Going for the Gold Page 13

  Brad Withers’ instincts were patriarchal. He liked nothing better than to gather members of the great Sloan family under his wing and offer them the best he had.

  “Everett! Isn’t this wonderful!” he cried with innocent enthusiasm. “You’re in time to see the women’s figure skating tomorrow.”

  Fortunately Brad never noticed anybody else’s reactions.

  “I will certainly bear that in mind,” Gabler promised in tones of loathing. “But it’s already quite late and, if we are to do anything tomorrow, I suggest we all retire.”

  Thus it was not until the following morning that Thatcher and Gabler were able to huddle with Roger Hathaway at the Sloan branch, for the kind of discussion so dear to Everett’s heart.

  “Now,” he purred, spreading his notes on the table, “I think you’ll agree with me that the situation is most interesting.”

  “That’s not the way I’d describe it,” said Hathaway gruffly. “Somebody’s ripped me off for $500,000.”

  Gabler always liked to see the bank’s young officers identifying with the Sloan. He nodded approvingly as he continued.

  “That aspect is deplorable, it goes without saying. But the matter does not end there. It is our clear duty to utilize our special expertise in order to recover the loss.”

  Hathaway blinked. “But that’s a job for the police.”

  Normally this would have provoked a broadside about the relative competence of state authorities and the Sloan. But Gabler, who had been mellowing by the minute since separation from Withers, was unusually forbearing.

  “The police, no doubt, are doing their best. I was favorably impressed by Captain Ormsby last night. But they will surely welcome any assistance we can give them.” Gabler cleared his throat to signal the end of the preliminaries. “Now the first thing I did was communicate with Eurocheck headquarters overseas. Since they are a comparatively new organization, they have no experience with intensive investigations. I regret to say we cannot expect any reinforcements from them, even if they could get here.”

  Thatcher was not deceived. Every institution that issues what amounts to cash has to protect the validity of that currency. The United States Government maintains a Secret Service; American Express employs an army of security personnel. If Eurocheck had been as old or as large as either, there would have been swarms of their agents in Lake Placid, dropped by parachute if necessary. Everett was pleased as punch to be spared this competition.

  “They have, however, been uniformly helpful in supplying details,” Gabler swept on. “I don’t have to tell you that the dislocations in transport have stranded many European tour groups heading for the Olympic Games. They are almost all in New York or Montreal.”

  Thatcher’s interest quickened. “Where they have been cashing checks steadily for over 24 hours.”

  “And the forgeries have been isolated to one charter. Everybody else has bona fide Eurochecks.”

  “Let me guess, Everett,” Thatcher said. “That one group is a bunch of Frenchmen from Grenoble.”

  Gabler was a stickler for detail. “Not from Grenoble, no. But in spirit, you’re right. The tour was organized through Yves Bisson’s travel agency for a skating club that wanted to see Suzanne Deladier. They’ve been in Montreal now for almost two days.”

  “But that doesn’t do any good,” Roger Hathaway protested. “We already knew that Bisson was using his agency to funnel the phonies.”

  Both Thatcher and Gabler looked at him reproachfully. He was losing sight of essentials.

  “You’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick, Hathaway,” Thatcher explained. “Forget Bisson. This tells us that nobody else in Europe was selling counterfeits. For instance, I was inclined to suspect Katarina Maas because of her contacts with travel arrangements in Europe. It now turns out that no use was made of charter groups originating overseas, with the single exception of Yves Bisson’s agency. We’re not dealing with a widespread foreign network. We’re dealing with a small gang right here in Lake Placid.”

  Hathaway was still doubtful. “If you say so.”

  “I know so,” Thatcher replied resoundingly. “You might bring Everett up to date on your own experiences at the bank since the blizzard.”

  Here, at last, was a subject on which Roger Hathaway was the expert. “It was like I expected. We did a land office business at the Olympic Village branch. We had a total of twelve forgeries show up at the counter.”

