The Case of the Murdered Muckraker (18 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: The Case of the Murdered Muckraker
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s she started down the steps, Alec reached the bottom. Gazing around, he apparently caught sight of Lambert, for he glanced up at Daisy, gave her a brief wave, and strode off.
“Blast!” If she went down any faster, she would risk breaking her neck. What if she couldn't find Alec in the maze of tunnels? She'd have to retire ignominiously to the hotel and wait to hear from him. No doubt he'd be delighted to have her well out of the affair.
Just when he seemed to have realized her pursuit of Pitt was worthwhile!
At the bottom, Daisy turned in the direction Alec had taken. She saw no sign of either him or Lambert. Ahead of her, gaped the mouths of several tunnels. A bewilderment of signs directed her steps, none of which helped as she didn't understand them and didn't know where she wanted to go, anyway.
Nor did she dare stand still, in case the fat woman above had summoned a policeman. What if she were arrested for attempted kidnapping and had to appeal to Sergeant Gilligan
to vouch for her? Not only would it be horribly humiliating, but she'd miss the chase after Pitt.
She moved uncertainly towards the tunnels. Just as she reached the point where she would have to decide which way to go, and probably lose Alec and Lambert altogether, the latter appeared.
“This way, Mrs. Fletcher. Quick!”
“What's happened?” Daisy asked, joining him and hurrying down a tunnel at his side.
Lambert blushed. “I guess it was my fault. I pulled my hat down at the front, like you told me not to, and turned my coat collar up. Pitt got kind of twitchy standing in line and kept looking around. I guess he noticed me watching him, and then next time he looked around, there I was watching him again.”
“With those glasses lurking between hat and collar, you must have been rather conspicuous.”
“I can't take off my glasses. I can't see a thing without them,” he reminded her anxiously.
“No, but with your collar down and your hat in a normal position—push it a bit further back and tilt it at a jaunty angle. That's better.”
Lambert was dubious. “I'm not exactly a jaunty sort of person.”
“Pitt doesn't know anything about your character. Think of it as a disguise.”
“Oh, a disguise! O.K. Mr. Fletcher took over tailing Pitt and sent me back to find you.”
“Where's Pitt going?”
“The subway, I guess. I have to admit, I haven't figured out their system. All the signs seem to be the names of companies, not where the trains are going.”
“No wonder I can't make head or tail of them. I wonder whether Pitt can?”
“Gee, not likely. He's a backwoodsman, isn't he? Maybe he's just chasing his nose.”
“I'm sure his aim
was
to get back to his backwoods, but now he's simply trying to escape us. You, anyway. With any luck, he hasn't caught on yet to Alec and me.”
“Do you think I ought to quit?” Lambert asked wistfully.
“No! We need you. You're the only one with official standing. But I thought you weren't frightfully keen.”
“That was before. Look, there's Mr. Fletcher.”
Alec was standing on the platform just beyond the barrier, facing their way. Seeing Daisy and Lambert, he gestured urgently. Daisy heard the rumble of an approaching train.
Hastily she and Lambert paid and passed through the barrier as brakes screeched.
“Don't look to your right,” Alec muttered. “Head straight for the train, but don't get on till I say.”
The train came to a halt. Doors opened. Alec glanced casually to his left, and then to his right, as if looking for an uncrowded carriage—not that much was visible through the filthy windows.
“Right-oh, he's got in. Let's go.”
The New York business day started early, in conformity with the motto “Time is Money.” At this time in the morning, the subway was well patronized but not crammed with passengers. They found three seats together, next to a door.
“How will we know when Pitt gets off?” Daisy asked as the train rattled into motion.
In the echoing din, compounded by the bellowed conversation of their fellow travellers, Alec's reply was inaudible.
It wasn't something he could shout to her, unlikely as it seemed that anyone could conceivably overhear.
The racket lessened somewhat as the train slowed for the next station. Alec leant over to Daisy and said in her ear, “Don't get up, but be ready to hop off, both of you.”
Daisy leant over to Lambert and passed on the message.
Alec joined the group of passengers waiting by the door. As soon as it opened, the surge carried him out onto the platform. Keeping a close watch on him, Daisy saw him look to the rear of the train, where Pitt had got on. He took a step back towards the door and beckoned.
Daisy and Lambert jumped up and pushed out against the inward flow of boarders.
“‘Times Square,'” Daisy read the station sign. “I wonder if he can change lines here, or if he'll just go straight back to Pennsylvania Station.”
Alec did not respond but put out an arm to stop the others following Pitt's receding figure too closely.
“The announcement said, ‘Change here for … ,” Lambert told her. “But I didn't get for what.”
“I didn't even catch the ‘Change here,'” Daisy said.
“Lambert, tie your shoelace!” Alec suddenly ordered.
Lambert glanced down and protested, “It's not untied!” Then Daisy caught a glimpse of Pitt. The mass of people ahead were parting to pass around him as he paused in the mouth of the exit tunnel to stare back.
The crowd hid him from Daisy again, but Alec snapped, “He's spotted us—unless something else has alarmed him. Come on.”
“I guess he spotted me,” Lambert said humbly, striding along after Alec with Daisy trotting to keep up. “I guess
that's why Mr. Fletcher said to tie my shoes. I guess I got a lot to learn about tailing.”
Somehow Alec kept Pitt in sight. They followed the fugitive to Grand Central Terminal, where they almost lost him, and then onto another subway train. The next leg of the chase seemed to go on forever, to the point where Daisy began to wonder whether they were doomed to travel through subterranean tunnels for all eternity.
