by Emma Lathen
“That thought had occurred to me,” Francesca admitted.
“Well, it’s really quite simple. Dave was keeping all his records at his girlfriend’s place. That’s why his apartment was so clean.”
Very gently, Francesca stopped holding her breath. “That is certainly one explanation,” she said politely.
Unfortunately, Betsy’s appetite for information was far from sated. With unflagging energy she proposed one avenue of exploration after another. Even if the girlfriend had flown, surely it was not impossible to discover where she had been. Maybe Dave had been paying the rent for her. Had the police tried that route?
“Maybe she was a married lady living with her husband,” Francesca retorted. “So many mistresses are.”
Undeterred, Betsy continued her theorizing. There was no reason to suppose the girlfriend lived in England. If Dave had traveled regularly to meet her, there must be airline records.
“Unless she lived in Hong Kong, David could see her on legitimate business trips.”
So intent was Betsy that it took her some time to realize that Francesca was deliberately stonewalling. Then, without rancor, she demoted Francesca to the same category as unsatisfactory real estate agents.
“I’m afraid I have to be going,” she said, collecting her belongings and rising.
She left behind her an arena in which the honors had been just about evenly divided. Neither lady had obtained all that she wanted; neither had emerged empty-handed. And they were together in considering that afternoon as a mere preliminary.
Betsy, the less patient of the two, was able to hurl herself at the phone the moment she returned to her hotel room.
“This is Mrs. Paul Volpe,” she announced. “I would like to come by tomorrow morning . . .”
Francesca, constitutionally better fitted to endure delay, waited for the Noss Head expedition to return to London before making her call.
“This is Francesca Wylie. I think it essential that we should speak together. ...”
But, however disparate their characters, both women knew how to set aside their personal preoccupations when it came to gratifying their menfolk.
Francesca was practically purring when she agreed to Klaus Engelhart’s plans for the evening. Of course she did not object to making a foursome of it. And seeing that young Volpe couple again would be charming, simply charging.
As for Betsy, she agreed absolutely with Paul that if they could do a little social favor for Klaus Engelhart it might pay handsome dividends. Besides, it would be fun to see Francesca again. She was feeling quite guilty at not having thought of it herself.
In the end, their histrionic talents were not put to the test.
Betsy had finished dressing and was putting on earrings when Paul burst into their suite.
“You’d better hurry. We’re going to be—” she began, before she saw his face in the mirror. “Paul! Has something happened?”
He was standing in the doorway, one hand clutching the jamb. “The switchboard operator caught me in the hall. It was Klaus on the line.” He paused and swallowed painfully.
“Yes?” Betsy was white, almost afraid to ask more.
“Francesca’s dead. She put her head in the oven and gassed herself.”
Chapter 18
Oil Slick
Until he heard his own words, Volpe was obsessed by the personal horror of Francesca Wylie’s tragedy. Suddenly his thoughts began to scurry in wider and wider circles. This was not an isolated death. This was the latest in a terrible sequence—first robbery, then murder, now suicide.
“My God, isn’t this ever going to end?”
Betsy Volpe, watching him pace back and forth, bit her lip.
“Well?” he demanded roughly, wheeling toward her.
“Of course it’s terrible,” she said.
“Of course it’s terrible,” he repeated dully. “Betsy, you don’t have a clue about how bad this is. We’re not sitting around being polite at a funeral home, you know. Three guesses what people are going to say when they hear Macklin’s got another corpse on its hands. Just how many deaths is this deal going to take?”
His outburst shook Betsy. “But Paul,” she said, trying to think it through, “if Francesca committed suicide—”
Electrified, he pounced. “What do you mean if?”
By now, Betsy was rattled. “I don’t know—it’s just that when I saw her, she didn’t sound suicidal to me.”
Paul stared at her.
“Don’t look at me like that, Paul,” she cried. He shook his head helplessly. “You went to see Francesca?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” said Betsy, with a lift of her chin. “I just wanted to tell her how sorry I was—about...”
