As they entered from the rear, one of the tall, gold-tipped doors at the front opened and revealed their quarry.
"There she is!" said Alan Knight.
The two officers started across the wide floor. At the sight of their purposeful advance, the color drained from Molly Baldwin's face.
"Ms. Baldwin,!" called Sigrid.
They were passing one of the consolation tables and Vassily Ivanovich's grizzled head came up from his cards and swung in the direction they were headed. "What you say? That is little Molly?"-
"Hey, where're you going?" cried his opponent as the big Russian joined the charge.
"I quit! You are winner this time," Ivanovich flung back over his shoulder. Beyond the tall lieutenant's head, he saw a slender brown-haired girl in the doorway and roared, "You! You are T. J.'s Molly?"
It was too much. Molly Baldwin turned and fled.
There was a brief traffic jam at the doorway as Sigrid, Knight, and Ivanovich each tried to get through.
At the end of the hall, where the main staircase created a wide landing, Molly was waylaid by an elderly gentleman in a dark suit.
"Excuse me, miss, but are you with the hotel? I need someone on the housekeeping staff to-"
At that precise moment, the elevator across the landing chimed and Madame Ronay stepped off, followed by three frightened-looking maids.
"Ah, there you are, Miss Baldwin," said the Maintenon's owner in a steel bladed tone that could have ripped throughs olid teak. "May I ask why I've had to-"
Abruptly she became aware of the others and the steel was instantly sheathed in French velvet.
"Lieutenant Harald, Lieutenant Knight? But what has happened here? You have changed your mind?"
The maids were edging away toward the opposite hall that led to the d'Aubigné Room.
"Moment!" ordered Lucienne Ronay.
"Changed my mind?" asked Sigrid.
"Did you not say yesterday that you were finished here and that my people may restore order today to my poor d'Aubigné Room? Have you different thoughts now? And is this why," she asked with a pointed look at the wretched Molly Baldwin, "work has not yet begun there?"
"No, we've finished," said Sigrid.
"Alors!" said Madame Ronay and the maids scuttled down the hallway and disappeared into the wrecked ballroom.
"-If you'll excuse me," Molly Baldwin said hopelessly, "I'll just get them started."
Before anyone could object, the dark-suited gentleman said, "May I come with you? I'm Haines Froelick and-"
"Monsieur Froelick!" exclaimed Lucienne Ronay, now transformed into a solicitous and totally sympathetic hostess, "Je suis très désolée. Your poor cousin! I grieve with you. That such a dreadful thing should happen here…"
Mr. Froelick thanked her gravely and explained his errand concerning the missing schilling. "I know it seems silly to care about such a small thing when so much has happened, but if your staff could watch for it, it would mean so much."
"Certainment. Miss Baldwin will-Mais, non!" Madame interrupted herself meaningfully. "To make certain my wishes are carried out, I myself will instruct them. Come, M'sieur. Molly?"
"I'm sorry, Madame Ronay," said Sigrid, "but we've a few more questions we need to ask Ms. Baldwin at the moment."
"So?" The shrewd hazel eyes compared Sigrid's calm demeanor with Molly Baldwin's apprehension. "So," she nodded.
"When you have finished, Molly, I too have questions for you."
"Yes, madame," the girl said unhappily.
As her employer escorted Mr. Froelick across the landing, Miss Baldwin faced them in resignation. "There's a small room down there where we can talk."
"Is true?" rumbled Vassily Ivanovich, looming up behind them. "You are T. J.'s cousin?"
The girl looked into his glowering face and burst into tears.
Sigrid was appalled, Ivanovich flustered, but Alan Knight was only clinically interested. With six sisters, he was long inured to the sight of bawling females.
Which was the only way to describe Molly Baldwin at that moment. This was no momentary misting of the eyes, no delicate sniffles hidden away behind a dainty handkerchief, no sun shower that would disappear as suddenly as it had come. This was an all-out store.
"Batten down the hatches," murmured the naval officer, and flourishing his large white handkerchief like a hurricane warning flag, he strode forward, put his arm around her and said, "There, there,h oneybunch, it's gonna be all right. Here, blow.".
Still sobbing, poor Molly blew.
"Atta girl! Blow again."
Gradually, the sobs diminished, abating into snuffly hiccups. The fiery red blotches began to fade from her cheeks, leaving just her eyes and the tip of her snub nose a glowing pink. r
"Okay now?" asked Alan Knight.
She nodded like an embarrassed child and started to speak, when one of the maids burst from the d'Aubigné Room and darted toward them.
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" she cried breathlessly. "Come quick. There's been another murder!"
19
AT first glance, Sigrid could almost believe the still form had been lying there since Friday night, overlooked in the chaos of the explosion. It was well under one of the back tables near the fatal Table 5, hidden by a heap of water-stained linen.
The maid, pale but excited, described how she had been stripping the tables of the long white tablecloths and throwing them onto the pile already begun. When her co-worker trundled the laundry cart down the aisle, she had tried to gather up the heap, realized something heavy was tangled in the linen, gave a mighty jerk and out rolled the body of a slender young black man dressed in the short green jacket and black trousers of a Hotel Maintenon employee.
He looked familiar to Sigrid, but she couldn't remember which busboy he'd been among the several on duty during the cribbage tournament. Besides, hes eemed to have been strangled with his own tie and his face was not a very pretty sight.
There was no pulse, of course, and his skin was cool to the touch.
Sigrid straightened up. "Who is he?"
Molly Baldwin had stopped weeping and now looked as if she were going to be sick. "I don't know," she whispered.
"Madame Ronay?"
"Forgive me. Lieutenant. There are so many and he is-" She also seemed queasy and smiled gratefully when Haines Froelick took her arm and drew her aside.
"Could be Quincy Johnson's nephew," offered one of the maids with trepidation.
Madam Ronay forced herself to look again. "Ah, pauvre petit. C'est possible."
Sigrid herded everyone to a front table, handed Alan Knight her note pad, and curtly ordered: "I'm going to phone headquarters. Please take their names and addresses and don't let anyone leave or enter this room until I get back."
Lucienne Ronay began to expostulate about the need to call her public relations agent and channel the flood of badp ublicity this second death was sure to undam.
There would be plenty of opportunity for that later, Sigrid told her crisply. "If you and your people cooperate, perhaps we can keep a lid on most of the sensationalism."
"But of course we will cooperate," said Madame Ronay, drawing up at the very suggestion that she and her staff would do otherwise.
Sigrid left them, remembered which alcove held a telephone booth, and summoned help from headquarters. Afterward, she went back to the Bontemps Room and plucked Mr. George from the midst of his duties. He tried to object but Sigrid knew the magic words. "Madame Ronay," she murmured and Mr. George trotted along like a little lamb.
Outside the d'Aubigne Room, she paused. "A little earlier, I heard you ask where Johnson was. Is that one of the busboys?"
"Sure, why?"
"When did you last see him?"
The little steward frowned. "I don't know. About break time, I guess. 'Bouta n hour ago? He and Ms Baldwin were talking in the passageway outside the service door. Why? What's he done?"