Murder Goes Round and Round: A Pierre Chambrun Mystery Hardcover

by Hugh Pentecost

  "Why take him away?" Herzog asked. "Why not get help here in the hotel?"

  "If Pasqua was hurt so badly that he was babbling about facts that mustn't be spilled to strangers, March would have to get him away or keep him silent."

  "Talk about the British hostages?"

  "What else? Claridge didn't travel thousands of miles to gossip with March. He must have had reason to believe that March could lead him to the men he wanted to free."

  "So that's where they are? Where the hostages are being held?"

  "As good a guess as any, wouldn't you say?" Chambrun asked.

  "So how do we go about finding that place?" Herzog asked.

  "There is one person, maybe two, who could tell us," Chambrun said. "Millicent Huber would know. In all likelihood, Colonel Watson knows, too."

  "How do we get them to talk?" Herzog asked.

  Chambrun hesitated and then looked at me. "Mark is a wonderful soft talker. It's just possible he could trip her into making a mistake."

  "Not likely," I said. "There could be hundreds of thousands of dollars involved. People don't get careless under those conditions."

  "You think that kind of money is involved?" Herzog asked.

  "A seven-year war is on the line," Chambrun said. "Iran would pay a fortune to keep those Britishers available for a deal that will get their own people back."

  "Talk to the lady as casually as you can, Mark," Chambrun said. "Maybe something will slip."

  The identity of the dead man in the basement was no longer a secret from the American press or the curious public. The first news that the Britishers being held hostage included royalty-a prince, a duke, and an earl-turned out not to be true. There were, it seems, eleven hostages, all teenage children of British political figures. There had been seven boys and four girls. One of the girls had been returned, dead, to her family's home more than a month ago. She had been raped and brutally beaten. With her was a message that warned that the other young people would receive similar treatment if Iranian prisoners weren't returned to their homeland. It has been the policy of Western allies, right down the line, not to be stampeded into releasing legitimately taken prisoners of war under threat. Finding out where the remaining ten young people were being held, and by whom, had been Inspector Claridge's assignment. He must have come close, we thought, or why else all the commotion and his murder?

  One thing seemed to be certain to us. There was no place you could hide ten teenagers, as a group, in the Beaumont. Each one of them must be being held separately if they were anywhere in our hotel, and by now the search had been so thorough we had to believe for certain that they were not with us.

  My assignment —to find and talk with Millicent Huber— turned out not to be too difficult. The lady was in the lobby level Spartan Bar having a drink with Colonel Watson. They offered no objection to my joining them at their table.

  "This news must be distressing Mr. Chambrun," Watson said. "His theory that Toby is criminally involved must be blown sky-high by now."

  "How so?" I asked him.

  "Nothing in the world would persuade Toby to launch some kind of attack against British people," Watson said. "He feels an enormous debt to them. They took care of him while he was hurt. British medicine restored his face. British musicians and British show-business people got him launched in his new act, which has been a sensation. Toby owes, and owes, and owes them."

  "Nothing? I've heard talk of hundreds of thousands of dollars," I said. "That wouldn't tempt him?"

  "You don't know him or you wouldn't ask that," Millicent Huber said. "Toby's sense of loyalty to friends is one of the certain things about him."

  "You know how much you're paying him here at the Beaumont?" Watson asked.

  I nodded. "Ten thousand a week—for two weeks," I said.

  "That's half a million for a year, which is probably what he makes. I don't think he could be tempted to risk his life and future for a criminal act for strangers he doesn't know. He has no connection with Iran. I could swear he has no Iranian friends."

  "And for certain he wouldn't rape an English girl," Milli-cent said.

  "Inspector Claridge must not have seen it that way," I said. "Or why would he have come here looking for March?"

  "Do you know that he came here looking for Toby?" Watson asked. "Or is that just one of Chambrun's guesses?"

