“What an unusual hobby,” I commented. “I think people’s hobbies can give one very interesting insights sometimes. You and I love to read mysteries, for example, and we both do some needlework, I believe. Very quiet, sedentary pursuits. But I wonder what a man like Mr. Spragge does in his spare time? Besides gardening, that is.”
Not very subtle, but where Mr. Spragge was concerned, Evelyn was usually willing to talk for hours.
Not this time. “I’m sure I don’t know,” she said stiffly. “I have always been given to understand that he has very little spare time. He takes a great deal of work home with him.”
“Really? I haven’t seen him taking more than a small attaché case when he leaves.”
Evelyn smiled acidly. “He does nearly all his work on a computer, of course, either his laptop or the home computer that is linked to the company network. Surely you realize that.”
“Yes, how silly of me. I’m not yet attuned to computers as a principal tool for business, I admit. But surely the poor man must have some time free! He can’t work every minute.”
“I’ve always believed he spends a great deal of time with his family and his gardens, and of course his charities.”
“Oh. Oxfam and that sort of thing?”
“No, no.” She loosened up a little. “Perhaps I oughtn’t to have said charities, for they’re not that, exactly. It’s simply that he’s always taken a keen interest in the problems of the less fortunate, particularly the old colonial countries in India and Africa. Whilst he was up at Oxford, he made a number of friends among the foreign students and became interested in their problems at home, and when he became such a successful businessman, he felt he ought to provide what help he could for others struggling to succeed. So he volunteers his time, oh, hours and hours, in an advisory capacity to small foreign businesses trying to establish themselves, or to grow. Or so he tells me.” The stiffness returned to her manner. I didn’t understand it.
“But surely not on weekends?” I persisted.
“As I told you, I have no idea how he spends his weekends. It’s certainly none of my concern.”
She shut her mouth firmly, brushed the last of the crumbs from her lap for the ecstatic pigeons, and stood. I’d been put properly in my place, but it didn’t worry me much. I might not have learned how Mr. Spragge had spent Friday night, but perhaps I had something more valuable—an excellent reason why Mr. Spragge might be stealing from his own company. Was his idealistic commitment to the struggling poor sufficient motivation for piracy? And was that piracy, or the need for keeping it secret, sufficient motive for murder?
16
I was now more interested than ever in where Mr. Spragge had been on Friday after work. I felt several things were beginning to come into focus, but I needed some solid evidence. I was trying, between phone calls, to think of an excuse to go into his office when a small crisis arose. Evelyn developed a terrible headache.
I found her at her desk holding a cool cloth to her head. When aspirin and various other remedies did nothing to relieve the pain, I finally persuaded her that she was unfit for work and ought to go home.
“It’ll be your hectic weekend taking revenge, I expect,” I said as she left. “Now, don’t you try to clean up your flat or anything. Go straight to bed.”
She promised she would, told me to remind the last men out about locking their doors, and went, looking distinctly ill.
I was sorry she felt so awful, but it gave me the opportunity I needed. I was about to go in to see Mr. Spragge when he came out to see me.
“I’m quite helpless without Evelyn, I’m afraid,” he said with a rueful smile. “There was a great deal of dictation to be done, and various other matters for which a skilled secretary is essential.”
“Oh, dear,” I said, taken aback. “Well, I don’t take shorthand, but I would be very happy to try—”
“I’m sure you would, Mrs. Wren, and I appreciate your concern. But Mrs. Forbes knows exactly the way I like things done. No, I’ve stacks of work to be done at home, and that is where I shall be, if anyone needs me. You do have my home telephone number?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “But isn’t it hard to concentrate at home?” I added in one last desperate attempt to learn something—anything. “I mean, your family, your garden—”
He frowned. “A man in my position cannot allow himself to be distracted. My wife fully understands that, and assures me of the peace and quiet I need. Good afternoon, Mrs. Wren.”
So. A domestic tyrant as well, perhaps? Interesting, but irrelevant. And I still had no idea where he’d been on Friday.
