Sweet and Low_An Emma Lathen Best Seller
Page 20
“I had one great advantage over Shaw,” Thatcher pointed out. “In order to see the pattern, you needed two murders. The cocoa market was going the same way on each occasion.”
“The boys were waiting for Shaw to come in and buy,” Gilligan agreed. “Of course, it was more dramatic the second time. Everybody was hoping for split-second news about Shaw’s timing.”
“And who necessarily had it—on each occasion?”
“Russ Martini.” Gilligan sounded like a judge passing sentence.
“But there was another piece to the pattern. We had ample evidence that Dick Frohlich emerged from Russ Martini’s office and shortly thereafter had a fight with Gene Orcutt. In Orcutt’s words, he was ready to go off like a rocket. Then we heard that Shaw, immediately before his death, had a fight with Howard Vandevanter. I found myself wondering where he had just come from. And the picture in the possession of the police told me.”
Gilligan had a vivid recollection of the incarceration of Dreyer’s president. “But I thought the important thing about that picture was that it showed the two of them scrapping just before the murder.”
“That was Phibbs’ interpretation. He himself is not a very perceptive observer, but his camera is faultless. The picture did not show Vandevanter’s face at all. What it did show was Amory Shaw in a towering rage, emerging from Martini’s office. In other words, both murder victims had received bad news somehow connected with Martini shortly before they were killed. Actually, Shaw had discovered Martini’s double-dealing on the floor. As soon as he could, he went in search of Martini to have it out with him. He did not find Martini in his office. Unfortunately he did find him a few minutes later, in an empty corridor.”
“A tough break,” said Mercado with ready sympathy. “If he’d cornered him in front of a lot of witnesses, there would have been a different ending for both of them.”
Leo Gilligan was not prepared to let the conversation become melancholy. “When you consider that Phibbs put the finger on Vandevanter, and Yeoman compounded the job by trying to pretend the front office squabble was still going on, you have to hand it to Howard.”
His tone was ironic enough to make Thatcher suspicious. “How is that?”
“Haven’t you heard?” asked Gilligan, all innocence. “Seems that Phibbs wanted some cooperation for a documentary he’s doing. And Vandevanter gave him Yeoman.”
It was Thatcher’s turn to be nonplussed. “Do you mean to say that Yeoman agreed?”
“Vandevanter fed him a line about cultural activity for educational TV, but it was Phibbs who sold him.”
“How?” asked Thatcher and Mercado in unison, unwilling to believe that Phibbs could sell candles in a power blackout.
“He said he had to have Yeoman’s eyebrows.” Gilligan twinkled benignly at his incredulous audience. “I think Curtis just couldn’t resist.”