The Sandler Inquiry

by Noel Hynd

  "I don't know," he said.

  "And from my standpoint, it's not all that important."

  "Not to you, maybe. But there's something big that's still missing."

  "Granted."

  "He loved Elizabeth Chatsworth enough during the war to want to provide for her in the case of his death. Then suddenly after the war he's totally oblivious to her. British and American intelligence knew he was a spy and helped cover him up. Right?" Whiteside nodded absently.

  "Then this same man wants to come back and kill his wife and daughter nine years later." Thomas was shaking his head.

  "There are large pieces of this missing" he concluded.

  Whiteside managed a pained smile.

  "Larger than you imagine he said.

  "Particularly in view of this woman who has come to you in New York Thomas frowned.

  "Meaning what?"

  Whiteside rubbed his hands together gently, then flicked a small tip of ashes into an ashtray. He stood.

  "Come along," he said.

  "We're going for a ride. I want to show you something" Thomas stood and let Whiteside lead him to the door.

  "Should I bother to ask where we're going?" he asked.

  "This should be of interest to you," he said.

  "I'm taking you to see Leslie McAdam."

  The car was still at the curb in front of the stone townhouse. The tall, austere Whiteside stepped from the building first and immediately the driver slipped back into the car. The Rover began moving through congested London traffic. A few minutes later the windshield wipers were turned on and silently kept a fine rain from obstructing the driver's view.

  Twenty minutes later the Rover eased to a stop in a subdued neighborhood bordering Earl's Court and Kensington. Whiteside and Thomas stepped from the car. They were on a quiet street with little traffic, trees, clean sidewalks, and a small church.

  "The Chapel of St. Michael the Redeemer," said Whiteside.

  "Peaceful, I suppose, though I've never much cared for Presbyterians' "

  The driver remained with the car.

  "Come with me," said Whiteside to Thomas.

  They walked through a side door to the small, modest neighborhood church. The rector saw Whiteside and the two men exchanged nods. No word was spoken. Thomas reasoned that the church might have a small group of Anglo-Scottish parishioners. But he was only guessing.

  They walked through the chapel, up the aisle, and then past the altar.

  Whiteside led Thomas out another side door which led into an old churchyard with weather-worn tombstones, a few ornate but most of them modest. The headstones marked the resting places of humble working people from the neighborhood. There was a steady cold drizzle now.

  "I was always very fond of Leslie McAdam" Whiteside said in a moment of unconcealed candor.

  "A frightened little girl most of her life " He looked at Thomas as the rain fell on his angular face and dripped down to his beige Aquascutum raincoat. He wore no hat.

  Whiteside's hair was matted and soaked.

  "Man to man, old boy," he said,

  "I guess I saw in her the daughter I would always have liked to have had. Are you married?"

  "Divorced."

  "I see", he answered, as if suddenly enlightened. He added as an afterthought,

  "I was never of the temperament to marry." His smile was wry.

  "A bit of a public-school vice, you understand." He motioned to a modern tombstone in the newest section of the churchyard.

  "Here we are," he said.

  Thomas looked down and stood absolutely motionless as he read the inscription in gothic letters: LESLIE McADAm 1945-1974 He stared at the stone disbelievingly, then lifted his gaze back to the older man.

  Whiteside was studying his reaction, conscious that he'd just thrown his trump card. Several moments more passed before Thomas spoke.

  "What's this supposed to mean?" he asked.

  "It means that a man with counterfeit money also has a counterfeit daughter," said Whiteside. The rain continued to fall on his face. His expression was twisted in confusion also.

  "Albeit'" he added, 'as usual Arthur Sandler's counterfeit is, well, perfect."

  "Perfect?"

  "The story you told George McAdam in Switzerland. It damned well made poor old George's blood go cold. The story was perfect.

  Not a word out of place. Every detail. Things that only Leslie would have known. Your girl in New York. She knows them all. I'll be bloody well struck dumb before I can figure out how that's possible. ' Thomas looked down at the headstone again, at the wet grass growing around it and the long convex mound of earth upon the grave.

