Death After Breakfast (7 page)

Jerry glanced at me, his face tense. “You told this to the police?” he asked her.

She nodded. “They’ve questioned everybody on this floor.”

Lieutenant Hardy had taken over Chambrun’s office on the second floor. Chambrun would have wanted it that way. He would have been present had he been available. He and Hardy worked well together. The lieutenant was a slow, plodding, very methodical man who never missed a single inch of the trail along the way; Chambrun was instinctive, a brilliant hunch player, and he knew his hotel as no cop knew his own city. Unfortunately he wasn’t there to add his own kind of genius, let alone facts he must have that we all wanted desperately to know.

I almost felt sorry for George Mayberry when Jerry and I found him closeted with Hardy when we came down from Janet Parker’s suite. The big man was in real trouble. He must have been one of the last people to see Laura Kauffman alive. He had had a confrontation with Chambrun about two hours before Chambrun had disappeared off the face of the earth. He was the only lead Hardy had, and the lieutenant was bearing down hard.

Hardy turned away from Mayberry as we came in, and his unspoken question was answered without words. No news of Chambrun.

“We’ve just come from talking to Janet Parker,” Jerry said. “We know from her that she saw Mayberry come out of Mrs. Kauffman’s suite shortly before eleven last night. Chambrun was with Miss Parker, and he was headed for a talk with Mayberry.”

“I have been asking for explanations.” Hardy said.

The office was pleasantly air conditioned, but Mayberry was mopping at a very red face with a handkerchief.

“You are asking me about personal matters that I don’t have to answer,” he said.

“Let’s forget about Chambrun for the moment,” Hardy said. He knew that, whatever had passed between Mayberry and Chambrun, Chambrun had spent another hour or more in the Spartan Bar afterwards. “But you are a material witness in the Kauffman case, Mr. Mayberry. The Medical Examiner tells us she died between ten o’clock and midnight. You were seen coming out of her suite at about ten minutes to eleven. You can tell us about your visit to Mrs. Kauffman as any innocent man might, or you can force me to get a warrant for your arrest as a material witness, and you are entitled to have your lawyer present.”

“Laura—Mrs. Kauffman—was perfectly fine when I left her,” Mayberry said. “It was a social visit. She was an old friend.”

“I don’t have time for bullshit, Mr. Mayberry,” Hardy said.

Mayberry waved his hands like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver. “It had to do with the ball, and the filming that’s to take place tonight,” he said.

“So take your time, but tell it all,” Hardy said.

“Mr. Chambrun was being unreasonable about the filming tonight,” Mayberry said. He looked at me, and then at Jerry, as if he expected one of us to defend the boss. Neither of us said a word. “It had been agreed that the two stars, Mr. Randle and Miss Parker, could be filmed dancing at the party. But Chambrun refused to allow cameras on the floor, only in the gallery where the news cameras will be. There’d be no way to get good closeups that way, or move around to get the closeups from different angles.”

“Don’t they have something called a zoom lens that will take a closeup from a distance?” I asked.

“Duval won’t hear of it. This isn’t some action event. It’s a sensitive and artistic handling of a love story. He couldn’t get the effects he must get. Chambrun’s claim is that it would interfere with the pleasure of the guests who have paid high prices for their tickets as a contribution to the Cancer Fund. I went to see Laura—Mrs. Kauffman—to get her to use her influence to change Chambrun’s mind.”

“Your syndicate owns the hotel, doesn’t it?” Hardy asked. “Couldn’t you just give orders?”

“We have a contract with Chambrun,” Mayberry said. “It gives him a final authority on all details connected with management.”

“It makes it sticky,” I said. “It seems Mayberry and his friends have invested in Duval’s film.”

“Something like two million dollars,”’ Mayberry said. “Surely it’s not unreasonable to expect some consideration from Chambrun. If the ball people didn’t mind, why should he?”

“So you went to see Mrs. Kauffman,” Hardy said. “When?”

“I was dining with Miss Parker in the Blue Lagoon,” Mayberry said. “She had to leave about ten—to rehearse, or something. I called Laura when Miss Parker left and she invited me up.”

“A few minutes after ten?”

“Yes.”

“So you went up.”

“Yes. We had a couple of drinks while I told her about our problem with Chambrun. She’d already discussed it with her ball committee. Frank Herman and Duval had been to see her.”

