I had forgotten all about Nigel and the cat until they showed up a little after five, the cat in a carrier this time and quite silent. They created an immediate crisis.
I had intended to use the cat to unmask the person who had been in the office Friday night. I’d thought perhaps the beast would recognize the person it had followed into the building, or the person would recognize the cat and make some sort of damaging admission.
Now the only person likely to be damaged was me, if the cat was friendly to me—and Evelyn saw it and made some connection.
“Nigel, you’ve got to get it out of here! Right now!” My voice was an anguished whisper. “I’m sorry, but things have changed—Pete, be quiet!”
For the cat, perhaps at the sound of my voice, had started to meow loudly.
“Nigel—”
It was too late. The cat’s cries resounded loudly through the office. Mr. Grey came out. Mr. Hammond came out. And Evelyn came out, extremely annoyed.
“Mrs. Wren! What is the meaning of this disturbance?”
With a mental apology to Nigel, I looked indignant and said, “I haven’t the slightest idea. This young man came in here with this cat, and it started to yowl. I don’t know what he’s doing here, and I certainly don’t know why he brought that cat with him!”
19
Evidently Pete was insulted by my reference to “that cat,” because he uttered a comment or two that were certainly not complimentary, and then proceeded to escape from his carrier and jump onto my desk, knocking the telephone to the floor and scattering papers everywhere. In the commotion that followed as everyone tried to apprehend the fugitive, Nigel acquitted himself nobly. He might not have been a star in his school’s dramatic productions, but he should have been awarded an Oscar on the spot for his performance that afternoon.
He caught Pete, who had ended his flight by diving under my desk and rubbing against my ankles, stuffed him back into the box (incurring a scratch or two in the process), and apologized charmingly. “Sorry, ladies—gentlemen. Didn’t mean to cause a row. I live in the next street, you see, and this old chap’s rather been coming round lately. I’d as soon take him in as not—I like cats—but I thought I’d best see if he belongs to anyone. As I can see he doesn’t belong here, I’ll apologize for the disturbance and take myself off.”
“He certainly,” Evelyn said with a sniff, “seems to have taken to Mrs. Wren.”
“I like cats myself,” I murmured, while casting bitter mental imprecations Pete’s way. “They can always tell, can’t they?”
I had managed when the confusion was at its height to scribble a quick note to Nigel. “Go to Tom and Lynn’s. See you there later.” Now I saw him and his noisy friend to the door, mouthed a quick “Sorry,” and slipped the note into his hand.
I thought six o’clock would never get there, but Evelyn finally came out of her office to inform me, coldly, that she was staying late, but I was free to leave. I jumped at the chance. I had decided that Nigel and I would have to come back for some more reconnaissance, and had set the Yale lock on the back door in the unlocked position, on the off chance that Evelyn wouldn’t notice. An unlocked door would make matters easier, but I was prepared to break a window if I had to. Tomorrow was D day; I had to have some solid evidence by then.
I had expected to find Nigel in a fine Welsh rage, but I had reckoned without Lynn. If any social situation has ever caught her unprepared, I’ve never seen it. When I finally got there, she and Nigel were sitting in the living room over beer and snacks, while the cat, purring loudly, was devouring a dish of what looked remarkably like pâté de foie gras.
“Nigel, I am sorry! Plans backfired.” I poured myself a drink and joined them, explaining what had been going on all day.
“And I don’t blame Evelyn for being upset, or for taking it out on me, but if she’d happened to notice the cat that night, and then had put two and two together today, we’d both have been in the soup, Nigel,” I concluded.
“We still could be,” he said, “if she does her sums between now and tomorrow morning.”
“You’re all too right,” I said, rolling my eyes to the ceiling. “That’s why we have to go back to the office tonight and find some definitive proof of Spragge’s guilt.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. That’s the trouble. We know he’s the one who’s pirating the software, maybe with Fortier’s help. Fortier’s in it up to his neck, that’s certain, or he wouldn’t be about to decamp. But I still don’t know which of them was the actual murderer. For all I know, they both are. Maybe one of them took care of Monahan, and the other dispatched poor little Mr. Dalal!”
