“I heard him. Never caught sight of him, actually. I can’t see much without my glasses. Where are they?” He peered around myopically. “And where’s my automatic?”
“Automatic?” The two clerks looked at each other and backed away. The typist, who had recovered enough to listen to Daisy’s exchange with the lift man, squealed again and hid behind them.
Knowing the gun was safely out of reach for the moment, Daisy looked around for the horn-rimmed specs. They were dangling by one earpiece through the gate of the next lift. Gingerly she retrieved them and, holding them, turned to Lambert. He blinked at her. At the moment he didn’t look very dangerous.
“What were you doing, waving a gun around?” she asked severely.
“Waving a gun around?” squeaked the typist.
“I can explain. But not here,” Lambert added, waving at the spectators, three of whom melted away while the fourth, the lift man, was spectating his lift in a puzzled way. “What’s going on? Gee whiz, please give me my glasses,” Lambert pleaded. “Where’s my automatic?”
Daisy handed over the glasses. “Eighteen stories down, at the bottom of the stairwell.”
This news perked Mr. Thorwald up no end. “Who are you?” he demanded belligerently. “What were you doing pursuing Mrs. Fletcher with an automatic pistol? Did you shoot that unfortunate person?”
“I don’t see no body,” interrupted the lift man.
“You’ll have to take the lift—elevator—down a bit,” said Daisy.
“There really is a body?” Lambert asked. “A man was shot? And fell down the shaft?”
Daisy exchanged a look with Thorwald. They both nodded solemnly. “Yes,” she said, “and if you didn’t shoot him, that other man did, and he’s getting away! We must telephone the police at once.”
Lambert started towards the nearest office suite. “I’ll find a phone.”
Thorwald grabbed his arm. “Oh no you don’t, my fine fellow. I shall not allow you also to elude the authorities! We’ll go to my office.”
“I’m a federal agent,” Lambert snapped, reaching for his inside breast pocket, “and you, sir, had better stop interfering with me in the course of my duty! I must call Washington.”
Daisy and Thorwald gaped at him in shared disbelief. Whether he was going to pull an identification card or a second gun from his pocket remained to be seen, for the double clang of two lift gates made them all swing round.
The lift started down.
A moment later, Carmody hove once more into view. He still looked very dead. When he reached floor level, the lift stopped.
“Gawd!” gulped the federal agent.
Daisy was not much happier with the sight. Nor, apparently, was Thorwald. As one they all three turned away, only to turn back as the lift again clanked into motion.
It rose until the upper half of the inner gate was visible, then came to a halt. The inner gate opened.
“Hey,” said the lift man irritably, “don’ jist stand therestarin’. Open up and help me outta here. Gotta see me that stiff.”
Daisy had prevailed—ringing up the New York police had taken precedence over calling Washington, and in fact Lambert seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for reporting to his superiors. The local beat patrolman was standing guard over the elevator and the body. Detectives were on their way, and the D.A. had been notified.
“D.A.?” queried Daisy, as Mr. Thorwald abstracted a bottle, soda water siphon, and two glasses from a desk drawer.
“District Attorney,” Lambert explained. “He’s in charge of prosecution, so his office oversees the collection of evidence in major cases, such as homicide.”
Mr. Thorwald pushed two glasses of gently fizzling pale amber liquid across the desk. Then he up-ended the bottle and swigged directly from the neck. Recent events seemed to have deprived him of both speech and his usual courtly manners.
Mindful of a recent occasion when imbibing spirits on an empty stomach had knocked her for six, Daisy sipped cautiously. She had never much liked whisky, but this was a step below any Scotch she had ever tasted. Setting the glass down, she turned back to Lambert.
“So you’re a federal agent, you say! I suppose it must be true as the bobby accepted your credentials and gave you back your gun. But what exactly does that mean?”
“It … er …” Lambert hastily put down his already half-emptied glass as far away on the desktop as he could reach. “It means I’m an agent of the Investigation Bureau of theU.S. Department of Justice. We’re … er … responsible for enforcing federal law.”
“Such as Prohibition?” Daisy enquired with a touch of malice. “You don’t seem mad keen on enforcing that one.”