“Last night?”

“She—she didn’t say. I didn’t ask. All that mattered to me was that the committee was perfectly willing to allow a movie camera on the dance floor. They thought people would be fascinated to be part of a filming. She agreed to talk to Chambrun.”

“And did she?”

“She tried to get him on the phone but they weren’t able to locate him.”

“You knew he was next door in Janet Parker’s suite,” I said. “The captain in the Blue Lagoon told Miss Parker he was on his way in your presence.”

“Yes, I knew that,” Mayberry said, giving me a murderous look. “I thought she might be using her influence for Herman and Duval; not a good time to interrupt.”

“But you met Chambrun just as you were leaving Mrs. Kauffman’s suite. You brought that matter up with him?” Hardy asked.

“He seemed to take delight in making things difficult. He said he didn’t give a damn what the committee felt about it. He said he’d have to have a clearance from every one of the hundreds of guests present before he’d allow a camera on the floor. He said if they’d paid money to be part of a filming that was one thing, but since they’d paid to attend a ball, a ball was what they were going to get.”

“He had a point,” Hardy said.

“But we own the hotel, and we have an investment in the film!”

“Probably a very shrewd use of your funds,” Hardy said. “Let’s go back to Mrs. Kauffman.”

“There’s nothing to tell except what I’ve told you.”

“I think there is. You say she’s an old friend. How long have you known her?”

“About fifteen years, I’d say. I’ve dined at her apartment here in town, visited her at her villa in the south of France, spent a weekend at her place in Acapulco. Old, good friends.”

“You know her husband?”

“Jim Kauffman? Of course I know him,”

“I understand they’re separated.”

Mayberry shrugged, as if the movement helped relax his personal tensions. “For some months now, I think. I’ve taken Laura to the theater a few times. She hasn’t wanted to talk about it, but I had the feeling the marriage was permanently on the rocks.”

“What kind of a man is he?”

“Jim? A pleasant enough fellow, but is was a little hard for him to keep up with Laura’s pace.”

“Pace?” Hardy asked.

“She had three or four houses, always on the move. Liked to play hostess to all the rich and famous. Jim, I think, would have liked to settle down and take it easy.”

“He had no money of his own?”

“I don’t think so; not when he stopped working on Wall Street. But, hell, Lieutenant, he didn’t need money. Laura was so rich it hurts to think about it,”

“We know that Kauffman has become an alcoholic,” Hardy said “He’s apparently without funds, down on skid row somewhere.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mayberry said.

“You didn’t know?”

“No.”

“Do you know if Mrs. Kauffman offered to make a settlement of some sort on him?”

“No.”

“It would have been decent of her, wouldn’t it? He’d given up his job to toddle around after her.”

“What was between them was none of my business,” Mayberry said.

“Did Mrs. Kauffman mention him to you last night?”

“I don’t recall that she did.”

“Think,” Hardy said. “Did she tell you he was coming to see her. She might, since you were such an old friend.”

“I’m sure she didn’t.” Mayberry’s eyebrows rose. “My God, you’re not suggesting that Jim Kauffman—?”

“I cover every possibility, Mr. Mayberry.”

I suddenly thought about Shirley. I was very late for the lunch I’d promised her. From what she’d told us about Laura Kauffman, and what Janet Parker had told us about Mayberry, I had the feeling he wouldn’t have hung around the lady for fifteen years just to spend a weekend at Acapulco. Hardy was right with me.

“Were you one of Mrs. Kauffman’s lovers?”

Mayberry sat straight up in his chair as though there was an electric charge in it. “That’s none of your goddamned business!” he said.

“All of Mrs. Kauffman’s lovers are my business today,” Hardy said.

Mayberry mopped at his face with his handkerchief. “She was a widow for the first ten years I knew her,” he said. “We—we may have had a few intimate moments, but that was long ago. She was a damned attractive woman.”

“Not any more,” Hardy said, his voice grim. “I’m going to get the man who butchered her, Mr. Mayberry.”

“I certainly hope so.”

“So let’s go back to Chambrun,” Hardy said. “You met him in the hall outside Mrs. Kauffman’s suite. You discussed the camera-at-the-ball situation?”

“I told you. He was unreasonably stubborn about it.”

“What else did you talk about?”

“Nothing, that I can recall.”

