Murder round the clock : Pierre Chambrun's crime file

by Pentecost, Hugh, 1903-

  On this particular morning not a single one of these routines had been followed.

  Jerry Dodd had issued a general alarm to the hotel staff— doormen, bell captains, housekeepers, restaurant captains, elevator operators, porters, shopkeepers in the lobby arcade. No one had seen her.

  At ten-twenty my desk phone rang. It was Chambrun.

  "I'm leaving the hotel for a while," he said. It was without precedent. "You will have to greet the French delegation."

  "Count on me."

  "If there is any news of any kind, call me at Ruysdale's apartment." He hesitated. "There is a spare key in her desk. Something there may give me a clue."

  I didn't stop to wonder at the time whether the spare key was really in Miss Ruysdale's desk or on the Great Man's key

  ring. I was beginning to catch something of his almost feverish anxiety.

  I was at the reception desk when the French delegation— five gentlemen with a multitude of travel stickers on their luggage—arrived at a few minutes past eleven.

  "I am Mark Haskell," I said, introducing myself to the spokesman for the group, a Monsieur Jardine. "Unfortunately neither Monsieur Lourier nor Mr. Chambrun could be here to greet you. An emergency meeting of the Security Council has engaged Monsieur Lourier, and Mr. Chambrun is confronted with a crisis here in the hotel. I am at your service, gentlemen, till one or both of them is free."

  They were all smiles, undisturbed. Jardine inquired warmly of Chambrun. "It is years since I have seen him."

  The delegation had been provided with a suite and four adjoining single rooms on the ninth floor. I went with them to make certain everything was in apple-pie order. There was much jabbering in French, with which I'm familiar, but not fluent. I had room service send them a waiter who spoke their language, and then I departed with much bowing and scraping.

  Back at the reservation desk I got a copy of their names from Atterbury and took it up to Chambrun's office. He would want to know who the members of the party were. There were probably other old friends in addition to Jardine.

  I felt something ominous in the emptiness of the two offices—Ruysdale's and Chambruns. The receptionist who sat in a cubbyhole just outside Miss Ruysdale's office—a girl named Sally—just shook her head when I came in. She looked pale and a little shaky Evidently there was no news.

  I went through to Chambrun's desk and put the. list of names on his blotter. I wondered where Ruysdale kept the Turkish coffee maker and the necessary supplies. I thought it might cheer the boss if he found it ready for him when he came back. I was looking through the lower reaches of the sideboard when I heard someone come into the office behind me. I turned.

  Miss Ruysdale stood just inside the door, looking very chic in a black linen suit, white gloves, white toque, white handbag. There was a fine high color in her cheeks and a curious, almost mystical smile on her lips. I had the crazy notion that she was under the influence of some drug.

  "Do you know where Mr. Chambrun is?" she asked in her crisp, businesslike voice.

  "I think he may be at your apartment," I said. "Where in Gods name have you been?"

  The mysterious smile widened slightly. "I have been on an extended hansom cab ride in the park," she said.

  I just stared at her.

  "At gunpoint," she added.

  Most men have had the experience of waiting for some precious female to keep a date—a wife, a girl friend, a prospective girl friend. She is late, late, late. You begin to imagine all the terrible things that may have happened to her— mugged, assaulted, run over by a truck. And then she arrives, only mildly apologetic. She had stopped to window-shop, or have a cup of coffee with an old friend, or she had "just lost track of time." Your anxiety turns to blazing anger. How dare she turn up all in one piece, unharmed, undamaged?

  Chambrun was in that kind of rage when he returned, having been summoned by Ruysdale's phone call announcing that she was at last in the office and "perfectly all right." He sat at his desk, his black eyes visible only through slits in their deep pouches. He ignored the Turkish coffee now at his elbow. His hand shook slightly as he held a lighter to his cigarette.

  "The explanation had better be good," he said to Ruysdale, his voice dangerously cold.

  "It isn't," she said. "It isn't even believable."

  "I suggest you try it on for size," Chambrun said.

