The Right Jack (Sigrid Harald)

by Margaret Maron

  “Partly that,” the tournament director conceded, “but I think it’s mainly that they like the excitement. Most of the players are from the metropolitan area. They can go home by bus or subway. It’s not as if they have to stay; but damned if they didn’t want to, even though I made it clear that we’d have to reduce the prize money in proportion to how many pulled out.

  “We’ve had to cut back on how many games they’ll play, too. Instead of best out of seven, it’s now three out of five to advance. That should finish us up in time.”

  While Mr. Flythe spoke of the procedural changes made in order to bring the tournament to a close on schedule tomorrow evening, Sigrid studied him unobtrusively, remembering Nauman’s account of John Sutton’s puzzled glances back at the man he’d met on Wednesday.

  There was more than a suggestion of a traveling salesman on the lookout for a likely farmer’s daughter about Mr. Flythe, a slight arrogance in his lazy way of assessing every woman as if she wore no clothes. In his late thirties or early forties, Sigrid judged. No gray in his dark hair or beard but his hairline was receding a bit at the temples and there was a slight puffiness beneath his sleepy brown eyes. Bedroom eyes, her Grandmother Lattimore would have called them. If his chin line had begun to blur, that was hidden by the short beard which was clipped into a modified Vandyke point.

  His clothes fit well, too: there was no tightness in the collar of his crisp blue-striped shirt, no straining at the waist of his custom-tailored navy blue blazer or gray wool pants.

  If Alan Knight embodied the all-American lustiness of sunny haystacks and bosky dells, Ted Flythe was the comme ci comme ça of a sensual blues piano in a cocktail lounge on a rainy night; and his vibrations were just as strong as Knight’s.

  And he knew it, too, Sigrid suspected, noting how Molly Baldwin had instinctively chosen the empty space on the settee and how she sat closer than was required, just as the female members of the Graphic Games crew seemed compelled to consult their superior more often than one would have thought necessary.

  “Perhaps we should finish this interview somewhere quieter,” Sigrid suggested, when a blazered girl approached for a third time since they began talking.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant. This is her first tournament, too.” He beckoned the girl nearer. “Look, Marcie, I can’t answer your questions right now, but I tell you what: you have any problems, you ask Barbara over there. She’s an old pro at this, okay?”

  “Okay,” the girl pouted.

  Sigrid was interested in Flythe’s unexpected revelation. “Your first tournament, Mr. Flythe? You haven’t been with Graphic Games long?”

  “Only since the end of the summer,” he admitted, watching Marcie’s sulky retreat.

  “And before that?”

  “You name it, I’ve probably done it,” he answered easily. “From waiting tables in high school to selling refrigerators to Eskimos.”

  “And in any of your varied jobs, had you ever met John Sutton before?”

  “Who?”

  “One of the men who died in last night’s explosion,” Sigrid said sharply, wondering why no one connected with the hotel seemed willing to admit having met Sutton. “You saw him, you even spoke with him in the d’Aubigné Room on Wednesday morning.”

  Ted Flythe stroked his beard into a sharp point; the lids of his sleepy eyes drooped lower. “I didn’t realize it was the same man,” he said. “No, if I ever met him before, I don’t remember. Why?”

  “No reason, really,” she said. “Someone in the group thought that Professor Sutton seemed to have recognized you from a previous meeting.”

  “It’s possible, I suppose. I’ve been all over. West Coast, East Coast, and everywhere in between, including a few years after college when I led tour groups around Europe. Maybe he was on one of those tours.”

  “Maybe,” Sigrid conceded and made a mental note to mention that point when she spoke with Mrs. Sutton. “What college, if I may ask?”

  “Oh, a little denominational school out in Michigan that you probably never even heard of. Carlyle Union. It’s defunct now.”

  Lieutenant Knight had listened quietly until then and now leaned forward to ask, “Excuse me, Mr. Flythe, but were you ever in the military?”

  “Nope. That’s one experience I missed.”

  Sigrid paused, expecting Knight to pursue his question. When he settled back in his chair without doing so, she said, “For the record, Mr. Flythe, had you met any of the other victims? Zachary Wolferman, Commander Dixon, or Detective Tildon?”