When Paul rolled his eyes, she added: “She was perfectly normal when I left. Oh, she’d been drinking. But she wasn’t thinking about putting her head in an oven—”
The phrase made her gag. But with the volatility she had come to know and dread, Paul had switched from reality to a dark world of his own imagining.
“They’ll say you had something to do with it. They’ll say you went back. Or—” he flung out his arm with uncontrolled abandon “—or me! I’ve been chasing all over London since I got back last night. They’ll say I went to see Francesca. Or even that I hit her over the head. God, Betsy, what are we going to do?”
Betsy fought with her own nightmare. “But Paul, Klaus is the one who was there.”
“Klaus!” Paul reacted violently. “Klaus suggested this dinner. Maybe Hugo was right. Maybe Klaus has been setting me up all along.”
Desperately, Betsy struggled to keep her footing. Right now, the most important thing in the world was to stop Paul from whipping himself into a nerve-ridden frenzy.
Sounding years older, she said, “Paul, what you should do is tell the company. Hugo, or Mr. Shute. They should know about this as soon as possible.”
As she hoped, this arrested him. “The company?” he said dazedly. “You’re right. That’s absolutely right.”
When he made no move, she took the next step too. “Do we know where Mr. Shute is staying—or Hugo?”
The Hilton said that Hugo Cramer was out but Arthur Shute was with some other guests in the dining room.
“Excuse me, John,” he said, touching napkin to lip in a gesture reminiscent of pre-war movies. “This is probably Houston. I’ve had a call in for a couple of hours.”
Self-importantly, he bustled off to the telephone.
His bankers took advantage of his absence.
“John, I thought Shute was supposed to be one of those hard-nosed businessmen before he went to Washington,” said Charlie.
“To the best of my knowledge he was,” Thatcher replied. “But that was 15 years ago.”
“Well, he’s sure softened up.”
“He has certainly forgotten everything he ever knew about banks,” Thatcher agreed. “Shute seems to feel that our primary allegiance is to Macklin, not the Sloan.”
All things considered, this was a very temperate comment. Somewhere along the line, and Thatcher suspected that the Macklin Star was responsible, Arthur Shute had led himself astray. From business associate, he had progressed to colleague, with co-conspirator looming ahead. With boring simplicity he shared Macklin, past, present, and future, with them. Today, over drinks, they had relived the bad old payoff days. Soup had brought the Roberta Ore Simpson shakeup, complete with Arthur Shute’s soul-searching before accepting the presidency. The roast beef, which was excellent, had been salted with Noss Head and estimated earnings per share.
“And when he gets back, he’ll take up where he left off,” Charlie predicted.
In essence, this meant dessert and new worlds to conquer.
But the Arthur Shute who rejoined them had lost his self-indulgent desire to wander down memory lane.
“What? No, I do not want a trifle, whatever that may be,” he snapped at the hovering waiter. “Will you get us the bill? We’re in a hurry!”
Scenting another Macklin crisis, Charlie was inclined to demonstrate the Sloan’s independence even if it took treacle tart.
Thatcher was more direct.
“What’s your hurry, Arthur?” he asked, emphasizing his own detachment.
Shute’s officiousness melted away. “That was Paul Volpe,” he said limply.
With a triumphant glance at Thatcher, Charlie reached for the dessert menu.
“Volpe thought I should know,” Shute amplified, with visible effort. “Apparently Francesca Wylie has just committed suicide.”
“Francesca Wylie?” said Trinkam, disregarding the menu. “I don’t believe it.”
“That’s what Volpe said,” Shute mumbled distractedly. “My God, I don’t know. Maybe this means the whole damned Wylie mess is cleared up at last. Unless, of course, it means something else. . . .”
Charlie cut in ruthlessly. “Did she leave a note?”
All Shute knew was what Paul Volpe had told him.
“... and that was damned little,” he said bitterly.
