Banking on Death

by Emma Lathen

  Thatcher, inching forward again, this time nudged the briefcase along with his foot, rescuing it from a small boy with an ice cream cone who was hovering perilously close to it.

  “And of course I was crying. After all, I counted on seeing my family for that hour, and I was going on to the Coast. Well that snippet was very unsympathetic. Very unsympathetic. Mind you, if I had been a man, she would have been all over me. Hostess, humph. But when I calmed down, and I can tell you it was not thanks to her.”

  “I have proof.” Another voice, firm and strident, echoed in Thatcher’s ears. What sort of proof did Jeannie Novak have? Proof that her husband, who had been in Montreal, murdered her lover. Was it sheer hysteria? Thatcher thought about the voice—triumphant and venomous. What could elicit that in Jeannie Novak?

  “And of course they won’t let you call, even when it is all their own fault. So there was no way I could get in touch with my family. Of course as soon as we landed—and we had over an hour on the ground—I tried to call Midway. But you know what they’re like on the phone. As far as my family knew, I never was in Chicago at all.”

  The nurse made the mistake of pausing for dramatic effect; her audience seized the opportunity. Both the elderly gentleman and the blonde started:

  “Exactly. Why, I called them specifically today, and asked ...”

  “No use calling them at all, I always say.”

  John Thatcher was next in line to the ticket counter when he had a sudden insight. Jeannie Novak, he was sure, would use the word proof in a simple, non-metaphoric sense. She had the kind of fundamental simplicity that would look upon proof as something specific, something concrete.

  “Ticket sir?” an infinitely tired voice requested. He produced his ticket; the clerk went through complex motions involving rubber stamps and pencils before returning it to him.

  “Is the plane late?” Thatcher inquired.

  The clerk eyed Thatcher with exaggerated patience, then said, “It’s leaving in about an hour and a half. You’ll be called, sir.”

  Thatcher eyed him with equal distaste. “Well, then, I think that I’ll check my brief case.”

  The clerk looked at the eminently portable brief case, then up at Thatcher. An impertinent, offensive and inappropriate remark died on his lips.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. Scribbling the ticket, he handed Thatcher a baggage check and waited for him to move.

  “If you please,” said the nurse stridently as she elbowed him aside.

  “Pardon me,” muttered John Thatcher. He looked at the baggage check, then, as he moved along the counter he looked back at the firm-voiced nurse.

  He then stood stock still—to the irritation of four stand-bys who were convinced that by keeping in motion their chances of getting on a plane were improved—and explored the idea that had just come to him.

  It needed testing. He quickly formulated a plan. Part one would be a call to Captain Self. No he reflected, that would be part two. Part one...

  He looked around the terminal thoughtfully. The staff behind the ticket counter looked more vacuous than usual; trying to edge up to the counter would provoke a storm of protest. He surveyed the waiting room; like all such facilities it was inconveniently arranged so that incoming traffic was immediately added to the confusion before the ticket counters. From the main room however stretched two corridors. Disconsolate strollers would disappear up them, then return. Thatcher headed for the corridor on his left; it led to the baggage checkroom.

  On the right were the restrooms; on the left, three blue doors, labeled, “Flight Room,” “Pilot’s Room,” “Traffic Room.” And under each sign was the additional information: “No Admittance.”

  Thatcher raised an eyebrow, tossed a mental coin, and then without knocking opened the door marked “Traffic Room.”

  Three men were sitting in front of a long, paper-covered table, piled high with graphs and charts. The windows of the room faced the field, but any worry Thatcher had about interrupting vital processes was dispelled by the appearance of the men. They were in shirt sleeves, and obviously occupied in nothing more important than drinking coffee from paper cups.

  One of them, a bullet-headed blond with a crew cut, looked at the intruder; with a touch of Texas in his voice he spoke: “Can’t you read, Pop? No Admittance. That means you.”

