by Emma Lathen
John Thatcher, who had schooled himself to temper his response to modern interiors, was in conference in the tower suite with the Chairman, George Charles Lancer. The subject at issue, a projected cut in the Sloan’s prime rate, not only concerned many millions of Sloan dollars, but also larger public policy. Thatcher and Lancer were weighing the pros and cons that would subsequently exercise the Sloan Investment Committee, the Loan Policy Board, Wall Street money markets, the financial press, and the US Government.
So when the phone rang on Lancer’s desk, he halted his comments with a look of surprise on his conventionally handsome face. Just as the Sloan’s physical plan was engineered to promote awe and maximum efficiency, the staff was trained to protect that efficiency for top executives like Lancer and Thatcher. In practice this meant keeping phone calls from impinging on important policy discussions as they were having now.
“Yes, Miss Evans?” Lancer responded without undue curiosity. It was not necessary; the phone apologized at length, and Thatcher saw Lancer’s eyebrows rise slightly. “Well … er, yes. That’s all right, Miss Evans. You might as well put him on since he’s on the line,” He said.
Thatcher indicated a willingness to depart but Lancer motioned him to remain. “It’s Gabe Uhlein,” he said before returning to the phone. “Yes Gabe. No trouble at all.”
Thatcher settled back. Lancer’s side of the conversation consisted of those uninformative noises that indicate comprehension. Gabe was doing the talking as he usually did. It was scarcely surprising that Miss Evans could not withstand his verbal assault. Persuasiveness was Gabe’s stock in trade: by profession he was a fund raiser, the President and guiding spirit of Target Associates, a large organization devoted to helping good cause get adequate monies.
“Now Gabe, I don’t know about that,” Lancer was saying doubtfully, shooting an amused look at Thatcher. Clearly he had been braced for a plea for funds; but whatever Gabe currently wanted, it was not money. “There are a good many difficulties.”
Again the conversation shifted. Thatcher was not surprised when some minutes later Lancer wearily nodded, picked up a pencil, and said, “All right Gabe; what was that name again?” It was not that Lancer lacked decisiveness; on the contrary he was a strong minded executive, in contrast to the Bank’s President Bradford Withers who was currently representing the bank at a Paris conference. But Lancer, as with many before him, had learned the only way to get rid of Gabe was to give in to his blandishments. In addition, of course, Gabe was a very good customer which closed the deal.
“Fine Gabe,” Lancer said firmly. “I’ll have one of my people call you. Fine.” He put down the receiver and shook his head. “An Elliot Paterson seems to be missing.”
Thatcher was ahead of him. “And Elliot works for Gabe and Gabe wants us to take a quick look at his bank account?” This was simple enough and a common practice if slightly irregular. Banks as with the rest of us do little favors for friends.
“That’s it,” said Lancer, resuming the phone to give directions to Miss Evans. “Elliot Patterson,” he told her distinctly, “works at Target; home address 203 Walnut Street in Rye. Have Benson check his personal account. Call me before the afternoon is out. Thank you.”
Lancer hesitated before returning to the prime rate, “Elliot Paterson? Sounds familiar somehow. Have you ever heard of him John?”
Thatcher did not know Patterson. He did not realize yet how fortunate that was. It was a lovely warm October day and would be the last time he could say this about Patterson. Soon that name would be ringing endlessly in his ears. The pealing began several hours later.
Thatcher was booked to dine with the Lancers that evening, then accompanying them to an exhibition of European gouaches at the Gary Museum of Modern Art. Like so many social events, this was both good and bad; on the credit side was this was an excellent dinner produced by the Belgian cook whom Lucy Lancer cherished with unceasing vigilance, and Lucy herself, a poised and practiced hostess whose enviable competence on all fronts was leavened by redeeming glints of humor.
“But much as I value your company and dinner, Lucy,” Thatcher said with the freedom of an old friend, “I think perhaps European gouaches are too high a price to pay.” Lucy did not try to defend a weak position. Instead she directed her husband and Thatcher to bring their drinks to the table since Matthilde was particular about the fish. Obediently they followed her into the chandelier lit dining room where the trout proved well worth Matthilde’s solicitude.
