by Emma Lathen
“Of course not. The heat was on Matsuda. It’s common knowledge he was on the take and he’d missed out on his big score. So he wanted to see how much Lackawanna would ante up for his testimony.”
The superintendent considered this and saw a flaw.
“Then why you, instead of Mr. Kruger? He’s the one who’d have to decide, isn’t he?”
“They call it deniability, Superintendent,” Alderman said with world-weary superiority. “By using me as a go-between, Matsuda could back out if we didn’t come up with a deal. Then he could peddle his papers someplace else.”
The Japanese had stiffened as Alderman began his exposition. Now their outrage could no longer be contained.
It was intolerable, the embassy spokesman declaimed, that such slander remain unrefuted. They must protest not only these baseless allegations but also the laxity of the host country in permitting this act of violence.
Alderman snorted contemptuously. “What gives you the right to complain? You didn’t do such a hot job of protecting our people in Tokyo.”
There was a shocked silence at this first overt reference to the demise of Mr. Ushiba, which Superintendent McLeod noted thoughtfully. Upon being summoned to duty, he had received a hasty briefing on the Midland Research scandal and a very thorough briefing on the best interests of his own government. He waited a moment to see if anyone would take up the implied challenge, then continued his interrogation.
“Then you were simply on your way to this meeting, Mr. Alderman?”
“That’s right. I’d just taken a couple of steps from the elevator when the door to the pool opened and I could see this vague silhouette. Then all hell broke loose—a shot, Matsuda screaming and going down. So I was ducking back into the elevator when Mr. Gung Ho here came leaping out of nowhere.”
Everybody looked respectfully at Kyle Mendelsohn, who gave a visible shudder.
“And you still claim Mr. Matsuda instigated the meeting?”
“For Chrissake! I opened his note at the fax station and mentioned it to the guy there. Ask him if you want, but I’m through going over this.”
McLeod wanted less officialdom, not more, and Alderman’s tone suggested that his next utterance would be a demand for the U.S. Embassy.
“It is getting late,” the superintendent conceded. “I’ll take statements from the others tomorrow, but right now I think the best thing you gentlemen can do is go back to bed.”
McLeod himself was planning to work through the night, even though the two men he most wished to question were presently beyond his reach. According to the doctors, Mr. Matsuda would first undergo surgery and then be incommunicado for a period of up to forty-eight hours. The other promising source of information was Inspector Hayakawa, who had been modestly lurking behind the embassy delegation. But approaching him would be fruitless until he had been instructed as to the best interests of his government. Presumably that process had commenced the moment the Japanese were alone.
In the meantime, McLeod, having been yanked from his own bed, proceeded to deal out the same treatment to key members of the Tudor House staff.
“Why was the swimming pool unlocked?” he asked the director of the health club.
“Because the key was missing when they wanted to close up at midnight.”
There was not an ounce of censure in the superintendent’s voice: “So you just left it open?”
“That’s right. It wasn’t important enough to wake up the manager for the master. After all, what is there to steal? The pool?”
“Tell me about this key. Where was it missing from?”
The director explained that the life guard, after opening up in the morning, placed the key in the top drawer of the sign-in desk.
“So everybody who uses the pool first thing would be aware of this?”
“And a lot of others. The ones coming out of the elevator by the pool, the ones passing it on their way to the weight rooms or the exercise classes. You have to remember that’s our busiest hour of the day.”
“Then the next thing I’d like you to do is check on the use made of your club by these people.” McLeod produced a list of those who had attended the MR hearings in Tokyo. “Is that going to take a long time?”
“Not with our computer,” the director said proudly.
As McLeod was led toward this paragon, he had a final question about the physical layout of the facility. “If someone with only the pool key ambushed Matsuda, could he have gotten out to some other corridor?”
“Oh, yes. All the dressing rooms open to the corridors from the inside. You don’t want some fool woman being locked in. From the swimming pool you could get to two other corridors.”