  John Thatcher prided himself on the fact that, no matter what the provocation, he never lost his temper. It was true. There were, however, occasions when he allowed himself the luxury of what some of his colleagues on the Street referred to as “a show of force.”

  “My name,” he said in an icy voice, “is John Putnam Thatcher. I am not only Senior Vice-President of the Sloan Guaranty Trust, but a member of the Board of Directors of American Airlines.” He paused briefly; the three men sat mesmerized, like rabbits in front of a cobra. Texas’ mouth was slightly opened, Thatcher noted with some satisfaction. None of these men was capable of checking on the truth of his claims, and he could, after all, prove he was with the Sloan. He continued with cold deliberation.

  “I have been willing to put up with a good deal of incidental discourtesy in the last half hour, but that is attributable to the emergency weather conditions. I am prepared to overlook it. Now, however, it has become a matter of some urgency that I get certain information from the airlines. I propose to get it; either you find out or tell me where I can get the information. Quickly.”

  Texas stiffened as the last word was barked out; one of the other men, leaped to his feet. “Yes, sir,” he said in a frightened voice. “Yes, sir. Just tell me—us, what it is you want to know.”

  Thatcher favored the group with a long look of appraisal, that visibly shook them. Then, tossing his coat negligently over a chair, he frowned, and began. “Now listen carefully. I am interested in flights in and out of Buffalo. On the night of Friday, the thirteenth of December.”

  Chapter 20

  Account Rendered

  The flight from Buffalo to New York took off at seven o’clock but John Thatcher was not aboard. Upon leaving the traffic room armed with sufficient information to galvanize even Self, he had implemented point two of his program. The subsequent descent of Captain Peter Self upon the Buffalo Airport has gone down in the annals of American Airlines history. He tore the place apart. The files were gutted; phone calls buzzed forth to Wisconsin, Buffalo Industrial Products, and the Statler; grim-faced employees of the police department took down depositions, administered oaths, and sealed up documents to be shipped to the Police Photostat Division; and the unfortunate airport flight master was hauled away from a dinner party at the Lafayette where he was scheduled to address the Junior Chamber of Commerce on “The Effect of the St. Lawrence Seaway on Buffalo’s Future as an International Port” to be relentlessly catechized by an enraged police officer.

  When Thatcher finally boarded a plane at nine o’clock, Captain Peter Self was seated on Jeannie Novak’s sofa for the last time. It had been apparent to Self from the moment he entered the room that as far as Jeannie was concerned the battle was over. His telephone call to BIP had been received by Stan with undisguised relief. The older man had agreed that it was time they all had a talk together and asked him to join them at the Novak’s house. Jeannie was produced by her two male relatives and grimly ensconced in a chair, where she now sat, a picture of sullen discontent, flanked on either side by her grimly disapproving father and husband.

  “All right, so I went to see him. He was alone in town, and I was going to ask him to spend Christmas with us. There’s nothing wrong with that,” she whined.

  The air was heavy with disbelief. She stirred uneasily as the silence prolonged itself.

  “And what time was it when you got there?” asked Self.

  “It was around eleven-thirty. It took me a long time to get there on account of the snow,” she said defiantly.

  “You were carrying a Christmas wreath?”

  “Yes, I just happened to pick one up that evening.”

/>   “Well, tell me what happened in your own words.”

  “I went in the side door to the apartment house. It was quicker that way. I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. There wasn’t any answer, so I went in. The door wasn’t locked.” She looked at Self expectantly, but he didn’t ask her whether she had a key. He already knew that she did, and he was not prepared to waste time on that now. He was thinking what kind of appearance she would make in court. The jury wouldn’t like her, but she was such a transparent liar that it was quite easy to know when she was telling the truth.

  “Go on,” he said quietly.

  “The living room was empty. I called, but there wasn’t any answer. I started to look around. The study was the last room I went to. He was there—on the floor—there was blood—his head—” her voice started to rise, and she pressed a handkerchief to her mouth. Stan leaned over to put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Jeannie, honey, take it easy. You’ve got to tell Pete.”

