by Emma Lathen
“No, no, I’ll be all right. When is that ambulance coming?”
Henry Addison shook the drops from his hat. “I suppose it could have been an accident,” he said doubtfully. “They happen all the time.”
“Sure.” Cohen agreed in carefully neutral tones. “And this is just the kind of night when they happen. No visibility, bad surface for braking, millions of people spilling off the sidewalks.”
“Well,” said Addison heavily, “the least we can do is identify him, and find out what hospital they take him to.”
There was a moment of silence in which a distant siren began to make itself heard. Cohen chose his words with care. “Yes, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to do that. And I suppose, just for the record of course, the connection ought to be made.”
Addison nodded. Cohen obviously shared his views on the credibility of the accident. Unbidden, the vision of the lobby of the Southern Bourbon Building rose before his mind. Rutledge, Hammond, Richter, Mason and if Stanley Draper had been right Blaney as well. All of them at the critical time no more than two crosstown blocks from the scene. Any one of them could have been right behind their little threesome. This was just the kind of night for that to happen as well as bona fide traffic mishaps.
Who would notice who stalked cautiously behind in this kind of weather? All three of them had been hunched forward, with hats pulled low, and the wind whistling in their ears. Every pedestrian was a little island unto himself with all the senses that normally connected him with the outside world muffled and distorted by the assault on sight and sound.
An involuntary shiver ran down Addison’s back. It was not a pleasant thought, this picture of them plodding along dutifully listening to a recital of ordinary commuter woes while behind them prowled an anonymous figure, lost in the city’s crowd, patiently prepared to follow them for blocks in the certainty that sooner or later, what had actually happened would occur. That Stanley would be cut out from the fold, just like a straggling sheep, and left as a target for attack.
“What’s that?” Addison had missed what Cohen had been saying.
“I said I think we’d better wait until the ambulance has gone and he’s writing up names and addresses in his notebook.”
“Yes, yes, of course . . . you know, if what we’re thinking is true, Stanley must have known something.”
Cohen, with native caution, was inclined to temporize. “We’re not thinking anything. We just want the relevant facts in the record.”
“All right, all right,” said Addison impatiently, feeling they had already made enough concessions to the civil servant’s reluctance to commit himself. “But I could have sworn there wasn’t anything. Stanley practically turned himself inside out cooperating.”
“It wouldn’t have to be much. And he wouldn’t have to realize it was important. To him it could be something too insignificant to repeat. But to the man who strangled Fortinbras, it could mean the electric chair.”
Yes, of course, they were dealing with a man who had already killed once. If Fortinbras had been right, and neither Cohen nor Addison was inclined to dispute this supposition for a second, then they were faced with a man vulnerable on two fronts. Fraud and murder—both open to detection. No, by now he was not likely to be a man prepared to allow the continued existence of any threat to his safety, no matter how small, no matter how improbable the threat.
The ambulance men had worked swiftly. As they lifted the stretcher through the back doors, the crowd began to melt away, and Addison could hear the intern say a few words to the policeman.
“Oh, he’s got a chance. But not a very good one. They’ll operate as soon as he gets to the hospital. We’ve radioed them. But you’d better get in touch with his relatives right away. And find out if he’s Catholic.”
The ambulance driver beckoned. The intern swung himself inside, and they started to drive away. They were using the siren.
Cohen was already edging his way forward. A touch on the arm, a flourish of the identification card in his wallet, and the traffic officer was bending over to listen to him.
“Yes, the murder case at the Southern Bourbon Building. Have a copy of your report sent to Lieutenant Francis Cortell, Homicide. That’s right. He’ll want it as soon as possible.”
Cohen turned back to Addison. “That’s about it for now. At least Cortell will know about it. He won’t bother you tonight. But better be prepared to spend an hour or so with him tomorrow. He’ll want to hear your story.” Cohen paused unhappily and decided he was being too alarmist. “Just for the record, you know.”
Addison nodded impassively. “Certainly. Any time Lieutenant Cortell wants me. I’ll be at the Sloan or at National Calculating.”
