Free Time of Terror by Hugh Pentecost Page B

wrapped in newspaper. I remember thinking I could feel the wetness of blood seeping through onto my hands, but of course I couldn’t and didn’t. I remember lunging past Ruysdale in her outer office and arriving at Chambrun’s desk where I, dramatically, threw the package down in front of him. He looked at me, startled. I guess I must have been the color of a pale pea soup.
    “What the hell is this?” he said.
    “Horween,” I said, and sat down in the leather chair facing him because my knees were buckling under me.
    Chambrun stared at me as if I’d gone out of my mind, and then, gingerly, he unwrapped the package. One by one he examined the articles he found: the shirt, the underthings, the pants, the jacket, the shoes, the tie, the white wig, the rimless glasses, the wallet. No need to explain to him what the scarlet stains on the shirt and undershirt were. Through a kind of fog I saw him pick up the wallet and thumb through it. Then he was reaching for the phone and I heard him telling Ruysdale to try to get Lieutenant Hardy at Homicide.
    Then he did something I can never remember his doing before or since. He walked over to the sideboard, poured a very stiff slug of Jack Daniel’s, neat, and brought it over to me. People always waited on him; reversing the role was an historic moment which I wasn’t really able to enjoy.
    “Drink this and get pulled together,” he said. He stood in front of me while I downed the whiskey and then took the glass away from me. “You saw the body?”
    I shook my head.
    “Then you don’t know for certain—?”
    “He told me,” I said. “Down the drain.”
    “Down the drain?”
    “That’s what he told me.”
    Chambrun had moved to his desk. I heard him ask that Fritz Schindler and whoever had served anything to 15 A since lunch should report at once. At that point Jerry Dodd came into the office. I guess he looked at me, I’m not sure. The whiskey felt hot in my gut, but things were still a little foggy.
    Jerry was going through the things in the package. I saw him take something out of the wallet.
    “He carried a blood-type card,” Jerry said. “AB negative. Not too usual. If the bloodstains on the shirt match—” He shrugged. I saw that, so evidently I was coming around.
    “We need it from the top, Mark,” Chambrun said.
    I told them exactly what had happened; the armed men in stocking masks, Coriander’s anger, his threats, his warnings.
    “What did you think he meant by ‘down the drain’?” Chambrun asked.
    “Hack it to pieces, a little acid, and gurgle, gurgle,” Jerry Dodd said. “We better get Fritz Schindler and whoever else served drinks or supper to Fifteen A. In spite of what you told him, Horween obviously took Schindler’s place.”
    Chambrun didn’t act, but I realized the intercom was on and that Betsy Ruysdale was already doing what he wanted done. Her voice came through to us after a moment.
    “There were drinks ordered about five-thirty,” she told us. “According to Room Service, Schindler and a waiter named Edward Sprague delivered the order. They’re both still on duty and are on their way up. And Lieutenant Hardy should be here in a few minutes.”
    “Thanks, Ruysdale,” Chambrun said.
    “You notified the police?” Jerry asked the boss.
    Chambrun nodded.
    “You don’t know yet if you’ve got a homicide,” Jerry said. “Just some clothes, a bloodstained shirt, and some articles of disguise. You got to have a body they always say.”
    “Horween was wearing all those articles of clothing and disguise not too long ago,” Chambrun said. “And we have his wallet. If we don’t have a homicide, we’ll buy Hardy a drink and send him home.”
    The real Fritz Schindler jolted me when he came into the office along with Edward Sprague, who looked a little like an exprize fighter. The white-haired Schindler, rheumy eyes behind his rimless spectacles, was an exact replica of the phony Schindler that Horween had tried to pass off