by Emma Lathen
“Not to mention a couple 100 Arabs,” grunted Arnie disapprovingly. “Including a reigning monarch on an official state visit.”
“It does seem incredible,” Celia added. Madsen squeezed her hand encouragingly. He was anxious to divert John from more graphic descriptions of the murder.
“What makes you so sure of what Krebbel said to Ray?” Madsen asked.
“Wahl’s reactions. At the same time he promised Plantagenet to Ray he had done so to Wahl too. After the murder Krebbel always maintained that there had never been any question of taking Ray back. But before, he had temporized with Wahl, telling him a public announcement would have to be delayed because of trouble with French. This left Wahl, in fact both Wahls, explaining Jensen’s assertive confidence as a monumental bluff. That sounded very thin, and Wahl knew it. People suspected that Wahl was doing the bluffing. The result was that he blustered in public and suspected a double cross in private. He realized what he should have realized. Krebbel was a decisive man. He was perfectly capable of making it clear to Jensen beyond a shadow of a doubt that his connection with MM was over. I had the privilege of watching him handle 2 subordinates the other day. He was not a man to shilly shally around, waiting for Board approval.
There was no dissent as his audience brought to mind the vision of Krebbel in his more authoritarian moments.
Susan Price looked up from some calculations of her own. “Then it wasn’t Thursday morning that Mr. Krebbel found out the car was being presented in Detroit?”
“Yes. And what a blow that must have been. He had calculated the body would not be discovered before New York. With luck the car might even be loaded into the hold of some ship bound for the Suez. Instead of which he comes to work the next morning and finds Hauser in the midst of elaborate preparations right outside the front office. Arnie, you know, I have wondered why our early entertainment here was so badly handled, why Krebbel didn’t give us a more solid business view of MM, and less insight into social feuds. Now we know why.”
“The man had too much on his mind,” Arnie pitched in.
Madsen, fresh from jail, was not overly sympathetic with the rigors endured by his 2 champions. “Yes, but what about the car? Who drove it over to the pool?”
“Krebbel. We now have proof of that.”
It was this proof which had caused Georgeson’s final capitulation. Winters, summoned from Canada, had been escorted to the morgue, and identified Krebbel. “That’s the driver,” he said.
Krebbel was in a frenzy when he heard about the Super Plantagenet. It was essential for him to delay discovery of the body long enough to obscure the time and place of the murder. Remember he had no idea where the rest of us had been during the critical period. It was Madsen’s bad luck that he wandered off. What if everyone had a cast iron alibi? He had to introduce as much confusion as possible, which he did adeptly. And certainly he had to prevent any busybody going over the car for a last minute brushing, cleaning, or just looking inside. So he acted on the spur of the moment, rushing over to Plantagenet, appearing publicly as himself, and then donning the overalls and cap. All he had to do was wait until no one was near the car. He just got in and prepared to drive off, when Winters unexpectedly hopped in the other side and he couldn’t do anything about it in his driver role. He could do nothing but hope Winters did not look in the back, which he didn’t.”
“Why didn’t Winters recognize him?” asked Susan. Celia replied with the assurance of a former executive wife. “A junior staff member would never suspect a person in overalls of being the company president. And I must say, Frank left rapidly enough when Wahl entered the garage.” She remembered those fleeting taillights as the Planty had sped off with an inflamed division manager in its wake.
“As a matter of fact, it turns out that Winters had never seen Krebbel except at a distance at public functions. And of course it was Krebbel who initiated the idea that Winters be sent to Canada.” John smiled as he visualized Hauser’s reaction upon learning PR had served the killer’s ends.
“You mean that Krebbel just parked the car by the pool, sauntered off in a pair of overalls, and called it a day”” Madsen said.
“I suspect that Krebbel disappeared with the speed of light, whipped off the overalls in the nearest secluded spot, leaving Winters asking us if we’d seen the driver. At the same time Krebbel stuffed them in his briefcase, reappeared in the lobby to tell Arnie and me he would see us at the Chamber dinner, before stepping into his own limousine. That limousine was the key to the whole thing.”
Riley, whose expertise on Krebbel’s activities was bounded by the scope of the Clayton Antitrust act, did not understand. “Limousine?”
“Well car anyway,” John conceded. He pointed accusingly at Celia. “You saw Krebbel drive up to Plantagenet in his Drake on Thursday. We saw him shortly thereafter in the front office, preparing to be chauffeured about in a limousine until he returned to Plantagenet the next morning. Then he arrived at the grand presentation to the Prince in his red Drake.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that,” Riley asked.