The director had already settled himself at the keyboard and was conning the list. The Lackawanna delegation had pride of place.
“Carl Kruger.” He tapped out the name and instantly the screen became busy. “He swims every day at opening time. Oh, and while she’s not on your list, I see Mrs. Carl Kruger attends the seven o’clock low-impact aerobics class.”
McLeod had not realized they had a Mrs. Kruger in their midst.
“Go on,” he urged.
“Bennet Alderman uses the weight room and Pamela Webb the jogging track. Both of them are early birds too. We have no listing for Donald Hodiak, and John Thatcher has only been swimming once, at five-thirty in the afternoon.”
“Now let’s have the Japanese.”
Without bothering to punch keys, the director said chattily: “Well, of course Mr. Arai and his staff are a special case. They’re in and out all the time.”
“Why?” McLeod asked economically.
“Mr. Arai has the penthouse suite. It’s the largest accommodation in the hotel. There are about eight of them in there.”
Geography had not been included in McLeod’s briefing. “I thought your club took this whole floor.’’
“With the exception of that suite. Apparently they don’t work to any established schedule, so they come in here whenever they have free time.”
“God!” They all sounded impossibly athletic to Superintendent McLeod, who could rarely steal enough time for a long walk. “And Matsuda himself? Does he relax by running a four-minute mile?”
But Matsuda, in the eyes of the director, was even worse than Don Hodiak.
“He’s only been here to use a steam box three times, and he’s had a massage twice.” These symptoms were all too familiar to the director, who ended darkly: “Stress.”
“And quite a lot of it, from what I hear,” McLeod murmured before adding: “You needn’t bother with Noriko Iwamoto. The desk says he’s not staying here.”
The director’s fingers, however, had already alerted the computer’s memory.
“Maybe not now. But he was swimming here at seven A.M. last February sixteenth.”
“Thank you,” McLeod said thoughtfully.
Unlike everybody else who had been levered out of his suburban bed, the manager of the fax station appeared to enjoy the change. He received McLeod in his own domain— now occupied by one drowsy attendant—and invited the policeman to share his appreciation.
“I’ve never seen it like this before. It’s really quite pleasant,” he marveled.
McLeod had learned to handle discursive witnesses years before.
“You do a lot of business?”
“It’s a madhouse in the daytime.”
“Then I hope you’ve got a good memory. I want to know about Mr. Bennet Alderman’s visit here.”
The manager frowned. The previous day had featured a transmission sent to the wrong bank in Hong Kong. At the height of the subsequent hysteria, the client had been threatening a lawsuit.
“Alderman?”
“He’s the publicity director for Lackawanna,” McLeod prodded.
“Lackawanna,” the manager repeated on a more hopeful note. “Yes, they send and receive all the time.”
McLeod knew some kind of cue was needed. “I thought you might have a lo
g.”
“Of course.” A substantial ledger was produced and consulted. “The Alderman material arrived at eleven-fourteen in the morning.”
“I really wanted to know when he was here.”
“Wait!” the manager cried. “It’s beginning to come back. There were two batches of material for Lackawanna, and they arrived in the wrong order. Of course that always happens.”
The manager placed the tips of his fingers on either temple as if, by steadying his head, he could bring to rest the whirling fragments in his mind.
“Yes, it was Miss Webb who was here when this arrived,” he said, indicating the morning entry. “And when I showed it to her, she said it was Alderman’s and he wouldn’t be back for hours.”
McLeod hoped it was all going to be this simple. “Well, if he was here when her transmission came in, you just have to look that one up.”
But the manager was shaking his head.
“No, I remember now. Everything for Lackawanna was here by the time Alderman stopped by. Let’s see, the second arrival was at one-fifteen. And it must have been here for some time, because I chatted with him while the girl was digging through the piles in the back. He was willing to take both lots.”
McLeod congratulated himself on having arrived at the target area.