“That’s fine.”
“Will you have any news about Stanley? I’d like to find out.”
“Call the hospital tomorrow morning. They’ve taken him to Bellevue.”
From his experience with hospitals, Addison took this to mean that the New York Police might regard information about Stanley Draper’s condition as classified. And if a murderer was going to be taking an interest, it was just as well.
Respecting Cohen’s retreat behind the wall of official reserve, Addison decided to forgo any further questions or speculations. The spot where they stood was rapidly returning to normal. The bus was loading its passengers. The traffic detail started to remove the barriers diverting cars into crosstown streets and over to Park Avenue. The beating rain had already erased from the street the pathetically insignificant stains marking the place where Stanley had fallen.
It was time to go home.
Addison indicated the sidewalk with a questioning glance, but Cohen, frowning abstractedly at the small crowd of die-hards under a shop window awning, shook his head.
“No, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll give the subway a miss. A taxi will be quicker.”
He gestured to a cabbie whose indignant fare had abandoned during the tie-up.
Addison stepped back but he could still overhear the instructions to the cabbie.
“Police Headquarters. Centre Street.”
So much for Cohen’s elaborate detachment. He had meant to speed to Lieutenant Cortell’s side all the time. As accountants they might stand on a peer like basis, shoulder to shoulder. But when a suspicion of foul play had arisen, Cohen felt the need to shed his civilian associates and retire into the bosom of his colleagues. Well, that was understandable, thought Addison resentfully as a splash from the curb made him dodge rapidly into a woman huddled under her umbrella.
Mechanically he apologized and continued his progress. 50 yards up the street he paused. He had not seen the woman clearly. She had not acknowledged his courtesy, but had merely drawn back protectively under her shelter. Why then was he haunted by an elusive familiarity? She had been just like any other woman on this night of faceless, depersonalized human beings. A woman in a plastic raincoat and hood, with a purse. No, not a purse. A briefcase. And the woman was Dr. Cobb of National Calculating.
Perhaps he had done Cohen an injustice. Perhaps the decision to go to Centre Street had been taken on the spur of the moment, as Cohen examined the crowd under the awning and recognized a figure he knew. A figure which, as Addison turned to survey the path by which he had come, had now disappeared. It was odd, very odd. And he had drawn for himself such a convincing portrait of their unknown pursuer. Could he have been wrong in the only characteristic he had assigned to that formless adversary?
It was disturbing and somehow ominous. He found himself quickening his steps toward the bustling subway station. Not the least disturbing element was the thought of his coming interview with John Putnam Thatcher. His audit had assumed a dimension unlikely to recommend itself to the senior vice president of the Sloan.
Chapter 14
Of Trumpets and Ordnance
But Henry Addison did not plunge into the subway. After a brief debate with himself, he went instead to a nearby public telephone and dialed the Sloan. He was lucky
enough to catch John Thatcher just as he returned to his office to pick up some papers. Addison was a perfectly self-confident man, but he did not relish the prospect of disturbing Thatcher in the privacy of his home. Particularly with this kind of news.
Thatcher listened to his bald account of the accident to Stanley Draper, then fell into a silence so extended that Addison, uncomfortably damp in the telephone box, wondered if they had been disconnected.
“What? Oh, sorry, Addison. No, I’m here. Well, there’s nothing we can do tonight. Will you stop at the bank tomorrow morning to give me a fuller rundown? Before you go over to National? I’ll be here early.”
He was. And looking very somber as he listened to Henry Addison’s extended description of the accident.
“Is the boy still alive this morning?” he asked.
“Just barely,” Addison replied. “Cohen called me before I left the house. Stanley’s in pretty bad shape.”
Thatcher frowned. “Do you know if the police have been able to question him?”
Stanley Draper had been unconscious since the accident. His young and frightened wife was at his bedside, with his distraught parents. But Stanley could speak to none of them. It was by no means certain that Stanley would ever speak again.
“Damn them,” said Thatcher obscurely. “Did you say that the police have posted a guard?”
