Chapter 12
Mrs. Carmody reemerged into the sitting room with her face restored. She came over to the four by the fireplace, Lambert jumping to his feet at her approach.
“I guess you folks must be wondering about me and Otis,” she opened. “I really am all broke up over him passing on, only you don’t wanna be a killjoy, do you?”
“Oh dear, so very sorry!” said Miss Cabot. “Of course you haven’t had time yet to put on your blacks.”
“Blacks?” Mrs. Carmody turned an astonished gaze on the old lady. “Oh, you mean mourning clothes? That’s kinda old-fashioned, you know, and black doesn’t suit me one bit.”
“Oh dear!”
“’Sides, I figure now Otis is gone it won’t worry him what I wear, and it’s my duty now to cheer up poor Bart. He likes me in red. Heck, I gotta go telephone his lawyer.”
“You’re welcome to use our telephone,” offered Miss Genevieve, as unwilling as Daisy to let her escape without coughing up a bit more information.
“Gee, can I? That’s mighty kind of you. Say, d’you remember his name that Bart told me?”
“James P. Macpherson,” said Daisy.
“Have you a directory, ma’am?” Lambert asked. “I’ll look up his number for you, Mrs. Carmody.”
Miss Cabot found the telephone directory in her sister’s desk, Lambert found the number, and Mrs. Carmody asked the hotel switchboard to connect her. Miss Genevieve made no pretence of not listening, even hushing Lambert and Miss Cabot when they would have spoken.
“Hello, Mr. Macpherson? … This is Elva Carmody … . No, nothing to do with that business. It’s Bart—Mr. Bender. The cops have taken him in … . No, not Fraud, I guess it’s the Homicide Bureau.”
A squawk came over the wire, loud enough for Daisy to hear, though not to make out the words.
“Heck no, not one of his goddamn tenants. My husband, Otis Carmody. You musta read about it … . No, I don’t believe he did and they haven’t acksherly arrested him, but they’re gonna grill him …
. Well, O.K., if he did, it was for my sake, but it’s sure landed us in a heapa trouble.
You gotta get down to police headquarters right away. ”
She listened for a moment, then said good-bye and hung up the earpiece on its hook.
“Everything all right?” asked Miss Genevieve.
“Mr. Macpherson’s going down there and make sure they don’t violet Bart’s rights. But if the cops got evidence,” Mrs. Carmody went on disconsolately, “he says he might not be able to get him out today. My husband dead, my friend in jail, what the heck am I s’posed to do?”
Miss Genevieve visibly withheld a pithy response.
“Won’t you sit down for a moment,” she said, “while you consider your options? Do you know the men who work for Mr. Bender?”
“Nix. Bart didn’t want me to trouble my head with business, not like Otis.
Otis was always on at me to take an interest in his work.
He used to get all excited and say nine tenths of the people in the government was crooks, but like I told him, who cares?
That’s just the way things are, and worrying about it don’t put diamonds around a girl’s neck.
Anyways, if Bart gets sent to the chair for having Otis croaked, his guys’ll all be out of a job and no help to me. ”
“True,” Miss Genevieve agreed. “So we must try to figure out who else might have disposed of your husband. If you try real hard, maybe you’ll remember which of the many public figures Mr. Carmody antagonized made particularly virulent threats against him.”
“Who got maddest, that he wrote about? Gee, I dunno. Otis read me some real punk letters he got. Most weren’t signed, but he often knew pretty much who they were from.”
“Did he tell you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t remember.”
“What did he do with them? Did he keep them?”
“Nix. He just laughed and tore ’em up. Said they didn’t none of them have the guts to do anything, specially after President Harding passed on and President Coolidge started cleaning house. You figure it was someone Otis wrote about in Washington had him shot?”
Miss Genevieve shook her head. “I think it’s far more likely that someone in New York wanted to prevent his publishing the results of his latest investigations.”
“You don’t mean Bart, do you? I know Otis was digging up some dirt on Bart.”
“If it was Mr. Bender, the police can be counted on to prove it. They’re going to bend over backwards to avoid pinning it on anyone more closely connected with Tammany, unless someone keeps an eye on them.
I guess I’m the one. I’ve still got enough contacts in the right places to keep ’em on their toes if they don’t want to find themselves pilloried in the opposition and Hearst press right before the election. ”
“Aw, politics! But you mean you’re gonna help Bart?
Gee, I wish you would. Him and me get on real well together, and I don’t wanna hafta go looking for someone else.
