Accounting for Murder

by Emma Lathen

  “It doesn’t seem to be a particularly fruitful meeting,” said Thatcher cautiously.

  Lee shrugged fastidiously. “What can you expect when vulgarity and stupidity meet head on?” He brooded for a moment. “Mason is a fool!”

  “Anything special he’s done?” inquired Thatcher, showing no inclination to dispute Lee’s reading of Mason.

  “Regina has written twice for an appointment since Clarence’s death. Both times she’s received a reply from him saying he was too busy at the moment, but he looked forward to seeing her in the future. You can imagine her reaction to that.”

  “Yes,” agreed Thatcher, “I can.” Would nothing teach Mason? Apparently not.

  Suddenly their withdrawn little group became the storm center of a new aspect of the controversy.

  “Robichaux!” proclaimed Mrs. Plout in tones of scornful loathing. “We know all about him.”

  “Eh? What’s that?” said Tom, startled into an unwise search for enlightenment. He drew the full fury of Mrs. Plout’s attention.

  “You’re Mason’s tame underwriter. An independent audit! Not very likely.”

  “Now see here,” protested Robichaux indignantly. He received assistance from an unexpected quarter. Jay Rutledge’s deep voice boomed across the room.

  “Mrs. Plout, there is no question as to the independence of Robichaux and Devane. Furthermore, the New York City Police Department is participating in this audit. Are you suggesting that—”

  The enormity of Regina Plout’s suggestion was not elaborated. Mary Sullivan, with her usual instinct for diverting whatever furies threatened her superior, had opened the door and was quietly waiting for an opportunity to speak.

  “Mr. Thatcher,” she said when she had succeeded in capturing the attention of the gathering. “I’ve located Mr. Draper. He’s in conference with the assistant controller, but he can postpone that if you wish to see him now.”

  “What’s this?” Mason looked at her ungratefully. He addressed himself to Thatcher and Robichaux. “You can’t leave now. Anyway, I want to see you after this is over. That is, after Mrs. Plout has finished.” He eyed Mrs. Plout resentfully, but not unhopefully. She might take the hint.

  She did not. But Thatcher did.

  “Yes, we’ll stay,” replied Thatcher with the calm air of command that comes naturally to the unthreatened bystander. He might yet have a chance for a quiet word with Edward Lee, who was known to him from a course of amiable dealings with the financial needs of the Chinese Merchants Association. Lee was a sensible man of wide experience. Fortinbras might well have confided to him suspicions which would have been shrouded in silence before the hysterical Plout and the youthful Draper.

  “Anybody can stay,” invited Regina Plout nastily, “but it isn’t going to stop me getting my rights. We have a court order to examine, and we intend to examine.”

  “I think perhaps you’re stating our position too narrowly,” Lee intervened. He had hoped to remain silent, but common decency compelled him to exercise whatever braking power he could on Mrs. Plout’s redoubtable attacking potential. “We intend to see that an independent audit is pursued. If we are assured that an independent audit is being conducted by Robichaux and Devane and the Sloan Guaranty and, for that matter—” he inclined his head graciously toward Rutledge—“by the New York City Police Department, we will be quite content.” He concluded this masterful paraphrase of a position diametrically opposed to that enunciated by Regina Plout with a quelling stare in her direction.

  She was noticeably unmoved by this sudden display of Oriental ferocity. Neither the institution of Robichaux and Devane nor that of the New York City Police had succeeded in impressing her with its probity. But Lee’s statement had still achieved its purpose.

  “The Sloan—you mean the bank?” she demanded.

  Upon being assured that this was the institution in question, she was unaccountably mollified.

  “They did very well with the trust Samuel left,” she recalled approvingly. Then her face darkened. “I’ll bet there isn’t much funny business here they won’t bring to light.”

  Blaney was imprudent enough to protest.

  “Well,” she retorted with offensive reasonableness. “Why did you kill Clarence if there isn’t any funny business?”

  “I did not kill Clarence!” howled Blaney, driven into unintentional intimacy with the deceased.

