The Case of the Murdered Muckraker (23 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

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A
lmost dropping on her feet by now, Daisy wondered where on earth they were going to spend the night. Perhaps Chief Judkins would give them a bed in a cell.
“I'll find us somewhere,” Dipper said confidently. “I hate to leave you, ladies, but first I'll have to find someone to ask.”
“Looks like that might be an all-night drugstore over there,” said Bessie, pointing.
As Daisy and Dipper turned to look, a young man strode up to them. “Miss Coleman?” he asked Bessie eagerly. “You're Miss Bessie Coleman, ma'am?”
“Ah sure am.”
“Haycox, Ernest Haycox,
Eugene Daily Guard
. At least, I'm not a regular reporter—I'm a student at the university—but I happened to be talking to Mr. Fisher when some guy out at the airfield called in that you'd just flown into town. Mr. Fisher said would I like to interview you. Would that be O.K., ma'am?”
“Sure thing, but first we have to find a place to stay, me and my friends. This here's the Honourable Mrs. Fletcher,
and this gentleman's Sir Roland Amboyne, the British War ace. And Mr. Fletcher's out at the airfield consulting with your police chief. He's a Detective Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard.”
“Whew!” Haycox whistled. “There's gotta be a big story here. Say, ma'am, sir, can I interview you, too? And Mr. Fletcher? But aren't you staying here at the Osburn … ? Oh, no, don't tell me. You just wait, I'll fix things. Come on in and sit in the lobby while I get to a phone.”
Daisy sank onto a sofa by a roaring fire, doubting that she'd ever be able to get up again. Bessie sat beside her, tensely upright, while Dipper leant against the mantelpiece, taking out his pipe. Haycox went over to the reception desk.
They couldn't hear what he said, but he persuaded the clerk to lend him the telephone. He spoke for a few minutes, then came over to them, grinning.
“It's all fixed,” he announced. “Mr. Fisher, the owner of the
Guard
, will be happy to host you, Mrs. Fletcher, and your husband, of course. And Mr. Earl Simmons, our local aviator and owner of E. C. Simmons Motor Company, would be thrilled to death to have you stay, Miss Coleman, and you, sir. They're both motoring over to fetch you.”
Daisy did not think Alec would be thrilled to be staying with a newspaperman, but she was beyond caring. When the desk clerk came over to say he had consulted Mr. and Mrs. Osburn and there were rooms free after all, she was almost tempted just to stay put. The man had obviously overheard Haycox crying them up on the phone. But to accept would be to let down Bessie, and to disappoint Mr. Fisher, who was expecting to put up a Scotland Yard detective.
Mrs. Fisher took the unexpected guest in her stride and asked for no explanations. While her husband drove off to the airfield to find out what was going on and to bring back Alec, she lent Daisy a nightdress and dressing gown. It was utter bliss to get out of the flying suit and Jake's trousers, and into a hot bath.
Food completed the transformation: Daisy was beginning to feel almost human again when Mr. Fisher returned with Alec. He had apparently been told enough to satisfy him for the present, for he let Alec eat in peace.
Daisy didn't like to ask Alec what plans had been made for her to identify Pitt—always supposing he actually landed in Eugene—in case she let slip something Mr. Fisher had not been told. Her thoughts turned to Miss Genevieve, ex-crime reporter, who must be dying to know what was going on, might even be worrying. After all, Daisy, Alec and Lambert had dashed off without a word of farewell.
Lambert might have sent her a telegram, as Daisy requested, but he was not to be relied upon. Moreover, if he
had
sent one, it would have worried the Cabot sisters still more to know Daisy had embarked on a perilous cross-country aeroplane flight.
“Mrs. Fisher, would you mind awfully if I sent a telegram? Just a short one, to reassure a friend. If Alec hasn't enough money to pay for it, I'm sure Sir Roland will.”
“Pay for it?” cried Mr. Fisher. “Nonsense! It's a business expense. Make it as long as you like.”
