Shape of Fear (3 page)

And inevitably, from just before luncheon until time to dress for a late dinner, you will find Mr. Murray Cardew. When I first took over my job at the Beaumont, Chambrun had given me a tip on Murray Cardew. “You think the files on our guests are elaborately complete?” he’d said. “Murray Cardew makes us look like amateurs. He can tell you where everyone’s money came from; he can detail a family tree; he knows all the gossip as well as the facts. He could transform himself into the world’s greatest blackmailer if he chose to use what he knows to get rich. But he is a gentleman of the old school.”

“And too rich to need the money,” I said. It was a pretty safe generalization to make about any patron of the Beaumont.

Chambrun had given me his lazy smile and dug out the folder on Murray Cardew. Mr. Cardew, who lived in a single room on the seventeenth floor, had not paid a bill for seven or eight years. He ate all his meals at the hotel and occasionally had guests for dinner. They were all on a cuff that was eight years long.

“And of course he needs some cash—for clothes and tips and an occasional visit to the opera and the museums. I write it off as a bad debt from time to time,” Chambrun said.

“Why? Is he an old friend?”

“A very old friend,” Chambrun said. “But would I remove the Epstein sculpture from the Colonnade Reception Room because an efficiency expert told me the space could be made to earn money? Murray Cardew is part of the landscape, part of the furnishings, part of the tradition. The day he fails to appear in the Spartan Bar—and that day will come, because he is nearly eighty—will mark the end of an era that will be then gone forever.”

It’s hard to explain the effect Murray Cardew had on me. I’m just thirty years old. I don’t go back to the Gay Nineties. Murray Cardew had been seventeen years old at the turn of the century. I had once heard him talk about the summers at Saratoga when he was a small boy—a time enlivened by the presence there of Diamond Jim Brady and the glamorous Lillian Russell; of Richard Canfield, the famous gambler, operator of a de luxe casino; of Victor Herbert and his orchestra playing nightly at one of the plush hotels; of the early Whitneys, Vanderbilts, and Jeromes; of Berry Wall, the society dandy who once won a bet by appearing in forty different suits on the same day. Murray Cardew’s style belonged to those days. His regular attire in the Spartan Bar was a black coat, striped trousers, and a gray silk ascot tie ornamented by a black pearl stickpin. His waistcoat was a double-breasted pearl gray affair with white mother-of-pearl buttons. He wore spats—gray in the wintertime, white linen in the summer. His overcoat—his only overcoat, I suspect—had a handsome fur collar, and he always wore a high-crowned derby and carried a black ebony stick with a silver top. Youngsters of a later generation might have seen him as comic, dressed for some fancy charade. For me he had real dignity. His figure was trim, and he moved with a kind of studied grace. His hair was snow white, looking almost lacquered in its neat perfection, and a carefully waxed little white mustache added to the notion that getting dressed and ready for the day was no simple routine for Murray Cardew. A white carnation in his button hole, picked up every day at precisely a quarter to one at the flower shop in the lobby, completed the picture. His luncheon menu never varied: a ham sandwich on rye toast and a split of champagne.

No one would think of interrupting Murray Cardew while he ate his sandwich and sipped his champagne. But once Mr. Novotny, the captain in the Spartan Bar, removed plate and glass and replaced them with a demitasse and Murray Cardew had fitted a cigarette into his silver holder, it was time to hold court. Like clockwork a group of regulars approached his table, one by one, chatted for ten minutes or so about the affairs of the day or of some day long past, to be promptly replaced by a new courtier. About three o’clock Mr. Novotny came to the table with a box of Corona Perfectos. Murray Cardew would touch two or three cigars, select one by some personal and private magic, and cut off the end with a gold cigar cutter secreted in his waistcoat pocket. Mr. Novotny would hold a match for him. Murray Cardew would never permit a lighter to be used on a cigar. The smell of lighter fluid destroyed the first exquisite aroma of imported Havana leaf.

At five o’clock Mr. Novotny brought a glass and a bottle of imported cream sherry to the table. Murray Cardew would look seriously at the bottle and nod his approval. It had been the same brand of sherry for more than fifty years, but each day it must be approved.