  “I meant all of you.” Mrs. Plout encompassed the entire gathering with a comprehensive sweep of the arm.

  “Excuse me,” barked Mary Sullivan briskly from the doorway. “It’s your secretary, Mr. Blaney. You have a call from a Mr. Jarvey.”

  “Have it transferred in here, Mary,” directed Mason from behind the desk, to which position he had retreated from Mrs. Plout’s prodding forefinger.

  “No!” shouted Blaney as Miss Sullivan retired from the room. She looked at him in astonishment. Her expression made it plain that she was not accustomed to raised voices no matter how strained the emotions of her superiors. Blaney composed himself. “I’m sorry. But would you ask her to tell Mr. Jarvey I’m in conference, and I’ll call back?”

  Mrs. Plout cackled triumphantly. “Ah-ha! Don’t dare talk in front of us, that’s what’s wrong with you. And I don’t blame you. Who knows what would come out?” she concluded darkly.

  “Why, you interfering—” Blaney bit down sharply on the expression which sprang to his unguarded lips.

  “Now, I know which one you are. You’re one of the two who has plants in New Jersey. And you,” she said rounding on Rutledge, “are the other one! Clarence Fortinbras told us all about it. You’re both at the bottom of everything!”

  “No, no. Not that one,” moaned Lee in an agony of mortification. Sheer bad breeding he had braced himself to endure, but blatant stupidity was too much. “He’s the one who makes profits.”

  “I don’t care. You can’t tell me that they can have two plants turning out the same thing, and make money in one and lose it in the other without something being fishy. Anyway I don’t like his shifty eyes.”

  “Well,” said Rutledge with imperturbable good manners, “then I’ll take my shifty eyes back to work, and make some use of my time. That is, if you have no objection, ma’am.” The manners might be imperturbable, but not the man. Nothing finds a courtly Southerner so defenseless as a shrew. There was a perceptible rasp in me steady low drawl.

  “There now,” said Regina, viewing his retreat with satisfaction, “Not a word to say for himself.”

  “On the contrary,” said Allen Hammond in tones of cold rebuke, “he doesn’t have to say anything for himself. Nor, I might add, do the rest of us. You have been assured of the continuation of the audit commenced by Mr. Fortinbras. In place of these vague insinuations, are there any other demands you or Mr. Lee care to make on us?”

  “Why is he trying to drag me into this?” muttered Edward Lee resentfully.

  Absently Thatcher made soothing noises. Hammond’s manner was not calculated to inspire affection. Even Mason was bending a suspicious glance toward his nephew. This was very much the tone of the “head of the firm.” Some slight concession to his uncle’s presence would not only have been tactful, it would have been in character. It needed only the thoughtful look on Richter’s face to confirm Thatcher’s feeling that Hammond had just crossed a Rubicon of some sort. Two-thirds of the triumvirate had lined up. One more and the coalition was made.

  Mrs. Plout also was not disposed to admire the new look at National.

  “What do we demand? We demand that the killer of Clarence Fortinbras be handed over to the police. We demand that the rest of you get out—incompetents at best, that’s what Clarence said,” she screeched. “We demand to know who’s been lining his pockets.”

  Into the hush of anticipation that followed this alarming catalog of demands came a breath of fresh air. The door had opened unnoticed during Mrs. Plout’s tirade. Now Barney Young stood on the threshold, surveying the group with an air or
confident delight. He advanced to the center of the room to share the stage with Regina. “Look, folks,” he caroled, “I wanted you to be first to see. I’ve got some pictures of the baby.” Heedless of the hiss of indrawn breaths, he shoved some snapshots into Mrs. Plout’s outflung hand. “Polaroid shots,” he confided. “Took them myself.”

  From Richter’s corner came the sound of an imperfectly controlled and perfectly audible high, male giggle.

  Mason turned purple.

  Blaney turned white.

  Richter exploded into helpless laughter, and Allen Hammond walked over to a speechless John Thatcher and began to explain the unhappy circumstances into which Barney Young seemed destined to intrude paternal pride.