I was now nearly alone in the office. The entire sales staff, including Mr. Upton, had gone out immediately after their meeting in the morning, presumably with new resolve to pursue customers. I could feel some sympathy for them. Their efforts were essentially doomed.
Mr. Grey and Mr. Hammond, though still working, were sequestered in their own domains. This seemed a good time to try to question Mr. Grey. I thought for a moment and then knocked on his door.
“Yes?”
“I was about to make some tea, Mr. Grey,” I said, poking my head into his office. “I thought a cup might make you feel a little better.”
“Thank you, no. I have had severe dyspepsia since Friday night. Tea would only make matters worse.”
He did look a little green. Could I write him off, if he’d had some sort of stomach flu all weekend?
Stress can upset the stomach. For a nervous little man like Mr. Grey, snooping around a deserted office would be very stressful.
I sighed. “I’m so sorry. I do hope you recover soon.”
No, he was still in the running.
With so few people around, there was (thank heavens!) no one to overhear when I got the phone call. It came in just before six, on Mr. Spragge’s private line. I sprinted to Evelyn’s desk and picked up the receiver.
“Good afternoon, Multilinks.”
“Thank God, an American voice! Who’re you?” The voice at the other end was American, too, and extremely irritated.
“I’m only the receptionist. I’m afraid Mr. Spragge is out, and his secretary as well, but I’d be happy to take a message—”
“Not on your damn life! I’ve been leaving messages for days, and nobody ever calls back. Now listen, lady, whoever you are, I don’t care what you have to do to make it happen, but I want to talk to Bill Monahan, and I want to talk to him now!”
For just a few seconds I was struck dumb.
“Hey! Are you there! I said—”
“Yes, I heard you. I’m not—quite sure where to locate Mr. Monahan at the moment.”
I wasn’t, either. I presumed his body was still in the Thames, or wherever it had been dumped by his murderers. As to the location of his soul, if souls have locations, that was between Mr. Monahan and his maker.
The phone was making angry, frustrated noises. “Yeah, that’s the line they’ve been giving me for two weeks! Now, you get this straight. I know you’re just a flunky, but my name is Walt Shepherd. Got that?”
“Yes … and your telephone number?”
“I’m at the home office. In Palo Alto. You’ve got the number there, but I’ll give it to you anyway.” The American sequence of numbers gave me a sharp, unexpected stab of homesickness. “And you can tell that boss of yours that unless I hear from Bill by the time I go to bed tonight—that’d be eight in the morning or so, your time—I’m climbing on a plane first thing tomorrow to see what the hell is going on over there!”
“Mr. Shepherd, I—” There was a sharp click before I finished saying the name.
Walt Shepherd. Walt Shephered. Why did that name sound familiar?
Then the penny dropped, with a very loud clunk. Good grief, Bill Monahan’s partner! Now the sole owner of Multilinks, though he didn’t know it yet. Dear heaven, now what?
Now was the time to call in the police, that was what. Matters were getting out of control. And I had some proof, now,
of the accusations I was about to make. And with a very angry, very high-handed corporate executive getting into the act, I had no real choice left.
Scotland Yard would be the place to call, I supposed. I’d be routed through all kinds of bureaucratic levels until I got to the person I wanted. And the first thing they’d ask me, at all of those levels, was my name. And the second would be why I hadn’t told them all of this before.
Well, it would all be very unpleasant, but I’d just have to deal with it. It wasn’t entirely my own fault, after all. I’d tried to tell them before.
Yes, and just what was I going to tell them? That there had been a dead man in a train a couple of weeks ago. Why hadn’t I reported it? Oh, someone else was to have reported it, yes. And who was this alleged victim? WHO? And what made me think that? Well—because he’d told me about a computer program. No, I couldn’t remember the name of it, but my friend had guessed—no, I’d really rather not get my friend involved. Anyway, I knew I was right because the man in question was missing. And what made me think that? Because I’d gotten a phone call from his partner. He’d called the Multilinks office here.