“How did he get from the plant to the front office on Thursday, if he had left his Drake at the plant over a mile away, and did not pick it up until Friday morning? That was the question that finally roused Georgeson. I will say the Michigan police may be confused about the antitrust laws, and who isn’t, but they are alert to everything about cars. It was simple for them to check up and discover no company car was used, and nobody admits giving Krebbel a lift. That’s what stirred Georgeson into sending for Winters and seriously considering the possibility that Krebbel had moved the Super Plantagenet.”
“All these people are nutty on the subject of cars,” Arnie said disparagingly. He was still shaken from his experiences in the great Krebbel chase. Traveling to work on the IRT subway had protected him from exposure to experiences common to other commuters.
“But we had another clue, too,” John rebuked him. “Celia told us that when Wahl chased the Plantagenet, nobody but she dared to laugh. But Krebbel told me the same story, including a vigorous and rather funny description of how Wahl looked. Quite apart from the fact Krebbel has a booming boisterous laugh that Celia wouldn’t have overlooked, I am quite sure that if he had been roaring his head off, the staff would have noticed and followed his lead. But, and this is a big but, he was in the driver’s seat, not audience, watching the whole thing in his rearview mirror.”
The silence of repletion enfolded the little group, their appetite for data temporarily sated. Celia closed her eyes and allowed her head to slip down against the backrest. The shadows were still under her eyes, but the tired lines had vanished, and she was at peace at long last. Arnie smiled at her. Susan and Fabian had reached the self-conscious stage; they both rather ostentatiously avoided looking at each other. It was Madsen, rumpling his hair and stretching out his legs, who broke the silence.
“And I suppose it was Krebbel who planted the gun in my file.”
“I expect so. You were the obvious scapegoat. Particularly with Riley egging everybody on to look for a connection with the conspiracy case. Krebbel wanted a good personal motive to take the spotlight off MM. It was simple for him to plant the gun in your file cabinet, then demand a report under circumstances which would insure a public disinterment. With you arrested, he felt perfectly safe until he discovered I had been making cryptic remarks about St. Patrick’s Day falling on March 17th. Then he knew that Miss Price was a danger to him, and with his customary decisiveness, he rushed off to finish her off.”
Susan shivered slightly as Fabian moved to sit closer on the arm of her chair. “What beats me,” Madsen said then, “is how calm he was throughout. He was very busy but never seemed to turn a hair.”
John agreed, and said, “He was not a man to show emotion, which had stood him in good stead in the past.” John remembered the exchange at the union negotiation between Krebbel and Thad about the requested new holidays, with St. Patrick’s Day being one
. If John knew anything about Thad, the fate of St. Patrick’s Day as a MM working day was foreclosed. That redoubtable union leader would no doubt maintain artfully that the memories of March 17th were too painful for his people to work on that day.
“And what were Dunn and Di up to anyway? interjected Madsen. John admitted he had no idea except to say, “Certainly they were doing their best to look as guilty as possible.”
Unexpectedly Celia added, “I know. Buck called to wish me well.” And then she blushed and suddenly looked much younger, like her old self. “Anyway,” she continued on hurriedly, “he said Di had told him about it. When she heard Ray talk about putting pressure on MM to take him back, she thought Orin and she could play the same trick. What she was going to do was get together enough data to start another antitrust investigation. Then she was going to tell French that he had to take back Buck and Orin, or else!” But Orin got cold feet, enough so that Di was afraid he might be dealing with Mr. Riley behind her back. And of course when Buck heard about it, he clamped down on her hard.”
Riley had stirred suggestively at this enticing piece of information. But Susan laid a restraining hand on his arm. Surely he must see that now was no time to... as she added quickly, “And does anybody know what’s going to happen to Mr. Holzinger?”
Nobody did. Arnie, who had been maintaining his contacts with a shattered front office, told them that French had temporarily assumed the presidency while he reviewed his depleted forces. Buck was almost certain to get his division back, just on the basis of his performance and management manpower shortage, a heady brew. There was even talk of elevating Buck to CEO.
“They considered you, too,” Arnie told Madsen, “but they had to discard that idea. French said he might just get away with a jailbird like Buck, considering the circumstances. But he couldn’t seriously recommend to the stockholders any executive who managed to go to jail for something he did not do.”
Madsen laughed, adding, “Just as well. While French is looking for people, he can get himself another tame economist. I have had enough of MM. Celia already knows my mind’s made up on that. It is back to research for me.”
As if exulting in some new freedom, he rose to his feet and stretched luxuriously. Then he grinned down at them. “To hell with the money!”
As John heard these heretical statements he looked up at the relaxed, confident figure. He remembered the reckless refusal to stay away from Celia. Then he leaned forward. “That attitude, Madsen, confirms my opinion,” he said gently.
“You were never cut out to be a Michigan Motors man,” and they all laughed together.
