Murder Goes Round and Round: A Pierre Chambrun Mystery Hardcover Page 9

  "God, I hope they hurry," young Stewart said.

  "You know that the men who are holding you are from Iran?" I asked him.

  "We assume it," he said. "We have each been forced to write to a parent begging them to get Iranian prisoners freed."

  "How have they treated you?"

  "Does showing us brutal murders of our friends answer that?"

  "Food?"

  "Some cereal and milk. Nothing else."

  "Sleep?"

  "On the floor, if anyone could."

  "The barest minimum, then."

  "No more than that."

  Two dark-skinned men came in from the outer room. They were each carrying a white portable telephone. One of them was holding one of the phones to his ear as if he were listening to a conversation. The other walked over to George Stewart and handed his phone to the young man. "Your father on the phone," he said. "Persuade him to get action in England or you will be next!" He passed the white phone to George, who was standing right beside me. Young Stewart held the phone a little distance away from his ear. "Dad!"

  "Junior!" I could hear a frightened male voice say.

  "Could you hear what this monster said to me?"

  "Oh, God, I'm afraid so, boy."

  "Is there any chance the government can be persuaded to do anything about the prisoners of war?"

  "I'm afraid not, Junior."

  "I saw what happened to Frances and Doug," George, Jr., said.

  "God help us, we have seen pictures here," the father said.

  "If the government won't do anything, then I have to face what's coming," young George said.

  "I'd give anything if I could face it for you," his father said. "It was easier when they didn't tell us their plans."

  Our jailer reached out and took the small white phone away from George, Jr. The young man cried out, "Good-bye, Dad!"

  Then, suddenly, he was clinging to me.

  I felt sick at my stomach. I thought I might throw up. Four dark-skinned men came into the room, each of them armed with a high-powered rifle. I was ordered to leave George and join the other young people against the far wall. The four riflemen faced us, aiming their weapons at us. One of the girls screamed. I looked away from the rifle barrel that was aimed straight at my face. The man who had handed the phone to George Stewart had thrown the young man down to the floor and had pinned him there in some kind of karate hold. He had a knife in his right hand, a full-sized carving knife. The girl behind me screamed again and I saw the most terrible violence I've ever seen. The knife was plunged into young Stewart's chest and stomach in a series of wild thrusts. Blood spurted out of the wounds. And then, as the young man opened his mouth to cry out, his throat was cut four or five times. He had to be dead. All three girls in the group were screaming at the top of their lungs now. One of the young men charged out toward Stewart's killer. One of the high-powered rifles was fired and the young man's face was obliterated.

  The man who was aiming his rifle at me gestured to me to join him out on the floor. I wasn't sure my legs would hold me up but they did. He took me by the arm and led me over to the door to this basement room, and there he stopped me. From beyond the door came a new voice with a heavy British accent. Young Stewart had told me about English voices.

  "You've seen what lies ahead of you, Mr. Haskell," the voice said. "We're putting you on the phone to Chambrun. He must use his contacts in Europe to get what we must have. If not, you can tell him what to expect, with you the victim."

  "How much time?" I asked.

  "Get him to tell us," the voice said.

  The man with the little white portable phone moved me away from the door and handed the instrument to me.

  "You dial your own number," he said. "The right number."

  There wasn't a dial on the phone, only a series of push buttons. I punched out Chambrun's private number. He answered almost at once.

  "Mark? Is that you?"

  "How did you know?" I asked.

  "They warned me you'd be calling. Are you all in one piece?"

  "So far. You wouldn't believe what's been going on here. Another boy was murdered like Douglas White. A boy shot in the face for trying to interfere. I'm told I will be next."

  "Keep your cool," Chambrun said. "I think I can get what they want for them."

  I felt my heart jam against my ribs. I hadn't expected any such assurance.

  "Mrs. Thatcher's government will meet about breakfast time," Chambrun said. "About four o'clock their time, ten ours."

  "And they will turn over the prisoners of war for the hostages?" I asked.

