What Really Happened

by Brett Halliday

  There were maroon-covered settees in the small anteroom. Shayne sat down and stretched out his long legs to wait.

  As he had anticipated, the wait was short. He hadn’t quite finished his first cigarette when another clean-cut young man, much like the one who had taken his car, appeared unobtrusively from a side door leading off the anteroom. He said, “Mr. Shayne? This way, please.”

  Shayne followed him through the door and up a carpeted stairway to a door on the third floor. It stood open, and he entered a large, simply furnished office.

  He faced the owner of the club across a wide gleaming expanse of clean mahogany desk. Gurley wore a loose tweed suit and a soft white shirt. He had a square, impassive face, with tufted gray brows and short black hair sprinkled with gray. His big hands were folded on the desk, and he surveyed Shayne with interest, but without friendliness. He had gotten his nickname of The Lantern from a complaint made early in his career as proprietor of the Sportsman’s Club that it was impossible to find honest men for his gambling-tables.

  “If you’re looking for a job, shamus,” Gurley said with a faintly derisive smile, “I can use a head bouncer.”

  Shayne tossed his hat on the desk and pulled up a chair to face Gurley. He said casually, “Still carrying the lantern, eh?”

  “Still carrying it. I’ll blow it out if you go to work for me.”

  Shayne grinned and shook his head. “I’d rather stay honest. What I dropped in about was to ask you what the hell you meant by having one of your goons bother me with that telephone call this evening.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  J. Pierson Gurley unfolded his fingers and carefully placed the tips of them together. He said pleasantly, “Get up to date, Shayne. I graduated from the goon period in my life. I’m a legitimate businessman now.”

  “They’re still goons to me, no matter if you call them vice-presidents,” Shayne told him evenly. “And I don’t like anonymous threats over the telephone.”

  “You want a thing done right,” said Gurley with a sigh, “do it yourself.” He opened a drawer and took out a sandalwood box of cigars and offered one to Shayne.

  Shayne declined the offer, and got out a pack of cigarettes.

  Gurley took a cigar and bit off the end with strong teeth. He asked wearily, “Why come to me about some telephone call?”

  “Because I like to do my talking to the top guy.”

  “What makes you think I’m the top?”

  “Stop batting it around,” said Shayne impatiently. “It was a fool move, trying to warn me off Wanda Weatherby. A legitimate businessman ought to know better.”

  “Have you talked to Wanda?” demanded Gurley.

  Shayne said, “No.”

  “Don’t.” Gurley drew a silver table lighter toward him and put the flame to the cigar. “And if you’re smart you’ll tear up that letter without reading it.”

  “Sometimes I guess I’m not very smart.”

  “How right you are. I can have you run out of Miami, shamus.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Or carried out feet first.”

  “I doubt that, too.” Anger blazed in Shayne’s gray eyes. He leaned forward and doubled one hand into a fist. “Do you want to talk about Wanda Weatherby before I read her letter—or afterward?”

  Gurley said, “You’re making a big mistake.”

  “Nuts to that!” Shayne shoved his chair back and stood up, leaning over the desk with both hands flat on the desk. “You and your cheap trigger boys. Keep them off my tail, Gurley. If any of them mess with me, I’ll hold you accountable.”

  Jack-The-Lantern Gurley leaned back comfortably and clasped both hands behind his head. “Sounds to me,” he drawled, “as though you’ve been reading some of your own publicity. Get wise to yourself and don’t let the Weatherby bitch suck you into anything. If I hadn’t thought you knew how to add two and two I’d never bothered tipping you off. If you want money,” he added indifferently, “I’ll pay you five times what she offers.”

  “She hasn’t offered me anything yet.”

  “There’ll be a grand in her letter tomorrow. Mail it back to her and the next morning there’ll be an envelope with five thousand in it.”

  “In payment for what?”

  “For not snooping into things that don’t concern you. Look,” the club proprietor continued persuasively, “we’re both businessmen. So we make a deal. I admit it was probably a mistake to have Nick telephone you. But hell! I don’t know you very well. I can see now that you’re a lot like me. I’d get sore, too, and stick my neck out if I was given the office to lay off. So you didn’t scare. Okay. It would have been cheaper if you had, so you can’t blame me for trying.”

