The Victim in Victoria Station (21 page)

“Good evening,
Daily World
, may I help you?” The bored young man sounded as if he hoped he couldn't.

“I want to speak to a news editor.”

“Yes, madam. And your name?”

“Never mind about my name,” I said, trying to Anglicize my accent as much as possible. “Do you want my news or not?”

A sigh. “That would depend on what it is, madam. If you've just spotted Elvis or Diana or aliens, or all of the above together, then not tonight, thank you.”

“No. This is real news, not idiotic nonsense, and it's important. Just you tell someone who can do something about it that Bill Monahan is missing.”

“Bill—you don't mean
the
Bill Monahan?”

“I mean the American computer magnate, that's who I mean. You ring up the London office of Multilinks tomorrow, and if they can tell you where he is, I'll eat every copy of the
Daily World
for the next week.”

I hung up on the rapid-fire questions of the no longer bored reporter. The
World
has a reputation for printing anything, if it's juicy enough, without bothering about verification. I hoped they lived up to their reputation.

The
World
is a morning paper. Millions of British men and women consume its meal of the salacious and the sensational with their breakfast. By the time the Multilinks offices opened on Tuesday morning, the fur should be flying. Unless I was very badly misinformed about journalistic practices, reporters would be lying in wait for the office staff. I hoped, very much I hoped, that I'd disguised my accent well enough so they wouldn't spot me as their anonymous tipster.

I had one other phone call to make, but that one had to wait until morning, and given the timing, there was no way I could conceal it from Tom and Lynn. I stumbled down to breakfast, groggy from too little sleep, and placed the call even before I'd finished my coffee.

“Hello, Nigel? Sorry to call so early.”

“'S'all right. I wasn't asleep.” Ayawn came clearly over the line.

“I'll bet you were. I need some information, as soon as you can get it. You have a computer at home, don't you?”

“Yes.” He was alert now.

“Well then, can you look up airline schedules for me?”

“Going on holiday, are you?”

“No, and it's too early in the day for sarcasm, young man. I want you to find out how early a plane leaving San Francisco today might get here.”

“San Francisco to London, today. Any particular airline?”

“No, just the earliest flight. It's about midnight there now, so I should think nothing would leave for several hours, but I need to know. As soon as you can, Nigel.”

“Right. I'll ring you back.”

It took about ten minutes. I marveled again at the amazing resources a computer could command.

“I checked all the major airlines that fly into Heathrow or Gatwick from San Francisco. The earliest flight out is at six-forty their time, arriving six-forty tomorrow at Gatwick. No one with any sense would take that one, though, because it has a very long connection in Atlanta. There are three or four much later ones that arrive between seven and eight. Nothing any earlier.”

“
Thank
you, Nigel!” I did some rapid mental arithmetic. Given the time it takes to clear immigration and collect baggage, and then the journey from the airport into London, I had something over twenty-four hours before Mr. Shepherd arrived in London breathing fire. Unless …

“Nigel, one more thing. Do you think it's likely that Multilinks has a corporate jet?”

“They didn't a month ago, at any rate. I've been reading all I could get my hands on about them, and one of the magazines specifically mentioned that they were nearing that stage, but hadn't quite got there.”

“Good! Very good! We're coming around the homestretch, Nigel! I have to go to work now, but I'll call you later if I get a chance and bring you up to speed. Oh! No, wait—I've just had a thought.”

“If that tone of voice means what I think it means, I'm not quite sure I want to hear your idea.” His own voice held the liveliest apprehension.

“Nothing dire, I promise. Just—you do still have that cat, don't you? Sneaky Pete?”

“Yes, I brought him home with me. Well, I couldn't simply turn him out when he was starving, could I? And Inga's taken a fancy to the old reprobate. He's not actually bad looking, now that he's cleaned himself up a bit. He can see out of both eyes now, and he's beginning to fatten up.”

