Spiced to Death (34 page)

So that was what was worrying him. It may have been why he hadn’t shot me already. He had to know how I knew—and more important, it wasn’t ego or curiosity. He had to know if anyone else could know.

I was determined to drag this out a little longer. He wasn’t going to shoot me until I had answered his question and anyway, that confounded cord was slack. I pulled it a little more, trying to get it tight.

“All right,” I agreed. “I did think that a partnership of Marvell and Cartwright was responsible—until now. But I tried something. I shook everybody’s hand and when I shook yours I knew it was you and Cartwright. You killed Renshaw and then Cartwright. One of you was trying to double-cross the other and take the sack of Ko Feng.”

“I’m not going to ask you again.” His voice was bleak and if I had thought of him as a nuclear sub commander, he was now ready to push the red button.

“Your hand smelled of Ko Feng,” I told him.

His square jaw no longer appeared determined, now it was threatening. The eyes that had been cool and gray before were now metallic and menacing. I fancied I could see his knuckle tightening on the trigger.

“Nonsense.”

“It’s the truth. Besides its unique taste, Ko Feng has a powerful and extremely pervasive aroma. I noticed it on my hands the day after the theft—they still smelled of it. I went round this afternoon shaking hands with everyone—as soon as I shook yours, I knew.”

He was eyeing me uncertainly but it didn’t make him any less threatening.

“You had to have handled it,” I said, still twisting one foot but trying to keep his gaze locked with mine. “No one could resist—a legendary spice, lost for centuries—how could you have the sack in your possession and not open it, feel it, smell it…”

It was an involuntary reaction. Without deviating his aim, he raised the weapon so as to sniff the back of his hand. Our eyes met and I tried to suppress a smile of satisfaction. We both knew he had given himself away.

He lowered the gun to realign it at my stomach and the mild nausea that immediately resulted had nothing to do with the avocado or the mayonnaise or the crab cakes. I gave one more twist of my foot, heedless now as to whether he saw me.

The microphone cord tightened and I kicked frantically sideways. The cord yanked the microphone clear off the dais and Eck’s head spun in that direction, but instead of the dais crashing too, it stayed there, unmoving. It was only the microphone that came clattering onto the wooden platform. It bounced twice and the two of us watched it come to rest.

An interruption startled us both. A loud voice shouted something and the lights came on, all of them together. It was dazzling after the semidarkness. I groped for the microphone and threw it in Eck’s general direction, then I bolted to the nearest door. As I crashed through it, there was a pop from Eck’s silenced automatic and a bullet crunched into the wall.

Out in the corridor, I raced for the nearest stairway, took the stairs three at a time and rammed my way through swinging doors. The large entrance ahead of me was marked as being the Vespucci Room and “safety in numbers” came into my mind. I knew it wasn’t always true but my pounding pulse wouldn’t allow me time to think of a more appropriate proverb. I went storming in.

An enormous room, crowded with people, noisy, jostling, the din of conversation, the rattle of plates and glasses …

No.

Oh, the people were there but all were still and silent as statues. As I made my noisy entrance, over a thousand eyes turned in my direction.

I
STARED BACK, NOT
out of insolence but bewilderment. Why was the room so still and quiet? Then, over the heads of all the others, I saw Alexander Marvell. He was at a front table. On one side of him was a large lady in a Marie Antoinette coiffure and a lot of jewelry, and there was an immaculately dressed elderly man on the other.

Marvell had apparently been speaking. Moreover, the smoldering glare that burned in my direction suggested he had been rudely interrupted. He glanced back at his notes and resumed, speaking of the fine work being performed by the committee and naming the various charities that were benefiting from this gala affair.

Eyes were now swiveling back in Marvell’s direction, a few at a time, then more and more. I had felt a brief period of safety while everyone’s eyes were on me but now I was exposed and isolated again. I moved quietly around the back of the room, looking for police help. My boisterous entry had fortunately attracted official attention, for a vision in blue came toward me.

