by Emma Lathen
“Then why all that business of stealing some of the records from Fortinbras’s office?” asked Richter.
“That was before Fortinbras announced his plans for physical inventory,” replied Thatcher, shifting cautiously in his chair. It held. “Some of his current division records on purchases had been sent to Fortinbras before he had a chance to make them coincide with his requirements. Normally, of course, he fudged his records long before any auditor got to see them. While he was in Fortinbras’s office, taking what he wanted, he took a lot of other material at random so as to confuse the issue. Incidentally we had a clue a long time ago that we never understood. Unfortunately, I think that Stanley Draper did understand it.”
“Thank God they have pulled him through,” Mrs. Cobb said fervently while Morris Richter circulated among his guests with refills and canapés. Richter had been unusually thoughtful ever since the Chairman of the Board had called to offer him Rutledge’s job. He had asked for a day to think it over, and eventually his acceptance had been relayed to the board. He was now trying to adjust to the position of heading a division which had just defrauded its only customer to the tune of a hundred million dollars. “Look at it as a challenge, my boy!” urged the Chairman who was desperate for someone to fill the job. Richter had looked, and was therefore suffering a certain dejection of spirit.
Under cover of the general stir, Robichaux leaned forward to tap Josie Richter urgently on the shoulder.
“You said that Katrina would be here,” he said reproachfully.
Josie smiled knowingly. “She’s coming,” she whispered at him, “but she said she had to stop for something.”
Thatcher had nodded at Mrs. Cobb’s comment. “I don’t suppose that it can ever be definitely proved that Rutledge pushed young Draper in front of that car,” he said.
“But what does Draper know that made him so dangerous?”
“Yes,” said Allen Hammond. “And what is this clue that we didn’t understand?”
Hammond had arrived earlier with a subdued Mary Sullivan. This was her first public appearance since she had precipitated Jay Rutledge’s final desperate act. Her activity had been rewarded with a decisive martial rebuke from General Cartwright which she had borne with great composure, offering no excuse other than her friendship with the dead man. But after being taken home by Allen Hammond, she had remained in seclusion until this evening, turning a deaf ear to Mason’s pleas for assistance in winding up his affairs. It was generally accepted that Hammond had been her constant companion during this period, and their appearance together had caused no comment other than Josie Richter’s muttered aside to her husband about a certain chafing dish. The Richters had suffered from a surfeit of chafing dishes ever since their own marriage eight years earlier.
“You have to go back to the day the papers were stolen” said Thatcher in reply to Hammond’s question. “Rutledge at that time still had no thought of murder. After all, he had survived a number of audits since he started his fraud. His paper record was as perfect as a paper record can be. Most accountants don’t undertake an audit in the spirit of a crusade. Their job is to make sure that the financial statements adequately reflect the condition of the company . . . that’s all.”
Thatcher frowned as he remembered his long talk the previous day with Addison, the bank’s accountant, who had assured him that the fraud would never have been caught by an ordinary audit. “If the company is doing badly, then the statements have to show the company is doing badly. But they’re not responsible for finding out why. For instance, if Mr. Blaney had been paying too much for his supplies, their only concern would be that the high price of his supplies be stated for everyone to see. So Rutledge was not too concerned. But he had heard enough about Fortinbras’s peculiar talents to be mildly apprehensive and to resist giving him access to the books. Then Fortinbras, instead of sitting quietly back and letting the divisions send him their books, started sending out messengers and raiding the files. That way he obtained records Rutledge had not yet fixed. So Rutledge simply stole them. By the time he was called on to produce duplicates, he would have conformed them to his requirements. But he was nervous enough about the theft to make his first mistake.”
