Time of Terror

by Hugh Pentecost

  “Thanks, Ruysdale,” Chambrun said.

  “You notified the police?” Jerry asked the boss.

  Chambrun nodded.

  “You don’t know yet if you’ve got a homicide,” Jerry said. “Just some clothes, a bloodstained shirt, and some articles of disguise. You got to have a body they always say.”

  “Horween was wearing all those articles of clothing and disguise not too long ago,” Chambrun said. “And we have his wallet. If we don’t have a homicide, we’ll buy Hardy a drink and send him home.”

  The real Fritz Schindler jolted me when he came into the office along with Edward Sprague, who looked a little like an exprize fighter. The white-haired Schindler, rheumy eyes behind his rimless spectacles, was an exact replica of the phony Schindler that Horween had tried to pass off on us. When he spoke in his slow German accent, the total sameness was astonishing. Horween had been some kind of genius.

  “I hope there is nothing wrong, Mr. Chambrun,” Schindler said.

  “What could be wrong, Fritz?” Chambrun asked.

  “My letting Mr. Horween take my place,” he said. “I mean—” And then he saw the stuff lying on Chambrun’s desk and his mouth dropped open.

  “Something may have happened to Mr. Horween,” Chambrun said.

  Schindler muttered something under his breath in German. Then: “I was sure it was in accordance with your wishes, Mr. Chambrun. Miss Ruysdale brought him down late this morning. She said I was to cooperate in every way with Mr. Horween.”

  “How did you cooperate, Fritz?”

  “He took some candid snapshots of me. Mostly he talked to me, and after a while he was talking back to me. It was amazing. He sounded just like me. Then he borrowed my extra set of clothes, my extra uniform, and he went away. A little before six he came back to Room Service and I swear I thought I was looking in a mirror.”

  “I would never of known if I hadn’t seen them standing together,” Sprague said.

  “You saw them together, Ed?” Chambrun asked. “Who else saw them?”

  “I dunno. Two or three others. I was in our locker room.”

  “So Coriander could have known before Horween ever started up there,” Jerry Dodd said. “Can you remember who those two or three others were, Sprague?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sprague said. “One of ’em was Georges Makroupolis, the Greek. I—I was so stunned by the look-alikes I didn’t notice who else. I remember I said, ‘Will the real Fritz Schindler step forward.’ You know, like the TV show? And, God, they both stepped forward.”

  “And somebody warned Coriander,” Jerry said. “I better get on that, Mr. Chambrun. Find out if Makroupolis remembers who else was there.”

  Chambrun nodded and Jerry left us.

  “Now, Fritz and Ed, I want to know exactly what happened. I want to know what the order was that went upstairs and what happened when you got up there,” Chambrun said.

  Fritz Schindler shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything, Mr. Chambrun, because, you see, I didn’t go. While we were marveling at Mr. Horween’s disguise, the order came over the loud-speaker in the locker room for me and Sprague to prepare an order for Fifteen A. Drinks, the room service captain said. Mr. Horween said that was his moment and he and Edward left me in the locker room.”

  “The order was all drinks,” Sprague said. “Two dozen glasses, ice, four six-packs of imported beer, two bottles of Scotch, two gins, tonic water. It took two service wagons to carry it up.”

  “The captain didn’t notice anything wrong about the man he thought was Schindler?”

  Sprague laughed. “This Horween didn’t know where anything was, of course. I had to find everything for him. The captain asked him what’s the matter with you, he asked him. And Mr. Horween, sounding exactly like Schindler, said he was scared shitless to go up to Fifteen A. That seemed to satisfy the captain. So finally we wheeled the two wagons onto the service elevator and went up to Fifteen.”

  “Nobody stopped you or checked on you?” Chambrun asked.

  “Oh, one of the hotel security people was running the elevator. We usually run the elevator for ourselves, but since the scare on Fifteen this morning, there’s been a security man.”

  “So you went up to Fifteen.”

  “Yes, sir. And we wheeled the wagons to the door of Fifteen A and knocked. This fellow wearing a mask opened the door.”

