The Brink of Murder Read Free Page B

companion and therapist in her long struggle to get out of the wheel-chair status which had terminated her theatrical career in the early thirties. In this latter capacity Chester proved to be a miracle worker. The wheel-chair had long been banished to a local veterans’ association, and even the walking stick, which Hannah still carried on occasion, was more for dramatic effect than necessity. She held it now, sceptre-like, as she sat in a fan-backed chair from which she could simultaneously observe her callers and the doorway through which Simon and Wanda entered.
    “Look what came in with the tide!” she cried as they came into the room. “We were about ready to alert the coastguard. Storm warnings are out all along the coast.”
    “Overdramatizing, as usual,” Simon said. Then he spied Carole Amling seated on a red-velvet divan alongside a vaguely familiar man who might have been recognizable without black-rimmed glasses that magnified his intense blue eyes. Carole was surprisingly recognizable. Except for an air of maturity and suppressed anxiety, she wouldn’t have looked out of place in a school sweater with cheer-leader’s pom-poms in her hands. She wore a simple black suit and a red paisley hairband that accentuated her high forehead and large brown eyes. She was a small woman with a generous mouth, lightly rouged. At the sight of Simon the tension lines about her mouth relaxed into a wan smile.
    “Simon—” She rose from the divan as she spoke. “I’m sorry to come without warning like this, but I do need help. Is this your wife? She
is
lovely.”
    Simon made the introductions. Wanda, to her credit, made no apology for Levis and unshod feet.
    “Do you remember Eric Larson?” Carole Amling asked. “He insists that he met you years ago, Simon.”
    The vaguely familiar was identified. “Of course,” Simon said. “After your father’s death. How are you, doctor?”
    Larson unfolded from the divan to tower protectively above Carole Amling. He was on the short side of 40 with pale blond hair that was beginning to recede from a healthily-tanned forehead. “I’m worried,” he said quietly, “and so is Carole. We’ve been walking around the edge of a volcano for a week and it’s getting uncomfortable.”
    “A week?” Simon echoed. “Is that how long Barney’s been missing?”
    “More than a week. For the first few days we assumed he had gone to Mexico City. There was a monetary conference.”
    “Let me tell it, Eric,” Carole begged. “Simon, you know that Barney does travel a lot and often without much advance notice. For the last year he’s kept a packed travel-bag in his office for these quickie trips. A week ago Friday afternoon he called home and said he was flying to Mexico City. I wasn’t home but Kevin took the message. I was disappointed when he told me because we were hosting a charity dance at the country club Saturday night, but, like any executive wife, I took it in my stride. But, Simon, whenever Barney has to make these sudden trips he always calls me as soon as he reaches his destination. I waited up until 3 a.m. Saturday. There was no call. He didn’t call during the whole of Saturday. When Eric came by to take me to the club I was at the edge of my nerves. Together, we called hotels in Mexico City until we located one where a monetary convention was in progress but Barney wasn’t registered. I left word at the hotel to have him call me as soon as he came in and went to the club with Eric.”
    “It was better than moping at home,” Larson said.
    “Eric stayed over on Sunday,” Carole continued, “and scolded me into believing that Barney had found the hotel booked up and was staying with friends. I called three families in Mexico City where he might have been but none of them had seen or heard from him. On Monday we went to his office. He had left word with the garage-attendant that he was going away for a few days and, through him, left instructions for his