The Case of the Murdered Muckraker (3 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

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“Thank you. You must have heard how I got lost yesterday trying to find his office.”
“Lots of folks do, you betcha. It's the shape of the building, confuses people, see. Elevators to your right, ma'am.”
Whether at the doorman's behest or off his own bat, Thorwald was waiting for Daisy when the elevator reached the eighteenth floor. He was a pear-shaped gentleman, with a Vandyke beard above which his clean-shaven upper lip looked oddly naked. So did his pale blue eyes when he took off his gold-rimmed pince-nez and gestured with it or rubbed his eyes, as he did frequently.
He led the way through an outer room to his tiny office, crammed with heaps of manuscripts and galley proofs. Dumping a pile of copies of
Abroad
from a chair to the floor, he invited Daisy to sit down and carefully inserted himself behind his desk.
“I trust your accommodations are proving satisfactory, Mrs. Fletcher?” he said.
Rotund and orotund, Daisy thought, assuring him, “Eminently so.” As usual when talking to Mr. Thorwald, she
found herself succumbing to his polysyllabicism, like an exotic disease. Fortunately it did not infect her articles, or no one would have read them.
“I've made the acquaintance of a number of uncommonly intriguing people,” she went on. She told him about Miss Genevieve Cabot, and the various hotel guests Miss Genevieve had introduced to her the previous evening. “Incidentally,” she said, “are you able to elucidate the curious connection my mind persists in forming between the name Cabot and fish?”
“Ah yes.” Mr. Thorwald tittered. “I believe the piscatorial association must be in reference to
good old Boston,
‘The home of the bean and the cod,
‘Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots,
‘And the Cabots talk only to God.'
A feeble versification at best, but since it was, I understand, pronounced as a toast after, one must presume, considerable pre-Volstead jollification, not utterly without merit.”
Volstead had something to do with Prohibition, Daisy thought. “I must have heard the rhyme somewhere,” she said. “Mention was made of Boston, I recollect. Ought I to see Boston for the second article?”
“While I hesitate to declare Boston unworthy of a visit, such a peregrination is unnecessary, my dear Mrs. Fletcher. There is so much to be admired in this magnificent nation that you cannot conceivably encompass its entirety. Your sojourns in Connecticut, New York, and Washington will suffice. It is not universality I desire but freshness of vision. And now, as our own visionary Benjamin Franklin observed,
‘Remember that Time is Money.' Permit me to peruse the fruits of your exertions.”
While he read the completed article and the beginnings of the next, Daisy gazed out through the narrow window. What she saw was not the treetops of Madison Square, far below, not the visible sliver of the great city and the East River, but the greater continent beyond. South to the Caribbean and Mexico, north to Canada, three thousand miles to the Pacific Ocean—she sighed, envying the shipboard friends who had plans to see as much as was humanly possible.
“Excellent.” Mr. Thorwald approved Daisy's work. He made a few suggestions about the rest of the unfinished article; then they discussed her ideas for articles to be written when she returned to England. “And now, dear lady,” he said, taking out his watch, “it is long past noon, I perceive. Will you permit me to take you to lunch at the Algonquin?”
As well as being curious to see the Algonquin, Daisy was more than ready for lunch, having missed elevenses. Everyone else appeared to have preceded them. The publisher's offices were all but deserted as they passed through.
As they approached the elevators, Daisy immediately recognized the man waiting there, if waiting was the right word. She knew him as much by his actions as his looks—Otis Carmody had opened one of the gates and was peering impatiently down the elevator shaft.
Presumably he had long since worked out how to tell by the esoteric movements of cables which elevator was on its way. Though the Flatiron's lifts were twenty years younger than the Hotel Chelsea's, the machinery proceeded with almost as much creaking, groaning, clanking, and rattling.
Daisy assumed the loud report was just part of the general cacophony until it was followed by an unmistakably human sound, a yelp of pain. A firecracker? She had heard plenty last night. Perhaps an office boy had unwisely kept one in his pocket.
But not ten paces ahead, Carmody teetered on the brink for a moment, then toppled over.
“
J
umping jiminy!” cried Mr. Thorwald.
“He didn't jump,” Daisy said grimly. A pace ahead of the editor, she saw a man dart across the passage beyond the elevators, heading for the stairs. “Stop!” she shouted.
He turned a white, wild-eyed face to her, then ducked his head and dashed on. His boot nails rang on the marble steps as he started down. Daisy ran after him.
“Hey, stop!” yelled someone behind her.
“Stop!” Mr. Thorwald squawked.
Hesitating, Daisy looked back. To her astonishment, she saw Lambert chasing her, brandishing a gun. She hadn't time to be afraid before Mr. Thorwald launched himself at Lambert's ankles in a very creditable Rugby tackle and brought the young man down. Lambert's gun flew towards Daisy, while his horn-rims and Thorwald's pince-nez slithered across the floor.
To Daisy's even greater astonishment, she caught the gun. So the dreaded cricket practice at school hadn't been wasted, after all!
But what on earth was going on? Had
Lambert
shot Carmody? And if so, was he aiming at
Daisy?