  "How do I know that there's anything really under there?" he asked.

  "You don't. But I do. And I'd have no reason to waste time lying to you. Would you like to see the coroner's report? I could arrange it for you. It's a fitting day for it."

  "Are you sure you buried the right girl?"

  "Yes" he said flatly.

  "May of 1974. The real Leslie McAdam is dead."

  Thomas squinted slightly from the rain.

  "Sandler?" he asked.

  "We think so. She was in London visiting and about to return to Canada. She was staying in a flat in Bloomsbury. Protected by the Foreign Office, yet. Found with her throat slashed one morning.

  Shall I go on?"

  "Only if you want to" said Thomas.

  "Well," huffed Whiteside, pulling his overcoat closer as the drizzle thickened, 'from our point of view there's an awful lot still at stake.

  There's the murder of this girl and a still-unsolved murder of her mother from 1954. Unfinished business you might call it, not of the highest priority but important nevertheless ' As Whiteside spoke, Thomas was silent. He pictured Leslie McAdam in New York. Someone-if not everyone-was lying mightily.

  Whiteside continued.

  "This whole thing is bloody perplexing and the fact that Arthur Sandler is involved is what makes it so. What was so important that he find this girl, a daughter whom he might never have even seen? Something is still happening and we don't know what it is. Our government is rather curious. If Sandler can be found, we'd like to have a go at him, too' " Thomas was shaking his head, still looking downward at that headstone.

  "He's got to be seventy-six years old " he said.

  "Unless he's been reincarnated some way," said Whiteside in half serious tones.

  "What?"

  "Well, let's face it. We're rational men standing here in cold daylight in the middle of a very real world. But this Arthur Sandler is defying natural law, one would think. Rather spry for a man of his age, wouldn't you say? We should all be treated so kindly by time."

  Thomas didn't reply. But the answer was yes.

  "Consider your problem, Mr. Daniels" said Whiteside. The two men turned. Whiteside placed his hand on the other man's shoulder as they walked around the churchyard, through the rain.

  "You have a man who's alive who claims to be dead. And you have a girl who's dead who claims to be alive. I don't envy you. And I'm not at all certain you'll ever be able to resolve this to everyone's satisfaction."

  They passed back through the small stone chapel. Thomas was reminded of the church in North Fenwick. The image of the marble tomb flashed before him, the Devonshire priest entombed beneath his own likeness in iron. Thomas couldn't shake the image.

  He was aware of being watched. Two old women were in the pews, one with wrinkled lips moving above a prayer book, the other silent and motionless on her thick, aged knees. The parson watched Thomas with more than transient curiosity. Thomas glanced back at him and had the distinct impression that the man's face evoked Central Europe-perhaps the Alps or the Tyrol-more than the m island of fog, Dickens, and gin.

  Whiteside spoke again when they reached the wet sidewalk.

  "Tell me, are you planning to pursue this affair?"

  Thomas looked into Whiteside's cunning eyes.

  "I've come this far, haven't I
?"

  Whiteside was thoughtful as they approached the Rover.

  "This is just a suggestion:' he offered, 'but you might give some thought to discovering who was running him."

  "Running him?"

  "Yes. Who was controlling him." Whiteside looked to Thomas and realized he was drawing a blank.

  "An agent might operate for totally self-centered reasons," he elaborated.

  "Money. Sex. Power.

  But he doesn't operate by himself Sandler had to have had a case officer, a superior in control who was, as we say, running him. Has that occurred to you?"

  Thomas shook his head.

  "No, it hasn't."

  "It should have. Give it some thought' He paused, then added as the chauffeur unlocked the Rover,

  "If you're able to arrive at any conclusions, do let me know. Her Majesty's Government should be most grateful."

  They reentered the car and it slowly pulled away from the chapel, moving toward Westminster. Thomas was deeply in thought. The only words on the return trip were Whiteside's after another long pause.