“By the way, George,” Thatcher inquired idly as they waited for the roast, “How did that man of Gabe’s turn out? Did he strip his account?”
Lancer carefully tasted the wine and decided it was potable. “No. Elliott Patterson’s account has held at a steady $1400 for months now. No unusual activity. Gabe said that’s what he expected.”
He was interrupted by an exclamation by Lucy. “Elliot Patterson?” She asked with lively interest. Admirable woman that she was, Lucy tolerated business talk at her table and rarely descended into feminine changes of subject. “What are you checking on Elliot, George?”
George nodded in self-congratulation. “I thought I recognized that name. We do know an Elliot Patterson don’t we Lucy? I knew it but I can’t place him.”
“Dartmouth, dear, Dartmouth. But what is all this?
Exchange of information occupied the rest of dinner. Dartmouth was that select Ivy League institution of which Lancers had been alumni for give generations and benefactors for three. When Dartmouth emulated its peers and installed a youthful dynamo as president, he had in the richness of time descended on New York for the inevitable introduction to the most important and affluent collection of Dartmouth grads. Equally inevitably the Lancers had contributed to the round of festivities with a large party in his honor.
“Elliot was at our cocktail party,” Lucy informed her husband. “Then we saw him again at the Armitages’ dinner.”
“Lucy, you are a marvel. Of course I remember now. Thin serious fellow with a good looking blonde wife. I remember thinking he was a far cry from Gabler.”
Lucy murmured something about hoping no harm had befallen him while George was pursuing his own thoughts. “Well, he’s only been missing since yesterday afternoon. Myself I can think of a good many explanations.”
“Shame on you,” Lucy said severely. “Elliot is devoted to his lovely family. He told me so himself.”
Thatcher received this with deep suspicion. George said, “Well the one I wish would disappear is this little twerp you’re dragging us out to see tonight.”
Lucy explained that Neil Marsden, curator of the Special Collections of the Gary of which she was a trustee was also a Dartmouth grad. “George doesn’t approve of curators of art museums.”
Thatcher was not the man for sweeping condemnations but two hours later he was forced to admit that much could be said for George’s position. The Gary, an eccentric exercise in spiraling ramps, was boldly flaunting hundreds of European gouaches, sizzling with hot reds and purposes, against raw cinderblock walls. Occasional relief for the overstrained eye was provided by ominous foliage and, in the great rotunda, by a lowering granite sculpture. The Friends of the Gary, enjoying a private view of the collection touted by Time Magazine, sported full evening regalia. Lucy’s notable diamonds did not sweep the field without rival. Thatcher decided that the overall effect suggested a debutante cotillion in a reformatory.
Nor did the curators, a mixed lot, commend themselves to him. Thin to a man, they boasted eclectic accents from BBC to Tidewater Virginia and embodied, as it were, a living rebuke to all America west of the Alleghenies.
“And this is Neil Marsden, dear. You remember,” said Lucy with a charming smile that held a tiny glint of malice for Thatcher and George.
“Ah, Mrs. Lancer,” said Marsden enthusiastically. He greeted Lancer and Thatcher with warm approval, causing Thatcher to recall something forgotten during ten years as a widower. Marriage even with the best of women has
drawbacks.
Marsden had a well sculpted face; in clipped accents he delivered praise to somebody called Bruno Brunei, using his beautiful hands for punctuation. Thatcher thought that his mannered enthusiasm probably rested on a low keyed but pervasive fretfulness. Although he was balding, he could not be much over 30 Thatcher concluded.
“Tremendous trouble with the customs people, for some incomprehensible reason,” he was saying, to round out an anecdote designed to place art curators in the ranks of the world’s indefatigable toilers.
“All in all, it has been quite a day. Why we didn’t get completely hung until; 5 o’clock.”
Since her companions maintained encouraging silence, Lucy responded, “No!”