I was sounding a little frantic by that time, I suppose, and maybe not terribly convincing. But Nigel didn’t have to hoot with laughter.
“Right! Two murderers. Spot on, Dorothy. You’ll be saying it’s the whole company, next—one of those plots where everybody did it!”
“All right, laugh! But unless we can figure out exactly what’s been going on, and find it before tomorrow …”
Lynn groaned. “Tomorrow the police are going to move in, and it’s all going to blow up in your face, Dorothy!”
“Not if I can come up with something tonight, it isn’t. If I can provide Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Is—”
“Shepherd,” said Nigel, and I made a face at him.
“—okay, Shepherd. If I can show him some solid proof that his partner is dead and Fortier and Co. killed him, Scotland Yard won’t know what hit ’em. But I have to have proof, and I don’t propose to get it alone. Are you with me, Nigel?”
“Oh, no you don’t, Dorothy! Not this time.”
“Lynn, I have to go—you must see that!”
“Of course you do. And Nigel’s panting to go with you. But Tom and I are coming along, and I won’t listen to a word of argument. Aren’t we, darling?”
Tom, who walked in just at that moment, grinned at her. “You betcha. Are what?”
“Are going with Dorothy and Nigel to find a clue.”
Then Tom had to be brought up to speed, which took us most of dinner. To Lynn’s surprise, I think, I didn’t argue about including the two of them in the expedition. The dimensions of the search were daunting, after all, and Nigel and I could well use extra hands and eyes.
So we didn’t prolong our meal (which was a pity, because Lynn’s meals deserve loving attention), and we saved the after-dinner drinks for later. We were lucky that the weather had turned murky again, for on a clear June night it wouldn’t have been really dark until after ten, and we had too much to do to wait that long.
“It’s actually midsummer night, did you know?” said Nigel as we left the house.
“It’s to be hoped we won’t behave like Bottom and crew and make asses of ourselves,” said Lynn.
We drove; it would be so late when we were ready to leave the office that a cab would be hard to find—and parking wasn’t a problem in that area at night. Besides, we might find ourselves wanting to get away in a hurry!
Tom parked his elegant BMW a few doors away from the Multilinks office. We saw no need to advertise our presence. I tried hard not to shudder as I led my friends down the passageway to the back door. The body was long gone. There was nothing to be afraid of.
The door was still unlocked. Poor Evelyn; she’d be mortified if she ever knew she’d left it that way. I’d have to make sure it was secure when we left.
We’d all brought flashlights; I was risking no lights this time, not even in Spragge’s office. We’d decided to start there, as the most likely spot.
“What we need is something, anything, that would serve as proof,” I pontificated. “The ideal thing would be some of Monahan’s identification. His body is certainly in the river, but I’m not sure I would have thrown him in, passport and all, if I’d been Fortier. Bodies surface eventually, and passports are printed on good sturdy paper that could still be read, I’ll bet.”
“I’d burn his papers, myself
,” said Nigel skeptically.
“So would I, and they probably did just that, but there’s a chance they forgot something,” I insisted. “Then there are Monahan’s clothes, his luggage.”
“Also in the river.” Nigel was determined to look on the dark side.
“Maybe. Look, there has to be something. Maybe we can find the poison they used.”
“Poison?” Three pairs of eyes stared at me.
“Well, it must have been, don’t you think?” I was surprised I had to explain; it seemed so obvious. “He wouldn’t just die like that, quietly and with no fuss, any other way. Someone, probably the “doctor,” got on the train and managed to slip poison into Bill’s coffee, probably when he picked it up at the buffet window. It would be easy enough on a moving train. I admit the odds are against our finding it. I think the best way is just to look for anything at all that seems out of the ordinary. And for goodness’ sakes keep your ears open, in case Fortier decides to finish his cleanup job tonight.”
