Chapter 14
Balfour had not let the stranger enter the lobby, especially as he said he was a newspaperman and the manager had instructed that no reporters were to be admitted. Though he refused to give his name, the man also claimed to be a friend of Mrs. Fletcher’s.
“I don’t know any reporters in New York,” said Daisy.
“An obvious ruse,” Lambert declared in a superior voice, as they crossed the lobby towards the registration desk.
“It’s a pity Balfour couldn’t give a better description of him than that he was a white man and rather shabby. It was clever to ask him to leave a note, though. Presumably he didn’t sign it, but maybe the handwriting will tell the police something.”
“He’ll have disguised his writing, you betcha.”
“Well, then, maybe he’s left fingerprints. It’s difficult to get them off paper, but not impossible.”
“I’ll go ask Balfour if he took his gloves off.”
Lambert dashed off, and Daisy continued to the desk. As usual no one was there—for that very reason she had taken her room key with her when she went out—but she
could see two folded papers in the cubbyhole with her number.
She was tempted to slip through the gate at the side to retrieve them, rather than ring the bell and have to explain why the notes must be handled with care.
She doubted that the manager or the desk clerk, Kevin’s bêtes noires, had been apprised of her situation.
While she hesitated, Kevin’s lift came down. Her unorthodox protector saw her as soon as he stepped out into the passage to usher out his passengers. Abandoning them, he dashed to Daisy’s side.
“Geez, ma‘am, I’m mighty glad to see you. I been worrying. I shouldn’a let you go out to eat. You could’ve sent Stanley out to getcha sumpin, or I’da gone, for you.”
“Luigi gave us a very good meal.”
“Yeah, I tol’ you. But a guy came round asking for you when you was gone.”
“So Balfour said.”
“He did pretty good, Balfour. Got him to write you a note, like I tol’ him. I didn’t read it,” said Kevin virtuously. “There’s another one, too, a message from Mr. Fletcher, called in by Western Union. I’ll get ’em for you.” He swung open the gate in the counter.
“Hold the note by the edge, Kevin, in case the police can get dabs off it.”
“Dabs?”
“Oh, that’s English police slang for fingerprints.”
“Gotcha! Wish I’d’ve thought of that, though. I didn’t think to warn Balfour and Stanley. Betcha it’s got their fingerprints all over.”
“The guy kept his gloves on, anyway,” reported Lambert, joining Daisy, “and he used a hotel pad that the doorman keeps in his pocket.”
“Blast!” Daisy took the two papers from Kevin without bothering about how she held them. The first one she unfolded was the message from Alec. “Oh, drat and double drat! An important meeting this afternoon—he’s been delayed. He won’t get here till nearly nine o’clock.”
“Aw, punk!” Kevin sympathized, leaning on the counter.
“What does the other one say?” Lambert asked eagerly.
Heart in mouth, Daisy opened it. Her eye went at once to the flamboyant signature, and she gave a half-hysterical giggle.
“James Pascoli! You remember, the Town Talk editor. He wants to make sure the police aren’t giving me any trouble, and to see if I have any information I don’t mind giving him. All that fuss and bother for nothing!”
“You know the guy?” Kevin was once more disappointed. “Still, that don’t prove nuttin. He still could’ve been paid to croak you.”
“I hardly think so. Anyway, I’ll telephone him, and if he wants to meet, I won’t go out. He can come here, and we’ll talk in the lobby, and I’ll ask Miss Genevieve to join us.”
“And me,” said Lambert, sounding hurt.
“Of course, I take that for granted,” Daisy soothed him.
“Oughta be safe enough,” Kevin agreed, frowning, “but it still don’t prove there ain’t some other guy after you.”
He looked round at the sound of a door opening, and scurried through the gate and back to his elevator as the manager appeared.
The manager, a dour man, glared after him, then turned to Daisy. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
“No, thank you.” Daisy waved the messages at him. “Kevin kindly gave me these.”
“Not his job!”
“I dare say, but it was most helpful of him, and made it
unnecessary to disturb you.” With a nod of dismissal, she headed for Kevin’s elevator, Lambert close at her heels.
Daisy had a little lamb, she thought with a sigh.
Having promised her persistent lamb not to leave the hotel without him, and to keep him apprised of her whereabouts inside, Daisy went to her room.
She was fagged out after a morning of alarums and excursions and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, topped by a large lunch.
After a longing look at her bed, though, she went to the telephone and asked for Pascoli’s number.
Not that she had any particular desire to provide him with information for his news magazine, but she appreciated his concern.