  “What has she got on you?” Shayne demanded.

  “Nothing,” said Gurley promptly. “But I don’t like stinks. Somebody,” he added darkly, “is going to bump that dame off some day, and I don’t want to be involved. That’s all. You know how it is when a man’s name gets mixed up in a murder investigation.”

  “Yeh. I know. That’s why I came for your side of it first,” Shayne stated flatly. He paused, holding his breath to see whether Gurley would rise to the bait. If he had ordered the rifle shot that sent a bullet into Wanda’s brain, he must realize that she was already dead. And that was the only way he could possibly know so soon.

  But the gambler either didn’t know or was too smart to fall into the trap. He said casually, “I’ve got nothing to tell anybody about Wanda Weatherby. And you can make five grand in one day—and stay healthy on top of that by staying clear of that dame.”

  Michael Shayne jerked himself erect and picked up his hat from the desk. He said, “I hear your daughter is being married soon. Congratulations.”

  “What does that crack mean?” Gurley stiffened and his voice was abruptly cold with anger.

  Shayne shrugged. “Is it a crack to congratulate a girl’s father on hooking a husband like Thomas Marsh the Third; of the Nashville Marshes, isn’t he?”

  He knew he had struck pay dirt by the expression on Gurley’s normally impassive features. But all the gambler said was, “Get out, Shayne.”

  “Sure. I don’t like stinks, either.” He turned and walked out deliberately, went down the stairs and into the small anteroom.

  The doorman said, “I’ll have your car for you at once, Mr. Shayne.” He turned and spoke into the mouthpiece of an intercommunication set.

  Shayne brushed past him and went out the door where he strode to the end of the canopy and waited. He knew he had been a fool to lose his temper with Jack-The-Lantern Gurley. That wasn’t the right approach to a man like that. And he hadn’t learned anything except that his hunch as to the source of the mysterious telephone call had been correct.

  There was still Timothy Rourke’s friend on Fortieth Street. And a woman named Sheila Martin who had promised to see him at twelve. Between them, he might be able to learn something about Wanda Weatherby and why she had been murdered.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Courtland Arms was located on East Fortieth Street, one of the newer and larger apartment houses in the city. A severely utilitarian building with the entrance near the sidewalk. The lobby was small, equipped with a long, narrow table centered by a tall potted plant, and two large ash trays; there were three leather chairs, an information desk on the left, and a switchboard behind it.

  An elegant white-haired lady sat at the switchboard. She turned to look Shayne over with impersonal disinterest as he approached.

  He said, “Flannagan? Number twenty-six, I believe.”

  “Yes. Is Mr. Flannagan expecting you?”

  Shayne said he was, and she told him that the apartment was on the second floor to the right of the elevator.

  The cage was waiting on the ground floor, and the detective tramped over, pushed the button to open the door, and went up. He pressed the button of Apartment 26, and the door was opened almost immediately.

  Ralph Flannagan said, “Mr. Shayne? Come
right in. My God, am I glad to see you!”

  His hand was well-fleshed, but his grip was hard, and he wrung Shayne’s with an effusive heartiness that seemed a trifle out of place under the circumstances.

  In fact, the immediate and over-all impression conveyed by Flannagan was that he was working hard at being hearty and masculine and vital. His heavy black hair was cut too short, and his features were plump; his body thick and stocky. He gripped a bulldog pipe between his teeth, and managed to look tweedy and outdoorish, though he wore a shabby smoking-jacket over a white shirt with the two buttons open to reveal a tanned and hairy neck. Walking behind him as he led the way through the small foyer, Shayne noted that his rump was exceedingly fat, and it jiggled with each step.

  Through the archway, and over Flannagan’s head, Shayne saw Timothy Rourke’s emaciated body sprawled in a deep chair. He had a highball glass in his right hand. On his left, atop an end table, a deep ash tray was heaped with cigarette butts.

