The Right Jack (Sigrid Harald)
Page 16
As they spoke, Sigrid tried to visualize him without a beard, as he might have looked fifteen years ago without bags under his hooded eyes, his dark hair longer and without the beginning traces of gray. One thing about his habit of smoothing his beard into a sharp point: his fingers would leave nice clear prints.
If he were Fred Hamilton, the main thing was not to alert him of her suspicions. Let him continue in this role of laid-back aging roué.
After a few desultory remarks, she took out a fresh white index card and, casually holding it by the edges, said, “Would you mind jotting down your address and telephone number, Mr. Flythe, in case we should need to contact you after the tournament’s over?”
“Sure, Lieutenant, but let me give you my card.”
He pulled a thin leather case from an inner pocket of his jacket and extracted a card with a Graphic Games logo and his business address on the front. He turned it over and scribbled down a number in the East Nineties.
“I’m on the go a lot, all up and down the East Coast,” he warned, handing Sigrid the card, “but the office usually knows how to reach me.”
Sigrid thanked him and carefully stowed his card between the pages of her note pad. Before leaving the house earlier, she had called headquarters and set in motion a rush request for Fred Hamilton’s fingerprints. With even minimal efficiency, they should be able to do a rough comparison by tomorrow morning.
The ranks of cardplayers seemed to have thinned slightly.
Flythe told them that several of the losers had opted to drop out after elimination rather than play for the consolation prizes. Sigrid spotted Vassily Ivanovich among the also-rans, as well as several others she had helped interview the day before.
“We were looking for Miss Baldwin,” said Alan Knight. “Is she here?”
“Yeah, she’s been in and out all morning.” Flythe looked around vaguely. “Talking to the busboys and things. I haven’t seen her since the break, though.”
“Did you remember to bring those copies of the first pairings?” asked Sigrid.
Flythe nodded. “As a matter of fact, I gave them to Miss Baldwin. I didn’t realize you people were going to be back today, so I thought she could pass them along to you.”
There was no sign of Molly Baldwin in the room and when they inquired among the green-jacketed busboys standing around the hospitality table, they met with shrugs and blank expressions.
In the large serving pantry beyond the service door, they found the room steward somewhat testy because a fresh tray of coffee cups had not arrived from below. A cribbage tournament might not draw the Maintenon’s usual class of patrons, but Mr. George scrupulously preserved the standards. Not even for cribbage players would he allow Styrofoam cups to sully the Bontemps Room. Coffee at the Maintenon was dispensed from silverplated urns into china cups.
“So where are the clean cups?” shrilled Mr. George. “And where are Johnson and LeMays?”
His question was partially answered as the rumble of a service cart and the tinkling of china heralded the arrival of cups through the doors of the serving pantry. The cart was pushed by a single busboy.
Mr. George’s patience was frayed. “Where’s Johnson?”
“He wasn’t with me,” the youth shrugged. “I ain’t seen him since break.”
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” said the distracted steward when Sigrid persisted with her questions about Molly Baldwin. “I’ve got my hands full here and I really can’t say where Ms. Baldwin is right now.”
He looked around sharply. “LeMays, I need two dozen of those cups lined up beside the urn. Ruiz, you and Pacabelli can start with the ashtrays again. You know Madame Ronay’s rules: no more than three butts before you give them a clean one. What if she comes back and sees that mess out there? Hop to it!”
Threatened with La Reine’s displeasure, the busboys hopped.
Sigrid and Alan Knight followed them back into the Bontemps Room. Sigrid was struck again by the disparity between the room’s eighteenth-century regality and its decidedly twentieth-century proletarian clientele.
As they entered from the rear, one of the tall, gold-tipped doors at the front opened and revealed their quarry.
“There she is!” said Alan Knight.
The two officers started across the wide floor. At the sight of their purposeful advance, the color drained from Molly Baldwin’s face.
“Ms. Baldwin,” called Sigrid.
They were passing one of the consolation tables and Vassily Ivanovich’s grizzled head came up from his cards and swung in the direction they were headed. “What you say? That is little Molly?”
