Murder in a Good Cause

by Medora Sale

  “What did you do with them?” asked Sanders, genuinely curious. What did one do with a two-a-penny Victorian landscape that wasn’t up to snuff? Put it out on Thursday with the trash?

  “Oh, I shipped them to New York. They should be able to get me a thousand or two each for them. I mean, they weren’t Constables, but they were decently done.” This time his smile was dismissive and end-of-conversation-like. “Now what can I do for you gentlemen?”

  “Just a few questions,” said Sanders amicably, glancing at his watch. “Nice apartment you have here.” He looked down the hall as he spoke; there was room for at least two huge bedrooms down there.

  “Not a bad little place,” Whitelaw said. “Adequate for a bachelor existence.” With a restrained wave of the hand, he indicated the modest proportions of his dwelling.

  The time had come to alter the mood. “Why the secrecy?” asked Sanders, his voice suddenly probing, suspicious. Any moment now the sweat should be breaking out on Whitelaw’s forehead.

  But Whitelaw’s brow remained smooth and unsullied. He shrugged his shoulders and continued, with a gentle smile, “Clara expected me to live in the house, you know. She liked to have people right there under her nose. The little flat on Woodlawn was a compromise. Within walking distance, but off the property. Still, one has to have a place of one’s own, you know. Not just a room. A real place. One has, uh, possessions. Investments.”

  “How much did Mrs. von Hohenkammer pay you?” said Sanders abruptly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Come now, Mr. Whitelaw,” he answered with quick savagery in his voice. “Paintings by artists I’ve heard of? Antiques? Oriental rugs? An apartment you must be paying three thousand a month for? You don’t get all this on the minimum wage.”

  “You don’t get all this on what my employer was paying me, either,” said Frank Whitelaw with a touch of bitterness. He looked steadily at the two policemen for a few moments and then walked over to the window. He stared out over the rooftops of the city, turned and half-sat on the windowsill. “Sit down,” he said. “Let me explain. The problem is that you are confusing capital and income. When I first met Clara von Hohenkammer, I was a partner in a very profitable business in art and antiques; hence, the rugs—there are more in the bedroom and study if you care to check—the paintings, the furniture. Unfortunately, my partner attempted a particularly senseless bit of fraud—it’s a hazard in the antiques world, as I’m sure you know—and was caught. He couldn’t face the consequences and killed himself. The business was ruined. By the time it was all over, I had to sell off everything, inventory, the building, the lot.” He leaned his head back and stared up at the ceiling for a tragic moment before looking back at them and continuing. “But I still owned my flat in London and all this furniture. I had a choice between selling everything and living on the proceeds until I had nothing or finding some sort of work and keeping at least some of my most beautiful pieces. I had been the financial person in the antiques business—my partner was the art expert—and finding a position as business manager for an arts group wasn’t very difficult.” His voice became louder and brisk. “And from there to my job here. I sold my flat in London and bought this one. Therefore, rent is not an issue. And Mrs. von Hohenkammer paid me forty thousand a year plus travel expenses when necessary.”

  Sanders’s confidence in Paul Esteban’s letter was beginning to crumble. Whitelaw was purring like a cat, inviting him to search the place, warrant or no warrant. “So you’re an expert on art, are you?” he said, trying to fill up the silence. “Now I find that very interesting.”

  “It is, Inspector. Very interesting. A precarious livelihood at times, but never dull. One meets a great many people.”

  Sanders studied the man carefully. He was still sitting comfortably on the edge of the broad windowsill, looking peaceful and calm. Too calm. “Didn’t you find working as a secretary a comedown?” he asked with deliberate harshness. “Only forty thousand a year? Taking orders from Mrs. von Hohenkammer night and day? Like Bettl, the housekeeper?” A hint of extra color crept up into Whitelaw’s cheeks. “Or did you reckon on marrying the widow and getting the lot? And when that fell through, you had to find other ways to build up your self-esteem, didn’t you? And your bank account.” For a brief second, Sanders thought he saw fury written across the man’s face and smiled. He had hit a nerve. “May I use your telephone for a moment?” he asked, with a slight nod in Lucas’s direction. The constable walked unhurriedly across the room and joined Whitelaw at his post by the window.