We were quiet, and thorough, but there was nothing. We combed Spragge’s office. Unlike Fortier’s domain, it was very tidy and easy to search. Even the laptop computer that might have yielded a few more secrets was gone.
Tom went methodically through Spragge’s paper files, searching for irregular business practices. Nigel closed the velvet draperies, turned on the desktop computer, and went through its files with equal doggedness and equal results: zero. Lynn and I, with no particular expertise, simply looked through everything else, hunting with a woman’s eye for personal details that didn’t seem to fit.
In an hour we called it quits for that office and moved on to Fortier’s. It would be tedious to detail that search. His files were still there, which was encouraging, but otherwise our exploration was fruitless. So were the searches through the other offices, which yielded exactly no information at all, except that Brian Upton had emptied his desk of the illegal drugs.
“Heard about the police being here, I expect,” said Lynn. “It’s a good thing he got here before we did.” She yawned, not really very interested in what she was saying. None of us was much interested in much of anything by then.
We had repaired to my cubbyhole. I sat down at my desk with a groan. “We might as well give up. It isn’t here, whatever it is, or at least we can’t find it. And Shepherd will get here tomorrow and unleash the police, and goodness only knows what will happen. Let’s go home, Tom. Sufficient unto the day.”
I put a hand on the corner of my desk to help heave myself out of my chair, and knocked off the book that Evelyn had lent me. Nigel stooped to pick it up.
“Oh, sorry, your bookmark fell out, Dorothy.”
“What bookmark? I wasn’t reading it. Let me see.”
And there it was, what four of us had been seeking for hours. I leaned against the desk and indulged in near-hysterics while the others waited, dumbfounded. When I recovered, I shone my flashlight on the “bookmark” and held it out in an unsteady hand for the others to see.
It was a small piece of card stock, about two by three inches. Computer-generated, it had several lines of type in an undecipherable code, but the rest was plain enough.
“SFO LGW BA 800 03JUN,” it read. And below that, “LGW SFO BA 801 21JUN.”
“What is it?” said Nigel, puzzled.
“My God!” breathed Tom.
“It’s the stub of a boarding pass,” I said in a shaky voice. “A flight from San Francisco to London Gatwick, British Airways flight 800 on June 3. The return flight is shown, too. He’d planned to go home today.” My voice broke.
“Who planned? I don’t understand.” Lynn’s voice was plaintive.
I held the flashlight higher, so they could read the top line.
“MONAHAN/WILLIAM.”
20
But—what’s Bill Monahan’s boarding pass doing in your book?”
“That,” I said, beginning to catch a glimmer of the truth, “is not my book.”
“It was on your desk—”
“I borrowed it. Or rather, I had it thrust upon me. And I have been an idiot.”
This time they didn’t ask, but simply waited for me to gather my thoughts.
“That book,” I said when I had put it together in my head, “was loaned to me by Evelyn Forbes. It was in her bottom file drawer, with a couple of other paperbacks. It isn’t quite her style, though. She prefers Golden Age mysteries or classic thrillers, John Buchan for choice.
“Therefore, I believe that she didn’t buy that book. It doesn’t look new, anyway. And in fact it isn’t new. I’ve seen it myself, a couple of weeks ago. It belonged to Monahan. He was reading it on the train until he started talking to me, and I saw it on the seat next to him. And if I hadn’t been, as I said, a total nincompoop, I would have remembered before now. He probably bought it to read on the plane on the way over. That would explain the boarding pass. They’re handy bookmarks; I’ve used them myself.”
“So what was it doing in Forbes’s office?” Lynn made an excellent straight man.
“That’s the sixty-four-dollar question, isn’t it? But the answer is obvious. Somebody involved in Monahan’s murder saw it with the poor man’s things and didn’t have the heart to throw it out. And I think I know who.”
“Okay, I’ll bite.” Tom this time.
I told them.
When I’d finished explaining, Lynn groaned. “And you still have no proof.”
