"Sorry, sir, I've just come off my break, and I saw you in the car. Can I get you anything?"
"No, thank you, Barton, but could you have a look in the basement and see what's keeping Mrs. Kinsolving and Albert? I'm deep in thought, here."
"Of course, Mr. Kinsolving." Barton disappeared.
Sandy returned to his reverie. If Laddie didn't make a better offer, perhaps he'd entertain a sale, at the right price, of course. He couldn't see Laddie paying a new executive a high salary to come in and run the division; neither could he see Laddie wanting to do it himself. Sandy closed his eyes.
"Mr. Kinsolving!" Barton's voice was urgent.
"Yes, Barton?"
"You'd better come with me, sir," Barton said. "I don't know what's happened."
"What?" Sandy asked, confused, but Barton was already headed back inside.
Sandy snapped back to reality and got out of the car. She's having trouble with the lock, he thought; that's happened before. But his heart was beating fast. He saw Barton whisper something to the lobby man, Jimmy, and Jimmy picked up the telephone. The elevator was waiting.
The doors closed and the old elevator crept downward. "What's wrong?" Sandy asked.
"I think it would be better if you saw for yourself, sir," Barton said.
Sandy led the way from the elevator. He turned a corner of the corridor and strode toward the storage room. The basement was lit by twenty-five-watt bulbs to save the building electricity, and Sandy could see ahead only dimly. Then, as he approached the storage room, he saw something blocking the corridor, something like a laundry bag. A few steps more and Sandy could see that Albert was lying across the hallway, his cap several feet away. He knelt beside the elderly man.
"Albert!" he said. "Can you hear me?"
Albert moaned and opened his eyes.
Then Sandy noticed that one side of his head was a dark color, and something was seeping down the servant's neck.
"Good God!" Sandy breathed. "Barton, call an ambulance!"
"I've already asked Jimmy to do that, sir," Barton replied.
Sandy reached for Albert's cap, then lifted the old man's head and let it down gently onto the cap. "Come with me," he said to Barton. He moved on down the hallway more gingerly, afraid of what he was going to find. The door to the storeroom stood ajar, but no light came from inside. Sandy reached into the room for the light switch, then flipped it on.
Joan lay on her back, her eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Her arms were askew, and her mouth was open. There were dark bruises on her throat. Across the room, the door to the old safe was open.
"Joan!" Sandy cried, moving to her side and slipping his hand under her head. He withdrew it quickly, and it came away bloody.
"Is she all right, sir?" Barton asked from behind her.
Sandy looked for a pulse at her wrist, then at her throat. "No, Barton," he said. "I don't think she's all right."
CHAPTER 7
Sandy sat in the lobby anteroom, a small, comfortably furnished lounge where those who had not been admitted to the apartments above could wait to be dealt with at the convenience of the building's occupants. He pulled his bow tie undone and leaned his head against the back of the leather couch, sighing deeply. He was alone in the anteroom, but a uniformed police officer stood just outside-protecting him or preventing him from leaving?
Had he done everything he could to prevent this? He had thought so, but he had been wrong, of course. Through my actions, he thought, I have caused the death of a human being. My wife is dead because of me. If I had just this one day to live over, he thought. No, this one week. I could change everything. No scotch on the airplane; no meeting with Martindale in the park; no trusting a concierge to deliver a message. But now it was too late; he was helpless to change anything.
"Mr. Kinsolving?" a deep voice asked.
Sandy jerked back to the present. A tall, neatly dressed, black man stood beside the sofa; a shorter, balder, red-faced white man stood slightly behind him.
"Yes?" Sandy managed.
"I am Detective Alain Duvivier," the black man said.
"How do you do?" Sandy said. This was very odd; Duvivier had some sort of accent. "You're a New York City policeman?"
Duvivier smiled slightly. "I was born in Haiti," he said, "but I have been an American citizen for more than twenty years, and a New York City policeman for nearly as long."
"I see," Sandy said.
Duvivier indicated the man behind him. "This is Detective Leary," he said. "He is probably more what you expected."
"I didn't mean-"
"I understand," Duvivier said kindly. "I wonder if we might go to your apartment and talk there?"
"Of course," Sandy said, getting to his feet. He led the detectives to the elevator and pressed a button. The old car rose slowly. "I'm sorry, but it's an old elevator. We manage to keep it running."
Duvivier nodded.
At the eighteenth floor Sandy led them into his apartment, to his study, and offered them chairs, then took one himself.
"Mr. Kinsolving, are you quite all right?" Duvivier asked. "Would you like me to get you someone? A doctor? A relative?"
"I'm all right," Sandy replied. "I'm just… I don't know, stunned, I guess."
"That's quite understandable," Duvivier said. "Do you think you are up to answering some questions?"
"I think so."
"Please let me know if you grow tired and want to stop. Can I get you a drink of water?"
"No, no; I should be offering you something," Sandy said.
"Thank you, that's not necessary. May we begin?"
"Yes. What would you like to know?"
"Can you please tell me everything that happened this evening? Take your time, and be as thorough as you can."
"We were going out to a charity ball at the Waldorf Hotel," Sandy said. "We left the apartment shortly after eight and took the elevator downstairs. I got off in the lobby, and Joan-my wife- continued to the basement."
"Had you done this before? Allowed her to go to the basement alone, I mean."
"Nearly always," Sandy said. "We have a storage room in the basement, and Joan's furs and her best jewelry are kept there-the jewelry in a safe. Usually, if we're going to something dressy, Joan will go down to retrieve what she needs for the evening, while I ask the doorman to get us a cab."
"But you didn't need a cab this evening, did you?"
"No, a car was calling for us. It's funny, but I was going to ride down to the basement with Joan, but when the doors opened to the lobby, the driver, Albert, said that I had a telephone call on the car's phone."
"Why were you going to change your routine and go to the basement with your wife?" Duvivier asked.
"I don't know, exactly; I just had a feeling…"
"Of danger?"
"Not exactly; I just suddenly felt that I should go with her."
"But the telephone call made you change your mind?"
"Yes. So I asked Albert to accompany Joan. She protested, said she'd been down there hundreds of times, but I made Albert go. I suppose if I hadn't, I might be the one with the broken head. Still, I wonder if it might have been different if…" His voice trailed off.
"And who was on the telephone?"
"My brother-in-law, Joan's brother, Laddie. That is, John Bailley, Junior."
"And how long did you speak with him?"
"I don't know exactly, a few minutes, I suppose. He had called to say that his wife had become ill, and they wouldn't be able to go to the ball with us, as had been our plan. We were to have picked them up on the way. I was still talking to him when Barton, the doorman, came to get me. He took me downstairs. No, wait-he came to the car and asked if there was anything he could do for me. I looked at my watch and saw that Joan and Albert had been downstairs for some time. I still hadn't finished my conversation with Laddie-we briefly discussed some business-so I asked Barton to go and see what was keeping them. I was still on the phone when he came back and asked me to come downstairs with him."