Thatcher looked around at his audience which was now silently attentive. Everybody was very tired. The last few days had involved a major reorganization at National Calculating which had been touched off by Chip Mason’s resignation and, ramifying downwards, had altered the status of practically every employee. Allen Hammond’s last-minute bid for the presidency had failed. He had had to be content with elevation to Blaney’s job as manager of Commercial Sales. The Board of Directors, after an uninterrupted session of eight hours, had offered the chief executive position to the Controller, who had ridden out the entire storm in Elkhart, Indiana—apparently on the theory that only physical isolation provided any guarantee against contamination from the irregularities manifest in National’s front office. It would be days before the Controller had his team ready to swing into action and start a salvage operation.
“Rutledge knew that there would be some sort of scene when Fortinbras returned to the office and discovered the missing papers,” continued Thatcher. “And he didn’t want to be there. So he simply went out and stayed out for several hours. When he returned, the scene was over, and he could pretend ignorance of the whole situation.”
“I remember that,” remarked Blaney. “He skipped out for lunch with Cartwright and by the middle of the next week he still hadn’t heard that Fortinbras accused me of stealing the papers.”
“But that’s the whole point.” Thatcher raised an admonitory finger. “He didn’t have lunch with Cartwright. You were all so used to having him disappear for hours in order to shepherd the General around that none of you questioned it. But two things came out of that little episode. First of all, Fortinbras was stung into sufficient anger that he went over the history and records of Blaney’s division with such vituperative care that he succeeded in convincing himself that there was nothing wrong at all with Commercial Sales. Which made him very deeply suspicious of Government Contracts doing the same work at a much greater profit. And second, Rutledge, who really was mad on the subject of having a perfect paper record, tried to buttress his alibi of lunching with Cartwright by turning in an expense chit for the meal. And now we come to Stanley Draper. Because, of course, that expense chit was eventually reviewed by Draper in closing out his accounts.”
“Well, what difference did that make?” asked Robichaux testily. He was getting very bored with the whole thing. He had come only because Josie Richter had assured him of Katrina’s presence. Instead he was hearing a long lecture on a company he intended to expunge from his memory as rapidly as possible. Devane had been markedly unsympathetic about the whole affair.
“Now, Tom. You remember Hammond told us that Fortinbras’s explosion over the robbery of his office was interrupted by Barney Young’s appearing with cigars to celebrate the birth of his son that morning. Well, the night I met Rutledge and Cartwright at the Biltmore, Cartwright told me about having lunch with Young the day his son was born. He even helped buy the cigars. You can see what happened. Young, of course, also put in a chit for that lunch. By the time Stanley Draper reviewed the expense accounts, Fortinbras was dead.
But he had inspired the boy with his own enthusiasm for tracking down discrepancies. Draper contacted Rutledge to straighten out the confusion over that lunch. We know that from Rutledge’s secretary. Draper left a message with her that he wanted to see Rutledge about his expense accounts. And Rutledge made an appointment with him. I gather that young Draper is still confused about things, but he remembers all of that very clearly.”
“But that can’t be all,” protested Morris Richter. “It’s such a little thing. Nobody would commit murder for that.”
“No it isn’t such a little thing. Remember, Draper was in the office next to Fortinbras’s during two critical periods, the murder and the robbery. Rutledge was pr
obably very sensitive about that. He might have been afraid that Draper had seen him. Then, Draper tackled him about the luncheon alibi. From what you yourself said, Richter, Stanley wasn’t easy to intimidate in his own field. He probably told Rutledge that some sort of adjustment would have to be made in the expense accounts.
Rutledge, of course, must have assumed that the significance of the date would dawn on Draper any moment. The boy had been present during Fortinbras’s tantrum, it had been a dramatic episode; and to Young, of course, it was a red-letter day, incapable of being confused with any other day. And finally, I’m afraid that we inadvertently nearly sent young Draper to his death.
The day after we had spoken to you,” and Thatcher waved a hand toward the kitchen, “we showed up at National Calculating while Regina Plout was there. In front of Rutledge, we announced that we wanted to talk to Stanley Draper. For all he knew, Draper might have asked to see us. Rutledge had already committed a major fraud and one murder to stay out of jail. He simply wasn’t taking any chances. I don’t think there’s any doubt that he followed Stanley Draper from the office that evening and pushed him under the first available car.”
