“It means ‘laurel tree,’” Daphne said to be helpful.
“I know it does. That she was playing Perry Helmar and Jay against each other, and with June thirtieth approaching she was getting desperate and so were they. That Jay—”
What stopped her was Daphne suddenly reaching across in front of Pitkin and slapping her on the mouth. It was a remarkably swift and accurate performance, giving Viola Duday no time to duck or block. Miss Duday raised a hand as if to counter, but merely covered her mouth with it, recoiling.
“You asked for it, Vi,” Quest told her. “And if you’re counting on Ollie and me being with you, and I think you are, this is a big mistake.”
“I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time,” said Daphne, more like baby talk than before. “I’ll do it again.”
I was perfectly willing to sit and wait for Miss Duday to start up where she had left off, or for someone else to start something, but apparently that script was finished, so I spoke.
“Miss Duday is absolutely right,” I told them. “I don’t mean that what she said is right — that I don’t know about — but she was right in saying that if you try to hold out and cover up you’ll just prolong the agony. It’ll all come out, don’t think it won’t, the bad with the good, and the quicker the better.” I looked at the president. “It wouldn’t hurt a bit, Mr. Brucker, if you followed Miss Duday’s example. Where does everybody stand, the way you see it? For instance, this conference you were having. Whose idea was it? What were you talking about? What were you saying?”
Brucker, his head tilted back, was regarding me down his long, thin nose. “We were saying,” he stated, “that we would have to accept the fact that the manner of Miss Eads’s death, especially at this time, created an extremely unpleasant situation for all of us. I had spoken to Mr. Quest about it, and we had decided to discuss it with Miss Duday and Mr. Pitkin. I had already spoken with Miss O’Neil and thought she should be present. We agreed that it was unthinkable that any of us, or any other member of the Softdown staff who will now come into possession of Softdown stock, could possibly have been involved in the murder of Miss Eads. We—”
“Miss Duday agreed to that?”
She answered me. “Certainly. If you thought, young man, that I was suggesting motives for murder acceptable to me, you misunderstood. I was merely giving you facts which will seem to you to be acceptable motives for murder. You were sure to discover them, and I was saving time.”