“Where have you been?” hissed Gabriella. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“First,” I said urgently, “find out which car in the hotel garage belongs to Tom Eck. Don’t let him near it—he’s our man and the murder gun is in the car. I think he’s still in the hotel, so block all the exits.”

She had her phone in her hand and was rapping out instructions before I had even finished. Then I told her what had happened. Before I had completed my account, Hal Gaines had emerged from the assembly and I brought him up to date. He told Gabriella to alert additional men outside and bring some of them in.

“You haven’t checked in here yet?” he asked. “He could have come in a little more quietly than you did.”

“I haven’t looked yet. He might find me before I find him.”

“Which is more important to him?” asked Gabriella. “Killing you—which is, after all, nothing more than revenge at this stage—or getting out?”

“Yeah,” said Gaines. “If he’s done the deal and gotten the money, he ought to be taking off—in fact, he shouldn’t even be here at this lunch.”

“I can see why he is,” Gabriella said. “I interviewed him twice. He’s an egotist. He wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to come here and gloat—to talk to all these people, knowing something they don’t.”

“Regardless,” said Gaines, ever the pragmatist, “let’s find him. We’ll stay behind the crowd. You two better stay together, start at that end. I’ll take this end.”

Five minutes later when we met, head shakes were exchanged. Eck wasn’t in the room. Then for a moment he was forgotten—by me, at least—as, with the introduction of various dignitaries and the thanks to numerous fund-raisers over, Marvell resumed speaking.

“Many are asking why we have referred to this as the Ko Feng lunch. Well, the police are on the verge of recovering it and I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to tell you what’s going to happen to it.

“The Celestial Spice has had a bloodstained welcome to the United States. Two men have died because of it and, sadly, greed and cupidity have been aroused in many. Consequently, I have made arrangements for the spice to be placed under the mandate of the Globus Group, who are widely known for their impartiality and independence from all commercial influences. It will be their decision where and how to allocate Ko Feng for testing for its various—and hopefully highly beneficial—characteristics.”

So, if I had needed any proof that Alexander Marvell wasn’t involved in the theft or the murders, that was good enough for me. Giving away the spice took away his motive. Not that I had suspected him—it had been a convenient stall to use with Eck before I had finally had to tell him the truth.

To resounding applause, Marvell sat down and the lady with all the jewelry invited the assembly to return to the food and drink. Lieutenant Gaines turned to Gabriella and me. “Let’s check all the entrances and exits from this room.”

We did so but when we met, it was again with a shaking of heads. Police on all the doors reported no one had left. A few guests had complained at not being allowed to leave, some pleading all manner of vital engagements but a quick check of their appearance told us that none of them was Eck.

The gala event was once more in full swing. The babble of voices was loud despite the excellent acoustics, the smell of food was pungent, sweet, cloying, tangy and piquant in turns. Champagne flowed as if there were a pipeline all the way from Reims.

We were standing near one of the batteries of dumbwaiters, bringing food up from the kitchens in the basement. A row of screens separated us from the throng. One of the waiters stated his opinion in a resounding Brooklyn accent. “Jeez! What’s the matter with those guys down there! Haven’t they ever worked in a kitchen before?”

Something in the framing of the rhetorical question struck me, but it was something that their framer hadn’t intended. Hal Gaines turned at the same moment and his eyes met mine. We looked at the dumbwaiter the man was pointing to and saw several large loaves of uncut bread. I knew that Hal Gaines was thinking the same thing I was—someone in the kitchen was under duress and rather than be seen doing nothing, had made himself busy doing the first thing that came to hand.

“We have people blocking the exits from the kitchen,” snapped Gaines, “but there’d be nothing to stop him going in! Let’s go!”

The three of us raced out, pausing only for Gaines to shout at the officer on the door, “Which stairs lead to the kitchen?” and then following his pointing finger.

Glistening stainless steel and warm, mellow copper reflected the high-intensity lighting and shadows swam mistily in the white-tiled floors. A few pots steamed, probably in preparation for the evening meal, but the kitchen was quiet as most of the buffet had been prepared ahead. Only four or five white-clad figures moved, ghostlike, and only the clatter of an automatic dishwasher made any significant noise.

