Margaret Maron - The Right Jack

"You wouldn't care to elaborate on exactly what Commander Dixon does?" Sigrid asked, nettled.

"I don't think so. After all, it isn't important, is it? She was injured last night by sheer coincidence."

"So far as you know," she gibed.

He nodded agreeably. "So far as we know."

"Escorted there, I'm told, by a Russian."

"A superannuated, lower-echelon member of a trade delegation, Lieutenant. The Walker case notwithstanding, we do keep an eye on these things," he said lightly. "Which is why I'm along today."

Unnerved by all the horns that urged him not to block the lane before a light was actually red, the yeoman misjudged a yellow and edged into the intersection on the bumper of the car ahead. The light changed to red; the car in front did not move; crosstown traffic entered the fray and soon the intersection was so jammed that it took two more greens for traffic to sort itself out. By the time they drew up to the entrance of the Maintenon, the sailor's baby face was drenched in perspiration and he was somewhat wobbly on his legs as he opened the door for them.

"That'll be all for the day," Lieutenant Knight told him kindly.

"Oh thank you, sir!" he said with such fervent gratitude that Sigrid thought he was going to shake the lieutenant's hand.

INSIDE the Maintenon's spacious lobby, all was discreet serenity. Guests came and went beneath the enormous crystal chandelier, apparently unaffected by the violent tragedy which had struck the previous night on the next floor. It was a tribute to the professionalism of Lucienne Ronay's staff. Fire trucks, ambulances, and a dozen or more police cars had responded to the alarms and after the dead and wounded had been removed and the emergency personnel departed, her housecleaning crew had swooped down upon the scene and labored through the remainder of the night to tidy away all traces of the disaster.

They were not allowed to touch anything in the d'Aubigné Room itself, of course. Cooperating with the police, Madam Ronay had personally ordered the blue velvet rope that now looped through brass stanchions and blocked the hall that led to the devasted ballroom. A few feet beyond, folding wooden panels decorated with frothy pastoral scenes screened the entrance to the room from casual view.

Molly Baldwin was passing near the main desk as Sigrid inquired directions and she introduced herself and escorted them upstairs. Madam Ronay's young assistant looked her full twenty-three years this afternoon. Her face was pale and drawn and there were dark circles under her eyes.

"Guess you didn't get much sleep last night," Lieutenant Knight said.

"Only four or five hours," admitted Miss Baldwin, leading them past the velvet ropes, past the ornate screens, and down the wide hall to the d'Aubigné Room. "It was hectic but I suppose it could have been much worse."

Indeed, the actual damage to the elegant ballroom was minor, considering the carnage the small bomb had wreaked. Except for the rear quarter of the room, in that corner surrounding Table 5, the room showed only the usual morning-after ravages: the empty glasses, dirty ashtrays, lipstick-smeared napkins and other detritus that a large crowd always leaves behind.

There were signs of panic and confusion, however, in overturned chairs and in the playing cards scattered over the deep plush carpet.

Table 5 itself was charred and splintered and Sigrid gazed in silence at the dark splotches where torn bodies had lain bleeding-Zachary Wolferman and John Sutton on the end nearest the corner walls, she had been told; Tillie and Commander Dixon next to the dead men. The long linen cloth that had covered their table was bundled into a scorched and sodden heap upon the floor.

"We were lucky about fire," Miss Baldwin told them softly. "One of our busboys put it out with a hand extinguisher, so there was no water damage."

"Where were you when the bomb exploded?" asked Sigrid as she began to orient herself in relation to the events of the previous evening.

"Over by the far table where the refreshments were."

"Were you looking in this direction at that moment?"

"Not really. I guess I was trying to watch everything and make sure it all kept moving smoothly."

Sigrid walked over to where Molly Baldwin had stood last night and examined the room from the new perspective. "And you don't remember anything out of the ordinary about Table 5?"

"No," the girl said quickly, "not at all."

"What about John Sutton?"

Miss Baldwin's face went blank. "Who?"

"One of the men killed last night. You had met him on Wednesday. Don't you remember?"

"I had?" She tugged at a short brown curl behind her right ear, a nervous mannerism probably left over from childhood; then her face brightened. "Oh yes! One of the professors from the City University. I had forgotten. That was why his face looked familiar!"

"When?".

"Why, when I saw him again last night," she said slowly.

"At Table 5?"

"I'm sorry. Lieutenant, I just don't remember. There were so many people here. Over five hundred. You know how it is-you see a face and there's something familiar about it, but heavens! It could be a bus driver or a bank teller-someone you recognize but that you've never actually talked to, you know?"

"And you must meet lots of people, working in a big hotel like this," Lieutenant Knight encouraged.

"Yes, I do," she said, turning to him gratefully from the more intimidating Lieutenant Harald.

"How long have you lived up North?" he asked.

"Why, just since Christmas." She smiled at him and her fingers twined around that same brown curl. "I thought I'd lost all my accent."

Sigrid began to suspect that Lieutenant Knight was going to be a distinct handicap in their investigation if every woman they questioned reacted to him like this. She curtly broke in to ask Miss Baldwin to describe preparations for the cribbage tournament.

Her professional capacity required, Molly Baldwin gave a fairly concise recap of the last three or four days, including her mix-up with the pairings and the cribbage board stolen from the display case on Thursday. Young and inexperienced as she might be. Miss Baldwin was quick enough to grasp the significance of both incidents.

"Which happened first?" asked Sigrid, clearing a space at one of the cluttered tables for her notebook. Her bandaged arm made simple actions difficult.

"I'm not sure. Gus-He's our calligrapher and visual artist, whatever we need in the line of place cards and posters and things like that. We can ask him when he sent up the pairings display, but I think it was sometime before lunch. Mr. Flythe didn't notice it right away and I'd forgotten it was supposed to be confidential. We set up the display cases on Thursday morning and a few hours later-about three o'clock, I think-we noticed the missing board."

"The pairings were where? In here or out in the hall?"

"In here. If you like, I'll get you a list of all the staff who worked in this room on Thursday. That's what's important, isn't it? You want to know who could have read where Mr. Wolferman or Professor Sutton were supposed to sit, don't you?"

"It's a place to start, Ms. Baldwin." Sigrid flipped her notebook shut and thrust it into her jacket pocket.

By now, the forensic crews had taken away everything of significance in the way of splintered cribbage board, bomb fragments, and the like, so Sigrid saw no reason to object when Madam Ronay appeared in the doorway with one of her accountants and a claims investigator from the hotel's insurers and requested permission for the two men to assess the damages. She did find it interesting that Madam Ronay, a female executive accustomed to male underlings, should automatically address her request to Lieutenant Knight.