Murder Goes Round and Round: A Pierre Chambrun Mystery Hardcover Page 8

  "Guesswork, but I believe it," Chambrun said. "If not, where is he, and why hasn't he asked for help?"

  "Bastard!" Mr. White said. "What would his connection be with Iran? He's an American, isn't he? I talked to him in England, you know. Made a deal with him for Douglas and his group. I thought he was just an entertainer."

  "And that's all he is," Watson said. "Mr. Chambrun is way out in left field on this. Toby is a decent, law-abiding man, who would never make a deal to work for terrorists."

  "I know that's true, Mr. White," Millicent said.

  "You were a nurse there at the hospital, weren't you, Miss Huber?" Mr. White asked.

  "Yes. I took care of Toby from the day he was brought in with his face destroyed. We got to be very close. I got to know him too well to believe for an instant that Toby would have sold out those British kids for money or ever, ever be involved with a brutal butchering."

  "But the White boy was butchered and March has evaporated," Chambrun said. "Frank Pasqua is missing, too. He didn't turn up for breakfast Monday as he assured us he would."

  "You think they are in this together?" White asked. "As I recall, Pasqua handled all of March's business affairs. I know he dealt with me about the performance at the fair in Far-mington where they all met."

  "They could be a team," Chambrun said. "Or Pasqua may be another victim."

  "March would turn on his own friends?"

  "When a man turns into a bloody psycho," Chambrun said, "there is no rational explanation for any of his behavior."

  "Toby was the victim of a criminal act by the person who threw a bomb into the bus and caused his terrible injuries."

  "And what has happened to Frank Pasqua is an accident, not a crime?" Chambrun asked.

  "Of course. Frank found himself a dame that is absorbing his attention," Watson said.

  " 'Unfinished business.' He's got unfinished business here if Toby doesn't show up for tonight's performance in the Blue Lagoon."

  "Toby is a grown man," Watson said. "Hell show up where he's supposed to be."

  "Want to bet on it?" Chambrun asked.

  "Of course I'll bet on it. Fifty bucks suit you?"

  "Just fine," Chambrun said.

  "What do you think has happened to him?" Mr. White asked.

  "March? I think he is carrying out a campaign of abduction and terror for which he is being well paid by Iranian monsters," Chambrun answered.

  "You just assume that," Millicent Huber said, her voice rising to something like anger for the first time. "You don't know a thing about Toby as a human being."

  "Tell me," Chambrun said.

  "I'd never seen him or met him until he became my patient," Millicent said. "But as you are aware, I got to know him very well. He was a badly injured man who took his tragic accident with great courage. I would use the word 'gallantry' if I knew exactly how to define it. It was 'just one of those things,' Toby said. He was a gentle and tender man."

  "You made that easy, I suspect," Chambrun said.

  "I — I was attracted to him," Millicent said. "Yes, I played along with the man-woman relationship he wanted and needed. I've never regretted it. I never saw anything that suggested he was capable of violence or ugly rage. He could no more kill Douglas White the way you've described it than fly to the moon. It's laughable to think of him being paid for violence."

  "And you wound up in his bed?"

  "The happiest days of my life," Millicent said.

  "And you, Watson, what did you see in the man?" Chambrun asked.

  "He handled what happened to him with more guts than I could have churned up if it had happened to me. If you could have seen his face and known the pain he suffered.

  The loss to his pride, too. He told me he was a good-looking guy before the accident. Now he had to look in the mirror at raw meat."

  "And wanted to get back at the world," Anthony White said. "I think I understand how he must have felt." His fists were tightly clenched. "If I ever get the chance — "

  "Toby never spoke one word to me about getting even," Watson said.

  "This other man, his partner?" Mr. White asked. "His name is Pasqua?"

  "Maggie Hanson, Pasqua's girl, is down in the lobby waiting for him to get back from his unfinished business,'" Her-zog said. "Shall I get her up here?"

  Chambrun nodded. Somehow I didn't think he'd been sold on the "good guy" account of Toby March. Neither had Anthony White.

  "These people were March's friends," Mr. White said. "The lady was his love life. But Scotland Yard took other aspects of him seriously enough to send Inspector Claridge across the Atlantic to have a look at him."