“Tell me about this chat,” he invited.
“It wasn’t anything in particular. Alderman had just returned to the hotel, and he’d picked up his mail. He was riffling through it, throwing some of it away and making casual comments. I was keeping him happy while the clerk searched the shelves,”
Now, if ever, was the time for caution.
“Do you remember what he said about his mail?”
“Not in any detail. He was really talking to himself. But he did seem very cheerful about it, and oh, yes, at the end he made a remark about one of the Japanese. I was worried because I was afraid Mr. Matsuda might have overheard.”
McLeod stared. “You mean he was here too?”
“No; he came in just after Mr. Alderman left. But with all that greenery, you can’t tell when someone’s within earshot.”
“So Alderman was insulting?”
“Oh, no; it was one of those jocular remarks that Americans make. But you know the Japanese; they wouldn’t understand. Sometimes I’m not sure that I do. But I have an idea.”
Once again the manager immersed himself in the log, turning pages busily as he explained.
“Mr. Matsuda knew exactly when his transmission was due, and he arrived on the dot. Here it is! Five-oh-three. So Mr. Alderman was here a minute or two earlier.”
For the manager, this was total vindication of his system. For the superintendent, it was only partial triumph. Try as he would, he could evoke no further recollections. Bennet Alderman had ripped open an envelope, read a message, made one of those American remarks about Mr. Matsuda, and then discarded the note.
One last effort was in order.
“Is there any chance it’s still in your wastebasket?”
“Superintendent!” The manager waved toward shelves already overflowing with the night’s receipts. “All debris is removed on a hourly basis. Otherwise we’d never keep our heads above water.”
By the next morning the hotel was buzzing with tales of nighttime dramatics at the swimming pool. To a man, all the guests on Superintendent McLeod’s list claimed to have been asleep in bed at two A.M., and equally, all failed to produce any confirmation. Even the Krugers would only say that Audrey had retired at eleven, while her husband remained huddled with his staff until after midnight. The only surprise emerged when McLeod finally tracked John Thatcher to the dining room, where he was breakfasting with a companion.
“This is Eugene Fleming, Superintendent. He’s in charge of the Sloan’s Tokyo branch.”
For a moment McLeod doubted the accuracy of his list. “You weren’t present at the Midland Research hearings, Mr. Fleming?”
“Not guilty.” Gene grinned while lavishly spreading marmalade.
Thatcher hastened to explain.
“The Sloan is not a party to the MR negotiations. My own involvement rests on the formal need for the presence of a bank officer.” He did not feel it necessary to enter into the intricacies of creditors’ agreements.
“I see. Well, Mr. Thatcher, you’ll have heard of the attack on Mr. Matsuda last night. We’re asking people if they saw him yesterday evening or if they noticed anything unusual in the hotel last night.”
Pouring himself another cup of coffee, Thatcher shook his head. “I’m afraid not. In the evening I was out to dinner at the home of our London branch manager. I returned at eleven and went straight to bed without seeing anyone.”
Still trying to place Gene Fleming in the scheme of things, McLeod turned to him. “And you were with your colleagues?”
“Oh, no, I was busy someplace else. I didn’t get back until late.”
“But aren’t you the Japanese expert for your bank?” McLeod persisted.
“Yes, but I’m also on the board of the International Federation of Motorcycle Associations. Yesterday afternoon I spent some time watching the trials of Shima’s new line of motorcycles. Rick and I arrived at Euston around eleven.”
The mention of the missing element from the MR hearings was enough to convince McLeod that his instincts had been sound.
“Rick?”
“Noriko Iwamoto,” said Fleming with an impressive roll. “We came back here for a nightcap, and it must have been about twelve-thirty when we broke up. Then I went to bed, and Rick left for the Shima apartment.”
As the cheerful, unconcerned voice dropped another suspect into the hopper, McLeod took a deep breath.
“And would you know where this apartment is?”
