by Emma Lathen
Dick Noyes jumped in too quickly. “Then that let us off the hook.”
“It did a good deal more,” Thatcher told him. “It left me speculating what that reassurance could have been. But the penny didn’t drop until we went to Saranac. We were wondering if a bank employee there could have been the conduit of information to the killer.”
Tilly’s eyes were sparkling with appreciation. “I bet I know what that reassurance was,” she announced. “Yves and Roger both thought the fake check would come into the Sloan.”
“Precisely.” Thatcher beamed at her ready comprehension. “Almost all foreign currency in the Lake Placid area was ending up at the Sloan branches. Hathaway wasn’t seriously worried by Bisson’s mistake. He intended to stop that check before it caused trouble. Then, when he got the call from Saranac, he panicked, deciding to kill Bisson, and go through with his substitution that very night.”
By the time that Gunther puzzled his way through this explanation, he was feeling disgruntled. “And that was enough? To cross everybody else off and settle on Hathaway?”
“Almost everybody else was already crossed off. You and the Antonellis had had other fish to fry. Vaux and Miss Maas were explained. Tilly was doing her level best to stay in the Olympics.” Thatcher ticked off the names one by one. “I don’t say it was enough to arrest the man. But when we learned that he was already doing night work at the Sloan when Pomeroy called him the second time, when we remembered that his quarters at the Andiron Inn were isolated enough to allow him to run in for skis without being observed, then the fact that he had gone missing, just when Tilly was about to race, rang a loud clear warning. All we could do was pray that we’d get to Whiteface in time.”
“But you did. And then you got Dick,” Tilly chanted happily, “and Dick got Roger.”
“What’s more, I take back what I said about your skiing, Dick,” said Gunther Euler in handsome apology. “You didn’t look bad chasing Hathaway.”
“Isn’t everything grand!”
Thatcher hoped that Tilly was not going to press her desire for happy endings any further. He could reassure her about Coach Vaux. That wily opportunist was getting off with a suspended sentence, and Katarina Maas would ride on his coattails. But what rosy sunset could be produced for Roger Hathaway?
Fortunately new arrivals claimed their attention. “Tilly, we’ve been looking all over for you. We want to congratulate you.”
“Thank you, Bernard.” Tilly was a girl who remembered her manners. “And Egon, you got a bronze in the 50-kilometer. Isn’t our team doing well today!”
Bernard Heise looked at her piercingly. “They say you’re not going back with us, you’re going to stay with Dick’s family. Does that mean I should congratulate him, too?”
Tilly blushed. “We’re not sure yet. Dick still has a year of school, but we don’t want to wait.” She turned to Thatcher. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Mr. Thatcher. Do you think there’s a bank in Colorado where I could get a job?”
Thatcher, mentally reviewing a list of the Sloan’s correspondents, said that it seemed to him quite possible. But before Tilly could demand the list, as he was convinced she would, there was a brave flourish from the band. The last medals had been awarded, the last speeches were over, the last song had been sung. And now it was time for the final act of the Winter Games of 1980. In deference to the departing Olympic flame, the electric lights went out and then, one by one, the encircling torches were extinguished. The lake and its tiny community returned to the mountains in which they were cradled.
The ensuing hush did not last long enough.
From the velvety darkness issued a youthful pronouncement. “You must not work for a bank, Tilly. Let Hathaway be a lesson to you. Financial institutions like these contaminate everyone they touch. Something will have to be done about it.”
Everett Gabler sucked in his breath with a hiss as he visualized Bernard and Egon let loose on the Sloan. Thatcher decided to take more positive steps.
“You don’t know the half of it, Heise,” he said gravely. “You will find, when you continue your researches in Zurich, that the international gold and monetary markets need reformation as well.”
Switzerland had raised this young man. Let Switzerland cope with him.
