Chapter 17
Daisy rushed out to the street, followed by Alec, still remonstrating, and Lambert, bleating plaintively.
“We can’t just let him get away,” she repeated, stepping back up onto the doorstep to scan the scene. “Maybe it is meddling, but by the time we find a policeman and persuade him … Balfour, which way did he go, the man who just came out?”
“That way, Mrs. Fletcher, ma’am.” The doorman pointed towards Seventh Avenue.
“Oh yes, thanks, I see him.” Of the few bowler hats among the swarms of soft felts moving in every direction, only one was heading east. “Come on, you two.”
To her relief, Alec came. “But only to follow him, Daisy,” he insisted, jamming his own grey felt on his head. “You are absolutely not on any account to approach him! Promise, or we’ll stop right now.”
“Right-oh, I promise, darling. Hurry!”
“Don’t get too close,” Lambert warned. He too had scooped up his hat as they deserted the Cabots. As the
opportunity for doing his cloak-and-dagger stuff dawned on him, he pulled it down over his eyebrows and went on buoyantly, “That’s the first rule of tailing a suspect.”
A tram rattled past them to the stop near the corner. Pitt darted towards it and disappeared.
“Oh blast!” said Daisy, starting to run.
A bell clanged and the tram set off again.
“Lost him,” Alec observed hopefully.
“We’ll catch the next streetcar,” Lambert proposed.
“That’s no good,” Daisy objected. “He could get off anywhere. Maybe he’s going to the elevated railway on Sixth Avenue. If we run …”
“There he is!” exclaimed Lambert, pointing. “Over there, just stepping up onto the sidewalk. He only crossed the street. After him!”
A sudden rush of traffic held them up. Daisy was on tenterhooks, sure they would lose Pitt. Even on tiptoe, she could see no sign of him among the crowds on the opposite pavement. But when at last the policeman on point duty let them cross, Lambert swore he still saw their quarry ahead.
“Alec, can you … Oh, I see him. Just a glimpse between all the people. Where is everyone going at this time in the morning?” she demanded crossly, narrowly avoiding another pedestrian.
“Perhaps they’re all pursuing suspected murderers,” Alec suggested dryly. “You do realize, Daisy, that I have no authority whatsoever to arrest your man whatever crimes he may have committed.”
“I know. That’s why I asked Mr. Lambert to come.”
“Who, me? I can’t arrest him!”
“You could if he crossed into another state, couldn’t you? You said something about crossing state lines to escape the police being a federal offence.”
“Um, sort of,” Lambert said cautiously. “To escape prosecution, though, not just questioning. I think. Gilligan and Rosenblatt may want to grill Pitt, but we don’t know for sure that he’s committed an indictable offence.”
“I’m sure.” Daisy would have explained her deductions, but she needed her breath and her attention for the chase. At least, however unconvinced, Lambert and Alec were keeping pace as the bowler hat continued north on Seventh Avenue at a fast walk.
They crossed Twenty-sixth, Twenty-seventh, Twenty-ninth, and Thirtieth Streets.
Daisy spared a thought for the missing Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth and Twenty-eighth.
If they must have such a dull, though logical, system of naming streets, at least they ought to be consistent about it.
But as they neared Thirty-first, her guess as to Pitt’s aim turned into a certainty.
“He’s going to Pennsylvania Station!” she said. “He’s leaving New York. I bet he’s going home. All we have to do is get on the same train, and as soon as he gets to the next state you can arrest him.”
“I don’t have a warrant,” moaned Lambert. “All I’m supposed to be doing is looking after you, not arresting people.”
“Have you got your credentials on you?” Alec asked.
Lambert felt his inside breast pocket. “Ye-es.”
“Then you can at least request assistance from the local police, wherever we run him to ground, until you’ve consulted Whitaker, Washington, or the New York authorities. Come on, having come so far, we ought at least to try
to stand close enough to him in the ticket line to overhear his destination.”
“You are a sport, darling!” Daisy told him.
He gave her a rueful grin. “I must be mad.”
“That’s all right. You haven’t got Mr. Crane or the A.C. overlooking your every move here.”
“Thank heaven!” said Alec fervently.
They were crossing Thirty-first Street when Wilbur Pitt paused on the steps going up to the station and looked back. Daisy instinctively ducked her head.
She didn’t think he would recognize her.
This morning in the lobby he had marched straight ahead, intent on leaving the hotel, glancing neither to left nor right.
