Daisy's voice was lowered as she stared at the art appraiser and said, "You killed him. You had every reason to kill him, and you did it. And now you're trying to get me out of the way. I know the truth about you, Lasseroe. I know how you've been swindling art patrons, charging them exorbitant prices for cheap junk such as Tess puts out—"
Tess Rillette wasn't taking this sitting down. She started to call Daisy a lot of nasty names. It was all very unpleasant.
And then Lasseroe said, "You've got a lot of influence around this town, haven't you, Daisy?"
She liked that. She nodded. And there was a mean smile on her lips. Lasseroe was moving slowly toward her, and his face was pale. There was a light in the man's eyes that told Frey a lot of things. Frey reached into his coat pocket and touched the revolver to make sure that it was still there.
"You've got a lot of mouth, too," Lasseroe was saying.
"Just what do you mean by that?" Daisy looked at him straight.
"You may turn out to be quite an annoyance," Lasseroe said. He kept moving toward her.
Tess Rillette was grabbing Lasseroe's arm, saying, "Please—enough has already happened—"
But Lasseroe was excited and he was pushing Tess Rillette away and then he was making a grab for Daisy. She fell backward and he went over with her and he got his fingers around her throat. She managed to scream once and then she started to gurgle. Frey opened the door and took out his revolver and pointed it at Lasseroe's spine.
"All right," he said, "Let's stop playing."