  "I like to think of myself as a career servant with unimpaired honor, Daniels. So trust me on one further point. There's a further aspect to all this. But I'm absolutely forbidden by ethics, English law, and propriety from divulging it at this time. Terribly sorry."

  Daniels looked at Whiteside, as if to see within the man. He couldn't.

  "Does it affect my… my search?" he asked.

  "Not in essence said Whiteside. He sighed, as if he wanted to say more. Thomas had a slightly disgusted look on his face. He was thinking of the graveyard as much as anything. Whiteside read him perfectly.

  "This whole thing has a rather repellent smell, doesn't it?" asked Whiteside.

  "Killing young girls, and all that." His smile to Thomas Daniels was bittersweet.

  "People genuinely stink. Myself included."

  Part Four

  Chapter 16

  At first he thought the letter was from Leslie, or rather the woman who claimed to be Leslie. Then Thomas Daniels recognized the blue personal stationery of Andrea Parker.

  Tom, dear, I tried desperately to get in touch with you. I wanted you to know I'll be out of town. A fabulous, fabulous man and I are going to Martinique for a week of sun. Please don't be jealous. I am sure you'll live a lot longer than he will, anyway.

  I'm thinking of you always.

  Love, love, Andrea Such expertise. He crumpled the blue paper in one fist and sent it airborne toward the kitchen garbage can.

  He kicked the door shut behind him and stalked into the bedroom, still in thought: He tossed his suitcase onto the ragged bedspread, stood there a moment, returned to the kitchen, and retrieved the crumpled blue paper. It had been beside a dust bah at the base of the stove.

  He pulled the note open and looked at the date on top. The note was already a week old. He tossed it to the garbage can, accurately this time, where it could now remain.

  Augie Reid. He'd suspected it all along. Well, he reconciled himself, at least today was Sunday and the week in the sun was over. He wouldn't have to think of it while it was still in progress.

  Eight months earlier his wife had left him. Now Andrea, traveling her own road with a new companion. To lose one woman is a tragedy. To lose two in a year is plain carelessness. Was that Oscar Wilde?

  Carelessness? Or a form of failure?

  He tried to push the thought aside. He hated the word failure, hated it because it slipped into his thoughts so often. Besides, law hadn't been his chosen profession. He'd been pushed, seduced. By his father. His only real failure, he told himself, was not having gotten out sooner. Better late than not at all. And soon it would be over, years wasted on a career he hated. Better mere years than a lifetime.

  By ten that night he was gloriously tired, his body still on European time. He fell asleep on the living-room sofa, reaching up and turning the light out, too tired to move. His last thought as he drifted off concerned the last woman to have come to his office.

  If she wasn't Leslie McAdam, who was she?

  What she was was punctual, among other qualities. Thomas had spent most of that next day looking at the clock, often noticing that only a few minutes had passed since he'd looked last. He was anxious to see her, or at least to see if she'd be where she'd said she'd be.

  Eighty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, appropriately across the street from the aging Sandler mansion, that sealed mausoleum of a house in front of which someone had been murdered in 1954. Why, Thomas wondered as he stood across the street at two minutes to four, looking up at the shuttered windows, the corroded green roof, and the impregnable brick walls, did appearances have to be so deceiving?

  He glanced at his watch. Then he looked down the street. He saw her rounding the corner from Park Avenue, walking boldly toward him, dark glasses shielding her eyes and a scarf surrounding her scarred throat.

  She was smiling. So he smiled, too. Sure, his better instincts told him that Leslie McAdam was in a churchyard in London. But he was glad to see her anyway.

  He let her walk all the way to him before he spoke, and even then it was simply "Hello." He reached out and took her hand.

  She looked at him oddly as if to correctly sense his hesitancy.

  "For God's sake" she chided, 'we've been in bed together. You're allowed to kiss me He leaned forward and did kiss her. And against his better judgment-or against any kind of judgment at all-he felt himself drawn protectively toward her. Never get involved personally with a client, his father used to tell him. Never. Oh well, he thought, a lot of good the old man's advice had done for him so far.

