Murder Round the Clock Page 3

  Webber sounded reasonable at first. "The world of big business, of which you seem to have no knowledge, Cook, is a dog-eat-dog affair. The small country grocer has been swallowed up by a supermarket chain. The old-fashioned individual automobile designer has been absorbed by Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, and the like. The wildcat oil speculator sells out to a big oil company. The little man can't handle the enormous problem of mass-quantity distribution. He hasn't the money to make deals on a grand scale.

  "No one wants to chop off the little man's head. That smalltown grocer is now a supermarket manager, with none of the worries of month-to-month profits. The automobile designer has his drawing board in a Detroit plant. The oil speculator lives high off the hog on his royalties without worrying about pipelines or tankers or oil trucks. The public benefits. Big business can sell its product at a lower price than the small operator. That's the way it is today, Cook. Some of your radicals and so-called liberals may squawk about it—but it's practical, sound business. The loner like you has had his day, Cook. It was a good day, an exciting day, a time of pioneering. But, in exchange for that, he can now have security. You've been offered a damned big hunk of security, Cook."

  "I know," Cook said, tugging at his ear again. "If I refuse, I'll be gambling with the future. I may never make anything like the same amount of money. But as I said, Webber—I'll be my own man."

  "There is no such thing today," Webber grated.

  "I think there is, and I intend to be it," Cook said. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I've given this a lot of thought, and I—"

  "Have you indeed?" Webber said ominously. "Let me be frank with you, Cook. We need your patents. We need your motor. It's the best in the market. A contract with you to buy X number of motors wont do. Were dealing in billion-dollar contracts. We must control every detail involved in the manufacture of our product, or the government may decide there's too great an element of risk in awarding their contracts to us. We own the Cook motor, and there's no doubt of our being able to fill the contracts; we don't own it, and there may be some doubts. We can't afford to lose those contracts, Cook. We're in far too deep already. So, like it or not, you and Hobbs Enterprises have to make a deal."

  Hobbs instantly took the menacing edge off Webber's words. "So you see, you have us over a barrel, Cliff. So we tear up the agreement we've discussed. If you want more money, obviously you can demand it. Mind you, we're running risks. We offer you fifty thousand a year for life, win, lose, or draw. As Webber has suggested, someone may invent a better motor tomorrow, or six months from now. We don't ask you to be involved in that risk. You're safe, no matter what new invention may come along. But if you want to name a larger figure—?" The smile was cordial, inviting.

  "It's not a matter of money, Mr. Hobbs," Cook said patiently, as if to a child. "It's my own independence, my own freedom of action, that I want."

  "There's a hell of a lot of freedom of action in a guaranteed fifty thousand a year," Webber said. "Or seventy-five thousand a year."

  Cook moistened his lips. "No, gentlemen. No, I'm sorry. I've thought about it and thought about it and the answer is— no.

  Webber's face looked curiously like a stone hatchet. He leaned close to Cook's shoulder to put his dead cigar in an ashtray on the table. There was a faint barber-shop smell to him.

  "You're not independently wealthy, Cook," he said. "We know that. You depend for your three squares a day on the income from your business. Your wife's comforts come from the same source. Your child's future education ditto. What would become of you if that income disappeared? I'll tell you. You'd have to look for a job with someone else. There are jobs for electrical engineers in many places, you say. Of course you wouldn't be your own man, but you'd get work, you say. But suppose you found yourself blacklisted?"

  Webber was standing behind Cook now, and his voice shook slightly, with a kind of cold fury. "Don't you think Hobbs Enterprises could make sure you'd never get a decent job? Don't you think we could put an economic squeeze on you that would ruin your one-man operation in a matter of months, maybe weeks?"

  "Are you saying that you will?" Cook asked steadily.

  "I'm saying that you're a babe in the woods if you think your personal whims will be allowed to stand in the way of a billion-dollar contract. I'm saying that you're a babe in the woods if you think you can stubbornly hold out beyond our deadline and then expect us to shrug it off as bad luck. I don't know about Martin, but I promise you that, long after you've wrecked our deal, I'll keep twisting your arm until it comes off at the socket."

  "Of course it won't come to that," Hobbs said, his charming smile pasted on his face.