  Roy Novak looked at the two detachedly. He made no attempt to touch his wife or speak to her.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Novak, but you’ll have to go on. You’ll feel better when it’s all over.”

  “I leaned down to see if he was still alive. When I touched him, he was cold. But there was some cardboard in the blood next to his head. I picked it up before I realized what it was.” She was now very white, and her hands were twisting her handkerchief convulsively. “It was an airplane baggage check. I knew Roy was supposed to be on a plane. He had ideas about Bob and me. I thought he had gone to see Bob and lost his head. I might have known better,” she added with a sudden flicker of contempt.

  “And what did you do with the check, Mrs. Novak?” asked Self...

  “I put it in my purse and ran away as fast as I could! Did you expect me to go to the police with it? I was protecting my husband,” she protested with self-conscious virtue. Roy Novak’s thin lips twisted in a grimace of disgust. Stan Michaels made inarticulate and embarrassed noises.

  “Of course,” said Self expressionlessly. It was as good a story as any for the witness stand. “But what did you do with the baggage check afterward?”

  “I kept it. It’s here now. I was going to give it to Roy.”

  Self exhaled slowly. Who would have thought it? This stupid and disagreeable woman had had one moment of good sense. She had not destroyed the one piece of solid evidence.

  “Would you mind getting it for me?” he said very gently, “and then I’ll be on my way. I have a lot to do.”

  It was the next afternoon before Self was able to call Thatcher in New York and tell him that the baggage check had been retrieved, that the airline had searched its records, and that photostats were even now on their way to Buffalo. Their ultimate destination—a file folder now labeled State V. Schneider.

  Thatcher frowned as he hung up, asked Miss Corsa to send Nicolls into his office. He was still undecided when Ken entered and he waved him to a seat.

  “The murder of Robert Schneider has been solved, Nicolls. The police have enough evidence to go to trial and a warrant has been issued.”

  “Good heavens, sir! Did all this happen while you were in Buffalo?” Nicolls, like everyone else in the trust department, had heard from Miss Corsa that Thatcher had arrived at the office promptly that morning, only to spend the day gazing out the window and repeatedly alerting his secretary for a phone call which he expected momentarily from Buffalo Police Headquarters. Thatcher, in a fit of abstraction was a novelty for the trust department and the staff, while amusing itself with sundry speculations about September love or embezzlement, agreed he should only be approached with great caution.

  “Most of it happened yesterday. All things considered, it might be wise if you were to go to Framingham. You may be needed there. It’s only decent ... yes, Miss Corsa, what is it?”

  “It’s that Mr. Schneider again,” said Miss Corsa in the tone of one washing her hands of the situation. “You saw him last time without an appointment, and I thought you might want to do it again. He says it’s important.”

  “Hmm, that certainly is awkward. You’d better show him in. I see no reason why we should be embarrassed,” he ended firmly.

  Ken looked at his superior in bewilderment. Thatcher had advanced this non sequitur with the air of one making a highly reasonable statement. But it was too late to ask why anyone should be embarrassed because Arthur Schneider was striding buoyantly into the room.

  “Now, I won’t take much of your time today,” he began as soon as the round of greetings was over. “I’ve come from the hospital. Poor Hilda has just died, and I stopped in to let you know that you could start to draw up the papers immediately. It will be a relief for Grace that ...”

  But Thatcher held up an imperative hand suddenly and took command of the conversation. “Before you go any further, it is only right that you should know that I just received a telephone call from the Buffalo Police. They have found the baggage check which you left behind in Robert Schneider’s apartment and they have checked with the airport about your stopover. I expect that you will be arrested before the day is out unless you leave for Massachusetts instantly. Even there it will only be a matter of time.”

  When Thatcher finished this extraordinary speech, Ken turned expectantly to Schneider, prepared for a flood of indignant outrage. But Schneider was sitting perfectly motionless in his chair, and only the rise and fall of his chest as he fought for breath indicated the extent of his shock. Nothing could have made Thatcher’s accusation credible so effectively as Schneider’s reception of it. Arthur Schneider, whose joviality, irritation, and anger were always freely and loudly expressed, sat silent for a long time before he spoke. He sounded very tired.