During this exchange, Thatcher had been lost in his own reflections. Francesca Wylie’s death by her own hand inescapably resurrected the living woman who had been such an enigmatic presence in his New York office hardly a week ago. But her tragic end could be a climax in the Macklin saga. Either they were finally out of the woods, or they were compromised beyond retrieval. It was a matter of moment to the Sloan to discover which. Resolutely, Thatcher concentrated on business, not human interest.
Unlike Charlie, he did not waste time trying to elicit nonexistent information.
“Where were you proposing to hurry, Arthur?” he asked.
Shute’s mouth worked. Then he said: “I want to talk to Hugo. After all, he’s working more closely with the British. He’ll be the one to know if this will make any significant difference—to Noss Head, I mean. Hugo’s sharper about this sort of thing than he looks.”
When catastrophe struck, Betsy Volpe’s instinct had been to spread the burden, conscript aid and support, blur the stark outlines. Arthur Shute’s initial reaction was identical. John Thatcher naturally could not know about the Volpes, but he recognized action for action’s sake, movement masquerading as decision.
“Do you know where Cramer happens to be?” he inquired with a fair notion of the answer.
“Well, no,” said Shute resentfully, as if Thatcher were splitting hairs.
“That’s going to make it tough to find him,” Charlie pointed out unkindly.
Shute was in turmoil. Obviously somebody else had to take charge.
“I agree it would be wise to contact Cramer,” said Thatcher, without explaining why.
“Yes of course. Macklin has to consult—”
“But,” said Thatcher, firmly overriding him, “very little will be gained by pooling ignorance. It would be an excellent idea if we could equip ourselves with some information before descending on Cramer.”
This went past Arthur Shute directly to Charlie Trinkam, as intended.
“I’m with you so far,” he said. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
“Well,” said Thatcher, working it out as he went along, “the police are not likely to release any details to us. Indeed, I have no desire to present myself to them. I do not wish the Sloan, or Macklin, to figure as a voyeur of crime. However, Simon Livermore—”
“Livermore?” Shute was adamant. “Absolutely not! Good Lord, that’s what I’ve been trying to explain. I have to talk to Hugo before Livermore hears about this. We have to decide how to handle it.”
Thatcher spelled it out. “In view of the circumstances, Arthur, I think it is safe to assume that one of the first things the London police did was communicate with the Department of Energy. As well as Interpol. Mrs. Wylie has been the object of a good deal of official attention recently. And that attention has been intimately connected with Macklin and Noss Head. I am sure that Livermore already knows—and probably has more information than Paul Volpe.”
“I want to talk to Hugo first,” said Shute mulishly.
It took hard persuading and an affronted waiter with the bill to budge Arthur Shute. Even then, Thatcher suspected it was the restless itch to be doing something that prevailed.
But for once good advice was more productive than anybody could have expected.
A tight-lipped Livermore opened the door of his apartment. Behind him, watching the procession file in, stood his wife, Jill, and Hugo Cramer.
“Yeah, Simon and I were going over the revised figures on that back-up platform. We wanted to have them finished by tomorrow,” Cramer explained as they trooped in. His face was hard.
“We were getting ready to go out to dinner,” Livermore said somberly.
But news of Francesca Wylie’s death had been dispatched to the Department of Energy, just as John Thatcher predicted.
“. . . so, instead of having that marvelous paella, I had to make sandwiches,” said Jill Livermore with an uncertain smile. “I call that bloody unfair.”
Nobody, including her husband, paid the slightest heed.
“Do sit down, won’t you all?” she continued into the silence. “I think we can offer you brandy, can’t we, Simon?”
“What? Oh, yes, yes.”
Brandy was offered and declined with funereal solemnity. Somebody, and Thatcher guessed an interior decorator, had made the living room a gay, insouciant blend of timeless elegance and bravura color. There was some gleaming silver, masses of bright flowers, and a lustrous ikon over the mantel.