  “And you asked where those checks were physically located in the flaps?”

  “They were all at the back of the flaps,” Hathaway agreed.

  Gabler wasted no time in following up. “What about the spectators? I’ll wager that there were no forgeries there.”

  “No, there weren’t. But I don’t know how much that means. We had virtually no business in the other branches. Most of the tourists couldn’t get outside.”

  “Bah!” Gabler swept away this trifling caveat. “It’s as clear as a bell.”

  Thatcher was not feeling quite so triumphant. Academic clarity was desirable, but not as desirable as $500,000 in hand. “It’s clear now, Everett,” he said thoughtfully. “But only because we’ve been lucky.”

  “Lucky!” Hathaway snorted.

  “Lucky in that the gang’s timing has been thrown off, right from the start. First there was Bisson’s faux pas, when he paid for the snowmobile rental. That forced them to stage their coup prematurely. Then this blizzard has frozen everybody in place for 48 extra hours. Consider what would have happened if the timetable had gone according to schedule. There would have been a massive hit on the Sloan the last day of the Games. Then, with spectators and athletes dispersing, counterfeits would have surfaced in New York and Washington and Montreal, and even back in Europe, for at least a week. The whole issue would have been confused.”

  Without admitting that he would have been misled, Everett Gabler sidestepped the question.

  “On the whole I am tempted to think that Bisson’s activities were mere window dressing.”

  “More like salting a gold mine,” Thatcher corrected. His major contribution was made in Grenoble with those two charter groups. After that, he simply lurked around Olympic Village planting as many forgeries as possible. It was the others in Lake Placid who did the important work, passing the $500,000.”

  Roger Hathaway had weighed every word. “I see the point you’re making about Bisson. But how can you be so sure the gang is in Lake Placid? Maybe they just came in for the day.”

  “No, look at the speed with which they acted when their schedule was blown to smithereens. You’ve forgotten the difficulty of getting into Lake Placid. Cars are forbidden and you have to show tickets for the Games to bus in. Needless to say, those tickets were all disposed of months ago. Even so, the moment they learned of Bisson’s mistake, they moved up their plans by several days.”

  Gabler coughed severely. “Not to mention the fact that they murdered Bisson.”

  “Precisely. They must have been here all along. And anybody in Lake Placid on a permanent basis right now has to be part of the Olympic family. They are not simply day trippers with a ticket for the biathlon.”

  “You’ve got to be right,” Hathaway said slowly. “Just the murder alone should have told me. Captain Ormsby was awfully interested in the people who were with Bisson when he rented that snowmobile.”

  Gabler reviewed what he knew. “What is the significance of the group that accompanied Bisson? Why them in particular?”

  John Thatcher explained with a description of Yves Bisson’s last outing. “So you see,” he concluded, “the police are going on the assumption that Bisson’s confederates actually saw his error.”

  Gabler rubbed his hands together zestfully. “Now we’re beginning to narrow things down. This is a relatively small number of people, and all strategically located. And we already know there are two criminals included among them.”

  “Well, Everett, you’re the one who has supplied most of our information
about five of the seven,” Thatcher reminded him. “And it hasn’t helped that much.”

  “Surely more personal investigation is possible.”

  Hathaway was almost shamefaced. “As a matter of fact, I thought about that. So I’ve been spending most of my evenings at the disco in the Village. I didn’t want to say anything about it unless I came up with something.”

  His seniors sympathized. It would be a real feather in Roger Hathaway’s cap if he could make a substantial contribution to solving the case.

  “And have you come to any conclusions about the kind of people they are?” Thatcher asked.

  “It’s not as easy as you think to get on friendly terms with them. For one thing, I’m too old.”

  To Everett, of course, Hathaway was a mere stripling. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded. “I realize that some of them are barely out of their teens. But this man, Antonelli, is as old as you are.”

  It was Roger Hathaway’s turn to explain the facts of life. “It’s the girls I dance with, Mr. Gabler.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Thatcher hastily. “With what luck?”

