The Victim in Victoria Station

by Jeanne M. Dams

  The telephone ringing madly at my desk cut his reply to a shake of the head as I dashed away.

  I wasn’t sure how to tackle the inscrutable Mr. Grey, but to my surprise he raised the questions himself. He came out to my desk to ask me for an old file, and lingered.

  “Where did you go when you left here last night, Mrs. Wren?”

  I repeated the story I’d told Mr. Hammond. “Why?” I added.

  “It’s only that you must have left just before the alarm was turned in. About that unfortunate man, you know. I wondered if you’d noticed anything unusual.”

  “The police asked me that, of course. I said no. Did you?”

  “Oh, no,” he said hastily. “My room is at the front of the house. What would I have seen?”

  “Search me,” I said. “Somebody walking past your window, or turning into the passageway—” Belatedly, I shut up. He might very well have seen someone. Me!

  “As a matter of fact—I did rather think I saw you going in that direction. I can’t see the entrance to the passage from where I sit, but surely if you were going to Euston …”

  He let the phrase trail off suggestively. I hoped I looked annoyed rather than upset.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I did turn in that direction first. I had forgotten about my friend. I have a terrible memory. But I remembered before I’d gone very far and came back. Surely you saw me return!” I said aggressively. Attack is the best defense.

  “No, I—I was away from my desk for a few moments.”

  Just like Mr. Grey not to admit he had to go to the bathroom like normal human beings! But, I thought when he finally left, if he saw me possibly heading toward the passage and did nothing about it, he must not have had anything on his conscience.

  Except why was he being so picky about it?

  Because it’s in his nature to be picky, I replied wearily to myself. A dislike for the man is insufficient reason to believe he’s a murderer.

  I was just coming out of the bathroom, before lunch, when the storm that had been brewing all morning broke. Evelyn was in Mr. Spragge’s office and had, most unusually for her, left his door ajar.

  Her voice was high and nervous and carried easily to where I was, only inches from the door. Praying no one else would feel the call of nature, I stood stock-still, scarcely daring to breathe.

  “Mr. Spragge. May I ask if you have any reason to be dissatisfied with my work?”

  I couldn’t hear his answer, low and rumbling, but there was, I thought, surprise in the inflections of his voice.

  “Well, then, why are you so annoyed with me?” She sounded close to tears. Again Spragge’s voice carried surprise and, perhaps, a little impatience.

  “I’ve—I’ve done my best to support your work. All your work, as you know, sir. I’ve been loyal to you. But if I am to be rewarded with this—”

  “With what?” Now his voice was raised enough that I could hear.

  “With—with mistrust and impatience and—and—Mr. Spragge, I’m sorry, but I must ask you. Who was with you in this office on Friday night?”

  I didn’t wait to hear his answer, but fled like a scalded cat.

  18

  I had intended to ask Evelyn to lunch with me, but I had too much to think about now. A solitary break, with time to think, would be better. I got food at a take-out place, took it into one of the little gardens that abound in the area, and sat down to worry.

  Of course, I reasoned as I ate something and drank something without particularly noticing what they were, neither Evelyn nor Mr. Spragge had reason to be suspicious of me, even after they had straightened out their cross-purposes and Spragge had convinced Evelyn that he had not been in the office Friday night. True, I had asked to stay late that night, but “late” wouldn’t normally translate to nine-thirty or so. And what reason would Louise Wren, brand-new employee, have to stick around for hours on a Friday night and snoop in the office?

  No, they didn’t really know a thing, except that someone—two someones; Evelyn had plainly heard Nigel’s voice as well—who had no business there had been in Spragge’s office at a decidedly unusual hour.

  For that matter, I suddenly stopped to think, what had Evelyn been doing there? It must have been she, of course, who’d let in the cat. Wait, though—it was coming—of course! She’d told me herself, but I’d been too stupid to listen carefully enough. Her daughter’s train had been very late, at Euston Station. Evelyn had had to wait for it. And she’d been worried about the office doors being locked.

