“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 byhorror,” 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.”