  Cook stood up. "I think I've had about enough of this," he said. "I don't like being pushed around, gentlemen. If there was any small doubt remaining in my mind, Mr. Webber has settled it."

  "Damn it, little man, I'm only talking realities!" Webber exploded. "You can't be a grain of sand in the machinery. No one will let you be that in any walk of life. I've at least paid you the compliment of facing you with the truth."

  "Okay, George, you've said enough," Hobbs said. "Listen to me, Cliff. Ceorge's bitterness is understandable. We have a great deal at stake. I'd like you to do me a favor. We've spent three days going over this deal. Pretend the annual figure to you is blank in the contract. Know that you can fill it with any amount you think is fair. Go away now, talk it over with your wife, sleep on it, and meet with us once more tomorrow morning. I know that right now you're sure nothing will change your mind. But think about it for twenty-four hours. Is that asking too much?"

  Cook hesitated. The red anger he felt at Webber wasn't the best companion to good judgment.

  "I hadn't planned to drive home till tomorrow morning," he said. "I'm positive there won't be any change in my point of view, but I'm quite willing to see you in the morning and tell you so again."

  Webber had taken a fresh cigar out of his breast pocket and stuck it between his teeth. His cold eyes moved up and down Cook's bony frame as though assessing every ounce of muscle and flesh on it. How much could it take? How much pressure would he have to put in his threatened arm lock?

  "Fine," Hobbs said, holding out his hand in a frank, friendly manner to Cook. "Talk it over with Mrs. Cook. After all, her future is involved too."

  "We've already talked it out," Cook said. "I know it's hard for you to understand, Mr. Hobbs, but my personal working happiness is what's involved here."

  George Webber took the cigar out of his mouth and laughed, never taking his eyes off Cook. "I suggest you repeat my part of the conversation to her, Cook. Sometimes women have an instinct for the truth when they hear it. Which is more than can be said for you, my friend."

  Cook turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

  There was a moment of silence, and then Hobbs whirled on young Don Stanton. "I thought you told us he was coming in on our side!"

  Stanton shook his head like a groggy fighter. "He told me he'd decided, Mr. Hobbs. It never occurred to me he'd decide against us."

  Hobbs leaned back wearily in his chair, his right hand closing over the manila envelope. "I want you to get something straight, Don. This is a far more critical situation than I think you realize. The government has been led to believe that we already have the Cook motor for use in rockets. Our proposed contracts with them are based on that assumption. The minute that backwoods long drink of water walks out of here and tells some smart government agent or Washington reporter that he hasn't made the deal, Hobbs Enterprises goes up in smoke. Every cent of capital we have has been invested in a new plant and new tooling to meet these new contracts. If the rug is pulled out from under us because we don't control the Cook motor, we're ten times bankrupt.''

  "I didn't realize how tight it was, sir."

  "Well, now you do. For the next twenty-four hours Hobbs Enterprises have got to burst with optimism. I want you to release the notes to the press—the notes we made on expansion plans. Say
that I'm setting up an appointment for the day after tomorrow with the banking group—announce that as if there isn't the slightest possible doubt of the outcome."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Reserve a table for me tonight in the Blue Lagoon Room. That's where your girl sings, isn't it? Arrange for a party of attractive people, and see to it that some of the nightlife boys ask me some questions."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Okay, get on your horse."

  Don Stanton hurried out of the room. When he was gone, the boy wizard leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Suddenly he no longer looked like a boy. After a moment he spoke without opening his eyes.

  "We don't have any choice, do we, George?"

  "None whatever," Webber said. "Not a smidgen of a choice."

  Hobbs shook his head from side to side. "It's hard to grasp the fact that a great business empire like this stands to rise or fall on the whim of one stubborn man."

  "Maybe you need a few facts-of-life lectures yourself."

  Webber said. "Yours is a paper empire, Martin, built on paper profits. You've reached a crisis where you have to deal with realities. These new government contracts are for real, but you made one mistake. You said you owned the Cook motor, because you were sure you would own it. When you come to sign the contracts and you haven't got the motor, you're through. In come the accountants and the Internal Revenue boys and the Senate committees, and you've had it—and all the rest of us have had it."

  "Cook must have a price," Hobbs said. "Every man has a price."