“Yes indeed,” Marsden assured her. “And if that wasn’t enough,” here he became confidential, “There has been this flap about Elliot Patterson. I can’t imagine why everybody suddenly wants him today.”
He captured the attention of an audience two thirds up to now reluctant if not outright hostile.
“I simply do not have time, certainly not when I am hanging the most important show we have ever had at the Gary, to waste hours on the phone. I’m sure you have this sort of trouble frequently, Mr. Lancer?”
But Lancer only retorted, “What connection to have with Patterson?”
Marsden was somewhat disappointed. “Why the Committee, Mr. Lancer. The Dartmouth Admission Committee.”
Lancer confined his alumni activities to munificent contributions and broadly spaced hospitality for visiting academics. “What’s that?” he asked.
With her husband bent on extracting information, Lucy smiled brilliantly and slid away to join friends, leaving Marsden to fend for himself.
“Oh, I thought you knew. Elliot is on the Admissions Committee with me.”
And others as well Thatcher presumed. The Dartmouth Admission Committee he soon learned against his will was a branch of the Dartmouth Alumni Club of New York. For most of the year it concentrated on a never ending quest for funds. But in the fall, the Committee conducted preliminary interviews with prospective students in the Greater New York City area who aspired to attend Dartmouth.
“Of course the college makes the final decision; but, they tend to follow our recommendations,” revealing the exalted view Marsden held of his own role in the scheme of things.
“Gabe didn’t mention this Dartmouth connection,” Lancer commented to Thatcher.
“Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t know about it,” Thatcher replied, amused.
Marsden projected enough tempered curiosity to require a response.
“Patterson seems to have disappeared,” Lancer told him. “Went to a meeting of some sort yesterday afternoon and nobody’s seen him since.”
Marsden was startled out of his languor. “Disappeared? What do you mean disappeared? We met at the Ivy League Club just yesterday! So that explains why Sally Patterson has been calling to ask if I’ve seen Elliot today. But what could have happened to him? Elliot is the last man on earth to do anything out of the ordinary.”
“Apparently he didn’t go home last night,” Lancer said, beginning to look around for Lucy with more frankness than courtesy.
One might have thought, Thatcher mused, idly watching the passing parade of elegance, and that someone Marsden’s age could take a more lighthearted view than Patterson’s employer of escapades, domestic spats or whatever.
But not at all. Marsden was just as mystified as Gabe. “Good Lord. I hope … I hope and he broke off.
Thatcher inquired if Patterson had been himself at the meeting. Odd though this discussion might be it spared George and John discussions about gouaches and Bruno Brunei.
“Mm … what? Oh yes. He was perfectly normal. We cleaned up some of the details about a donation from Mrs. Curtis, you’ll be happy to hear, Mr. Lancer. Then we interviewed four applicants.” Again he broke off.
“A blonde?” Thatcher suggested. “A binge?” Suiting action to words he took a drink from a waiter’s tray. Marsden dismissed these suggestions as frivolous, which of course they were.
“Not Elliot,” Marsden said with a hint of contempt. “He’s a model family man. As a matter of fact he is a pretty wet fish.”
“You know him,” Thatcher said.
Lancer was searching the throng when Marsden frowned again, then rather hastily excused himself with the plea of responsibilities elsewhere.
Seasoned self-control kept Lancer and Thatcher from comment upon either Marsden or Patterson. Instead, with the air of men doing their duty, they removed from the line of vision of a substantial matron who was intent upon the hanging behind them.
Finally, with a really savage look at them, she said, “I don’t care what you say, I think this is disgusting.”
With deep appreciation Thatcher watched her sail away.
“George, she thinks we are curators!”
Chapter 2
The Class will be Divided into Discussion Groups
Lancer and Thatcher spent the rest of the evening inspecting such gouaches as they could not avoid, conversing with acquaintances similarly victimized by culture minded womenfolk and waiting for Lucy to detach herself from the vivacious conversations she enjoyed despite the daunting background of inchoate paintings, angular sculpture, and hovering curators.
Meanwhile the great Patterson snowball began gathering even more momentum.