“Hey, where’re you going?” cried his opponent as the big Russian joined the charge.
“I quit! You are winner this time,” Ivanovich flung back over his shoulder. Beyond the tall lieutenant’s head, he saw a slender brown-haired girl in the doorway and roared, “You! You are T.J.’s Molly?”
It was too much. Molly Baldwin turned and fled.
There was a brief traffic jam at the doorway as Sigrid, Knight, and Ivanovich each tried to get through.
At the end of the hall, where the main staircase created a wide landing, Molly was waylaid by an elderly gentleman in a dark suit.
“Excuse me, miss, but are you with the hotel? I need someone on the housekeeping staff to—”
At that precise moment, the elevator across the landing chimed and Madame Ronay stepped off, followed by three frightened-looking maids.
“Ah, there you are, Miss Baldwin,” said the Maintenon’s owner in a steel bladed tone that could have ripped through solid teak. “May I ask why I’ve had to—”
Abruptly she became aware of the others and the steel was instantly sheathed in French velvet.
“Lieutenant Harald, Lieutenant Knight? But what has happened here? You have changed your mind?”
The maids were edging away toward the opposite hall that led to the d’Aubigné Room.
“Moment!” ordered Lucienne Ronay.
“Changed my mind?” asked Sigrid.
“Did you not say yesterday that you were finished here and that my people may restore order today to my poor d’Aubigné Room? Have you different thoughts now? And is this why,” she asked with a pointed look at the wretched Molly Baldwin, “work has not yet begun there?”
“No, we’ve finished,” said Sigrid.
“Alors!” said Madame Ronay and the maids scuttled down the hallway and disappeared into the wrecked ballroom.
“I—If you’ll excuse me,” Molly Baldwin said hopelessly, “I’ll just get them started.”
Before anyone could object, the dark-suited gentleman said, “May I come with you? I’m Haines Froelick and—”
“Monsieur Froelick!” exclaimed Lucienne Ronay, now transformed into a solicitous and totally sympathetic hostess. “Je suis très desolée. Your poor cousin! I grieve with you. That such a dreadful thing should happen here . . .”
Mr. Froelick thanked her gravely and explained his errand concerning the missing schilling. “I know it seems silly to care about such a small thing when so much has happened, but if your staff could watch for it, it would mean so much.”
“Certainement. Miss Baldwin will— Mais, non!” Madame interrupted herself meaningfully. “To make certain my wishes are carried out, I myself will instruct them. Come, M’sieur. Molly?”
‘‘I’m sorry, Madame Ronay,” said Sigrid, “but we’ve a few more questions we need to ask Ms. Baldwin at the moment.”
“So?” The shrewd hazel eyes compared Sigrid’s calm demeanor with Molly Baldwin’s apprehension. “So,” she nodded. “When you have finished, Molly, I too have questions for you.”
“Yes, Madame,” the girl said unhappily.
As her employer escorted Mr. Froelick across the landing, Miss Baldwin faced them in resignation. “There’s a small room down there where we can talk.”
“Is true?” rumbled Vassily Ivanovich, looming up behind them. “You are T.J.’s cousin?”
Which was the only way to describe Molly Baldwin at that moment. This was no momentary misting of the eyes, no delicate sniffles hidden away behind a dainty handkerchief, no sun shower that would disappear as suddenly as it had come. This was an all-out storm.
“Batten down the hatches,” murmured the naval officer, and flourishing his large white handkerchief like a hurricane warning flag, he strode forward, put his arm around her and said, “There, there, honeybunch, it’s gonna be all right. Here, blow.”
Still sobbing, poor Molly blew.
“Atta girl! Blow again.”
Gradually, the sobs diminished, abating into snuffly hiccups. The fiery red blotches began to fade from her cheeks, leaving just her eyes and the tip of her snub nose a glowing pink.
“Okay now?” asked Alan Knight.
She nodded like an embarrassed child and started to speak, when one of the maids burst from the d’Aubigné Room and darted toward them.