  "It would appear our friend Cook is an exception," Webber said. His thin mouth tightened. "Because his price isn't money. But there is a way to buy him, and we have to risk it. It doesn't much matter, Martin, what we go to jail for. Jail is jail. Covering one crime with another is our only choice."

  Hobbs sighed. "You think it will work?"

  "It'll work," Webber said with grim satisfaction.

  Hotel maids don't like to see a Do Not Disturb sign hung outside the door of a room. It usually means a disruption of routine. They have to work around that room until the occupant finally comes out.

  The maid whose job it was to take care of Room 1208 had been grumbling most of the morning and early afternoon because of the sign outside its door. By three o'clock it was the only room on the floor not done. Mattie Ryan, the maid, called Mrs. Kniffen, the housekeeper, to report.

  Mrs. Kniffen remembered there'd been a query from the phone office early that morning—a call for the occupant, Mr. Fisher, for a seven o'clock, which he hadn't answered.

  "He must be sleepin' off a giant hangover," Mattie said to Mrs. Kniffen. "The TV's been playing ever since I came on this morning."

  "You're sure about that, Mattie?"

  "You can hear it plain enough outside the door," Mattie said.

  Mrs. Kniffen knew the rules. The slightest thing offbeat, and you didn't wait, unless you wanted Mr. Chambrun down on your back, Mrs. Kniffen called Jerry Dodd, the house security officer. "House dick" or "house detective" were not phrases used at the Hotel Beaumont.

  Jerry Dodd, a thin, sharp-eyed man in his middle forties who knew his job as only a man trained by Pierre Chambrun could know it, met Mrs. Kniffen on the twelfth floor five minutes later. They stood outside the door of Room 1208, listening. You could hear the TV set clearly.

  Jerry knocked sharply on the door. There was no reply. He took Mrs. Kniffen's passkey and opened the door.

  Mr. Fisher was in residence. His room was small but elegant. He sat in the big armchair facing the television set. He was staring at the screen where a midafternoon soap opera was winding its lugubrious course. Fisher's eyes were bulging, but they weren't seeing TV. To Jerry's practiced eye, he was obviously dead—violently dead.

  "Heart attack, I guess," he said casually over his shoulder to Mrs. Kniffen, who couldn't see the dead man from the hall.

  In a hotel like the Beaumont, which is larger in population than many small towns, sudden death is not an unusual occurrence. Mrs. Kniffen had encountered it many times over the years. Jerry Dodd was an old hand at it.

  "I'll call Dr. Partridge," Mrs. Kniffen said, and scurried off down the hall to her own phone.

  Jerry Dodd closed the door of Room 1208, remaining inside the room. Mr. Fisher was young to die so abruptly—in his middle thirties, no older. He hadn't gone to bed the night before. He had apparently died while watching his TV set.

  There was a bottle of bourbon, three quarters empty, on the table beside Mr. Fisher's chair. There were two glasses, one with a small portion of a drink still left in it. Mr. Fisher had had company before he left this world.

  And Mr. Fisher had not left the world peacefully. Every muscle of his body was extended and rigid. He was bent backward, as though his spinal cord had suddenly contracted. Jerry Dodd was no toxicologist, but he had seen the action of strychnine once before—the lightning-fast action, the muscular convulsions, the final moment of agony.

  It was obviously a case of murder in New York's most luxurious hotel—murder deluxe.

  Like Pierre Chambrun, Jerry Dodd had developed his own sensitive antenna. He moved cautiously to the table, and without touching either glass he bent down and sniffed. He was frowning when he straightened up. He looked at Mr. Fishers face and his frown deepened. Then he took out his handkerchief, dropped it over the telephone receiver, and picked up the phone.

  "Jerry Dodd here," he said to the operator. "Get me Mr. Chambrun, and then call the precinct house and see if you can get Lieutenant Hardy. We got a dead one up here."

  "At once, Mr. Dodd," said the operator's emotionless voice.

  Seconds later Chambrun answered. "What is it, Jerry?"

  "Dead one in 1208, Mr. Chambrun. Fellow named Fisher. Left a wake-me for seven this morning but didn't answer it. D.N.D. outside his door. But the maid could hear the TV playing. Mrs. Kniffen called me, and I just came in. Suicide— maybe."