Jerry got into the act then. “Mayberry had been offensive to Miss Parker,” he said in a flat voice. “She asked Cardoza for help and Cardoza called the boss. Chambrun went up to Twenty-one C to assure Miss Parker she didn’t have to worry about Mayberry any more. Surely Chambrun must have brought it up. When he saw Mayberry in the hall he told Miss Parker that the fates were doing away with delay.”

“You really must hate his guts,” Hardy said.

“The whole thing is absurd,” Mayberry said. “Actresses like Miss Parker expect to have passes made at them. Disappointed if you don’t. She’s a—”

“—damned attractive woman,” Hardy said.

“All she had to do was say no!” Mayberry said.

“Maybe not,” Jerry said. “She was being pressured by Herman and Duval to be nice to you, at least until after the filming.”

“I don’t need help from anyone!” Mayberry said.

“I have a feeling you may need a hell of a lot of help before we’re through here,” Hardy said.

I went down the hall to my apartment It was nearly three o’clock and I wasn’t surprised to find Shirley gone. There was a note propped up on the mantel.

I’m not mad, luv, [it read] but with big stories all around I just couldn’t sit here. Later I have to get dolled up for the ball so that you won’t be able to look at anyone else. I hope Chambrun will show up with some simple explanation, otherwise I may not be able to seduce you. Love, luv. Shirley.

That one is special. I was just about to leave to make the rounds of the governors and the fashion show and the preparations in the main ballroom when there was a heavy knock on my door. It was Doc Partridge, the house physician. He is a craggy, shaggy old gent, but a friend, particularly a friend of Chambrun’s. He looked shaken.

“What’s this about Pierre?” he asked.

I told him. No word, no sign of Chambrun since his “no” more calls” to Miss Kiley at two fifteen. No message, no demands from potential kidnappers. And now, after hours of grinding search, no trace of him so far anywhere in the Beaumont, nor any response to the all-points bulletin Hardy had put out on him.

“If he had wanted to disappear, he’d be delighted at how perfectly he’d managed it,” I said.

“Of course he didn’t want to disappear! That’s nonsense!” Doc nodded toward a chair. “Mind if I sit down, Mark? I feel a little unsteady.”

“Give you a slug of something?” I asked.

“This is a time to keep your wits about you,” he said.

“I take it you spent some time with Chambrun in the Spartan last night?”

“Midnight till a little after one,” Doc said. “Sonofabitch threw more doubles than you could imagine. Decent people shouldn’t be allowed to play backgammon with him.”

“Was there anything unusual about him last night, Doc? Did he seem tense, or nervous, or distracted?”

“Not so distracted that he couldn’t concentrate on beating my brains out,” Doc said.

The Spartan Bar is one of the last bastions of male chauvinism in the city. Not long ago it had been clearly marked to indicate that women were not admitted. There are no signs these days but there are subtle ways to let ladies know that they aren’t welcome. Its principal patrons are elderly gentlemen who sit around at tables playing chess, backgammon, and gin. And drinking. Doc Partridge, whose practice now is only the emergency care of hotel transients, spends most of his time in the Spartan, mourning with his cronies all the things of elegance and pleasure that had once made up his world and theirs. I wouldn’t for the world have told Doc that Chambrun had discussed a future for the Spartan Bar that would totally change it. Old-timers like Doc couldn’t go on forever. They were already thinning out.

“You don’t hand around the Spartan very much,” Doc said, giving me a hostile look. “Things don’t change very much there.”

“My time will come,” I said.

“When you time comes it will have changed,” Doc said. “Thank God I won’t be here to see it. There is one thing that never changes. Pierre shows up there around midnight every night. Sometimes he stays, sometimes, when he’s needed somewhere else, it’s just to say hello. It reassures us old codgers. Our world is on an even keel as long as Pierre is around. We need to know it.”

“So he came in last night to reassure you,” I said, prodding him gently.

“Nothing different. He was mad as hell about something. That’s par for the course. He’s always mad as hell about something. He’s just finished his rounds, you see, and he’s always found something out of place, someone not doing his job up to Chambrun standards, maybe some finger marks on a bar glass in the Trapeze. ‘You got an instant prescription for high blood pressure?’ he asked me last night. ‘I feel inclined to commit a murder, Doc.’ I asked him who and he said: ‘Oh, to hell with it. Where’s the backgammon board?”’