Addison nodded.
“That means they think it was a murder attempt,” Thatcher said more to himself than to Addison. He looked up. “And you do too.”
Addison preferred statements of fact to statements of opinion. He replied that the police were making a careful check of the evening rush-hour traffic out of National Calculating.
Thatcher heard him out, then said, “Well, for God’s sake, be careful!” He sounded irascible.
Addison smiled slightly. “We’re getting a police guard too,” he said. “Working with Cohen is an education in many ways.”
After he left, Thatcher twirled his chair around to stare absently out of his window.
Five minutes later, Miss Corsa appeared, dictation book in hand, interrupting a train of thought that had given him no pleasure at all.
He turned to look soberly at her.
“Somebody has tried to kill young Stanley Draper,” he said.
Miss Corsa, an extremely unemotional young woman, registered nothing more than polite interest.
“Draper,” Thatcher continued emphatically, “Draper was the accountant at National Calculating that I wanted to talk to today. No, let me correct that. I did not want to talk to him, but I felt that I should discuss these missing expense accounts with him. And now he has been run over. It could have been a traffic accident, Miss Corsa, but you and I know better, don’t we? We know that Clarence Fortinbras was strangled with an electric cord on the premises of that miserable outfit, and when one of his associates is run down, we know what that means, don’t we?” He glowered at her.
“I don’t,” she replied composedly. Miss Corsa had long since abandoned any attempt to enter into the spirit of the thing with Mr. Thatcher.
“It means,” he snapped, “that I have had more than enough of National Calculating. Let the police take over! We’ve tried to save that idiot Mason, and that idiot Claster, as well, by the way, send a memo to the Investment Division congratulating him on National’s growth potential, but two murders can’t be hushed up—” He broke off and considered his own words. If Stanley Draper did not survive, a murderer would have struck twice at National Calculating. Miss Corsa, unmoved, waited. “Two murders and it becomes academic to try saving the market in National Calculating. Do I make myself clear?”
“I don’t . . .”
“Good! Now, Miss Corsa, this means that as of this moment, I am washing my hands—and figuratively, I am washing the Sloan’s hands—of the whole imbroglio. Do you understand?”
“Certainly . . .”
“Your role in this, Miss Corsa, is to aid and abet me. No telephone calls from anyone even remotely connected with the whole affair. That means Mr. Mason. That means Mr. Addison. That means Mr. Claster. That means Mr. Robichaux . . . .”
Miss Corsa stood up. “Certainly, Mr. Thatcher,” she said, a shade of reproof in her voice “Do you want to dictate now?”
“Not at the moment,” he said ferociously.
She left him to stew in the juice of his own rancor.
Despite his pronouncements, John Thatcher devoted the next half hour to a hardheaded analysis of possible means of salvaging something from the catastrophe at National Calculating. He finally concluded that although he would be asked to do more, there was nothing more he could profitably do.
Left in a very bad mood, he decided to utilize his splenetic energy. “Miss Corsa,” he barked over the intercom, “send Charlie Trinkam in here.”
And to that worldling’s pained surprise, the head of the Trust Department gave him a very hard hour over some recent developments in the Sloan’s utilities holdings.
In fact, Thatcher recorded an impressive volume of achievement during the day, working at a steady pace that not only cleared the desk of the accumulation that had mounted during his forays on behalf of National Calculating, but reduced several subordinates to their knees.
“If he’s in his office,” Everett Gabler said fussily, “I think I’ll drop in and talk to him about Inimicon. I don’t like it.” . . .”
“Just to show you that I’m a good sort,” Charlie Trinkam said as he sucked a healing lungful of smoke, “I’ll give you a word of advice: don’t.”
At three o’clock, Miss Corsa, looking harried, appeared in the office.
“It’s Mr. Robichaux,” she explained. “He’s insisting . . .”
Beneath Thatcher’s steely regard, her voice faltered.
“No, Miss Corsa,” he said gently.