  Hathaway shook his head. “Not much. The Maas girl spent half an hour finding out if I was rich. When she found out I wasn’t, she gave me the brush. Tilly Lowengard just seems to like to dance. And I never even got to the floor with Suzanne Deladier. So mostly I’ve just been listening to the chatter. Antonelli is pretty well-off. He bobsleds because he likes it. Gunther Euler is hoping to make it into the big time with an Olympic medal. And Dick Noyes acts like a college kid who happens to be a good skier. I don’t think I’m cut out for this kind of detective work.”

  It did not sound like a fruitful haul and Gabler had no hesitation in saying so. “Even the Maas woman does not look hopeful. I find it difficult to believe that she would spend her nights stealing $1000 worth of beef, if she were involved in a $500,000 crime.”

  There was a discouraged silence until Thatcher stirred. He had a statement he felt had to be made.

  “There is one further item. We have explored the consequences to the criminals of their shattered timetable. They were forced into murder and increased risk of detection. Under the circumstances, wouldn’t you think they would want to leave Lake Placid as quickly as possible?”

  Gabler was delighted to spot the flaw in his colleague’s reasoning. “They may wish to, but they cannot. Not without a flight that is tantamount to a confession of guilt. We have already proved that they are here in some official capacity.”

  Thatcher was almost sad. “But there is one person who would already be gone, if it were not for the blizzard. Has it occurred to you that Tilly Lowengard may have arranged to be thrown out? If by any chance she wants to flee a possible murder charge, that would be a remarkably clever way to do it. Not to leave voluntarily, but to be expelled.”

  Gabler accepted the suggestion placidly, but he had not danced with Tilly.

  “You can’t be serious,” exploded Hathaway. “That girl a major criminal! I don’t believe it.”

  Thatcher was not immune to these sentiments himself. But a lifetime of banking had brought to his attention charming young con men with absolutely no scruples and pretty young tellers with itchy fingers. He had even dealt with sweet white-haired ladies whose embezzlements were enriching their church’s missionary fund. It took more than a nut-brown complexion to prove innocence.

  “I’m afraid we have to consider it,” he said.

  At Police Headquarters there was less contention. François Vaux and Captain Ormsby might have been two tired co-workers. As Ormsby had predicted, Katarina Maas had already snarled her way to a lawyer and bail. But Vaux was doggedly concentrating on a reduction in charge.

  “A first offense?” he repeated suggestively. “I’m simply a poor man tempted by all that wealth around me. And my career has been ended. That is a big punishment by itself. Surely we can be reasonable about this.”

  Ormsby had already come to the same conclusion as Everett Gabler. People pulling off a big caper do not fill their spare time lugging sides of beef around the countryside.

  “I don’t say that isn’t possible. But you’d have to make it worth my while.” He shoved aside the debris of sandwiches and coffee with which the two had been regaling themselves. “You know damn well I’m not interested in your two-bit larceny. I’m interested in Yves Bisson.”

  “You have only to ask,” Vaux said fervently.

  “How well did you know him?”

  “Quite well. The ski-jumping world is smaller than the alpine skiing world, you know. And it is dominated by the Scandinavians and the East Germans. There are relatively few Frenchmen. I met Yves when he first emerged in national competition about five years ago. But we were not sufficiently intimate for him to confide his criminal plans to me.”

  Ormsby guffawed. The Vauxs of this world were all too familiar to him. “I’ll bet he didn’t. If he had, you’d have wanted a cut.”

  “Captain, Captain.” Vaux spread his hands placatingly. “I don’t have to tell you that I’m not a big international mastermind. It is true that I pick up what I can, a little here, a tittle there. I blame it all on this credit economy. A man’s debts are always larger than his income. So I do what is necessary to bridge the gap.”

  Ormsby was inclined to agree. Vaux’s record spoke for itself. Small temptations and small crimes were his style. He was not looking for trouble. It would never occur to him to initiate a major theft, and the thought of murder would terrify him.