Little Mrs. Livermore, vivid in batik print, curled up dejectedly in the corner of a long white sofa.
Thatcher thought he could understand why. This was her room and usurpers had invaded it.
Charlie knew better. Jill Livermore thrived on gaiety and flirtation. She could not handle the black pall introduced by Francesca Wylie’s death.
“Once I heard the news, I wanted to stay by the phone,” Livermore explained.
This remark galvanized Arthur Shute.
“Have you heard anything more?” he asked. “What really happened?”
Cramer, more rumpled than usual, was brutal. “Francesca shoved her head into a gas oven about two hours ago. That’s what happened, Arthur.”
This sent a shiver through the room, diminishing Arthur Shute but, surprisingly, reviving Livermore.
“The police called to inform my minister,” he said with a semblance of his customary competence. “Apparently Klaus Engelhart was taking Mrs. Wylie out to dine this evening. He found her when he arrived.”
Hugo Cramer stirred restively.
“When Engelhart got there, he smelled gas. He rushed inside, broke the kitchen window, pulled Mrs. Wylie out. But it was too late.”
Studying the impeccable crease of his trousers, he added: “According to Engelhart’s statement to the police—and I gather he was somewhat shaken—they were going to join Mr. and Mrs. Volpe for dinner.”
Charlie felt something had been carefully omitted. “Did she leave a note?” he asked for the second time.
“No,” said Livermore. Then, meticulously, he continued: “I should say that there was no note when the police arrived.”
“Funny,” said Charlie, “usually they leave something, don’t they?”
Thatcher watched his henchman expressionlessly.
All innocence, Charlie looked around. “Francesca Wylie didn’t strike me as the kind who would want to kill herself. She looked like a gal who had a lot to live for.”
Cramer, who had been holding himself in check, seized on this. “Lord, that’s what everybody is going to think. They’re going to say that Francesca must’ve been in this up to her neck.” He slammed the arm of his chair. “Then they’re going to want to know why Paul was buddying up to her. Hell, why won’t that kid listen to me? I told him Engelhart was out to make a patsy of him.”
Stiff with disapproval, Livermore retorted: “I can assure you that our police are not easily misled. Especial
ly in cases of foul play.”
“Foul play!” Shute exclaimed. “But that means murder. Good God, if she and her husband were together in this plot, who’s left to kill her now?”
Thatcher did not think it was quite so simple and neither, apparently, did Cramer. “Plenty of people,” he said savagely. “For God’s sake, Arthur, didn’t she tell you anything? She sounded as if she wanted to.”
Shute gaped at him. “What are you talking about, Hugo?”
“When she called you this morning,” Cramer said impatiently. Suddenly aware that everyone was staring, he expanded: “The switchboard at the office put her through to me.”
Thatcher could see that Arthur Shute was about to explode. “Perhaps you had better start from the beginning, Cramer,” he suggested.
“There isn’t that much to tell,” said Cramer. “Francesca said she had to get hold of you, Arthur. I told her to try the Hilton.”
“Well, she didn’t reach me,” said Shute.
“More to the point, do you have any idea what she wanted?” Thatcher asked Cramer.
“Not a clue,” he said indifferently.
Charlie was stung into expostulating: “Use your head, Hugo. Don’t you see that you may have put your finger on it? If Francesca wanted to talk, maybe somebody was afraid of what she was going to say.”
Simon Livermore could not silence speculation about Francesca Wylie’s death. He did not have to countenance it in his own home. “There is very little to be gained by theorizing. At the moment, the only thing we know for a fact, is that Mrs. Wylie’s death is compatible with suicide.”
Arthur Shute was too grateful to be perceptive.
“And, if she was Wylie’s accomplice she must have been terrified. When the police started closing in, she decided to end it all.”
His transparent hope that Francesca Wylie’s suicide had ended Macklin’s troubles was contemptible. Jill Livermore was not the only one to look disgusted.
“There are other possibilities,” sad Thatcher frostily.