She had assumed the fugitive to be the villain. Was he a conspirator or, more likely, just a terrified witness? In any case, while she dithered he was making his escape, and even if he was only a witness, he ought to be stopped and made to return to give evidence.
Daisy sped on, holding Lambert's revolver by the barrel so that she could not possibly fire it by accident. She hoped.
“Come back!” shouted Lambert.
“Ugh!” uttered Thorwald breathlessly.
From the head of the stairs, peering over the rail, Daisy saw the fugitive leaping downwards like a chamois, already two floors below.
“Come back!” she called, trotting down the first flight.
“Stop!” Lambert, dishevelled and looking younger than ever without his glasses, appeared at the top. “I'll get him, Mrs. Fletcher. You stay out of this.
Please!
”
Daisy froze as he bounded down the stairs towards her. At the last moment she remembered the gun in her hand. She swung it behind her to prevent his grabbing it. It slipped from her fingers and between two of the barley-sugar-twist banisters. A moment later a distant clang arrived from the bottom of the stairwell.
By then Lambert had passed Daisy and she, deciding discretion was definitely the better part of valour, had scurried back to the top of the stairs.
Mr. Thorwald was tottering to his feet, bleating plaintively, “My pince-nez, my pince-nez! Would someone be so kind as to find my pince-nez?”
Two persons of clerkly appearance and a probable typist had emerged from surrounding offices to gather about him,
clucking and tutting in no very helpful fashion. Daisy spotted the pince-nez and returned it to him. As he clipped it to his nose, the top of the lift cage reached their floor at last.
Sprawled across its flat roof lay Otis Carmody, his neck all too obviously broken.
At Daisy's gasp, the others all swung round to gape. The typist shrieked and fell into the arms of one of the clerks. Meanwhile, Carmody continued to rise at a stately pace until he disappeared from sight. The elevator stopped.
“Hey, wha'z goin' on here?” the aged lift man demanded querulously, peering with suspicion through the inner gate, making no move to open it. “See here, one of you lot throw something down the shaft? Against reggerlations, that is.”
Everyone, even Mr. Thorwald, turned to Daisy.
“A man fell down the shaft,” she said.
“Izzat so? Against reg … Huh? Wha'zat you said?”
“There is a dead body on the roof of your lift.”
“Lift? Wha'z … ?”
“Elevator. A man fell down the shaft and landed on your elevator.”
“Wuz a almighty whump,” the old man admitted, at last opening the gate. “Didn't sound like no garbage hitting. Lessee.”
“You can't see anything as long as the lift …” Daisy stopped as feet pounded towards them from the direction of the stairs.
“What's going on?” panted Lambert. “I lost him. He just kept going down. I couldn't keep up, let alone catch up.”
“You saw him running on down?” Daisy asked, surprised. She recalled clearly the time she had gone up the Monument in Fish Street Hill. Built to commemorate the
Great Fire of London, it had 311 steps. Going up was bad enough, but going down, her knees had been wobbling uncontrollably long before she reached the bottom. Only a mountain goat could have run down.
“I heard him. Never caught sight of him, actually. I can't see much without my glasses. Where are they?” He peered around myopically. “And where's my automatic?”
“Automatic?” The two clerks looked at each other and backed away. The typist, who had recovered enough to listen to Daisy's exchange with the lift man, squealed again and hid behind them.
Knowing the gun was safely out of reach for the moment, Daisy looked around for the horn-rimmed specs. They were dangling by one earpiece through the gate of the next lift. Gingerly she retrieved them and, holding them, turned to Lambert. He blinked at her. At the moment he didn't look very dangerous.
“What were you doing, waving a gun around?” she asked severely.
“Waving a gun around?” squeaked the typist.
“I can explain. But not here,” Lambert added, waving at the spectators, three of whom melted away while the fourth, the lift man, was spectating his lift in a puzzled way. “What's going on? Gee whiz, please give me my glasses,” Lambert pleaded. “Where's my automatic?”
Daisy handed over the glasses. “Eighteen stories down, at the bottom of the stairwell.”
This news perked Mr. Thorwald up no end. “Who are you?” he demanded belligerently. “What were you doing pursuing Mrs. Fletcher with an automatic pistol? Did you shoot that unfortunate person?”
“I don't see no body,” interrupted the lift man.
“You'll have to take the lift—elevator—down a bit,” said Daisy.
“There really is a body?” Lambert asked. “A man was shot? And fell down the shaft?”
Daisy exchanged a look with Thorwald. They both nodded solemnly. “Yes,” she said, “and if you didn't shoot him, that other man did, and he's getting away! We must telephone the police at once.”
Lambert started towards the nearest office suite. “I'll find a phone.”
Thorwald grabbed his arm. “Oh no you don't, my fine fellow. I shall not allow you also to elude the authorities! We'll go to my office.”
“I'm a federal agent,” Lambert snapped, reaching for his inside breast pocket, “and you, sir, had better stop interfering with me in the course of my duty! I must call Washington.”
Daisy and Thorwald gaped at him in shared disbelief. Whether he was going to pull an identification card or a second gun from his pocket remained to be seen, for the double clang of two lift gates made them all swing round.
