The Right Jack (Sigrid Harald)

by Margaret Maron

  “Try not to watch,” Lieutenant Knight advised Sigrid in a low voice as the timid yeoman flinched from one speeding cab perilously into the path of another. “My regular driver’s on liberty this weekend. Sorry.”

  “Quite all right,” Sigrid said through gritted teeth and tried to find humor in the irony that made a slow and supercautious driver infinitely more terrifying than Nauman’s breakneck recklessness.

  “What can you tell me about Commander Dixon’s background?” she asked.

  “Born in Florida, daughter of a deceased Navy Chief, graduated from college there,” he answered promptly. “OCS at Newport, tours of duty in Japan, San Diego, Norfolk, and D.C. Stationed here in New York a little over two years.”

  “No, I meant her work. You said she holds a high security clearance. What’s her field?”

  This time the answer came less promptly. “Communications.”

  “Communications?”

  “Messages from various commands back and forth,” he said vaguely. “That sort of thing.”

  “In code perhaps?” she probed. “Cryptography, yes,” he admitted.

  Sigrid waited in silence. She had found that as a rule most people felt compelled to fill an expectant silence and certainly became ill-at-ease if it stretched out too long. Lieutenant Knight merely smiled and returned her cool-eyed gaze with bland serenity until a raucous car horn behind cursed their young driver for drawing to a stop while the traffic light ahead was still yellow.

  “You wouldn’t care to elaborate on exactly what Commander Dixon does?” Sigrid asked, nettled.

  “I don’t think so. After all, it isn’t important, is it? She was injured last night by sheer coincidence.”

  “So far as you know,” she gibed.

  He nodded agreeably. “So far as we know.”

  “Escorted there, I’m told, by a Russian.”

  “A superannuated, lower-echelon member of a trade delegation, Lieutenant. The Walker case notwithstanding, we do keep an eye on these things,” he said lightly. “Which is why I’m along today.”

  Unnerved by all the horns that urged him not to block the lane before a light was actually red, the yeoman misjudged a yellow and edged into the intersection on the bumper of the car ahead. The light changed to red; the car in front did not move; crosstown traffic entered the fray and soon the intersection was so jammed that it took two more greens for traffic to sort itself out. By the time they drew up to the entrance of the Maintenon, the sailor’s baby face was drenched in perspiration and he was somewhat wobbly on his legs as he opened the door for them.

  “That’ll be all for the day,” Lieutenant Knight told him kindly.

  “Oh thank you, sir!” he said with such fervent gratitude that Sigrid thought he was going to shake the lieutenant’s hand.

  CHAPTER 9

  Inside the Maintenon’s spacious lobby, all was discreet serenity. Guests came and went beneath the enormous crystal chandelier, apparently unaffected by the violent tragedy which had struck the previous night on the next floor. It was a tribute to the professionalism of Lucienne Ronay’s staff. Fire trucks, ambulances, and a dozen or more police cars had responded to the alarms and after the dead and wounded had been removed and the emergency personnel departed, her housecleaning crew had swooped down upon the scene and labored through the remainder of the night to tidy away all traces of the disaster.

  They were not allowed to touch anything in the d’Aubigné Room itself, of course. Cooperating with the police, Madame Ronay had personally ordered the blue velvet rope that now looped through brass stanchions and blocked the hall that led to the devastated ballroom. A few feet beyond, folding wooden panels decorated with frothy pastoral scenes screened the entrance to the room from casual view.

  Molly Baldwin was passing near the main desk as Sigrid inquired directions and she introduced herself and escorted them upstairs. Madame Ronay’s young assistant looked her full twenty-three years this afternoon. Her face was pale and drawn and there were dark circles under her eyes.

  “Guess you didn’t get much sleep last night,” Lieutenant Knight said.

  “Only four or five hours,” admitted Miss Baldwin, leading them past the velvet ropes, past the ornate screens, and down the wide hall to the d’Aubigné Room. “It was hectic but I suppose it could have been much worse.”

