The Infiltrators (25 page)

“I suppose you’re waiting for me to tell you, sadly, what a poor unbalanced woman she’s become, Mr. Helm, making such wild and unfounded accusations against someone who’s never had anything but her good at heart.”

I said, “I don’t know about her accusations or your heart, sir, but Mrs. Ellershaw has just spent several weeks at a facility of ours going through a rigorous course of physical rehabilitation, preceded by a psychological testing program designed to find out if she was likely to break down under the pressure. I can assure you there’s nothing whatever wrong with the lady’s mental or emotional balance; in fact she passed all tests, and the course, with flying colors.”

“I see.” He studied me for a moment longer, and rose again, and went to the desk to pick up the telephone. “Did you check Mr. Helm’s credentials, Cassandra? I see… Yes, thank you, my dear, that’s very good thank you.” He put the phone down and returned to his chair and studied me for a moment. “The Chief of Police, Mr. Cordoba, says that you seem to be quite legitimate, although there’s some mystery about what function your agency actually performs.”

I said, “We sometimes wonder ourselves, sir.”

He said, “It’s been a long time. I will retire soon. Perhaps I’ve been looking for someone to take my confession before I do—”

Walter Maxon said sharply, “Waldemar!”

Baron looked at him for a moment, and shook his head regretfully. “I appreciate your faith, Walter, but Madeleine is perfectly right. I deserve every ugly word she threw at me.”

Maxon started to speak again, and stopped. We sat in silence for a little. Everybody started when the telephone rang. Baron made a little gesture, and Maxon rose and picked it up, and listened.

“No,” he said. “No, he’s in conference and can’t be disturbed. Later.”

Baron waited for him to return to his chair, and spoke quietly: “Let us consider, first, what I did not do. I’m afraid Madeleine gives me credit for greater wickedness and ingenuity than I’m capable of. I certainly did not set out deliberately to shatter her self-confidence or destroy her self-esteem. There was, of course, no deliberate program of working her to exhaustion so she’d be more vulnerable; and it was simply unfortunate that the only one of us available the night she needed legal help was rather inexperienced. I don’t know what horrors she was subjected to on her way to Fort Ames, but I assure you I had nothing to do with them.” He cleared his throat. “And I hope you’ll believe me when I swear that if there have been attempts on her life, as you say, they were not organized by me and I know nothing whatever about them. It’s natural that, under the circumstances, she’d evolve the theory that all her disastrous troubles are connected; all the result of a great elaborate conspiracy concocted by a master villain. By me. But as I said, she’s endowing me with a greater capacity for evil than I actually possess.” He paused briefly, and went on: “However, this is all peripheral. Her central thesis is perfectly correct. I did allow her to be sent up, quite deliberately.”

Walter Maxon started to speak impulsively, and checked himself. He licked his lips, and asked quietly, “Why?”

“For the reason she stated. She’s an intelligent person and she knows me quite well. She knows there is only one thing that could cause me to betray the trust of a client and… and friend, as I did.”

Maxon asked softly, “Blackmail?”

Baron nodded. “A firm like this is very vulnerable. It was demonstrated to me, quite convincingly, how we could be destroyed in a very brief space of time if I did not agree to what was asked of me. There were large corporate clients who were already uneasy because of Madeleine’s troubles… Well, never mind the details; but there were also, I’m afraid, specific instances where we had, as they say, sailed a little too close to the wind. At least it could be made to look as if we had, and with one of our attorneys—a photogenic and newsworthy young female attorney—already indicted for a serious crime, the publicity would have ruined us.”

“Exactly what were you supposed to do?” I asked.

He shrugged his big shoulders heavily. “Exactly what I did do. She was to be rendered harmless. A confession would be satisfactory. With her husband already missing under incriminating circumstances, she would be no further threat to anybody as his confessed accomplice. No matter what she dug up later she wouldn’t get anybody to take her seriously, not after admitting her guilt, not even if she were treated leniently by the law and allowed probation or a suspended sentence. But her credibility had to be destroyed by a confession, I was told; that was mandatory. Either that, or she must be tucked away safely in a penitentiary after a conviction that would serve the same purpose.” He grimaced. “So I concentrated on getting the best bargain I could out of the prosecution… But you know what happened. She wouldn’t accept any agreement that involved a guilty plea. She left me no choice at all. The evidence against her wasn’t really overwhelming and I could probably have created doubts in the minds of the jurors… And there were legal maneuvers I could have tried that might well have proved effective. I simply did not try them. You know the result. I have found it a hard thing to live with, these past eight years.”

