The Sandler Inquiry

by Noel Hynd

  He saw light ahead. He was relieved.

  Hammond had slid from the crawl way and was standing, proud that at his age he'd made it. Leslie followed. Thomas emerged third, coming up at the feet of the others in an illuminated chamber. He stood. There were two other men, both dressed in the blue work uniforms of New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority. Neither man was a subway worker.

  They stood beside a hole in a brick wall, a hole large enough to step through sideways and crouching.

  The underground chamber, illuminated by battery-operated lanterns, was against the pantry wall of the Sandler mansion. Thomas had traveled a city block underground since leaving the subway tracks. It had seemed like four blocks.

  "Like I promised," said Hammond, trying to gather himself.

  "We're going in- " "Have you been in already?" asked Thomas.

  "We've been waiting for you," said Hammond.

  "We didn't know whether you'd be able to guide us or not' Thomas looked at the hole that had been chiseled through brick that was four feet thick. A less awesome entrance than the front door, he thought, yet having more dignity than the servants' entrance. His mind then traveled to Zenger, his father's partner.

  Zenger, one of the citys leading attorneys twenty years earlier, had entered this house through the front door and had reemerged, as his father termed it, 'a different man" A recluse, a man who'd retired soon afterward.

  "We had a quick look around the ground floor after we knocked through,"

  Hammond finally admitted.

  "Now we'll have a more thorough look."

  Hammond nodded to the two gatekeepers. He stepped through the hole into a dark pantry. Thomas followed, then Leslie. Each picked up a heavy-duty battery lantern on entering. Leslie drew her service pistol and carried it in her other hand. Looking for her father? Thomas wondered.

  Thomas, like Leslie and Hammond, had the sense of having stepped through a corridor into another decade. Out of the seventies, into the nineteen thirties. The wallpaper, once elegant and colorful, was now faded and yellowed. Heavy, solid furniture was in each room, and the kitchen appliances were relics of the Depression. Sagging drapes, often threadbare near the floor, shut out light from the windows, and the carpets were worn where Victoria Sandler had made her daily paths.

  An ornate art-deco clock, capped with a cupid with bow and arrow, was stopped on a table. A mirror was thick with dust. The entire house smelled of both mildew and time. The interior of the mansion wore the years with a morbid pallor.

  "Anything in particular you want to start with?" Hammond asked.

  "Ground floor," said Thomas.

  "Then the basement" Hammond nodded. The main floor was the first floor fully above street level, he explained. The ground floor, the one they were on, was almost completely below sidewalk level. Beneath was a basement.

  "Why the basement first?" Hammond asked as an afterthought.

  "I'm sure that's where she kept the skeletons' said Thomas, sober faced then somehow managing a laugh. Hammond looked displeased, a don't-joke-at-a-time-like-this expression. Daniels couldn't be sure, but he thought Leslie, who was standing so close that their arms were against each other, shuddered.

  Together the three explored a ground floor library. When Hammond expressed desire to glance through the second of the five floors, they separated. Leslie went with Thomas, both holding lanterns, she alertly holding the pistol. One never knew, though Thomas thought the armaments vaguely melodramatic.

  "Where's the door to the basement Thomas asked.

  She led him. He followed closely, realizing that she'd been there before, at least briefly and probably with Hammond.

  Thomas pointed the lantern down the narrow stairs. The first step creaked and almost seemed to sag beneath his weight. He pressed gingerly with one foot, then the next.

  The light shone ahead of him, a dusty maze of shadows and cobwebs. It occurred to him that Victoria Sandler might never have been down here any more often than she'd been in her bathtub.

  Which was to say, seldom in the last twenty years.

  Followed by Leslie, he reached the bottom of the steps. He flashed the light around and saw nothing move, except for the shadows dancing under the beams of their two wavering lanterns.