  "I believe they will. Feeling is running high in England."

  "And do I fit into that exchange?" I asked.

  "I believe you will," Chambrun said. "Tell them I'm not stalling. There isn't any way for me to move faster."

  "Ten o'clock, is it?" the English voice broke into our telephone conversation.

  "Ten is when they'll meet," Chambrun said. "They have to have time to discuss it, Toby."

  The English voice laughed. "Still playing that game, Chambrun?"

  "Who else can you be?" Chambrun said.

  "You'll find out if you don't come through," the English voice said.

  There was no way I could make an intelligent guess. I'd not heard Toby March speak except when he was imitating someone on stage.

  "Ill do the best I can for you, Mark," Chambrun said. "Sit tight. The chances are good."

  There was the clicking sound of the phone being hung up on Chambrun's end and another click of the second phone. I tried to make myself believe, but I was looking at the bloody body on the floor that had once been George Stewart, Jr.

  I tried to guess who it might be Chambrun was contacting in England. He had mentioned Mrs. Thatcher's government, but I could not think of anyone in the lady's cabinet who was close to him. It suddenly occurred to me, uncomfortably, that Chambrun's conversation had been designed for the person listening on this end, the man with the British voice. It was the kind of game he might play. It might give him a few hours to do —what? Find me? How? Rescue me? How? One thing was certain. I could count on his fighting for me to the bitter end.

  One of the girls who had screamed earlier was kneeling beside the boy who'd been shot. From where I was, I thought

  I could see that the young man was still breathing. They were deep gasps for air. Alive but only just, I thought. I joined her. I've had quite a little first-aid experience at the Beaumont. The bullet had struck him just above his right eye and the bleeding was heavy. There had been enough bleeding at the hands of these monsters in the last hours to float a battleship. I contributed my breast-pocket handkerchief to help try to stop the flow of blood. It didn't do much for the young man.

  "Who is he, in case I get to talk to the outside again?" I asked the girl.

  "He's Peter Folk," the girl said. "His father is the county attorney back home. I'm Elizabeth Clark. My father is the headmaster of the local school."

  The Iranians had obviously chosen victims who would matter at the home base.

  "I'm afraid he doesn't stand much of a chance," I said.

  "Do any of us?" the girl asked.

  "My friend has just told me on the phone there's a chance the Thatcher government may be willing to make a deal."

  "You believe that?" the girl asked.

  "Not from what I heard before I was brought here," I said. "But the man who told me that is to be trusted farther than anyone I know. My name is Haskell, by the way, Elizabeth. Mark Haskell." I explained my job at the Beaumont and who Chambrun is.

  "We were all taken prisoner back in England," the Clark girl said, "and flown here to New York in a private plane."

  "You have any idea whose plane it was or where this house is?"

  "Neither," the girl answered. "The people who took us prisoner all spoke with an accent, like the one you've heard here. Most of them didn't speak English at all. Douglas White, who was killed when we got here, just like p
oor George Stewart, said they were from the Middle East somewhere. His father has some connection with the diplomatic corps in England. Douglas spoke a smattering of several languages. He recognized the Iranian language."

  "That's the story here in New York," I said. "But the English voices you've been hearing here — were they on the plane that brought you here?"

  "I didn't hear them until we were brought here," Elizabeth said.

  "Are they familiar to you from any other place in your past?" I asked.

  "No. I never heard them before."

  "Have you done very much flying in your time? Do you know what kind of plane brought you here?"

  "I have no idea, as I've told you."

  "Let's go to English accents like yours," I said. "In my country, you can sometimes tell the city people come from by their accents. Certainly what part of the country they come from."

  "And you have got a big country compared to ours," the girl said.

  "So maybe I'm exaggerating just a little," I said. "Tell me, were you involved in hiring Toby March to sing at your fair?"

  "We all were," Elizabeth said. "That's how we all came to be together when these people took us."

  "Took you from where?" I asked.

