The Case of the Murdered Muckraker (17 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: The Case of the Murdered Muckraker
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Waving madly, she started walking towards him. The walk turned into a run, and she dodged between travellers and porters, one hand holding her hat on. He dropped his attaché case and Gladstone bag to catch her in his arms.
“Darling,” she said, smiling so hard it hurt, “I've missed you most frightfully!” And then she astonished herself and him by bursting into tears on his chest.
Alec was horrified. “Great Scott, Daisy, you never cry! Hush, love. It's not these wretched New York police that have upset you, is it? I've been hearing stories about them which would make your hair stand on end.”
“I've heard them, too, darling.” Sniffing, Daisy pulled away enough to straighten her hat and blink up at him. His hand went to his pocket. “No, I don't need your hankie. I'm all right, honestly. Only don't let's talk about the police, or the murder, or anything like that tonight. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.”
“O.K. by me, as they say.” He looked tired, Daisy noticed. “Let's get back to your hotel.”
As he reached for his bags, Lambert said eagerly, “I'll take those, sir!” Daisy's escort had caught up with her.
“This is Agent Lambert, darling, my guardian angel.” In response to Alec's darkly lowering eyebrows, she hurried on, “And my editor, Mr. Thorwald, and his colleague, Mr. Pascoli. They kindly accompanied me here so that I wouldn't get lost.”
“And so … ,” Lambert began, but Daisy's frown cut him short. “Uh, yes, I guess you want a cab, sir?”
Outside the station, they parted from Thorwald and Pascoli. Much as she wanted to be alone with Alec, Daisy was too well brought up to leave Lambert to take a separate cab to the Chelsea. As they set off, Alec said witheringly, “So you're my wife's guardian angel, are you, Lambert?”
Though the streetlamps shed little light inside the cab, Daisy was certain the young agent's ears were red. “Gee, sir,” he stammered, “I'm mighty sorry I didn't …”
“It's not your fault,” Daisy interrupted. “He couldn't help it, darling.”
Alec sighed. “No, who am I to find fault?
I've
never managed to keep you out of trouble. I beg your pardon, Lambert. You must explain to me exactly how it all came about.”
“Tomorrow,” Daisy said firmly. “You promised we wouldn't talk about it till tomorrow. Let's meet for breakfast and get it all over with before Mr. Whitaker turns up.”
“Good idea, love.”
“Not in the hotel dining room,” said Lambert, in what Daisy recognized as his cloak-and-dagger voice. “You never know who's listening.”
True, Kevin would undoubtedly find out somehow what was said, but he knew most of it already. It wasn't worth the effort of reminding Lambert that practically no guests at the Hotel Chelsea came down for breakfast, and in any case no one but the Misses Cabot had shown the least interest.
“Right-oh,” said Daisy.
 
 
After breakfast and explanations, Daisy, Alec, and Lambert returned to the hotel to find the Misses Cabot lying in wait in the lobby, commanding a view of the entrance. Daisy had told Alec about Miss Cabot's kindness and Miss Genevieve's part in protecting her from Sergeant Gilligan. Doffing his hat, he submitted to being introduced in his full glory: Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher of New Scotland Yard.
Miss Cabot was thrilled. “Now that you're here, Chief Inspector,” she declared, “this terrible business will be cleared up in no time.”
“I'm afraid not, ma'am. I have no access to the police investigation.”
“I explained all that, sister!”
“Oh dear! Well, at least dear Mrs. Fletcher will be quite safe now.”
“I intend to make sure of that, ma'am, though I confess I find it difficult to believe that complete strangers are out after her blood!”
“You do not know America, Mr. Fletcher,” said Miss Genevieve grimly.
“As I have frequently been reminded these past few days,” Alec admitted with a smile.
Miss Genevieve grinned. “All too frequently, I dare say. Do you want me to see what strings I can pull to let you involve yourself in the official investigation?”
“Great Scott, ma'am, no thank you! I'm only afraid Whitaker, the agent from Washington, is going to drag me in further than I want to go. Mr. Hoover, the heir apparent of the Bureau of Investigation, instructed him to make sure I have every facility.”
“This Hoover, now, tell me about him. A relative of Herbert Hoover, the Secretary of Commerce?”
“I think not. J. Edgar Hoover's an odd little man. Literally little: to compensate, he wears shoe lifts and has his desk set on a platform. He's a bully, I'm afraid, and a bit of a bounder, but I believe he's sincere, obsessive even, in his intention of setting up an incorruptible national police force. Sincere and probably competent.”
“Incorruptible, ha!” snorted Miss Genevieve. “That I'll believe when I see it with my own eyes, and even then … But to return to Otis Carmody's death, let me impart what I have learned from young Rosenblatt. Add it to what Mrs. Fletcher has undoubtedly told you, and I should value your opinion of the case.”
As she spoke, a man turned away from the reception desk and headed for the main door at a rapid stride. He carried a shabby cardboard suitcase in one hand, his hat in the other.