  It sounded hallucinatory. She had arrived, Ruysdale told us, at the basement entrance to the Beaumont kitchen at the usual time—eight-thirty. She had been just about to start down the concrete steps to the door when she felt something round and hard pressed into the small of her back.

  "Please don't move or cry out, Miss Ruysdale," a pleasant male voice said. "What you feel is a gun."

  You read about this sort of thing happening nearly every day in Fun City, Ruysdale told us, but you know it will never happen to you. Here it was happening, and in broad daylight.

  Ruysdale is strictly not the hysterical type. I've seen her under all kinds of pressure, and I can vouch for that. I can imagine that her very competent cerebral wheels were turning competently and coolly.

  "There is about seven dollars in my purse," she said without turning, standing quite still. "I'd appreciate it very much if you didn't take my driver's license and my credit cards."

  "Dear Miss Ruysdale," the male voice said, a lilt of humor in it, "this is not a holdup. I'm going to put my hand on your shoulder and turn you very slowly. Then you will walk toward the vehicle at the curb."

  The hand on her shoulder was gentle. She turned, and the man with the gun stayed behind her.

  "I'd actually seen the hansom cab at the curb when I walked up, but it hadn't registered," Ruysdale said. "There are a few of them still operating from the square in front of the Plaza. Round the park for ten dollars. The driver, wearing a dilapidated silk hat, sat on top, his face turned away. The horse was old, black, sleepy-looking."

  "Into the hansom, please, Miss Ruysdale," the man with the gun said.

  Ruysdale looked up and down the street, but there was no one close enough to be helpful. You do what you're told, she thought, when there's a gun at your back. The driver opened the folding doors from his position on top. Ruysdale got in, and the gunman followed and sat beside her. The doors folded in front of them, imprisoning them behind the horse. Ruys-dale turned to look at her captor.

  "Describe him," Chambrun said.

  That vague smile moved Ruysdales fine lips. "I cant," she said.

  "Can't?" Chambrun's voice was impatient.

  "He was wearing a rubber mask made to look exactly like Boris Karloff," Ruysdale said. "His hands were white, slim, delicate, well cared-for. He held the gun as if he knew how to use it. The horse started away toward the park."

  "What did he want?" Chambrun asked.

  The vague smiled broadened. "We drove round and round the park for about three hours," Ruysdale said. "In that time I was subjected to the most charming verbal lovemaking I can ever remember."

  "Lovemaking?" Chambrun sat forward.

  "He had admired me for a long time, he said. He knew I was unapproachable in the normal fashion. He had chosen this rather melodramatic method to get me alone and tell me what was in his heart."

  "Oh, come on!" Chambrun said.

  "Is it so impossible that someone should find me unusually attractive?" Ruysdale asked, with just the slightest edge to her voice.

  "You are unusually attractive," he said, as if he were referring to a new IBM computer. "But at gunpoint! I admit the rather unusual Freudian overtones, but—really!"

  "He quoted poetry to me," Ruysdale said. Her pale eyelids lowered.

  "—What am I? What is any man,

  That he dare ask for you? Therefore my heart

  Hides behind phrases. There's a modesty

  In these things too—I come here to pluck down

  Out of the sky the evening star—then smile,

  And stoop to gather little flowers."

  Chambrun
made an impatient gesture with his cigarette. "That is part of Cyrano de Bergerac's endless speech to Rox-ane from under the balcony. Sentimental twaddle! And if I remember your dossier, Ruysdale, you played Roxane in a college production of the Rostand play. You remember the words from that and not because your clown in the hansom cab spoke them so passionately."

  "They were nicely chosen," Ruysdale said.

  "And provided me with three hours of gut-twisting anxiety," Chambrun said. His eyes narrowed. He was looking down at the names of the French delegation I'd left on his blotter. He brought his closed fist down on the desk. His eyes, bright and cold as two newly minted dimes, turned my way. "Get Jerry Dodd here on the double," he said.

  I went to the phone on the corner of his desk. He'd turned back to Ruysdale. "How did he leave you?" I heard him ask.