  "Well-"

  "He came here looking for hostages," Watson said. "Only Chambrun, and some suckers like you whom he's convinced, will ever buy Chambrun's story. Toby's debt to the British is far too great for him ever to wage any kind of war against them."

  "Where would this man of many friends and many loyalties take a wounded Frank Pasqua to hide him?" I asked. "Some doctor friend? Some friend with luxurious accommodations who owes him?"

  Watson looked up at the ceiling. "You've swallowed Chambrun's theory that the call you got Sunday from Fran-kie was a fake?" he asked.

  "Not at the time I got the call. Later—well—"

  "When you got the call you believed what you were told. It was Frank Pasqua. He'd seen something about some trouble at the Beaumont on TV, or maybe on the radio, and he was sure Toby March could take care of himself. You thought the 'unfinished business' he mentioned was some girl."

  "True."

  "If it was a girl, and his business with her was unfinished, he wouldn't have been listening to the radio or TV all this time. That would explain why he hasn't checked back in.

  Monday is the day he is supposed to check in for work. When he does, that's when he'll find out what has been going on and hell kick himself for not having checked back in earlier."

  "If he isn't the guy who must have come close to bleeding to death in 17C," I said.

  "Oh, brother!" Watson said.

  "You don't see Maggie Hanson hanging around here anywhere, do you?" Millicent asked.

  It had been my assignment to get Millicent to talk. So far she hadn't, but she appeared to have agreed with everything Watson had had to say.

  "If she was concerned about Frank, she'd be somewhere around the Beaumont, wouldn't she?" Millicent asked.

  "Maybe she doesn't want to find out what the unfinished business is," I said.

  "Some other dame?" Watson suggested.

  "Or dying," I said. "Everybody's unfinished business."

  "But Frank wouldn't give that meaning to it in a cheerful telephone call!" Watson said.

  "Maybe not," I said. "But tell me. You're probably as prone to guessing as anyone. Give me your guess as to why Inspector Claridge came here to the Beaumont."

  "It's no guess," Watson said. "He was looking for the British hostages and their captors."

  "And he suspected Toby and Frank. That's why he went uptol7C?"

  " 'Suspect' is the wrong word," Watson said. "He hoped he could get help from them in finding the British hostages."

  "Help?"

  "There was some kind of equivalent of one of your coun-

  try fairs down in Farmington, England," Watson said. "One of the entertainers was Toby March. Those eleven British youngsters were there as a group, representing some kind of young people's club. They never got home from the fair. Claridge hoped Toby or Frank might have noticed someone paying particular attention to the kids, talking to them, trying to be friendly."

  "And that is your guess?"

  "It's not a guess," Watson said. "Claridge told me, asked me the same question. Millicent and I were there at that fair, watching Toby perform."

  "But you said you didn't know Claridge, had never seen him before when they took you to the basement to look at his body!"

  "At that time, I thought the whole business of the hostages might be an important secret —important to their safety. Scotland Yard could make it public if they chose to."

  "What else have you not told us that we need to know?" I asked. I was more than slightly burned.

  "There were ten young lives at stake," Watson said. "I've straightened it out with Lieutenant Herzog." />
  "He knows that you lied when you and Millicent said you'd never seen Claridge before?" Mark asked.

  "I didn't lie," Millicent said. "I hadn't ever seen him before. Archie didn't tell me what he knew until after we'd first been asked to look at the body —after he'd told Herzog why he hadn't publicly identified the inspector."

  "So, are you willing to say now where Toby is and where he may be hiding a wounded Frank Pasqua?" I asked.

  "No idea," Watson said.

  "And I'm supposed to believe that, or are you saving someone in danger?"

  "I'm telling you we don't know — where they are or if Frank is hurt," Watson said, his parting words as he and Millicent left the Spartan Bar.

  Lieutenant Herzog confirmed part of Watson's story. After he, Herzog, had let it be known what he'd heard from England about who Claridge was and why he might be here, Watson had come to him to say his denial that he knew who Inspector Claridge was a falsehood, and why he'd gone that route.

