The little lady waved the knitting she was carrying, a beautifully patterned baby's jacket in pale yellow and white. The yellow and white yarn trailed behind her, Daisy noticed, back to the low table by the fire, on the far side of the lobby, where she had left her knitting bag.
“It's my sister,” she confided. “Oh dear, so
awkward,
but she does like to know.”
“Know what?” Daisy asked cautiously.
“Oh dear, I'm muddling it as usual. My sister, Genevieve, insists on meeting everyone who comes to stay at the hotel. Do say you will?”
She looked a little reproachful when Daisy laughed, but brightened when Daisy said, “I'd be glad to. May I know your name?”
“Oh dear, I ought to have introduced myself first thing! I am Miss Cabot, Ernestine CabotâBoston, you knowâonly a
very
junior branch.”
Why this obscure announcement should make Daisy think of fish she had no leisure to contemplate. Miss Cabot turned about, tangling her feet in her own yarn. She would have come to grief had not Kevin, playing truant from his lift, dashed over to prop her up.
“Happens reg'lar, once a week, like clockwork,” he murmured to Daisy.
Though no one else seemed to notice the minor imbroglio, the solitary young man must have been watching, for he also hurried to help. He stooped to unwind the wool, but Miss Cabot turned skittish.
“Oh dear ⦠no, please ⦠so kind, Mr. er-hm ⦔
“Lambert.”
“Mr ⦠. I'm afraid ⦠rather
indelicate
⦔
Daisy gathered that female assistance would be appreciated. She disentangled the black lisle stocking-clad ankles while Miss Cabot twittered a series of
oh dears
above her.
Mr. Lambert offered a hand to help Daisy up, with an oddly assessing look as though he were comparing her face with some inner ideal. Wondering whether she passed muster, Daisy thanked him with a nod and a smile.
“You're welcome, ma'am.” The words arrived with a whiff of Irish whiskey. Kevin's business was apparently a going concern, and not all teapots contained tea.
Daisy collected the yarn where it hung down from Miss Cabot's needles, intending to gather up the excess as she accompanied the old lady to meet her sister. The length of yarn rose a foot or two from the floor just as the impatient man from the lift strode past in his purposeful way. It caught him across the shins.
He barged on, oblivious. The knitting flew from Miss
Cabot's grasp and the knitting bag attached to the far end of the yarn flopped to the floor.
Lambert caught the man's sleeve. “Say, look here, wait a minute!”
“You know something about it?” He turned eagerly. Daisy could have sworn his long nose twitched. “You're willing to talk?”
His face bemused, Lambert blinked. “Talk? I can't see there's anything to talk about, buddy, except you might watch where you're going.”
“Watch ⦠?” It was his turn to look blank; then he followed Lambert's gesture to the yellow and white strands adorning his legs. Turning to Miss Cabot, he said sarcastically, “Ah, Madame Defarge strikes again.” His glance moved on to Daisy. “Another victim for Madame Guillotine, I see.”
His French pronunciation was rotten, Daisy noted, even as she wondered if the hackneyed reference to Dickens had any significance beyond its evident malice.
Miss Cabot bridled. “I'm sure I don't know what you can mean.”
“I don't suppose you do.” In an effort to disembarrass himself of the yarn, he stepped backwards. The wool clung to his tweeds. He bent down and snapped both strands. “Beware of entanglements with women, sonny,” he advised Lambert. “The only way out is a clean break.” And he strode on.
Lambert picked up the knitting, which had miraculously stayed on the needles. “Sorry, ma'am,” he said sheepishly, handing it to Miss Cabot. “Gee whiz, I guess there's not much you can do about a guy like that.”
“Oh dear, I'm afraid manners are not what they were,” agreed Miss Cabot.
Stooping again, Lambert retrieved the two loose ends of yarn. Since he obviously had not the least notion what to do with them, Daisy relieved him of them and proceeded at Miss Cabot's side, winding up the wool as they went.