  “A Halloween mask and a fright wig?”

  Sprague frowned. “I didn’t see anyone like that, Mr. Chambrun.”

  “A man with an arm missing?”

  “I didn’t see anyone like that, sir. This man was wearing like a stocking mask. I’ve seen crooks wear them on television. He was carrying some kind of automatic gun. He told us to bring the wagons in.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “No one,” Sprague said. “I forgot to mention there was two bottles of Coca-Cola in the order. He told Mr. Horween—though he called him Schindler—to mix a gin and tonic and two Cokes in glasses with ice and take them into the back room to the ladies.”

  “He called him Schindler?”

  “Sure. They knew our names the first time we went up there with the lunch order, Schindler and me. This guy says, ‘Schindler, you mix a gin and tonic and two Cokes in glasses with ice and take them to the ladies in the rear right bedroom. And you, Sprague, unload the wagons and put the stuff on that center table!”

  “So Horween made the gin and tonic and the two glasses of Coke?”

  “Yeah. I guess he didn’t have to be a real waiter to know how to do that. He made the drinks while I was unloading the wagons and took them down the corridor to the bedroom. The guy in the mask closed the door behind him. When I’d finished unloading, he told me to take both wagons and beat it. I told him it would be awkward for me to handle both wagons. He told me to take ’em out into the hall and he didn’t give a damn what happened to them after that.

  “‘Let Schindler bring one of ’em,’ I said. I was worried about Mr. Horween.

  “‘Schindler is going to stay here and make drinks for us,’ he said. ‘You beat it.’ And so I had no choice but to leave him there while I took the two wagons out to the service elevator and came back downstairs. Mr. Horween never did come back to Room Service.”

  “Because they spotted him for a fake and may have killed him,” Chambrun said.

  “God!”

  The office door opened and Betsy Ruysdale ushered in Lieutenant Hardy.

  Hardy had, of course, heard the news on the radio or TV about the kidnapping and the bomb threat.

  “I figured I might be seeing you sooner or later,” he said.

  He listened to a composite of all our stories, looking over the garments and the disguise things on Chambrun’s desk as we talked.

  “According to this card in his wallet his blood type is AB negative,” Chambrun said. “That’s fairly rare, isn’t it?”

  “About three percent of the population,” Hardy said. “If these bloodstains turn out to be AB negative, we have a presumption.” He held up the bloody shirt. “You have to look twice to see what may have made the wound. A tiny hole in the shirt and in the undershirt. Something like an ice pick or an awl. Something that could have penetrated deep enough to go straight into the heart.”

  The two waiters had gone and Chambrun, Hardy and I were alone.

  “The trouble is, my friend,” Hardy said in his quiet way, “there isn’t much I can do about it under the circumstances. The laboratory can go over these things. Not much chance for fingerprints except on the shoes, possibly the glasses, possibly the sweat band inside the wig. They’ll probably turn out to be Horween’s if there are any. Of course there’s a chance we might find others. Every piece of silverware, every glass, every plate that comes out of the fifteenth floor should be checked. If this Army For Justice is made up of ex-service men, there are records we can use for crosschecking purposes. But we don’t have proof of a homicide—not yet.”

  “If the blood type matches?�
�� Chambrun said.

  “Presumption. We can presume that Douglas Horween bled. That doesn’t prove he is dead. It would be enough—all of it would be enough—to justify an investigation under normal circumstances. But tell me how I investigate? I can’t go up to Fifteen without risking harm to the girls and Miss Horn; or risk your hotel being blown up over your head. Right now, we don’t have a body, we don’t have access. Horween may be alive, but another hostage, to be used later. He may have been wounded trying to fight off Coriander and his people, which would account for the blood, the probable wound. But we don’t have any proof of death, and even if we did—” He shrugged.

  The phone on Chambrun’s desk blinked its red eye. He picked up the receiver and said, “Yes?”

  It turned out to be Cleaves, waiting in the outer office. Chambrun had him come in. The Englishman looked gray with fatigue. He acknowledged the introduction to Hardy with a vague nod of his head.