  "Maybe?" Chambrun asked, cool and undisturbed.

  "Poison. I'd guess strychnine. But two glasses. Most of a quart of bourbon gone. So he had a visitor. Maybe Fisher hung the D.N.D. outside his door, maybe his visitor did. Doc Partridge is on his way, and I've phoned the cops."

  "Okay, Jerry," Chambrun said cheerfully. "Hold the fort. I'll be right up."

  In his office Chambrun sipped the last of a cup of Turkish coffee, glanced inside his silver case to make sure he had cigarettes, and picked up his phone.

  "Mr. Atterbury at the front desk, please," he said.

  "Yes, Mr. Chambrun?" Atterbury said in a moment.

  "Who was Mr. Fisher in 1208?" Chambrun asked.

  "'Was,' sir?"

  "'Was,' Mr. Atterbury."

  "One moment, sir." And in one moment: "Mr. Paul Fisher was a private detective, sir."

  Chambrun's mouth hardened. "How did we happen to let him register, Atterbury?"

  "Letter of introduction from Senator Farrand, sir," Atterbury 7 said promptly. Only such an introduction would satisfy allowing a private detective to register in the hotel possibly to spy on one of its guests.

  "Why wasn't I made aware of this, Atterbury?"

  Atterbury's brief silence sounded flustered. He was obviously studying the registration card. "I'm sorry, sir. He registered the night Carl Nevers was off for his brother's wedding. I suppose the relief man expected Nevers would make the report, sir, and Nevers—"

  "—thought the relief man would make it," Chambrun said impatiently. "We don't run a successful hotel on thoughts of that kind, Atterbury. Not your fault, but make a point of it with Nevers. Senator or no senator, I won't have private investigators making the Beaumont their headquarters."

  Chambrun held his finger on the disconnect button on his phone for a moment, then got the operator back. "Get me Senator Claude Farrand in his offices in the Senate Building in Washington. I'll hold on."

  There was some delay in reaching the senator. Chambrun, puffing on one of his Egyptian cigarettes, drummed his fingers on the desk. He su
ddenly broke in on a conversation between the Beaumont's switchboard operator and the senator's secretary.

  "Tell the senator," he said, clipping off the words, "it's about an employee of his named Fisher. If the senator doesn't choose to talk to me, tell him I shall release to the press the fact that Fisher was his employee. I say 'was' because Fisher is dead."

  The senator was instantly on the wire, booming, oily. "What's all this about Fisher, Mr. Chambrun?"

  "He's dead, Senator. He may have committed suicide. He may have been put out of the way by someone. I need facts for the police, and I need them in a hurry."

  The senators breathing sounded as though he'd been running hard. "He wasn't an employee, Mr. Chambrun. Just a casual acquaintance. I gave him a letter to the hotel because he wanted a few days of fancy vacation."

  "That won't do, Senator," Chambrun said coldly.

  "Look here, Chambrun, can't you tell the police exactly what you know? The man registered at the hotel with a letter of introduction from me. I'll take the next scheduled flight from here to New York. Then they can question me, and you won't be involved."

  "As long as you're on the scene, it's your baby, Senator," Chambrun said. "But don't miss that next flight."

  He put down the receiver. His hooded eyes moved toward the blotting pad on his desk. Tucked under one of its leather corners was the receipt for fifty thousand dollars in cash signed that morning by Martin Hobbs.

  Chambrun was aware that several days ago Senator Claude Farrand had made a speech on the Senate floor attacking the Secretary of Defense in connection with certain proposed contracts being negotiated with the Martin Hobbs Enterprises.

  Miss Alison Barnwell—Mrs. John Wills in private life—had been handling the Beaumont's public relations for more than a year. She was extremely good at the job. She managed to look expensive without earning the salary to be expensive. She had a brisk, pleasant manner and a high, proud way of carrying her lovely red head.

  Recently married, she was a very handsome woman who had blossomed into something really breathtaking. Every moment of her life was a joy to her now, even the minor exasperations of her job. The Beaumont was an important part of her life, not just a job, since her husband was being groomed by Pierre Chambrun for a top executive position. A close association with Chambrun had developed in Alison something of his possessive and protective feeling for the Beaumont.