  They stepped forward, walking among the faded, forgotten belongings of two generations of Sandlers. They stepped through a large cluttered room, perhaps thirty feet by forty feet, crowded with dust-laden white sheets over unused or retired furniture. A walking space,. such that it was, was along the wall, a wall lined with old portraits from nineteenth-century Germany. The forgotten progenitors of the Sandler clan.

  Then from across the room a noise and two red eyes.

  Thomas felt his heart leap and whirled with the lantern.

  "Leslie!" he blurted quickly.

  But she'd already turned and the pistol was upraised. Two red glimmering eyes reflected back at them. A large rat sat on top of an old steamer trunk, the latter bearing stamps from voyages in the 1920s.

  Brazen and defiant as any Sandler, the rat ignored the intruders into his domain. A second or two later he leaped to the floor and disappeared. Thomas began watching his own feet and ankles as he walked.

  "You're jumpy," she said.

  "This isn't my ordinary sort of legal work," he explained.

  She flashed her light on ahead to a passageweay.

  "What's that?" she asked aloud. The passage led to a separate room, one apparently clear of storage.

  "Furnace room?" he guessed.

  "The furnace room is behind the stairs," she said.

  They neared the open doorway. He felt her hand on his shoulder.

  "I'll go first if you wish," she said, motioning with the pistol as if to indicate why. He shook his head. He expected nothing living past the doorway. Nor would he admit fear or hesitation.

  'I'll go," he said.

  He stepped through the passageway, followed quickly by Leslie.

  They found themselves in a mausoleum. There were plaques on the wall, marking births and deaths.

  He screwed his face into a perplexed scowl.

  "What in hell is this?" he asked breathlessly.

  She was more calm. There was a small altar before the plaques on the wall, complete with candles and the dusty remains of flowers which had faded and died innumerable years earlier. They both had the sense of having stepped into some bizarre medieval sacristy, a holy shrine of a small and perverse order. In a way, the sense was a proper one.

  "There are names on the plaques," he said.

  At once they stepped forward, examining the names. Each name was the same-only the dates differed on the small tarnished gold plaques.

  ANDREW, read the first gold plaque, corroded with age, but still legible. 1932-1939.

  And the next, ANDY 1939-1946.

  And the next and the next, all the same, at various intervals until the last in 1975.

  "The dogs," said Thomas.

  "It's where she interred the dogs' ' Leslie shook her head incredulously The room was a canine mausoleum, complete with a small bronze statue of a poodle on the opposite side from the altar.

  "Incredible said Thomas.

  "A crazy old woman. A fortune and all the time in the world. And this is what she does with it' He pondered the darkest recesses and warpings of the human mind.

  This was Victoria Sandler's other family. Her Andys. It was cold in the room. The lanterns moved from moment to moment and threw changing, disproportionate shadows on the walls. At one point Leslie's lantern shone directly upon the statue of the poodle and a giant shadow of the dog rose in stark black against a side wall. For a moment they could almost feel the presence of Victoria Sandler, of the mind of the recently deceased woman who had consecrated this most sacred part of her world.

  The man's voice came suddenly from behind them, loud, casual, and totally unexpected.

  "Find anything?" it asked solemnly.

  They almost felt their insides exp
lode as they whirled in their tracks, both brandishing their lanterns and Leslie raising her gun to fire.

  A third lantern shone back into their eyes, blinding them.

  "Sorry," said the man, filling much of the doorway.

  "Did I surprise you?"

  He lowered the lantern. It was Hammond.

  Leslie and Thomas drew deep breaths, neither completely willing to admit that Hammond, approaching without being heard, had set their nerves on edge.

  Leslie eased her pistol downward, scared that she might actually have fired. The weapon had been trained accurately on the center of Hammond's chest. And her jittery finger had been squeezing.

  People had been accidentally, killed for less.

  Leslie conversed with Hammond, explaining what they'd found.

  But Thomas's attention was transfixed by what he'd seen quite accidentally in the shadows on the other side of the altar room. He might never have noticed it had he not had reason to whirl suddenly and shine the lamp the wrong way.