“No. But now I know how to get it. Or at least I intend to have a very good shot at it. Let’s get out of here now, before somebody catches us, and we can brainstorm on the way home.”
They were a big help, all three of them. Nigel spent hours on Tom’s computer, checking airline bookings, while Tom spent hours on the phone with the Home Office, pulling strings. By morning we were primed and ready to go.
“Good luck, Dorothy!” Lynn gave me a hug and a kiss. Tom and Nigel were already off about their own business.
“I’m going to need it, but if things work out at all according to plan, I should be all right. Are you sure you—”
“No, I’ll be waiting right here, with bated breath.”
English weather is a study in rapid contrast. Last night had been overcast, with the threat of imminent rain. Today was right out of the tourist brochures, bright and warm, the first day of summer. Another time I might have walked all the way to the office. It was less than three miles by foot, and walking in London on a gorgeous day is one of my very favorite occupations. This time, though, I hurried off to Belgrave Square, the nearest place to find a taxi. I needed all my energy today.
Evelyn was just going up the steps as I arrived. She looked about a hundred years old. Her shoulders were bowed, her hair in disarray. I was careful not to be too ebullient with my greeting; she looked as though anything approaching enthusiasm would be unwelcome.
“Good morning, Mrs. Forbes.”
“Oh. Good morning, Mrs. Wren.” She turned and went into her own office without another word. I didn’t push it. She’d have enough harassment later.
Mr. Spragge was in already, having arrived even before the punctual Mrs. Forbes. Mr. Grey followed us by a few minutes, looking nondescript; then Mr. Hammond, looking hungover, and Mr. Upton, looking even worse-tempered than usual. I paid very little attention to any of them. I had worries of my own.
Timing was everything this morning. There were two variables over which I had no control, and I was nervous about them. The first was the British Airways schedule. If the plane was late, it might yet spoil everything—but there was no point in worrying about that, I told myself. Planes are either on time or else they’re not, and fretting won’t make them land one second sooner.
The second was Mr. Fortier. He might not come in at all, but I thought he would. He wasn’t stupid; he knew things were coming to a head. No, he’d come, and he’d leave just as soon as he could, and there I thought I might be able to exercise a little gentle persuasion, though at some personal risk.
He w
alked in the door at about ten, looking extremely annoyed and almost furtive. I was mightily relieved to see him.
“Mr. Fortier, I don’t believe we’ve formally met,” I said sweetly, rising from my desk and extending my hand. “I’m Louise Wren, the new receptionist. You were here the other day, but very much occupied with Mr. Spragge; we had no chance to talk. I’m very glad to meet you.”
He shook my hand, since he couldn’t very well get out of it, but without any marked enthusiasm, and turned to go to his office.
“I understand you’re Canadian. I, as you can tell, am an expat American. I’ve always enjoyed Canada; my late husband and I used to visit Nova Scotia, and we loved it. What part of Canada do you come from?”
“British Columbia.”
“Oh, my, right the other side of the country. Vancouver?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve always wanted to go there. I love our own Pacific Northwest. Is Vancouver anything like Seattle?”
“I don’t know. Excuse me.”
So much for gentle persuasion. That little effort at delaying techniques had taken up a minute at most. I looked at my watch. If the plane was on time, it had been on the ground for almost two hours. Within the next half hour, surely?
Five minutes later Vicki Shore and Lloyd Pierce walked in, looking unnaturally solemn. I nodded gravely to them; they said nothing, but walked on into their office.
I sat at my desk, answering the telephone, staving off reporters, watching the clock.
The door from the main office opened. Mr. Fortier walked past me, his arms full of papers.
I jumped up as though bitten. “Oh, let me help you with those,” I cried, and managed to bump into him. The papers cascaded to the floor.
Mr. Hammond, who had just popped out of the main office, was right behind me. He had a cigarette in his hand; somehow ash got spilled on a file folder, and when Mr. Hammond bent down to brush it off, his cigarette fell on another file.
The Victim in Victoria Station Page 18
