A family council was called the next day. Orsino, very much a junior, had never been admitted to one before. He knew why the exception was being made, and didn't like the reason.
Edward Falcaro wagged his formidable white beard at the thirty-odd Syndic chiefs around the table and growled: "I think we'll dispense with reviewing production and so on. I want to talk about this damn gunplay. Dick, bring us up to date."
He lit a vile cigar and leaned back.
Richard W. Reiner rose.
"Thomas McGurn," he said, "killed April 15th by a burst of eight machine gun bullets in his private dining room at the Astor. Elsie Warshofsky, his waitress, must be considered the principal suspect, but—"
Edward Falcaro snapped: "Suspect, hell! She killed him, didn't she?"
"I was about to say, but the evidence so far is merely cumulative. Mrs. Warshofsky jumped—fell—or was pushed—from the dining room window. The machine gun was found beside the window.
"There are no known witnesses. Mrs. Warshofsky's history presents no unusual features. An acquaintance submitted a statement—based, she frankly admitted, on nothing definite—that Mrs. Warshofsky sometimes talked in a way that led her to wonder if she might not be a member of the secret terrorist organization known as the D.A.R. In this connection, it should be noted that Mrs. Warshofsky's maiden name was Adams.
"Robert Orsino, killed April 21st by a thermite bomb concealed in his pillow and fuzed with a pressure-sensitive switch. His valet, Edward Blythe, disappeared from view. He was picked up April 23rd by a posse on the beach of Montauk Point, but died before he could be questioned. Examination of his stomach contents showed a lethal quantity of sodium fluoride. It is presumed that the poison was self-administered."
"Presumed!" the old man snorted, and puffed out a lethal quantity of cigar smoke.