  Ten minutes later, Sanders was still on the phone, trying to extract some conclusions from the team at work on Clara von Hohenkammer’s books and files. “Look, I know you haven’t got enough to go into court with,” he said in exasperation. “What I want to know is, have you uncovered enough so you know what’s going on?” There was a pause, and another smile spread over Sanders’s face. “I thought so. You’re sure of that? Excellent.” He set the telephone down and turned back to Frank Whitelaw, who was still lounging by the window. “There are interesting discrepancies in Clara von Hohenkammer’s financial records, it seems. But that doesn’t surprise you, does it, Mr. Whitelaw?”

  “Well, you know, it does,” said Whitelaw. “Clara was careful about her records. Very careful about her money. Of course, her children could have been messing about. That’s always possible. They had entirely too much access to her private affairs. Greedy brutes, those children are.”

  “Greedy enough to write fake letters to her lawyer asking him to sell stock and deposit the proceeds in a special account?” said Sanders, apparently studying the notes from his telephone conversation. “Greedy enough to forge her name to those letters? And then to drop three hundred milligrams of cyanide from a folded piece of paper into the pot with the herbal tea in it because the accountant was coming and they were about to be found out? Leaving the paper under the table wasn’t a bad trick. It made us concentrate for a while on people who had access to the cup. But Bettl likes to do things well ahead of time, doesn’t she? It’s one of her flaws as a cook. That pot had been sitting in the kitchen for over an hour, ready, waiting for her to pour boiling water into it. And for that last hour, several people stayed right next to Mrs. von Hohenkammer, nowhere near the table with the cup, long before the tea came out of the kitchen. Milanovich. His wife. And you, Mr. Whitelaw.”

  “Is this fanciful tale supposed to be an accusation, Inspector? Because if it is—”

  “Oh, no. Just an explanation. It was that first letter, you see, Mr. Whitelaw.” Sanders continued, his voice developing an almost hypnotic rhythm. “Whoever wrote it should have waited until Mrs. von Hohenkammer had arrived in Toronto. Because that’s where the letter was postmarked, and her friends in Majorca insist that she was still with them when she was supposed to be in Toronto writing it. I call that careless, don’t you, Mr. Whitelaw?” Sanders looked at his watch again.

  The sun disappeared behind a cloud, and Whitelaw’s face seemed to take on the pallor of the sky, matching the whiteness of his knuckles as he clutched the edge of the windowsill. He cleared his throat. “Worried about the time, Inspector? Don’t let me keep you if you have another appointment.”

  “Not at all,” said Sanders. “I think I hear him now. Let Sergeant Dubinsky in, Constable.” And Lucas walked over to the door.

  With Dubinsky’s arrival the atmosphere changed again. A certain briskness swept through the apartment as soon as he drew the document from his pocket. “I have a warrant here to search these premises, Mr. Whitelaw,” he said cheerfully. “Would you like to examine it?”

  “That wasn’t necessary, Inspector. All you had to do was ask,” said Whitelaw, ignoring Dubinsky. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “Volchek’s coming over, too,” said Dubinsky. “He’s afraid you’ll miss something.”

  “Won’t bother me,” said Sanders. “Mr. Whitelaw and I are going to
carry on this interesting discussion downtown, aren’t we, Mr. Whitelaw?”

  Whitelaw shrugged his shoulders. “If you like, Inspector. I’m not particularly busy today. Though I would appreciate the opportunity to change into something more appropriate,” he said, lifting the edge of his silken jacket between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Lucas,” said Sanders. “Keep Mr. Whitelaw company, will you?”

  Rob Lucas marched stolidly after the business manager into his bedroom. The constable walked over to the window to occupy himself discreetly while Whitelaw got ready. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw him slip off the jacket and drape it on the bed, adjust his cravat carefully in the mirror affixed to a large wardrobe sitting in the corner, and then push aside its sliding door. “It’s in here,” he said, his voice muffled as he stepped inside. There was a rattle of hangers, a certain amount of stamping about, and then silence. Total silence.

