Chapter 3 #2
“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. ”
“He was here, all right,” said the man in the sack. “He brought me an article. Pascoli, editor of Town Talk.”
He stuck out his hand, so Daisy shook it. “How do you do. I’m Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Pleased to meetcha, Mrs. Fletcher. Town Talk’s a weekly news magazine, anti-administration.”
“Anti-administration?”
“The New York administration, that is. We got nothing against Coolidge—yet—but our publisher would sure like to get the goods on Tammany. Carmody looked like the guy who was going to do it. He brought me an article, hot stuff, but it wanted a few loose ends tying up. I left him to finish up when I went to lunch.”
“Lunsh!” said Mr. Thorwald loudly, and hiccuped.
“Oh, you poor things!” said the marcelled woman. “Haven’t you had lunch yet? I’ll send out to the corner drugstore. Thorwald usually has bratwurst on rye. Will that do for you, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Uh, yes, thank you.” Daisy wondered just what she was saying yes to, but she decided she was so hungry she could eat practically anything. “It’s very kind of you, Miss … ?”
“Louella Shurkowski, Mrs., Ladies’ Gazette, and you’re welcome.”
“Lunsh,” repeated Mr. Thorwald, plaintively this time.
“Better order in plenty of coffee,” suggested one of the other men.
“I never saw Thorwald pie-eyed before. He’s had the same bottle of rye in his desk for months.
He’s really a Scotch man, but honest-to-goodness Scotch is rare as an honest politician these days.
He doesn’t even like rye. Must be real shook up. ”
“So Carmody’s dead?” mused Pascoli. “What happened, Mrs. Fletcher?”
Daisy thought about what had happened. She had had too little time and too many questions before to take it in properly. Now the horror struck.
“Hey, this little lady’s real shook up, too,” said someone, and hands guided her to a chair by the round table.
Trying to avoid a vision of the grotesque figure sprawled puppetlike on top of the lift, with his head at a crazy angle, Daisy thought instead of what Alec was going to say.
He was bound to be furious that she had got herself involved in yet another murder, even though she was thousands of miles from home.
Could she keep it from him? He was hundreds of miles away, after all.
But Lambert was telling J. Edgar Hoover, and Hoover would doubtless report Daisy’s misdeeds to Alec.
And she was going to have to report to the New York detectives at any moment.
“I don’t think I’d better talk about it till the police come,” she said.
“I’ll just tell you that Mr. Thorwald was magnificent, a hero.
He believed I was in danger—I did too—and he went right ahead and tackled the man he thought was after me, a man with a gun. ”
“It wazh nothing,” said Mr. Thorwald. This modest disclaimer was followed by a huge yawn, whereupon he fell asleep and started to slide gently off his seat.
His colleagues rushed to rescue the hero. While they gathered him up and laid him flat on top of the manuscripts on the long table, for want of anywhere better, Daisy had a few moments of peace.
Then the police arrived.
The first detective to enter was a stringy, dried-up man with a horrid little toothbrush moustache and an unlit cigar protruding from the corner of his mouth.
As he came in, he looked back to say something in a high-pitched voice to the plainclothesman behind him, a blond giant who gaped past him and squawked, “Geez, Sergeant, another stiff!”
The sergeant turned back and stared. “O’Rourke,” he barked from the cigarless corner of his mouth, “run and catch the doc before he leaves, and tell the guys there’s two for the wagon.”
The second man behind him pounded off in the startled hush before several people simultaneously began to explain.
“He’s not …”
“He is …”
“He’s just …”
“Overcome by horror,” Pascoli overrode them, thus saving Thorwald from divulgence of his overindulgence in forbidden alcohol.
“Witness, izzy?”
“Yes, Sigurd Thorwald.”
“Name?”
“Yes, that’s his name.”
“Your name, wise guy.”
“Oh, James Pascoli. And yours?”
The little man flipped his lapel, momentarily revealing a badge. “Gilligan, Detective Sergeant, Homicide Bureau. Witness?”
“Me? Not exactly … .”
“Didja,” said Sergeant Gilligan with exaggerated patience, “or didja not see anything pertaining to the demise of the deceased?”
“No,” Pascoli admitted, “but …”
“Who here’s the witnesses, then, besides the guy on the desk?”
“I am,” said Daisy. “My name is Dalrym … Fletcher, that is. Daisy Fletcher. Mrs. Alec Fletcher.”
“That’s a lot of aliases, lady.”
“I was married quite recently. I still get muddled sometimes.”
“British, are you?”
“Yes.”
Gilligan rolled his eyes. He looked as if he didn’t have much trust in her as a witness, if any. “Anyone else see what happened?” he asked hopefully.
“Just Mr. Lambert,” said Daisy. “He’s an agent of the Department of Justice.”
“Don’t that beat the Dutch!” Gilligan groaned. “A reliable, trained witness, every ‘tec’s dream, but he’ll want to make a federal case of it, you betcha sweet life, and the election’s next week. So where’s this Lambert?”
Daisy pointed. “In there, telephoning Washington.”
“Rats!”
“If I might be permitted to speak,” said Pascoli with a touch of sarcasm, “there’s a federal angle to this business anyway. The victim …”
“Right, where is he?” The man who bustled in was small,
like Gilligan, but otherwise the detective’s antithesis, being chubby with a round, pink, cheerful face.
“Where’s who?” asked Pascoli.
“Smart-ass,” Gilligan muttered, swinging round as the newcomer replied, “The victim, the second victim.”
“Hi, doc,” said Gilligan a trifle sheepishly. “Sorry, looks like there’s only one been croaked. But maybe you oughta take a look at this guy anyway. He’s a witness, passed out cold from the shock, they say.”
The doctor went across to Thorwald, bent over him, and straightened immediately with a grin. “First time I’ve heard it called ‘the shock,’ but there’s a new euphemism coined every day. Let him sleep it off. Oh, there you are, Rosenblatt. I thought you’d be along, with the election coming up.”
“What do you have for me, doctor?” asked the fair, dapper man standing in the doorway, surveying the scene.
“Gunshot to the upper left thigh, superficial wound. It’s the broken neck that killed him. I’ll try to do the post mortem for you this afternoon, but I make no promises.”
“Good enough. Thank you.” Rosenblatt stood aside to let the doctor depart. “O.K., Sergeant, what’s going on?”
“Dangfino, sir,” sighed Gilligan.