Double, Double, Oil and Trouble Read online

  “It sure as hell does,” Upton said robustly. “How come his buddies just happened to be in Houston at the right time? It’s the last place they should have been. When this thing started, they were in Europe and so was the money. Why come to Texas? And if they were just strays, what difference did it make if Wylie blabbed? God knows they had plenty of cash and plenty of time. They could have been anywhere in the world, with different names and fat bank accounts.” Upton paused to glare at his companions. “So maybe they weren’t strays, maybe the reason they were in Texas is because they work for Macklin.”

  In spite of his truculence, Norris Upton had left something unsaid. In her own way Roberta Ore Simpson completed his work.

  “It is extremely awkward,” she said dispassionately, “that at this juncture of affairs we should be dependent on Arthur Shute for information. His interests lie in viewing this conspiracy as non-Macklin in origin, and some distortion is bound to occur, either consciously or unconsciously.”

  Upton folded his arms and snorted. “Just remember, it was you and Lancer who wanted Arthur in the president’s chair. You were gung-ho on bringing in an outsider.”

  “That was two years ago,” she replied calmly. “After enough time has passed, every outsider becomes an insider.”

  In one short sentence, Thatcher realized, she had defined the chief obstacle to the creation of independent controls—all the way from regulatory agencies to civilian review boards. By the time a man understands the problem, he has become part of it.

  George Lancer was determined not to refight the battle of Shute’s appointment. He pressed forward. “So you see, John, we would welcome any additional information about what’s going on in Houston. And I think you may have it. Knowing Charlie Trinkam, I can’t believe he let the police question him for two days without finding out what they were interested in.”

  “You’re right, Charlie doesn’t have any doubt as to what’s bothering them. Wylie had only short notice before Interpol descended on him and very limited contacts thereafter. What’s more, he was driving a company car that was out of his hands during most of the relevant period. The police don’t seem to think there was time for someone to jet into Houston, learn that Wylie was crumbling, and identify the right car. For that reason, they are bearing down on the people who saw Wylie immediately before he was questioned and those who had dinner with him afterward.”

  “What did I tell you?” Norris Upton looked challengingly at his co-directors. “That means the cops are zeroing in on someone from Macklin.”

  “Just a minute.” Thatcher raised a hand before the debate could get under way. “It is true that the group includes Shute, Hugo Cramer, and young Volpe. But you should know that Wylie’s wife and the German representing NDW are also on the list.” Thatcher reviewed his statement and discovered an omission. “For that matter, so is Charlie Trinkam.”

  Everyone united in waving away Trinkam, but Roberta Ore Simpson wrinkled her brow over another name.

  “NDW? They bid against Macklin for Noss Head, and now they’re trying to pick up subcontracts,” she reminded herself. “Offhand, I don’t see why that should make their man suspect.”

  “By itself, no,” Thatcher agreed, noting for his own use that Charlie’s report to the sixth floor had been a good deal more comprehensive than Shute’s report to the tower. “But the police have established two additional points about Klaus Engelhart. In checking the phone calls made by Wylie while he was staying at Cramer’s beach cottage, they found that the first overseas call was to Engelhart. Theoretically it was an invitation to NDW to come to Houston about subcontracts, but nonetheless it represented Wylie’s only contact with Europe, apart from the British government, immediately prior to his death. And second, Mrs. Wylie, who filed for divorce some months ago, has been seeing a fair amount of Engelhart.”

  “So Engelhart and the wife could have conspired with Wylie on the kidnapping, while planning to murder him all along? I see . . . yes, that makes sense ... yes, that could be it!”

  Roberta Ore Simpson had begun her recapitulation in a tone of consideration, proceeded to conviction, and concluded in a burst of enthusiasm. As she was the last woman in the world to favor scabrous solutions, Thatcher decided he was missing something.

  “It’s one of several possible explanations,” he said. “I don’t see that it’s the most attractive.”

  “Oh, yes it is,” she said roundly. “It means that whoever was imaginative enough to create a foolproof embezzlement scheme is now outside the company. Any other explanation, and he’s still with us. There could be a systematic siphoning from Macklin at this very moment that we wouldn’t find out about until too late.”

