Death on the Agenda

by Patricia Moyes

  “I understand,” he said, “that John Trapp wants to see me.”

  “Oh, John.” Mary dismissed him impatiently. “I don’t know what’s the matter with him. Shutting himself into the office like that. Anyone would think he had the plans of the H-bomb in there. Listen to him.”

  From the office next door, the typewriter clicked, hesitated a moment, and then went on.

  “He’s been at it since about quarter past nine,” Mary added. “He told me he had a date with you, but I said I had first refusal and he could jolly well wait. Now, I’ve typed the transcript, but there are a few things I’d like you to check before it goes into the final report. Here, on page three, for example, there’s a reference to Interpol personnel, and I’m not sure if I have all the names spelled rightly.”

  “You’ve been very quick about getting it typed,” said Henry, appreciatively.

  “I stayed late and did it last night.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Mary smiled. “If I didn’t, the work wouldn’t get done at all, Inspector. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed doing it. It’s such an interesting speech.”

  Henry took out his pen again and sat down at the desk. The typescript was impeccable and beautifully laid out, and contrived to make his speech, of which he had not been very proud, appear much more dignified and significant than it had on his scribbled notes.

  He went quickly through the manuscript, checking a word here and there. Jacques Lenoir put his head in the door, and said, “Henri, why is there change for the agenda today? I do not understand.”

  “I can’t explain at the moment, Jacques. I’m busy.”

  “Please, we must talk about it before the meeting. I shall be in the rest room.”

  Lenoir, who looked pale and had dark circles under his eyes, disappeared like a jack-in-the-box. Mary glanced at her watch.

  “Twenty to,” she said. “There’s still lots of time. Don’t hurry.”

  “I’ve finished,” said Henry. “There you are. All done. Now I’ll see what our friend Trapp wants with me.”

  “He’s inclined to make mountains out of molehills, you know,” said Mary briskly. She gathered up her papers, and, as Henry went to the door, suddenly added awkwardly, “Forgive me for saying so, Inspector, but I did want to tell you how pleased I am to be assigned to this committee. It’s such a pleasure to work with somebody like you.”

  Henry felt unduly pleased. “It’s mutual,” he said. “I’m delighted to have you on the staff.” They smiled at each other, suddenly both a little shy. Then Henry said, “Well...good-by for now.”

  “Yes,” said Mary. “You’d better see John. He’ll be livid at having been kept waiting so long.”

  As Henry stepped out into the corridor, he noticed that the typing had stopped. There was nobody in sight, but through the half-open door of the rest room Henry heard Helène saying in French, “I suppose we’ll be able to get into the office before the meeting opens,” and Lenoir replying, rather sharply, “I certainly hope so.” The door of the ladies’ cloakroom, opposite that of the office, was ajar, and Henry caught a glimpse of Annette’s slender back as she combed her hair in the mirror. He opened the door of the office and went in.

  John was sitting at the desk with his back to the door, bent over his work. Henry closed the door behind him, and said, “Well, John, here I am at last. What’s it all about?”

  John Trapp did not move, nor did he reply. Indeed, he would never move nor speak again. For he had been stabbed neatly in the back with the dagger of Toledo steel which Henry had seen the night before in Paul Hampton’s library.

  ***

  For a moment, Henry stood perfectly still. Then, very slowly, he walked around the desk and looked at the dead man’s face. It expressed a mild surprise, but was extraordinarily tranquil. Henry turned his attention to the typewriter. In it was a plain sheet of white paper, and on the paper was written:

  DEAR TIBBETT,

  I am puzzled and disappointed that, for some reason, you have not seen fit to keep your appointment with me. Now other people are beginning to arrive, and it is clear that we shall have to fix another time and place for our discussion, which must obviously be strictly private.

  I think you can guess without too much difficulty what I wish to say to you concerning Parkington’s disturbing information. You can imagine that I am not looking forward to the interview with any pleasure, and I am sure that you are not, either. But, painful though it may be, I have come to the conclusion that I have no alternative but to bring the whole subject out into the open, and to tell you exactly what I know and what my position is.

