Murder Round the Clock

by Hugh Pentecost

  Chambrun's heavv blackthorn stick moved in a short arc.

  There was a sound like splintering kindling, the gun went hurtling across the room, and the terrorist screamed and went down to his knees, cradling his shattered arm. The second man was down, with Jerry Dodd sitting on his chest, a gun pressed against the terrorist's forehead.

  As if he were taking a stroll in the park, Chambrun stepped over the man he'd struck and went into the back room. A moment later I heard a woman's voice, frightened but relieved. She had been tied to a chair, a gag in her mouth, Chambrun told us later.

  He reappeared, his arm around Luigi Cantora's beloved Serafina. "It's all right, Serafina,'' Chambrun said gently. "It's all over. I'll take you to Luigi. He'll be overjoyed to see you." He turned to me. "You can call the police to take care of these scum, Mark," he said. And then to Jerry, "Get in touch with General Hassan at the United Nations. He may want to disinfect his private army." He gave Serafina a little hug. "We must be going, my dear. I have a hotel to run."

  prep school, and I was Haskell, M., when they called the roll in study hall. I have a crush on the lady, which may produce a snicker here and there. Mrs. Victoria Haven admits, without a blush, to having been born in 1900. I am thirty-five, the public relations director of the Hotel Beaumont. Mrs. Haven lives in a penthouse on the roof, and I see her almost every day of my life and look forward to it. She is something!

  The Beaumont is famous for a number of things, primarily for its legendary manager, Pierre Chambrun. He is the king, the mayor, the boss of a small city within a city. He presides over his own police force, a shopping center, restaurants and bars, a bank, a health club, hospital facilities, and the living quarters for a thousand guests. Some of us who work for him think he has a magical radar system located behind his bright black eyes. He seems able to sense a malfunction in the Swiss-watch operations of the world he rules even before it happens.

  Unfortunately Chambrun can't change human nature. He can't eliminate greed, or jealousy, or a passion for revenge, or the impulse toward treachery and betrayal in the individual man or woman. And so, as in every other place on earth, these ugly psychoses erupt in Chambrun's world too and hamper man's efforts to lead peaceful and orderly lives.

  It was one of these dark and twisted impulses that threatened the life of Victoria Haven in the spring of this year.

  Chambrun, too, has a very special place in his heart for Victoria Haven. It is whispered backstage that long ago there was a young man-older woman relationship between the two of them. She obviously has some kind of special drag with Chambrun, because she is allowed to break so many house rules.

  Chambrun became the managing genius of the Beaumont in the early fifties, and, at the same time, Victoria Haven bought one of the three penthouses on the roof, a cooperative arrangement at that time. She was obviously a woman of means, because even in those days it was an expensive piece of real estate. There are two other penthouses flanking the lady's residence. Chambrun lives in one of them, and the other is held in reserve for visiting foreign diplomats, in New York on United Nations business.

  At present, only one elevator goes to that top level, and the man who operates it won't take you there without word from the front desk that Chambrun, or Mrs. Haven, or the guest in Penthouse Number Three has approved, in effect has given the green light. You are as safe up there from unwanted intrusion as if you were detached from the rest of the world. Or so it seemed.

  I have mentioned Mrs. Haven's Japanese friend who sits with her in the Trapeze Bar at the cocktail hour. He is one of the house rules that Mrs. Haven is allowed to break. He is a small, snub-nosed Japanese spaniel, snarling, unfriendly, contemptuous. He sits on his own chair, on his own red satin cushion, and indicates clearly that he is bored with the sophisticated social world of the Beaumont. His name is Toto.

  Actually, in my time at the hotel, there have been two Totos, and I understand that there was still another before that. Pets are not allowed in the hotel, but Toto is the exception. Mrs. Haven and "my Japanese gentleman friend" are, you might say, landmarks. If for some reason they miss the cocktail hour in the Trapeze, or are late appearing, Mr. Del Greco, the maitre d', is swamped with anxious inquiries from the regulars who fear something may have happened to the lady and her companion.

  She is not inconspicuous.