  Norris Upton had turned ashen. “Roberta! Will you keep these nightmares to yourself?” he protested. “Anybody hears you and Macklin could be in big trouble.”

  As the interested group would include stockholders, creditors, and the SEC, Thatcher thought he had a point.

  Miss Simpson, however, was above such petty fears. “There is nothing to be gained by burying the issue,” she said, enunciating the policy of a lifetime. “Unless you can produce an alternative.”

  “I sure can. Wylie and a girlfriend dreamed this whole thing up. She collected the money, all right, but she intended to share it with some other man. So she got rid of him.”

  George Lancer intervened while Miss Simpson was still organizing her rebuttal. “Those are two possible theories and we can probably concoct others. But what we’re interested in, John, is keeping abreast of this situation as it develops. And that’s not easy when we all have full-time commitments elsewhere.” Gently he glided over their distrust of progress reports relayed from Houston. “In that respect it’s fortunate that you’ll be going to London for the Noss Head loan. You’re bound to see a fair amount of the Macklin team.”

  Thatcher was resigned. “If it’s like most negotiations, Charlie and I will be living in their pocket.”

  “Good,” said Lancer, sacrificing his vice president’s comfort without a twinge. “I don’t have to tell you how much we’ll appreciate any information we can get. When are you leaving?”

  “Too soon,” said Thatcher, as he consulted his pocket diary. “There appears to be some wretched social function to launch the Noss Head project-sponsored by the Arabs for unknown reasons. Charlie and I will have to take the plane tomorrow.”

  As might have been expected, Lancer’s stratagem had succeeded in distracting only Norris Upton. Women do not accede to corporate power by being fibbertigibbets. Roberta Ore Simpson was still riding her hobbyhorse.

  “It is almost impossible to evaluate these police discoveries without knowing something about Davidson Wylie’s wife.” She looked keenly at Thatcher. “What kind of woman would you say she is?”

  “I have never met the lady,” Thatcher was happy to reply. “And now that her ties with Macklin have been severed, I don’t suppose I ever shall.”

  He did not know what was waiting for him in his office.

  Chapter 14

  Secondary Recovery

  John Thatcher hoped to spend the rest of the day on his own work, but Destiny had other plans for him. He came downstairs to find Miss Corsa’s desk impassable.

  “Mr. Thatcher?” she said, as he headed toward his own quarters.

  This stopped him in his tracks. Miss Corsa was consulting her calendar, as was right and proper. But the other feminine presence, registered by his peripheral vision, was not Mrs. Penn from the typing pool, or Miss Friar.

  Thatcher did not possess Charlie Trinkam’s built-in tuning fork when it came to women and their manifold vibrations. But he knew Miss Corsa, and her many voices. Volume and timbre were, as usual, immaculately impersonal. But somehow or other, in four short syllables, she outdid most Toscas.

  Despite appearances to the contrary, Miss Corsa was seething.

  “Mr. Thatcher,” she vocalized, “Mrs. Wylie says she has an appointment with you. This morning.”


  All Thatcher’s appointments, including those with his dentist, were artistically choreographed by Miss Corsa. Nevertheless, he was incautious enough to say: “Mrs. Davidson Wylie?”

  Francesca Wylie approached him with a rueful smile. “Yes, I have just flown up from Houston. Arthur Shute said that he was sure you would be able to find time for me.”

  Naturally, the musical hint of an Italian accent was not going to charm Rose Theresa Corsa. But, judging by the speed with which a totally fictitious appointment had become a pretty plea by a pretty woman, Thatcher guessed that Francesca Wylie did not waste her charms on secretaries. At the moment, for instance, she was pretending that Miss Corsa did not exist.

  Thatcher was not going to join her.

  “How booked am I this morning, Miss Corsa?” he inquired, simultaneously transmitting information and rallying team spirit.

  Miss Corsa loyally searched her records, then announced that he had a little free time.

  Throughout, Francesca Wylie kept her attention trained on Thatcher. She was a man’s woman, and she looked it.