Ah. And what were you doing answering the phone at Multilinks? Oh, you were working there, I see. Without a work permit. Without any official documentation whatsoever. Under an assumed name. Yes. And your real name, madam? That’s Mrs.—oh, yes, your name is different from your husband’s name. And your husband’s name?
What in heaven’s name would Alan say when he got a call from Scotland Yard asking if he could identify a very suspicious woman masquerading as his wife?
I gritted my teeth and picked up the phone. It would simply have to be done, that’s all.
“Oh, Mrs. Wren.”
I started guiltily and put the phone down again. Mr. Grey stood by my desk looking disapproving.
“I hope you weren’t about to make a personal call, Mrs. Wren. That is not allowed here, you know, not approved at all. Oh, dear, I don’t know what might not happen to someone who did that, particularly a new employee. I shouldn’t advise it, I really shouldn’t.”
“I—I was answering a call,” I said to his unblinking gaze. “They—it must have been a wrong number.”
I sounded as convincing as my fourth-graders whose dogs used to eat their homework.
“Yes, of course.”
That was exactly what I used to reply. And I would just look at the child until he turned red and confessed.
I looked at my watch. I was not nine years old, and I wasn’t about to be treated as if I were. “It’s really past time for me to go home. Was there something you wanted before I leave, Mr. Grey?”
“Oh, you’re leaving. I see. Yes, I wanted you to find some back memos for me, but it can wait until morning. Good night, Mrs. Wren.”
“Good night, Mr. Grey. Don’t forget to lock your office door, and close your window. Mrs. Forbes said to remind you.”
“Yes, yes. Mrs. Forbes fusses too much.”
I had to leave after that. I wouldn’t have put it past Mr. Grey to be lurking by the door to make sure I didn’t place that illicit phone call after all.
Or, perhaps, to listen in.
Well, I wasn’t sorry to delay the evil moment a little longer, until I got back to Tom and Lynn’s. It might not seem quite so impossible, with them on hand for moral support.
There was, I had discovered that morning, a shortcut to the Underground. If I cut through a narrow passage to one side of the building, I would go past the back gardens of the Multilinks house and the vacant house behind it, on Woburn Place, and avoid the heavy foot traffic on Northampton Way at that time of day. No one ever used the passage, apparently, and I wanted the solitude to think.
There seemed to be an unusual number of crows around, or rooks, or ravens—large black birds, anyway, circling the garden of the vacant house behind Multilinks and cawing hoarsely. I shuddered. They reminded me of a terrifying movie that had given me nightmares for weeks. What, I wondered, had upset the birds?
Or, no, they weren’t upset. They were feeding on something. Not a dead cat, I hoped. Nigel had taken the white cat back to Sherebury in an attempt to nurse it back to health, but there were bound to be other strays in the neighborhood. Not really wanting to, I took a closer look in spite of myself.
The body wasn’t really very well hidden. The crows had found it easily enough under the bush. All I could see clearly were the feet.
Feet clad in narrow, light brown shoes that looked as though they would pinch.
I suddenly felt very cold, despite the sticky heat of the day. There was a low brick wall on either side of the passage. I groped my way under an overhanging spirea to the wall farthest away from the birds and their meal and sat down, hard. The world was having an alarming tendency to swoop and spin. Better put my head down.
I was in that position when someone came along the path, whistling at first and then suddenly stopping dead still. Something kept me from moving, some instinct like that of a hunted rabbit. I scarcely breathed.
“What the bloody hell—here, get away, you! Shoo!”
My heart did stop beating for an instant, I swear, until I realized he was shouting at the birds. Then there were some rustling noises and a thump. He was over the wall.
“God!” It sounded almost like a prayer, and was followed immediately by a series of retching sounds. I swallowed hard and concentrated on not listening.
Rustles and a thump again, and the sound of feet running toward Woburn Place. Just when the sounds had almost died away, I heard the cry of “Police! Help! Murder!”