  She looked away from him for a moment, taking his hand and removing her dark glasses. Her gaze was on the bulwark of the building across the street. Her blue eyes were appraising, almost scheming and plotting.

  He, too, glanced to the house. He thought of those fortress walls and the secrets they surrounded. Within, doddering old Victoria too frightened of water to even bathe -had entertained her succession of dogs named Andy, had interred them, and had doted with equal fanaticism upon dollar bills. Similarly, this had been the very house from which Adolph Zenger had emerged in 1955 changed and shattered, a shell of the man he'd once been.

  "A different man'" as William Ward Daniels had described it to his son.

  "How can we get in there she asked.

  "In the Sandler house?"

  "Is there any other house under discussion?" she asked impatiently. Her mercurial smile was already gone and the affectionate greeting had given way to a businesslike sense of priorities.

  "With burglar tools" he said.

  "Fine." "What?" he asked.

  "I said fine she persisted.

  "I'm afraid I wasn't serious Thomas said.

  "I'm afraid I am She withdrew her hand.

  "That house is sealed by law." He saw her grimace distastefully as he spoke. He could practically feel her disapproval.

  "The state closes an estate upon the death of its owner. It would take a court order for us to get in. The fact is, I could file a motion for-" "You disappoint me," she said softly.

  "I disappoint a lot of people He shrugged.

  "But I won't break the law to win a case. I warned u already. I'm a lousy lawyer. Maybe that's the reason." She glanced back to the mansion, then to him, dark eyes probing.

  Then the tension on her face melted. She took his arm and said, "I'm sorry. Let's walk down Madison Avenue ' They turned the corner, putting the Sandler mansion at their backs. The icy wind swept uptown toward them and blasted them head-on. With one arm she held her coat close to her and with the other held his. He could feel her warmth contrasting with the cold in the air. He wondered again who that warmth was and what she wanted.

  "Tell me where you've been" she said, as casually as an old friend might.

  "You've been away. Was it for me?"

  "Partly," he lied. He told a fabricated story of interviewing old contacts and associates.
>
  "But did you discover anything important?" she asked.

  "About my father? Or yours?"

  "No," he said.

  She shrugged.

  "An honest answer, at least" she said. He glanced sideways at her and saw not the slightest hint of sarcasm on her lips.

  Only a sudden smile as she looked ahead.

  "Look at this" she said, "an art gallery."

  "Madison is loaded with them " "I never knew that'" she said. She stood before a large plate-glass window in which the Anspacher Gallery announced a showing by an American impressionist named Gerald Detweiler.

  A smile crossed her face now. She was like a small girl beholding a toy store two weeks before Christmas. Her grin was impish, girlish, and excited, and she turned to him warmly now and asked as a child might ask a parent,

  "Can we go in?"

  "It's a free " country," he said.

  "Come on, she said, sprightly, her clipped British accent slightly more not noticable.

  "I never tire of other people's artwork." She pulled him along and they entered the crowded gallery. It was opening day of the exhibit.

  The gallery, which occupied the lower three floors of a converted brownstone, was packed. She seemed to feed emotionally on the enthusiastic bustle of the gallery, as if it excited her and allowed her for a few minutes to put Arthur Sandler out of her mind.

  She led him from one canvas to the next, canvases which rendered impressionistic interpretations to northeastern-American landscapes.

  Factories by the sides of rivers, crowded beaches bordering empty oceans, dry-docked pleasure boats tied up beside foreboding dark lakes.

  "Always man bordering nature' Leslie observed, moving from painting to painting.

  "Bordering by confrontation. A standoff, really," she said.

  "Do you go to galleries often?"

  "I've never had much time for it" he admitted, wondering why she perceived so much on canvases where he saw so little.

  "A shame," she said.

  "You should make a point to go more often."

  He vaguely resented her tone of voice, as if she were gently talking down to him.

  "Maybe we should talk more about your father," he suggested.