Maxon started to speak again, but changed his mind, improving my opinion of him. At least he knew when to keep his mouth shut.

I spoke to Baron: “How were the demands presented?”

“By telephone.”

“And you threw to the wolves an innocent young woman of whom you were rather fond on the strength of one mysterious phone call?” When he didn’t speak, I said, “I see. There had been other cases. They were called to your attention. Object lessons, so to speak.”

He nodded. “The voice listed three examples. I could investigate them, if I liked, before making up my mind. One didn’t require investigation. It involved a client of ours who’d apparently persisted with a suit after being warned to settle. Of course we’d had no suspicion at the time, although I’d noticed that he seemed to be under heavy pressure of some kind. We won the case for him. Three months later he shot himself, after some rather messy private affairs were made public—he was a man whose reputation for rectitude was very important to him. I checked out the other two situations. They were farther afield—one was in another state—but both had ended in disastrous publicity for the individuals and organizations involved.”

“Did the caller give a name?” I asked. When Baron hesitated, I said, “A name like Tolliver, perhaps?”

“I see!” Baron nodded slowly. “So that’s what you’re really here about. Chief Cordoba considered that story about civil rights a bit thin. Well, I’m happy to learn that something is being done about it at last; and I’m relieved to have my own sin off my chest. What… what do you plan to do, Mr. Helm?”

“About you?” I shook my head. “Legal ethics don’t concern me, Mr. Baron. Mrs. Ellershaw will want her reputation cleared eventually; what further compensation she’ll require for the career and the years that were stolen from her is up to her.”

He said, “I would have done my best to make it up to her in any case.”

I said, “However, I think for the moment it’s best to leave the situation as it stands. Her exoneration can come later. You can thrash it out with her then. For the moment, helping us, she’ll be more effective in her present status as a lady still trying desperately, and perhaps hopelessly, to regain the good name and the civil rights that were taken from her by the court’s decision.” I glanced at Maxon. “I hope we can count on your cooperation, Mr. Maxon.”

He hesitated. “I’ll do whatever Madeleine wants.”

I said, “She’s agreed to help us out, and I think she’ll appreciate any assistance you can give us, even if it merely involves sitting on your hands and keeping your mouth shut. You’ve probably already gathered that this is not a simple case of one young woman being ruthlessly crushed when she got in somebody’s way. It’s not even a local phenomenon. It’s nationwide, and it’s been building for nine or ten years, maybe even longer. We suspect that the focus of the infection is somewhere in this general area. If your active help is needed, you’ll be asked. In the meantime I hope you won’t make any grand gestures that’ll louse things up for us, like stamping the tainted dust of Baron and Walsh off your shoes, with loud speeches of moral condemnation.”

“I understand.”

I looked back to Baron. “I think we’ve got certain things in common, sir,” I said. “You’d like to preserve your firm and your reputation while at the same time setting right, as far as possible, the injustice for which you were responsible. As far as Mrs. Ellershaw is concerned, she’s very bitter at the moment, as you’ve heard, but I think she can be persuaded to be reasonable. However, there’s still the mysterious Mr. Tolliver, and he may not like the way you’re now giving aid and comfort to someone he’s gone to considerable lengths to eliminate, one way or another. So it’s in your interest to help us identify and deal with him, so we can get him out of your hair.” I paused, watching him. “You didn’t happen to recognize the voice, by any chance?”

Baron hesitated briefly. “He used some kind of a distorting device on the phone that made it sound tinny and unnatural. But…”

“Yes?”

The big man cleared his throat. “Mr. Helm, I may be absolutely wrong in my suspicions. I have no evidence at all… But you say that this national conspiracy, or whatever it is, has been developing for some ten years, and that it’s run from somewhere around here?”