  Indeed, the actual damage to the elegant ballroom was minor, considering the carnage the small bomb had wreaked. Except for the rear quarter of the room, in that corner surrounding Table 5, the room showed only the usual morning-after ravages: the empty glasses, dirty ashtrays, lipstick-smeared napkins and other detritus that a large crowd always leaves behind.

  There were signs of panic and confusion, however, in over­turned chairs and in the playing cards scattered over the deep plush carpet.

  Table 5 itself was charred and splintered and Sigrid gazed in silence at the dark splotches where torn bodies had lain bleeding—Zachary Wolferman and John Sutton on the end nearest the corner walls, she had been told; Tillie and Commander Dixon next to the dead men. The long linen cloth that had covered their table was bundled into a scorched and sodden heap upon the floor.

  “We were lucky about fire,” Miss Baldwin told them softly. “One of our busboys put it out with a hand extinguisher, so there was no water damage.”

  “Where were you when the bomb exploded?” asked Sigrid as she began to orient herself in relation to the events of the previous evening.

  “Over by the far table where the refreshments were.”

  “Were you looking in this direction at that moment?”

  “Not really. I guess I was trying to watch everything and make sure it all kept moving smoothly.”

  Sigrid walked over to where Molly Baldwin had stood last night and examined the room from the new perspective. “And you don’t remember anything out of the ordinary about Table 5?”

  “No,” the girl said quickly, “not at all.”

  “What about John Sutton?”

  Miss Baldwin’s face went blank. “Who?”

  “One of the men killed last night. You had met him on Wednesday. Don’t you remember?”

  “I had?” She tugged at a short brown curl behind her right ear, a nervous mannerism probably left over from childhood; then her face brightened. “Oh yes! One of the professors from the City University. I had forgotten. That was why his face looked familiar!”

  “When?”

  “Why, when I saw him again last night,” she said slowly.

  “At Table 5?”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I just don’t remember. There were so many people here. Over five hundred. You know how it is—you see a face and there’s something familiar about it, but heavens! It could be a bus driver or a bank teller—someone you recognize but that you’ve never actually talked to, you know?”

  “And you must meet lots of people, working in a big hotel like this,” Lieutenant Knight encouraged.

  “Yes, I do,” she said, turning to him gratefully from the more intimidating Lieutenant Harald.

  “How long have you lived up North?” he asked.

  “Why, just since Christmas.” She smiled at him and her fingers twined around that same brown curl. “I thought I’d lost all my accent.”

  Sigrid began to suspect that Lieutenant Knight was going to be a distinct handicap in their investigation if every woman they questioned reacted to him like this. She curtly broke in to ask Miss Baldwin to describe preparations for the cribbage tournament.

  Her professional capacity required, Molly Baldwin gave a fairly concise recap of the last three or four days, including her mix-up with the pairings and the cribbage board stolen from the display case on Thursday. Young and inexperienced as she might be, Miss Baldwin was quick enough to grasp the significance of both incidents.

  “Which happened first?” asked Sigrid, clearing a space at one of the cluttered tables for her notebook. Her bandaged arm made simple actions difficult.

  “I’m not sure. G
us—He’s our calligrapher and visual artist, whatever we need in the line of place cards and posters and things like that. We can ask him when he sent up the pairings display, but I think it was sometime before lunch. Mr. Flythe didn’t notice it right away and I’d forgotten it was supposed to be confidential. We set up the display cases on Thursday morning and a few hours later—about three o’clock, I think—we noticed the missing board.”

  “The pairings were where? In here or out in the hall?”

  “In here. If you like, I’ll get you a list of all the staff who worked in this room on Thursday. That’s what’s important, isn’t it? You want to know who could have read where Mr. Wolferman or Professor Sutton were supposed to sit, don’t you?”

  “It’s a place to start, Ms. Baldwin.” Sigrid flipped her notebook shut and thrust it into her jacket pocket.