“But he’s going to be all right?” Josie Richter asked.
“He’s even cheerful,” her husband said absently. “He’s getting promoted.”
Margaret Cobb looked at them. “And Emily is going to give him Clarence’s library,” she said. “Stanley told her it was worth being pushed under a car for.”
The smiles greeting this news faded into a sober silence. Jay Rutledge had chosen murder and suicide in preference to exposure. It is not pleasant to think that a man you have worked with and known as an ordinary, kindly human being has been hiding a near-mad desperation. A ghost seemed to walk the room.
Allen Hammond was determined to give the conversation a cheerier turn. “By the way, whatever happened to Regina Plout?”
“Didn’t you hear?” Morris Richter welcomed the change of subject. “She’s written to Chip. Apologized and said she realizes he was taken in by that man with the shifty eyes.”
“What’s old Chip up to these days?” inquired Blaney lazily, stretching himself on the sofa.
Hammond grinned. “Uncle Chas has retired from business. He’s heading up the drive for the Harvard Athletic Fund. They want to build a new stadium.”
“What’s wrong with the one they’ve got?” asked Richter innocently.
“It only holds thirty-eight thousand people,” replied Hammond gravely.
“Oh.”
Amidst the respectful silence that ensued, the peal of the bell was clearly heard. Josie Richter, with a knowing smile at Robichaux, went to answer the door. Thatcher, from sheer force of habit, directed a censorious frown toward his volatile comrade.
“No, no!” protested Robichaux in a sibilant whisper. “You’ve got it all wrong, John.”
“Have I?” Thatcher was ironical.
“Dammit, my intentions are honorable!”
Thatcher signed. That was the trouble with Tom’s intentions. They always were.
“Old Barnwell wouldn’t like this at all,” he said heavily.
“Oh, that’s all right.” Tom reassured him. “The divorce has been finalized. Not a bad woman, Dorothy—in her own way, that is,” he added tolerantly.
Both men rose to their feet to greet the newcomer. But she was not alone. Towering over his escort, who shepherded him into the room like an intelligent sheepdog, Georgi Borof acknowledged Thatcher’s presence with huge delight.
“This is a celebration, everybody,” announced Katrina Tametz, attaching herself firmly to Robichaux, “and we’ve brought champagne. Georgi is going on television!”
The gathering responded dutifully. They crowded around the enormous Albanian, patting him on the shoulder, making proper inquiries, shouting congratulations. Champagne corks popped; glasses were produced; toasts were proposed.
People eddied about, resettling themselves into new groups. Robichaux led Katrina to a couch where she sat down beside him, looking up with great soulful dark eyes. “How sad that now you should be all alone in the world,” she murmured.
Allen Hammond moved over to the arm of Mary Sullivan’s chair. “See,” he said. “It wasn’t so bad, was it? You can’t go on staying locked up at home.” She smiled up at him. He covered her hand with his. “Not that there isn’t a lot to be said for your staying at home. But in a different way entirely.” Their two heads moved close together as their voices dropped to a whisper.
Morris and Josie Richter retreated to a window alcove for a sotto voce conversation concerning the liquor supply, and whether or not scrambled eggs would be required. “We have only a dozen,” Josie hissed. “You’ll have to get some more when you go out for Scotch.”
Margaret Cobb took a second glass of champagne and recklessly confided to Blaney her long-cherished plans for the future of R & D. But Blaney wanted to tell her about Southern Midwest Electric. “Utilities are booming in the central states Margaret. Why the population increase around Chicago alone—”
Georgi Borof settled himself on the floor by Thatcher’s chair, with a bottle of champagne within comfortable reach.
“And now, Mr. Thatcher,” he said silkily, “now, I sing for you.”
Thatcher closed his eyes as the opening chords of the balalaika were wafted across the room.