I grinned a little. Why do men so often sound defensive when they're caught falling in love with an animal? “Do you suppose you could take some time off today and come to London? With the cat?”

Nigel groaned. “He howled all the way home last Saturday.”

“Call my vet—Mr. Douglas, he's in the book—and have him give Pete a tranquilizer. Can you come?”

A sigh. “I might get away this afternoon, if you really think—”

“I do. Come straight to the Multilinks office. I'll spring for cab fare if you don't want to take the cat on the tube. Come as soon as you can, and definitely before the office closes at six.”

“You're going to lay a trap, aren't you?”

“I'm certainly going to try.” I hung up.

“What was that about?” asked Lynn, who had listened openly and avidly.

“I had a call yesterday. I forgot to tell you about it in all the other excitement.” I told them about Walt Shepherd and his threat to jump on the first plane. “And we've missed his deadline, so I suppose he really will do just that. He sounded as if he meant it.”

“Whew!” Tom whistled. “And when he gets here the—er—spit
will
hit the fan!”

“With a vengeance. The police will get dragged in, then, and I'll have to confess what I've been up to. That's why I wanted to know when he's apt to arrive. Not till tomorrow morning at the earliest, according to Nigel, so I thought I'd better speed up the action at the office. Time to flush them out, I think.”

“
What
are you going to do, Dorothy?” Lynn's voice was full of awful foreboding.

“I've already done part of it, in fact. Read your newspapers, dear hearts. See you later!”

I waved blithely and sailed out the door.

I must have called the
World
very close to their deadline the night before, for the front page looked like a hasty remake. “T
YCOON
M
ISSING
!!!” screamed a banner head three inches tall. I bought a copy and read it with great enjoyment on the tube. There was no hint that the story was the purest rumor. It sounded authoritative as could be. “Our sources” sounded much better than “an anonymous phone call.”

After I'd read the account twice, I scanned the paper carefully for the other story, the dead man in the garden. As I had suspected, the body remained unidentified. The man who had reported the murder worked in a nearby office but could make no identification, and there was nothing useful in the dead man's clothing. Good. The police would undoubtedly come around today, because our back garden was adjacent to the one where the body was found, but I doubted they had yet connected the dead man specifically with Multilinks. He looked more like an impoverished student, and I guessed they'd be checking the University of London first.

I carefully left the paper on the train for others to enjoy and pass along.

A solid phalanx of reporters surrounded the entrance to Multilinks. I could see and hear them the moment I rounded the corner into Northampton Way. (I had decided it was better not to take the shortcut anymore. I didn't want to put ideas in anybody's head.) They descended on me as I tried to climb the steps, and even after I claimed to be an unimportant temporary employee who'd never heard of Mr. Monahan (a statement that was at least half true), still they pushed and shoved and shouted. I suffered something akin to a panic attack when I discovered the door was locked. I rang the bell frantically and fell through it the minute Mrs. Forbes opened it for me.

Evelyn was in a state, literally wringing her hands as we walked together into her office. “Whew!” I said, flinging myself on the couch. “I feel like I've been in a football scrimmage. What in the world is
that
all about!”

“Oh, Mrs. Wren! You didn't tell them anything, did you?”

“I didn't know anything to tell. Who's Bill Monahan?”

I thought she was going to faint. “He's the founder of Multilinks! Oh, this is terrible! Mr. Spragge will be so upset!”

“But, Ev—Mrs. Forbes, what's
happened
?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all! It's a nasty rumor, that's all!”

Eventually I got her calmed down enough for coherence. According to her, Monahan was bound to be at home in America where he belonged, but they couldn't phone him at this hour. It would be a little after one in the morning in San Francisco, where he apparently lived in a luxuriously renovated Victorian house, and no one at this end had the courage to wake up the big boss. (She didn't put it quite that way, but she was obviously frightened.) At the very first moment the poor man might be expected to be out of bed in San Francisco, she personally would ring him at his home and scotch the rumors. That, however, could not be done until afternoon, London time.

