by Deaver Brown
Thatcher could imagine the frustration. Henry, of course, had sneaked off to this function in order to continue his detective activities among the participants of the murder weekend. Instead he had been forced to eat a bad dinner with strangers, then sit in silence for the remainder of the evening.
“But things turned out not to be so bad.” Henry brightened at the memory. “I guess they figured that program would be too stiff to put people in the mood to buy. So they had a series of movie. Then, while the operator was changing reels, they brought in a trolley of drinks and encouraged everyone to move around and chat.”
Thatcher nodded. He could see what was coming.
“The first one they showed was a real shortie. Couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes. It was about opening and closing one of their houses and how little there is to it. That time I went to the trolley and got drinks for us and came back to Eunice. She was talking to some couple from Newton. The second film was a ski movie. You know, filled with dramatic shots of some athlete pivoting in a spray of snow. That wasn’t too long, either, and the photography was interesting,” Henry said, giving credit where credit was due. “That time Eunice didn’t want anything. So I went to get some soda water and I started to talk to one of those salesmen, Burt—you remember him. The lights went down while I was still talking to him, so I just took the first empty chair I could find. In the third film they really gave us the works. It was called Year ’Round Fun in New Hampshire. It went on and on with a sound track. The pictures, naturally, had to be of some place else. I think they used a development that’s already open. But the track was all about Fiord Haven. They told us how they had to choose between putting the houses close to the ski tow or close to the lake and how clever they’d been to decide on the tow. That way people wouldn’t have to get their cars started in the winter. They’d be right there, close to the base of the runs. But what would be even better would be the summer. The lake was on the other side of the mountain and the kids would be using it all day with speed boats and water-skiing and lifeguards. It sounded like the prelude to hell, if you ask me,” Henry said, suddenly diverted.
“They must think so too,” Thatcher replied, “if they’re bragging about how far away it is.”
“They’re going to run a bus, right after breakfast. That way they figure to keep the kids out of everyone’s hair all day—or anyway until dinnertime. Meanwhile the parents get a heated pool and a clubhouse bar and no noise. Not a bad idea,” Henry said handsomely.
“Keep to the point,” Thatcher growled, uninterested in Henry’s reaction. “What about Valenti’s murder?”
“After this thing had run on for what seemed like hours, the lights went up, people started to mill around and Sukey Davidson screamed.”
Thatcher drew a deep breath at this dramatic termination of Henry’s recital.
“I suppose the police have been concentrating on where people went between the films,” he said slowly.
“Have they ever!” Henry said feelingly. “Of course, at first, they were concentrating on Valenti’s movements, but that didn’t help them much. You see, Valenti had been at the trolley with everyone else at the intermission. But he was one of the first to take a seat. He went and sat down next to the Davidsons long before they blacked out for the third movie. That was in the next-to-last row of chairs. Plenty of people had time to see where he was and plenty of them didn’t go back to their seats for more punishment until the lights went out. So almost anyone could have slipped into the last row, stabbed Valenti and then shuffled off to a seat on the other side of the room.”
“Just what do you mean by that almost anyone, Henry? Do you really mean the whole room of a hundred people was surging around?”
“Hell, no! I suppose quite a few of them never got up at all. But you don’t have to be a mind reader to see how the cops are thinking. It’s only natural. The first thing they did was ask about the repeaters from the murder weekend. When they couldn’t produce anyone who held their hand throughout the entire third movie, the cops lost interest in the newcomers.” Henry spread his arms helplessly. “That boils down to Eunice, Amanda, me, Quinlan, that Finley, and a couple of the salesmen. A short, choice list!”
Thatcher abandoned his role as comforter in search of information. “What about the other people at Fiord Haven for the weekend?” he demanded. “One of them could have been a long-lost enemy of Lester’s. And their alibis were all provided by spouses who were changing for dinner with them. You can’t tell me the police have entirely lost interest in them.”
