Time of Terror by Hugh Pentecost

on us. When he spoke in his slow German accent, the total sameness was astonishing. Horween had been some kind of genius.
    “I hope there is nothing wrong, Mr. Chambrun,” Schindler said.
    “What could be wrong, Fritz?” Chambrun asked.
    “My letting Mr. Horween take my place,” he said. “I mean—” And then he saw the stuff lying on Chambrun’s desk and his mouth dropped open.
    “Something may have happened to Mr. Horween,” Chambrun said.
    Schindler muttered something under his breath in German. Then: “I was sure it was in accordance with your wishes, Mr. Chambrun. Miss Ruysdale brought him down late this morning. She said I was to cooperate in every way with Mr. Horween.”
    “How did you cooperate, Fritz?”
    “He took some candid snapshots of me. Mostly he talked to me, and after a while he was talking back to me. It was amazing. He sounded just like me. Then he borrowed my extra set of clothes, my extra uniform, and he went away. A little before six he came back to Room Service and I swear I thought I was looking in a mirror.”
    “I would never of known if I hadn’t seen them standing together,” Sprague said.
    “You saw them together, Ed?” Chambrun asked. “Who else saw them?”
    “I dunno. Two or three others. I was in our locker room.”
    “So Coriander could have known before Horween ever started up there,” Jerry Dodd said. “Can you remember who those two or three others were, Sprague?”
    “I’m not sure,” Sprague said. “One of ’em was Georges Makroupolis, the Greek. I—I was so stunned by the look-alikes I didn’t notice who else. I remember I said, ‘Will the real Fritz Schindler step forward.’ You know, like the TV show? And, God, they both stepped forward.”
    “And somebody warned Coriander,” Jerry said. “I better get on that, Mr. Chambrun. Find out if Makroupolis remembers who else was there.”
    Chambrun nodded and Jerry left us.
    “Now, Fritz and Ed, I want to know exactly what happened. I want to know what the order was that went upstairs and what happened when you got up there,” Chambrun said.
    Fritz Schindler shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything, Mr. Chambrun, because, you see, I didn’t go. While we were marveling at Mr. Horween’s disguise, the order came over the loud-speaker in the locker room for me and Sprague to prepare an order for Fifteen A. Drinks, the room service captain said. Mr. Horween said that was his moment and he and Edward left me in the locker room.”
    “The order was all drinks,” Sprague said. “Two dozen glasses, ice, four six-packs of imported beer, two bottles of Scotch, two gins, tonic water. It took two service wagons to carry it up.”
    “The captain didn’t notice anything wrong about the man he thought was Schindler?”
    Sprague laughed. “This Horween didn’t know where anything was, of course. I had to find everything for him. The captain asked him what’s the matter with you, he asked him. And Mr. Horween, sounding exactly like Schindler, said he was scared shitless to go up to Fifteen A. That seemed to satisfy the captain. So finally we wheeled the two wagons onto the service elevator and went up to Fifteen.”
    “Nobody stopped you or checked on you?” Chambrun asked.
    “Oh, one of the hotel security people was running the elevator. We usually run the elevator for ourselves, but since the scare on Fifteen this morning, there’s been a security man.”
    “So you went up to Fifteen.”
    “Yes, sir. And we wheeled the wagons to the door of Fifteen A and knocked. This fellow wearing a mask opened the door.”
    “A Halloween mask and a fright wig?”
    Sprague frowned. “I didn’t see anyone like that, Mr. Chambrun.”
    “A man with an arm missing?”
    “I didn’t see anyone like that, sir. This man was wearing like a stocking mask. I’ve seen crooks wear them on television. He was carrying some kind of automatic gun. He told us to bring the wagons in.”
    “Who else was there?”
    “No