  Chapter 13

  Exit Stanley

  The front offices of National Calculating might dissipate its energies coping with belligerent stockholders wilting executives and ruffled employees with Barney Young being hurt, very hurt, but down on the fifteenth floor when five o’clock came, three men were able to pack up for the night in conscious rectitude of having accomplished a solid day’s work. They entered final totals, ripped tapes out of adding machines and attached them to relevant schedules, and returned files to cabinets which boasted padlocked iron bars as well as combination locks. Someone might still attempt to disrupt the Great Audit by stealing papers, but this time he would have to do it with a blowtorch.

  “I’ve got the list of things you want tomorrow morning,” said Stanley Draper as his two companions surveyed the bare, orderly room with satisfaction.

  “Good.” Henry Addison grunted as the zipper on his briefcase balked at a corner.

  “Mr. Fortinbras used soap on his. He said it stopped the sticking for a couple of weeks.” Stanley hovered tentatively in the doorway.

  Snapping the catches on his attaché case, Fred Cohen agreed. “A lot of people say it helps.”

  Still, Stanley did not leave. No one had any doubt as to what was bothering him. Everybody at National Calculating knew that the accountants had found something, which memoranda had gone forth, that Mr. Mason had been in communication with Messrs. Thatcher and Robichaux, that these two gentlemen had descended in person. There were rumors of nighttime meetings with Dr. Richter and sensational exposés in the offing. And Stanley had been told nothing.

  He felt it keenly.

  The two older men had therefore been exceedingly kind all day. Stanley’s lightest remark had been received with deep attention. Eager questions followed every reminiscence about Fortinbras. No one interrupted. Orders took the form of mild requests and timid attempts by Stanley to fish for information had been smoothly evaded instead of sternly squelched.

  Now Fred Cohen paid the day’s final tribute to Stanley’s sensitivities.

  “If you wait a minute, Stanley, we can all go down to the street together.”

  The crowd in the hallway milling around the bank of elevators effectively put an end to any further displays of curiosity, and inside the elevator put an end to any conversation whatsoever. Everyone was fully occupied clutching hats, briefcases, umbrellas, raincoats, rubbers, and all the other paraphernalia of working New York on a rainy autumn evening.

  Once emerged into the lobby, the homeward-bound group could see that the afternoon’s steady downpour had been augmented by winds of hurricane proportions. The great double-storied glass frontage of the Southern Bourbon Building mirrored the tidal wave of humanity streaming toward subways and bus stops. Men with upturned collars were hunched against the wind, gripping their hat brims with ferocious determination. Women fought with both hands against the pull of their umbrellas. Sheets of spray were sent up from the street with every passing vehicle, and from nowhere sodden folds of newspaper swirled aloft until they smacked down into the gutters.

  Henry Addison took one look, and grounded his belongings in order to strap himself together against the onslaught of the elements. His two companions waited for him, patiently stepping aside to allow the passage of a contingent from the sixteenth floor.

  Jay Rutledge, looking very tired, settled his hat more firmly, nodded good night, and passed through the revolving doors. Morris Richter and Allen Hammond had a final exchange at the end of which Hammond snapped something inaudible and shouldered his way to the exit. Richter’s affronted gaze followed his retreat for a moment, then the sight of Chip Mason being debouched in lordly isolation spurred the scientist into hasty movement. The president of National Calculating disentangled himself from a gaggle of typists, punctiliously paused to acknowledge the presence of alien forces on his territory. Stanley was scrupulously included in his wishes that the accountants should enjoy a well-earned evening of rest.

  “Very polite,” murmured Cohen suspiciously as Addison indicated that he was ready for the plunge outdoors.

  Stanley protested that Mr. Mason was always polite.

  “Fortinbras.” Cohen reminded him.

  Well, yes, Stanley had to admit that occasionally Mr. Mason had been a little short with Mr. Fortinbras.

  “It’s because we’re institutional,” explained Addison. “That makes us acceptable.”

  Cohen nodded. Both men were used to situations in which their persons represented not Henry Addison, aged 42, and Fred Cohen, aged 54, but the Sloan and the New York City Police Department. Under these circumstances they received a good deal of unlooked-for civility.