  As to the action which should be taken, I am naturally loth to use my initiative in such a matter, for obvious reasons. The ethics in a case like this are always infinitely more complicated than would appear on the surface. What right has one person to judge another? To what point can personal loyalty be invoked to justify the suppression of facts? These are questions which I should enjoy discussing with you on a hypothetical level, but unfortunately the matter in hand is far from hypothetical. I have my conscience and you have yours, and in the end it will come down to evolving a solution which satisfies both, as far as that can be possible.

  All I know is that I have reached the point where it is impossible for me to hold my tongue any longer. As far as I am concerned, it is only a matter of what should be said, and to whom. I do not wish to take any irrevocable step without a full discussion with you, but I can tell you here and now that my mind is made up. I can see no alternative but to...”

  Here the typescript ceased abruptly. Henry read it over twice, without being able to make sense of a syllable of it. He had had no appointment with John Trapp. He looked around the office. Everything was orderly, in place, just as usual: the desk tidy and spruce, waiting for Annette to take up her secretarial duties, the empty, expectant wastepaper basket, the filing trays, the stacks of clean typing paper and fresh carbons, the newly sharpened pencils. The low shelves against the wall were stacked with bright-colored dossiers, notebooks and shorthand pads, and on top of them was the spare typewriter in its gray case, and the portable tape recorder. The wall calendar proclaimed, correctly, that it was the 8th of May, and the clock read twelve minutes to ten. Everything was exactly as it should be. The only monstrous incongruity was the dead man in the swivel chair.

  Henry had had plenty of experience with murder cases in the past, but always these had been outside his own life. He had been called in—the outsider, the impersonal representative of the law. This was different. Now he found himself alone in a room with the body of a man whom he had known personally, and whom everyone else assumed to be still alive. Everyone, that is, except one person.

  Henry pulled himself together. He realized that already he had stayed too long in the office without raising the alarm. He started for the door, but he was too late. Before he reached it, it was thrown open, and Juan Moranta came in, saying something in Spanish which Henry did not understand, but which was apparently addressed to John. He saw Henry’s face, and stopped. There was a moment of silence. Then Henry said, in French, “Juan. John Trapp is dead. Murdered.”

  “Assassiné!”

  Stupefied, Juan shouted the word back at Henry. It was enough. All down the corridor, doors were flung open and people came crowding into the office.

  Henry stood there, motionless, while the crowd swirled and milled around him, and horrified voices cried out in a Babel of languages. Annette Delacroix was in tears, kneeling beside the chair and repeating over and over again, “Ah, non. Jean. Jean. Non, non...” She put out her hand to take John’s, and Henry heard himself saying automatically, “No, Annette. You mustn’t touch him.”

  Bill Parkington, red-faced, was shouting instructions about telephoning the police. Nobody paid any attention to him. Jacques Lenoir, paler than ever, came hurrying out of the rest room and hovered in the doorway, asking endlessly, “What is it? What has happened?”

 
Konrad Zwemmer had arrived at a run from the conference room, his composure shattered at last. Sweat stood out in beads on his pink forehead, and ran down onto his glasses, so that he had to keep removing them and wiping them on a very white handkerchief. He made no attempt to speak to anybody, but pushed his way into the office and stood looking down at John Trapp with an expression of incredulity and something very like anger.

  Alfredo Spezzi seemed perhaps less shocked than anyone else. He arrived last, and met Henry’s eye with a quizzical expression and a resigned shrug. Helène Brochet was leaning against the doorpost, as white as a sheet, and looking as if she were about to faint. Mary Benson went quickly over to her, took her arm and led her gently out to the rest room. On the outskirts, the mustached doorkeeper fluttered like a hen trying to get into its coop: he was lost in the multiplicity of languages, and apparently could not grasp what had happened.

  For a few minutes, everything was chaotic and disorganized and entirely natural. Then Mary Benson came back, went over to Henry, and said, “For heaven’s sake, Inspector, get everyone out of here.”