  “For the record, no, Lieutenant.” He hesitated. “I heard that one of those seriously hurt was a policeman. Did you know him?”

  “Yes,” she said tightly and the curtness of her tone froze the conventional expressions of sympathy Flythe started to voice. “Ms. Baldwin has told us about the seating chart being brought up early from the calligrapher’s. How did you arrive at those pairings?”

  “Not me,” said Flythe. “It’s all done by computer. There’s a space on the entry blank where a contestant can list anybody he doesn’t want to play against—his wife, say, or a friend—whoever he’s traveling with. That’s so both of them have an equal chance of staying alive.” Hearing what he’d just said, Flythe grimaced. “Bad choice of words. Sorry. What I mean is, if two friends play each other, one of them is definitely going to be eliminated, right? Whereas if each plays a stranger, there’s a good chance, or at least a possibility, that both can advance.”

  Logical, thought Sigrid. “So your computer ensures that spouses or friends don’t play each other.”

  “At least not in the early rounds. Towards the end it can’t be helped. Of course, we have consolation games, too. The main tournament will go on until tomorrow night, but in another hour or so we’ll begin a sort of mini-tournament for people who’ve been eliminated so far. Tonight we’ll start a couple of smaller pools where losers can buy in for five or ten dollars. Our policy is to let as many people keep playing as long as they want to.”

  “When were the first pairings made?”

  “The deadline for entries was two weeks ago. Our corporate office handles all that. I got the printout Monday and sent it over to Miss Baldwin here—was it that afternoon, Molly?”

  The girl had been following his every word and Sigrid noted how she colored faintly at the intimacy of his smile, recovered quickly, and said, “The messenger brought it Tuesday morning and I hand-carried it straight down to our graphics studio with a rush order. They sent it back up sometime Thursday morning because it was there in the hall when I came by after lunch and that’s when I set it inside the d’Aubigné Room.”

  “Which means that anyone passing through the hall could have seen it and learned who was to sit where for the opening round,” Sigrid mused.

  “Yes,” Molly Baldwin nodded. “Ted—Mr. Flythe told me it was to be kept confidential, but I forgot to tell them downstairs and—”

  She looked so miserable that Flythe reached over to pat her hand consolingly. “Don’t blame yourself, Molly. For my money, the bomber probably didn’t know where to put it till just before we started last night.”

  “Why do you say that, Mr. Flythe?” Lieutenant Knight asked.

  In answer, Flythe caught the eye of one of the Graphic Games crew and signaled for her to come over.

  “This is Kelly Underhill,” he told them. “Keeper of our cribbage boards. Now, Kelly, I want you to tell Lieutenant Harald exactly what you told me this morning.”

  “Sure, Mr. Flythe,” beamed the freckle-faced youngster, thrilled to be in the spotlight. Stretching out her shining moment as long as possible, she told her audience that she was entrusted with keeping tabs on the expensive cherry cribbage boards. “The losers can keep the cards if they like, but they have to return the boards because they cost too much to give away.”

  Graphic Games had provided two hundred and seventy-five boards packed in eleven boxes. That was twenty-five to the box; she explained, and they were packed in five ro
ws with five boards to each stack so it was easy to keep a running count.

  “I gave Mr. Flythe three boards on Thursday to put in those glass display cases and when one of them got stolen, I gave him another board to make up for it; so that left me with two hundred and seventy-one.

  “Then last night, we had two hundred fifty set out to play with, which left me with twenty-one boards, see?”

  She waited for their confirmation, and receiving Knight’s nod, went on eagerly.

  “Well, this morning, when the players decided to go on with the tournament and the policeman in the other room said we could move our stuff, we packed up all the boards and brought them in here. Some of the pegs got lost—we had to send over to the office for extras—but I found two hundred and seventy boards. Of course two of them were broken—from the explosion, I guess.

  “I didn’t think anything about having that many because I knew one of them’d had the bomb in it; but Nancy Kaiser knew I was worried about keeping up with all the boards—anything missing comes out of my pocket, see?—and she told me that the police had taken one of them for comparison tests or something.”

  She held out the crumpled receipt her friend had been given by someone in Forensics. Sigrid examined it and then handed it back.