  “All right, so Bisson didn’t confide his plans. But does the fact that he had some surprise the hell out of you?”

  Vaux cocked his head and studied the matter. “No, I cannot say that it does. Ski competition takes you into the world of the rich. Yves came from a limited background and, suddenly, he was seeing what it was like in St. Moritz and Zermatt. At the beginning he was like all the youngsters. He was content to have the entree to that world, to be something of a celebrity, to concentrate on winning. But a man cannot ski all year. He has to come back to reality for months at a time. And Yves didn’t want to. He wanted money and he began to look for it.”

  “How?”

  “Oh, nothing to concern you.” Vaux shrugged. “He wanted to know how much he could get for equipment endorsements if he took a gold medal. He complained at the greater commercial opportunities for downhill skiers. He became an expert at being funded under the table. But it was never enough.”

  “So you think he began to think along different lines.”

  Vaux shook his head. “I doubt if he had the imagination to do that. But he would have been open to suggestion, almost any suggestion. He had decided that was the way the world worked.”

  Ormsby sighed and looked not too hopefully at his abandoned coffee cup. There was not even one sip left. The psychology of a money-hungry athlete was interesting, but not particularly helpful.

  “Let’s forget about his character for a minute,” he suggested. “What about Bisson while he was here at Lake Placid. Was he preoccupied? Was his jumping all right?”

  “He was jumping very well. I had told him again and again that his takeoffs were the problem in the World Cup. And he was hitting them just right. The 70-meter jump had been his specialty until this year, but now he was coming strongly in the 90-meter. Why, in one of his practice jumps he did a 117 meters, and he would not have lost on style points. He was—”

  Ormsby held up a hand. He had forgotten that Vaux, in addition to being a small-time thief, was a technical expert.

  “Okay, so whatever he was into, it wasn’t affecting his spirits or his work. Now about this snowmobile outing.”

  “He seemed as always to me.” Vaux paused to grimace ruefully. “It was I who was upset. You understand we were not pleased, Katarina and I, to find them all there. We did not want it generally known that we were familiars at that snowmobile station. And we were right!”

  “Never mind about that now. So Bisson was normal.”

  “M
ore exuberant than usual. But that was natural. He was very close to that gold medal and all those endorsements. It was Euler who was forcing gaiety.”

  Ormsby pounced instantly. “Euler wasn’t happy, you say. Was that before or after Bisson paid with a Eurocheck?”

  Vaux was trying to be cooperative. He wrinkled his brow in a tortured effort at recollection. Finally he groaned. “I cannot be absolutely certain. I think I noticed it just as they were leaving. But I accepted that, you understand. Euler was seeing a gold slip from his grasp and trying not to show it. Anyway, that is the interpretation I put on it.”

  And it was an interpretation that would not be questioned, except for the fact that another explanation loomed more ominously.

  Vaux was genuinely sorry not to have pinned it down for the captain. “I regret I cannot be more specific. But at the time I was simply wishing them all at perdition. I was not really myself until that evening.” He cast around for something to mollify the police. “But I can tell you one more thing I noticed.”

  “Oh yeah?” growled Ormsby. “What’s that? You weren’t even on the bus when Bisson realized he’d made a blooper.”

  “But I have heard much talk about that trip and how discomposed Yves became. Of that I know nothing. But by evening he had resolved his problem.”

  Ormsby looked up. By that evening Yves Bisson should have realized the implications of his mistake, he should have been anticipating a call by the police. God knows, his confederates had been quick enough to figure that one out.

  “How’s that? How could he have resolved his problem?”

  Vaux was earnest. “I do not know. But I knew Yves, and I spoke with him at some length about the next day’s practice. I can assure you of this. By that evening, he did not have a care in the world!”

  The same could not be said for the Sloan contingent. Apart from their own lack of progress, the first reports from the band of specialists at the Andiron Inn were not calculated to induce foolish optimism.