  It was no more than a fifteen-minute walk from Euston to the office. She could very naturally have walked there to kill some time and check the doors, and when she found someone in the office, she …

  There I ran aground. She what? As conscientious as Evelyn Forbes was, why didn’t she just march on into Spragge’s office and catch us in the act? Or call the police? Why would she just leave?

  I ran over her questions to Spragge again, and once again, and when I finally got it, pity welled up in me and I put down the food I didn’t want anymore.

  She thought it was Spragge in there, with a woman.

  Spragge, whom she idolized. Spragge, who was married to an invalid. Spragge, who was a churchwarden. Spragge, carrying on with a floozy.

  Nigel and I had been nervous, I remembered. We had giggled a little, quietly. And we had spoken in low tones. Yes, with a little curdled imagination the sounds could certainly have been misinterpreted. The office door, I had reason to know, was heavy, the walls solid. Even with the door ajar, I had been able to hear only Evelyn just now, until Spragge raised his voice.

  That poor woman! I could have told her the idol almost certainly had feet of clay, but she wouldn’t have listened to me. It would have seemed like betrayal. Coming to the same conclusion herself, she had felt betrayed. And now, now that she had shown Spragge her suspicions and he had denied any knowledge of what she was talking about—my toes curled. Of all the embarrassments in the world, few go quite as deep as the revelation of unrequited love.

  For love was, I was quite sure, what Evelyn felt for Spragge. She probably didn’t know it. She was probably prepared to swear it was only admiration, sympathy, and loyalty.

  Or she could have sworn it until now. Now that she had recognized her own jealousy, she could no longer pretend, even to herself.

  Poor woman!

  I didn’t want to go back to the office at all, but two things kept me from running away. I reminded myself that I was no nearer catching a murderer, and I had only a little more time. The answer was in that office somewhere; that was one reason I went back.

  The other was that Evelyn deserved some support. I couldn’t say anything to her, of course. I wasn’t supposed to know anything about the whole sorry business. But if she wanted someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, I was a safe sort of person, as a near-stranger, and a foreigner at that. And another woman.

  Against every instinct I possessed, I turned my steps to Northampton Way.

  Evelyn wasn’t there when I returned. I supposed she had either gone out to lunch or taken the rest of the day off to regain her composure. I hoped it was the latter, but I doubted it. Her strong sense of duty had almost kept her at the office yesterday in spite of a disabling headache. She would probably consider giving way to an emotional upset to be the act of a coward—letting down the side, not keeping a stiff upper lip—all the clichés that make the English so admirable, so reliable, and, sometimes, so foolish.

  Mr. Hammond had also left, and Mr. Grey did so as soon as I returned, muttering something about inconsiderate people who lingered over their lunches while others waited. (I was ten minutes early getting back.) I knocked on Mr. Spragge’s door to see if he was in. Rather to my surprise, he was. “Oh, I didn’t mean to disturb you, but Evelyn seems to have gone to lunch, and I wanted to know if you can take phone calls.”

  “Calls? Oh yes, yes, by all means.” He smiled halfheartedly. “Mrs.—er—”

  “Wren.”


  “Mrs. Wren, have you noticed anything—er—odd about Mrs. Forbes? I realize you hardly know her, but I wondered …” He trailed off helplessly.

  “We’ve begun to be friends,” I answered guardedly. “She’s a very nice woman, isn’t she?”

  “Indeed, indeed. But of late she has seemed …” He made a vague gesture.

  “I did think she seemed quite upset this morning, but of course with police and reporters all over the place, we were all somewhat upset.”

  “Yes, yes, perhaps that explains it.” He was speaking almost to himself. I waited. “Thank you, Mrs. Wren,” he said after a moment, blinking and remembering I was there. I went back to my own desk and thought about the unlikely passions that stir humankind.

  Then I pulled myself together. There is a time for philosophical musings, but this wasn’t it. I had far more important things to think about. In between phone calls from the press, which had slowed down to a trickle, and business calls, which were almost nonexistent, I tried to consider what I knew.

