'Yes, didn't I make that clear? We always have three or four speakers at the press party, but very short and informal, you follow, just a few words of appreciation, that sort of thing. We were surprised when Morgan didn't show, but not disturbed. I was myself surprised he hadn't sent a message, but I don't know him well. We met just three days ago. I wouldn't know if he would be careful about courtesies, you follow?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I follow.'
He smoothed a muscular hand over the white hair. 'Our public relations firm told the limousine service to pick Morgan up from the Ritz Carlton and take him to the Harbor Room in Baltimore.' He paused. ' Baltimore is nearer to this racetrack than Washington is, you follow me, so a majority of the press stay in Baltimore.' He paused again, giving me time for understanding. 'The Ritz Carlton report a chauffeur coming to the front desk, saying he had been assigned to collect Morgan. The front desk called Morgan, who came down, left his key, and went out with the chauffeur. And that's all. That's all anyone knows.'
'Could the front desk describe the chauffeur?' I asked.
'All they could positively remember was that he wore a chauffeur's uniform and cap. He didn't say much. They think he may have spoken with some sort of non-American accent? but this is a polyglot city and no one took much notice.'
'Mm,' I said. 'What happened to the real chauffeur?'
'The real…? Oh, no, nothing. The Ritz Carlton report a second chauffeur appeared. They told him Morgan had already been collected. The chauffeur was surprised, but not too much. With an operation of this size going on there are always mix-ups. He reported back to his service, who directed him to another assignment. The limousine service thought Morgan must have taken a ride with a friend and not told them. They were philosophical. They would charge the racetrack for their trouble. They wouldn't lose.'
'So no one was alarmed,' I said.
'Of course not. The public relations firm called the Ritz Carlton in the morning - that was yesterday - and the front desk said Morgan's key was there, he must already have gone out. No one was alarmed until we had the call from your Colonel Tansing asking about a hoax.' He paused. 'I was at home eating breakfast.'
'Rather a shock,' I said. 'Have all these pressmen woken up yet to the story under their noses?'
With the first faint glimmer of humour he said that things were at the unconfirmed rumour stage, the whole hive buzzing.
'It'll put your race on the world map like nothing else will,' I said.
'I'm afraid so,' He looked undecided about the worth of that sort of publicity, or more probably about the impropriety of dancing up and down with commercial glee.
'You told the police,' I said.
'Sure. Both here in Laurel and in Washington. The people in Washington are handling it.'
I nodded and asked which police, specifically: there were about five separate forces in the capital.
The Metropolitan Police,' he said. 'Sure, the FBI and the Missing Persons Bureau have taken an interest, but they've sorted it out that it's the Metropolitan Police's baby. The man in charge is a Captain Kent Wagner. I told him you were coming. He said I could send you along, if you wanted.'
'Yes, please.'
He took a wallet from an inner pocket and removed a small white card. 'Here you are,' he said, handing it over. 'And also…' he sorted out another card, 'this is my home number. If I've left the racetrack, you can call me there.'
'Right.'
'Tomorrow morning we have the Press Breakfast,' he said. 'That's when all the overseas owners and trainers and jockeys meet downstairs here in the club.' He paused. 'We have a Press Breakfast before most big races in America… have you been to one before?'
'No,' I said.
'Come tomorrow. You'll be interested. I'll arrange passes for you.'
I thanked him, not sure whether I could manage it. He nodded genially. A small thing like the abduction of Britain 's top racing executive was not, it seemed, going to dent the onward steamrollering of the week's serious pleasures.
I asked him if I could make a call to Liberty Market before I went to the police in Washington, and he waved me generously to the telephone.
'Sure. Go right ahead. It's a private line. I'll do everything possible to help, you know that, don't you? I didn't know Morgan himself real well, and I guess it couldn't be thought this racetrack's fault he was kidnapped, but anything we can do… we'll give it our best shot.'
I thanked him and got through to London, and Gerry Clayton answered.
'Don't you ever go home?' I said.
'Someone has to mind the store,' he said plaintively: but we all knew he lived alone and was lonely away from the office.
'Any news from the Jockey Club?' I asked.
'Yeah, and how. Want me to play you the taps they got by Express Mail?'
'Fire away.'
'Hang on.' There was a pause and a few clicks, and then an American voice, punchy and hard.
'If you Brits at the jockey Club want Freemantle back, listen good. It's going to cost you ten million English pounds sterling. Don't collect the money in notes. You're going to pay in certified bankers' checks. You won't get Freemantle back until the checks are clear. You've got one week to collect the bread. In one week you'll get more instructions. If you fool around, Freemantle will lose his fingers. You'll get one every day, Express Mail, starting two weeks from now.