  “Any news?” he asked.

  Chambrun gestured toward the bloody clothes. “Horween,” he said. “He disobeyed orders and substituted for one of our waiters. Coriander says he is dead, and sent us these things to prove it.”

  “Oh, my God,” Cleaves said. He sank down into one of the leather armchairs. “He was such a crazy, brave idiot!”

  “Do you have news?” Chambrun asked.

  “Nothing positive. Friends are trying to work out ways and means.”

  “Do you know where your wife is?” Chambrun asked. He hadn’t forgotten about Connie.

  Cleaves shook his head as though it was a matter of no concern. “I haven’t the foggiest,” he said.

  “Mark put her up in his apartment down the hall,” Chambrun said. “She walked out some hours ago and she hasn’t reappeared. I wondered if you might know where she could have gone?”

  “No, and what does it matter?” Cleaves said.

  “It occurred to me that she might have tried to join the children,” Chambrun said, “and that she may have become another hostage.”

  “That doesn’t alter my problem, which is raising the money,” Cleaves said.

  “Another thought I had was that she might have gone to her father for help.”

  That seemed to wake Cleaves up a little. “Buck Ames? He wouldn’t help me to buy a fish-and-chips if I was starving.”

  “They are his grandchildren!” Chambrun said, suddenly angry. “Look here, Cleaves, I don’t know what’s wrong between you and your wife, but I think it may be important for us to know.”

  “It’s none of your bloody business,” Cleaves said.

  “But you concede it’s possible your wife may have gone to her father for help?”

  “Anything is possible where Constance and Buck Ames are concerned.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean they are pea-pod close. I mean they would both enjoy seeing me hang from the highest tree. I mean they would spring the trap under my feet if they could. Fortunately, they can’t.”

  “Where can we find Ames?”

  “How the bloody hell should I know?”

  “If your wife went to find him, it suggests he might be somewhere here in the city. I find it difficult to believe she’d go too far away from the hotel and her children.”

  “If there is a young and eager stud around somewhere, that’s probably where you’ll find her,” Cleaves said. And he looked at me. “She’s staying in your apartment, Haskell?” He gave me a very white, very mirthless smile. I would have enjoyed wiping it off his face, but I had the unhappy feeling he could beat the bewadding out of me.

  “Does Ames have an apartment or an office here in New York?” Chambrun persisted, ignoring the cracks about Connie.

  Cleaves seemed to sink back into his private concerns. “I believe there is a secretary somewhere, in someone’s office, who takes messages for him.”

  “International Trade Corporation?”

  “A private phone, I think.”

  “What office, what secretary?”

  “I believe the phone for Ames is listed under the single name Buccaneer.”

  Chambrun nodded to me and I began thumbing through the phone book. There it was—Buccaneer. I wrote down the number and handed it to Chambrun.

  “Try it,” he said to me.

  “Offices will be closed,” I said. “It’s going on seven o’clock.”

  “Try it.”

  I dialed the number and it resulted in an almost immediate answer from a pleasant female voice that said, “Buccaneer.”

  I handed the phone to Chambrun and he switched on the squawk box so we could all hear. “This is Pierre Chambrun, manager of the Hotel Beaumont,” he said. “I’m trying to reach Walter Ames.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Chambrun, but I’m not allowed to give out any information about Mr. Ames.”

  “If you’ve been listening to the news at any time today, you know that his grandchildren are in big trouble.”

  “I know. Is there any fresh news?”

  “I’m not allowed to give out any information about the case,” Chambrun said.

  The girl on the other end laughed. “I’m sorry; I wish I could help.”

  “Has Mrs. Cleaves been in touch with you in the last few hours?” Chambrun asked.

  The girl hesitated. “I think I have to say ‘no’ to that,” she said, which was a rather neat way of saying “yes.”

  “Do you have any way of guessing where she might be?”

  Again the hesitation. “She may have gone to Athens to see her father.”

  “Athens!”