  Graceful, self-assured, she accepted Thatcher’s escort as her due. This, together with an emerald green silk raincoat, settled one small point for him. Mrs. Wylie was not here as a grief-stricken widow.

  Even so, Thatcher was old-fashioned enough to feel the need for solemnity. “How can I be of assistance to you, Mrs. Wylie?”

  “I wish to put my affairs in the hands of the Sloan,” she replied with a fluency that suggested rehearsal. “I myself must return to London, but my late husband’s property is here in the United States, real estate and securities. Therefore, I think it would be wise to have the Sloan represent me here.”

  Thatcher listened with his usual courteous gravity. Mrs. Wylie’s statement was remarkable for its assumptions and omissions.

  “Do you anticipate residing in Europe permanently?” he asked.

  Even the most routine question set off ambiguous resonances, given the police activities in Zurich and Houston.

  With skilled evasiveness, Francesca Wylie said, “I cannot be sure I shall remain in England. Most probably, I shall stay in Europe, where my work is.”

  “I see,” said Thatcher, assuming the lady was taking refuge in the long view.

  He was disabused when she leaned forward and confided: “Despite what many people seem to believe, I do not have plans to remarry immediately. So I cannot tell you where I shall be living.”

  Tilting her head, she appraised the impact of this candor on him. Apparently satisfied, she went on: “That is why I am so anxious to have the Sloan care for my business here in America. I am sure you can sympathize, Mr. Thatcher.”

  This blatant appeal to his chivalry, Thatcher appreciated, was not as disingenuous as it sounded. Francesca Wylie was telling him something. But was it about Davidson Wylie, Klaus Engelhart—or herself?

  This raised the specter of the possible permutations and combinations underlying a pseudo-kidnapping. And a murder. It also raised another phantom that irresistibly appealed to Thatcher’s sense of the ludicrous.

  Could this estate, which Mrs. Wylie wished the Sloan Guaranty Trust to administer, include the ransom that the Sloan Guaranty Trust had been gulled into delivering for Macklin?

  Thatcher chose his words with care: “Mrs. Wylie, I think you would be wise to have professional assistance with your American assets, particularly if you envisage remaining abroad. And the Sloan does offer such a service to its clients. Normally, however, this service is limited to estates in excess of a million dollars. Anything less—”

  “A million?” she said with a trill of derisive laughter. “If only it were! No, Mr. Thatcher, I am talking about something far less than that—unhappily!”

  “Then I am afraid that the Sloan is not the place for you. I would be happy to give you some recommendations—”

  She did not let him finish. “I know you are wondering if I have the ransom money. That is why you talk of a million dollars. There is really no necessity for all this tact. The police do not hesitate to brand my husband a thief. And when I tell them this is not so, they become kind and look at each other, convinced the wife is always the last to know. These imbeciles act as if we are discussing infidelity.”

  From what Charlie Trinkam had told him, Thatcher realized the police were also thinking that, in this case, the wife might have been the first to know. Sternly he confined himself to Francesca’s specific allegation. “Surely that truism has a general application,” he suggested.

  “Nonsense! All men have a capacity for infidelity,” she said flatly.

  Thatcher was not going to argue that one. “The police may simply feel that an intimate does not always know what a man is capable of.”

  “But the cases are not the same. There are different kinds of crime.” She was relaxing her vehemence to introduce a note of cajolery. “Come now. I am sure you agree with me. In this bank of yours, which is so great it does not deal in petty sums under a million dollars, do you not attempt to distinguish the employee likely to rob you?”

  Bull’s eye! Given sufficient motivation, some men might rob at gunpoint, some might concoct ingenious paper frauds, and others might quietly melt away with a bag of cash entrusted to them. The Sloan had an elaborate system for channeling certain personality types away from certain temptations. But nobody, either at the bonding company or in personnel, claimed he could spot a potential adulterer at 30 paces. Thatcher had to admit that Mrs. Wylie knew where to aim her arrows.

  “You may be right,” he conceded. “There are different way to steal money.”

  She seized on her victory. “David had not the temperament to plan such a public crime. I, who was his wife for many years, can assure you of that. So you see, it is ridiculous to speak in terms of a million dollars. I doubt very much whether David ever had that ransom. I know that I do not.”