Neil Marsden, his smile firmly fixed in place, proceeded through the gallery with practiced half bows in the direction of various Friends of the Gary. He was heading, as fast as he could, to his own office and the phone. Marden’s limitations were obvious. His talents were less obtrusive but considerable. These included a developed social sense allied to a powerful feel for self-preservation. News that Elliot Patterson was missing activated both.
The phone rang 12 times, giving Marsden ample opportunity to listen to the convivial sound filtering through from the gallery. Finally somebody answered, and he said, “Hello. Oh yes Mrs. Armitage. This is Neil Marsden. Is Ralph there?”
Automatically Marsden assumed a light engaging tone although he knew perfectly well that Ralph did not like him. As a matter of fact he did not like him either, a prosperous middle aged insurance broker. But Armitage was an old Dartmouth grad and another member of the Committee. At the moment he represented a pair of shoulders to share with the problems Marsden saw as shaping up.
“Ralph? Good. Have you heard that Patterson is missing? Nobody has seen him since our meeting yesterday.”
In a comfortable ranch house in East Orange, New Jersey, Armitage settled at the desk in his study and gazed at framed diplomas, certificates, and trophies decorating the wall above. The voice on the phone was excited enough to be unpleasantly febrile. Marsden was quite correct. Armitage did not like him at all.
“So?” he said gruffly. “So he’s gone out on the town.”
“That’s not it at all,” Marsden said impatiently. “Everybody’s being discreet. Sally called me today and didn’t really breathe a word about it. But Elliot has dropped out of sight. He didn’t go home and he didn’t turn up at work. They have no idea where he is.”
“Didn’t get to work.” It was a commentary on the American businessman that Armitage was more impressed by Patterson’s failure to arrive at his office than by truancy from home.
“Exactly.”
There was a long silence before Armitage whistled appreciatively. “Skipped, eh? Have they called the police yet?”
“My God I hope not. Think of the scandal,” Marsden said passionately. “Sally wouldn’t like to start that would she?” Unspoken was the fact that Marsden wouldn’t like it either. It is one thing to use clubs and committees as part of a calculated assault on cultural and social fortresses; it is quite another to be associated with missing men and police inquiries.
Armitage was weight it. “They’re going to have to do it, sooner or later. And Sally isn’t the only one involved.”
“They must be hopin
g it’s an accident,” Marsden said doubtfully. “Although that doesn’t seem possible with all the identification he carried. I suppose you are right. George Lancer was telling me that Uhlein’s putting out feelers.”
Even in the midst of his preoccupation, pride at the source of his information was discernible. The next time he referred to Lancer it would be George.
“I’ll bet Gabe is putting out feelers,” Armitage said heartily. “You remember all those independent accounts Elliot got last spring? He could have made off with millions.”
“No!” This was not what occurred to Marsden when he thought in terms of scandal.
“And you can kiss goodbye to the idea of an accident,” Ralph continued. “He was going straight home, wasn’t he? Nothing happened to him between Fifth Avenue and Rye that wouldn’t come to the surface in 24 hours. Particularly with Elliot of all people.”
Neil Marsden was appalled. “I’m surprised to hear you say that Ralph. To accuse Elliot of stealing. Why it’s absurd. For heaven’s sake, he’s oppressively virtuous.”
Armitage acknowledged the moral disadvantage. “No, no,” he said hastily. “I’m not accusing Elliot of anything. I’m just saying that people may suspect it …”
Marsden projected superiority until Armitage, goaded, was driven to ask, “Well, what the heck are you up in the air about, if you think it is vulgar to worry about a couple of million dollars?”
The question was rhetorical but he got an answer. He was still thinking about it when the conversation ended.
“Business?” his wife inquired placidly when he rejoined her in the living room. It was an all-purpose word to her, embracing the arcane activities that account for the many good things in the Armitage life.
“Mm,” said Ralph still deep in thought. “What was that Joan? No, not business. It’s the Dartmouth Committee. Elliot Patterson seems to have disappeared. That was Marsden, calling up all in a twitter.