  Put that way—what I knew—it didn’t really amount to a lot. I knew that Bill Monahan was dead. I knew that someone at Multilinks was pirating copies of very expensive software. I knew that Evelyn Forbes had returned to the office Friday night, that Vicki Shore was having an affair with Lloyd Pierce, that Brian Upton took drugs and had a temper, that Terry Hammond drank too much.

  Did any of that hang together? Did most of it matter?

  Those were among the questions I couldn’t answer. And time was growing short.

  Take another tack. I was reasonably certain that Mr. Spragge was the pirate, stealing from his own company to save the world. Or he’d started out that way. Was it cynical to assume that money, a great deal of it, now entered into his calculations? Not to mention the megalomania that lies in wait for all capable men who start playing God.

  I wished Mr. Spragge would go out to lunch so I could have a look in his office. His was the one that mattered most, and Nigel and I had been interrupted before we could go over it carefully. Maybe if I could figure out a way to stick around tonight—but no, Evelyn would be suspicious. I couldn’t have her getting ideas about me and spreading them around the office. Someone, I had to keep reminding myself, someone in this place, at least one of these ordinary-looking people, was a murderer. Probably my empathetic, charming churchwarden of a boss.

  At least I could check Fortier’s office again. We’d given it up as a bad job, Nigel and I; it was too much of a mess, and we’d had little light. If I were quiet, I could surely poke around in his desk for a while now. If Mr. Spragge heard me, I could always claim Fortier had called and asked me to find something for him. I wouldn’t have much time, but I might get lucky.

  It didn’t take me long, after all, and I had little need to be quiet. I stole into the back office, shuddering a little as I passed the file cabinet used by poor Mr. Dalal. If it hid any secrets, they didn’t matter now, did they? Mr. Dalal, I was sure, had been killed because he talked too much, killed because he thought something funny was going on at Multilinks. How right he had been!

  And I, who knew something funny was going on, had better keep my eyes open and stay on my guard. I crept to Fortier’s desk, knelt in front of it (my knees protesting loudly), and opened the big bottom drawer on the right.

  Nothing. It was empty. I sat back on my heels, frowning. I couldn’t remember what had been in that drawer Friday night, but it had been stuffed full of something. All the drawers had been.

  I tried another, and yet another, in growing alarm, until I had opened and very quietly shut every drawer in his desk.

  They were all empty. Mr. Fortier had cleaned out his desk.

  He’d done a bunk.

  I sat there, ignoring my tortured knees, frozen in horror. Flight is a sign of guilt. I’d waited too long, tried too hard to prove my suspicions. Had I let a murderer flee, perhaps out of the country to his native Canada?

  Getting hastily to my feet, every joint creaking in protest, I went to his file cabinet, opened it, and then had to hold on to keep myself upright when I sagged with relief. The files were still full. That must mean that he hadn’t finished the cleanup operation, that he was coming back. True, he might have decided to leave some of the business paperwork, but there were personal things here too, I saw in a quick glance—letters, phone numbers—that I thought he’d want. If I were a criminal fleeing from justice, I’d take along everything that might possibly give any hints about me. I devoutly hoped that Mr. Fortier was smart enough to do the same, because otherwise …

  My mind occupied with wild speculations, I was nearly caught. I missed hearing Evelyn’s return to the office until her footsteps approached the door of the office I was illicitly occupying. I closed the file drawer hastily and made it almost to the door before she came in.

  “Why, Mrs. Martin! Whatever are you doing in here?”

  She had been crying, but her cheeks were dry now and her voice steady.

  “I had a call from someone, a customer I suppose, who’s very anxious to reach Mrs.—I mean Ms. Shore. I was looking to see if she kept a schedule of her appointments in here somewhere, but I couldn’t find one.”

  Evelyn pursed her lips. “I believe Mr. Upton has the only copy, and of course he is not in today, either.” Her tone was extremely acid. “You had better let me take the call.”

  “They said they’d call back,” I improvised.

  “Hmph! Man or woman?”

  “Man.”

  “Yes, I might have suspected. Customer, indeed!”

  She marched on into the room and looked around with distaste. “Really! Look at this place! You’d think these salespeople were pigs, the way they leave everything lying about. I suppose I should try to tidy up.”