  But Stanley, who alas represented nothing, thought maybe Mr. Mason had been setting one of those good examples for which he was justly famous. Perhaps they hadn’t noticed Mr. Blaney barging out without a word to anyone?

  As they turned east to walk to Lexington Avenue the wind, howling dementedly over their heads in the narrow canyon, lost some of the force it displayed on its southward sweep down the avenues, and the two older men had the opportunity for a polite pretense of interest in Stanley’s troubles commuting to Yonkers. He was bound for a bus to take him to Grand Central where the real effort of the evening would begin. Thankfully they announced that the subway was their destination and the only conveyance involved in their trip home. For some reason Stanley seemed to associate their freedom from rail transport with their status in the accounting profession.

  It was with a good deal of relief that his two companions deposited Stanley at his bus stop and themselves turned north for a two-block walk to the subway station.

  “There’s no denying that he’s a nice boy,” said Cohen, sadly examining his sodden trouser cuffs as they waited for the light to change. “But he can be tiring.”

  Addison peered into the darkening gloom lit by the reflection of headlights from the wetly gleaming asphalt. “Here we go,” he announced as the last crosstown racer sped through. “Yes, he’s difficult. Partly it’s his isolation, I expect. If he had a coffee klatch to gossip with, he wouldn’t bother us so . . .”

  A scream of tires braked into a sharp skid interrupted him. From the bus crowd half a block back came a shrill woman’s scream. Suddenly the normal cacophony of five-thirty noises was pierced and overridden by the blasting of police whistles. Hundreds of excited human voices swelled into incoherent commentary. Traffic came to a grinding halt, and the center of disturbance swelled as if by magic with the instantaneous accretion of scurrying spectators.

  The two men who had instinctively swung around suddenly broke into a run.

  “Pardon me, madam . . .”

  “If you’ll just let me through . . .”

  “Sorry . . .”

  Their movements became brusker and their apologies terser as they elbowed their way to the front lines. Here a complicated knot of people screened from their sight the figure on the ground.

  A small man, heedless of the rain streaming down his bare head, had both hands pressed to his face.

  “My God, I was swinging around the bus. I didn’t see him. I braked as soon as I could.”

  “That’s right.” The bus driver had emerged from his vehicle and now entered the conversation. “I saw the whole thing. It was a
green light, and he wasn’t speeding. Suddenly this guy came shooting out of the mob in front of the bus and right into the road.”

  The driver moaned gently. “Is he dead? How bad is he hurt? Christ, I’ll never drive a car again.”

  The busman placed a sustaining hand on his shoulder. “Look, it wasn’t your fault. You can’t help it if some fool goes charging out on a green light . . .”

  “I’ll want statements from both of you.” The policeman who had been kneeling by the still figure and obscuring it from view rose to his feet “He’s not dead, but he doesn’t look good to me. The ambulance’ll be here in a minute. So will the traffic detail. Jesus, it would happen in rush hour.” He looked up the length of Lexington Avenue which was now black with a solid mass of backed-up traffic stretching as far as could be seen. From several blocks away came the insistent blaring of horns from motorists unaware of the reason for the tie-up.

  Henry Addison gave a series of hopping little jumps to see over the shoulder of the tall sailor standing directly in his path. The victim was a thin man in a raincoat. But he couldn’t be sure . . . everybody was wearing a raincoat today. Fred Cohen, the taller by several inches, put his doubts to rest.

  “It’s Stanley,” he said grimly.

  They looked at each other in silence. Dimly they heard the participants around the prone figure.

  “Look,” the policeman was saying in kindlier tones as a blinking red light down the middle of the street indicated the arrival of reinforcements, “traffic accidents just happen. You don’t want to go all to pieces if it wasn’t your fault. I’ve got three witnesses that say you couldn’t have done a thing to prevent it. One minute you had a clear road and the next minute he was right smack in front of you.”

  “If you ask me, he’d been drinking,” said a stout, befurred woman. “He just staggered out. And, Officer, I think this man needs treatment for shock. You don’t have heart trouble or anything?” she asked anxiously.