Lambert moved ahead to pick up the knitting bag and replace it on the table. Any disposition to linger was firmly quashed by Miss Genevieve Cabot.
“Thank you, young man,” she said with a nod of unmistakable dismissal, and as he turned away, a trifle disconsolate, she added, “
Not
an interesting person.”
Mr. Lambert's ears reddened.
“Guillotined,” thought Daisy, hoping she was not to meet the same fate.
T
he armchair occupied by Miss Genevieve Cabot commanded a view of both the main entrance and the inner lobby leading to the lifts.
Commanded
was the appropriate word. Stout where Miss Cabot was softly plump, Miss Genevieve had a decisive air utterly at odds with her elder sister's dithers. At Daisy's approach, she remained seated, but she bowed and indicated the cane leaning against her chair as her excuse for not rising. Reason, perhaps, rather than excuse: she didn't look as if she was accustomed to make her excuses to anyone. Though her face had an invalidish pallor, there was nothing invalidish about her tone.
“Well, sister?”
“Oh dear, sister, I'm afraid I quite forgot to ask the young lady's name!”
“Mrs. Fletcher,” said Daisy, taking a seat on the sofa without waiting to be invited. She had been summoned, after all. “How do you do.”
“British,” observed Miss Genevieve, not with unalloyed approval.
Before Daisy could respond, a small boy in hotel livery
scurried up to themâStanley, the bellhop, familiarly known in England as a “buttons.” Miss Genevieve ordered fresh tea, and more sandwiches, cookies, and cake. Whatever her opinion of the British, she did not let it abate her enthusiasm for a proper afternoon tea, Daisy was happy to see.
While Stanley took Miss Genevieve's order, Daisy studied her hostesses. They both wore knit frocks with tatted collars and cuffs, beautifully made (by Miss Cabot?) but unflattering to their portly figures. Miss Cabot's dress was rose pink, Miss Genevieve's navy blue. Miss Cabot's hair, drawn back into a bun, escaped vigorously in all directions from its pins and nets. Miss Genevieve's, equally grey, was trimmed in a short, severe bob.
Daisy wondered whether they were chance residents or had some connection with literature or the arts. Then she caught sight of a ruled notebook in Miss Genevieve's ample lap, with a pencil tucked into the spiral binding. The top page was half filled with what appeared to be shorthand.
“You are a writer, Miss Genevieve?” Daisy enquired.
“Why, yes!” The old lady's surprise, and evident displeasure, suggested that she was more accustomed to interrogating than to being interrogated.
Daisy pressed her advantage. “May one ask what you write?”
Miss Genevieve frowned, but Miss Cabot put in eagerly, “Such nice knitting columns. For the women's magazines, you know. I expect you have them in England, too? I invent new patterns and Genevieve writes them down. Then she adds a bit of friendly chat, you know the sort of thing, I'm sure, so clever, I could never do it.”
“Tripe!” said Miss Genevieve.
“Oh dear! The patterns are really quite nice, sister. We do get such a lot of letters, such nice letters, from all over the country. But I'm afraid Genevieve doesn't consider it real writing,” she confided to Daisy. “Even the gossip columns are preferable.”
“Gossip columns?” Daisy could not quite see the sisters mingling with the sort of high society which provides grist for the gossip columnist's mill.
“Literary gossip,” Miss Genevieve growled grudgingly.
“For
Writers' World
,” explained Miss Cabot.
“This is the perfect place to collect information,” Daisy said.
“Many writers visiting New York do stay at the Hotel Chelsea. I manage to speak to most. I find most writers are eager to talk about themselves, even that obnoxious specimen who marched through Ernestine's knitting.”
“Oh dear, no serious damage, no stitches dropped, and I can sew the ends in so that they won't show, sister.”
“I dare say.”
“Who is he?” asked Daisy, who considered “obnoxious specimen” an excellent description.