  "And possibly his partner," Herzog said.

  Jerry Dodd had left us to go find Maggie Hanson in the lobby. Mr. White was right, of course. You couldn't expect anything but a biased report about March from his woman and one of his few friends.

  Maggie evidently hadn't been hard to find because Jerry returned with her in what seemed only a minute or two later. She wasn't the only person he brought. Young Ben Lewis, the guitarist in March's musical group, was also with him.

  "I thought Lewis might give us something on both men," he said to Herzog.

  Young Lewis seemed to be focused on Anthony White. "They just told me about your son, sir. God, how terrible for you. I got to know him back in England when we signed up to play for the fair in Farmington. I don't know anything to say to you, sir."

  "Thanks for wanting to try," Mr. White said.

  "I remember how enthusiastic your son was about Toby's act, particularly the Sammy Davis, Jr., segment of it."

  "He — he loved music," Mr. White said. "Made a fan of me. I remember being outraged by the fee March was asking— five hundred pounds for three performances at a charity function. But when I heard you all play and heard him sing, I put up the lacking funds out of my own pocket."

  "How good he was as a performer isn't a matter for debate," Colonel Watson said.

  "I should think not, at his prices," Mr. White said.

  "They are considerably more today than you paid in England," I told him.

  "So money isn't a problem with him," Mr. White said.

  "That depends on what money means to you," Chambrun said. "A thousand dollars for a performance is one thing. A half million for an act of violence is another. You haven't heard from Pasqua, Miss Hanson?"

  "Nothing from him or about him since the call Mr. Haskell had from him," Maggie replied.

  "If that was from him," Chambrun said. "We've been playing with the idea that it could have been March imitating your man. How did they get on together—your man and Toby March?"

  "It was totally a business relationship at first," Maggie said.

  "Frank was working for a talent agent in London when Toby found him. Frank quit his job and took over the management of Toby's act. They became close friends."

  "And nobody else?" Chambrun asked.

  "Nobody else," the girl said.

  "Do you know what his salary is?"

  "He works on a percentage basis," Maggie said. "You know what he's getting here at your hotel. Frank gets ten percent of it."

  "Two hundred dollars a night," Chambrun said. He was passing on information to the others. Of course I knew.

  "Aren't you distressed that you haven't heard from him?" Mr. White asked.

  "I'm angry. But distressed, of course, after what I've heard."

  "If he had some kind of'unfinished business,' when should he turn up to handle the business he has here?"

  "An hour before show time," Maggie said. "That would be at eight o'clock. He would check on Ben and the other musicians, make sure the set was properly arranged, piano in the right place, proper programs ready to distribute —those sorts of things."

  "And Toby should show up —when?" Chambrun asked.

  "Ten minutes to nine, just before show time."

  "Is that time enough for him to get into costume?"

  "He dresses in his room, wherever he is
staying. Comes to the theater masked and ready."

  "So we just wait for things to turn normal?" Mr. White asked.

  "That's something we wait for, which I doubt very much will happen," Chambrun said.

  "Still guessing?" Mr. White asked.

  "Putting two and two together and trying to come up with something other than four," Chambrun said. "You ever know Inspector Claridge, Maggie?"

  "The man they found dead in the basement?"

  "Did you and Frank know him in London or anywhere in England?"

  Maggie's shoulders shivered. "I saw him talking to Toby at the bar in the Russell Square Hotel in London," she said.

  "Frank?"

  "Well, of course, we haven't had a chance to talk about it. But he's never mentioned a Scotland Yard inspector to me."

  "He wouldn't mention a cop he saw on the street corner every day unless there was something special about him," Chambrun said.

  "What do you think the 'four' will look like?" Mr. White asked.

  Chambrun hesitated and then spoke in a calm, very level voice. "After the performance Saturday night, Frank Pasqua went up to his room, which adjoins 17C. It is set up so that he could walk from his own room into Toby's suite. That was about two-thirty. Jerry Dodd's man saw him. I'm guessing that he went into March's room for something perfectly ordinary and found Inspector Claridge waiting there. Maybe he knew him, maybe he got to know him. Got to know him and why he was there. Toby was suspected of being involved in the abduction of Douglas White and his friends."