The lift started down.
A moment later, Carmody hove once more into view. He still looked very dead. When he reached floor level, the lift stopped.
“Gawd!” gulped the federal agent.
Daisy was not much happier with the sight. Nor, apparently, was Thorwald. As one they all three turned away, only to turn back as the lift again clanked into motion.
It rose until the upper half of the inner gate was visible, then came to a halt. The inner gate opened.
“Hey,” said the lift man irritably, “don' jist stand there
starin'. Open up and help me outta here. Gotta see me that stiff.”
 
Daisy had prevailed—ringing up the New York police had taken precedence over calling Washington, and in fact Lambert seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for reporting to his superiors. The local beat patrolman was standing guard over the elevator and the body. Detectives were on their way, and the D.A. had been notified.
“D.A.?” queried Daisy, as Mr. Thorwald abstracted a bottle, soda water siphon, and two glasses from a desk drawer.
“District Attorney,” Lambert explained. “He's in charge of prosecution, so his office oversees the collection of evidence in major cases, such as homicide.”
Mr. Thorwald pushed two glasses of gently fizzling pale amber liquid across the desk. Then he up-ended the bottle and swigged directly from the neck. Recent events seemed to have deprived him of both speech and his usual courtly manners.
Mindful of a recent occasion when imbibing spirits on an empty stomach had knocked her for six, Daisy sipped cautiously. She had never much liked whisky, but this was a step below any Scotch she had ever tasted. Setting the glass down, she turned back to Lambert.
“So you're a federal agent, you say! I suppose it must be true as the bobby accepted your credentials and gave you back your gun. But what exactly does that mean?”
“It … er …” Lambert hastily put down his already half-emptied glass as far away on the desktop as he could reach. “It means I'm an agent of the Investigation Bureau of the
U.S. Department of Justice. We're … er … responsible for enforcing federal law.”
“Such as Prohibition?” Daisy enquired with a touch of malice. “You don't seem mad keen on enforcing that one.”
“That's the Treasury Department does that,” he said defensively. “I'm Justice.”
“Well, I haven't, to my knowledge, broken any other laws. So why have you been following me?”
“F-following you?” stammered Lambert, blushing.
Daisy gave him an old-fashioned look. It proved as effective in American as in English.
“I … er.” He swallowed. “That is, my boss, Mr. Hoover, sent me to keep an eye on you.”
“Indeed!” said Daisy, hearing echoes of her mother in her tone. “And does Mr. Hoover—am I correct in assuming you refer to J. Edgar Hoover, whom my husband is at present advising, in Washington?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Does Mr. Hoover make a practice of spying on his colleagues' wives?”
“I don't think you could exactly say that Mr. Hoover makes a practice of anything,” Lambert said dubiously. “He's not actually officially in charge yet. He's assistant director. Only we don't have a director at present.”
“Well, if he suffers from persecution mania, or delusions of grandeur, or whatever ails him, I don't expect he'll remain in charge very long,” Daisy predicted with asperity. “Kindly tell him I strongly object to being treated as a prospective criminal.”
“Gee whiz, it's not that. The surveillance is to stop you getting into … er … for your own safety, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Then tell him I'm no babe in arms and I can take care of myself.”
“I can't do that!” Lambert looked horrified at the thought. “This is my first assignment, see. If I fail, I'm out on my ear. But I guess I've already failed,” he concluded miserably. “You've gotten mixed up in this horrible business. I suppose I better call Washington now and confess … report. Is there a telephone somewhere I can use privately, sir?”
Mr. Thorwald started. “Eh? Tephelone?” He waved his bottle—nearly empty—at the apparatus on his desk. “Be my guesht.”
Daisy stood up. “Mr. Lambert wants to talk privately,” she said. “I think it would be a good idea if we went to find something to eat, Mr. Thorwald.”
“Lunch,” he agreed, and followed her docilely from his office.
The outer office was long and narrow, lined with shelves of magazines, interrupted by several doors. Against one wall stood a table piled with manuscripts and unopened manila envelopes, with chairs around it. In one corner of the room was a round table and more chairs. As Daisy entered, the murmur of which she had been distantly aware resolved itself into the voices of five or six men and a smart, rigidly marcelled and carefully made-up woman. They looked round as the door of Thorwald's office clicked shut. Silence fell.
“Howdy, ma'am.” One of the men pushed forward. His sack suit looked as if it might once have actually held potatoes, and his tie was that bilious green potatoes turn when exposed to light. He looked, in fact, like a well-dressed tramp, except for the eye shade and ink-blotched cuff protectors.
Daisy guessed he was an editor. “Hey, Thorwald,” he continued, “is it true Otis Carmody's dead?”
“Shtiff,” Thorwald said succinctly, and sat down rather suddenly on a nearby chair.
“Not actually stiff,” said Daisy. Everyone turned to her. “He hasn't been dead long enough for
rigor mortis
to set in. And I'm not absolutely certain it was Otis Carmody.” She had not seen his face, having avoided a close examination of the corpse. “Though if you know him, and he was here this morning, I'm about ninety-nine percent sure.”

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