“Lieutenant! Lieutenant!” she cried breathlessly. “Come quick. There’s been another murder!”
CHAPTER 19
At first glance, Sigrid could almost believe the still form had been lying there since Friday night, overlooked in the chaos of the explosion. It was well under one of the back tables near the fatal Table 5, hidden by a heap of water-stained linen.
The maid, pale but excited, described how she had been stripping the tables of the long white tablecloths and throwing them onto the pile already begun. When her co-worker trundled the laundry cart down the aisle, she had tried to gather up the heap, realized something heavy was tangled in the linen, gave a mighty jerk and out rolled the body of a slender young black man dressed in the short green jacket and black trousers of a Hotel Maintenon employee.
He looked familiar to Sigrid, but she couldn’t remember which busboy he’d been among the several on duty during the cribbage tournament. Besides, he seemed to have been strangled with his own tie and his face was not a very pretty sight.
There was no pulse, of course, and his skin was cool to the touch.
Sigrid straightened up. “Who is he?”
Molly Baldwin had stopped weeping and now looked as if she were going to be sick. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Madame Ronay?”
“Forgive me, Lieutenant. There are so many and he is—” She also seemed queasy and smiled gratefully when Haines Froelick took her arm and drew her aside.
“Could be Quincy Johnson’s nephew,” offered one of the maids with trepidation.
Madame Ronay forced herself to look again. “Ah, pauvre petit. C’est possible.”
Sigrid herded everyone to a front table, handed Alan Knight her note pad, and curtly ordered: “I’m going to phone headquarters. Please take their names and addresses and don’t let anyone leave or enter this room until I get back.”
Lucienne Ronay began to expostulate about the need to call her public relations agent and channel the flood of bad publicity this second death was sure to undam.
There would be plenty of opportunity for that later, Sigrid told her crisply. “If you and your people cooperate, perhaps we can keep a lid on most of the sensationalism.”
“But of course we will cooperate,” said Madame Ronay, drawing up at the very suggestion that she and her staff would do otherwise.
Sigrid left them, remembered which alcove held a telephone booth, and summoned help from headquarters. Afterward, she went back to the Bontemps Room and plucked Mr. George from the midst of his duties. He tried to object but Sigrid knew the magic words. “Madame Ronay,” she murmured and Mr. George trotted along like a little lamb.
Outside the d’Aubigné Room, she paused. “A little earlier, I heard you ask where Johnson was. Is that one of the busboys?”
“Sure, why?”
“When did you last see him?”
The little steward frowned. “I don’t know. About break time, I guess. ’Bout an hour ago? He and Ms. Baldwin were talking in the passageway outside the service door. Why? What’s he done?”
“What makes you think he’s done something?”
“You asking questions. La Reine wanting to see me. It’s about Johnson, isn’t it?”
“Yes. A body’s been found. One of the maids thinks it might be your missing busboy. I’d like for you to look and tell me if it’s Johnson.”
The steward opened his mouth to protest, but nothing emerged.
Wordlessly he followed her past the table where his employer sat, her two hands folded on the tabletop, a large sapphire ring glowing on her right hand. Sigrid pointed to the body and said, “Is that Johnson?”
“Oh my God!” the steward moaned. “Who’s gonna tell Miss Quincy?”
“Come here, George,” ordered Madame Ronay from the front of the room. “Do you say this is Quincy Johnson’s nephew? Pernell, est-ce qui?”
“Yes, Madame,” the steward answered faintly. “She was so proud of how good he’s been doing. I was going to speak to you about him tomorrow, recommend a bonus for the kid.”
“Bonus?” Madame Ronay asked sharply. “Pourquoi?”
“Because of the way he kept his head Friday night. After the explosion, he’s the one who grabbed that extinguisher and rushed over and put out the fire before it could spread. A few minutes more and you’d have had to replace not just the carpet, but part of the paneling, too.”
“You should have told me this before.” Lucienne Ronay’s graceful blonde head drooped sadly. “Hélas! Now it is too late forever for me to reward him.”