  “Well, don’t you see?” said the girl. “After one board got stolen, I had two hundred and seventy-four. There’re three on display, one board blew up and the police took one; so I should have only two hundred and sixty-nine.” She stopped triumphantly.

  “I do see,” said Sigrid, leaning back in the gilt-legged chair, conscious of pain returning to her wounded arm. “Whoever stole the first cribbage board brought it back again. Undoubtedly with the bomb inside.”

  “And switched boards after the tables were set up,” concluded Ted Flythe.

  “Which was when?”

  “Late Friday afternoon,” Kelly Underhill replied, hurt by Lieutenant Harald’s lack of response to her clever discovery. “We finished around five.”

  “Then I locked the doors myself,” said Molly Baldwin, “and they weren’t unlocked until I opened the service door at seven so the stewards could prepare the hospitality table.”

  “When were the hall doors unlocked?”

  “At seven-thirty.”

  “So it would appear that the switch was made sometime between seven and nine,” said Sigrid.

  “Assuming no one from Graphic Games was involved,” observed Lieutenant Knight.

  Before Ted Flythe could take exception to his insinuation, Sigrid felt someone touch her on the shoulder and heard a merry voice say, “Ciao, Sigrid! I thought that was you.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Despite a round face, blonde bob and frivolous rhinestone-studded, harlequin-shaped, turquoise eyeglasses, Jill Gill was a serious entomologist. She wrote successful, respected children’s books; had provided Roman Tramegra with enough material on caterpillar life cycles to write two articles and six fillers; and was, if one could judge by her presence here in the Bontemps Room, a dedicated cribbage player. She was also irrepressibly interested in the personal lives of her friends and artless enough to beam at Sigrid and ask, “Why hasn’t Oscar brought you to see me lately? He’s not sulking because you and Roman have moved in together, is he?”

  Alan Knight’s eyebrows lifted in amusement and Elaine Albee was fascinated.

  The police detective had approached Dr. Gill routinely, solely because the woman had played at the far end of Table 5 the night before. That she had also netted someone personally acquainted with Lieutenant Harald was totally unexpected.

  The lieutenant was something of an enigma to Albee. Harald was known to be dedicated and efficient, with a cool, logical approach to her work and an unemotional detachment that discouraged any feminine confidences. She was also known to be unmarried and it was assumed in the department that she led a chaste and probably profoundly dull existence. Detective Tildon seemed to like her, but then Tillie liked everybody. Yet even he could add nothing to their pool of common gossip the few times Lieutenant Harald’s name came up in idle discussion.

  Driving up to the Maintenon earlier in the afternoon, Jim Lowry had expressed the usual judgment: “When Harald got cut last night, what do you think they found—blood or ice water?”

  Elaine Albee, warm and lively and full of youthful charity, had defended the older officer. “I think she was upset about Tillie. She just doesn’t parade her feelings.”

  Now, as the ramifications of Dr. Gill’s words sank in, Albee found herself looking at Lieutenant Harald in a different light. She doesn’t have to be that plain, Albee realized. With a good haircut, makeup, a few bright colors . . . I bet her figure’s not all that bad in better clothes and—

  Lieutenant Harald’s slate gray eyes met her speculative stare and Elaine flushed as guiltily as if the lieutenant could read her thoughts.

  Now the tall officer stood up and said, “Hello, Jill.”

  Dr. Jill Gill was another of Oscar Nauman’s unexpected, wide-ranging friendships and Sigrid Harald generally enjoyed the entomologist’s sunny, good-natured prattling. But not on duty. And certainly not with Alan Knight here to draw unwarranted assumptions or Albee to gape at her as if she suddenly suspected a secret life of wanton debauchery.

  “Oh my dear! What’s happened to your arm? A break? How awful!” exclaimed Dr. Gill. Her eyes narrowed with concern behind the rhinestone-encrusted glasses.

  “Nothing serious,” Sigrid replied evenly, even though her arm throbbed wretchedly now and she knew she should look around for some water to take another pain tablet. “Detective Albee, why don’t you and Dr. Gill sit over at the table and begin on her statement,” she directed frostily. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Certainly, Lieutenant. Dr. Gill?”