  "The fairgrounds in Farmington. A couple of people we knew recommended Toby March to us for our fair."

  "A couple of people? Local people?"

  Elizabeth nodded. "Millicent Huber. She had been his nurse. And a Colonel Watson who was an orderly at the hospital. They'd attended this Toby March after a face-disfiguring accident."

  "The hospital?"

  "Yes. They said he was pretty spectacular. They decribed his act. They said he could imitate anyone, singing or talking."

  "But you hired him to sing?"

  Elizabeth nodded. "Talking didn't sound like much fun to us. But when we walked into the rehearsal hall, Toby was there along with Millicent—who, by the way, went to school with my mother. Toby was wearing a black mask. 'My name is Laurence Olivier,' he said. And then he did a piece of dialogue from Olivier's most recent film. He needn't have told us who he was. He was unmistakable."

  "That good?"

  "That wasn't all. He switched after a little while to Errol Flynn. We actually applauded him. Then March went over to the piano and sat down at the keyboard. He played wonderfully well —and sang. It was Frank Sinatra. No mistaking it. The voice. The musical technique. Walk into the room and you would swear it was Sinatra."

  "Even with the mask on?"

  "Even with it on. After a little while, he did some Crosby for us and Tony Bennett's San Francisco number."

  "And then when you discussed business with him?" I asked.

  "He never discussed anything with us without the mask.

  'It would spoil the performance for you,' he told us. 'You would be seeing me when I recreated somebody else for you/

  "Anyway, we didn't discuss business for very long. He was asking too much. We went home raving about him. Doug White's father heard our enthusiasm and announced he would go to hear Toby for himself. He came back completely sold. He put up the money."

  "But March did talk to you as himself You would know the sound of his voice if you heard it again?" I asked.

  "I don't think so," Elizabeth said. "He was Laurence Olivier all the way down the road."

  "So you couldn't identify him if you ever saw him again?"

  "No way possible. He wants it that way. Of course, the people involved with him, the supporting musicians, and his manager, whose name I think is Pasqua, might."

  "You would know them?"

  Elizabeth gave me a shy smile. "I dated one of the musicians named Ben Lewis," she said. "They played at the fair for a week, and I went out with Ben at least four times."

  "Did he talk to you at all about March and Pasqua?"

  "Ben is quite a musician," the girl said. "He plays several instruments. The one he is primarily hired to play is the guitar. But that is one of Toby March's specialties, too, so Ben doesn't get written into the score too often with it. But he is a tremendous admirer of March's. He doesn't feel cheated out of playing his best instrument. As a matter of fact, he says March has helped him enormously and that he owes him for that."

  "Am I right in guessing that March is some kind of a musical hero to those young men who play for him?"

  "You've never heard him play?"

  "Just this last Saturday night," I said. "I thought he was pretty marvelous."

  "Oh yes. They think he's tops. But all of them think highly of each other, and particularly the man who is their agent and public-relations man."

  "Frank Pasqua?"

  "A lovely man," the girl said, her face warming. "Has something happened to him? Before Doug White was killed, he heard something on the radio in the next room. It said that Toby March and Frank were both missing."

  "That's the way it is," I told her.

  "They would seem to be much more important as hostages than our group. I suppose our parents — ?"

  "Mr. Chambrun hopes he can get your Mrs. Thatcher to give in to some extent to your jailers."

  "I don't think she will," Elizabeth said. "She's a tough old girl. It wouldn't be like her to let herself be blackmailed."

  "That's the general public's feeling," I said. "But I need to ask you something quite personal, Elizabeth. Did you ever have a date with Frank Pasqua? What might be called 'unfinished business.'"

  She flushed. "Well, he was a very attractive man, Mark. When the show was over in the evening at the fair, Toby March and the musicians left. Frank stayed at the fairgrounds. He bought me a few drinks. But there was nothing unfinished.'"

  "Last night? Saturday night?"