  By now, the forensic crews had taken away everything of significance in the way of splintered cribbage board, bomb fragments, and the like, so Sigrid saw no reason to object when Madame Ronay appeared in the doorway with one of her accountants and a claims investigator from the hotel’s insurers and requested permission for the two men to assess the damages. She did find it interesting that Madame Ronay, a female executive accustomed to male underlings, should automatically address her request to Lieutenant Knight.

  Just as automatic, too, were her flirtatious manner, the way she gazed up at him through lowered eyelashes, her light touch on his sleeve, and the delicate perfume that enveloped them both when she murmured, “It is barbaric to think of money when so many were hurt last night, but a great hotel is like life, n’est-ce pas? And life also goes on, no?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But I’m afraid you’ve confused me with Lieutenant Harald,” said Lieutenant Knight, gesturing toward Sigrid with his hat. “She’s in charge here. I just represent the Navy’s interests.”

  Beautiful, self-assured women always made Sigrid sharply conscious of how little she knew of clothes and cosmetics. She stiffened as Lucienne Ronay’ s hazel eyes swept over her, coolly assessing her thin figure, her shapeless slacks, her scruffy corduroy jacket, her Woolworth scarf.

  Their eyes met briefly, but before Sigrid could make her own assessment, the lovely Frenchwoman exclaimed, “But how silly of me! Always the uniform makes me think this one is in charge.”

  A bewitching Gallic shrug of her shoulders invited them to share her amusement over minor failings.

  Young Molly Baldwin smiled dutifully, as did the cowed accountant; the insurance adjuster and Lieutenant Alan Knight were indulgent.

  “A natural mistake,” Sigrid said dryly. “And to answer your question, we’ve almost finished here. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, your people can come in—shall we say tomorrow?”

  “Je vous dis un grand merci, Lieutenant. See to it, please, Molly. You cannot know how unhappy it makes me to see my poor d’Aubigné Room so dérangé.” She turned back to Alan Knight as to the sun. “But what you said before, Lieutenant, I do not understand. Why has the Navy an interest in our bomb?”

  Knight explained. Madame Ronay clicked her tongue sympathetically upon hearing that the wounded commander was a woman who might be permanently maimed if she survived, and Molly Baldwin paled when he told them grimly that the doctors were pessimistic about saving Commander Dixon’s left arm.

  “Were you here when the bomb went off?” Sigrid asked Madame Ronay.

  “Alas, non! I welcomed everyone. I wished them all bonne chance and then I left. The Contessa di Biagio had arranged a small dinner party in her suite and I was expected there. But when they came and told me what had happened, I returned at once. Quel dommage! They told me that two were dead and many hurt.”

  “Did you know either of the dead men?”

  “Monsieur Wolferman, only slightly. You understand, Lieutenant, three hotels keep me most busy. I have little time to play. Yet there are parties to which I must go, dinners I must attend, and Monsieur Wolferman also, I think. Two years ago, at a dinner for the governor, we sat next to each other. Since then, I see him here or there at similar places and we speak, but I do not say that I know him.”

  Her words were for Sigrid, yet her beautiful eyes kept straying to Lieutenant Knight. If the columnists could be trusted, Lucienne Ronay was at least twenty years older than he. Sigrid had heard that skillful makeup, careful hairdressing, and well-designed clothes could take years off a woman’s appearance; but looking at Lucienne Ronay’s ash-blonde hair, her flawless skin, the lush curves subtly enhanced by a designer dress of off-white cashmere, it was hard to realize that the hotel owner was almost as old as her own mother. Anne was unquestionably attractive, but no one would underestimate her age by fifteen years.

  “What about Professor Sutton?” Sigrid asked.

  Madame Ronay started to answer negatively, but Molly Baldwin tactfully reminded her of the CUNY group’s Wednesday morning visit.

  “Ah, was that Professor Sutton? But what a loss! So young and so handsome.”

  Molly Baldwin looked slightly shocked and the Frenchwoman gave a self-deprecating smile. “When you approach the half­century, ma petite, you will understand better that the loss of any handsome man is always reason to mourn.”