Very quietly, I crept out from under my spirea and walked back to Northampton Way. Whatever my future contact with the police might be, I had no wish to confront them right now over the body of poor Mr. Dalal.
It took all the self-discipline I possessed not to get sick on the Underground. With the heat and the press of humanity—many of whom had not bathed recently, and some of whom were munching on a predinner snack—I have never liked my fellow creatures less than on that ride. One of them came aboard eating something crunchy and greasy that smelled of curry, and I nearly lost it right then.
Fortunately I had only two stops to go, and I managed to make it to the surface, where I stopped, clung to a pillar outside Victoria Station, and inhaled great gasps of the fresher, cooler air. I was very unpopular, obstructing the flow of that great river of men and women hurrying to get home. I didn’t greatly care.
I was only ten minutes from the Andersons’ house, but I didn’t walk there until I’d ducked into the station and bought a bottle of sparkling water. It wasn’t cold, but it was wet and clean, and it rinsed the flavor of a good many things out of my mouth. I was able to walk in the front door on Chester Street with a more nearly normal countenance, and in nearly complete control of my digestion.
At least I thought I looked normal, but when Lynn saw me, she cried out. “Dorothy! What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
“I have,” I said. “Or a dead man, anyway. I guess they’re not quite the same thing, are they?” I started to laugh and was, in an instant, in the grip of full-fledged hysterics.
Lynn looks rather a lot like Katharine Hepburn, and has a good deal of the same hardheaded, practical approach to life. She wasted no time dithering but ran out of the room and returned in a moment with something that she clapped to the back of my neck and something that she held under my nose. I choked, coughed, and proceeded to get sick in the dishpan that she had also thoughtfully provided, while she sponged my face and held my head.
When, weak and spent and thoroughly ashamed of myself, I had stretched out on her couch, she returned from the bathroom and stood at my side, hands on her hips.
“That’s better,” she said critically. “You look like hell, but at least you don’t look like you’re going to pass out.”
“Your treatment was very effective,” I croaked, my throat raw from vomiting. “What on earth was it?”
“Ice on the
back of your neck and ammonia in front of your nose. Together they’re an almost sure cure, but sometimes the ammonia makes a person sick.”
“Yes, well.”
The door of the house, one floor below, opened and closed. “Anybody home?” called Tom.
“Up here.” Lynn turned with lean-limbed grace and went to meet him, probably to warn him about their bothersome guest.
Tom can be tactful when he wishes, but he also knows when to go straight to the point. He came upstairs at once, walked into the living room, and looked me straight in the eye.
“A dead man?” he said.
“Could I have something to drink?”
Lynn brought me ginger ale. “No alcohol yet,” she decreed. “You’ve had a shock, and your stomach is still iffy. Ginger ale settles the stomach.”
It did seem to, actually. I sipped a little and then, as baldly as possible, told them.
“It wasn’t so much the body. I didn’t really see anything but his feet, poor little man. It was the crows …”
My voice faded, and Lynn frowned. “Don’t talk about them. And don’t think anymore about what you saw. That’s over and done with. The question is, what do you do now?”
“I think,” I said with reluctance, “I think I have to see it through.”
There was immediate protest, as I knew there would be, but I felt strong enough now to argue. “All right. You have common sense on your side. I’ll admit that. I was almost ready to go to the police this afternoon with all that I knew, or guessed. But don’t you see that this murder has changed everything? For one thing, I am now a material witness who has run away. The police wouldn’t have been very happy with me before. Now they’d be livid.”
“But you’re Alan’s wife,” objected Lynn.
“That doesn’t give me the right to break laws, which I have assuredly done. And I don’t want to involve Alan if I can possibly help it. He may be retired, officially, but he’s still very active in police work, and think what the scandal sheets would do with this! Besides, I’m still incognito at that office. How long do you think that would last if the police knew my name?”
The Victim in Victoria Station Page 15