“His name is Otis Carmody and he is a muckraking reporter. A necessary breed, no doubt, with a necessary brashness, but I'd have thought a more conciliating manner might serve him better.”
“I dare say he moderates his manner when necessary.”
“Possibly. I do write about more literary figures, too.” Miss Genevieve sounded defensive. “I drop in at the Algonquin when I can, but I don't get about much these days and anyhow, Franklin Adams writes about the Round Table crowd in the
World
. Besides, Dorothy Parker and Benchley and friends are poseurs, witty, perhaps, but not
half as clever as they like to think. Not one of them could tackle the job I used to do.”
Daisy judged that a question about the Algonquin and the Round Table crowd would not be well received. “What job was that?” she asked.
“I was a crime reporter.” Miss Genevieve warmed to Daisy's interestâor succumbed to what Alec persisted in describing as her “guileless blue eyes.” “The first woman crime reporter in New York, and the only one yet, as far as I know. Eugene Cannon was my byline. Of course, in those days there was no question of using my own name. They wouldn't even let me use a female name, as Lizzie Seaman did a bit later.”
“Lizzie Seaman?”
“Nellie Bly, she called herself. Now, there was a girl with a talent for self-advertisement. Around the world in eighty days, my foot! Not that I wanted the limelight, mind you. All I asked was the opportunity to do a good job of work.”
Miss Cabot sighed, her needles continuing to click busily. “At least you succeeded in escaping from home, sister.”
“Yes,” said Miss Genevieve, her tone grim, “but the life would not have suited you, sister.”
At that moment a waiter arrived. As he unloaded his tray and reloaded with the Cabots' empty teapot and becrum-bed plates, Daisy glanced around and caught Mr. Lambert watching her. He immediately averted his gaze. There was something odd about that young man, she decided.
The interruption gave Miss Genevieve the chance to turn the conversation from herself. “And you, Mrs. Fletcher,” she said as her sister poured tea, “your husband is a writer?”
Surprised that “Eugene Cannon” should regard her as a
mere adjunct of her husband, Daisy said, “No, a policeman.” She regretted the words as soon as uttered. A month had sufficed to teach her that almost as many people looked askance at a policeman's wife as at the policeman himself.
However, Miss Genevieve was all agog. “An English policeman? I have never met one, but I've heard they are very different from our New York âbulls.' He is here with you?”
“He's in Washington, advising a department of your government.”
“Aha, a man of importance, then. Not ⦠not by any chance
Scotland Yard
?”
“Yes, actually, he's a Detective Chief Inspector at the Yard.” Daisy decided it was her turn. “
I'm
a writer.”
Miss Genevieve had the grace to look a little abashed. She picked up her notepad with a show of attentiveness. “What do you write, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Magazine articles. I've written several for an American magazine called
Abroad.
”
“I
always
read
Abroad
,” said Miss Cabot eagerly. “It is the next best thing to travelling. I should have liked to travel, but Papa ⦔
“I do not recall a Fletcher among the contributors,” Miss Genevieve interrupted with a frown.
“I use my maiden name, Dalrymple.”
“Oh!” Miss Cabot dropped her knittingâfortunately she was not holding a teacupâto clasp her hands. “Oh, my dear, not
the Honourable
Daisy Dalrymple?”
Less easily impressed by an honorary title, Miss Genevieve was nonetheless moderately flattering about Daisy's articles on the museums of London, two of which had already appeared. She wanted to know what had brought Daisy to New York. Daisy explained that her editor had
paid her fare to America so that she could write about the voyage.
Miss Genevieve took copious notes in her neat shorthand. “What are your plans now that you are here?” she asked.
“Mr. Thorwald wants my first impressions of America. We stayed with friends in Connecticut for a few days, and now I have a couple of days here.”
That led to a discussion of what she had seen in New York, what she planned to see, and what the Misses Cabot thought she ought to see.
“Will Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher join you here?” asked Miss Genevieve at last, almost shyly. “I should greatly like to meet him.”