A bowler hat—“Gosh!” said Daisy, her glance flying to his face as he hurried past. The features were nondescript, yet recognizable. “Gosh, it's him! It's the man in the bowler hat.” She jumped up. “Alec …”
Kevin dashed up. “Mrs. Fletcher, that guy's Mr. Pitt, that you asked about. He came down the stairs or I'da tol' you sooner. He just checked out.”
Wilbur Pitt, of course! That face was memorable because it was a blurred replica of Carmody's distinctive looks. His clothes explained the discrepancy between Daisy's and Lambert's description to Gilligan: he wore a thigh-length overcoat which looked less like a fashionable motoring coat than something cut down from an ancient frock coat.
He was out on the pavement by now. Daisy grabbed Alec's arm. “Darling, we've got to stop him. Come along, quick. You, too, Mr. Lambert.”
“Who, me?”
“But Whitaker's coming, Daisy,” Alec expostulated, even as her urgency made him rise to his feet, “and anyway, you simply can't detain a stranger going about his lawful business!”
“You don't understand, he's the man in the bowler hat.” She practically dragged him towards the door. “The man on the stairs. At least we must follow him so we can tell the police where to find him. We can't just let him get away. Now I know the man in the bowler hat is Carmody's cousin, I'm absolutely positive he's the murderer!”
D
aisy rushed out to the street, followed by Alec, still remonstrating, and Lambert, bleating plaintively.
“We can't just let him get away,” she repeated, stepping back up onto the doorstep to scan the scene. “Maybe it is meddling, but by the time we find a policeman and persuade him … Balfour, which way did he go, the man who just came out?”
“That way, Mrs. Fletcher, ma'am.” The doorman pointed towards Seventh Avenue.
“Oh yes, thanks, I see him.” Of the few bowler hats among the swarms of soft felts moving in every direction, only one was heading east. “Come on, you two.”
To her relief, Alec came. “But only to follow him, Daisy,” he insisted, jamming his own grey felt on his head. “You are absolutely not on any account to approach him! Promise, or we'll stop right now.”
“Right-oh, I promise, darling. Hurry!”
“Don't get too close,” Lambert warned. He too had scooped up his hat as they deserted the Cabots. As the
opportunity for doing his cloak-and-dagger stuff dawned on him, he pulled it down over his eyebrows and went on buoyantly, “That's the first rule of tailing a suspect.”
A tram rattled past them to the stop near the corner. Pitt darted towards it and disappeared.
“Oh blast!” said Daisy, starting to run.
A bell clanged and the tram set off again.
“Lost him,” Alec observed hopefully.
“We'll catch the next streetcar,” Lambert proposed.
“That's no good,” Daisy objected. “He could get off anywhere. Maybe he's going to the elevated railway on Sixth Avenue. If we run …”
“There he is!” exclaimed Lambert, pointing. “Over there, just stepping up onto the sidewalk. He only crossed the street. After him!”
A sudden rush of traffic held them up. Daisy was on tenterhooks, sure they would lose Pitt. Even on tiptoe, she could see no sign of him among the crowds on the opposite pavement. But when at last the policeman on point duty let them cross, Lambert swore he still saw their quarry ahead.
“Alec, can you … Oh, I see him. Just a glimpse between all the people. Where is everyone going at this time in the morning?” she demanded crossly, narrowly avoiding another pedestrian.
“Perhaps they're all pursuing suspected murderers,” Alec suggested dryly. “You do realize, Daisy, that I have no authority whatsoever to arrest your man whatever crimes he may have committed.”
“I know. That's why I asked Mr. Lambert to come.”
“Who, me? I can't arrest him!”
“You could if he crossed into another state, couldn't you? You said something about crossing state lines to escape the police being a federal offence.”
“Um, sort of,” Lambert said cautiously. “To escape prosecution, though, not just questioning. I think. Gilligan and Rosenblatt may want to grill Pitt, but we don't know for sure that he's committed an indictable offence.”
“
I'm
sure.” Daisy would have explained her deductions, but she needed her breath and her attention for the chase. At least, however unconvinced, Lambert and Alec were keeping pace as the bowler hat continued north on Seventh Avenue at a fast walk.
They crossed Twenty-sixth, Twenty-seventh, Twenty-ninth, and Thirtieth Streets. Daisy spared a thought for the missing Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth and Twenty-eighth. If they must have such a dull, though logical, system of naming streets, at least they ought to be consistent about it. But as they neared Thirty-first, her guess as to Pitt's aim turned into a certainty.
“He's going to Pennsylvania Station!” she said. “He's leaving New York. I bet he's going home. All we have to do is get on the same train, and as soon as he gets to the next state you can arrest him.”
“I don't have a warrant,” moaned Lambert. “All I'm supposed to be doing is looking after you, not arresting people.”
“Have you got your credentials on you?” Alec asked.
Lambert felt his inside breast pocket. “Ye-es.”
