down there for quite a spell—till just before she came up here. Marvelous performer. Nice, gay, happy girl, considering her problems."

  'Troblems?'*

  '*She undoubtedly told you about her brother. Stanislaus Wolenski, victim of the upheavals in Poland. Probably in a labor camp somewhere, if he wasn't just shot and thrown in a ditch. Not unnaturally, she asked me for help." He shook his head. "People think we can find out anything in my shop, but even the CIA hasn't much chance of finding one man in that kind of turmoil. Needle-in-a-haystack department. He wasn't a big name in Solidarity. Could have got it in any number of riots involving Solidarity rebels and soldiers. You get me passed up to the roof?" He'd pushed back his chair and stood, pipe clenched between his teeth.

  ''I'll go with you," I said.

  We walked across the lobby toward the roof car. "Police getting anywhere?" he asked. I told him I hadn't heard what progress they were making. "You know, Mark, I didn't sleep well last night. Didn't know about this, of course. But I was driving myself nutty trying to remember where I've seen that creep Hilda identified as being with Bob Ballard on the tenth floor—the one I pointed out to you in the Trapeze yesterday."

  Do you know, I was looking at his hands. Good old Mitch had very big, very strong hands. Someone had had big hands that could reach right around Hilda's neck. Hardy had told us. Dick Berger, on the roof car.

  buzzed Chambrun and told him we wanted to come up. He got the green Hght.

  We went silently up, up—and then out into the sunlight. Chambrun, Mrs. Haven, and Jericho were still sitting on the Man's terrace. It looked like a pleasant summer outing. Mrs. Haven in her garden hat, Jericho lounging over by the wall at the far end, looking down at the river, Chambrun sitting back in his wicker armchair, making a steeple out of his fingers as his hands rested against his chest.

  **Thanks for coming, Prescott," Chambrun said.

  '*My pleasure,'' Mitch said. "They've really turned you upside down, haven't they, Pierre. How can I help?"

  "Information you may have," Chambrun said.

  "Anything I have—or can find out for you," Mitch said. "But so help me God, I simply can't place Ballard's killer. I know I've seen him somewhere, but it simply won't come.''

  "Of course it won't when you're trying," Mrs. Haven said. "You get to be my age and you try to re-manber names. You try and try, and then you give up. Then, suddenly, in the middle of the night, or when you're out shopping somewhere, you suddenly hear yourself shouting 'Guggenheim,' or whatever the name is. When you've stopped trying!"

  "You're looking very lovely this morning, Victoria," Mitch said. "I'll try to stop trying and maybe, as you say, it will happen."

  "Oh, it'll happen," Jericho said from his place at the wall. *'Hey, look at this!"

  Good old Mitch went over to him and glanced down over the wall. That wall is about four feet high, no way you can lose your balance.

  "What is it?" Mitch asked.

  "I just want you to see how far down it is to the street," Jericho said. "Forty-five floors! Quite a mess if you went over the side."

  "I'm not fond of heights," Mitch said. He started to turn away.

  Jericho made a lightning move. He grabbed Mitch's arm and twisted it behind his back in a painful hold. "You're going to have the pleasure of sampling the impact of the pavement when you land, Prescott," he said.

  "What the hell is going on here!" Mitch almost shouted. He tried to free himself, but a further twist on his arm almost brought him to his knees. "For Christ's sake, Victoria, this man is crazy. Please— get help somewhere!"

  "I don't think he's crazy," Mrs. Haven said, her eyes very bright, her voice very quiet. "You'd better tell him what he wants to know, or I may give him the old Roman gladiators' signal—thumbs-down!"

  "What do you want to know, Jericho? For God's sake, ease up, man!"

  Chambrun spoke, the hanging judge. "Where is Ruysdale?" he asked.

  **Ruysdale? Are you talking about Betsy Ruys-dale? I understood she'
d taken a few days off. How would I know where she is? Jericho, for God's sake-!''

  ** Where is Ruysdale?" Jericho said. **It could be like drowning, you know, Piescott? Falling forty-five floors to the street—your whole life passes before your eyes—"

  "Victoria! You can't just sit th^e and watch this maniac!" Mitch cried out.

  '* Where is Ruysdale?" Mrs. Haven asked.

  '7 don't know/'' It was a cry of panic from good old Mitch. I guess he was beginning to believe.

  **It's just come to me," Chambrun said in a deadly quiet voice, 'Mike 'Guggenheim.' The lady provided you with her charms, her favors, in Washington because she wanted something from you. Help her find her missing brother. I suppose you said you'd do what you could, and didn't bother to do anything."

  "At Mitchell's age it was enough for him to prove that he was still a man—with a young woman," Mrs. Haven said.

  "I think you told her that you would help her if she would help you. There was a time coming when she could help—when she got here to New York."

  "You're all crazy as loons!" Mitch protested.

  "And the time came when she could help you. So elaborate! Larry Welch comes here. How much does he have on you, and whoever else is in it with you? The

  penthouse over there was safe for him, but it was also safe for you if I didn't provide Welch with extra protection. You and your people took Ruysdale, damn you!"

  *'Chambrun, you're out of your mind!''

  **You took hor, you warned me, and you were home free—you thought," Chambrun said. "I don't know where the real Martin Steams is, but you provided a fake. Fake passport, fake driver's license, fake ID— that's child's play for someone with CIA experience. Done every day, agents working under cover."

  "I told you he was a fake! If he was my man, why would I-?"

  '^Because you wanted to make yourself look good to us," Chambrun said. "Your man had committed a murder, he was gone. Give him time—and you'd be, apparently, on our side."

  *'But the man in the Trapeze, the man Hilda saw with Ballard?" Mitch said. **He was the murderer!"

  "Not ever,'* Chambrun said. "He was a plant of yours, just in case. You didn't expect to have to use him, but you had a piece of bad luck. Bob Ballard knew the real Martin Steams from a job he'd held in Washington. When he was called up here to take 'Martin Steams' down, he knew your man was a fraud. Your fake Steams forced Ballard to stop this car at ten—a prearranged escape hatch, I imagine— took him out into the service area, and shot him. And that's where poor Hilda comes into the picture. You