“How much were the payments?”
“Small amounts—fifty or a hundred dollars at a time. Of course, none of the victims have much money to spare.”
Nancy looked at her. Ms. Amberton’s stare was chilly. “And their crimes?”
The woman shrugged. “Petty, of course, little things out of their pasts that they don’t want anyone to know about. A few years ago, Monique forged a check. She paid the money back, and the case was dismissed since it was her first offense. The file clerk stole some jewelry and was sent to jail for six months. And Jacques, the chauffeur—well, his crime was a good deal more serious. In fact, I haven’t even told Mr. Cherbourg about it for fear that he would dismiss Jacques.”
Nancy frowned. “What is it?”
“The man was involved with drugs, I’m afraid.” Ms. Amberton tapped her fingers briskly on the desk. “Mr. Cherbourg is adamant about not employing drug users.”
Nancy closed her notebook and stood up. “I’d like to see both the file clerk and the chauffeur, please. And could you give me Monique Levere’s home address?”
At that moment the door opened and a young woman stumbled in, looking dazed. It was the same woman who had been sitting at Monique’s desk.
“Oh, Ms. Amberton,” she gasped. “The most awful thing has happened!” She began to cry.
“Stop that sniffling, Cynthia,” Ms. Amberton snapped. “And speak up. What is it?”
The young woman gulped back a sob. “It’s Monique! She tried to commit suicide this morning, and her roommate, who answered the phone in her apartment, said she will probably die!”
Chapter Two
Monique had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance, Nancy learned after Cynthia quieted a little. Ms. Amberton arranged for Mr. Cherbourg’s chauffeur to drive Nancy to the hospital, and he was waiting downstairs when she hurried out.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he said, opening the door of the long black limousine.
“Bonjour,” Nancy said, climbing into the backseat. She remembered that in Montreal most people spoke French. “Could I ask you a few questions?” she began as they rushed toward the hospital. In French, Nancy asked the chauffeur about the blackmail demands he had received, but he couldn’t tell her much more than she already knew.
“Oui,” he said. “There were letters, two of them. They wanted money, more money than I have.”
“But you paid?” Nancy asked.
He nodded, looking straight ahead. “When Ms. Amberton found out that I was in trouble, she lent me the money. I cannot pay her back, but at least I am no longer afraid of losing my job because I cannot meet the demands of the blackmailer.”
Nancy frowned. She’d almost rather risk the wrath of a blackmailer than borrow money from someone like Ashley Amberton. “Did you save the blackmail letters?”
He pulled some papers out of his uniform pocket and handed them to her. “Here they are,” he said, with what sounded like relief. “I hope you catch this crook. It is a horrible thing to be blackmailed. I live in fear every day of losing my job.”
“I understand,” Nancy told him. “I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll do my best to get this straightened out as soon as possible.”
She got out of the limousine in front of the hospital. Hurrying up the steps, she glanced quickly at the two letters the chauffeur had handed her. The message, typed in French, was identical in each one: “Put $2,000 in a red plastic bag and drop it into the trash can at Nelson’s Column on Monday at noon. If you don’t, your employer will learn about the drugs.”
Monique Levere was alive, Nancy discovered, but pale and groggy after her narrow escape from an overdose of sleeping pills. There was a frightened look in her eyes as she lay in the hospital bed.
Nancy introduced herself and asked Monique what had happened. In a small voice the young woman told Nancy that she’d been sick for a few days. She had taken a sleeping pill in the middle of the night, and the next thing she knew, she was in the emergency room having her stomach pumped.
“I told the police a million times that I took only one pill, to help me sleep,” Monique said. “They don’t believe me, though. They say I got sleepy and took the whole bottle by mistake—or that I tried to kill myself!”