  At eighty-one Victoria Haven is tall, ramrod-straight. She walks briskly, like a woman of thirty. Her hair, quantities of it, is piled on top of her head, a henna red that God never dreamed of. She wears plain, black silk dresses, sedate and proper, but she has on enough dazzling rings, bracelets, pendants, and earrings to send the manager of Tiffany's racing back to his store to check on the inventory.

  "I have been a kept woman all my life, Haskell," she told me one day, "but not one of these baubles came to me for any other reason than love—good, sensuous, passionate love."

  She had started out toward the end of World War One as a dancer in a cabaret, Chambrun told me. "She had legs that put the Betty Grables of her time to shame."

  At eighty-one she is an outrageous and altogether charming flirt. Tve never seen her with a woman friend, but men of all ages flock to her table in the Trapeze, ignoring Toto's growling hostility. She is still all woman, and fifty years ago she must have been the living end.

  She was dangerously close to another kind of end that spring day. Afterward she told me she had wondered. "I felt a little like William Saroyan," she said, "who said to the press just before the end that he'd been told that all of us have to face death, but he'd supposed an exception would be made in his case. I've always thought that, Haskell, but yesterday I wasn't so sure. Not sure at all."

  The complex problems of maintenance in an establishment like the Beaumont are beyond imagination. I'm not talking about maid service, cleaning crews, waiters and maitre d's, chefs, kitchen staffs, bellboys, telephone switchboard operators—services supplied by people. I was thinking of the maintenance of machinery. I'm talking about a forty-story building that has to be heated in winter, air-conditioned in summer, about two banks of elevators that have to be kept in service around the clock, about ice machines, refrigerator rooms, hundreds of different electrical gadgets that supply special luxuries to the guests—portable broiler-ovens, toasters, drink mixers, and on and on. There are three chief engineers, each working an eight-hour shift, plus a crew of men who know exactly how everything works and where everything is located.

  That staff of experts is prepared to deal with any sort of emergency that might develop in the hotel's equipment and to maintain regular maintenance checks. Occasionally, however, outside specialists become involved. Twice a year the two banks of elevators are checked out by experts from the manufacturer. If any parts or cables or controls need replacing, these outsiders deal with the problem. It is a part of some kind of warranty.

  Their presence is never particularly noticed, because they put only one car at a time out of commission. In the case of the roof and its three penthouses, however, this makes for a brief dislocation for the top-level residents—Chambrun, Mrs. Haven, and whoever may be in Penthouse Number Three. Since only one elevator goes to the roof, when that is being checked out, it means the boss, Mrs. Haven, and the guest in Number Three will have to use the fire stairs from the fortieth floor to the thirty-ninth, to come and go for perhaps two or three hours.

  Chambrun, of course, knows when it is going to happen and arranges accordingly. Mrs. Haven and the guest in Number Three are notified a couple of days in advance, reminded, and re-reminded. The period of non-service is always from ten in the morning till about two in the afternoon.

  One of the extraordinary things about Chambrun is his knowledge of the personal lives of all the hundreds of people who work for him. He knows family histories, how many children there are, the schools they go to, medical problems, and so on. People will give an arm for him because he is aware of their problems before he is told. He does not have this kind of special knowledge, however,
of the people who come in from the outside, like the elevator experts. That lack of knowledge came close to costing Victoria Haven her life.

  The hotel's security force, commanded by Jerry Dodd, a wiry, bright-eyed, very tough former FBI agent, is a marvel of efficiency. You go into the hotel and wander down some corridor where you are not supposed to go or open the door of some anteroom, and someone is almost instantly at your elbow, asking you what cooks. But when special service people come in no one checks on them. They have free run of the

  place to do their jobs, whatever they may be. So what happened to Victoria Haven could not be blamed on Chambrun or Jerry Dodd. Neither one of them is psychic, although I sometimes wonder about Chambrun.

