Shape of Fear (14 page)

“P
OOR MARK,” CHAMBRUN SAID
as we walked down the hall toward the elevators.

“How’s that?”

“You are emotionally committed to one man, and you’ve just heard another man’s story that has a real ring of conviction to it. So whom do you believe—Tweedledum or Tweedledee?”

“They could both be telling the truth as they know it,” I said.

Chambrun glanced at me. “You are becoming a downright pleasure,” he said.

We waited by the elevator.

“Any theories about the lady Girard says called him?” Chambrun asked.

“A wild one,” I said.

“I wait—breathless,” Chambrun said.

“Lily Dorisch,” I said. “She’s chums with Max Kroll. They had a champagne supper together in her suite when she arrived last night.”

Chambrun’s comment, if any, was cut off by the arrival of the elevator. We went down to the fourth floor and to his office. Lieutenant Hardy was there, looking hungry.

Chambrun glanced at his wrist watch and frowned. “Bernardel should be arriving,” he said, “if he isn’t already here. I’d like you to take my place as official greeter, Mark. Convey my apologies. Tell Mr. Bernardel I’d like to see him at his convenience. Hardy needs filling in.”

At the desk in the lobby I discovered that Bernardel had already arrived and gone to his suite. I took the elevator to the fifteenth floor, a kind of excited curiosity growing in me. Paul Bernardel seemed to be the hub of the wheel we were spinning on. He had been on the list Sam Loring, the Narcotics Bureau agent, had shown to Digger; he had been on Colonel Valmont’s list; Digger suspected him; Charles Girard suspected him. In spite of all this, he was walking around free as air, distinguished member of an International Trade Commission. He must be the shrewdest kind of operator if no one had been able to pin anything on him.

I rang the doorbell of 15A and waited. I could hear several men’s voices, apparently all in high good humor, inside the room. Then the door opened, and I was confronted by the ghost of Conrad Veidt—Max Kroll. He eyed me coldly, twirling his monocle on the end of its black silk cord.

“What is it?” he said.

“I’d like to speak to Monsieur Bernardel,” I said.

“I thought I made it quite clear to you that Monsieur Bernardel has no need for the services of the hotel’s public relations department.”

“I am here for Mr. Chambrun,” I said, “who was unfortunately unable to be on hand to greet Monsieur Bernardel. I should like to pay him that courtesy and make certain that everything in the suite is satisfactory.”

“Everything is quite satisfactory,” Kroll said, not giving an inch. “I made certain of that myself—yesterday.”

“What is it, Max?” a big, cheerful voice called out from inside the room.

“Just a member of the staff making certain that you are comfortable,” Kroll said.

“Well, invite him in!” the big voice said. “I crave gossip. I crave small talk about what’s been going on here. You’re far too colorless about it, my dear Max.”

The corner of Kroll’s mouth twitched, but he stood aside and gestured me to come in.

The room was bright with sunshine. On the center table were two large ice buckets, the necks of champagne bottles visible above the rims. I was conscious of the aroma of excellent cigars.

Seated in an armchair was a tall, very elegant-looking man with iron-gray hair, a small black mustache, and cool, rather sharp gray eyes. I had seen pictures of this man. He was Jacques Delacroix, the Ambassador.

Bernardel was a surprise. No one had described him to me and I had begun to think of him as the suave, sleek villain of melodrama. He certainly wasn’t that type. He was monstrously fat. And jolly! His moonlike face was creased with laughter lines. His blue eyes were merry. He was expensively but carelessly dressed. He held a champagne glass in one pudgy hand and a big cigar, the ash from which had dribbled down his vest, in the other. I had the absurd thought that he would make a magnificent Santa Claus for his children or grandchildren, with a hearty “Ho! Ho! Ho!” His hair was thick, brown, curly, and looked as if he rarely bothered to brush it. His big paunch jiggled when he laughed.

“Come in,
mon ami,
come in!” he boomed at me, flourishing his champagne glass. “Pour our friend a glass of this excellent vintage, Max.”

“That is Haskell, the hotel’s public relations man,” Kroll said, not moving. I took it he meant that as a warning.

“Splendid!” Bernardel said. “The very man for us. He can tell us all the things he’s been instructed to tell no one. I am Paul Bernardel,
mon ami.
Have you met Monsieur Delacroix, our Ambassador to these shores?”