'No tricks. You in the Jockey Club, you've got money. Either you buy Freemantle back, or we kill Mm. That's a promise. We take him out. And if you don't come up with the bread, you get nothing, you don't even get his corpse. If we kill him, we kill him real slow. Make him curse you. Make him scream. You hear us? He gets no tidy single shot. He dies hard. If we kill him, you'll get his screams on tape. If you don't want that, you're going to have to pay.
'Freemantle, he wants to talk to you. You listen.'
There was a pause on the line, then Freemantle's own voice, sounding strong and tough and incredibly cultured after the other.
'If you do not pay the ransom, I will be killed. I am told this is so, and I believe it.'
Click. 'Did you get all that?' Gerry Clayton's voice said immediately.
'Yeah.'
'What do you think?'
'I think it's our man again,' I said. 'For sure.'
'Right. Same feel.'
'How long will you be on the switchboard?' I asked.
'Until midnight. Seven p.m., your time.'
'I'll probably ring again.'
'OK. Happy hunting.'
I thanked Rickenbacker and drove off to Washington, and after a few false trails found Captain of Detectives Kent Wagner in his precinct.
The Captain was a walking crime deterrent, big of body, hard of eye, a man who spoke softly and reminded one of cobras. He was perhaps fifty with flat-brushed dark hair, his chin tucked back like a fighting man; and I had a powerful impression of facing a wary, decisive intelligence. He shook my hand perfunctorily, looking me over from head to foot, summing up my soul.
'Kidnappers never get away with it in the United States,' he said. 'This time will be no exception.'
I agreed with him in principle. The American record against kidnappers was second to none.
'What can you tell me?' he asked flatly, from his look not hoping much.
'Quite a lot, I think,' I said mildly.
He eyed me for a moment, then opened the door of his glass-walled office and called across an expanse of desks, 'Ask Lieutenant Stavoski to step in here, if you please.'
One of the many blue-uniformed men rose to his feet and went on the errand, and through the windows I watched the busy, orderly scene, many people moving, telephones ringing, voices talking, typewriters clacking, computer screens flicking, cups of coffee on the march. Lieutenant Stavoski, when he came, was a pudgy man in the late thirties with a large drooping moustache and no visible doubts about himself. He gave me a disillusioned stare; probably out of habit.
The Captain explained who I was. Stavoski looked unimpressed. The Captain invited me to give. I obligingly opened my briefcase and brought out a few assorted articles, which I laid on his desk.
'We think this is definitely the third, and probably the fourth, of a series of kidnappings instigated by one particular person,' I said. 'The Jockey Club in England has today received a tape from the kidnappers of Morgan Freemantle, which I've arranged for you to hear now on the telephone, if you like. I've also brought with me the ransom-demand tapes from two of the other kidnaps.' I pointed to them as they lay on the desk. 'You might be interested to hear the similarities.' I paused slightly. 'One of the tapes is in Italian.'
'Italian?'
'The kidnapper himself is Italian.'
Neither of them particularly liked it.
'He speaks English,' I said, 'but in England he recruited an English national to utter his threats, and on today's tape the voice is American.'
Wagner pursed his lips. 'Let's hear today's tape then.' He gave me the receiver from his telephone and pressed a few preliminary buttons. 'This call will be recorded,' he said. 'Also all our conversations from now on.'
I nodded and got through to Gerry Clayton, who gave the kidnapper a repeat performance. The aggressive voice rasped out loudly through the amplifier in Captain Wagner's office, both the policemen listening with concentrated disgust.
I thanked Gerry and disconnected, and without a word Wagner held out a hand to me, his eyes on the tapes I'd brought. I gave him the Nerrity one, which he fitted into a player and set going. The sour threats to Dominic, the cutting off of fingers, the screams, the non-return of the body, all thundered into the office like as echo. The faces of Wagner and Stavoski both grew still and then judicious and finally convinced.
The same guy,' Wagner said, switching off. 'Different voice, same brain.'
'Yes,' I said.
'Get Patrolman Rossellini in here,' he told the Lieutenant and it was Stavoski, this time, who put his head out of the door and yelled for the help. Patrolman Rossellini, large-nosed, young, black- haired, very American, brought his Italian grand-parentage to bear on the third of the tapes and translated fluently as it went along. When it came to the last of the series of threats to Alessia's body his voice faltered and stopped, and he glanced uneasily around, as if for escape.
'What is it?' Wagner demanded.
'The guy says,' Rossellini said, squaring his shoulders to the requirement, 'well, to be honest, Captain, I'd rather not say.'