  “Mrs. Wylie,” Thatcher replied, “you misunderstood me. I was simply explaining that the Sloan has certain minimum standards in the accounts that it handles.”

  She clasped her hands together in her lap. Then, quietly, she said: “There has been so much talk about this ransom. So much—and so wrong! I am tired to death of it. I leaped to a conclusion—but I see that I misjudged you. Please forgive me.”

  Point, game, and match, he thought. Mrs. Wylie had succeeded in putting him at a disadvantage. She was a woman who would try to exploit the situation to its utmost. But her attempt was foiled by an earlier tactical misstep. Before she could mobilize, the door opened to admit Everett Gabler and Walter Bowman.

  “I have the Sloanvest tax liabilities here, John— good heavens! I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize you were occupied.”

  Everett Gabler was genuinely dismayed. Walter Bowman, as soon as he assimilated the circumstances, was not, although he concealed his curiosity admirably as he too apologized for the intrusion.

  “No, don’t go,” said Thatcher, wondering if his secretary had abandoned the fort or was simply encouraging interlopers. When she was trying, Miss Corsa could bar the Golden Horde. “You may be able to help us. Mrs. Wylie, may I introduce my associates?”

  Mrs. Wylie responded as if she already knew them, Thatcher’s subordinates as if they had never heard of her. It was an artful performance by everybody concerned.

  “Mrs. Wylie and I have been discussing the possibility of having the Sloan take charge of her husband’s estate,” said Thatcher, proceeding to outline the situation.

  “But,” she interjected, “Mr. Thatcher tells me that it is too small for the Sloan. Unless . . . tell me, do you think that perhaps this once you could make an exception?”

  Both Walter and Everett were still pretending that the Macklin Company did not exist. Hoping that their self-control would continue, Thatcher, who had come to a decision, frowned.

  “It would mean very much to my peace of mind.” Francesca Wylie was almost tremulous.

  “Perhaps we could arrange something,” said Thatcher, avoi
ding eye contact with his unruly subordinates.

  “Oh, Mr. Thatcher!” she breathed.

  A better man would have managed a fatuous smile, Thatcher knew. “If you will instruct your attorney in Texas to communicate with us ...”

  When Francesca Wylie departed, trailing gratitude and expensive perfume, audience reaction was swift and merciless.

  “Just a pushover for feminine wiles, eh, John?” Walter smirked. “What are you up to?”

  Everett never let disapproval prejudice his analytic powers. “I assume you are undertaking this paltry account in order to maintain surveillance on this woman, or at least on this woman’s financial situation. Not that I believe we can recover the ransom money that way.”

  Thatcher was willing to accept this gloss on his motives.

  But Walter was the devil’s advocate. “Oh, come on, Ev. Maybe John here just wants the Sloan to take good care of that lovely lady.”

  “Preposterous!” said Gabler.

  “Thank you, Everett,” said Thatcher humbly.

  Gabler looked suspicious but Walter was still sorting the data.

  “The real question is what was Mrs. Wylie doing here? And why does she want the Sloan to hold her hand?”

  Thatcher did not know, and he said as much, adding: “She may simply be disseminating her theories about Davidson Wylie to all and sundry. Or possibly trying to create a presumption of her own innocence, wherever she can.”

  “Distasteful,” snorted Everett. “Really, this Macklin situation goes from bad to worse.”

  Walter wanted facts, not value judgments. “Speaking of lovely ladies,” he said, “what brought Roberta Ore Simpson and the original Marlboro man here today?”

  In a flash, Gabler forgot Sloanvest and sermonizing. “The outside directors?” he asked sharply. “Are they taking action?”

  “They don’t know exactly what action to take,” said Thatcher, condensing drastically. “They’re scared to death that somebody at Macklin may be implicated in Davidson Wylie’s murder.”

  Gabler brooded darkly, then said: “John, in view of these circumstances, perhaps it is a good thing you are flying to London tomorrow. The Sloan should keep abreast of Macklin—no matter what happens.”