“And oh, I don't know what this will do to business, or to the stock offering! I hardly know how to face Mr. Spragge!”

I had the feeling business wasn't going to be Mr. Spragge's primary worry. The noose, it seemed to me, was tightening rapidly around his neck. If he hadn't informed even his confidential secretary that Monahan was expected in the London office, he must have been planning from the very first to kill him.

I didn't, of course, express any of these thoughts to Mrs. Forbes. For one thing, I could be wrong, and for another, I was genuinely unhappy about the whole situation. Mr. Spragge, despite the contradictions in his character, struck me as a likable man, an idealist gone wrong. Well, idealists throughout history have often been very dangerous people.

I had still had no proof, of course, of anything except that Bill Monahan was in fact missing. I hoped, by watching and listening very carefully—and with the help of Sneaky Pete—to be able to prove a lot more before the day was out.

For the first hour or two that Tuesday morning, no business at all got done. The big dailies all checked in, though over the phone, thank goodness, not on the premises. One after another:
Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Standard
, others I didn't recognize. Evelyn told them all the same thing: rumor, no truth in it, would telephone Monahan as soon as it was morning in California. The tabloids, outside, got very little satisfaction out of anybody, but they did shoot one or two pictures that considerably unnerved their victims, poor little Mr. Grey and a shaken Mr. Spragge.

All in all, though the hubbub was annoying, I thought my ploy was working quite well. Someone in this office had a great deal to hide, and concealment is much harder when the nerves are shattered.

The police arrived about ten-thirty, in the person of two very polite individuals from Scotland Yard who talked to all of us about the body in the garden. My interview, though brief, was a test of my own nerves; this time I was the one who had something to conceal, and I had never before (barring perhaps an incident or two in America, concerning parking meters) lied to the police.

However, I was prepared for the kind of questions they would ask, and my answers were absolutely truthful except on two crucial points: the route I took leaving the office, and whether I had seen or heard anything unusual. (Well, of course I didn't tell them my real name, but surely that was minor?) They were apparently satisfied; at any rate, they went on from me to the more important members of the firm after only a few minutes. I was very careful not to relax for several seconds after they left the room, and then only gradually; I remembered an Agatha Christie book in which relaxing too soon was a liar's undoing!

I'd have given a great deal to eavesdrop while the others were questioned, but the geography and solid construction of the office made that impossible. The best I could hope for was a recap later from everybody. I'd bring the subject up, anyway, which should be easy enough. Given the climate of the office that day, not to talk about the various crises would have been abnormal.

After the police left and the reporters gave up, the office seemed very silent, the silence of a heavy, still day just before a storm. The weather was in fact still beautiful—outside, that is. Inside, the barometer seemed to be falling fast.

Perhaps it was only my overstrained imagination. There was no particular reason for uproar, now that all our tormentors had left. The noisiest of the staff, those in sales, were all out, including Mr. Upton. Mr. Dalal, of course, would never be in again, but I tried to wash that thought out of my brain; it was something only the murderer ought, at this stage, to know. The murderer, I mused. Mr. Fortier hadn't come in. Did that mean anything, or was he simply following his usual pattern? If he read the papers, one would think he'd have shown up, if only for an urgent conference with Spragge. I shook my head in irritation. That kind of speculation was utterly fruitless. My time would be much better spent seeking some real information.

Mr. Grey seemed, when I passed his door, to be working hard, sitting hunched over his computer in an appalling posture. No wonder he was so round-shouldered. Mr. Hammond, too, was working, though not as usual. He usually whistled, cheerfully and off-key. Today he was subdued.

I stopped at his desk. “Did the police give you a hard time?”

He entered a figure, clicked the mouse, and turned away from the computer. “Not particularly. What about you?”

“Not too bad. I was so nervous, I'm sure they thought I was lying, though.”