  “Oh, shit,” said Lucas, his imagination busy with a vision of Whitelaw’s corpse, filled with cyanide, lying among his well-made shoes. He shoved the door open as wide as it would go, pushed the clothing on hangers roughly aside, stared down at the floor, and gasped. There was nothing there. Whitelaw had disappeared into thin air.

  Sanders looked up as the constable pounded into the room. “I’ve lost him, sir,” he said miserably. “In the wardrobe.”

  “What? How in hell can you lose someone in a wardrobe?” By the time he had finished the sentence, he was inside the offending piece of furniture, tossing clothes out onto the floor. “This particular wardrobe doesn’t have a back, Constable,” said Sanders in an ominous voice. “A fact that had escaped you, perhaps, when you let Whitelaw wander into it. And as a bonus, there’s a door, a locked door, in the wall behind it.”

  “Do you want me to try to break down the door, sir?”

  “For chrissake, no,” spluttered the inspector. “What do you think we are? Shove aside that piece of furniture and let’s have a better look. Dubinsky!” he yelled. “Give us a hand.”

  “It’s not a very fancy lock,” said his partner, breathless from the effort of helping push the wardrobe across the room. “Look in the kitchen and see what you can find, Constable. A hammer and a chisel will do.”

  They were interrupted in their search by a knock on the door. “Answer it, Lucas,” growled Sanders. “On your way to the kitchen.” Fury still dripped from his tongue.

  “I wasn’t sure if you had finished questioning Mr. Whitelaw or not,” said a voice from the hall. “I thought I’d better check.”

  “Well, look who’s here,” said Sanders. “Thank you, Sergeant Volchek. And I think, once we relieve this man of his keys, we might have something for you. Constable, cuff him, will you, and this time, keep an eye on him?” Sanders reached into Frank Whitelaw’s pocket and extracted two sets of keys.

  The bachelor apartment that connected with Frank Whitelaw’s more spacious premises by the door in his bedroom was clearly not designed to hold everything that had been put there. There were paintings stacked against the wall, crates filling the space under the window. Volchek was crouched on the floor, unpacking the first crate, removing each piece, and checking it against the list he had drawn from his pocket. “No question,” he said after a few minutes. “There’s more than enough here already,” he said, nodding to the table covered with sterling silver, “to charge him. At the very least with receiving. That will do to go on.” He rose to his feet and started in the direction of the business manager, who was slumped in an elegant chair, glassy eyed, staring at the door to the outer hall through which he had escaped once already today. Into the arms of Adam Volchek. “Just what is your relationship with Carlos Ramirez, Mr. Whitelaw?” said Volchek, perching on the edge of the table covered with silver.

  “Carlos Ramirez?” said Whitelaw, as if puzzled, and then thought better of it. “I didn’t really have a relationship with him. Paul Esteban mentioned to me last year that he was looking for a possible partner, someone who understood antiques, and I put him in touch with Ramirez. I had run into him a year or so ago at an auction. It just so happened that they were both Basques. A lucky coincidence, that was.”

  “And what is all this? Another lucky coincidence?” Volchek’s wave took in all the extraneous wealth in the room.

  “No, just a favour for a friend, that’s all. Carlos and Paul planned on opening an antiques shop in Toronto, and I was keeping some of their stock for them until they could get their premises ready. I don’t use this apartment much. Basically, I keep it as a guest room.”

  “And if I were to tell you that everything in this room, with the possible exception of your rug and furnishings, was stolen sometime this summer, you’d still say you were just doing a favour for a friend.”

  “Of course.” He straightened up and crossed one leg jauntily over his knee as his shattered confidence began to rebuild itself. He smiled ruefully at Sanders. “It may have been stupid of me not to have investigated what they were up to, but it’s true. Ask Paul and Carlos.”

  “I don’t have to ask them,” said Volchek softly. “I already have Esteban’s version of events.”

  Whitelaw’s hand tightened around his ankle. “Surely you don’t believe that man,” he said with a desperate attempt at another smile. “You must realize by now that he’s part of a Basque terrorist group; he’s even been in prison. Those Basques, they’re taught to lie and steal as children.” His voice wavered slightly. “They’ll say anything to protect themselves and their confederates.”

