“Mr. Thorwald,” Daisy said quickly, “Mr. Lambert knows far too much about my husband’s doings to be an imposter. And Mr. Lambert, Mr. Thorwald is an altogether respectable and knowledgeable editor who has never been anything but extremely helpful to me. Please, let’s concentrate on catching the murderer. It was an unbelievable stroke of luck to see him tonight, though it’s a pity we weren’t a couple of minutes later, when he’d already entered the hotel.”
“But what persuades you to suppose … ?” began Thorwald.
“Gee whiz, Mrs. Fletcher,” Lambert overrode him, “we don’t have any reason to believe it was the same guy.”
“Then why did you run after him?”
Lambert looked sheepish. “I guess when you yelled ‘stop him’ I just reacted without thinking. The chances of his being the guy we’re after are, oh, about one in however many men in New York wear derbys.”
“Bosh! What was he doing sneaking down a back alley behind the very hotel where his victim had been staying? And why did he run away?”
“If I was taking a short-cut down a dark alley and someone yelled, ‘It’s him, stop him,’ I guess I’d run.”
Mr. Thorwald stopped spooning in soup for long enough to nod agreement.
“It’s too much of a coincidence,” Daisy argued. “I’m sure it was William.”
Two pairs of bewildered eyes blinked at her from behind their glass shields.
“William?” Lambert queried uncertainly.
“I’ll tell you about William in a minute. Let me eat my soup before it’s stone cold.”
After her late lunch, Daisy had eaten nothing at tea. She was hungry, and the cream of mushroom soup quickly disappeared. Then, careful to conceal her source, she told them what little she had learnt about the quarrel between Otis Carmody and the man he addressed as Willie.
“Since he talked about family loyalty,” she pointed out, “he’s obviously a relative.”
“A reasonable deduction,” Lambert conceded.
“And they were children together. I think they were cousins. If they had been brothers, William would have the same surname as Otis, in which case the hotel people would have noticed and told the police.”
“How do you know they didn’t?” Lambert asked sceptically.
“I can’t be certain, of course. I’m betting, though, that at least one of my sources of information would have found out and told me. About the surnames being the same, I mean, if not whether the police have been notified.”
“My dear young lady,” Thorwald interjected, “your rationale presupposes that the person in question is a resident of the Hotel Chelsea.”
“If he isn’t,” said Daisy, “then what was he doing skulkingaround in the alley by the service entrance?”
The men pondered this question while the waiter served the fish course.
“Circular reasoning!” said Lambert, triumphant.
Daisy looked back on her chain of deductions and was forced to admit he had a point. She must be tired. “Well, maybe. But don’t you think it’s all rather fishy?”
“Mmmm,” said Thorwald happily, and delved into his halibut.
Giving up for the present, Daisy turned her attention to hersole bonne femme.It was excellent.
While she ate, she considered her two companions. Thorwald, she suspected, had much rather not think about the murder at all. Even the memory of his heroic gesture was not enough to make the “atrocious incident” a desirable subject for contemplation. Lambert, on the other hand, was quite willing to discuss the case. Unfortunately, his only contributions so far had been to shoot down her theories. He had yet to make any useful suggestions of his own.
She resolved to drop the topic for this evening. Tomorrow morning she’d see what further information Kevin could give her, and then she would take all she knew to Miss Genevieve, who would certainly have her own ideas to add to the seething pot.
When Daisy went down in search of breakfast, Kevin was on duty, and more or less at leisure. The majority of the hotel’s guests did not put in an appearance so early, he explained.La vie bohémienneallowed, indeed demanded, that they rise at noon or later. “Time is Money” was not aphrase which dominated them as it did the world of American business.
When Daisy said she’d like to ask Kevin one or two questions, he was delighted. He stopped the lift between the sixth and fifth floors so that they could talk in peace.
“I don’t mind telling you stuff,” he said. “Them bulls, now, I wouldn’t give ‘em the time o’ day. Not after they come round our place last night and scared me mam and bullied Bridey. Bulls!” he exclaimed in disgust. “I told ’em I got better things to think about than listening to the flapdoodle people talk in the elevator, and up and down all day, I got no time for hotel gossip. Ha!” He grinned.