  "I was ordered out of the hansom in the middle of the park, and they clattered off. When I got out he said, 'In my most sweet unreasonable dreams, / I have not dreamed of this! Now let me die, / Having lived . . ."

  "We should be looking for an out-of-work actor," Chambrun said. "Did you happen to notice the hack license in the hansom?"

  "The little metal frame where it belonged was empty," Ruysdale said.

  "Thank God you were able to pay attention to some aspect of reality, even though the result is negative." He lit a fresh cigarette. Ruysdale, a little slowly, I thought, took his demitasse cup to the sideboard and refilled it with Turkish coffee.

  "I dislike destroying your romantic notions, Ruysdale," Chambrun said, after he'd sipped the steaming coffee, "but I'm afraid your adventure this morning was not aimed at you, but at me."

  "At you?"

  "I am not beautiful," Chambrun said drily, "but I can be dangerous. What did I not do because of your absence this morning?"

  "You didn't finish your breakfast," I said.

  "You didn't go through the morning mail," Ruysdale said.

  "I didn't welcome the French delegation," Chambrun said. He looked at me. "Did you locate Jerry?"

  "He's on his way," I said.

  Four of the five names, including Monsieur Jardine's, on the French delegation were familiar to Chambrun. The fifth, one Alphonse Dufor, was the name of a stranger.

  "I haven't quite got on the rails here yet," Jerry Dodd said. The Beaumont's house officer had arrived in Chambrun's office on the run.

  Chambrun was staring thoughtfully at the list of French names. "Why should I be maneuvered away from the job of greeting the delegation," he asked, more of himself than of us. "I've known Jardine for nearly twenty-five years. Like my friend Paul Lourier, he was one of the leaders in the Resistance. Three others I know less well, but well enough. Why should anyone want to prevent my meeting these old friends?"

  "The name Dufor means nothing to you?" Jerry asked.

  "Nothing." Chambrun's eyes narrowed. "But his face? Perhaps I knew him as someone else."

  "You'd be bound to see him sooner or later," Jerry said. "They're booked into the hotel for ten days."

  Jerry is a thin, wiry little man in his late forties, with a professional smile that does nothing to hide the fact that his pale restless eyes are able to see and read a great deal at a moment's glance. Chambrun trusts him implicitly.

  Chambrun looked thoughtfully at Jerry. "Later might be too late." He pushed himself up out of his desk chair. "Just to be sure, let's pay a visit on Monsieur Alphonse Dufor. Where is he located?"

  Jerry glanced at his notebook. "Jardine is in Suite 9A. The others have 901, 903, 905, and 907. Dufor is in 907."

  Chambrun, Jerry, and I headed for the ninth floor, leaving Miss Ruysdale to wonder about her Cyrano. There was no answer to our knocks on the door of Room 907. Chambrun gave a little sign to Jerry, who promptly opened the door with one of his magic passkeys.

  Dufor was not in his room. He had left it neatly settled— three suits and a dinner jacket on hangers in the closet. Shirts, ties, and underthings in the bureau. Shaving kit and a robe in the bathroom.

  "Jardine," Chambrun said at my elbow

  We went down the hall to the door of the suite. This time our knock was answered promptly—by Jardine himself. At the sight of Chambrun he burst into a volley of French, seized Chambrun by the shoulders, kissed him on both cheeks, and literally dragged him into the suite. He was delighted to see me again. He was delighted to meet Jerry. He was delighted.

  "I have a problem, Max," Chambrun said, "and no time to go into detail. Who is Alphonse Dufor?"

  Something happened to Jardines delight. There was suddenly pain in his eyes. "You have seen him?" he asked.

  "I have not seen him."

  "The past is forgotten and forgiven, Pierre," Jardine said.

  "Who is he?" Chambrun said, his voice dangerously cold again.

  "You knew him," Jardine said unhappily, "as Jacques Midal."

  "Mother have mercy!" Chambrun said. "Where is he?"

  "In his room, I presume."