  One more note before the curtain rises on a beautiful spring day with Death threatening to play the leading role. When I first came to know Mrs. Haven, she had a routine that has since been abandoned. Three times a day and once in the latish evening she charged through the lobby with Toto under her arm. The little spaniel had to "do his duty." On a summer day, when a topcoat wasn't necessary, she was quite a sight, her jewelry glittering and flashing. I remember remarking to Chambrun that she was asking for trouble with all the junkies and muggers populating the streets. Every day we heard of someone snatching a gold chain or some other piece of jewelry off a lady's neck, or wrist, or hand. Victoria Haven was too inviting a target, I thought.

  Chambrun gave me a wry smile and said nothing. But I learned, doing my own snooping, that every time she went out one of Jerry Dodd's men strolled after her. If anyone had even so much as taken a step toward the lady, he would have been instantly confronted by an armed and tough security man. No one, I learned, had ever told the lady she was being protected, but I think she was too clever, too observant, not to have noticed it. I tell this only to show how closely Chambrun watched over her. When the city passed a law that pet owners had to follow their dogs equipped with scoopers, Mrs. Haven abandoned her outdoor forays.

  "I would not be caught dead following Toto around with a shovel," she announced to the world at large.

  A special place in her roof garden was set aside for Toto's problem, which explains why, on the day the elevator to the roof was out of service, Mrs. Haven had no reason to leave her penthouse.

  On that day, a few minutes after noon, Victoria Haven came face to face with Death. He didn't look like Death or anyone dangerous. He was a small, dark young man sitting just outside her garden hedge, eating his lunch from a brown paper bag. Mrs. Haven was made aware of his presence by Toto, who, spotting a stranger, made bloodcurdling noises of protest through his upturned nose. Looking over her garden hedge, Mrs. Haven saw the man, and that he was wearing grease-stained coveralls.

  "Toto!" she called. "My dog isn't partial to strangers. You are working on the elevator?"

  The man—almost a boy, she thought—gave her a bright smile. "Lunch break," he said.

  "What is your name?" she asked.

  "Carl," he said.

  "I'm not partial to first names," Mrs. Haven told him. "What is your last name?"

  "Stratton," he said. "I am Carl Stratton. And you, ma'am?"

  "I am Mrs. Victoria Haven," she said.

  His smile became even brighter. "Victoria is a nice name— Victoria."

  There was a kind of impertinent flirtatiousness about him that pleased the lady. "It's pretty hot out here in the sun," she said.

  "After working in the dark shaft all morning, it is pleasant," Stratton said. "But if I'm in the way—"

  "Would you like some iced tea to go with your sandwich?" she asked. "I have some already made in the refrigerator."

  "That would be most pleasant," he said. He was not looking her in the eyes any longer. His attention seemed to be directed toward her conspicuous display of rings, bracelets, and pendants.

  "Come on inside, and I'll pour you some," Mrs. Haven said.

  Toto expressed his outrage with a snarl and disappeared into the garden. Mrs. Haven preceded the expectant Stratton through the front door into her penthouse.

  I imagine Stratton was as astonished by what confronted him inside this obviously rich lady's living quarters as I was the first time I saw it. You expected elegance and grandeur, but that wasn't what you saw The first impression one had was of total disorder, a crowded storage space for junk. There was twice as much old Victorian furniture as the place could comfortably contain. Heavy red velvet drapes shut out the world, day and night. Bookcases overflowed into stacks of books on the floor and stacks of newspapers from God knows how far back.

  When you first recover from this apartments incredible collection of rubble, you make a discovery. There isn't a speck of dust anywhere. The entire apartment is spotless. What appears to be total disorder is obviously perfect order to Mrs. Haven. "Ask for an article from the op-ed page of The New York Times from ten years back," Chambrun once told me, "and she will reach out, probably not moving from her chair, and produce it for you. She knows exactly where anything she cherishes is located."

  Mrs. Haven left Stratton in this antique dealer's paradise and went to the kitchen to get him the promised iced tea. He looked around him, intently curious, not daring to move anything from a chair in order to sit down. Mrs. Haven reappeared with the tea in a frosted glass.

  "Just throw that stuff off that chair, there, Stratton, and sit," the lady said.

  He picked up some papers from a Windsor chair as if he might find a black widow spider hiding beneath them. He accepted the tea, his eyes focused on the diamond-studded pin that decorated the front of her dress.