“If they hadn’t before, they have now.” Henry was the picture of gloom. “None of them were at the Pru last night.”
“Are you sure?” Thatcher demanded. “After all, Valenti said they were letting in repeaters. Who made up last night’s list, anyway?”
“There seems,” said Henry temperately, “to be some question as to how these invitations were issued.”
At the police station three hours later, that question was still not being answered.
“I don’t care,” Amanda snapped defiantly. “I wasn’t going to attend. But when Sukey told me that woman was going, nothing could have stopped me.”
It became apparent that her father, her mother, and her lawyers had certainly not been equal to the task. They had all tried; they had all failed. When she left, Amanda was still breathing fire.
The next witness had the same story.
“I’ve told you once. I’ll tell you again,” Eunice declared with iron control. “I hadn’t even heard about it until Mrs. Davidson told me that Mr. Finley had persuaded Amanda to go. Then I decided I’d have to look after my interests.”
Eunice had, at last, decided to produce support more effective than Henry’s had proven. She was accompanied by a lantern-jawed attorney. But not by Peter Vernon.
“But why are you all blaming me?” asked a tearful Sukey. “I just did what Mr. Finley asked.”
Sukey was fighting on two fronts. In the intervals of fending off the police, she was trying to cope with reproaches from Alan. Why, he wanted to know, hadn’t she told James Joel Finley to run his own errands? With burning indignation, she reminded her husband that he had been enormously pleased and flattered to learn that one of our well-known modern architects was looking to the Davidsons for assistance.
Eddie Quinlan seemed past fighting. White with shock, he asked more questions than he answered.
“You don’t have to tell me something’s been going on at Fiord Haven. I figured that out myself. But what the hell is it? First this guy Lester—and now Ralph . . .”
He listened to the police ask about the invitation list almost blankly.
“I don’t know how those women got on the list. They weren’t on it yesterday morning, I know that much. But anybody could have put them on after that. Maybe Finley did it. Hell, maybe Ralph did. But one thing is sure—they didn’t do it to help sell Fiord Haven. Who wants a bunch of widows around?”
Least temperate of all was Finley himself.
“Well, Mr. Finley?” the police asked with limitless patience.
“They’re lying,” Finley said flatly. “I never talked to the Davidson girl. Why should I want Lester’s wives to come? I don’t know what they’re up to, but they’re all lying.”
The police produced Sukey Davidson’s statement. James Joel Finley had called her up and asked her to invite Eunice and Amanda Lester to Fiord Haven’s party. He had even told her how to bait the hook.
“I know who I called and who I didn’t.” Finley sounded more stubborn than ever. ‘It’s her word against mine. And besides, her story doesn’t make sense!”
Unemotionally, the police recorded his words. Unemotionally, they broke new ground.
“And what about the program for last night, Mr. Finley? Do you deny that you selected it?”
“Of course not,” he snapped. “What selecting there was, was done by me. We have a stable of fifteen or sixteen films. We always show a selection of
three. I chose the three.”
“So you knew there would be a lot of milling around?”
“I would have known that anyway.” Finley was snarling his defiance. “There always is. You can’t keep people chained up for three films.”
“And during that last film, Mr. Finley? You didn’t leave the drinks trolley until the lights went out?”
“The whole point of having a bar is to enable the Fiord Haven staff to socialize with the clients. We all exchange a few words with as many people as possible.”
“So it would be very hard for anyone to say where you had been at any moment?”
Finley was beginning to look very tired.
“You’re trying to make my actions look mysterious, when they weren’t. Everything I did was predicated on an evening whose purpose was to bring together our guests and tell them about Fiord Haven. That was everyone’s reason for being there.”
The policeman looked up.
“Not this time, Mr. Finley. Someone had a very different reason this time.”
Chapter 17
EVERGREEN
IT IS one thing to be holed up in New Hampshire, as Thatcher informed Henry. Boston was something else again.
