On the walls, whose white paint somewhat relieved the Victorian gloom, hung watercolours of little girls with kittens and little boys with puppies, alternating with framed newspaper cuttings. Daisy would have liked to examine the latter, but the Misses Cabot awaited her, and tea was laid out on a small, lace-draped table by a lace-draped window.
“Tea!” she exclaimed. “You cannot imagine how I long for a cup.”
“Oh dear!” clucked Miss Cabot. “You must drink as much as you like, Mrs. Fletcher. I can easily make more.”
“Do tell me what happened at the Flatiron Building,” Miss Genevieve requested eagerly.
In the course of drinking the pot dry, Daisy described the events she had witnessed. She was careful not to pass on any speculation. The police would have a right to be unhappy if she revealed their ideas on the identity of the murderer, though they had had no business to discuss it in front of her.
But, in finishing, she did say, “I gather Mr. Carmody had written articles which earned him the enmity of people in high places in Washington. And that he was well on the way to doing the same in New York.”
“I have read his Washington articles,” said Miss Genevieve, eyes sparkling. “They were hard-hitting, all right. They have led to at least one official hearing, into Colonel Forbes, Director of the Veterans’ Bureau, who was selling surplus government material for his own profit. I wonder if Forbes hired a hoodlum to rub Carmody out.”
“The man I saw running away didn’t look like …” Daisy started to protest, but Miss Genevieve wasn’t listening.
“No, more likely the Tammany bosses sent one of their local thugs to stop his investigation before they got hurt.And since both the police and the District Attorney’s Office are firmly under Tammany’s thumb, they’ll get away with it.”
Miss Cabot continued the running refrain which had punctuated Daisy’s story: “Oh dear!”
“Not necessarily,” said Daisy. “I understand a federal agent will be involved.”
“The Feds stationed in New York are all in Tammany’s pockets,” declared Miss Genevieve cynically.
“A man is coming from Washington.”
“Indeed! Now how did that come about, I wonder?” Her penetrating gaze fixed Daisy, who was immediately certain she looked guilty. She had no intention of revealing that J. Edgar Hoover had sent an agent to take care of her.
However, Miss Genevieve forbore to probe. “That will put a cat among the pigeons, and no mistake!” she went on. “So close to the election, they can’t afford to be caught hiding evidence. It would be worse than letting Carmody publish, and almost as bad as being proved to have hired an assassin!”
“Oh dear!”
“You don’t think there might have been a more personal motive for the attack on Carmody?” Daisy ventured. “I don’t know anything about his private life.”
“He was married,” revealed Miss Genevieve consideringly. “His wife came with him from Washington.”
“Oh dear, the poor woman!”
“But she left him, as you know very well, sister.”
“Only think how guilty she will feel, sister, to have left him in his hour of need!”
“She can hardly have foreseen that he was to be murdered,sister. Unless,” Miss Genevieve mused, “she was responsible for his death.”
“Oh dear!”
Married? Then the woman Daisy had heard must have been Mrs. Carmody. Did the fact reinforce or destroy Sergeant Gilligan’s pet theory?
“There was also the man he quarrelled with in the lobby the other day,” continued Miss Genevieve. “A Mr. Pitt, a fellow resident and fellow writer. He has written a novel, poor man. I had noticed them together previously.”
“What did they quarrel about?” Daisy asked.
“That I cannot tell you, alas. Mr. Pitt spoke quite quietly, and they were at some distance from us, in that area between the lobby and the registration desk. Mr. Carmody’s voice was not lowered, however. He repeated several times, in different ways, that he could do nothing for him. In the end, Mr. Pitt raised his voice and called him a …”
“Sister!”
“A rude name. Several, in fact. He continued the abuse as Carmody pushed past him, heading for the street.”
“What did Mr. Pitt do then?” Daisy wanted to know.