  "You have jewels for a queen," he said.

  She smiled at him. "I have more fun acquiring them than most queens do," she said.

  "The way things are today, you must have a good safe to keep them in," Stratton remarked.

  "Jewels are no fun if you keep them locked away," she said. "Will the elevator be running when they promised—at two o'clock?"

  "Before that if all goes well," he said.

  "Splendid. I have an appointment at five—as usual."

  "You're not afraid of thieves?" he asked.

  "I am as well guarded in this hotel as if it were Fort Knox," she said.

  Casual talk over, the time came for Carl Stratton to get back on the job. He thanked the lady politely, carried his empty glass back into the kitchen, thanked the lady again, and departed.

  A nothing moment, if you had asked Mrs. Haven just then. She had done a kindness for a maintenance man who was, indirectly, making certain a service she counted on was in working order. She would have given a cold drink to almost anyone on a hot day. An unmemorable moment in an un-memorable day—so far.

  At five o'clock that afternoon Mrs. Haven and Toto went down for their customary cocktail hour in the Trapeze Bar. It was an early evening when many friends stopped by her table to chat. A British diplomat whom she'd met years ago in Cairo was delighted to encounter her again and invited her to dine with him.

  "Lord Ormsby," she told us later. "Willie Belton when I met him just after World War One. Damned near as old as I am. Horrible shape, though. Walks with a stick."

  They dined in the Blue Lagoon, our nightclub. Toto is not allowed in the main dining room. The two old people apparently had a lovely time reliving half a century or more. It was nearly eleven when Mrs. Haven and Toto returned to her penthouse.

  "Willie offered to escort me up to the roof," Mrs. Haven told us later, "but I told him chivalry didn't have to go that far. Good thing he accepted the idea. The dear old boy might have gotten himself killed!"

  So it was that she returned to the roof alone, except, of course, for Toto. The little dog was left in the garden. He had a special "dog door" in and out of the kitchen, which he could manage by himself. Mrs. Haven let herself in at the front door, switched on the lights, and found herself facing Carl Stratton standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  "How did you get in here?" Mrs. Haven asked sharply.

  "Fixed the lock on the kitchen
door when I was here earlier," Stratton said. "Where do you keep them?"

  "Keep what?"

  "Your jewels, Victoria. Where do you keep them? I've turned the place upside down—no safe, no strongbox. Where are they?"

  Maybe she made some kind of instinctive gesture, because he stepped forward and snatched away her suitcaselike handbag, and backed away, opening it.

  "My God!" he said.

  "Safest place to keep them is with me," Mrs. Haven said.

  "My God!" Stratton said again. "In here—and on you— there must be a million bucks' worth!"

  "I should have estimated it a little higher than that," Mrs. Haven said. She dropped down in the big armchair that Chambrun called her throne. "So you've got them, Stratton. Would you mind very much leaving me the privacy to go to bed?"

  He moistened his lips. "How old are you, Victoria?" he asked.

  "Eighty-one—if it matters," she said.

  "It matters," Stratton said, his eyes very bright. "Eighty-one years is quite a lot of living. It makes what I have to do a little less difficult."

  "What do you have to do?"

  "Well, I can't go off with your million dollars and leave you to tell the police who was responsible." He shifted her bag under one arm, and from inside his coat he produced a switchblade knife. "I'm going to have to silence you rather permanently, Victoria. I'll try to make it as painless as possible."

  He took a step toward her and out of the kitchen came Toto, snarling fiercely.

  "I'll cut your stinking little head off, buster, if you don't stay away from me!" Stratton shouted.

  "Toto!" The old woman's voice was clear and controlled. "Go somewhere and tend to your own business!"

  The little dog gave Stratton a parting snarl and headed back for the kitchen. Mrs. Haven leaned back in her chair.

  "I suppose you have no choice, Stratton," she said. "Perhaps you would let me have one cigarette before you cut my throat."

  Without waiting for Stratton to answer, she began fumbling in the stack of newspapers next to her chair. When she turned to face him again, she was holding a giant handgun, a small cannon, aimed straight at his heart.