Going for the Gold

by Emma Lathen

“Dick and I were having breakfast Tuesday morning when Yves mentioned snowmobiling,” Tilly Lowengard remembered. “I’ve forgotten how it came up.”

  Dick Noyes frowned in his efforts at recollection. Rugged and chunky, he looked to Thatcher as if he would be a strong skier rather than a graceful one. It was easy enough to imagine Gunther Euler as a bird in flight. Noyes would be more likely to bash through obstacles than to soar over them.

  “We were talking about schedules,” he finally decided. “The slalom practices were in the morning, and we were wondering what we’d do in the afternoon. That was when Yves leaned across the table and invited us to go along. He said Suzanne and Gunther were coming, too.”

  Ormsby nodded, then turned to the German. “Mr. Euler, if you were both going to collect people for this expedition, how come everybody here was asked by Bisson?”

  “He was luckier than I was,” Euler said placidly. “I did talk to two or three persons, but most of the downhill racers and the cross-country men were all tied up.”

  Ormsby, Thatcher was pleased to see, did not intend to linger over preliminaries. Without pausing he swept forward to his main concern. “Once you got to this place, did you do anything besides snowmobile?”

  They all stared at him, then burst out laughing. Dick Noyes was the first to recover. “Sorry, Captain, I guess you haven’t seen Twin Forks. It’s nothing more than a crossroads outside Saranac. There’s a dinky motel and, across the highway, a garage that rents snowmobiles. We rented three snowmobiles, spent a couple of hours on the logging trails, and then caught the shuttle bus back here. What’s all the fuss about?”

  “There’s no fuss. I simply want to get the details straight. Such as how you paid for the rental.”

  This simple remark produced a volley of replies as everyone burst into speech. Ormsby had touched a sore spot.

  “Yves wouldn’t let anyone else share the tab.” Dick Noyes was still resentful. “I tried, Carlo tried, even Tilly tried. The only one he’d talk to was Gunther.”

  Euler expanded on this. “It was a challenge, you understand. Yves said the winner of the jumping should pay and, as he was going to win, it would be his party. If I won he would have to accept repayment.”

  But from all the babble a very clear picture emerged. There had been nothing furtive about Yves Bisson’s behavior. He had flourished his Olympic credentials in order to persuade the garage owner to accept a Eurocheck. Everyone had been a witness to his crime.

  Or almost everyone. Thatcher narrowed his eyes as he inspected Suzanne Deladier. She was sitting slightly apart, quietly contained and removed from the conversation. According to her testimony the previous evening, she had not even noticed who paid for the rental. There was no question of her having joined in the friendly squabble. Of course, she might simply be an old-fashioned girl, depending on the nearest man to pick up the check. But there was more to it than that. There was a quality that left her untouched by the good-natured, rowdy high spirits around her. With a sudden flash of insight, Thatcher realized that it was a question of brownness. Tilly Lowengard, for instance, was undeniably brown. She had brown curls, sparkling brown eyes and a golden brown skin. The others ran the gamut from Dick Noyes’ ruddy weather-beaten complexion to Carlo’s swarthiness to Gunther’s deep lifeguard tan. They carried with them great gusts of fresh air. But Suzanne was a Dresden shepherdess. Thatcher was willing to bet she was a city girl.

  Meanwhile Ormsby was bringing the story of Twin Forks to its conclusion. He now had everybody on the shuttle bus for the voyage home.

  “But what’s there to tell?” Dick Noyes complained. “It was just like any other bus ride. We were all talking and joking. Nothing happened.”

  “That’s right,” Tilly corroborated. “Even when I thought Yves was sick, it turned out he wasn’t. Or at least he said he wasn’t.”

  “Oh, come on, Tilly,” Dick scoffed. “He knew, didn’t he?”

  Ormsby was willing to grasp at any straw. “What’s this about Bisson being sick?”

  Tilly was only too willing to tell him. “We were all talking about whether we’d be able to see the downhill racing. But we all had different practice sessions, and Yves became impatient at how complicated it was getting. He yanked the printed schedule from his pocket and began to straighten us out. Then suddenly he bent forward with a little moan, and all the things he’d pulled from his pocket began to slide to the floor. I really thought he was going to be sick right there.”