  But there was a long convex section of the concrete floor. A section maybe nine feet by four feet, and unnoticeable to the eye in proper light. It had been uneven in the beam of the light, however, reflecting the shadow disproportionately.

  "Wait a minute" asked Thomas as Hammond and Leslie were ready to dismiss the altar room altogether.

  "What's this?"

  He motioned with his lantern, shining a beam up and down the length of the slightly convex area. At first they didn't see it, didn't realize what he was indicating. Then they both noticed also. The dirty gray concrete of the floor was ever so slightly higher in that small area than anywhere else in the basement.

  Hammond stooped down and examined the area, looking first at the convex area, running his hand across it, then looking at the concrete along the wall. He compared the concrete there to the rest of the cellar.

  "You've got a pair of eyes," Hammond said.

  "This floor's been refinished. It's anywhere from fifteen to thirty years old. The rest is original " He studied it again.

  "The new floor's higher than the old, too," he concluded.

  "But not by much. Sharp eyes, all right, Daniels" "I knew what I was looking for," allowed Thomas, drawing curious glances from both of them. Yet exactly what Daniels had been looking for was already evident. Hammond began nodding slowly.

  Leslie made no indication, though all three of them knew immediately what could be in a rounded section of the floor in an area of that size.

  "A grave," said Hammond.

  "Maybe' He glanced up, searching the face of Thomas Daniels.

  "Did she ever have any large dogs?" he asked.

  "No." Thomas was already shaking his head.

  "Not that I ever knew of."

  "Figures," said Hammond softly, looking back and still holding his fingers to the concrete floor, as if to pick up sensations or intuition.

  "We'll have to chisel it up, wont we?"

  "Chisel what up?" Thomas asked.

  Hammond looked back as if to answer a silly self-evident question.

  "Why, the floor, of course," he said. He pondered it for a moment.

  "Can't bring a drill in'" he planned.

  "Too much noise. Can't use electricity anyway." He paused, then concluded.

  "Have to use hammers and chisels" he said.

  "A lot of work. Muscle mostly." He rose.

  "Take us a while, probably," he said in conclusion.

  "Us?" asked Thomas nervously Hammond smiled and Leslie managed a vague titter of laughter.

  "Relax," said Hammond.

  "We have specialists. We can have the floor up in a few hours."

  "How long is'a few'?" asked Daniels.

  Hammond eyed the concrete area intently. Thomas shifted his own gaze to the floor. He was reminded of the small church in Devonshire, where former parish ministers were interred beneath the stones of the floor.

  "Eighteen to twenty-four hours'" said Hammond flatly.

  "That's a guess, an educated guess."

  Thomas looked back to Hammond, assessing him carefully now.

  "I want to bring someone else in here, "Daniels said.

  "What?" snapped Hammond. Leslie watched Thomas cautiously and curiously.

  Thomas repeated, though it wasn't necessary. Hammond dismissed it out of hand.

  "You want to find out about Arthur Sandler?" Thomas asked.

  "You want to know about your damned counterfeit? You want to know where the espionage angle leads you? You'll let me bring two more people in here "Who are they?" asked Leslie, ready to negotiate.

  "Doesn't matter," said Hammond quickly.

  "No-' She held up her hand.

  "Who are they?" she repeated.

  "I won't tell you. You'll refuse if I tell you."

  "Then why should we permit it?"

  "Because I can see everything starting to fall into place Thomas explained.

  "All of it. Look. When you're an attorney you're trained to put pieces of a story together and form a whole story, something which becomes the functioning truth in a case. That's what I want to do. I want to link your story with another story. I want to eliminate the contradictions. Let me do that, let your mechanics chisel up that floor, and we'll be damned close to a solution."

  Hammond was hesitant. Thomas looked to Leslie, then back to Hammond.

  "Your alternative is going back to Washington empty fisted " "Thomas said to Hammond.

  "And you, Leslie, your alternative is not finding the man who probably still wants to kill you."

  Hammond looked to Leslie.

  "Trust me" Daniels said simply, preparing to rest his case.