  "For God's sake, Mark, all of us were prisoners, here in this place. We were flown over from England days ago. None of us ever set an unmolested foot on United States soil."

  "Why do you suppose you were brought here?" I asked.

  "Where could we be more safely hidden? I don't understand, Mark, why my country, Great Britain, should be holding Iranian prisoners of war. We're not at war."

  "Persian Gulf," I suggested. "All the Western allies are involved there."

  "But Iran wouldn't expect special favors from your government, would they? Favors that would help her hold us hostage here?"

  "It's hard to believe. None of it makes very much sense."

  The girl's face twisted and twitched. She was looking at the two dead boys just beyond us. "It's not children's games," she said.

  The hostages, eight of us now including me, were all crowded into one corner of the room, watched over by four jailers who gabbled at each other in a foreign language I'd never heard before. Their guns were in their belts, always ready, and the way they looked at us told us clearly that they had no affection for us!

  Suddenly there was a smashing sound from behind us. I spun around to see a small army burst into the room. It was headed by Chambrun, armed with a pistol, flanked on his left by Jerry Dodd, and on his right by Lieutenant Herzog and Colonel Watson. Each of them had a gun leveled at one of the jailers. Behind them were about a dozen uniformed, armed cops.

  Watson was yelling something at the top of his lungs in the same strange language the jailers had been using. The jailers seemed frozen where they stood. None of them reached for his gun, and they were all focused on Watson, who kept shouting at them. Eventually, very reluctantly, the jailers pulled their guns out of their belts and dropped them on the floor. Instantly, the armed cops charged them and handcuffed them.

  Chambrun turned to me. "Miracles by the score," he said.

  My voice was so unsteady I scarcely recognized it myself. "How did you find us?" I asked him.

  "They outsmarted themselves," Chambrun said. "When they phoned us to say you were going to call, we got organized. Herzog alerted the phone company, and when you did call, they were able to trace the phone you were using to this house."

  Chambrun turned and called out, "Okay, Doc, come on in!"

&nb
sp; Doctor Partridge came in from the outer room followed by a half dozen of the hotel's bellhops bringing in stretchers on wheels.

  "Any of these youngsters hurt?" Chambrun asked.

  "The two out there on the floor are beyond help, I'm afraid." I was referring to the Stewart boy who had been butchered and the Folk boy who'd been shot. "I wouldn't have minded if you had shot down those creeps."

  "Second miracle," Chambrun said. "If those jailers had moved around and threatened us, we couldn't have fired. I'd probably have nailed you." He looked down at his pistol. "I'm not an expert with this thing. They didn't know it but they had us behind the eight ball if they hadn't obeyed Watson's instructions."

  The bellhops were loading the two dead young men onto stretchers. "Anyone here hurt?" Chambrun called out to the

  almost dazed hostages. No one spoke. "Well get you back to the hotel where we'll keep you safe."

  "How did Watson know how to speak to them?" I asked.

  "It seems he was attached to the British embassy in Lebanon at one time. He knows the language well. He volunteered, and we had sense enough to accept his offer of help. There's a lot more. We have a new man from Scotland Yard at the hotel. It wasn't prisoners of war they were after, but money. Three million dollars for whoever of the hostages is left alive."

  "So the game isn't over?" I asked.

  "Unless they quit, which I doubt. It'll be money and these four men we just took."

  Two of the girls were clinging together, weeping. The boys, apparently stunned, were watching Doc Partridge remove their dead friends. Chambrun went on talking in his clear, sharp voice.

  "Douglas White's father is here, along with the new Scotland Yard man, Inspector Stanwyck. You'll be able to talk to your families in England, and should be on your way home before the end of the day."

  "Bless you, Mr. Chambrun," Elizabeth Clark said.

  "I'm sorry we weren't in time for all of you," Chambrun said, watching the last stretcher with its load of death being wheeled out of the room. "There isn't much point in trying to hide your walk to the hotel. It's only a couple of blocks. Whoever may be watching will know that the Beaumont is an impenetrable fortress."