“Oh dear, oh dear!”
“Miss Genevieve, you needn’t worry about Tammany Hall having things all their own way,” Daisy intervened. “Remember, I told you the Justice Department is sending an agent.”
“My dear Mrs. Fletcher, you can only have learned that from the police. A few of them are cunning enough to talk as if it were a done deed in order to mislead anyone who might think of calling in the feds. I shall not take it as fact until I see the agent with my own eyes.”
“Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher, sister,” murmured Miss Cabot, “ofScotland Yard!”
“Of course, how clever of you, sister.”
Miss Cabot blushed, beaming. “I just wondered, sister, whether perhaps …”
“Mr. Fletcher must have told Mrs. Fletcher an agent was being sent from Washington.”
“Dare we hope, Mrs. Fletcher,” said Miss Cabot hopefully,“that Mr. Fletcher will rush to your side? I should so like to meet a Scotland Yard detective.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, he’s taking a train this afternoon. I’ll be happy to introduce him to you.”
“Oh, sister!”
“We shall naturally be delighted to receive Mr. Fletcher,” said Miss Genevieve, “but at this moment, I’m going down to the lobby to be sure of catching the New York detectives.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Daisy.
Lambert was seated in the lobby. Anyone but Daisy would have assumed he was reading theNew York Times,but she knew he was just hiding behind it to keep an anxious eye on the exit in case she tried to evade him. He visibly relaxed when she appeared.
As Miss Genevieve stumped past him on her way to her favourite seat, she observed loudly, “Has that young man no business to attend to?”
Blushing, the federal agent shrank behind his newspaper.
Miss Cabot had brought her knitting, one of a pair of mittens, and while they awaited events she explained to Daisy how she created the snowflake pattern. Daisy hoped she looked as if she were listening. Actually, she was recalling the reasons Lambert had given why the police might suspect her of shooting Carmody. Now that her second meeting with Sergeant Gilligan was surely imminent, her nerves were twitching. She was quite glad to have the redoubtable Miss Genevieve at her side.
They did not have long to wait. Gilligan arrived, followed through the swinging doors by his retinue, Detective O’Rourke and the large plainclothesman, whose name Daisy thought was Larssen.
Gilligan marched straight towards the reception desk, but O’Rourke scanned the lobby, saw Daisy, and tapped the sergeant on the shoulder. “There’s the dame we want, Sergeant,” Daisy heard him say.
“Thelady, O’Rourke, the lady!” Gilligan snapped. “Let’s remember the lady’s husband is one of the higher-ups ‘over there.’” He advanced on Daisy with a would-be ingratiating smile. Someone must have given him an exaggerated idea of Alec’s importance. “Good morning, ma’am.”
Before Daisy could respond, Miss Genevieve put her oar in: “So you made sergeant at last, Gilligan!”
Gilligan swung towards her, his expression changing to one of dismay amounting almost to alarm. “Miss Cabot? Rats!” he muttered.
“Miss Genevieve, if you please. My sister is Miss Cabot.” She waved regally.
“Delighted, I’m sure,” twittered Miss Cabot.
“Don’t tell me they’ve putyouin charge of the investigation into Otis Carmody’s death?”
The sergeant bridled but sounded resigned. “Yes, ma’am. At least, the D.A.’s Office is on the case, too.”
“And the Justice Department, I hear.”
“That isn’t in the papers!” Gilligan scowled at Daisy.
“Not yet,” said Miss Genevieve pointedly, “but I’m still in the business, you know. I keep my ear to the ground. I hear things.”
“Rats!”
Miss Genevieve’s smile made Daisy think of a Cheshire cat with stolen cream on its whiskers. “I’m not on the crime beat any longer, to be sure. I have noobligationto turn over what I find out to an editor.”