  Her voice produced an immediate reaction in Henry. It had the competent timbre of an English nanny breaking up a rowdy party in the nursery. Recovering his senses abruptly, he said, “Yes, Mary. Of course.” And then, raising his voice, he went on, “Please, everybody. You all know as well as I do that we must leave this room exactly as it is until the police arrive.”

  It sounded a ridiculous remark to make to a roomful of senior policemen, but it had its effect. Shepherded firmly by Mary, the delegates surged out into the corridor again, and by common consent made for the rest room. Only Annette stayed where she was. She was still kneeling on the floor beside John, making no attempt to touch him or even look at him, but weeping helplessly. Her hands hung limply by her sides, as if she had not even the spirit to lift them to cover her tearstained face. It was the most naked display of grief that Henry had ever seen, and it shocked him almost as much as the discovery of John’s body.

  Mary said. “Go with the others, Inspector. I’ll manage Annette. She needs a sedative. I’ll call the nurse.”

  “Thank you,” said Henry, a little shakily. He went out into the passage and to the rest room.

  A dead silence greeted his entrance. The delegates were standing together in a corner of the room, as if closing their ranks defensively against disaster. Helène Brochet lay back in an armchair, her eyes closed. The silence was broken by the small click of a lighter as Spezzi lit a cigarette. Then Bill Parkington said, “Well, we can’t just stand here. What’s the next move?”

  “I think,” said Henry, “that we should inform the head of the administrative division here at the Palais, and then the Swiss Police. In that order. As I found John, I suppose I had better do it.”

  As he walked over to the telephone and picked it up, he was acutely aware that every movement he made was being followed by five pairs of eyes. Wary, suspicious, unfriendly eyes. It was at that moment that the thought first penetrated his bemused mind, “My God. They all think I did it.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHEN EMMY ARRIVED at her rendezvous with Gerda—a lakeside café bright with colored umbrellas—she was surprised to find that Natasha Hampton was there, drinking a lemon tea with Gerda and chatting to her animatedly in German. The pale green Floride was parked on the opposite side of the road.

  “What a lovely surprise,” said Emmy, genuinely delighted. “I didn’t know you were coming with us, Mrs. Hampton.”

  “Neither did I,” said Natasha. “It was an impulse. I hope you don’t mind my inviting myself like this. And please, don’t call me Mrs. Hampton. It makes me nervous. My name is Natasha.”

  Emmy sat down with them and exulted in the sunshine. “I bet it’s raining in London,” she said smugly.

  “We are having thé citron, Emmy,” said Gerda. “Will you join us, or would you like something stronger?”

  “Heavens, no. Thé citron will be splendid,” Emmy answered. And then, to Natasha, she added, “What a superb party that was. Henry tells me I drank too much champagne, but I don’t care. I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed myself so much.”

  “Yes, it was amusing,” said Natasha, but she did not sound amused. There was a little silence.

  “I trust your husband got off to Paris in good order this morning,” Emmy commented.

  “Paul? Yes, I imagine he did. To tell you the truth, he left long before I was awake. I’m a lazy creature.” Natasha stretched her brown arms languorously.

  “We are spoiled today, Emmy. Natasha is going to drive us out to the country for lunch. I had been wrestling with bus timetables.”

  “Where are you taking us?” Emmy asked.

  “To my very favorite place,” said Natasha. “A little country restaurant about half-an-hour’s drive from here. It’s called Chez Marie.” Her voice was warm and enthusiastic. “I am sure you will love it. The patron and his wife are very special people, and the cuisine—well, you’ll see for yourselves. I only go there with...with very particular friends.”

  An hour later, the three of them were sitting at a gingham-covered table under a shady chestnut tree, on the terrace of the café which was officially called Le Restaurant des Trois Pigeons, but which everyone in the neighborhood knew as Chez Marie. Marie herself, a strong, smiling, attractive woman in her thirties, presided over a battery of stoves in the white-tiled kitchen. Her husband, Pierre, a genial mountain of a man in a spotless white apron, was adding the final flourish to the steak tartare which he was mixing at a nearby table. This done, he came over to Natasha, bubbling with welcome.