We scanned the faces that turned inquiringly toward us. None of them was Tom Eck.

Gabriella suddenly said, “Look!” and a swing door, recently set in motion, was just juddering to a stop. With a quick look to make sure that there was no crouching figure behind a cabinet or workbench, we headed for the door with Gabriella in the lead.

She had barely reached it when without warning, it was flung open. Gaines gasped something and grabbed for his gun. Gabriella already had hers out but she had been so fast, I didn’t see where it came from. As the unarmed member of the trio, I was naturally last. All three of us froze.

Through the door and into the kitchen marched Tom Eck. He was on tiptoe and his face was red, his expression apoplectic. He moved like a rag doll, limbs seeming uncoordinated. The reason for his bizarre appearance was promptly evident. Behind him came a giant of a man.

He was black—blacker than the proverbial ace of spades and certainly as black as the deepest midnight. Only one man was that huge and that black—it was Yaruba Da.

The wide grin on his face suggested that he was having a good time and the twin rows of teeth gleamed like a TV ad. He had one hand the size of a pineapple grasping Eck firmly by the back of the neck. It was with no visible effort that he held Eck almost clear of the ground in a manner that hinted he could snap that neck with a flick of his wrist.

“This man tried to rush past me. He had this in his hand.” He held out a black palm so massive that it made the gray automatic look like a toy. “I didn’t know what it was all about but I decided that he could be up to no good.” He glared at the hapless Eck as if he were a schoolteacher scolding an errant pupil. “So I disarmed him.” He beamed at us. “I’d read him his rights if I knew what to say, although any man who runs around with a gun in his hand shouldn’t have any rights, don’t you agree?”

Two uniformed men came rushing in from another door and Hal Gaines told them to take charge of the culprit.

“What were you doing here?” asked Gabriella.

The giant from the Congo grinned sheepishly. “A few of those hors d’oeuvres upstairs were so good, I decided to come down here and do a little spying, find out how they made them.”

“So that’s why I didn’t see you up there,” I said.

“I am not an unsociable man,” he said quickly, “but I am very fond of my work.”

His handling of Eck had left the latter without speech and the two police took him out without resistance. Gaines’s admonition to Eck that he had the right to remain silent seemed almost unnecessary.

W
E WERE BACK UP
on the main floor where the festivities were still in full swing. Hal Gaines had offered to let me tell Marvell that Eck was under arrest but I said he should do it—after all, arrest was a police matter.

“There’s one thing I have to do, though” I told the lieutenant. “Can you hold off opening the doors and releasing everybody for just a couple of minutes?”

He looked puzzled but agreed.

Dr. Li was again easy to locate. He towered over the two Australians he was in conversation with when I found him. He excused himself and took me aside.

“Any luck?” I asked eagerly.

His green eyes had a hooded look, which was a relief. I felt too weak to have any resistance if he turned up his voltage all the way.

“Possibly,” he said. “Concerning Mr. Eck, I can tell you nothing—I have not been able to trace him, though I know he is here.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “We’ll come back to him in a minute. What else?”

“Both Ms. Branson and Mr. Keyhoe exhibited signs of considerable mental unease when I discussed Ko Feng with them. Ms. Branson was, in addition, perturbed for some other reason.”

“Guilt, either of them?”

“They both have something to hide. Guilt is for the authorities to determine.”

He continued to regard me from behind those hooded eyes but I couldn’t tell if he was debating if he should say more or waiting for me to make a contribution.

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for your help. Er—is there something else?”

“Did you consider the possibility that I myself was involved in a Ko Feng transaction?”

“I did,” I told him. “I took a chance that you weren’t.”

He bowed his head an inch in acknowledgment. “I thank you for your trust.”

“Not at all.” I could be just as polite. “And in return for your help, you can be almost the first to know—Eck has just been arrested for the theft of the Ko Feng and the murders of Renshaw and Cartwright.”

A glow flickered briefly in the green eyes and then was gone.

“And the Ko Feng?” he asked.

“Well, after Marvell’s announcement, you can be sure of getting some of it for your research.”