  John Thatcher began to see light. He leaned forward. “Tell me, Miss Lowengard,” he asked gently, “were his traveler’s checks among the things he pulled out?”

  “Yes. He was stuffing them back while he said he was all right.”

  “He probably had a muscle twinge,” Noyes insisted. “After all, he put in a hard day on Monday.”

  Tilly was exasperated. “For heaven’s sake, Dick, if that had been it, Yves would have been back to normal. But he was like a ghost from then on. And you remember how lively he was until then, how he was joking with Coach Vaux when we brought the snowmobiles back and how he teased Suzanne—”

  Captain Ormsby’s head had come up sharply.

  “What’s that about Coach Vaux?” he demanded, dangerously quiet. “Do you mean he was on this trip to Twin Forks and nobody told me?”

  Tilly shook her head. “But he didn’t go with us. He was just there. We ran into him when he and that girl were coming out of the coffee shop.”

  “What girl, Miss Lowengard?” Ormsby asked evenly.

  “Her name was Katarina something. She works in administration. Oh, Gunther, she was German. Maybe you remember her name.”

  “Katarina Maas,” he supplied.

  Ormsby took a deep breath. “And were they around while you were paying for the rental?”

  “Well, they must have been. They were still there when we ran for the bus.”

  Ormsby’s face was etched into lines of anger. “Goddam that man. He was sitting right there last night when I said I wanted to speak to everyone who was at Twin Forks. Well, he’s not going to get away with this.”

  “You said you were interested in the trip, Captain,” Vaux said stubbornly. “How was I to know you meant something else?”

  “Don’t try to split hairs with me, Vaux. You knew I was interested in everyone who saw Bisson at Twin Forks.”

  “That isn’t what you said.”

  Ormsby glared at him. “Well, now that we’ve got you admitting you were at Twin Forks, suppose you tell us what you were doing there.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything in particular. Tuesday was a free day and I wanted to get away. So I took the bus to see something of the surrounding countryside. Miss Maas happened to be sitting across the aisle from me. When we pulled up at Twin Forks, I noticed the sign for the restaurant in the motel. So I suggested to her that we have a cup of coffee and maybe stretch our legs. That’s all.”

  “Except for the fact that you happened to run into Yves Bisson there.”

  François Vaux shrugged. “Yes. He and the others had been snowmobiling. I have no idea where they went or how long they’d been gone.”

  “Never mind that,” Ormsby rasped irritably. “The point is that you were there when Bisson paid for the rental.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  Ormsby was triumphant. “We’ve got witnesses. You were there when they returned. You were still there when they caught the bus.”

  “Possibly. I have no recollection of the transaction. I was busy talking to Suzanne Deladier. She was a little out of things. Then when they left, Miss Maas and I strolled about until the next bus.”

  “Wonderful,” Ormsby snorted. “So your story is that you took a bus ten miles to have a cup of coffee and take a walk through the same snow they’ve got here.”

  “It was very beautiful,” Vaux said stolidly.

  “He’s lying,” Ormsby announced.

  “And he intends to go on doing it,” Thatcher agreed.

 
“The thing that burns me up is that he may have a simple reason. The record shows that he’s got a wife and three children back in France. He could have been taking a girl to a motel for the oldest reason in the world.”

  Thatcher nodded. “But if he isn’t going to tell you, it’s unlikely that Miss Maas will.”

  “Oh, he cleared his story with her last night. I could tell that. What’s more, he isn’t the only one in that bunch who’s lying. Anything strike you about their stories?”

  It was almost an embarrassment of riches. “Certainly. Miss Deladier, Gunther Euler, and Carlo Antonelli.”

  Captain Ormsby was regarding Thatcher with new approval. “Not much gets by you, does it?” He raised three fingers to recapitulate. “Little Miss Deladier told us last night she was joining a big group. But according to the timetable, none of the others had been invited when she agreed to come. At that time there was only Bisson and Euler. Which means she may have been a lot more intimate with Bisson than she’s letting on. After all, they’re both from France.

