Miss Cabot was thrilled. “Now that you’re here, Chief Inspector,” she declared, “this terrible business will be cleared up in no time.”
“I’m afraid not, ma’am. I have no access to the police investigation.”
“I explained all that, sister!”
“Oh dear! Well, at least dear Mrs. Fletcher will be quite safe now.”
“I intend to make sure of that, ma’am, though I confess I find it difficult to believe that complete strangers are out after her blood!”
“You do not know America, Mr. Fletcher,” said Miss Genevieve grimly.
“As I have frequently been reminded these past few days,” Alec admitted with a smile.
Miss Genevieve grinned. “All too frequently, I dare say. Do you want me to see what strings I can pull to let you involve yourself in the official investigation?”
“Great Scott, ma’am, no thank you! I’m only afraid Whitaker, the agent from Washington, is going to drag me in further than I want to go. Mr. Hoover, the heir apparent of the Bureau of Investigation, instructed him to make sure I have every facility.”
“This Hoover, now, tell me about him. A relative of Herbert Hoover, the Secretary of Commerce?”
“I think not. J. Edgar Hoover’s an odd little man. Literally little: to compensate, he wears shoe lifts and has his desk set on a platform. He’s a bully, I’m afraid, and a bit of a bounder, but I believe he’s sincere, obsessive even, in his intention of setting up an incorruptible national police force. Sincere and probably competent.”
“Incorruptible, ha!” snorted Miss Genevieve. “That I’ll believe when I see it with my own eyes, and even then … But to return to Otis Carmody’s death, let me impart what I have learned from young Rosenblatt. Add it to what Mrs. Fletcher has undoubtedly told you, and I should value your opinion of the case.”
As she spoke, a man turned away from the reception desk and headed for the main door at a rapid stride. He carried a shabby cardboard suitcase in one hand, his hat in the other.
A bowler hat—“Gosh!” said Daisy, her glance flying to his face as he hurried past. The features were nondescript, yet recognizable. “Gosh, it’s him! It’s the man in the bowler hat.” She jumped up. “Alec …”
Kevin dashed up. “Mrs. Fletcher, that guy’s Mr. Pitt, that you asked about. He came down the stairs or I’da tol’ you sooner. He just checked out.”
Wilbur Pitt, of course! That face was memorable because it was a blurred replica of Carmody’s distinctive looks. His clothes explained the discrepancy between Daisy’s and Lambert’s description to Gilligan: he wore a thigh-length overcoat which looked less like a fashionable motoring coat than something cut down from an ancient frock coat.
He was out on the pavement by now. Daisy grabbed Alec’s arm. “Darling, we’ve got to stop him. Come along, quick. You, too, Mr. Lambert.”
“Who, me?”
“But Whitaker’s coming, Daisy,” Alec expostulated, even as her urgency made him rise to his feet, “and anyway, you simply can’t detain a stranger going about his lawful business!”
“You don’t understand, he’s the man in the bowler hat.” She practically dragged him towards the door. “The man on the stairs. At least we must follow him so we can tell the police where to find him. We can’t just let him get away. Now I know the man in the bowler hat is Carmody’s cousin, I’m absolutely positive he’s the murderer!”
17
Daisy rushed out to the street, followed by Alec, still remonstrating, and Lambert, bleating plaintively.
“We can’t just let him get away,” she repeated, stepping back up onto the doorstep to scan the scene. “Maybe it is meddling, but by the time we find a policeman and persuade him … Balfour, which way did he go, the man who just came out?”
“That way, Mrs. Fletcher, ma’am.” The doorman pointed towards Seventh Avenue.
“Oh yes, thanks, I see him.” Of the few bowler hats among the swarms of soft felts moving in every direction, only one was heading east. “Come on, you two.”
To her relief, Alec came. “But only to follow him, Daisy,” he insisted, jamming his own grey felt on his head. “You are absolutely not on any account to approach him! Promise, or we’ll stop right now.”
“Right-oh, I promise, darling. Hurry!”
“Don’t get too close,” Lambert warned. He too had scooped up his hat as they deserted the Cabots. As theopportunity for doing his cloak-and-dagger stuff dawned on him, he pulled it down over his eyebrows and went on buoyantly, “That’s the first rule of tailing a suspect.”
A tram rattled past them to the stop near the corner. Pitt darted towards it and disappeared.
“Oh blast!” said Daisy, starting to run.