  Ah. A chance to talk. “I’d be glad to help, if—”

  The look she gave me wouldn’t have flattered a large hairy spider. “I’m sure you have enough to do, Mrs. Wren. Some of these documents are confidential.”

  Ouch! Evelyn’s misery had soured to fury, it seemed, radiating from her, scorching everyone within range. Not a good time for conversation, then, but I kept trying. “I don’t actually have a lot to do. The phone doesn’t seem to be ringing much this afternoon. I hate to just sit idle.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, do anything you like! Read a book, if you really can’t find something more productive. You’ll find one or two in my bottom file drawer. But please leave me to my work!”

  I got out of her way as quickly as possible. I didn’t have the least desire to read, but I took her up on her offer and carried a fat Tom Clancy I hadn’t read back to my desk and sat with it closed in my lap while I tried to think. Eventually I drew out a stenographer’s notebook someone had left behind in a bottom drawer and began to make notes in a semi-shorthand.

  Cs. Anti, I headed a page.

  Under it I listed the Multilinks staff by initials and began to set down abbreviated versions of the case against them.

  Terry Hammond was first. He couldn’t be the doctor on the train. His hands shook, his hair was red, his accent was wrong. But he had good reason to be the pirate. His drinking could cost him his job, had probably cost him others.

  On the other hand, I liked him, darn it.

  That all went down as:

  TH. Not MD.—hands and hair. Pir? Booze, $. But—

  It finished with a smiley face.

  Brian Upton was next. He wasn’t the doctor either; his accent was entirely wrong. He had, though, far better reasons to be the pirate. Drugs cost a lot of money, and he was being blackmailed. A good possibility. A couple of plus signs ended his entry.

  Mr. Grey. I couldn’t even remember his first name. He had the right sort of accent and he looked like anybody else in a dark suit. But he was such a Mr. Milquetoast! Unless that was all a front, and he was a consummate actor, he was out of it. I put down a firm minus sign.

  Vicki Shore. Well, she certainly wasn’t the doctor, but I liked her as the
pirate, partly because I didn’t like her at all. (A smiley face with a diagonal bar through it.) She was a thoroughly unpleasant woman whose husband apparently held the purse strings, and she wanted money to make whoopie. Another couple of plus signs.

  Lloyd Pierce. He could have been the doctor. Right appearance, right accent, quite enough chutzpah to carry it off. And he had reason for piracy; it costs a good deal to be a womanizer. He and Vicki working together? It couldn’t be dismissed.

  I looked at my notebook with its cryptic entries and sighed. I was just playing games, really. Oh, everything I’d noted was reasonable enough. But to set against it:

  Fortier. Fortier, who had cleaned out his desk. Fortier, who had been terrified by a simple question on the phone about Bill Monahan. Fortier, with a faint Canadian accent. Fortier, who would do anything his boss asked him to.

  There wasn’t really much doubt, was there, that Fortier was the doctor on the train? Or that he had, either with Spragge or at his orders, murdered Monahan?

  And Spragge. The boss. The brains behind the whole business. I couldn’t doubt it any longer. It hadn’t been any of the sales staff; they didn’t have a clue what was making the orders evaporate. It hadn’t been nice Terry Hammond or gray little Mr. Grey. It was Spragge himself, with his laptop computer and his need for complete control. Spragge the rose grower, Spragge the churchwarden, Spragge the idol of his secretary.

  And how, how, how was I to prove it?

  I tore the notebook pages into tiny pieces and dropped them in the wastebasket.

  THERE WAS A little flurry of phone calls about two-thirty. Some of the newspapers had followed up with calls to California now that it was morning there, and having been unable to reach Monahan either at home—no answer—or at his office—no cooperation—were calling back to pester us. I took it upon myself to fend them off. Evelyn was upset enough, and I’d accomplished all I could in the way of flurrying Mr. Spragge. It hadn’t been enough, but more pressure wouldn’t help. I didn’t know if Evelyn had tried to place the promised call to Monahan at home, and I didn’t ask. She plainly didn’t want to talk, at least not to me, and I really pitied her and didn’t intend to increase her difficulties.