I’m not as young as I look, see,” Mrs. Carmody confessed with a moue.
“I wanna settle down with a man that thinks I’m worth giving a good time. ”
“Most understandable,” said Miss Genevieve dryly. “I’ll certainly do what I can to make sure the police and the D.A.’s office don’t brush any Tammany connection under the carpet. Whether that will help Mr. Bender remains to be seen.”
“Least he won’t be railroaded for something he didn’t do. I can’t help wondering, did he …” She stopped as someone knocked on the door.
“Shall I get that, ma‘am?” Lambert asked. At Miss Genevieve’s nod, he went out into the foyer. “Oh, it’s you, Detective O’Rourke. Come in.”
Mrs. Carmody jumped up. “Say, you been real swell, but I guess I better get going now. ‘Bye, folks.”
She hurried out, dodging past O’Rourke as if she was afraid he might without warning clap handcuffs on her. He swung round to stare after her.
“Who wuzzat?” he enquired suspiciously.
“A visitor,” Miss Genevieve informed him, accurate if misleading. “What did you find in Wilbur Pitt’s room?”
“Geez, ma’am, I didn’t oughta tell you.”
“Mr. Rosenblatt has already told me all about the case. I have considerable experience in criminal matters, you know. Did you find a gun?”
“No, ma’am.”
“No gun?” Miss Genevieve was disappointed.
“I thought men in the Wild West always had six-shooters,” ventured Miss Cabot.
Miss Genevieve looked self-conscious, as if she had also been momentarily prey to that misconception. “Mr. Pitt is presently in New York, not the Wild West, sister.”
“No cartridges,” Daisy asked, “or whatever you put in a six-shooter?”
“No, ma’am.”
“What did you find, Detective?” said Miss Genevieve.
“Nuttin, ma’am.”
“He’s skedaddled?”
“No, ma’am. Nuttin of int’rest, I shoulda said.
Just a few clothes, coupla shirts, kinda old-fashioned, nuttin fancy, no evening dress or nuttin, and a cardboard suitcase.
There was a coupla packs of cigarette papers—no tobacco pouch, I guess he got it on him—and a big manila envelope with a stack of paper in it, writing paper, all written on. ”
“Not typed?” Daisy said.
“No, ma’am, and the writing was dang near impossible to read, but it wasn’t letters or nuttin useful.”
“His manuscript,” said Miss Genevieve. “He won’t leave without that.”
“Izzat so? The sergeant’ll be pleased to hear that, ma’am.
He’ll still want to see Mr. Pitt, I guess, but there wasn’t nuttin useful anywheres, like I said.”
“Drat,” said Daisy. Wilbur Pitt was the only suspect she had much chance of investigating, but it seemed less and less likely that he had put a bullet into his cousin after a family squabble. She would still like to talk to him, though.
“You didn’t reckernize none of the faces in the mug book, ma‘am?” O’Rourke asked her.
Daisy shook her head. “No, sorry. But I’m still sure I’d recognize him if I saw him. Pretty sure.”
“I’ll tell Sergeant Gilligan, ma‘am.” Detective O’Rourke departed with the mug book under his arm.
Turning to Miss Genevieve, Daisy asked, “Well, what do you think?”
Miss Genevieve sighed. “I expect Gilligan’s right, and Barton Bender hired someone to kill Carmody. He did, after all, have a double motive.”
“Double?” said Lambert blankly.
“Fear of exposure of his unsavory business methods, and to free Mrs. Carmody,” Daisy explained, “so that he could marry her.”
“Gee, I guess so.”
“Do you think Mrs. Carmody knew what Bender planned, Miss Genevieve?”
“Hmm.” After a moment’s thought, the old lady said reluctantly, “Perhaps not. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if she had asked him to put her husband out of the way and he told her it was too risky. And then he changed his mind when Carmody’s investigations threatened him.”
“I doubt she knew,” said Daisy. “She was a rotten liar.”
“Those crocodile tears!”
“Oh dear!”
“Don’t be naive, sister.”
“She really was crying at one point,” Daisy argued. “I believe she loved him once and his death hurt her when she let herself feel it. Actually, I’m rather sorry for both of them.”
“An ill-matched pair,” Miss Genevieve acknowledged. “No doubt he fell for a pretty face, like most men, and didn’t realize for some time that there was nothing behind it. He grew up. She didn’t. Learn by his example, young man!” she admonished Lambert sternly.