In the Flatiron Building, though he had turned his head her way when she called out to him to stop, he had appeared far too distraught to take in what he was seeing.
If they had passed each other in the hotel before she knew who he was, he might remember her, she supposed, but to catch sight of a fellow resident crossing a street not far from the hotel ought not to alarm him.
Still, it seemed better not to let him glimpse her face.
When she looked up again, he was gone.
“What if he already has a return ticket?” she exclaimed, hurrying her step. “He’ll go straight to the platform and we’ll never find him.”
Lambert broke into a run, dodging through the crowds approaching and leaving the station. He hurdled the steps and disappeared between two of the grandiose pillars.
“He’s hot on the trail,” said Alec.
“Yes, he seems to have decided the pleasure of the chase outweighs the terror of actually catching Pitt and having to do something about it.”
“Can’t we just leave him to it?”
“Alec!” Daisy tugged him onward.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m the only person who can identify him as the man who ran off down the stairs just after Carmody was shot. We told you, Lambert had his specs knocked off and couldn’t tell Pitt from Adam.”
Alec snorted. “Young whippersnapper. I wish I’d heard the story before I met your Mr. Thorwald.
I’d have liked to shake his hand.” He paused at the top of the steps, where Pitt had stopped before.
“You are absolutely certain of your identification, aren’t you?
A wild-goose chase would be bad enough, but great Scott, Daisy, the prospect of harassing a perfectly respectable citizen makes me shudder. ”
“I’m positive.” As they moved on into the immense, echoing spaces of the upper station, she guiltily confessed, “That is, I’m positive he’s the man on the stairs, and he’s more than likely the murderer, but it is remotely possible he’s just a frightened witness.”
“Remotely possible?” Alec sighed. “In that case, I shouldn’t dream of letting Lambert attempt an arrest. We’ll try to discover where Pitt is off to and notify your friend Rosencrantz.”
“My friend! He’s not as ghastly as Guildenstern, but only because he has better manners. Here comes Lambert. What’s up?”
“Pitt’s in the ticket line. There’s lots of people ahead of him but only a couple behind him so far, so I figured I’d better find you and put you wise.”
“Quite right,” Alec told him.
Lambert positively glowed. “I’ll go and get in line behind him now,” he said eagerly, turning back towards the
ticket office. “I’ll get three tickets to wherever he’s going.”
“Have you got enough money on you?” Daisy asked. “He may be going clear across the country.”
“I guess not,” Lambert admitted, crestfallen.
“Let’s first find out what his destination is,” said Alec. “Then we can decide what to do next.”
“O.K.”
“You should be the one to stand in line, darling. He might have seen either of us around the hotel and wonder what we’re doing close behind him.”
“Possibly, but there’s no earthly reason why Lambert shouldn’t be buying a railway ticket. He’s more likely to recognize the name of some obscure American city than I am.”
“I’ll go!” Lambert went.
“If you ask me,” Daisy said darkly, “you’re just trying to avoid getting any more involved than absolutely necessary.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Alec agreed, “though whether any of this is necessary in the absolute sense … No, don’t tell me again! I’m still with you, am I not?”
“Only because you don’t trust me out of your sight.”
“With good reason,” Alec pointed out dryly.
“Just think, darling, how simply spiffing it would be if Scotland Yard and I between us caught the murderer. Wouldn’t that be one in the eye for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!”
“When you put it like that, my love, how can I resist? Ah, here comes … Something’s gone wrong. Come on!”
Lambert was gesturing frantically at them. Beyond him, Daisy caught a glimpse of a bowler hat rapidly disappearing down one of the stairways to the lower level. Seeing he had their attention, Lambert turned and plunged after it.
Their pursuit was brought up short by a porter pulling a trolley laden with baggage across in front of them, followed by a massive woman with a nursemaid and three children.
The whole lot stopped right there for the porter to patiently assure the woman, “Sure, lady, I got the blue grip. Here, see? O.K.?”
“Not that one. The dark blue.”
Alec cut round in front of them. Daisy dashed the other way, just as one of the children dropped a ball. All three ran to retrieve it. The littlest toddled right into Daisy’s path. To save herself from falling over him, she clutched the nearest support—the biggest child’s shoulder.
“Mommy, she grabbed me!”
Alec was already at the top of the steps. No time for explanations. Daisy sped on, praying she would not hear a hue and cry of “Kidnapper!” raised behind her.