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?"

"What makes you think he's done something?"

"You asking questions. La Reine wanting to see me. It's about Johnson, isn't it?"

"Yes. A body's been found. One of the maids thinks it might be your missing busboy. I'd like for you to look and tell me if it's Johnson."

The steward opened his mouth to protest, but nothing emerged.

Wordlessly he followed her past the table where his employer sat, her two hands folded on the tabletop, a large sapphire ring glowing on her right hand. Sigrid pointed to the body and said, "Is that Johnson?"

"Oh my God!" the steward moaned. "Who's gonna tell Miss Quincy?"

"Come here, George," ordered Madame Ronay from the front of the room. "Do you say this is Quincy Johnson's nephew? Pernell, est-ce-qui?"

"Yes, Madame, the steward answered faintly. "She was so proud of how goodh e's been doing. I was going to speak to you about him tomorrow, recommend a bonus for the kid."

"Bonus?" Madame Ronay asked sharply. "Pourquoi?"

"Because of the way he kept his head Friday night. After the explosion, he's the one who grabbed that extinguisher and rushed over and put out the fire before it could spread. A few minutes more and you'd have had to replace not just the carpet, but part of the paneling, too."

"You should have told me this before." Lucienne Ronay's graceful blonde head drooped sadly. "Hélas! Now it is too late forever for me to reward him."

She drew a deep breath and began to function like an executive again. "Someone must be sent to tell Miss Johnson. Who, George?" Her ring flashed blue fire as she pointed to him. "You?"

"Not me," said the steward even before Sigrid could voice her own objection to letting him leave the hotel just yet.

"Hester Yates is downstairs. She and Miss Quincy are real good friends. You want me to send her?"

Both looked at Sigrid…

"This is permitted. Lieutenant?" asked Madame Ronay.

"In a moment," said Sigrid. "First, I'd like to hear everything you can remember about Pernell Johnson's movements today. What he did, who he talked to. If you would be patient a few minutes longer, Madame?"

Lucienne Ronay nodded graciously, turning the sapphire ring with her restless fingers.

Haines Froelick cleared his throat. "What about me, Lieutenant? Is it all right if I look around for my cousin's schilling?" He gestured hesitantly toward the back of the large room, to the corner where Zachary Wolferman had died.

"I'm afraid not," she replied. "Nothing can be disturbed till after our crime scene crew has had a chance to examine things. I'll tell them to keep an eye out for it."

"Then perhaps I should leave now," he said and Sigrid thought she detected relief in his face, as if she'd saved him an unpleasant task by her denial of his request.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Froelick, but I'll want your statement as well as the others."

"My statement. Oh my dear young lady, I've no statement, I assure you."

"What we need will only take a few minutes," Sigrid said. "After we've talked to Mr. George. Perhaps you and Madame Ronay-?"

Lucienne Ronay took the hint and wafted Froelick across the room to a loveseat upholstered in peach-colored silk beneath a large gilt-framed painting that easily fell within Nauman's Cool Ship parameters.

"All our paintings here are originals, Mr. Froelick," Sigrid heard the Frenchwoman murmur. "One of the finest ateliers in Europe is under contract with us."

Molly Baldwin sat wrapped in mute misery at one end of a long table while Vassily Ivanovich glowered at her from the other end. At a nearby table, just out of earshot, Sigrid and Alan Knight listened as Mr. George informed them that Pernell Johnson had come on duty at eight o'clock, as prompt and efficient in his work as always.

The steward was a small black man of ramrod posture, receding gray hair and a penchant for fussy details. Sigrid soonl earned that he had approved of Johnson and had interested himself in the youth's progress at the hotel. "That boy had a real future here, Lieutenant. He was a hard worker like his aunt. I know he might have gotten in a little trouble down in Florida, but up here he was one of the good ones. Never messed with liquor or dope or none of that stuff as far as I ever heard."

" Florida?" sked Alan Knight.

"Trouble?" asked Sigrid. "Miss Quincy told Hester Yates and Hester Yates told me and now I'm telling you, but nobody else. And certainly not Madame." He removed a crumb of cigarette tobacco from the table. "Not many boys that don't have a brush with the law 'fore they get grown. You know that. He and another kid stole some hubcaps or something down there and his grandmother, Miss Quincy's mother, shipped him up here to get him away from that stuff."

Sigrid remembered now: the thin youth with the soft drawl who'd brought her a glass of water the day before. A helpful person, eager to please, and, accordingt o Mr. George, a 'noticing' worker.