  “Really?” said Sanders. “Interesting. Then you’re not one of his confederates, I take it. Because he says he saw you, Whitelaw. He was standing in the kitchen door when you thought you were alone. He saw you dump the cyanide into the teapot.”

  “The hell he did!” screamed Whitelaw. Now the sweat was pouring from his forehead. “I was alone when— Anyway, that wasn’t cyanide. It was just an herbal sleeping powder Clara took sometimes. I used to lace her tea with it whenever she got excitable and overtired.”

  “Let’s find out, shall we?” Sanders turned and walked into the other apartment. In a few seconds he returned with a rumpled dinner jacket in his hand. “I predict that when we’re finished with this jacket, we’ll have found traces of cyanide in the pocket, won’t we? I was wondering why I couldn’t lay my hands on what you were wearing the night of the party when we looked through your apartment. In fact, I’m so sure we’ll find it that as soon as Sergeant Volchek finishes charging you, I’m asking for you back. In the matter of the murder of Mrs. Clara von Hohenkammer of . . .”

  And the machinery of the law slid into motion yet one more time. But Rob Lucas was still standing in the hallway of the apartment when Sanders finished his final conversation with Adam Volchek and headed for the door. “Paul Esteban can’t have seen Whitelaw put cyanide in the teapot, sir, could he? I mean, he said he didn’t know who—”

  “He could have, Lucas,” said Sanders. “Everyone said he was around all evening, here and there. He could have seen a lot. And Whitelaw thinks he did. Which in itself is revealing, isn’t it?”

  “Mmm,” said Lucas. “I hadn’t realized you were looking for Whitelaw’s dinner jacket, either. I would have brought it out right away if I’d known. Did you check everyone’s clothes for traces of cyanide?”

  “That’s what a careful investigator does,” said Sanders sententiously. If he’s awake enough to remember what he’s doing, he added silently.

  Chapter 14

  “Did you get her onto the plane?” asked Sanders. “Actually onto it?”

  “Yes. Actually on the plane,” said Harriet, sitting down. “And her cousin, too, you’ll be happy to know. Klaus decided at the last minute that family was more important than career and so—swoosh. Off to Munich on a first-class ticket. Just like that.” She smiled automatically at the waitress and accepted a menu. “Which gets him out of my hair, thank God. I was
afraid I’d end up spending the winter teaching him how to make a living. Anyway, I know why I’m glad to see them leave, but I still don’t understand why you dislike Veronika so much.”

  “Why do I dislike her?” He pushed his chair back and straightened out his legs in front of him. “Because she used you. And because she kept screwing up my investigation. And because I can’t stand that little waif look that says, I’m lovable and incompetent. Please protect me.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I also have the feeling that if she’d told us everything she knew, we could have put things together days earlier.”

  “Did she really believe her mother was mixed up in it all? She should have known better.” Harriet shook her head and turned her full attention to the typewritten list in front of her. “What are you having?” she asked.

  “The special,” said Sanders. “It looks better than it sounds. And yes, that’s what she said. What can you do? She still doesn’t believe it was Whitelaw, because her mother trusted him, she said.”

  “Well, you have to admit that it is hard to believe,” said Harriet. “I’ll have the special,” she called to the waitress, who had by now given up all hopes of getting an order from her. “And whatever he’s drinking.”

  “Why?” asked Sanders.

  “You mean Whitelaw? Or what I just ordered?” She raised her hands in mock terror to ward off an imaginary blow. “How could anyone take him seriously? You know, typical twit, all pomposity and bad culture. A character in a really good British farce. I can see him as a fence, if you’re right about his expertise in art, but I cannot see him as a murderer.”

  “The right outside pocket of his dinner jacket had enough cyanide in it to do in a lumberjack,” said Sanders. “Or at least more than enough to keep the lab people happy. I don’t know why it would be there if he hadn’t been carrying a little paper package of the stuff around for the evening, waiting for a chance to dump it in the teapot.”