  "He is not in his room." He turned to me. "Call the French offices at the United Nations and get me Paul Lourier."

  "I tell you, it's all over and forgotten," Jardine said.

  I put in the call to the UN, trying to listen to Chambrun at the same time.

  "Jacques Midal was one of us in the black days," I heard him tell Jerry. "He was unmasked as a Nazi collaborator by my friend Lourier. He was subjected to torture by Lourier and eventual imprisonment. If any man could have undying hatred for another man, Midal has it for Lourier."

  "It is over and dead, Pierre," Jardine said, pleading. "All Midal wants is to live in peace and make reparation for his crimes by being a useful citizen of France."

  I found myself connected with the French offices at the UN. Lourier had left there half an hour ago, with word that he could be reached at the Beaumont. I reported.

  "Check the front door and the lobby," Chambrun ordered. "He must be stopped from going to his apartment."

  I got the day bell captain. We were too late. Lourier had gone up to his apartment ten minutes ago.

  We went to the twentieth floor, Jardine with us. It seemed fairly clear to me what had happened. Chambrun had been kept from seeing Dufor-Midal on his arrival. All Midal wanted was uninterrupted time to get at Paul Lourier.

  "Why did he change his name?" I asked Jardine on the way up in the elevator.

  Jardine shrugged wearily. "The name Midal was a household word for treachery at home," he said. "The man had paid for his crime. His remorse, his reformation, were genuine. He was given the legal right to change his name."

  At the twentieth floor Chambrun literally ran to the door of Paul Lourier's apartment. He pounded on it with his fist. "Paul!" he shouted. "It is I, Pierre."

  The door opened and the silver-haired Paul Lourier faced us. His face was the color of ashes.

  "Thank God youVe come, Pierre," he said. "I called your office, and Miss Ruysdale told me you were somewhere in the hotel. She is trying to find you. I was happy to know that she was all right. Please come in."

  We went in—but only just in.

  Lying on the floor in a welter of blood was a man I recognized as one of the French delegation.

  "Midal!" I heard Jardine whisper.

  It was a grotesque business. A fencing foil had been driven through Midal's throat and literally pinned him to the floor. It must have severed his jugular. I glanced up at Lourier's mantel. Only one of the crossed foils I remembered as decorations was in place. Next to Midal's dead hand was a gun.

  "He knocked on my door," Lourier said in a flat voice. "I had left it on the latch because I expected room service to bring me some champagne. I was on the point of inviting Max and his delegates for a small libation. I called out, 'Come in'— and there was Alphonse Dufor. He had that gun in his hand— and murder in his eyes. I knew he was not in a mood to listen to reason. I suppose he had cause to hate me so much."

  "But you tried to reason?" Chambrun asked.

  "No time," Lourier said. "I was standing ther
e, by the mantel. He came charging across the room, cursing me. My reflex was automatic. I snatched down the foil from over the mantel and thrust. Miraculously I was quick enough."

  Jerry Dodd moved forward and knelt by the gun. He used his handkerchief to pick it up. "French make," he said. He glanced at Lourier. "You were lucky. This is a hair-trigger gadget, but he'd forgotten to take off the safety catch."

  "I think not," Chambrun said. He turned very slowly to look at Lourier, his friend. "I think it went like this, didn't it, Paul. You telephoned Dufor's room and asked him to join you. It was time to forgive and forget your mutual grievances. Because the grievances were mutual, weren't they, Paul? He had suffered at your hands, but the girl you loved had been brutalized and murdered by the Nazis, thanks to Midal's treachery."

  "Pierre!"

  "So he came to your room, eager to forgive your part in his horror and hoping for your forgiveness. Instead he got a few vengeful words from you—and a rapier in his throat. The gun is yours, isn't it, Paul? You put it beside him to lend authenticity to your story."

  "Pierre, you must be out of your mind," Lourier said, in a shaken voice. "He arranged for the kidnapping of Miss Ruys-dale so that you wouldn't see him when he arrived. He needed only a little time to reach me."