She drew a deep breath and began to function like an executive again. “Someone must be sent to tell Miss Johnson. Who, George?” Her ring flashed blue fire as she pointed to him. “You?”
“Not me,” said the steward even before Sigrid could voice her own objection to letting him leave the hotel just yet.
“Hester Yates is downstairs. She and Miss Quincy are real good friends. You want me to send her?”
Both looked at Sigrid.
“This is permitted, Lieutenant?” asked Madame Ronay.
“In a moment,” said Sigrid. “First, I’d like to hear everything you can remember about Pernell Johnson’s movements today. What he did, who he talked to. If you would be patient a few minutes longer, Madame?”
Lucienne Ronay nodded graciously, turning the sapphire ring with her restless fingers.
Haines Froelick cleared his throat. “What about me, Lieutenant? Is it all right if I look around for my cousin’s schilling?” He gestured hesitantly toward the back of the large room, to the comer where Zachary Wolferman had died.
“I’m afraid not,” she replied. “Nothing can be disturbed till after our crime scene crew has had a chance to examine things. I’ll tell them to keep an eye out for it.”
“Then perhaps I should leave now,” he said and Sigrid thought she detected relief in his face, as if she’d saved him an unpleasant task by her denial of his request.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Froelick, but I’ll want your statement as well as the others.”
“My statement. Oh my dear young lady, I’ve no statement, I assure you.”
“What we need will only take a few minutes,” Sigrid said. “After we’ve talked to Mr. George. Perhaps you and Madame Ronay—?”
Lucienne Ronay took the hint and wafted Froelick across the room to a loveseat upholstered in peach-colored silk beneath a large gilt-framed painting that easily fell within Nauman’s Cool Whip parameters.
“All our paintings here are originals, Mr. Froelick,” Sigrid heard the Frenchwoman murmur. “One of the finest ateliers in Europe is under contract with us.”
Molly Baldwin sat wrapped in mute misery at one end of a long table while Vassily Ivanovich glowered at her from the other end. At a nearby table, just out of earshot, Sigrid and Alan K
night listened as Mr. George informed them that Pernell Johnson had come on duty at eight o’clock, as prompt and efficient in his work as always.
The steward was a small black man of ramrod posture, receding gray hair and a penchant for fussy details. Sigrid soon learned that he had approved of Johnson and had interested himself in the youth’s progress at the hotel. “That boy had a real future here, Lieutenant. He was a hard worker like his aunt. I know he might have gotten in a little trouble down in Florida, but up here he was one of the good ones. Never messed with liquor or dope or none of that stuff far as I ever heard.”
“Florida?” asked Alan Knight.
“Trouble?” asked Sigrid.
“Miss Quincy told Hester Yates and Hester Yates told me and now I’m telling you, but nobody else. And certainly not Madame.” He removed a crumb of cigarette tobacco from the table. “Not many boys that don’t have a brush with the law ’fore they get grown. You know that. He and another kid stole some hubcaps or something down there and his grandmother, Miss Quincy’s mother, shipped him up here to get him away from that stuff.”
Sigrid remembered now: the thin youth with the soft drawl who’d brought her a glass of water the day before. A helpful person, eager to please, and, according to Mr. George, a “noticing” worker.
“Some of ’em can’t see a thing that needs doing till you tell ’em. Johnson did, always. Dirty glasses and ashtrays didn’t pile up around his stations. Somebody look around for a glass of water, cup of coffee, Johnson was right there.”
A noticing kid.
Had he noticed something Friday night, Sigrid wondered, and been incautious enough to let the wrong person know?
If so, Mr. George seemed unaware of it. According to him, Pernell Johnson had been as puzzled as everyone else as to how the cribbage board was rigged and planted.
Yes, he said, Pernell had been one of his helpers when the long tables were covered with snowy linens on Friday afternoon. After supper, Pernell was among the busboys who came in when the service door was unlocked at seven o’clock and he had been in and out while the Graphic Games people put the finishing touches on the tables and Ms. Baldwin and Madame Ronay made a final check of the room.