“In fact,” he said, reaching for the phone, “unless you want me to go to the police station with you, I think I’m going to let you stew in your own juice for a while.”
Henry’s essential bounce had reasserted itself. No, he saw no need for Thatcher. But where, he asked, was John planning to spend the interval?
“New York,” said Thatcher, adding to himself that he could always fly back instantly if Henry got in over his depth.
“Aha!” said Henry.
The trouble with Henry, Thatcher decided on the shuttle flight to LaGuardia, was that he was such an unpredictable combination of the antic and the shrewd. It would have been satisfying to leave him in the dark. Unfortunately, Henry not only fathomed Thatcher’s intentions: he approved of them. Thatcher had a strong presentiment that Ruth would not.
Because Thatcher had decided to opt for some hard information. True to his instincts, he was sure that hard information would not come to light in Weston, in Arlington, in Boston or in New Hampshire. Hard information was to be found on Wall Street.
It had not occurred to him that his arrival at the Sloan Guaranty Trust would require justification.
“No, Miss Corsa,” he remarked casually. “I’m just down for the day. Can you ask Bowman to drop by?”
“Certainly, Mr. Thatcher,” said Miss Corsa, somehow suggesting that she deplored his presence.
Thatcher was mildly taken aback. Then, when Walter Bowman, the Sloan’s energetic chief of research, bustled in, he was confronted with another trying response.
“No, I’m still on vacation, Walter,” Thatcher explained. “There were just one or two things . . .”
But Bowman was still frowning. He was never happy until he had unraveled any small problem in his immediate vicinity and, for some reason, Thatcher’s appearance seemed to constitute such a problem.
“Why didn’t you call?” he inquired, seeking enlightenment.
John Putnam Thatcher prided himself on a firmly reined temper, but limitless patience had never been his forte.
“Now listen, Walter,” he began.
Bowman raised a pudgy hand.
“I was just wondering,” he explained disarmingly.
Thatcher, who had reason to value Walter’s disinterested passion for any and all information, was willing to accept this.
“Fine,” he said crisply. “Now, what I want to know is this . . .”
During the flight down, Thatcher had catalogued the areas where he felt further information might be useful. Certainly there were enough heated emotions and ambiguous personal relationships to keep Henry, and possibly the police, occupied for weeks. But to a banker, certain other questions leaped to mind quite automatically. In all honesty, Thatcher could not see that the answers would identify the double murderer. But given Henry, he knew he was going to be asked to think further about the murders of Stephen Lester and Ralph Valenti. He had decided to equip himself with some meaningful data.
Unfortunately assembling this data brought him into contact with more members of the Sloan family than Walter Bowman and Miss Corsa; each of them, so it seemed to Thatcher, mildly questioned his appearance on the premises.
“But I thought you couldn’t be reached,” exclaimed Everett Gabler. “Really, John, if I’d known that you were coming in, I would never have allowed Charlie to send that memorandum to the State Banking Commission. I thought at the time, and I still feel, that it was most unwise. Now, let me explain to you . . .”
Charlie took the larger view. “You mean, after all this, you’re going back up north tomorrow? You’re still going on with that hike? Boy, John—okay, okay. But before you go, it would be a big help if you tried talking to Everett about this Banking Commission testimony . . .”
Bradford Withers, the eminent world traveler and president of the Sloan, simply looked hard at his senior vice president.
“Thought you were away,” he said. Or accused.
It was a lesson learned, Thatcher concluded ruefully several hours later. Either he was at the helm of the Sloan or he was not. Clearly, his subordinates and colleagues—and Miss Corsa, who was in a category apart—were not happy with a John Putnam Thatcher present at the Sloan but not setting the course. Although he was soberly attired, he might just as well have come clumping into the Trust Department in hiking boots and backpack. Henry Morland might embrace the unexpected, but the rest of mankind liked their firmaments well charted.