So to the brief message that she had arrived safely in Eugene, Oregon, Daisy added a request to notify Mr. Thorwald—and Kevin, she tacked on as an afterthought. She did not want the Misses Cabot roused in the night, so
she told the Western Union clerk to deliver the telegram in the morning.
By the time they read it, Pitt might have landed. Or he might not. Daisy was too sleepy to care.
 
Having gone to bed early, Daisy woke early the next morning. It was still dark outside, but the luminous hands of her wrist-watch told her it was after six o'clock. She slipped out of her bed and tiptoed across the rag rug to squeeze into Alec's bed with him.
It wasn't nearly as tight a fit as the bunk they had shared crossing the Atlantic. Plenty of room for what she had in mind.
Daylight was seeping through the curtains an hour or so later, when they heard domestic noises from below. “That sounds like breakfast preparations,” said Daisy. “I'm starving. Gosh, I hate to get back into Jake's trousers.”
“Mrs. Fisher seems to possess the imperturbability necessary to a newspaperman's wife—or a policeman's. I don't suppose she'd mind you going down in that dressing gown she lent you. I'll pop out as soon as the shops are open and see if I can find a frock for you. Judkins will just have to wait.”
Daisy kissed him, so it was a few minutes before she got up. She found Mr. Fisher at the breakfast table, studying the competing
Morning Register
.
“They haven't even a mention of your arrival,” he said with satisfaction. “Good morning, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Good morning. I hope you don't mind this.” She indicated her dishabille, just as his wife came through from the kitchen.
“That's just fine, honey,” said Mrs. Fisher. “I ran you up
a dress last night on my sewing machine. You can try it on after breakfast. Ingrid's making waffles.”
“Spiffing!” Daisy assured her. “It's awfully kind of you to make me a frock. I can't tell you …”
“A cable came for you,” Mr. Fisher interrupted, flipping through a heap of letters beside his plate and fishing out a yellow Western Union envelope.
“Heavens! Who on earth …? Oh, it must be from Miss Genevieve. I'd forgotten the time difference. She's the only person who knows where I am.”
Mr. Fisher handed her a paper knife. He didn't resume his perusal of his competitor's newspaper but watched as she slit the envelope, no doubt hoping for something newsworthy. Alec came in as she unfolded the form.
“A cable from Miss Genevieve, darling. She
was
feeling extravagant. It's miles long.” Daisy started to read. “Oh
no
! How too, too dreadful! Gilligan's arrested Barton Bender for murder, and Mrs. Carmody as an accessory. So it wasn't Pitt, after all.” Despairingly she gazed at Alec over the telegram. She had hounded an innocent man into committing a crime!
“Great Scott!” Frowning, Alec leant across the table and twitched the telegram from her fingers. He read, then looked up at her with a wry grin. “Buck up, my love. You didn't read far enough. Gilligan's arrested that precious pair, yes, but Agent Whitaker has arrested Lambert.”
Daisy stared at him incredulously.
“Lambert?
For murdering Otis Carmody?”
“Let me see if I can make this out. Her telegraphese is so brilliantly ingenious, it takes some working out. She learnt some of this information from your young friend Kevin. Lambert apparently returned to New York and
sneaked into the Chelsea to pick up his stuff. Whitaker had asked the management to notify him when any of the three of us returned, which they duly did. Lambert going out met Whitaker coming in and took to his heels—Miss Genevieve witnessed that bit. But I didn't think Lambert knew Whitaker.”
“He may not have known him, but he saw him when Whitaker came to see me at the hotel. We took him for a villain, remember, and they hid me, he and Mr. Thorwald and Pascoli, with Kevin's help, of course, after Balfour warned us. Maybe Lambert got muddled and thought he really was a villain. It would be like him.”
“Very,” Alec agreed wholeheartedly. “Hmm, what does Miss Genevieve mean by ‘Washington'?”
“The Washington connection,” said Daisy. “I bet she thinks Whitaker thinks Lambert was sent by someone in Washington whom Carmody upset, to assassinate him. What utter bosh! No one in his right mind would send Lambert to accomplish
anything
!”