I nodded to the handsome man in the armchair. I had the feeling his gray eyes were reading the label on the inside of my shirt collar.

“Mr. Chambrun sent me to pay his respects, Monsieur Bernardel,” I said. “He was unfortunately prevented from being on hand to greet you.”

“So I understand,” Bernardel said, chuckling. “Murder—a fight to the death between my friend Digger Sullivan and Charles Girard. Why must all the fun take place while I am a helpless prisoner on a jet airliner? Max—champagne for Monsieur Haskell! How is Digger? Not too severely damaged, I trust.”

“He’ll be all right,” I said. “Pretty well banged up but nothing serious.”

“The men who fought in the Resistance were well trained, eh, Jacques?” he said to the Ambassador. “Girard must be forty-odd and yet he toys with a young giant like Digger. You must tell me, Monsieur Haskell, how it all came about. The lovely Juliet was at the center of it, Max tells me.”

Max seemed to be damn well up on the details, I thought.

“I don’t think it’s my place to go into it, sir,” I said.

“Oh come,
mon ami,
come!” He moved to the table, picked up a champagne glass and filled it for me. His merry eyes rested on Kroll. “Forgive me, Max. I forget your resistance to serving anyone. Max was forced to earn his living as a waiter in the early days of postwar Germany, Monsieur Haskell. He’s never quite recovered from the indignity. Now drink up, my friend, and then give us the juicy details.”

“I’m afraid we’re much less concerned with a fist fight than we are with the death of Mr. Cardew, who was, I believe, an old friend of Ambassador Delacroix’s,” I said.

“Don’t I remember your playing chess with an old gentleman named Murray Cardew?” Bernardel asked the Ambassador. “I seem to remember meeting him in your apartment in Paris some years ago.”

Delacroix nodded. “I was shocked when the police called on me last night,” he said. “A charming, kindly, harmless old man. He had been trying to reach me on the phone it seems.”

Bernardel let out a whoop of laughter. Death seemed to fill him with light-hearted merriment. “Perhaps your little secretary killed him in a fit of jealousy, Jacques! I worry about Madame Delacroix. The delicate LaCoste must torture himself at having anyone closer to you than he is. They do say, you know, that drug addicts and homosexuals are not the safest people to entrust with secrets. I wonder you keep LaCoste on in a confidential capacity.”

I was beginning to get my breath and to understand this fat man a little better. His conversational rapier was dipped in poison. A jab at the humorless Kroll, a thrust at the Ambassador. I wondered when my turn would come.

“LaCoste does his job efficiently,” Delacroix said quietly.

“Secretly he delights me,” Bernardel said, refilling his own glass. “Poor Digger. He telephoned me in Paris yesterday before I left. It seems that little LaCoste has insisted that the Girards should be at your table at the reception, Jacques. Diplomatic protocol. An incredibly embarrassing situation for poor Digger
and
the Girards. Digger suggested that he withdraw. I wouldn’t hear of it. The whole idea is endlessly amusing—Digger and Girard glaring at each other across the cold aspic!
La Belle
Juliet chewing on the indigestible combination of love and revenge. Only the slightly warped mind of a LaCoste would ignore all these delectable involvements.” The laughing blue eyes fixed on Delacroix. “But it puzzles me that a great humanitarian like yourself, Jacques, should not override this little whipper-snapper. It couldn’t be that LaCoste knows where some bodies are buried, could it?”

“When you refused to withdraw your insistence on Sullivan’s presence at the table,” Delacroix said, unruffled, “I offered Girard the out. He chose to let things stand.”

“How noble! How brave! How stupid!” Bernardel took a great swallow of champagne and once again refilled his glass. “Well, perhaps this morning’s brawl will change his mind.” The blue eyes suddenly shifted my way, and I was aware that behind the surface amusement was a cool, purposeful intent. “I imagine my old friend Chambrun is pulling out what remains of his elegantly combed hair at the moment. A murder, a public brawl, international intrigue—all in his precious hotel. To him more of a sacrilege than if it had all taken place in the Cathedral de Notre Dame.”

