“I’m a bit vague about the geography,” Daisy said, “but isn’t Brooklyn on an island? He’ll have to go back to the city to get anywhere.”
“There he goes,” said Lambert, and crouched to untie and retie a shoelace.
“Keep back in the shadows, Daisy,” Alec said sharply. “With any luck, he’ll think he’s lost us.”
“Everybody off!” The official reached them. “Everybody off, sir. You wanna go back to the city, you gotta get off and get on again. Or there’s streetcars and cabs outside if you wanna go anyplace else.”
“Cabs!” Alec looked worried.
“Where can he go?” Daisy said. “He has to get back to the city.”
“There are probably other ways. Other tunnels, bridges, ferries perhaps. Come on. Pitt’s gone through the gate.”
Pitt was lurking on the pavement between the row of taxicabs and a hoarding advertising five-cent cigars. He spotted them the instant they stepped through the gate. He jumped into the nearest taxi, which immediately pulled out of the row and turned towards the yard exit.
Daisy, Alec, and Lambert piled into another cab. “Police!” snapped Alec. “Follow that cab! Double your fare if you keep it in sight.”
“Sure thing, boss!” said the young driver eagerly, starting the meter running with one hand as he wheeled away from the kerb with the other. “You want I should catch up to him? You gonna make a pinch?”
“No, we just need to know where he’s going.”
“O.K. Say, you a limey?”
“Yes, I’m a limey cop.”
“I ain’t got nuttin against limeys.”
“I’m glad to hear it. But my colleague here is American, a federal agent.”
The driver looked back with an ominous frown. “Geez, you Treasury?”
“U.S. Department of Justice, Investigation Bureau,” intoned Lambert.
“Oh, that’s O.K. Say, you Feds got lady cops now? Or is it the limeys got lady cops?”
“I’m a limey,” Daisy told him, “but I’m a witness, not a cop.”
“Tough! Hey, look, that crook’s heading outta town, that you’re tailing. He better be going someplace I can get a fare back.”
“We’re paying double,” Alec reminded him, “if you don’t lose him.”
The driver concentrated on driving.
The countryside was not very different from parts of England, with trees and fields, occasional villages, and parkland with glimpses of mansions. The smaller houses were mostly weatherboarded—or clapboard, as Daisy had learned to call it in Connecticut—instead of brick or half timbered. Churches were also clapboard, whitewashed, with funny little pointed steeples hung with bells. Many trees were already leafless, but here and there a maple still blazed with a scarlet rarely seen in English woods, brilliant in the autumnal sunshine.
All very pretty, but where on earth was Pitt going? “I didn’t realize Brooklyn was on such a big island,” said Daisy. “Or is it Bronx that’s on an island?”
“Nah, this here’s Long Island. Hunnert and twenny miles end to end. Geez, I hope your crook ain’t going all the way to the Hamptons!”
“If the Hamptons are at the other end of the island, so do I! Alec, do you think Pitt has friends somewhere here, who he hopes will hide him? I can’t imagine why else he’s running all over the country.”
“Maybe.” Alec glanced at the ticking taximeter. “We can’t go on chasing him forever. When he stops, Lambert and I had better approach him and see if we can’t persuade him to go back to New York with us, while you, Daisy, go on to find a telephone to report his whereabouts.”
“But, darling …”
“Hey, boss, he’s turning off the highway. You figure he’s trying to shake us?”
“Let’s hope he’s nearing his destination.”