  "Frank wouldn't have believed that for an instant," Colonel Watson said.

  "Unless Claridge had some proof for him."

  "Frank wouldn't even have believed proof," Watson said.

  "Let's say it went this way," Chambrun said. "Claridge told Frank his story, and they waited for March to make an appearance. When he did, Pasqua told him what Claridge had claimed to be the facts. March wandered around until he got to the fireplace, snatched up the iron poker, and attacked Claridge with it. Pasqua tried to stop him and got clipped with the poker. Then Claridge got the blows that killed him. March was confronted with a dead man and one unconscious and bleeding seriously. He puts the bleeding Pasqua on the bed and tries to figure out what to do. He has time, hours before the maid will come in the morning to make up the room. He takes Claridge's body out, to the elevators. Jerry Dodd's man had already gone. There wouldn't be any more curious fans snooping around at that time of the morning. He takes the body down to the basement and leaves it, where it was later found. Pasqua was more of a problem. He could leave him where he was to bleed to death, but Pasqua was his friend. Maybe he could be persuaded to keep his mouth shut, perhaps share in the proceeds from Iran. But he had to get Pasqua somewhere he could talk to him in private, where he wouldn't spill the beans to Herzog or his cops. Where, is the question. Because that's where he and Pasqua are now. Could Pasqua be bought? If he could, he may be alive. If he couldn't, God help him."

  "And the phone call to Haskell?" Watson asked.

  "To keep us from looking for Pasqua, or connecting his absence with the violence in 17C," Chambrun said. "What do you think, Miss Hanson? Would Frank go along with March for a six-figure bribe — say, a hundred grand?"

  "I don't think so," the girl said. "He detested violence and would never let himself become a party to it."

  "Then I'm afraid we have to assume that Pasqua is dead," Chambrun said. "Our second murder."

  "Your next whodunit should make the bestseller list," Watson said in an angry voice. "You choose to accept Maggie's assessment of Frank's character, and refuse to accept Milli-cent's and mine about Toby."

  "Tell the story some other way," Chambrun suggested.

  Watson drew a deep breath. "I go along with you on how they came together," he said. "Frank finds Claridge in 17C and hears his story. The fact is that it is Frank who's been dealing with the Iranians. While they are having it out, Toby arrives and hears what's up. It is Frank who picks up the fireplace poker and attacks Claridge. It is Toby who is wounded and left bleeding. Claridge is killed. But the killer is Frank Pasqua. He can't let the inspector be found or Toby either. He takes Claridge's body down to the basement. Then he takes Toby someplace where he can be hidden and cared for, hoping he can bribe Toby to keep his mouth shut. So Toby March wouldn't buy, and he is now dead, our second murder, and Frank is the killer."

  "No! Never!" Maggie Hanson cried out.

  "It goes just as well that way as the other," Watson said.

  "Except for one thing," Chambrun said. "Scotland Yard didn't mention Pasqua to Lieutenant Herzog. Only March."

  "Toby and Pasqua operated like one to people who didn't know them," Watson said. "If someone from Iran visited the place in London where Toby and Frank lived, they would assume Frank was there to visit Toby. Frank, to them, would have appeared to be just a working stiff."

  "It could also be true about the moon and green cheese," Chambrun said.

  "Did you ever see anyone who could have been Iranian hanging around the place where March and Pasqua lived in London?" Herzog asked Ben Lewis.

  "We never hung around that place ourselves," Ben said. "We met Toby at the place where we were going to perform that night, planned the program, rehearsed there. We had no reason to go to the place where he lived. We had no problems that needed private discussion."

  "And the phone call to Haskell about unfinished business.' Could March have imitated Pasqua?" Herzog asked.

  "He could have imitated God if he knew what he sounded like," Ben said. "He was a perfectionist at that sort of thing. He could have fooled me or anyone imitating one of us. He used to do it as a private joke now and then."

  "I tend to buy Chambrun's version," Herzog said after a moment of silence.