  The reporter raised his glass and said, “Hi,” as his host hustled the detective through the archway into the livingroom. Low bookshelves along one wall were crammed with much-handled volumes, and an imposing radio-phonograph combination was flanked by two tall, well-filled record cabinets. The couch and three comfortable chairs were covered with maroon slipcovers, and all were equipped with convenient end tables and ash trays. A room where a man could relax with smokes and drinks and good books.

  But, he thought wryly, it was a little too much for the room. It was as though the effect had been carefully calculated instead of merely accumulative through the normal course of living. As though the occupant was aggressively determined to prove himself the sort of man who would have such a room. A tenuous impression, he told himself, and probably unfair to Ralph Flannagan.

  “Hi, Tim,” Shayne greeted Rourke. He grinned widely and added, “The body looks natural—with a tall glass in one hand.”

  “Have a seat, Mr. Shayne,” Flannagan said. “Make yourself comfortable. I don’t have to ask what you’d like to drink,” he went on effusively. “Cognac, eh?” His white teeth flashed in a smile that would have been a simper on a less masculine face.

  “About three fingers in a washtub,” Shayne told him. “With a glass of ice water on the side. I see that my reputation has preceded my visit,” he added, glancing at Rourke.

  Flannagan chuckled and went toward the kitchen. Shayne’s gaze followed him, curiously, until he disappeared through a door at the far end of the room.

  Timothy Rourke said lazily, “Don’t blame Ralph for being a little edgy and determined to please. He’s really up against a tough problem, and he figures you’re the only man in Miami who can help him.”

  Shayne was still standing, looking around. He shrugged, noncommittal, and turned to look at the bookshelf. Three brightly jacketed modern novels attracted his attention, along with a much-thumbed copy of Guyon’s The Ethics of Sexual Acts, two novels by Arnold Bennett, The New Way to Eat and Get Slim which didn’t appear to have had hard usage, and a bulky three-volume set of The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz.

  Flannagan returned with a tray holding a full bottle of Martell and an empty four-ounce glass, some ice water, and a highball glass with just enough Scotch to faintly color the contents.

  Shayne sat down on the couch, and his host set the tray on the small table at his right, remarking, “You see, I’ve heard and read a lot about you, Mr. Shayne, and know just how you like things.” He lifted the highball off for himself and sat down.

  “Thanks,” said Shayne. He turned to Timothy Rourke and asked, “What was it you wanted to tell me about Wanda Weatherby, Tim?”

  “It’s Ralph’s story.”

  “Let’s have it,” Shayne suggested. He poured cognac in his glass, took a long drink, and chased it with ice water.

  “By all means,” said Ralph Flannagan eagerly. Seated in his favorite chair, he stuffed tobacco in the bowl of his big pipe. “I’m going to be completely frank with you, Mr. Shayne. I know your reputation, and I know you’re a good friend of Tim’s. I have a feeling you’ll understand and won’t let me down.”

  Shayne didn’t say anything. He took a drink of Martell and chased it with ice water.

  “It goes back to a party about three months ago,” Flannagan began. “The first time I met Wanda. It was at a friend’s place over on the Beach. One of those informal, Bohemian affairs where people drift in and out for drinks and talk after dinner.”

  He paused, puffed vigorously on his pipe for a moment, then resumed. “I don’t know how to describe Wanda. She wasn’t beautiful, but there was something that hit a man right in the solar plexus when she looked at him. Something that came from deep within her, and was honest and strong.” He shrugged his thick shoulders and stared down at the door. “Call it sex appeal, if you like. We looked at each other across the crowded room—and there it was. Pulsing between us so you could feel it—so it was almost material. We hadn’t been introduced, but I remember crossing the room to her and holding out my hands.”

  “Save the harrowing details of the seduction for your radio audience,” Rourke advised dryly. To Shayne he added, “Ralph writes and produces a daily radio serial for frustrated housewives, so don’t blame him too much for clichés. They’re his living.”