  "With any kind of luck, IM produce the missing man you're looking for.

  Alive. Within twenty-four hours."

  Hammond was indignant.

  "I thought you said you didn't-" '-know anything?"

  "Yes " "I didn't. But unlike you, I've seen both sides of this. I've figured it out."

  A strange look came over Hammond, one of superiority or pomposity. Or was it challenge?

  "Including about your father?" he asked.

  "I can't be blind forever. It's making sense."

  Hammond sighed. He was tired and in a mood to concede a point if it would bring things closer to the point of resolution.

  Under normal circumstances, he conceded nothing. Everything was done his way. A man like Daniels would never be out of his sight. And he was as skeptical as he was tired.

  "Where do you make contact with these people?"

  "One telephone call. And I bring them in' Hammond grimaced. It wasn't that he didn't like it; he hated it.

  He looked to Leslie. So did Thomas, seeing where the tie-breaking vote would go.

  "Seems to me," she said with gentle intonations to Hammond, 'that we might do well to trust him' "All right, said Hammond.

  "It better work. Otherwise I'll find you again., Thomas smiled. It would work. It had to! With all the pieces gliding together as they were, how could they not fit the way he wanted them? Then again, how had he not seen it earlier? How had he been so blind to a man he'd been so close to?

  "Watch those damned subway trains when you come out of the crawl way Hammond muttered, by way of send-off.

  Thomas recalled. The crawl way Dirty, dark and evoking claustrophobia.

  He shuddered.

  Chapter 34

  Thomas stood on the far end of the Eighty-sixth Street subway platform. He looked anxiously at his watch, seeing that it was ten minutes past five A.m. His eyes were!*inging with fatigue. Two subway trains had come and gone. He'looked up and down the platform and did not see the two men he awaited.

  He'd been there half an hour. He'd reached them by telephone.

  They were late. What, he wondered, was wrong? Nothing? Everything.

  "Come on'" he addressed them in their absence.

  "Arrive, damn it, arrive!"

  A downtown express train rumbled into the station. A pair of
transit patrolmen watched Thomas from within the end car, idly wondering why, if he was standing in the station, he wasn't boarding the train.

  The train began again. One of the patrolmen reached to a walkie talkie at his waist. The platform was clear again. A man dropped an early edition of the Daily News on a bench. Thomas glanced at a headline' A huge Soviet fishing fleet was in the North Atlantic off Massachusetts, it said. Thomas glanced away.

  Hurry up, damn it, he thought again.

  He wandered toward the far end of the platform. Then he froze in thought. Footsteps approached and he looked up. He saw the tall, lean man first, then the shorter, stronger one, the one with the beard.

  Whiteside and Hunter.

  "You look surprised," said Hunter.

  "Not at all." Thomas glanced at his watch.

  "You're late. Punctuality is next to godliness. Didn't your keeper here ever teach you that?"

  "Where's Sandler?" asked Hunter.

  "And the girl?" asked Whiteside.

  "Around."

  "Don't be coy, Mr. Daniels," intoned Whiteside gently "It doesn't become you." He shifted weight from one foot to another, cocked his head, and glinted at Thomas.

  "Why did you call us?"

  "I told you " said Thomas, folding the newspaper beneath his arm.

  "I'm going to give you the' new Leslie McAdam, the source of the bogus British pounds, and Sandler in the bargain. In return, I want the entire background story on Sandler. Everything" "I already agreed" said Whiteside with cunning.

  "I agreed an hour ago on the tele@ hone Hunter glared at Thomas, then looked around the platform, clearly unsure of his ground.

  "I just wanted to be sure that we understood the ground rules," said Thomas.

  "Obviously we do," Whiteside snorted with impatience.

  "Otherwise I wouldn't be in this Godforsaken place at a bloody hour like this. Where do we consummate our arrangement? Here?"

  Thomas shook his head. He glanced to the tracks. "It's my turn to take you into the tunnel," he said.

  "We wait for the next train to pass.