“Rats!” he said. “What’s the use of chasing a guy without you can see him?”
“I could see a running figure,” Lambert protested. “If I’d caught up with him …”
“Later!” Rosenblatt snapped. “Go on, Mrs. Fletcher.”
There was not much more to tell. She had urged ringing up the police. Lambert had wanted to call his superiors in Washington, but Daisy had insisted on Mr. Thorwald notifying the local police first.
For the first time, Rosenblatt and Gilligan eyed her with something amounting almost to approval. It did not last long.
“I feel I ought to warn you,” she said, “that as Mr. Lambert has reported to Mr. Hoover, and my husband is working with Mr. Hoover, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he—my husband—will shortly turn up in New York.”
“Rats!” groaned Gilligan.
“I’m sure we’ll be glad of any tips Scotland Yard has to offer,” Rosenblatt said sourly. “Now, what’s all this about you overhearing Carmody at your hotel? Where are you staying?”
“The Hotel Chelsea. It’s …”
“Full of bohemians.” The sergeant did not appear thrilled by the prospect of having to interview the Chelsea’s residents.
Daisy told them of the sounds of altercation she had heard through the walls. “The first time it was just one other man, I’m pretty sure. The second time there was a woman and another man.”
Gilligan brightened. “So there’s a dame involved! That’s the answer, you betcha.”
“But you didn’t hear what they were saying?” Rosenblatt asked.
“Not most of it. Then I went out onto the balcony for a breath of air. Carmody’s window was open.”
Once again Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—Blast! Daisy had been trying so hard not to think of them like that. If she wasn’t careful she would address them as Hamlet’s friends. They might not recognize the reference, but it would not raise their low opinion of her wits—RosenblattandGilliganleaned towards her.
“I heard the woman call him by a rude name, and she said she would not return to him if he had a million dollars. And he said that if he made a million dollars, she still wouldn’t squeeze one …” Daisy hesitated. “I think she said ‘red cent.’”
“That just means a penny,” Lambert explained.
“He said she wouldn’t squeeze one out of him.”
“Blackmail!” cried Gilligan. “Say, listen, this is how I figure it. This dame is Carmody’s frail, and she’s gotten the goods on him. She knows sumpin he done that if she told the right people, they could put pressure on him to stopwriting about them, and then kablooey goes his career. And they break up, see, and she finds this other guy and tells him, and they put on the screws.”
Rosenblatt frowned. “Could be, but a blackmailer doesn’t usually kill his victim. It’s the other way around.”
Gilligan was only momentarily taken aback. “O.K., so maybe it is the other way around.” He turned to Daisy. “You sure it was Carmody said that? About not a red cent?”
“Pretty sure. I heard him speak later, in the elevator and then down in the lobby. But there was some traffic noise, a tram—streetcar—going past.”
“So it coulda been the other guy. Carmody finds out sumpin about him. That’s his business, after all, digging up the dirt. Whatever it is, he figures it’s worth more to keep quiet than to sell it to the noospapers, so he puts the screws on this guy. And the dame’s this guy’s wife and she finds out and she leaves him, so that’s another count against Carmody!”
“But she left with the other man,” Daisy protested. “I saw them going down in the elevator together.” Then she recalled that while she had assumed the pair she saw had been in the room next door, she had no proof. The lift had stopped at her floor, but perhaps the woman in it had come from a higher floor.
They had been standing much closer together than strangers would, though. Daisy was sure enough of her guess, and reluctant enough to admit that it was a guess, to let her statement stand.
“So the dame was talking to Carmody,” Gilligan reasoned. “She just found out he was a dirty blackmailing skunk, and she left with this other guy he was blackmailing.It was him talking next, refusing to pay up. Now we just gotta find this dame, and she’ll lead us to the guy, and there’s our murderer.”
“Could be,” Rosenblatt said with more enthusiasm. “In which case, there’s no federal angle.”
“So sonny boy here can run along home,” said Gilligan with a triumphant glare at Lambert.
“I still have to keep an eye on Mrs. Fletcher,” Lambert said stubbornly. “Besides, Mr. Hoover’s sending another agent to deal with the case. He’s afraid our men up here may have gotten too pally with Tammany Hall.”
Rosenblatt and Gilligan exchanged a foreboding look. Then Gilligan scowled.
