The Victim in Victoria Station (23 page)

“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.

T
HERE 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.

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!”

E
vidently 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.”