What Really Happened

by Brett Halliday

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  What Really Happened

  A Mike Shayne Mystery

  Brett Halliday

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  CHAPTER ONE

  Michael Shayne heard his telephone ringing when he stopped in the corridor and put the key in the lock of his apartment door. The time was a little past nine-thirty, and he felt whipped down, ready for a nightcap and bed.

  He frowned at the insistent ringing as he walked in and switched on the light. His first impulse was to ignore it, but the boy at the switchboard had seen him come through the lobby, and Shayne knew he would keep ringing until it was answered.

  As it was, he took his time. He tossed his hat on a hook near the door, yawned widely, and ran a big-fingered hand through coarse red hair as he crossed to the wall cabinet and took down a bottle of cognac. He filled a three-ounce glass, let half the liquor trickle warmly down his throat, and with bottle and glass in his hands he recrossed the room to his desk. Thumping the bottle down, he lifted the receiver, said, “Shayne speaking,” and took another sip of cognac.

  The answering voice was a surly growl. “Is that Mike Shayne, the shamus?”

  Shayne hesitated, scowling heavily and taking the receiver from his ear as though to return it to its prongs. Then he lifted one shoulder slightly and said, “This is Michael Shayne. Who’s speaking?”

  “Never mind that. You wouldn’t know my name nohow, shamus. I got this here message and you better listen clost because it’s on the line.” There was a pause which Shayne assumed was intended to impress him with the seriousness of the message to follow. Then: “Lay off Wanda Weatherby.”

  The rangy detective’s ragged red brows rose slightly. He said, “Who?”

  “Wanda Weatherby. That dame’s dynamite—to you. Lay off her, see?”

  “I can’t very well lay off her,” said Shayne easily. “I never heard of her. What in hell is all this about?”

  “Wanda Weatherby,” the surly voice said. “A dame. You’ll be gettin’ a letter from her, but if you’re smart like they say, you’ll tear it up without readin’ it and stay clear of her.”

  Shayne said, “Nuts,” and hung up. Again he yawned, and looked at his watch. The time was nine forty-two. He finished his cognac, loosened his tie, and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  The telephone rang immediately. He let it ring twice before answering. The same voice complained, “We was cut off, I reckon.”

  Shayne said, “I hung up.”

  “I thought maybe you did.” The man sounded perturbed and slightly regretful. “The boss ain’t gonna like it if I tell him you didn’t get the whole message. God knows why he wants to give a lousy shamus like you a chance to keep on livin’, but he does. He’s funny that way. He says to tell you it’d worry his conscience if you got bumped off without askin’ for it. But if you ask for it you’ll get it, see?”

  Shayne growled, “Tell your boss—”

  “I’m tellin’ you.” The receiver clicked at the other end of the wire.

  Shayne slowly replaced the receiver and absently tugged at the lobe of his left ear. Wanda Weatherby? The name was one that would stick in a man’s memory. He was quite sure he had never heard it before. He shrugged his wide shoulders in a gesture of dismissal. What the hell? Miami was full of dames he didn’t know. Hundreds of thousands who came every year looking for thrills. A certain per cent was bound to get into trouble.

  He strode into the kitchenette and took out a tray of ice cubes, ran warm water over them, dislodged half a dozen, and put them into a tall glass. He filled the glass with water and returned to his desk where he refilled a smaller glass with cognac. Settling himself in the ancient, creaky swivel chair, he leaned back and crossed his long legs comfortably. He lit a cigarette and blew out a long puff of smoke. Pleasantly relaxed now, he had forgotten about getting to bed early.

  The telephone rang for the third time. Shayne grinned. This would be the boss, he told himself, with some more mysterious hocus-pocus about Wanda Weatherby—a woman he didn’t know. He hunched forward and picked up the receiver, then swiveled back to say curtly, “Mike Shayne speaking.”

  “Hello. Is this Michael Shayne? The private detective?”