  Her eyes swept over the accountant and the insurance adjuster and rested provocatively on Alan Knight’s clean-cut features. It was like seeing all those gossip columns come to life before his eyes and he laughed outright at this sample of the famous Lucienne Ronay outrageousness.

  “No, no, no,” she scolded, although clearly pleased by his pleasure. “We are very naughty to make light at such a time. Lieutenant Harald is not amused and she is right. And now, mes amis, I must fly. Already I am late for a meeting at my Montespan. Lieutenant Harald, Lieutenant Knight—please, whatever you wish, do not hesitate to ask. I have told my staff they are to give you all the assistance you need. And Molly, too, will—ah, but no! Molly must go straight home and go to bed and not get up till all those horrid circles are gone from below her pretty eyes.”

  With a word to her accountant, another to the adjuster, and a dazzling smile for Lieutenant Knight, Lucienne Ronay swept from the room, off to the smallest of her three Manhattan hotels where she intended to learn precisely why the Montespan had received two letters of complaint in the past month. Heads would roll.

  As the victim in the last nine months of similar interrogations, Molly Baldwin did not envy her Montespan colleagues; and, her employer’s words to the contrary, she knew she was expected to remain at the Maintenon this afternoon for as long as Lieutenant Harald needed her. No matter that her nerve ends were screaming for release or that her body felt as if she were moving through deep water. Instead, she must force herself to smile pleasantly at the two investigators, to wait expectantly until they had finished poking and prying.

  “We’ll check with Lowry and Albee, see what they’ve come up with so far,” Sigrid told Lieutenant Knight, “and then I want to have a talk with this Ted Flythe of Graphic Games. If Ms. Baldwin can give us his address . . .?”

  “Certainly,” Molly replied, “but you don’t need his address. He’s just across the landing. In the Bontemps Room. Didn’t someone tell you? They decided not to cancel the tournament.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “It surprised the hell out of me, too, Lieutenant,” Ted Flythe admitted frankly. He sat on an imitation eighteenth-century settee upholstered in mauve silk and gazed at the nearly four hundred people engrossed in their cards and hunched over their cribbage boards.

  According to a small plaque near the gold-and-white enameled double doors, the Bontemps Room was named for one of Madame de Maintenon’s godparents. It was slightly smaller but just as ornate as the damaged d’Aubigné Room. The walls were covered with murals meant to depict the court of Louis XIV at play; elaborately bewigged and silk-suited courtiers sported beneath the trees with equally bewigged and lavishly dressed ladies. The ceiling far overhead simulated a celestial blue sky enhanced by puffy white clouds and interspersed wi
th golden sunbursts from which depended brass and crystal chandeliers.

  It was a room meant for formal music, for dancers in tuxedos and jewel-toned taffetas, for the discreet clink of champagne glasses and witty repartee. It was not quite the setting for these cribbage players casually dressed in corduroy or plaid wool slacks and autumn-colored sweaters, who kept the ventilating system busy dispersing clouds of cigarette smoke, and who broke the room’s pastel serenity with smothered laughter and occasional raucous cries of “fifteen four and there ain’t no more!”

  “I held a meeting with the players this morning, told them I was authorized to refund all the entrance fees, but they wanted to go ahead with the tournament,” said Mr. Flythe. “Not everybody. Not those who were hurt, of course; and a good number were too frightened to stay, but look at this!”

  He gestured toward the tables. “Over three hundred and fifty people! Hell of a note, isn’t it? You’d think they’d be afraid their board might be next.”

  The mauve silk couch and several matching side chairs formed a separate sitting area near the front of the large room. With the table and extra chairs Detectives Albee and Lowry had rounded up, it made a suitable place to winnow out and question witnesses.

  They had just begun on Mr. Flythe when Sigrid entered with Lieutenant Knight and Molly Baldwin. Handing Flythe over to her, they had plunged back into the crowd, using newly revised seating charts to locate promising witnesses of last night’s events.

  “I suppose some of the contestants came a long distance,” suggested Sigrid. “Perhaps had hotel or plane reservations they couldn’t change easily?”