More important, she wanted to ask him for news of Thorwald, and she hoped he might give her an unbiased opinion as to whether she was truly in danger.
Kevin and Lambert and even Miss Genevieve were all too keen for a little excitement for their judgment to be trusted.
Pascoli was not in his office. Daisy left a message for him to ring her back.
She sat on at the desk, chin in hands, wishing Alec was there with her.
However modern and independent one might be, it was comforting to have someone nearby who cared deeply what became of one.
Even if he ballyragged her for getting involved—as he was bound to, although it was not her fault—he would support her and defend her.
Home was such a frightfully long way away.
The thought of home brought the thought of her ten-year-old stepdaughter, Belinda. The poor child had been left with her Victorianly unbending grandmother while her father and her new mother jaunted off to America. Daisy had kept her promise to write often, but letters took a week
or longer. Bel must have felt quite deserted for the first few days, though she had expected to have to wait for the first letter. A gap now would make her feel even worse.
Writing a nice, cheerful letter would distract Daisy from her own woes, and Bel wouldn’t mind if she typed it. She rolled a sheet of hotel notepaper into the protesting typewriter.
She was nearing the bottom of a second page when the telephone bell rang. “Mrs. Fletcher?” said the switchboard girl. “I got a Mr. Pascoli on the line. You wanna talk to him or shall I tell him you’re out?”
One of Kevin’s cohort, no doubt. “Put him through, please,” Daisy said.
“Mrs. Fletcher, you O.K.?”
“Yes, thanks. It’s kind of you to ask.”
“We’ve all been concerned. Tell the truth, I’ve got Louella Shurkowski hanging over my shoulder right this minute. You remember Louella?”
“Certainly. Please give her my thanks. I wanted to ask you about Mr. Thorwald. He went to police headquarters?”
“Yeah. I guess he’s still there, but his lawyer was going to meet him there, so we’re not too worried. Not too worried. Say, listen, I’d like to have a word with you about the situation, only not on the phone. Too many ears, get me? Can we meet?”
“If you’d like to come here, to the hotel.”
“Sure. I can’t get away till around five.”
“Right-oh, I’ll meet you in the lobby a bit after five.” With my cohort, Daisy thought. “I hope you’ll bring news of Mr. Thorwald. Cheerio till then.”
“Uh … ? Oh, ciao,” said Pascoli.
Chow? Daisy puzzled over it for a minute before deciding that either Pascoli had misheard her, or it was the American pronunciation of cheerio.
Daisy finished the letter to Belinda, then handwrote a brief note to Mrs. Fletcher, who would undoubtedly object to a typed personal letter.
So would Daisy’s mother, to whom she next composed a note almost as brief.
The Dowager Lady Dalrymple would complain about its brevity but would be equally displeased if forced to wade through pages of Daisy’s handwriting.
Somewhat longer letters to her sister and Lucy, her former housemate, left her satisfied with having done her duty by all.
In none of her epistles had she mentioned the murder. She had managed almost to forget it herself, for over an hour.
Feeling rather an ass, she rang down to the switchboard and asked to be put through to Lambert’s room.
“I’m going downstairs,” she told him, “to see if they have any postage stamps at the desk and leave some letters to be posted, and then I’m going to pop in to see the Misses Cabot.
I don’t need an escort, but I promised to let you know. ”
“But what if they don’t have stamps?” Lambert said in alarm. “You mustn’t go out looking for a post office.”
“I’ll send Stanley.”
“Who?”
“The buttons. Bellhop.”
“O.K. I guess. I’ll meet you down below at the elevator.”
“It’s really not necessary,” Daisy protested, but he had rung off.
He was waiting for her, when she stepped out of Kevin’s lift. “I came down the stairs,” he panted, “to get here before you.”
Daisy sighed.
He accompanied her to the Cabots’, where Miss Cabot was much too tenderhearted to make him wait outside. Daisy told Miss Genevieve about Mr. Thorwald being hauled off to police headquarters.
“As long as he has his lawyer with him,” Miss Genevieve assured her, “he won’t come to any harm.”
Daisy wondered just what sort of harm her editor might come to if he had gone without his lawyer. The police in America seemed to be quite as dangerous as the criminals. She wasn’t sure whether to be more afraid of Gilligan or the suppositious assassin who might or might not be after her.
Miss Genevieve eagerly agreed to be with Daisy in the lobby when she met Pascoli. “Not that I believe you have anything to fear from him,” she added.
“Nor do I,” Daisy agreed.
“Better safe than sorry,” Lambert said firmly.
“Oh yes,” said Miss Cabot, “so very true!”