Thatcher worked uninterruptedly until five-thirty, then decided to abandon the burdens of high place for a restful evening at home, when Miss Corsa struck back.
“You won’t forget the Animal Rescue League?” she said, preparing to leave despite unfinished letters on her desk, a sure sign of her disapproval.
He scowled at her.
“Mrs. Carlson called this afternoon to tell me to be sure to remind you to come to the dinner and ball for the Animal Rescue League,” Miss Corsa said. Then, playing her trump card, “It’s at the Biltmore, Mrs. Carlson said. White tie. Good night, Mr. Thatcher.”
Poleaxed, John Thatcher sank back in his chair as Vengeance put on her coat and left the office. He examined the fearful implications of Miss Corsa’s message; dimly, he recalled a promise extracted by his daughter Laura to support this deserving cause. Ominous details began to drift to the surface of his memory.
“It isn’t the money,” Laura had said, pocketing his substantial check. “But I want you to promise to come to the ball. We want to have a big turnout.”
“I’ll come,” he had recklessly promised.
He stretched a hand to the phone, then let it fall. There was nothing to be gained from calling Laura and expecting to be excused; she had inherited her mother’s high sense of service, and some of her ability to impress it on those less high-minded than herself.
Dinner and Grand Ball for the Animal Rescue League it must be.
Thus, at ten-thirty that evening, John Putnam Thatcher smiled dutifully at his daughter and, obeying the message in her eyes, led Mrs. August Bertolling through a waltz.
“Why don’t you go home?” that redoubtable old lady said as they twirled competently around the floor. “You look tired, John.”
“I’m enjoying this dance, enormously . . .”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” she said imperiously. “You never did like dancing, I recall. Not even when you were young and lively, and I was pretty. Why should you like it now?”
“I admit that tennis is my normal exercise, Sarah, but Laura said . . .”
“You men! Letting that chit of a girl run your life. Be a man. Go home and go to
bed!”
Thatcher took her at her word. After restoring the dowager to her party, he assured himself that Laura was involved on the other side of the floor, then took his farewell of the other hostesses, exchanged a long-suffering look with Dr. Ben Carlson, who lounged unhappily in a gilt chair unequal to his height, and left the Grand Ballroom.
He did not make the novice’s mistake of slinking out furtively. On the contrary, he held his head at a confident angle, and advanced to the hallway, every inch the important man of affairs. Waiters scurrying about could see at a glance that John Putnam Thatcher was a somebody.
He nearly made it.
“Daddy!”
Laura came flowing out after him, very grand in a gauzy green ball gown. “You’re not going?”
“Well, Laura, I thought I would run along. . . .”
She frowned at him, and prepared to remonstrate, when, as her mother had before her, she smiled instead, a twinkle in her eyes. Roguishly, she cocked her head. “All right,” she said, suddenly, “you can go. And . . . thank you for coming! I was very proud of you. You were the best-looking man in the room!” She stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his chin, then swept away to the ballroom.
John Thatcher was still smiling as he stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. Man is born to be putty in the hands of woman, and he had been putty in some very pretty hands. Not all of them daughters, either.
He started to put on his coat, when he found himself swept by a party of college students into the path of two men who were just entering the foyer.
“Sorry . . . why John Thatcher!”
Jay Rutledge, looking weary around the eyes, greeted him. He glanced at Thatcher’s sartorial grandeur, and to Thatcher’s admiration said nothing. Not the least of the evils of formal attire is the whimsy it elicits. Rutledge, however, showed no desire for banter. “Have you met General Cartwright? General, this is Mr. Thatcher, vice president of the Sloan Guaranty Trust . . .”
Thatcher found himself shaking hands with Miss Corsa’s handsome young man. On close inspection, he did not have the preternatural youthfulness of his photographs. His face was decently lined, and he looked like a suitably mature forty-seven-year-old. It was the accident of bone structure, together with the shock of corn yellow hair, that made General Cartwright a photographer’s delight. Noting his quiet manner and contained look, Thatcher reflected that a kinder fate would have made him fat and bald.