I shrugged. “That’s the assumption upon which I’m operating. There are undoubtedly agents and teams investigating other possible areas, but I was told this was the most promising lead we had. Whom do you suspect, Mr. Baron?”

He shook his head doubtfully. “I hate to make wild accusations, but there’s a certain individual who arrived in Santa Fe about a dozen years ago… The voice on the phone used some seagoing turns of speech that seemed familiar. I don’t want to discuss this with you further. I never even said it—and you, young Walter, never heard it. But I suggest, Mr. Helm, that you take a good look at a certain Admiral Jasper Lowery. Good day, sir.”

Going to the door, I looked back. Baron had risen to watch me leave. I could read nothing in his expression; but he certainly was big, standing there in his fine, high-ceilinged office in the sunlight from the big windows.

“Mr. Helm. Just one more thing.”

“Yes, Mr. Baron.”

“When you speak to Madeleine of this…” He paused, and went on: “It would be frivolous to talk of regrets or apologies. But please assure her that the interim position I offered is hers if she needs employment and can bring herself to work here again; and that I will in any case find a legal remedy for her situation, regardless of the cost to myself or the firm, whenever you feel the time is appropriate.”

Leaving, I wondered what the two men remaining would have to say to each other, Madeleine’s devoted young admirer and her reluctant old betrayer. It should make for an interesting conversation. Downstairs, I saw no sign of her, and I turned to the blond receptionist to ask the question; but before I could speak, my troubled lady emerged from the alcove behind the stairs with her face freshly washed and her lipstick freshly applied and her hair freshly combed. She let me hold for her the quilted jacket she’d taken off; and she zipped it up as we emerged on the portal, although the day had warmed up considerably while we were inside.

“Well?” she asked at last, as we started for the street.

“Great performance, Mrs. Barrymore.”

Her face was pale with the strain of the scene she’d just been through, but she tried to shrug in a matter-of-fact way. “It wasn’t as if I hadn’t played the part before. All I had to do was remember all the awful, whiny, poor-little-me routines I put on for you right after I got out, and edit them slightly for a new audience.”

“A little more than that, wasn’t it? You threw everything at him but the sink, suspicions you’d never hinted at before.”

Her shoulders moved awkwardly under the violet ski jacket. “You needed a paranoid lady; you got one. I mean, you can suspect anybody if you try hard enough; so in order to shake them up, as you wanted, I dredged up all the ugly disloyal little thoughts I’d never really allowed myself to… Matt!” She stopped to stare at me, her face suddenly quite bloodless under the Arizona tan. “Matt, I wasn’t
right
, was I?”

I said, “Mrs. E, you hit the jackpot.”

“Oh, no!”

She’d stopped, beside me. I stopped and turned to look at her. “You really didn’t know?”

After a lengthy silence, she said almost inaudibly, “Maybe I didn’t want to know. Maybe I never let myself know. Tell me what he said.”

I said, “Well, the word is you exaggerated just a little. He was not responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, or the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, or the Johnstown Flood. He didn’t even plot to drive you insane by having you sample the lousiest, dirtiest jail cells clear across the country. And he most certainly had nothing to do with the recent attempts on your life. But he damn well did allow you to be sent up, kind of by default.”

She licked her lips. “I guess I must have realized that when I looked over the transcript you lent me. I just didn’t want to face it.” She turned away from me and started walking again. I saw her throat work convulsively, and her voice had a choked sound when she spoke again: “Go on. Tell me everything.”

Keeping pace with her, I gave it to her more or less verbatim, ending up with: “So you’ve got employment of sorts if you want it, and exoneration when you want it.”

She didn’t seem to hear me. She said softly, “I used to worship him, Matt! I mean, really. If… if some time when we were working together he’d asked me to please slip off my shoes and panty hose and lie down on the couch and haul up my skirt, I’d have been a little sad because it would have meant the end of a working relationship I treasured, but I wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment, at least not before I was married. Of course he never did. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life was to walk in there today, like that, and say all those terrible things to him. But I must have known subconsciously… I must have needed to
know
, one way or the other.”