  Shayne’s left brow went up. This was a woman’s voice. Sensuous and sultry and flowing over the wire. A brunettish sort of voice, he thought. He said, “Yes.”

  “I’m Mrs. Martin.” There was a suggestion of a question mark in her tone.

  Again he said, “Yes?” interrogatively.

  “Sheila Martin, Mr. Shayne.”

  Shayne swore under his breath. She sounded as though she expected him to remember her. During the pause he rubbed his lean jaw with his free hand and realized that he had never met a woman named Sheila in the flesh. Only in books where they were green-eyed and lovely and improbably sexy. While he was wondering what color her eyes were, she continued.

  “I guess you haven’t heard from Wanda?”

  “No,” Shayne admitted. “I haven’t heard from Wanda.”

  The catch in her voice came over the wire, and she said urgently, rapidly, “I have to see you, Mr. Shayne. Please. Tonight. It’s terribly important.”

  He said, “I’ve just settled down with a drink.”

  “Of your favorite cognac?”

  Shayne sensed the effort to make her voice light, for he knew she was worried, and frightened. He glanced at his glass and said, “Croizet,” and took an approving sip.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour,” Sheila Martin said, her voice urgent again. “I can’t—get away right now—but would midnight be too late?”

  “For what?”

  “I can’t explain over the telephone, Mr. Shayne. It’s—well—risky. I might be overheard. I can’t get away right now. Would you mind dreadfully if I came there about twelve?”

  “I wouldn’t mind at all, Sheila.”

  “You’re wonderful,” she breathed. “I—You will be alone, won’t you?”

  “Definitely.”

  “I’ll see you then, Michael Shayne.”

  From another woman the last words would have been a coo. From Sheila Martin they were provocative, promising.

  She wasn’t young, he thought, as he hung up and swayed back in the swivel chair. Old enough to dispense with coyness. Young enough to use her sex appeal to get what she wanted from a man. He alternately sipped cognac and ice water, and idly hoped that she wanted something important from him. But in spite of his mood, he wondered whether she was the boss who wanted him to have no part of Wanda Weatherby.

  Shayne slid down in the chair, rested his head on the hard back, and put his big feet up on the table, a glass in each hand. He closed his eyes between sips, and the telephone calls did slow somersaults in his relaxed mind. He was wondering who the devil Wanda Weatherby was when the telephone rang for the fourth time.

  He jerked forward, swung his feet to the floor, and picked up the receiver fast. Before he finished saying, “Shayne speaking,” a woman’s voice broke in, high-pitched, hysterical. Her words rushed into his ear explosively, as though they had been long pent up.

  “Mr. Shayne, this is Wanda Weatherby and you don’t know my name but I tried to call you twice today and then wrote you a letter you’ll get in the morning. I thought I
could wait until then but now I’m just frightened to death and I’ll die if you don’t help me.”

  Into the silence while she caught her breath, Shayne asked, “What are you afraid—”

  “Please don’t interrupt me,” she screamed. “It’s a life-or-death matter, and I’ll be holding my breath until you get here. Please hurry! West Seventy-Fifth Street.” She gave him a street number not far from Miami Avenue and hung up before he could ask another question.

  Shayne sat erect and very still after he cradled the receiver, a deep frown between his ragged red brows. He looked at his watch. The time was two minutes after ten.

  Inured by frantic calls for many years from people of both sexes and all ages, Shayne was inclined to say to hell with Wanda Weatherby and settle back comfortably to await his midnight appointment with Sheila Martin. Apparently she knew what all the excitement was about and could explain it. When he had a few facts to go on—

  He leaned back in his chair again and tried to relax, but the memory of the terror in the voice of his last caller brought him up sharply. She had put him on the spot by hanging up before he could refuse. Now he was committed, unless he could call her back and say that he had no intention of dashing out to Seventy-Fifth Street without some sort of explanation.

  Leafing through the telephone book to the W’s, he realized that he had also been put on the spot by the first telephone call warning him to stay away from Wanda Weatherby. There weren’t many Weatherbys listed, and none at the address she had given him. He called Information, and finished his drink while she checked and reported no listing for a Weatherby at that address.