  “Then there’s Antonelli. He was very quick to tell us that Bisson invited him. Too quick. Because Bisson didn’t mention him when he spoke with Noyes and Tilly Lowengard the next morning. If Euler invited him, they have some reason for hiding their association.

  “And just on the surface, that makes sense. A lot of these people have never met each other before. It’s only in the Olympics that you get all these different events in the same place.” Ormsby had done his homework on winter sports. “You can have a World Cup skating match in Vienna, the European ski championship in Switzerland and the International Ski Jump in Norway. But the one person that Bisson had to bump up against all the time was Euler.”

  “And Vaux,” Thatcher reminded him. “Which makes what I have to tell you very odd, Captain. Has anyone mentioned that Vaux and Euler both turned up yesterday at Intervale after the spectators had been evacuated from the ski jump area? I saw them myself.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Ormsby subjected this new information to critical appraisal. “But I don’t see what’s odd about it. Vaux would naturally be watching his boys practice, and most of the German team hung around after their turn.”

  “Of course they should have been there,” Thatcher agreed. “But why didn’t I see them earlier? Vaux in particular. If he’d tackled Brad fifteen minutes sooner, he’d have an alibi. Now Euler told us he was with the posse that chased up the hillside. If that’s true, he should be in the clear.”

  Ormsby whistled softly. “That’s a nice point. I’ll get some questions started to everybody else who was there. But the really interesting thing is that neither of those beauties said a word about seeing Bisson shot.”

  Thatcher thought back to the two witnesses, the relaxed German and the determined Frenchman. On the surface, what a contrast! But underneath . . .

  “You didn’t ask them specifically and they were not volunteering a single thing. For that matter neither are you. Which brings me to another point.” Thatcher paused. “Captain, when I saw Yves Bisson’s supplies of checks last night, they were on a table. Where did you find them?”

  Ormsby smiled. “So you caught that, eh? You’re absolutely right. They were both in his jacket. The forgeries on one side and the genuine checks on the other.”

  “No wonder he was so open about passing that check in Twin Forks. It was a simple error, and he didn’t realize he was signing twice because of all the horseplay with the others. At least he didn’t realize until the bus, when he pulled out the genuine ones that already had one signature.”

  “That’s the way I figure it.”

  Thatcher was coming to a grim conclusion. “Well, that explains one aspect of the fraud that has been bothering me ever since Hathaway discovered it.”

  “You mean the timing?”

  It was Thatcher’s turn to be impressed. He had assumed that Ormsby was preoccupied with the murder to the exclusion of the Sloan’s loss. “Exactly. In three days this whole world of Olympic Games will be blown to the four corners of the globe. Any criminal in his right mind would have arranged to pass that $500,000 in forgeries on the last day, and leave the police to cope with an exodus of over 60,000 people.”

  “Sure. Until Yves Bisson’s little mistake made it a whole new ball game,” said Ormsby. “They knew he’d be picked up that night and his cache of forgeries with him. Once he was inside, he’d probably talk. At the very least, the bank would be warned. So his buddies decided to change the rules. They killed him and moved their whole schedule up. The really interesting question is how they found out.”

  Thatcher could not have put it better himself. “There are really only two possibilities. Either Bisson told his confederates himself after he realized his mistake—”

  “Mr. Thatcher, with confederates like that, would you tell them?”

  “Scarcely. So the overriding probability is that one confederate at least was present at Twin Forks and saw for himself. That certainly explains why one of your witnesses is lying.”

  Ormsby heaved himself to his feet. “It’s some kettle of fish. But there’s one good thing from your point of view. It doesn’t look as if the Sloan will have any more trouble.”

  “Yes, I think we can say the worst is over,” said Thatcher, hitting an all-time record for 180-degree error.

