The Right Jack

the hall that led to the devasted ballroom. A few feet beyond, folding wooden panels decorated with frothy pastoral scenes screened the entrance to the room from casual view.

Molly Baldwin was passing near the main desk as Sigrid inquired directions and she introduced herself and escorted them upstairs. Madam Ronay's young assistant looked her full twenty-three years this afternoon. Her face was pale and drawn and there were dark circles under her eyes.

'Guess you didn't get much sleep last night,' Lieutenant Knight said.

'Only four or five hours,' admitted Miss Baldwin, leading them past the velvet ropes, past the ornate screens, and down the wide hall to the d'Aubigne Room. 'It was hectic but I suppose it could have been much worse.'

Indeed, the actual damage to the elegant ballroom was minor, considering the carnage the small bomb had wreaked. Except for the rear quarter of the room, in that corner surrounding Table 5, the room showed only the usual morning-after ravages: the empty glasses, dirty ashtrays, lipstick-smeared napkins and other detritus that a large crowd always leaves behind.

There were signs of panic and confusion, however, in overturned chairs and in the playing cards scattered over the deep plush carpet.

Table 5 itself was charred and splintered and Sigrid gazed in silence at the dark splotches where torn bodies had lain bleeding-Zachary Wolferman and John Sutton on the end nearest the corner walls, she had been told; Tillie and Commander Dixon next to the dead men. The long linen cloth that had covered their table was bundled into a scorched and sodden heap upon the floor.

'We were lucky about fire,' Miss Baldwin told them softly. 'One of our busboys put it out with a hand extinguisher, so there was no water damage.'

'Where were you when the bomb exploded?' asked Sigrid as she began to orient herself in relation to the events of the previous evening.

'Over by the far table where the refreshments were.'

'Were you looking in this direction at that moment?'

'Not really. I guess I was trying to watch everything and make sure it all kept moving smoothly.'

Sigrid walked over to where Molly Baldwin had stood last night and examined the room from the new perspective. 'And you don't remember anything out of the ordinary about Table 5?'

'No,' the girl said quickly, 'not at all.'

'What about John Sutton?'

Miss Baldwin's face went blank. 'Who?'

'One of the men killed last night. You had met him on Wednesday. Don't you remember?'

'I had?' She tugged at a short brown curl behind her right ear, a nervous mannerism probably left over from childhood; then her face brightened. 'Oh yes! One of the professors from the City University. I had forgotten. That was why his face looked familiar!'

'When?'.

'Why, when I saw him again last night,' she said slowly.

'At Table 5?'

'I'm sorry. Lieutenant, I just don't remember. There were so many people here. Over five hundred. You know how it is-you see a face and there's something familiar about it, but heavens! It could be a bus driver or a bank teller-someone you recognize but that you've never actually talked to, you know?'

'And you must meet lots of people, working in a big hotel like this,' Lieutenant Knight encouraged.

'Yes, I do,' she said, turning to him gratefully from the more intimidating Lieutenant Harald.

'How long have you lived up North?' he asked.

'Why, just since Christmas.' She smiled at him and her fingers twined around that same brown curl. 'I thought I'd lost all my accent.'

Sigrid began to suspect that Lieutenant Knight was going to be a distinct handicap in their investigation if every woman they questioned reacted to him like this. She curtly broke in to ask Miss Baldwin to describe preparations for the cribbage tournament.

Her professional capacity required, Molly Baldwin gave a fairly concise recap of the last three or four days, including her mix-up with the pairings and the cribbage board stolen from the display case on Thursday. Young and inexperienced as she might be. Miss Baldwin was quick enough to grasp the significance of both incidents.

'Which happened first?' asked Sigrid, clearing a space at one of the cluttered tables for her notebook. Her bandaged arm made simple actions difficult.

'I'm not sure. Gus-He's our calligrapher and visual artist, whatever we need in the line of place cards and posters and things like that. We can ask him when he sent up the pairings display, but I think it was sometime before lunch. Mr. Flythe didn't notice it right away and I'd forgotten it was supposed to be confidential. We set up the display cases on Thursday morning and a few hours later-about three o'clock, I think-we noticed the missing board.'

'The pairings were where? In here or out in the hall?'

'In here. If you like, I'll get you a list of all the staff who worked in this room on Thursday. That's what's important, isn't it? You want to know who could have read where Mr. Wolferman or Professor Sutton were supposed to sit, don't you?'

'It's a place to start, Ms. Baldwin.' Sigrid flipped her notebook shut and thrust it into her jacket pocket.

By now, the forensic crews had taken away everything of significance in the way of splintered cribbage board, bomb fragments, and the like, so Sigrid saw no reason to object when Madam Ronay appeared in the doorway with one of her accountants and a claims investigator from the hotel's insurers and requested permission for the two men to assess the damages. She did find it interesting that Madam Ronay, a female executive accustomed to male underlings, should automatically address her request to Lieutenant Knight.

Just as automatic, too, were her flirtatious manner, the way she gazed up at him through lowered eyelashes, her light touch on his sleeve, and the delicate perfume that enveloped them both when she murmured, 'It is barbaric to think of money when so many were hurt last night, but a great hotel is like life, n'est-ce pas? And life also goes on, no?'

'Yes, ma'am. But I'm afraid you've confused me with Lieutenant Harald,' said Lieutenant Knight, gesturing toward Sigrid with his hat. 'She's in charge here. I just represent the Navy's interests.'

Beautiful, self-assured women always made Sigrid sharply conscious of how little she knew of clothes and cosmetics. She stiffened as Lucienne Ronay's hazel eyes swept over her, coolly assessing her thin figure, her shapeless slacks, her scruffy corduroy jacket, her Woolworth scarf.

Their eyes met briefly, but before Sigrid could make her own assessment, the lovely Frenchwoman exclaimed, 'But how silly of me! Always the uniform makes me think this one is in charge.'

A bewitching Gallic shrug of her shoulders invited them to share her amusement over minor failings.

Young Molly Baldwin smiled dutifully, as did the cowed accountant; the insurance adjuster and Lieutenant Alan Knight were indulgent.

'A natural mistake,' Sigrid said dryly. 'And to answer your question, we've almost finished here. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, your people can come in-shall we say tomorrow?'

'Je vous dis un grand merci, Lieutenant. See to it, please, Molly. You cannot know how unhappy it makes me to see my poor d'Aubigne Room so derange.' She turned back to Alan Knight as to the sun. 'But what you said before, Lieutenant, I do not understand. Why has the Navy an interest in our bomb?'

Knight explained. Madame Ronay clicked her tongue sympathetically upon hearing that the wounded commander was a woman who might be permanently maimed if she survived, and Molly Baldwin paled when he told them grimly that the doctors were pessimistic about saving Commander Dixon's right arm.

'Were you here when the bomb went off?' Sigrid asked Madame Ronay.

'Alas, non! I welcomed everyone. I wished them all bonne chance and then I left. The Contessa di Biagio had arranged a small dinner party in her suite and I was expected there. But when they came and told me what had happened, I returned at once. Quel dommage! They told me that two were dead and many hurt.'

'Did you know either of the dead men?'

'Monsieur Wolferman, only slightly. You understand. Lieutenant, three hotels keep me most busy. I have little time to play. Yet there are parties to which I must go, dinners I must attend, and Monsieur Wolferman also, I think.