Fleming nodded briskly. “Sure. It’s on Half Moon Street, just a two-minute walk from here.”
“I see,” McLeod sighed.
Inspector Hayakawa was obliging enough to state his official guidelines at the outset.
“After extensive conference,” he said with gentle irony, “it has been decided that continued homicidal assaults on our personnel cannot be tolerated. I have been instructed to render all possible assistance.”
“Thank God,” said McLeod frankly. “I don’t see how we can get anywhere without your cooperation.”
Hayakawa was not encouraging.
“You will be disappointed. We have not succeeded in eliminating anyone. There are, of course, outstanding probabilities. It is received truth in Tokyo that Mr. Matsuda took a bribe and then killed his underling, Mr. Ushiba, to protect himself.”
McLeod had nothing but contempt for the received truth of political and journalistic circles. “I don’t care about all that. I want to know what you think,” he said bluntly.
“I don’t believe it’s that simple at all. My men did produce substantial dossiers on Matsuda and Ushiba. Matsuda would never have brought that letter into the office, let alone left it carelessly lying about. Furthermore his record shows he would have been perfectly capable of dealing with Ushiba. And there is complete agreement that Ushiba was stupid, lazy, and unenterprising. Even his wife, in defending him, confirms this picture.” As he spoke, Hayakawa could see again that small, wiry woman with the disillusioned eyes. “She says he never would have had the initiative to do anything with that letter. I think someone obtained it with a good deal of effort and decided to use Ushiba as a tool. He was impressionable enough to be persuaded that it was his duty.”
“So Ushiba was a cat’s-paw?”
For once, the inspector’s command of the English vernacular failed.
“Cat’s-paw?”
“To take the chestnuts out of the fire.”
Hayakawa carefully considered this hoary figure of speech, then nodded. “Exactly. It was a dangerous maneuver, at least politically, and Ushiba would be too dense to realize how exposed he was. Indeed, I even contemplated the possibility that the letter was forged.”
“That wasn’t mentione
d in my briefing.”
“It had to be considered. The Swiss, however, can be cooperative when no names are involved. They tell me that physically the letter is above reproach. The paper is that used over there, the typeface is appropriate for that kind of office, the language conforms to their trade usage. It would have required knowledgeability to produce that result, but not, of course, beyond the resources of the principals. They all have international offices dealing with Switzerland.”
McLeod examined his colleague.
“But there’s something more, isn’t there?” he asked acutely.
“Curiously enough, it’s the lack of incriminating content. The only reference to Midland Research is the scrawled initials. Surely, if anybody had been fabricating evidence on this level, they would have made the contents more damning. I know I would have.”
“So we have a genuine document stolen from Matsuda and exactly the right person in the ministry pressed into service. It doesn’t sound much like the Americans.”
“Not alone, certainly not,” Hayakawa agreed readily. “They could have conspired with Yonezawa to bribe Matsuda, and Shima produced a counterplot. Or else Yonezawa discovered a bribe by Shima and took action. I find it very easy to believe that they all have something to hide.”
McLeod thought it was time to move from theory to fact. “The one who was on the scene last night was Bennet Aiderman.”
“Yes, and he’s in some kind of difficulty at Lackawanna. It is possible that he acted independently in Tokyo, that Mr. Kruger has just grown suspicious, and it became essential to silence Matsuda.”
With three corporations involved, there were already enough combinations, as far as McLeod was concerned. If individual employees were striking out on their own, the situation became even more complex.
“Do you think he would have?” McLeod asked doubtfully.
“It happens. After all, Shima is now involved in that export violation because of something the head of computers did without knowledge by the parent company.”
McLeod nodded gloomily. “Speaking of Shima, I have a piece of news for you.”
He related Gene Fleming’s story, then continued: “We’ve been unable to find anybody in the hotel who saw Iwamoto leave. There were some guests taking the same elevator as Fleming who heard the two of them say good night.”