  Thatcher’s first act upon leaving Captain Ormsby was to check on the bank branch within Olympic Village, a scene of bustling normalcy. Thanks to yesterday’s events, Sloan operations in Lake Placid were no longer profitable but at least they were being conducted with decorum and efficiency. It would be some balm to Everett Gabler to hear of the orderly lines, the swift transactions, the muted hum of computer equipment. Insensibly cheered, Thatcher continued on his rounds. En route to the downtown office of the Sloan his thoughts were much occupied with fraud and counterfeiting.

  He never expected riot and mayhem.

  And it is always the unexpected that paralyzes men. In the first dizzying moment after he opened the door, Thatcher actually thought the bank was under attack. Then he pulled himself together and realized that nobody was flourishing weapons. Even the great cacophony of shrieks and bellows filling the high-ceilinged room began to sort itself out. They were not, as Thatcher had first thought, eerie battle cries. He was simply listening to French as it is rarely heard outside of France. Finally individual vignettes took shape. There were two men who had slipped their hands beneath the grille and were trying to wrench it from its moorings, deaf to the entreaties of the teller on the other side. A woman in a chair was drumming her heels and keening hysterically while a man shouted at her.

  Over by the desks, a small-loan officer had been seized by the lapels and was being shaken ferociously by a much larger adversary. Most startling of all was the sight of Roger Hathaway, backed into a corner with his arms raised defensively as a stout woman, her hair tumbling about her cheeks and her fingers curved into talons, made pass after pass at his face. She was impeded in her efforts by a frail bald man to her rear who had wrapped both arms about her waist and was desperately heaving backwards. Suddenly Thatcher spied an old friend, a bank guard borrowed from Exchange Place. He was hesitating halfway across the floor, his hand on his holster. Thatcher sympathized with his irresolution. Guards are trained to prevent holdups, not to save the bank manager from having his eyes scratched out.

  “Hodgkins!” he bellowed. “Do you know what this is all about?”

  Hodgkins made no effort to hide his relief. “Mr. Thatcher! Thank God you’re here.” He wiped his brow. “This is some kind of French tour group. It seems their money isn’t any good. Do you want me to help Mr. Hathaway?”

  Thatcher did not even spare the hapless manager a glance. “Nonsense, the man is a trained athlete. He can protect himself.” He had registered the fact that treading warily amidst the carnage were a number of bona fide customers. “The first thing is to move this mess someplace else. Does this group have a leader?”

  Hodgkins poin
ted. “I think that’s him.”

  Thatcher’s quarry did not look promising. He was standing by a counter, staring glassily into space and pounding his fist rhythmically.

  “Il ne manquait que ça,” he said dully, over and over.

  Briefly Thatcher wondered what the tour had been like until now. But he had no time for idle speculation. Instead he went to work and, within seconds, the leader was acting as stentorian interpreter. The announcement that the senior vice-president of the Sloan would see them all at his motel worked like magic.

  By the time Thatcher had settled his 30 guests in the lobby, under the fulminating stare of the management, he had a very good general idea of the problem. The tour had left France the day before. Its itinerary called for three days at the Olympics, then on to New York for two weeks, followed by three days in Washington before the flight home. The first step for the group members that morning had been the attempt to provide themselves with American dollars. Under the new regulations prevailing in Lake Placid, they had been asked to wait during verification. As the Telex rapped out its dreary report, disappointment had reigned but, at first, there had been no move to violence. Then a member of the group had said casually that, if their checks had been stolen, Eurocheck would have to make good. A teller had incautiously replied that Eurocheck had no record of sales in their names. If Eurocheck hadn’t sold them anything, it stood to reason that Eurocheck was not hable. That was when all hell had broken loose.

  Now that calm had been restored, Thatcher was happy to see that many of the group members spoke English. They were using it, too.

  “But what are we to do?” wailed a woman. “We are trapped in this terrible country without money. We will never be able to leave. We will starve to death. We will—”

  Thatcher and the tour leader addressed themselves to allaying the worst of these fears. Transportation, hotel accommodations, two meals a day had already been paid for.

  “Even the Olympic tickets,” the leader said placatingly.

  “What good are tickets now?” snarled one of his charges. “We are not going to see Bisson jump. I tell you it is all a plot against Yves Bisson. First they shoot him. Then they sabotage his tour.”