“No one who knew him, certainly.”
“And as for Barton Bender, his arrest doesn't necessarily mean there's any real evidence against him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern just want a scapegoat until after the election.”
Mr. Fisher had listened avidly to every word in silent fascination, but this was too much for him. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?” he asked.
Daisy looked at Alec, suddenly aware that they had been spouting all sorts of things which he might not want the newspaperman to hear.
“It's all right,” he said. “Mr. Fisher has promised not to publish the story until Chief Judkins gives him the word.”
So Daisy explained how Hamlet's courtiers had worked their way into the adventure in spite of her efforts to keep them out. “I was constantly afraid I'd use those names to their faces,” she confessed. “They already considered me an unreliable witness. They would not have been amused.”
Mr. Fisher laughed heartily, but he went on to ask, “And who exactly are the other people you mentioned?”
“Not now, Chuck,” Mrs. Fisher chided. “Let them eat their waffles while they're hot.”
Chief Judkins arrived while they were still eating. Daisy was embarrassed to be caught in a dressing gown, but he was either too polite to appear to notice or too preoccupied to notice. He was persuaded to sit down to a waffle and a cup of coffee. Then he and Alec put their heads together, and Daisy went to change into the dress Mrs. Fisher had made her. It was a rather ghastly mustard yellow wool, clashing horribly with her blue costume jacket, but it fitted reasonably well and she was far too grateful to quibble. Anything rather than Jake's trousers.
Judkins drove her and Alec out to the airfield in a Model T with police insignia. (Mr. Fisher swore he would join them there after calling at his office.)
On the way, Alec told Daisy the Chief had made some telephone calls and discovered that news of the pirating of the post office plane had been circulated to Investigation Bureau field offices all over the country. “But no one seems to have made the association of the pirate with Eugene,” he said. “They had a report from a farmer somewhere in Illinois of it landing to refuel at an emergency airfield.”
“That's all? Isn't Illinois somewhere in the middle of the country?” Daisy asked.
“Midwest,” Judkins confirmed over his shoulder.
“But it must have come down more than once, mustn't it, darling?”
“Yes, if he's coming all the way to Oregon. But remember how few people we saw. Pitt would force the pilot to stick to emergency fields well away from towns.”
“I suppose all he had to do was threaten to shoot him if he landed at a proper aerodrome. Unless he decided to stop somewhere else and come home by train. Or just stay somewhere else.”
“I sure hope not,” said Judkins. “I got a federal agent coming down from Salem just to pinch this guy.”
“If Pitt had hopped off somewhere
en route
, the pilot would have reported by now,” Alec argued.
“Not if Pitt made him fly to Mexico,” Judkins pointed out. “Or shot him.”
Daisy shivered. It would be bad enough if Pitt just didn't turn up, after all the fuss. But what if Rosenblatt and Gilligan were right that Bender was Carmody's murderer, and her pursuit of Pitt had caused the death of the pilot?
Alec put his arm around her shoulders. “There's plenty of time yet for him to arrive,” he said comfortingly. “The pilot had no one to relieve him, so they would have had to stop for him to rest.”
They drove up to the airfield building and stopped beside a large and gleaming Packard. Two police officers came over to salute Judkins. As Alec and Daisy got out of the Ford, Dipper, Bessie, the reporter Ernest Haycox, and another man—Earl Simmons, Daisy guessed—emerged from the hangar.
Those who had not met were introduced. Simmons wanted to tell Daisy about his wife, who often flew with him. “I dropped Mrs. Simmons off by plane Saturday in
Salem to visit with relatives,” he said. “She'll be real sorry to have missed you. She'd have been mighty pleased to meet the real English aristocracy seeing she married a fake Earl! And you a flyer, too.”
“Not really,” said Daisy, smiling at Haycox, who hovered at her side, notebook in hand, anxious to interview her. “I'm not a pilot.”

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