Shortly after six Murray Cardew left the Spartan Bar for the day and retired to his room. No one knew for a fact if he took a short nap on his arrival there, but it was assumed because he would not appear again for another two hours. On most occasions it was to have a lonely dinner in the Grill, presided over by Mr. Cardoza, its captain. But whether alone or with guests, Murray Cardew always wore full formal evening dress—tails and white tie. No doubt about it, this strange old man, preserving the traditions of another era, was part of the Beaumont’s landscape.

Murray Cardew sat at his regular table in the Spartan Bar. I saw that he’d noticed me the minute I came in the door, but he pretended to be unaware of me until I leached his table.

“Ah, Mr. Haskell,” he said, in his soft, musical voice.

I glanced at his half-empty sherry glass. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting, sir,” I said.

“Not at all, my boy. Sit down.” He raised his hand in a summoning gesture to Mr. Novotny. The captain came over and stood by the table, politely expectant “I can recommend this sherry without reservation,” Murray Cardew said.

“I’d enjoy some,” I said.

Mr. Novotny didn’t move. There must be a nod of approval from Murray Cardew.

“Modern courtesies don’t require you to accept my suggestion, Mr. Haskell,” the old man said. “I am well aware that young people of your generation have a preference for the dry martini. As for myself, I’ve never been interested in acquiring the habit. I have never believed in living for the moment alone, Mr. Haskell. I enjoy an
apéritif
at this time of day, but nothing that will detract from the later pleasure of an excellent dinner and a vintage wine. I have discovered that, in my case at least the martini has a deleterious effect on the palate.”

“Sherry would be just fine, Mr. Cardew,” I said. It happens that I loathe sherry.

Murray Cardew nodded at Mr. Novotny who glided away and instantly returned with glass and bottle. “Mr. Cardew’s special brand,” he said to me, completely deadpan.

“Perfect” I said.

Murray Cardew remained silent until I had sipped the sherry. Comment was required.

“If all sherry was as excellent as this, sir, I could be easily converted from the martini.”

He nodded, pleased. “I believe they have a substantial stock of this special sherry in the hotel cellars,” he said. “Mr. Chambrun has told you that I need your co-operation?”

“I am to be completely at your service, sir.”

“The French Ambassador has asked for my assistance in a matter of some delicacy,” Murray Cardew said. “Monsieur Delacroix, the Ambassador, and I spent many pleasant hours together on the French Riviera some years ago. A magnificent chess player, Delacroix. We had some stout battles, and I must admit I had something the better of him. But that is of no consequence—except that it explains why I have been asked to help in a matter of social protocol.”

“Mr. Chambrun has always said you are the authority in such matters, sir.”

“Good fellow, Chambrun,” Murray Cardew said with just a touch of condescension. After all, Chambrun had no social position. He raised his sherry glass and just touched it to his lips. I realized he was going to make what remained in his glass last until I had finished mine.

“As you know,” he said, “there is to be a reception, ball, and supper here on Saturday night to honor Monsieur Paul Bernardel, head of the French Trade Commission here to talk Common Market to American businessmen.”

“I know, sir.”

“The seating of guests at the supper is the point in question,” the old man said. “Monsieur Bernardel has made only one request in relation to the dinner, but it is an embarrassing one. He has an old and close friend here in America, who is, in fact, a guest of the hotel at the moment.”

“Digger Sullivan?” I asked.

A shadow crossed Murray Cardew’s face. The nickname offended him. “Michael Digby Sullivan,” he corrected me. “A figure of some prominence in the world of auto racing and automotive engineering. Monsieur Bernardel is a manufacturer of automobiles and a member of a distinguished French family. Sullivan, on the other hand, though the possessor of great charm, has no family background. His father was an Irish soldier-of-fortune, a war hero of sorts, but no family. His mother—well, to be quite frank, his mother was a film actress. Talented, I’m told, but her father ran a hardware store somewhere in Idaho—or was it Iowa?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know which it was, sir.”

“No matter. Sullivan has no political or social connections. In the ordinary course of events he would not sit at the head table. But this is the one request Monsieur Bernardel has made; he wants his friend Sullivan at his right hand. Most awkward.”

“Why, sir?”