“He’s bearing up,” I said. The man’s technique was dazzling, I thought. In the big wind of his clowning he had touched on everything—the murder, the fight, drug addiction, and, now, politics. I realized then that I was the center of his attention. He had been watching to see which of these subjects would bring me snapping up for the bait. He wanted information, and he wanted to get it from me without asking for it. I sensed that both Delacroix and Kroll were watching me, too. They must have been aware from the moment I came into the room that Bernardel, the fancy fly-caster, was out to nail himself a trout.

“Extraordinary man, Chambrun,” Bernardel said to the room at large. “Manners of a courtier. And real power. Power acquired from thirty years of gathering tidbits of truth about the rich and the famous. He makes you forget that he is, in effect, no more than a highly paid majordomo.” A cocked eyebrow turned my way waited for a protest from me. I just smiled at him.

“Extraordinary thing is he really resents money,” Bernardel said. “He hates the very rich; he hates the bejeweled old ladies and their gigolos; he hates the power money gives people to be rude and thoughtless. I once heard him say that you could tell what God thinks about money. ‘Look at the people He gives it to,’ he said. I suspect it is a secret outcry against his humble beginnings. His father used to pull a vegetable pushcart through the streets of Paris.” Again a glance at me for some sort of retort. “Well, he will be interesting to watch in the next few days. He will find devious ways to punish those who have dared to ruffle the surface of his placid little pond. You agree, Monsieur Haskell?”

“I find it comfortable to be on his side,” I said. “Incidentally, Monsieur, you aren’t correct in all your facts.”

“Oh?” Bernardel actually looked startled.

“It was fish,” I said.

“
Pardon?
”

“Chambrun has told me many times it was fish his father peddled, not vegetables.”

Bernardel stared at me, and then broke into a delighted laugh. “I take off my hat to you, Monsieur Haskell. You are well trained. I had expected by now you would have told me everything that has gone on in secret, everything that everybody thinks and feels, and that you would have risen stoutly to the defense of your distinguished employer. Intelligence and loyalty. Commodities not bought with money, if I know what Beaumont pays you, Monsieur.”

“Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable here in your suite, Monsieur?” I said.

“Yes—yes, Monsieur Haskell. You can go away and let me lick my wounds. The next time I want information from you, Monsieur, I shall not waste time with indirection.”

“I nodded to Delacroix who was giving me a thin, hard smile of his own. Kroll had turned away so that his back was to me. I made for the door. Just as I opened it, someone rang the bell.

Digger was there. He looked surprised to see me.

“Well!” he said.

“My dear Digger!” Bernardel bellowed behind me.

“I left the story for you to tell,” I said to Digger.

I saw a look of relief in his eyes.

“Monsieur Haskell has told us less in ten minutes than I thought could be humanly possible,” Bernardel said, coming up from the rear. “My dear fellow, I’m delighted to see you.”

Digger went past me into the room.

I had the uncomfortable feeling that he might be walking into a trap. He had told us he meant to stay at Bernardel’s elbow listening for a “soft whisper” that might give the fat man away. Bernardel had left me with the impression that playing games with him would be a dangerous waste of time.

M
Y OFFICE WAS A
madhouse. The reception room was crowded with reporters and photographers, and Miss Quigley, who did extra typing and mimeographing for us, was holding the fort alone. This wasn’t the usual group of society columnists, show business reporters, and fashion show writers who ordinarily came my way. The story of the murder had brought a different crew, and no one had hidden the efforts of a cleanup contingent to put my office back in shape. The story of the fight was being kicked around as a result. The police and the
D.A.
’s office had clammed up on the Cardew case after preliminary statements; Chambrun’s office was shut tight to reporters; and there’d been no one in my office to answer questions.

Miss Quigley, whose tongue was hanging out from saying “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything, you’ll have to wait for Mr. Haskell,” looked as if she was about ready to collapse.

“Where’s Shelda?” I asked her. I hadn’t seen Shelda since that brief moment after the fight when she was dabbing my face with a wet handkerchief. Miss Quigley handed me a telephone message slip and retreated behind her mimeograph machine.

The message was from Shelda. “
Please call me at home. Urgent
.”

The reporters had a bad time with me and I with them. I wasn’t at liberty to tell them much they wanted to know. I couldn’t tell them anything about the Cardew case. They already had the broad outlines of the fight story. Somebody had remembered the details of the Valmont story as it had appeared in the papers three years ago. Someone, I hoped not Miss Quigley, had named the principals in the fight for them. The outlines were sensational enough.