She also had time to wonder whether Wilbur Pitt had really been the man on the stairs. The horrid possibility dawned on her that she might have recognized his likeness to Carmody rather than to the face briefly seen in the Flatiron Building. How ghastly if Alec was right and they were harassing a respectable citizen!
But why should Pitt flee if he was perfectly respectable?
Daisy recalled her own frightened efforts to escape the thugs who had never materialized. Pitt's cousin had been murdered, and he was being followed relentlessly by two men he didn't know. In his shoes, she would have done her utmost to shake off her pursuers, she acknowledged—to herself.
To acknowledge to Alec that she could be mistaken was another matter. After all, she was no more sure she was wrong than sure she was right. If she breathed the slightest doubt, he was bound to abandon the pursuit at once.
And she might be right.
It wouldn't hurt to find out where Pitt was going, she considered. Time enough then to decide what to do next.
The next station was taking a very long time to arrive. Returning to an awareness of her surroundings, Daisy heard one of her neighbours shouting to his companion,
“Yeah, under the East River, right this minute, you betcha. Wunnerful what modern science can do!”
Since she had passed beneath the Thames innumerable times, Daisy was not impressed. She was trying to work out where one would get to by crossing the East River, when she noticed that Lambert's eyes had widened and his face paled.
“Under the river!” he gasped, staring upward in horror. “Gee whiz!”
“Don't worry. There have been tunnels under the river in London for ages, and nothing's ever gone wrong.”
Unconvinced, but his shoulders relaxing a little, Lambert pointed out, “There's always a first time.” His gaze stayed fixed on the roof of the carriage, as if he expected water to trickle through at any moment, until it became obvious the train was labouring uphill.
Daylight seeped through the grimy windows, and then they were above ground, pulling into a station lit by pale, wintry sunshine.
Alec went to the door. It opened and a nasal voice shouted, “Brooklyn! Everybody out!”
Standing aside, Alec let the other passengers descend first, watching over their heads. Daisy and Lambert joined him.
“I have a good view of the exit,” he explained, “and Pitt has no choice but to get off here.”
“I'm a bit vague about the geography,” Daisy said, “but isn't Brooklyn on an island? He'll have to go back to the city to get anywhere.”
“There he goes,” said Lambert, and crouched to untie and retie a shoelace.
“Keep back in the shadows, Daisy,” Alec said sharply. “With any luck, he'll think he's lost us.”
“Everybody off!” The official reached them. “Everybody off, sir. You wanna go back to the city, you gotta get off and get on again. Or there's streetcars and cabs outside if you wanna go anyplace else.”
“Cabs!” Alec looked worried.
“Where can he go?” Daisy said. “He has to get back to the city.”
“There are probably other ways. Other tunnels, bridges, ferries perhaps. Come on. Pitt's gone through the gate.”
Pitt was lurking on the pavement between the row of taxicabs and a hoarding advertising five-cent cigars. He spotted them the instant they stepped through the gate. He jumped into the nearest taxi, which immediately pulled out of the row and turned towards the yard exit.
Daisy, Alec, and Lambert piled into another cab. “Police!” snapped Alec. “Follow that cab! Double your fare if you keep it in sight.”
“Sure thing, boss!” said the young driver eagerly, starting the meter running with one hand as he wheeled away from the kerb with the other. “You want I should catch up to him? You gonna make a pinch?”
“No, we just need to know where he's going.”
“O.K. Say, you a limey?”
“Yes, I'm a limey cop.”
“I ain't got nuttin against limeys.”
“I'm glad to hear it. But my colleague here is American, a federal agent.”
The driver looked back with an ominous frown. “Geez, you Treasury?”
“U.S. Department of Justice, Investigation Bureau,” intoned Lambert.
“Oh, that's O.K. Say, you Feds got lady cops now? Or is it the limeys got lady cops?”
“I'm a limey,” Daisy told him, “but I'm a witness, not a cop.”
“Tough! Hey, look, that crook's heading outta town, that you're tailing. He better be going someplace I can get a fare back.”
“We're paying double,” Alec reminded him, “if you don't lose him.”
The driver concentrated on driving.
The countryside was not very different from parts of England, with trees and fields, occasional villages, and parkland with glimpses of mansions. The smaller houses were mostly weatherboarded—or clapboard, as Daisy had learned to call it in Connecticut—instead of brick or half timbered. Churches were also clapboard, whitewashed, with funny little pointed steeples hung with bells. Many trees were already leafless, but here and there a maple still blazed with a scarlet rarely seen in English woods, brilliant in the autumnal sunshine.
All very pretty, but where on earth was Pitt going? “I didn't realize Brooklyn was on such a big island,” said Daisy. “Or is it Bronx that's on an island?”
“Nah, this here's Long Island. Hunnert and twenny miles end to end. Geez, I hope your crook ain't going all the way to the Hamptons!”
“If the Hamptons are at the other end of the island, so do I! Alec, do you think Pitt has friends somewhere here, who he hopes will hide him? I can't imagine why else he's running all over the country.”
“Maybe.” Alec glanced at the ticking taximeter. “We can't go on chasing him forever. When he stops, Lambert and I had better approach him and see if we can't persuade him to go back to New York with us, while you, Daisy, go on to find a telephone to report his whereabouts.”
“But, darling …”
“Hey, boss, he's turning off the highway. You figure he's trying to shake us?”
“Let's hope he's nearing his destination.”
For a few suspenseful minutes, they lost sight of the taxi ahead. Their driver swore, afraid of losing his double fare. Then there it was again, turning off the road towards a farmhouse and two huge barns, on the edge of a large, flat, empty field.

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