  "Pretty thin, I must say," Herzog said. "But making it public could conceivably have endangered those hostage kids. It could have put Watson himself in danger, but he never suggested that."

  "So you don't think he's holding out on where March and Pasqua are holed up? They're close friends, Watson and the missing pair."

  "We're having them watched," Herzog said. "Watson's too smart not to guess that, and that we'll be trying to cover any phone calls. But we'll keep at it."

  "There is no point in my trying to get Millicent to talk," I said. "Whatever she says will be what they want me to believe, not the truth."

  "God help us, I think it's likely that somewhere in the hotel there is a clue to those British hostages," Herzog said.

  "And that Chambrun was close, or else why shoot him?" I said.

  We just stared at each other. Answers were so close—and yet not ripe for the picking.

  I'm happy to report that as the day moved on, Chambrun seemed to be improving rapidly. He was out of bed and sitting up in a reclining chair by midafternoon. Toward the end of the day, he was walking to the bathroom, unaccompanied. He ate a buffet supper with what looked like a normal appetite.

  "Back to the regular grind tomorrow, Mark," he said, just before he headed back to bed for the night.

  We weren't letting him sleep unwatched. Two cops were stationed in the living room. The recliner was moved into the little dressing room, and I took over there. I could almost hear Chambrun's breathing. Two more cops were stationed in the kitchen area. No one was going to get to our man. I don't think I slept at all, just dozed. I know I wasn't shocked when Herzog burst into my little cubicle. The gray light of dawn was at the windows.

  "We've been hit again," Herzog said.

  "Hit?"

  "Like the music, murder goes round and round," Herzog said. "A young boy who was one of the hostages."

  "How do you know that?" I asked.

  "About an hour ago, we got a group picture from Scotland Yard of the kids who were abducted," Herzog said. "This one's name is Douglas White, and he's the son of Britain's ambassador to one of the Middle East countries. Stabbed to death in the pantry off our lobby grillroom, with a carving knife from our supplies. Several times in the stomach and chest, and his throat was cut.

  "Sons of bitches," Chambrun said from the doorway. He'd evidently heard everything Herzog had to say. His face was ash white.

  "There is a note for you, Mr. Chambrun," the detective said. He fished a piece of plain white paper out of his pocket and then read it aloud.

  Mr. Chambrun:

  Get out of the act unless you want your hotel turned into a cemetery for the other nine hostages. We warned the English swine that if they didn't turn our people loose by dawn, we'd present them with another body. We don't make idle threats.

  "It's not signed," Herzog said.

  "You say this boy was found in the grillroom pantry? How did the body get there with the place under your surveillance?" Chambrun asked.

  "Guessing games again," Herzog said. "We think the White boy was brought there to the grillroom pantry and killed there. Just walked in from outside somewhere, to the basement, and brought up to the lobby level in an elevator."

  "Without crying out for help or trying to get away?"

  "He could have been warned that if he tried to attract attention to himself, he'd pay for it. So White let himself be walked away from wherever he was being held and eventually wiped out."

  "Whoever handled this, if that's the way it was," Chambrun said, "has to know the hotel pretty well—where elevators will take them, where they'll find a usable weapon."

  "You wouldn't have to have a map drawn," Herzog said. "Just walk around a little."

  "Right under our noses," Chambrun said. "I wish to God that I was in the act deep enough to be a threat to them. Enough has come out now that my guesses aren't very dangerous."

  "We can redouble our surveillance," Herzog said. "But I don't think they're likely to walk into a trap."

  "You say Scotland Yard sent you a photograph of the missing kids?"

  "They were photographed as a group sometime before they went to that fair where March was entertaining. It's downstairs in your office. Not that it will do you any good, except to wring your heart. So young, so very alive! The only thing of interest is that that fair was held in the same town where March went to a convalescent home after his face was fixed."