Daisy shook her head. “No, I'm afraid not. I'm going to see Mr. Thorwald tomorrow, and the next day I shall take the train to Washington.”
“Perhaps it is just as well,” sighed Miss Genevieve. “I guess British cops don't like crime reporters any better than ours do. Sister, pass Mrs. Fletcher the fruitcake.”
The leaden fruitcake was all that was left of the spread. Daisy declined a slice, hoping she had not been unheedingly responsible for the disappearance of too large a proportion of the rest. The no bosom, no bottom figure, emphasized by the hip-level “waist,” was as fashionable here as at home. Though it was not a look Daisy would ever attain, she did not want to find herself with the silhouette of a blimp.
“Thank you so much for my tea,” she said. “I've enjoyed talking to you. I think I'll go for a bit of a walk now, before it gets dark.”
“Yes, better get back before dark,” said Miss Genevieve. “It's Halloween. There will be all sorts of mischief tonight.”
“I'll just go and look at the General Post Office and Pennsylvania Station, as you suggested.”
This she did. The station was modelled on the Baths of Caracalla, she had been told, though she had not been told precisely what the Baths of Caracalla were. They sounded vaguely Roman. The station was certainly impressive, more so than the post office building on the other side of Eighth Avenue, though both boasted vast numbers of classical pillars. Daisy made a dutiful circuit of the post office to read the motto carved on the architrave:
Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Then she strolled back by a roundabout route towards the hotel. On Twenty-eighth Street she came across a small park. Most of the trees were leafless, but it was still refreshing after the dusty streets. Children were playing there in the twilight, and she lingered to watch. Though the voices were American, the games seemed much the same as in Englandâhopscotch, marbles, and tag.
The tag players swirled around her. As she turned to watch, she caught a glimpse of a man dodging behind a tree, as if he were trying not to be spotted.
He looked remarkably like young Mr. Lambert, but she must be mistaken. Why on earth should Lambert follow her?
Â
Next morning she set off for her appointment. The offices of
Abroad
magazine and several associated publications were
in the Flatiron Building. On her first visit, Daisy had been too anxious to appreciate the merits of the unusual structure.
This morning she had a few minutes to spare. She strolled through Madison Square Park, noting the ashes of a Halloween bonfire and the corpses of firecrackers. Pausing on the corner of Twenty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, she gazed across at her destination. The Fuller Building, as it was originally named, had been designed to fit on an awkward triangular plot where Broadway crossed the other two streets. To Daisy, its shape made it look less like a flatiron than the prow of a great ship forging its way north across Manhattan.
The chilly wind whistling around it increased the resemblance. As she crossed the wide, busy intersection beneath the gaze of a harried policeman on point duty, Daisy, along with many another passer-by, held onto her hat.
Walking south towards the entrance, she gazed up at the ornate stone and terra cotta details of the façade. And up and up. She had thought she was accustomed to New York's “skyscrapers,” but now she felt quite dizzy. The building seemed to sway, then to lean over her, threatening.
Quickly she returned her gaze to mundane street level, only to see a man step hurriedly backwards out of sight around the far corner of the buildingâa man who looked remarkably like young Lambert.
An illusion, of course, like the toppling building. She must have squished the blood vessels in the back of her neck, as revoltingly described by her friend Madge, a VAD nurse in the hospital where Daisy had volunteered in the
office during the War. (Naturally anatomy had not been considered a suitable subject for the young ladies at Daisy's school.)
She blinked, and shook her head to clear it. As she stepped into the lobby, no further illusions met her eyes, just a brass-buttoned doorman.
He recognized her from the previous day's visit. “The English lady, Mrs. Fletcher, right?” he greeted her with a smile. “For Thorwald,
Abroad
? Eighteenth floor, ma'am. You go ahead up. I'll phone through and tell Mr. Thorwald you're on your way so's he can meet you at the elevator.”