  “Ma chère madame,” he cried, and then kissed her hand with a gesture of infinite gallantry. “It is so long since we have seen you. All goes well, I hope? And how is monsieur, your husband?”

  “He is very well, Pierre. He is in Paris,” said Natasha. “May I present Madame Tibbett from London and Madame Spezzi from Rome?”

  When more hands had been kissed and compliments exchanged, Natasha got down to the serious business of the day. “And now, Pierre, what are you going to give us to eat?”

  Pierre pondered. “Today,” he said, at length, “I would advise the plat du jour. Marie has made a coq au vin which is truly sensational. Of course, if you prefer Chateaubriand or filets des perches, or filet mignon à la crème...”

  “Coq au vin for me, please,” said Emmy promptly.

  Gerda nodded agreement, and Natasha said, “Three coq au vin, then. Now, what are we to drink with it, Pierre?”

  “With coq au vin you may drink red or white, as you wish. A purist might insist on red. I refuse to be bullied.”

  Looking at his well-upholstered six-foot-three of solid flesh, Emmy did not find this hard to believe.

  “Now, if you decide on white wine, I have an Aigle ’Fifty-seven which is extraordinary.” Pierre kissed his plump fingers to the sky. “The Johannisberg ’Fifty-nine is excellent, too.”

  “But maybe a little sweet?” Natasha asked.

  Pierre’s eyes twinkled. “Ah, Madame knows all the answers. It’s true that the ’Fifty-nine contains more sugar because of the sunshine that year. But the bouquet—formidable!”

  “We’ll have a bottle of the Aigle,” said Natasha. “Right away, instead of an apéritif. And a plate of délices de Grisons to eat with it, cut very fine.”

  Effortlessly, Natasha had assumed control of the party. It could not have been more charmingly done, but implicit in her attitude was the calm confidence of one who will, as a matter of course, pick up the bill. Emmy found herself slightly irritated. After all, Natasha had, strictly speaking, gate-crashed the lunch, and neither Emmy nor Gerda was a pauper. However, with the arrival of the wine, chilled to perfection in a metal ice-bucket, and the delicious, paper-thin slices of dried meat, the moment of annoyance was forgotten.

  Gerda and Natasha were discussing the previous evening’s party.

  “Oh, yes, we have known Jacques for many years,” Natasha w
as saying. “Ever since the old days, when we lived in Paris. Then we met him again in Madrid.”

  “Paris, Geneva, Madrid...” Emmy tried not to sound envious. “You’ve lived almost everywhere. Which do you regard as your real home?”

  Natasha smiled a little wistfully. “I am a vagabond,” she said. “I was born Viennese, but I have not seen Vienna for more than ten years. Now that I am married to Paul, I am an American, and yet I have never been to America in my life. As far as I have a home, it is here, in Geneva. But I was telling you about Jacques. He was always a charmer, but I see a great change in him now. He has developed into something more, a wit.”

  “He and Juan Moranta are an amusing couple,” said Gerda. “Almost too good to be true. A pair of perfectly matched Latin temperaments.”

  “Yes, but Moranta cannot compare to Jacques when it comes to a turn of phrase.” Natasha smiled reminiscently. “He is quite brilliant, even in a language not his own. His English idiom is really remarkable. He described that nice big American delegate as a bull in a talking shop.”

  “I dare say he had a more or less barbed epigram for each of the delegates,” said Emmy.

  Natasha laughed. “Perhaps,” she said.

  “Come on, tell us.”

  “Well,” Natasha hesitated. “He was rather rude about Juan. He said he was an animal which defends itself only when safe from attack. But I understand they were rivals last night, which probably accounts for it. Curious how two such intelligent men should be irresistibly attracted to a bottomless void—that’s Jacques’s own description of the lady, by the way. And he called that poor little Zwemmer a sheep in sheep’s clothing.” She paused.

  “Go on,” said Gerda. “You can’t stop now. What about Alfredo and Henry?”

  Natasha threw up her hands in mock despair. “I should never have started this,” she said. “Oh, well. Here goes. He said that Henry suffered from the regrettable flippancy of middle age, but that there was still hope he might grow younger and more responsible.”