  Flannagan smiled patiently and said, “It was hardly a seduction, Tim. God knows I had no thought of anything like that when I sat down beside Wanda and we introduced ourselves. I was engaged to Edna, and as much in love with her as a man can be. But this was different. It was something outside ourselves. Something that was meant to be. We both had quite a few drinks, of course.”

  He paused again, then went on in an honest and man-to-man way. “I won’t say it was she who made the advances, though I will say she did her part to make things easy. I told her about Edna. I was very careful to explain that I was deeply in love with a wonderful girl for the first time in my life, and she understood perfectly. She told me she was married and in love with her husband, and suggested that the thing between us had nothing to do with love or with any other aspect of our individual lives.”

  Shayne broke in sarcastically, “Okay. It has happened before. Then what?”

  Flannagan frowned. “I’m telling you how it happened,” he protested, “so you won’t get any wrong ideas about Wanda. She was perfectly marvelous all the way through, and that’s why I don’t understand—well—But I’ll come to that later. We did break away from the party, and there was mutual understanding as we went out to my car. No questions and no coyness. I suggested coming here to my apartment, but she vetoed that. Said it put things on too personal a basis, and she’d feel she was intruding on my private life. She wanted it completely impersonal. Just a beautiful experience that we could hold in our memories forever. A meeting, a mingling, and separation.”

  Shayne settled back more comfortably and emptied his cognac glass. It was easy to understand why Flannagan was a success at producing a radio serial. The man probably took himself seriously—actually believed the platitudes that were mouthed over the microphone every day. He was under thirty, Shayne guessed. Flannagan’s voice flowed on smoothly, and the detective listened while he refilled his glass, seeing Wanda Weatherby’s face in death as Ralph’s story brought her to life for him.

  “She suggested a motel as being most discreet,” he was saying, “and we drove out the Boulevard to a nice one on the outskirts of the city. I registered as Mr. and Mrs. Albert Smith and we were assigned to a clean, attractive cabin. I got a bottle from a near-by liquor store, and some ice and glasses from the motel manager, and we had a few more drinks.” He stopped, reddening a little, and knocked out his dead pipe in an ash tray.

  “I suppose this part won’t bother you much, Mr. Shayne, being a private detective, but the thing that happened was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I never felt so sickened and cheapened in my life.”

  Flannagan drew in a deep breath, set his jaw, and went on rapidly. “I was just getting up whe
n the cabin door opened. I could have sworn I’d locked it securely, but I guess I hadn’t. Naturally I turned to see who was coming in. Then, a sudden brilliant flare burst in my eyes, half blinding me, but I saw a man with a camera. He slammed the door and ran, and we heard a car pulling away in a hurry.

  “Wanda was terribly frightened and upset, and—Well, I was, too, to admit the truth. Everything was ruined. The whole affair was suddenly dirty and vicious. Neither of us could understand how on earth anybody had followed us, or why. It was simply inconceivable, but there it was. We drove back to town fast, sobered and ashamed and without talking much.

  “What was there to say?” the radio producer continued. “She made me let her out on the Boulevard and wouldn’t even tell me where she lived. It was over—and we both knew the golden moment would never come again. Not for us. There would always be that nasty memory between us.”

  “Did she make a telephone call,” Shayne demanded, “after you registered at the motel?”

  “Why—yes. While I went for the bottle of liquor. You see, she was living here with her husband’s sister and had to call her to give an explanation for not coming home from the party until quite late.”

  “Maybe,” Shayne said curtly. “And maybe that phone was made to an accomplice with a camera. It happens every day in Miami.”

  “No—you’re absolutely wrong, Mr. Shayne,” said Flannagan flatly. “I confess thinking something of the sort after—what happened. But I learned the truth later. It was her husband, you see. He’s a businessman in Detroit and insanely jealous. When Wanda came down here to visit his sister, he had a private detective watching her. She told me about it a week later. This detective had come to her with the evidence. He had the picture and a Photostat of my signature on the motel register. He was one of the unethical members of your profession, Mr. Shayne, and was quite willing to sell out his employer for a price. He offered Wanda the evidence against her for a thousand dollars.”