  “I’m afraid that’s the only suggestion I can make, Mr. Chambrun. And now if you’ll excuse me—” The phone clicked off.

  “That’s crazy!” I said. “She wouldn’t go to Athens, with her kids locked up by a madman on the fifteenth floor.”

  “The world has shrunk,” Chambrun said. “She could go to Athens and back in a day if she felt her father’s help was critical.”

  Cleaves leaned back in his chair and laughed—a strange hollow sound. “On the west shore of the Hudson River, a hundred or more miles from New York, is a town called Athens. Buck Ames was born there. His father ran a whorehouse in an old railroad hotel there back in the twenties. Constance’s grandmother was the very glamorous madam. Connie inherited her taste for promiscuity. I believe Buck Ames has a cottage in Athens, New York, that he visits out of nostalgia for the good old days.” He stood up. “I don’t have time to worry about Buck or Connie. I’ve got to find money. You suggested I talk to the State Department man who was coming.”

  “James Priest. He’s registered here in the hotel.”

  “Would your secretary find out if he could see me?”

  Chambrun picked up his phone and asked Ruysdale to locate Jim Priest. He was in his room and quite willing to talk to Cleaves. When we were alone, Hardy spoke for the first time.

  “What’s all that got to do with the price of eggs?” he asked.

  “I think perhaps we’d better find out,” Chambrun said.

  “What gives with this man and his wife?” Hardy asked.

  “We have two stories,” Chambrun said. He gave Hardy the Andrews theory and the gossip passed on by Jim Priest. “One way or another, the marriage is evidently held together by hate.”

  “A strange kind of glue,” Hardy said.

  “Whatever else, Constance Cleaves’s concern for her two young daughters seemed very real to me,” Chambrun said. “I’m concerned that she’s disappeared for so long a time without checking with us to see if there are any new developments. If she tried some kind of heroics on her own, Coriander’s people may have grabbed her, inside or outside the hotel.”

  “You know anything about Walter Ames’s personal finances?” Hardy asked.

  “Nothing for real,” Chambrun said. “He lives expensively, according to Jim Priest. But he is a lobbyist for ITC—International Trade. That means he has contacts with big money all over the world.”

  “If Cleaves is dea
d broke and in trouble, as your man Andrews suggests,” Hardy said, “his wife must know it. It would be logical for her to turn to her father.”

  “See if Ames has a telephone in Athens, New York,” Chambrun said to me.

  Information was very polite. Walter Ames did have a telephone, but it was unlisted and private. She couldn’t give it out.

  “I can handle that,” Hardy said.

  Five minutes later we had a number for Ames, but it rang and rang and nobody answered. I was ordered to keep trying, but as the evening wore on, Ames still didn’t answer his phone and Connie remained among the missing.

  Chapter 2

  OTHER THINGS HELPED TO fill the evening. Valentine, the bomb squad man, turned up with an elderly gent named Crenshaw who turned out to be a member of the architectural firm that had designed and helped build the Beaumont. The original designer was long dead, but there were blueprints. Crenshaw was white-haired, jowly, with a red face and a heavily veined nose that suggested that his primary interest in life was alcohol. I could smell rye whiskey on his breath halfway across the room. But it didn’t seem to affect his knowledge of the building. He gave us a brief lecture, using a silver pencil as a pointer to the blueprints which were spread out on Chambrun’s desk.

  “With explosives placed here, and here, and in these other places that Captain Valentine has described to me,” he said, “I can tell you, Mr. Chambrun, that the damage would be staggering. Your Colonel Coriander exaggerates when he suggests the top ten floors of the hotel might come tumbling down, but he doesn’t need that to happen for his threat to be very real.”

  “Let’s have it,” Chambrun said.

  “To begin with,” Crenshaw said, “a massive explosion in the elevator shaft would wreck that mechanism from top to bottom. It would take months to shore it up, rebuild it and make it operative. The rest of the charges, placed in the rooms on Fifteen and in the corridor would blow the entire floor into rubble, and probably do extensive damage on Fourteen and Sixteen. I would have to advise you to have those two floors also evacuated.”