So, since Thatcher was both thoughtful of the comfort of others and interested in the efficiency of the Sloan, he removed himself as rapidly as possible to the privacy of his apartment at the Devonshire. There could be no doubt, he realized as he left Miss Corsa straightening the chaos he had introduced on his desk, that his departure was a great relief to all concerned.
“About the schedule of where you can be reached . . .?” Miss Corsa said half-heartedly as Thatcher reached the door.
He braked. “I don’t know, Miss Corsa. We’ll probably have to cut short some of the trip. I’ll call in—at intervals.”
It was a pleasure to get back at least some of his own, he reflected, as the elevator bore him streetward.
At his apartment, he dismissed this petty triumph and concentrated on what the Sloan and other sources had brought to light. At first glance, it did not amount to much.
About the vacation home industry, Charlie Trinkam and Walter Bowman had been helpful.
“Boy, is that a wide open field,” said Charlie. “You know, those second homes are selling like hotcakes. And the latest thing is this development bit. Hundreds of them. We own Buller Corp., out in Washington, and Orlando Homes in Florida—”
“But you’ve got to pick the company carefully,” Walter interrupted. “There are all kinds. You know—developments aimed at older people. Or second homes for skiers—or swimmers. There are private clubs and public resorts. There are lots of different gimmicks. But you have to be careful.”
Walter Bowman realized that his companions knew this much and more. He was simply warming to his subject. Charlie interrupted to ask about soft spots.
“Hell, yes,” said Walter darkly, “A couple of the biggest developments have run into trouble. Bad planning. Not selling. Not enough capital—you remember that place near Washington. They took a big risk and lost—”
Thatcher decided that he wanted less theory and more detail. He asked about Northern Land Development and Fiord Haven.
Saddened, Walter shook his head. “Never heard of it.”
Neither had Charlie. But, of course, he knew someone who would have. Even more predictably, that someone was a Miss Hazen and she was free for lunch.
“I can break my appointment with Berman and join you,” Charlie said.
Was this the offer of an official escort? Thatcher could not be sure.
In any event, he said, “I think I can handle Miss Hazen on my own, Charlie. Thank you anyway.”
In a matter of minutes, he was discovering that he had done Charlie a serious injustice. Miss Hazen was waiting for him at the bar of the Pierre. She was smoking a slim black cigar. Thigh-high boots reached thigh-low pearls; green-rimmed sweep-around sunglasses echoed a brief emerald shift.
On the stool beside her, she had deposited a crash helmet and a briefcase.
Ah well, thought Thatcher, another new experience.
“Miss Hazen?” he inquired blandly.
It was. Miss Hazen, associated with Fontana, Goldsmith & Hazen, did not waste time on preliminary niceties. Thatcher was barely seated before she was proving that she had done her homework. In brisk, staccato phrases, interrupted only by four martinis, she gave a real estate specialist’s view of Fiord Haven. And once they reached their table, she plunged on.
“Now, what is it you want to know?”
In spite of conspicuous appurtenances of femininity, Miss Hazen favored a distinctly man-to-man approach.
Thatcher tried to prove worthy of it.
“About some of the financial details—” he began.
“Right!” said Miss Hazen, thrusting the menu at a waiter like a rapier. “You know that Quinlan and Valenti incorporated, don’t you?”
“Yes—”
“But that’s a technicality,” Miss Hazen went on, rummaging through a large purse for another pair of glasses. “They didn’t sell stock to the public, so we don’t have the real dirt on them—”
Although he was in danger of being mesmerized, Thatcher knew she meant that Fontana, Goldsmith & Hazen did not have the information about capital and earnings they automatically filed on any corporation selling stock to the public.
Miss Hazen was disposing of an oyster. Thatcher seized his opportunity.
“How did they raise the money for Fiord Haven?” he asked. It was an investment that must have run to several hundred thousand dollars. And Fiord Haven’s many promotions were not cheap. Eddie Quinlan and Ralph had not seemed like rich men—and Thatcher’s eye for this was acute.