  "Bully for you," Watson said. "So Pasqua goes free while you look for a dead man."

  "Did March or Pasqua have some kind of rented quarters away from the Beaumont?" Herzog asked.

  "When we found out that 'Mrs. Watson' was really Miss Huber," I said, "Watson said he had a room at a club down the street."

  "I had a room, not Toby or Frank," Watson said. "I do have a room at the University Club. You can check with them."

  "I have," Herzog said.

  "Am I a suspect?"

  "Anyone who is a friend of Toby March or Frank Pasqua

  and has a rented room somewhere could be helping to hide a wounded man," Herzog said.

  "Your room at the club has been searched," Chambrun said.

  "What are you going to do to protect Mr. Chambrun?" I asked Herzog.

  "He was attacked to prevent him from pushing his ideas about March," Herzog said. "By now he's pushed them as far as they can be pushed. There would be no point in being charged with another murder."

  "Unless he's crazy enough to enjoy killing," Mr. White said. "After seeing my son Douglas that wouldn't surprise me a bit."

  3

  People began to collect in the lobby long before what would have been show time in the Blue Lagoon. Even though it had been widely announced on radio and TV that there would be no show, people were fascinated to hear something about the murders that had been suggested.

  I was dead on my feet. More than twenty-four hours had passed since I'd had a touch of shut-eye. I suggested to Chambrun that I wouldn't be of much use to him unless I got a couple of hours' rest. He agreed, and told me to take off for my room. I left him with Lieutenant Herzog, Colonel Watson, and Millicent Huber and headed for my room on the second floor. I just loosened my tie and collar and lay down on top of the bed. I must have gone out like a light, because when I woke I wasn't alone, and someone was pressing something cold and hard against my forehead.

  A voice with a strong foreign accent spoke.

  "Do not move or cry out or you will be a dead man."

  A folded cloth or handkerchief was tied around my mouth from behind and another tied over my eyes.

  "We move. We go down the stairs," the accented voice said.
"Most people ride elevators. Not much chance people will be walking the stairs. But if they are, they will die if they try to help you."

  We walked; that cold, hard object, which I knew must be a gun, was pressed against my head. Down two floors of in-house stairs to the basement. No encounters. Then out into the fresh evening air. Surely we couldn't go down Park Avenue without being stopped. But then I realized I was being steered to the back of the building. I could hear automobile horns at a distance, but none where we walked. I was suddenly turned sharply left and down a short flight of narrow stairs, and I knew we were in the basement of a building some distance up Park Avenue from the Beaumont.

  The sound of a bolt being slid open as a result of a sharp knocking by my man, and I was pushed ahead through a door. It was closed behind me and the bolt moved into a locked position again. I was pushed ahead through another door and brought to a stop. The gag and blindfold were taken from my mouth and eyes, and I found myself in a semi-dark room. Directly across from where I stood, a group of young people were huddled together. They had to be the British hostages. No one spoke a word. Then my accented captor gave me his last instructions. "You can hope your friends are more cooperative than the friends of these young people. Pray, if that's your way."

  I stood there staring at the other hostages, and then one of the young men came over to me and held out his hand.

  "My name is George Stewart, Jr.," he said. "You know why we're being held, and you are being held for the same reason."

  "Yes. My name is Mark Haskell. I am public-relations director and general assistant to Pierre Chambrun, the general manager of the Hotel Beaumont."

  Young Stewart's handshake was firm, but his hand was cold. "Two of our group have been murdered right here in this room while we were forced to watch," he said. "Frances Warren was raped and killed here. Doug White was butchered—stabbed and stabbed over and over. We couldn't lift a finger to help either of them. Men with guns deterred us. Do they explain outside why the British won't turn their prisoners free to ransom us?"

  "I think I understand," I said. "Prisoners of war are a perfectly legal part of the business of war. Taking hostages isn't a legal part of anything. The British know that if they are blackmailed into freeing their prisoners of war, other hostages will be taken, other demands made. I can only tell you that everything is being done to find you, and that people who want to help are less than two city blocks away — including Douglas White's father. Scotland Yard had sent a man here, but he is dead. I suspect more are on their way."