Free The Case of the Murdered Muckraker by Carola Dunn

to talk to the Press, nor to mention the matter to anyone else. If the murderer were to find out …”
    â€œOh, ma‘am, ’tis not a soul I’ll be telling!” gasped the maid. Her freckles stood out like a rash in her white face, Daisy saw in the looking-glass—she was now wielding a powder puff in the perpetual effort to conceal her own few freckles. “Oh, ma’am, d’ye think he’ll come after me wi’ a gun?”
    â€œNot if you’re sensible and keep quiet. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Have you already told anyone?”
    â€œOh no, ma‘am, savin’ me brother. You’re the only guest has been friendly at all, at all, and I wouldn’t gossip about the guests wi’ the other maids. Father Macnamara says gossiping is a sin,” she added virtuously.
    â€œVery true,” said Daisy, hoping the stricture did not apply to reporting on one guest to another, particularly a friendly other. “I must go now, but I shall see you later, Bridget.”
    â€œYes, ma‘am. Thank you, ma’am. Will I press a frock for you for dinner?”
    â€œYes, would you, please? I expect you’re less busy now than you will be later.” Daisy went to the wardrobe and took out the black georgette she had bought for the transatlantic voyage. “I’ll wear this one.”
    Suitable for mourning, she thought as she returned to the lifts. Not that she exactly felt like mourning Otis Carmody,
but all the same, she would dress up the plain frock with one of her more subdued scarves this evening.
    Kevin was awaiting her, kneeling on the passage floor, playing at dibs with an astonishing agility. He grinned at Daisy, tossed all five jacks and caught them on the back of his hand. A last toss and catch, and he shoved them into his pocket. Standing up, he brushed off the knees of his livery trousers.
    â€œGotta do sumpin to keep from going nuts,” he observed. “Third floor?”
    â€œYes, please. How did you guess?”
    â€œI keeps me eyes and ears open,” said Kevin with a knowing look.
    â€œYou went back down to pick up the Misses Cabot,” Daisy accused him, “and heard them talking on the way up.”
    â€œI keeps me eyes and ears open,” Kevin repeated with his infectious grin. “Going down!”
    The Misses Cabot’s residence comprised a small foyer, a large sitting room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen at the rear of the hotel. The sitting room had a splendid fireplace, faced with green tile and topped with a carved rosewood mantelpiece, where a small, cheery fire glowed, adding its mite to the already oppressive heat.
    There were built-in rosewood bookcases, but most of the furniture was the Cabots’ own, heavy mahogany upholstered in faded crimson plush. Whatnots crammed with bibelots and photographs in silver frames were surely the elder Miss Cabot’s. One corner of the room was dedicated to Miss Genevieve’s business, with a spartan kneehole desk, a cabinet for files and reference books, and a typewriter which matched the one in Daisy’s room.

    On the walls, whose white paint somewhat relieved the Victorian gloom, hung watercolours of little girls with kittens and little boys with puppies, alternating with framed newspaper cuttings. Daisy would have liked to examine the latter, but the Misses Cabot awaited her, and tea was laid out on a small, lace-draped table by a lace-draped window.
    â€œTea!” she exclaimed. “You cannot imagine how I long for a cup.”
    â€œOh dear!” clucked Miss Cabot. “You must drink as much as you like, Mrs. Fletcher. I can easily make more.”
    â€œDo tell me what happened at the Flatiron Building,” Miss Genevieve requested eagerly.
    In the course of drinking the pot dry, Daisy described the events she had witnessed. She was careful not to pass on any speculation. The police would have a right to be unhappy