  “It’s always been a matter of time. I never expected to get away with it, you know,” he said emotionlessly. “I just wanted to see my family once before I was arrested. But they never came to arrest me, and then I began to forget that it really was a murder that I had committed.”

  “But, you were in Washington!” Ken had finally found his voice, which sounded strangely melodramatic after Arthur Schneider’s quiet monotone.

  “Not until later.” Schneider smiled at him calmly. “It’s really quite simple. We were grounded in Buffalo. I wanted to talk to Robert about the Beloit contract. So I called him from the airport, and he agreed that he would be at home. I took the limousine because there weren’t any taxis. Later on after—after I had killed him—I ran back to the Statler and took the limousine back to the airport. They were just announcing the departure of my plane. There was a slight clearing in the weather then, and they were getting a few planes out. It was about ten o’clock then. They don’t usually close down airports for an entire day, you know. They open them up whenever there’s a break.”

  Ken gave a sudden start. He remembered that Thatcher had made this point when he was discussing Jane’s alibi. Could the old man have been thinking even then of Arthur Schneider? He looked suspiciously at Thatcher, but there was no sign of triumph there, nothing but polite receptivity. Meanwhile Arthur Schneider was continuing his story in the same exhausted monotone.

  “I don’t think I was in Buffalo for more than two and a half hours. On the plane all I could think of was getting home and explaining to Josephine—that’s my wife—what had happened. I didn’t want her to hear the story from anyone else. But then the plane was rerouted and we didn’t go to Boston. I thought about going to Grace, but I couldn’t put her in the position of having her brother arrested in her house, could I?” Arthur looked appealingly at Thatcher for confirmation.

  “No,” said Thatcher slowly, “you couldn’t do that.”

  “But nobody had arrested me by the next morning, so I took the train to Boston. It was only when I got home that I realized that everybody thought the plane had gone directly from Chicago to Washington. I ought to have remembered that the airlines don’t usually mention unscheduled stopovers, even to the people who are waiting. I knew it w
ouldn’t make any difference in the long run, but it gave me some time with my family, and that was all that I cared about.”

  “When did you realize that you’d lost your baggage check?” asked Thatcher.

  “What’s so important about the baggage check?” said Ken. He was afflicted by a sensation of unreality. In part this was due to the enormously sympathetic image projected by Arthur Schneider. Never had he seemed so attractive as now, when he was confessing to a brutal murder. Ken shook his head and concentrated on the answer.

  “It was the mystery object in the pool of blood,” explained Thatcher kindly. “It must have fallen out of your pocket,” he went on to Schneider, “and then the blood coagulated around it.”

  “I saw that in the Buffalo papers. After a week, I couldn’t stand the suspense anymore, so I went to the Boston Public Library to read the accounts. There wasn’t anything about my baggage check. In fact, there wasn’t anything about me! It was all about a liaison with a woman who carried a Christmas wreath around. I decided I must have lost the claim check someplace else, and it was safe to put in a request for my luggage.”

  “Yes, the police now have the luggage check and also a copy of your claim, identifying the luggage as yours.”

  “It was bound to come out,” said Schneider fatalistically. “It’s curious, but the people I care for the most have all made it inevitable. Josephine, who was the first to notice my missing baggage and insisted I do something about it, and Jane, poor child, who couldn’t resist the temptation to tell her funny story about my flight home from Chicago—you remember,” he said, turning to Ken. “She told it to you that time you came to us in Framingham, and even Grace, who wanted me to go with her to the Public Library where the librarian would have been sure to remember me as the man who had asked for all the Buffalo papers the week before. But what I don’t understand is what happened to the claim check for my luggage. If I dropped it in Robert’s apartment, why didn’t the police find it right away?”