“Gee whiz,” he said obediently, “I’ll sure try, ma’am.”
“She’s trying to have it both ways, of course.
She wants to keep Bender, yet she’s afraid of being charged as an accomplice.
It’s not because I’m sorry for the dumb broad,” Miss Genevieve went on with one of her startling lapses into the vernacular, “that I’ll be keeping an eye on Rosenblatt and Gilligan.
I’m not by any means convinced of Bender’s guilt.
I’ll keep pushing them to make absolutely certain Tammany isn’t involved. ”
“Won’t that guy Pascoli do that?” Lambert enquired. “I mean, I bought a couple of newspapers this morning and they were full of the murder of a muckraker that was investigating Tammany Hall. I figure it must be Pascoli put them onto it.”
“Tell me about Pascoli,” Miss Genevieve requested. “You were talking about him before, Mrs. Fletcher, but I didn’t catch exactly how he came into the business.”
Daisy explained that Pascoli was responsible for Carmody’s presence in the Flatiron Building. “And he pointed out to Mr. Rosenblatt the possibility that the murder had some connection to Washington or New York politicians.”
“Which I reported to Mr. Hoover, of course,” Lambert
put in eagerly. “I mean, I had to report to him anyway because of Mrs. Fletcher being in trouble, but he wouldn’t have sent another agent just because of that.
So between the newspapers and Agent Whitaker, I don’t think you need to worry that the Tammany Hall side of things will be dropped without a thorough investigation, Miss Genevieve. ”
“Possibly not,” said Miss Genevieve, displeased, “but if you want something done well, you should do it yourself.”
“That’s what Papa always said,” Miss Cabot ventured, “though he applied it only to men. He never let me do anything except fine needlework. But I have learned to make good coffee, haven’t I, sister?”
“Excellent, sister.”
“Would you care for a cup, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Yes, please. Heavens, it’s past time for elevenses already. I had no idea it was so late.”
“Elevenses?” Miss Genevieve enquired.
“In England we lunch later than you seem to here, so a cup of tea or coffee and a biscuit is welcome at about eleven o’clock.”
“What a good idea. Ernestine and I usually take a cup of coffee a little earlier, but this has been such an interesting morning, I quite forgot.”
“I did not, sister,” said Miss Cabot reproachfully, “but I was forever being hushed. Besides, we don’t have enough cups for everyone who was here this morning, and they did keep popping in and out so. I think we have some macaroons in the cookie jar.”
Biscuit tin, Daisy translated. “Perfect,” she said.
Miss Cabot trotted off to her tiny kitchen, to return a few minutes later with coffee pot, cups and saucers, and a
plate of cookies. The macaroons were a disappointment to Daisy, since they turned out to be coconut biscuits, not her favourite almond meringue confections—something lost in translation.
Her lack of enthusiasm went unnoticed as Lambert ate all but the last one, which he had manners enough to leave.
The coffee was good, though. Daisy complimented Miss Cabot, who blushed and beamed.
“I do try to be useful to dear Genevieve,” she said with earnest modesty.
“Couldn’t get on without you,” her sister said gruffly.
Her beam still brighter, Miss Cabot refilled cups and returned to her eternal knitting.
Daisy finished her coffee and said, “I really must take myself and Mr. Lambert off now and not take up any more of your time. It was most frightfully kind of you to insist on the sergeant coming up here instead of dragging me off to police headquarters, which sounds simply beastly.”
“It’s a grim place,” Miss Genevieve said. “But I promise you, you did me a favour by agreeing to come. You must have realized that curiosity is my besetting sin.”
“Mine too,” Daisy admitted with a chuckle.
“So you will understand, I feel sure, if I ask you to keep me current with what’s going on in the investigation.”
“You shall know all that I know. But once Alec arrives, I’m not likely to get a chance to find out any more.”
“You’re involved, though, as I cannot pretend to be. I could wish that Bender didn’t know you’re able to identify the killer.”
“Gosh, you don’t think … But he’s in the hands of the police.”
“Who can’t stop him seeing his lawyer, and can’t stop
his lawyer leaving their premises, and can’t stop him passing information to anyone he chooses.”
“Gosh!” said Daisy, a cold frisson shuddering down her spine.
“Don’t worry,” said Lambert manfully, “I won’t stir from your side till Mr. Fletcher gets here.”
Miss Genevieve gave him a disparaging look and said, “Pah!”
Which didn’t make Daisy feel any safer.