Murray Cardew looked at me as though I wasn’t quite bright. “The table will seat eight people, Mr. Haskell. Monsieur Bernardel and Sullivan make two; Monsieur and Madame Delacroix make four; the Princess Baragrave, the former Mabel Grovesnor, and her sister, Miss Eileen Grovesnor, are designed to be the dinner partners of Monsieur Bernardel and Sullivan, and they make six. Now we come to the problem. By diplomatic protocol, the seventh and eight guests at that table should be Monsieur and Madame Charles Girard, Monsieur Girard being the equivalent of our attorney general in the French government.”

“Wow!” I said.

The old man’s eyes twinkled. “Not elegantly put, Mr. Haskell, but yes—wow!”

“So you put the Girards somewhere else,” I said.

“Precisely where you come into the picture, Mr. Haskell”

“I?”

“My being involved at all, Haskell, is due to my long friendship with Monsieur Delacroix. I was asked to assist the social secretary from the French Embassy in seating the guests. They are preponderantly Americans, and I, not immodestly, suggest that I can place them without coming up with any embarrassing combinations. But the matter of the head table is the social secretary’s prerogative. He is a cold young man, one Jean LaCoste. He takes a rigid stand in matters of protocol. He is aware of the complications …”

“That Sullivan was accused of the murder of Madame Girard’s father?” I asked. “That Bernardel cleared Sullivan? That Girard was the prosecutor and that both he and his wife publicly stated they believed Sullivan’s alibi was false and that they’d eventually prove it?”

“I see you are quite up to date,” Murray Cardew said, a thin smile under his white mustache. “Interesting combination of personalities, wouldn’t you say?”

“Impossible,” I said. “Surely Mr. Bernardel understands this. If the Girards must be at the table, he could arrange to see his friend Sullivan later—some other time, some other place.”

“For Monsieur Bernardel, it must be said he had requested Sullivan’s presence before he knew the Girards were involved. When he was told, he refused to alter his request. He felt it would appear he was withdrawing his support from Sullivan.”

“And the Girards? Surely they’d prefer not to be at the table.”

“Monsieur Girard, like our young friend the social secretary, believes that men in public life must be governed by rigid discipline. He would like not to be at the table, but to request a change would be to confess to some sort of weakness. An absurd point of view, but there it is.”

“So nobody has any fun,” I said.

“Precisely. A ghastly evening for everyone at the head table.”

“Well, if nobody will give …”

“Then,” said Murray Caŗdew, “we must override them.”

“How?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Haskell. The procedure of the evening is as follows. To start with, there are place cards on all the tables.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When the guests arrive, there is a reception in the Colonnade’s anteroom. When the guests are ready to move into the ballroom and to take their places at the tables surrounding the dance floor, they are handed a printed seating list at the door; they examine it to discover which table is theirs and go on in. Am I right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The place cards and these printed lists are being handled by the hotel, are they not?”

“Yes, sir. Part of my job.”

Murray Cardew nodded, smiling. “On the seating lists, Mr. Haskell, we will place the Girards at Table Number Six instead of Table Number One. We will place Geoffrey Saville, the British racing driver, and his wife at Table Number One in their place.”

“But this fellow LaCoste, the social secretary, will spot that the minute he sees the lists.”

“Ah, that is where you come in, Haskell. He will not see the lists. You are going to fall down on the job, sir.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You are going to—to ‘fumble the ball,’ to use a slang expression, Haskell. Those printed lists will not arrive until the very last moment—some mix-up you will tell LaCoste when he demands to see them. He will have no choice but to check the tables themselves. There he will find the place cards exactly as he wants them. But the moment he has checked, Haskell, you—or someone you delegate for the job—will switch the place cards so that they match the lists which will now, magically, appear. The Saville’s at Table One, the Girards at Table Six. By the time everyone is seated and Monsieur LaCoste discovers what has happened, he will not make a scene. It would be impolite to the guest of honor. He will undoubtedly demand that you be discharged.”

“That’s just great,” I said.

Murray Cardew’s smile widened. “I think you can consider your position secure, Haskell, since it was Pierre Chambrun, your immediate superior, who suggested this device to me.”

So much for Mr. Murray Cardew.

And so much for that Machiavellian gent who countersigns my weekly paycheck.