  Shayne rebuttoned his shirt and adjusted his tie, and had his hat on and his hand on the doorknob when the telephone rang again. He whirled angrily, strode back to grab the receiver and bark his name into it.

  Timothy Rourke, the Daily News reporter, answered. “Mike, this is Tim. Are you doing anything?”

  “Just spending a quiet evening with my telephone,” he said ironically.

  “Look, Mike, have you ever heard of a gal named Wanda Weatherby?”

  “I haven’t heard anything else all evening. What sort of game is this?”

  “Is it a game?” The reporter sounded confused. “How about coming over here if you’re not busy? Or, we can come over to your place. A friend of mine is in pretty much of a mess, Mike.”

  “With Wanda?” Shayne asked grimly.

  “Yeh. That is—Well, I think you’d better hear it from him, Mike. Shall we come over?”

  “I’m on my way out. Where are you, Tim?”

  “Here at Ralph’s place. Ralph Flannagan. Apartment twenty-six in the Courtland Arms.”

  That was in the Forties, Shayne figured hastily, on his way back from the address Wanda had given him. He said, “Stay there, Tim, and I’ll drop in presently.” He hung up and got out of the apartment fast, before the telephone could ring again—with maybe J. Edgar Hoover calling to say that Wanda Weatherby was actually Mrs. Joseph Stalin in disguise. He slammed the door hard behind him as he went out.

  In the hotel-apartment lobby he waved to the boy at the switchboard and said, “Take any messages until I get back, Dick. By midnight, I hope,” and strode on to the garage at the rear of the building.

  As he drove northward toward Seventy-Fifth Street, the name of Ralph Flannagan bothered him. One of Tim Rourke’s friends, but that didn’t mean much. As a reporter on one of Miami’s leading newspapers, it was Tim’s business to make friends—particularly when his thin, twitching nose smelled a story in the air.

  Shayne knew a moment of indecision, but once more the memory of Wanda’s tragic appeal kept him on a direct route, instead of veering off to Flannagan’s place. Traffic was light as he drove farther north, and he increased his speed. The moon was a little more than half full above fleecy clouds, and its faint light outlined the quiet residential section of the city as he turned west on Seventy-Fifth and crossed Miami Avenue.

  The palm-lined subdivision was sparsely built, the streets empty of traffic, and the bungalows were dark and silent. Shayne drove slowly, counting the blocks as he passed. When he reached the one he sought, light shone from one house on the right. He pulled up to the curb, stopped in front of it, and sat for a moment looking around.

  The one-story, stuccoed bungalow stood well back from the street with some fifty feet of smooth lawn on both sides leading away to tall hibiscus hedges separating the grounds from neighbors, and giving an unusual degree of privacy for so small a dwelling in Miami. The other two homes were in darkness, as were the two across the street.

  The house number was easily discernible in phosphorous paint above a low stake at the edge of the lawn, confirming Shayne’s guess that this was the right address. He got out of the car and went up the concrete walk to the front door where a dim light outlined the electric button. He pressed it and heard the ringing inside.

  He waited, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. There was no sound from within. As he smoked, the utter silence of the neighborhood grew oppressive, and Shayne caught himself straining to hear the sound of Wanda Weatherby’s footsteps inside.

  He pressed the bell again, holding his finger on it for a long time. When he removed it and the ringing stopped, the night silence seemed more oppressive. He waited a long moment, taking a deep drag on his cigarette, then stepped back to look searchingly at the two big picture windows on either side of the door.

  Thick, creamy drapes were carefully drawn across both, and it was impossible to see inside. He spun his cigarette to the lawn and followed a narrow concrete walk around to the side of the house.

  The first window he reached was wide open to catch the night breeze, the shade rolled up and the drapes thrust aside. Only a copper screen was between him and a glimpse into the room.

