The Case of the Murdered Muckraker Read Online Free Page A

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.”
    â€œThank you. You must have heard how I got lost yesterday trying to find his office.”
    â€œLots of folks do, you betcha. It’s the shape of the building, confuses people, see. Elevators to your right, ma’am.”
    Whether at the doorman’s behest or off his own bat, Thorwald was waiting for Daisy when the elevator reached the eighteenth floor. He was a pear-shaped gentleman, with a Vandyke beard above which his clean-shaven upper lip looked oddly naked. So did his pale blue eyes when he took off his gold-rimmed pince-nez and gestured with it or rubbed his eyes, as he did frequently.
    He led the way through an outer room to his tiny office, crammed with heaps of manuscripts and galley proofs. Dumping a pile of copies of Abroad from a chair to the floor, he invited Daisy to sit down and carefully inserted himself behind his desk.
    â€œI trust your accommodations are proving satisfactory, Mrs. Fletcher?” he said.
    Rotund and orotund, Daisy thought, assuring him, “Eminently so.” As usual when talking to Mr. Thorwald, she
found herself succumbing to his polysyllabicism, like an exotic disease. Fortunately it did not infect her articles, or no one would have read them.
    â€œI’ve made the acquaintance of a number of uncommonly intriguing people,” she went on. She told him about Miss Genevieve Cabot, and the various hotel guests Miss Genevieve had introduced to her the previous evening. “Incidentally,” she said, “are you able to elucidate the curious connection my mind persists in forming between the name Cabot and fish?”
    â€œAh yes.” Mr. Thorwald tittered. “I believe the piscatorial association must be in reference to

    good old Boston,
‘The home of the bean and the cod,
‘Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots,
‘And the Cabots talk only to God.’

    A feeble versification at best, but since it was, I understand, pronounced as a toast after, one must presume, considerable pre-Volstead jollification, not utterly without merit.”
    Volstead had something to do with Prohibition, Daisy thought. “I must have heard the rhyme somewhere,” she said. “Mention was made of Boston, I recollect. Ought I to see Boston for the second article?”
    â€œWhile I hesitate to declare Boston unworthy of a visit, such a peregrination is unnecessary, my dear Mrs. Fletcher. There is so much to be admired in this magnificent nation that you cannot conceivably encompass its entirety. Your sojourns in Connecticut, New York, and Washington will suffice. It is not universality I desire but freshness of vision. And now, as our own visionary Benjamin Franklin observed,
‘Remember that Time is Money.’ Permit me to peruse the fruits of your exertions.”
    While he read the completed article and the beginnings of the next, Daisy gazed out through the narrow window. What she saw was not the treetops of Madison Square, far below, not the visible sliver of the great city and the East River, but the greater continent beyond. South to the Caribbean and Mexico, north to Canada, three thousand miles to the Pacific Ocean—she sighed, envying the shipboard friends who had plans to see as much as was humanly possible.
    â€œExcellent.” Mr. Thorwald approved Daisy’s work. He made a few suggestions about the rest of the unfinished article; then they discussed her ideas for articles to be written when she returned to England. “And now, dear lady,” he said, taking out his watch, “it is long past noon, I perceive. Will you permit me to take you to lunch at the Algonquin?”
    As well as being curious to see the Algonquin, Daisy was more than ready for lunch, having