“Then you can at least request assistance from the local police, wherever we run him to ground, until you've consulted Whitaker, Washington, or the New York authorities. Come on, having come so far, we ought at least to try
to stand close enough to him in the ticket line to overhear his destination.”
“You are a sport, darling!” Daisy told him.
He gave her a rueful grin. “I must be mad.”
“That's all right. You haven't got Mr. Crane or the A.C. overlooking your every move here.”
“Thank heaven!” said Alec fervently.
They were crossing Thirty-first Street when Wilbur Pitt paused on the steps going up to the station and looked back. Daisy instinctively ducked her head.
She didn't think he would recognize her. This morning in the lobby he had marched straight ahead, intent on leaving the hotel, glancing neither to left nor right. In the Flatiron Building, though he had turned his head her way when she called out to him to stop, he had appeared far too distraught to take in what he was seeing. If they had passed each other in the hotel before she knew who he was, he might remember her, she supposed, but to catch sight of a fellow resident crossing a street not far from the hotel ought not to alarm him. Still, it seemed better not to let him glimpse her face.
When she looked up again, he was gone.
“What if he already has a return ticket?” she exclaimed, hurrying her step. “He'll go straight to the platform and we'll never find him.”
Lambert broke into a run, dodging through the crowds approaching and leaving the station. He hurdled the steps and disappeared between two of the grandiose pillars.
“He's hot on the trail,” said Alec.
“Yes, he seems to have decided the pleasure of the chase outweighs the terror of actually catching Pitt and having to do something about it.”
“Can't we just leave him to it?”
“Alec!” Daisy tugged him onward.
“Why not?”
“Because I'm the only person who can identify him as the man who ran off down the stairs just after Carmody was shot. We told you, Lambert had his specs knocked off and couldn't tell Pitt from Adam.”
Alec snorted. “Young whippersnapper. I wish I'd heard the story before I met your Mr. Thorwald. I'd have liked to shake his hand.” He paused at the top of the steps, where Pitt had stopped before. “You are absolutely certain of your identification, aren't you? A wild-goose chase would be bad enough, but great Scott, Daisy, the prospect of harassing a perfectly respectable citizen makes me shudder.”
“I'm positive.” As they moved on into the immense, echoing spaces of the upper station, she guiltily confessed, “That is, I'm positive he's the man on the stairs, and he's more than likely the murderer, but it is remotely possible he's just a frightened witness.”
“Remotely possible?” Alec sighed. “In that case, I shouldn't dream of letting Lambert attempt an arrest. We'll try to discover where Pitt is off to and notify your friend Rosencrantz.”
“My friend! He's not as ghastly as Guildenstern, but only because he has better manners. Here comes Lambert. What's up?”
“Pitt's in the ticket line. There's lots of people ahead of him but only a couple behind him so far, so I figured I'd better find you and put you wise.”
“Quite right,” Alec told him.
Lambert positively glowed. “I'll go and get in line behind him now,” he said eagerly, turning back towards the
ticket office. “I'll get three tickets to wherever he's going.”
“Have you got enough money on you?” Daisy asked. “He may be going clear across the country.”
“I guess not,” Lambert admitted, crestfallen.
“Let's first find out what his destination is,” said Alec. “Then we can decide what to do next.”
“O.K.”
“You should be the one to stand in line, darling. He might have seen either of us around the hotel and wonder what we're doing close behind him.”
“Possibly, but there's no earthly reason why Lambert shouldn't be buying a railway ticket. He's more likely to recognize the name of some obscure American city than I am.”
“I'll go!” Lambert went.
“If you ask me,” Daisy said darkly, “you're just trying to avoid getting any more involved than absolutely necessary.”
“You're absolutely right,” Alec agreed, “though whether any of this is necessary in the absolute sense … No, don't tell me again! I'm still with you, am I not?”
“Only because you don't trust me out of your sight.”
“With good reason,” Alec pointed out dryly.
“Just think, darling, how simply spiffing it would be if Scotland Yard and I between us caught the murderer. Wouldn't that be one in the eye for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!”
“When you put it like that, my love, how can I resist? Ah, here comes … Something's gone wrong. Come on!”
Lambert was gesturing frantically at them. Beyond him, Daisy caught a glimpse of a bowler hat rapidly disappearing down one of the stairways to the lower level. Seeing he had their attention, Lambert turned and plunged after it.
Their pursuit was brought up short by a porter pulling a trolley laden with baggage across in front of them, followed by a massive woman with a nursemaid and three children. The whole lot stopped right there for the porter to patiently assure the woman, “Sure, lady, I got the blue grip. Here, see? O.K.?”
“Not that one. The dark blue.”
Alec cut round in front of them. Daisy dashed the other way, just as one of the children dropped a ball. All three ran to retrieve it. The littlest toddled right into Daisy's path. To save herself from falling over him, she clutched the nearest support—the biggest child's shoulder.
“Mommy, she grabbed me!”
Alec was already at the top of the steps. No time for explanations. Daisy sped on, praying she would not hear a hue and cry of “Kidnapper!” raised behind her.

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