Almost before he had finished speaking, Corey was out of his car and running, suddenly aware that no one else had seen a thing. He went first to Fred Collins, closer, and bent to find a carotid pulse. Yes! Strong, and there didn’t seem to be a widening sheet of blood. One leg was twisted under him and he was groaning. He was probably all right unless he had internal injuries.
Now to Smith, who lay on his right side, eyes closed. Yes! A carotid pulse, and fairly strong. He wasn’t moving.
The wind gusted; a sheet of paper blew into Corey’s eyes, was brushed away impatiently. Then Corey saw Smith’s briefcase, still in his hand. Had the fool tried to drive a stick-shift sports car hanging on to a briefcase? Or had he grabbed for it even as the accident happened? It was beautifully turned and crafted stainless steel with two combination locks, but the force of the impact had sprung them, and there were papers everywhere. Most had settled on the surface of the pool.
“Nothing I can do for you, buster,” he said, “but I can pick up your papers before they blow away.”
Working in a frenzy, he gathered every sheet he could find. Many were wet from immersion in the water, but Corey didn’t care; he collected them as the sirens wailed in the distance, then ran for his car. The firemen were coming, but he had the excuse of needing to use his radio again, and who’d remember that he was carrying loads of papers? Their attention was on the accident.
The papers went into his trunk, just in case some nosy Cornucopia guy came looking. He picked up his mike and talked to Dispatch, who informed him that Captain Delmonico was on his way and that two ambulances should already be there.
“Thank God it stopped raining,” he said to Carmine a minute later. “Want me to tell those turkeys on the jet that they’re not going anywhere unless they want to leave two Board members behind in the hospital?”
“Abe’s got that,” Carmine said, eyeing Corey shrewdly. “I want to know why you look like the mutt that got to the pedigree bitch ahead of her designated mate.”
For answer, Corey led him around to the back of his car and popped the trunk. “The contents of Phil Smith’s briefcase,” he said. “I wish I could say I’d gotten all four briefcases, but one is a start. The way I saw it, there the guy is, lying unconscious in the road, and his papers drowning in that pool there. So I did what any considerate citizen would do-I picked them up. Then I figured I could always say later that our police labs have great facilities for drying papers that would otherwise have disintegrated, so I saw it as my citizen’s duty to save them if I could. He won’t buy it, but he can’t argue about it either.”
“Great work, Corey,” Carmine said sincerely. “Our luck that the accident happened, but your initiative and presence of mind that Smith’s papers have fallen into our hands.”
The two men walked back to the road, where both ambulances were loading up. Thanks to Corey’s having demanded medics, two of the new physician’s assistants had come with the standard crews.
They reached Fred Collins’s medic first.
“I don’t think he’s suffered much internally,” the woman said, folding up her stethoscope. “Blood pressure’s okay. Comminuted fracture of his right femur-he won’t be going skiing for a while. Grazes and bruises. That’s about it.”
“Head injury,” said Smith’s medic. “Broken right humerus, right scapula is suspect too. His skull impacted on the road, but the water cushioned it some. No left-sided weakness that I can find, but we’ll know more when he’s examined by neurosurgeons. His pupils are reacting. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get him to where they can deal with any cerebral edema.”
Wal Grierson and Gus Purvey were waiting anxiously, prevented from approaching by the customary police cordon. Sergeant Terry Monks and his team had just arrived, and would inspect the site of the accident to reconstruct it and apportion blame.
“Though,” Terry Monks said to Carmine angrily, “what are two stupid old men doing in an E-type Jag with no roll bar and no seat belts?”
“A roll bar would spoil the car’s looks, and seat belts are for people who drive Yank tanks. However, if you’re fair, Terry, you’ll have to admit that not wearing seat belts saved their lives,” Carmine said, just to ruffle Terry.
“Yeah! But a roll bar
Onward to Grierson and Purvey.
“This is terrible! Terrible!” Purvey said, face ashen. “I can’t count the times I’ve told Phil to stop behaving like Stirling Moss! He drives like a bat out of hell!”
“A pity he’s not conscious to hear himself described as a stupid old geezer,” Carmine said. “That’s the verdict of our traffic accident men.”
“Stupid is right,” Grierson said through his teeth, more angry than upset. “I guess we’re not going to Zurich. Gus, you get to tell Natalie and Candy while I deal with things here.” As if on cue, the little Ford and the Rolls appeared and parked just down the road.
“Take the car. It can come back for me as soon as you get home and get your own wheels.”
Purvey, looking hangdog, set off along the airport’s chain-link fence in the direction of the Rolls.
“I thought you were a Mustang man,” Carmine said.
“The Rolls is the most comfortable car on the road,” said Grierson, smiling slightly. “Jesus, what a mess!”
Carmine looked at Corey and Abe. “Corey, drive across the tarmac and out the far gate. Abe, you’re still with me.”
The Fairlane followed Corey’s car closely. Only when they were out of the far gate and back on the road past the fuel farm did Carmine breathe a sigh of relief. He had used the time to fill Abe in on what resided in Corey’s trunk, and Abe’s hands were trembling in sheer excitement. He glanced at Carmine.
“One chance in four it’s the right briefcase,” he said.
“Where’s Delia?”
“Out like a bloodhound on Dee-Dee’s trail.”
“There’s a phone booth, and I do believe the phone is still connected,” Carmine said, pulling in to the side of the road. “Abe, get on to Danny and ask him to send out search parties for Delia. This isn’t something I want going out on our radio; it’s too important for truckers and bored housewives. The one person we need most in this operation is Delia.”
Who was waiting, eyes bright, when Carmine and Abe walked in. Two Plant Physical workmen had erected a setup consisting of as many trestle tables as the office would hold, their tops newly covered with butcher paper held down by thumbtacks. The limp and sodden contents of Philip Smith’s briefcase were stacked haphazardly on a chair seat under Delia’s martial eye. As soon as the last table was finished and the two handymen had left, she began distributing the papers, one sheet at a time, on the off-white surfaces at her disposal.
“Oh, the man is a treasure!” she exclaimed, bustling from one table to another with various sheets. “Meticulous in the extreme!
In all, there were 139 pages of letters and reports, plus a bound 73-page dissertation on the advantages of maintaining a research facility. That seemed peculiar to Carmine; Cornucopia Research was at least five years old, so why carry a bulky book full of long-established facts well known to the whole industry?
“He’s a paper snob,” said Delia when every page had been laid out and the bound report sat wrapped in a clean towel to dry its outer leaves and edges. “Nothing but high rag content paper, even for his memo pads. No cheap pulp for Mr. Smith! Nor ordinary print for his captions and letterheads-hot-pressed print only. At the same time, he’s not splashy. Plain white stationery, black print, not even a color horn-of-plenty logo. Yes, everything of the very best, yet understated.”
“Then you and I are going to go to work reading, Delia,” Carmine said. “Corey, you take the hospital watch. Report any change in Smith’s condition to me the moment you hear. The chief neurosurgeon, Tom Dennis, is a friend of mine, so I’ll make sure we know as soon as a change happens. Abe, you hold the fort with Dee-Dee, Sir Lancelot, Pauline Denbigh and anyone else of interest. If there’s a new case, you take it.”
“What are we looking for?” Delia asked as Abe and Corey left. “Naturally I have some idea, but I’d like detailed instructions.”
“The trouble is that if it’s a verbal code, I don’t think we stand a hope of cracking it,” Carmine said,
