“But Carmody wouldn’t have been acquainted with the right kind of editor,” Daisy went on, “only Pitt didn’t believe him and thought he was just being obnoxious when he refused to help. It hardly seems an adequate motive for murder, does it?”
“There’s plenty of passion goes into the writing of a novel,” Miss Genevieve observed. “Still, in my opinion, Carmody’s demise is far more likely to have something to do with his wife. A pretty enough creature, of the fluttery butterfly sort which seems to appeal to many men and generally causes trouble of some kind.”
“Oh dear!”
“You mentioned that she had left him,” Daisy prompted.
“Yes, since they arrived in New York. She went off with another man.”
“Oh dear!”
“The grass was greener, if you ask me. I did not speakto him, but he looked like a prosperous business-man of the more vulgar variety. Freelance writing is an uncertain profession, as you are aware, my dear Mrs. Fletcher, and rarely as remunerative as one might wish.”
“Alas,” said Miss Cabot for a change.
“If money was Mrs. Carmody’s reason for leaving her husband,” said Daisy, “what do you suppose was Mr. Bender’s reason for taking up with her? Did he genuinely fall in love with her?”
“I should call it infatuation, rather,” Miss Genevieve said tartly, “though, to be fair, I may be mistaken. I have not, after all, spoken to him.”
“Genevieve isnevermistaken as to character once she has spoken to a person,” put in Miss Cabot.
“However, infatuation may be as powerful a motive force as true love.”
“Then if Bender wanted to marry Mrs. Carmody,” Daisy suggested, “and her husband stood in the way …”
“I dare say he might hire someone to put him out of the way. I doubt he would perform the dreadful deed himself.”
Daisy remembered the horrified face of the man who had run off down the Flatiron stairs. She simply could not believe that a hired assassin would be so distraught at the result of carrying out his assignment. “Would Bender be so inefficient as to hire a man who couldn’t shoot straight?” she wondered. “The bullet didn’t kill Carmody, just wounded him in the leg.”
“True,” Miss Genevieve mused. “The papers say it was the fall that killed him, and the gunman could not have guaranteed that he would fall down the elevator shaft rather than backwards onto the floor.”
“He might not have fallen at all. He was holding ontothe gate when he was shot. If he had just kept his hold he would have been all right.”
“Oh dear!”
“Maybe the shot wasn’t intended to kill,” Daisy speculated. “Couldn’t it have been intended just to frighten him? As a threat of what might happen if he didn’t cooperate in obtaining a divorce?”
Miss Genevieve frowned. “Possibly. Otis Carmody did not strike me as a man easily frightened.”
“On the contrary, but Bender might not have realized that. Not everyone has your gift for understanding character, Miss Genevieve.”
“No gift, but an interest in people coupled with long experience of every variety of human being, down to the lowest dregs of society.”
“Oh dear!”
“The life wouldnothave suited you, sister. To resume, Mrs. Carmody, however self-centred, must certainly have known her husband was not to be cowed. His work positively invited threats of retaliation. People are understandably averse to having their dirty linen washed in the headlines, and he offended powerful men.”
“In some ways, he was an admirable man, wasn’t he?” Daisy acknowledged. “Without courageous reporters like him dragging corruption into the daylight, it would self-perpetuate forever.”
“A necessary breed, as I said, which doesn’t make Carmody any more likable.”
Daisy sighed. “No, but it does make me think I’m on altogether the wrong track. Rather than a personal motive, it seems far more likely that one of the people he was investigating here in New York meant to warn him off, andit went wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be killed at all.”
“Tammany won’t be happy,” said Miss Genevieve with glee. “Didn’t I say they were mixed up in it? A homicide is much harder to sweep under the carpet than mere assault. But no doubt the police will manage it, unless someone keeps on their tail. I’m going downstairs.” Both hands on the table, she levered herself to her feet and reached for her cane.
“Oh, sister,” wailed Miss Cabot, “youcan’t fight City Hall singlehanded!”
“Maybe not, but City Hall and Tammany Hall are not quite synonymous, and there’s an election coming up. What’s more, I haven’t completely lost touch with everyone I used to know. Come along, Ernestine.”