  As they moved away, she heard Jill ask anxiously, “Was Sigrid shot? Stabbed? Have you worked with her long?”

  She could only hope that Elaine Albee would remember this was a witness to a crime and confine her own questions to events of the previous evening.

  Before following, she turned back to Ted Flythe and Molly Baldwin. “We’d like a few copies of your original pairings and the seating chart, Mr. Flythe. We’ll need to ask the victims’ survivors if they recognize any of the names.”

  “Sure, Lieutenant. Molly, could you Xerox the one on the display easel?”

  “I’m afraid it got knocked over and stepped on,” Miss Baldwin answered doubtfully. “Detective Albee has it right now, but it’s awfully torn.”

  “No hurry,” said Sigrid. “We’ll work with it for now and perhaps you can supply us with fresh copies tomorrow?”

  Flythe nodded and Sigrid asked Molly Baldwin, “Is your calligrapher here today?”

  “Yes, he’s in the studio. I’ll have him come up.”

  “Why don’t I go down?” offered Lieutenant Knight. “It’ll give me a chance to look over the hotel, trace the board’s route back up, see who had access.”

  “That might be helpful,” Sigrid agreed crisply, obscurely relieved that he would not be sitting in on her session with the very talkative Jill Gill.

  “I can only stay a minute,” warned Dr. Gill as Sigrid approached. “We finished our round early, but they’ll be starting again soon.” She smoothed her long red-and-black striped skirt around her short legs. “Five minutes late and it’s an automatic forfeit.”

  “I won’t keep you,” Sigrid assured her. “Just tell us what happened last night.”

  “Okay, but if you expect the trained-scientist-notes-all shtick, forget it,” she said, brushing back the blonde bangs that threatened to flop over her turquoise glasses.

  “I was a little late getting here. You know me. Missed out entirely on the hot canapés and barely had time to grab a glass of wine and find my place before La Ronay gave her little welcome speech and left.”

  “Did you pay any attention to the people at the far end of your table?”

  “Not really. I looked them over, of course.
Recognized Professor Sutton. Couldn’t put a name to him, but I remembered his face from seeing him interviewed on television last spring. Sounded intelligent. Shame to lose him. Vanderlyn College, wasn’t he? Do you suppose Oscar knew him?”

  “They were friends,” Sigrid said, without expression. “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Anything at all?”

  “Not really. Well, yes, come to think of it. The woman sitting beside him—Commander Dixon? Very attractive. Her hair was completely white—bleached, do you suppose?” she wondered aloud. “Because her face was very youthful. At that distance anyhow. I noticed because she kept looking in my direction instead of at the front.”

  “You thought she knew you?”

  “Oh no, she wasn’t looking at me. Merely in my direction. Past me, in fact. Toward the refreshment table. But the only people down toward this end were the busboys, the head steward, and that tall brown-haired girl who just left with that absolutely gorgeous Navy officer. Is he a hare or one of your hounds?”

  “He’s working with us,” Sigrid nodded, “but—”

  “My dear, if I were twenty years younger!” Her blue eyes twinkled at Elaine Albee behind the rakish swoop of her glasses. “Now you’re young enough to set your cap for him,” she grinned.

  Albee grinned back at the bubbly scientist. “I’m afraid he’s already taken, Dr. Gill. You missed his wedding band.”

  “A bad sign,” Jill Gill agreed. “Men who wear their wedding rings always feel married. Too bad.”

  “Could we get back to last night?” Sigrid asked patiently. “Commander Dixon kept looking toward the refreshment table and Ms. Baldwin, and then—?”

  “Or the head steward,” Dr. Gill reminded her. “He was there, too. Steward . . . Navy? Perhaps he was a mess steward on her ship once. Or do women officers serve on ships yet?”

  “Jill, please?”

  “All right, all right,” the older woman laughed. “Keep to the subject. La Ronay finished welcoming us. I won’t waste a single minute describing how it feels to see a woman the same age as me looking that smashing,” she said mischievously. “Even Liz Taylor had the grace to start showing her age when she hit fifty. Not Lucienne Ronay, though. Isn’t it disgusting?