  "Watson and Miss Huber again," Chambrun said. "They worked there. They must have seen someone."

  "The dead boy's father, Anthony White, is on his way here from London," Herzog said. "He should arrive here in about an hour. I don't envy him having to look at what's left of his boy."

  "Murdering butchers," Chambrun said. "I'd like to see for myself."

  "Can you make it?" Herzog asked.

  "I can do anything or go anywhere that will get us closer to the people we want," Chambrun said.

  In his office downstairs was the picture of the young people who'd been taken hostage.

  "The one to the right of center is Douglas White," Herzog said, handing the picture to Chambrun. I looked over his shoulder at it. They were all so young. The White boy was blond, with a nice friendly smile.

  "Let's get Watson and Miss Huber here," Chambrun said.

  The two were in the room where they were registered as husband and wife. Millicent Huber seemed shaken. "Three of those kids had seen Toby," she said. "Someone had recommended him as a possible entertainer for their fair."

  "Then they would know March by sight," Herzog said.

  Millicent shook her head. "He was into his mask routine," she said. "He sang for them —his Bing Crosby, his Sammy Davis, Jr., his Frank Sinatra. They were enchanted and hired him to work at the fair two days later. He had already put together the four boys who were to act as his musical backup."

  "Did March know who these kids were who wanted to hire him, who their important families were?" Chambrun asked.

  "They told him," Millicent said. "They couldn't afford the fee he was asking from them, but they suggested that if he was a success their families might offer him a dozen jobs later on.

  "In the end, the White boy's father, Anthony White auditioned Toby. When he heard Toby play and sing, he offered to put up the money for the original fee he had asked for."

  "So Anthony White saw him?"

  "Not without the mask," Millicent said. "He wasn't appearing anywhere without the mask by that time."

  "But by now he knew how important these kids and their parents were," Chambrun said.

  "You still playing that tune?" Watson asked. "You're suggesting he planned the kidnapping right then?"

  "He didn't need a special place to plan it," Chambrun said. "He only had to be able to convince the buyer that he could produce something to sell!"

  "Nonsense," Watson said.

  "Mr. White may be able to help us when he gets here," Chambrun said. "He may be able to help us identify March by clothing, some mannerism he noticed. That I
'm sure you won't do, Colonel. You and Miss Huber are March's close friends."

  I had no idea at all what kind of special thing might help identify a maskless March. One thing seemed certain, the Colonel and Millicent Huber could identify him, mask or no mask. Whether they knew where he was operating from now, holding the hostages, hiding Frank Pasqua was something else. As you can see, I was beginning to buy Chambrun's theory in larger chunks. It was possible, I told myself, that March's two friends didn't know where his headquarters were. It would be dangerous for them to know. They might unintentionally give him away.

  Anthony White arrived at the Beaumont a little after noon on Tuesday. He was taken at once to identify his son. The experience was obviously almost too much for him. He was fence-paint white when Herzog brought him to Chambrun's office, and shaking from head to foot. He couldn't control his cultivated British voice. We were like a little corner of London there in the office. Mr. White, Colonel Watson, and Millicent all had British accents, and Chambrun's cultivated way of talking wasn't far off. The colonel and Millicent were on hand because they'd been present when Mr. White had made the deal for Toby March's services.

  "The only thing bearable about the situation is that it must have been quick," Anthony White said to Chambrun after they had been introduced.

  "No doubt he's your son, Mr. White?"

  "Oh, my God!"

  "There are seven stomach and chest wounds," Herzog said. "Any one of them could have been fatal, according to Dr. Partridge." He glanced at Mr. White. "The throat slashing was just window-dressing. The boy was long gone before that took place."

  "If I ever get my hands on that killer, I'll kill him with my bare hands," Mr. White said. "You really believe it may be Toby March, Mr. Chambrun?"