  Bright light from a floor lamp at the end of the couch outlined the body of a woman lying face down on the rug, some ten feet beyond the window. A mass of reddish-gold hair obliterated her features from the window view.

  Something else reddish was visible in the light. A pool of it spread out around her head, and Shayne knew now why Wanda Weatherby had not answered the doorbell.

  Instinctively, he looked at his watch. The time was exactly 10:38.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Shayne’s gray eyes were bleak, and a muscle twitched in his lean jaw. He stepped away from the lighted window and lit a cigarette. A feeling of revulsion came over him, followed by an outraged sense of disapproval and disappointment. He had been exceedingly curious about Wanda Weatherby—who she was and what she wanted from him, and what she meant to the other persons who had contacted him earlier.

  Now she wouldn’t be able to tell him. She couldn’t answer any of the questions that had boiled up in his thoughts as he drove toward the address she had given him. It was now abundantly clear that she had good reason for the hysterical panic in her voice when she pleaded with him to come to her.

  Thirty minutes had made the difference. She had said that it was a matter of life or death, he recalled grimly. But she could not have realized how close she was shading it, or she would certainly have made the appeal even more urgent. Yet, she had been just about as urgent as a woman could possibly be. She had hung up before he could argue with her, leaving it strictly up to him to get there in time to save her from the death she had reason to fear.

  Standing there on the lush green lawn, he was conscious of the quiet, serene beauty of the moonlit night and the cool, humid breeze on his face. It seemed incongruous that a woman lay dead inside the house. His mouth tightened, and he berated himself for not being fast enough. He had wasted five, maybe ten minutes trying to check her phone number to call her back. And then there had been Rourke’s call. Another two or three minutes’ delay. At a time when minutes were precious!

  He whirled suddenly as a thought struck him, dropping his cigarette to the grass. He knew, from long observation and experience that Wanda Weatherby was dead, but the urge to get in to her seiz
ed him, to see if there was anything that could possibly be done for her.

  Going back to the screen, he reached out a big hand to rip it out. He stopped when he saw the small round hole in almost the exact center of the wire just above the frame. It was not necessarily fresh, and it wasn’t necessarily a bullet hole, but that’s what it looked like. He withdrew his hand before touching the frame, turned, and went swiftly around to the rear of the bungalow.

  Two wide concrete steps led up to the kitchen door. The screen was unlatched, opening outward, but the wooden door with glassed upper portion didn’t open when he turned the knob. He hit the thin glass with his elbow, stepped back to let it clatter to the floor, then reached in and turned the key.

  The door opened into a dark kitchen. Shayne prowled across the linoleum toward a dim rectangle of light marking the entrance to the dining-room, and found the wall switch. He flipped it and strode on through a pantry lined on both sides with glass doors, behind which crystal and hand-painted dishes and silver gleamed.

  He didn’t pause or slacken his long-legged strides, but he noted the expensive furnishings in the dining-room. The thick rug, the shining mahogany table centering it, the crystal bowl filled with fresh roses, the four silver candlesticks arranged in perfect symmetry—all outlined by light from the open archway leading into the livingroom.

  After assuring himself that Wanda Weatherby had been dead for at least half an hour, he straightened up and looked around. There was a fireplace to the left of the window through which he had peered, cozily equipped with antique andirons, a hearth brush, and an attractive basket filled with wood. Two wing chairs stood, one on either side, each with its small, inlaid table holding an ash tray and silver cigarette box. A long period couch with a low back, elaborately carved above the tapestried cushions, ranged along the space beneath the big picture window.

  Wanda Weatherby lay on an expensive Herat rug that reached from the hearth to the opposite wall, and directly in front of the couch near the end table which held the telephone. She wore a sea-green hostess gown with a tight bodice brocaded with dull-gold threads, and the full skirt spread out around her slim body as though she had pivoted suddenly, billowing it out, then dropped to the rug, and the fullness had settled just above her bare ankles. The left foot was crossed over the right and was bare. The toes were curled downward in an attitude of agony which had allowed the dull-gold mule to drop from her foot.