What Really Happened

by Brett Halliday

  “It’s enough. Any more questions?”

  “What do you know about Helen Taylor?”

  “Damned little,” said Shayne promptly. “Probably much less than you do. She’s a radio actress.” He tipped the items off on his fingers as he continued. “She died around midnight, probably from strychnine. Prior to her death, her roommate found her in convulsions and muttering incoherently about Michael Shayne and Wanda Weatherby. Said roommate telephoned me, but Helen Taylor was dead before I could reach her. That’s all I know about the girl.”

  Gentry’s agate eyes were hard. “That was the call you got while we were at your place,” he charged. “You lied about it to get out of there without me.”

  Shayne nodded his red head. “I was in a hurry. The girl said she was dying, and I didn’t want to waste time trying to explain things to you that I didn’t know how to explain myself. If I had gotten any information from her about Wanda, I would have passed it on to you.”

  “Maybe.” Chief Gentry’s tone was grim. “The fact is that you did lie to me. As a result, the police were delayed in reaching her by fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “The doctor who attended her will tell you that Helen Taylor was dying at the moment I received the call. The fifteen or twenty minutes didn’t make a damned bit of difference.”

  “Why did you beat it instead of staying around to make a statement when my men arrived there?”

  Shayne grinned. “I had a date waiting for me,” he reminded the chief. “I had been rudely interrupted if you will recall. And besides, I instructed Mary Devon to tell you the truth about everything. There was nothing I could add.”

  “Will you swear that’s all you had on your mind when you slipped away? Just a date?”

  “That’s all I had on my mind,” said Shayne solemnly. “I hope Lucy won’t be jealous, damn it, but I give you my word that I spent the next half hour very pleasantly in her apartment where there were drinks and other compensations for your and Tim’s interruption when I was just getting to first base with Sylvia.”

  “All right,” said Gentry grumpily, “if you’ll swear you still have no idea what Helen Taylor meant by linking your name with Wanda Weatherby’s when she was dying.”

  “I swear I haven’t the slightest idea. Is that all for now?”

  “I guess so.” The police chief looked at his watch and scowled. “It’s eight minutes after nine. What time does the mail generally come, Lucy?”

  “It’s due any moment, chief.” Lucy glanced up at the reporter who still lounged against the railing in front of her desk. “Why don’t you sit down, Tim? You make me nervous standing there.”

  Rourke dragged himself erect and stretched his thin arms and torso. Turning to Shayne, he said, “While you and Will are keeping the vigil, I’ll just pop inside and investigate your filing-cabinet. Still in the second drawer?”

  Shayne nodded absently. “Pour me a slug of cognac while you’re about it.” He waited until the gangling reporter went through the open doorway, then said to Gentry, “It’s my turn for a few answers now. What have you learned about Wanda Weatherby?”

  “Practically nothing.” The chief sighed and extracted a thick black cigar from his breast pocket. He wrinkled his nose with distaste as he bit off the end. “No letters in her place. Nothing to show where she comes from or who she is. She appears to have lived well and kept to herself, and we haven’t turned up a single person who admits knowing her any more intimately than to pass the time of day.

  “There is one thing,” he went on slowly. “We’ve had two complaints from her at headquarters in the past week. Routine investigations were made both times without accomplishing much.”

  “From her—or about her?” Shayne asked with interest.

  “From her. The first was a week ago. A telephone call at eleven-thirty that she had a burglar. A radio car was at her place within five minutes. She was frightened and hysterical. A window in her rear bedroom had been forced, but the culprit had evidently heard her phoning the police and been frightened away. She insisted it was someone trying to kill her, and asked for police protection, but could give no reason for thinking it was anything more than an ordinary burglary attempt.”

  “So you refused her police protection,” said Shayne sardonically.

  Gentry grunted and lifted one massive shoulder. “They turned in a report, and a cruiser was kept hanging around the neighborhood for the next few nights, but nothing happened.”

  Timothy Rourke came out of Shayne’s private office with two paper cups in his hands. He handed one to Shayne, then asked Gentry, “What was the other complaint?”

  “Day before yesterday—” The chief paused and moodily regarded the glowing tip of his cigar and warned, “This is confidential, Tim. Not for publication. She seems to have brought in a box of chocolates for analysis. Claims they arrived in the mail with no return address, and she was suspicious of them. She fed one to a neighbor’s dog, and it died a few minutes later.

  “They reported the analysis to her yesterday morning,” he added sourly. “It was strychnine. Holbein went out to talk to her, but she flatly refused to give him anything to work on. Insisted that she had no idea who might have sent them, that it was up to us to find out and protect her from further attempts.”

  “What did you do about it?” Shayne asked.

  “What could we do about it? Holbein is a good man, but when she refused to co-operate, he could do nothing.”

  Shayne’s gray eyes glinted. A phrase that had been repeated in Wanda’s letters leaped into his mind: He has tried to murder me twice in the last week. He said, “That was yesterday morning. So she began trying to telephone me in the afternoon after getting no satisfaction from your department.”

  “Now, by God!” roared Gentry. “Let me tell you something, Mike. If you’d been in your office where you belong when she called, we might know something about this. Blame yourself for what happened if you’re going to blame anyone.”

  “I do,” Shayne said curtly, and for a moment there was silence in the small anteroom. Gentry looked at his watch again, and said irritably, “The postman would be late this morning. It’s nine-sixteen.”

  “Has it occurred to you,” Shayne asked blandly, “that someone might make an attempt to prevent Wanda’s letter from reaching me?”

  “What sort of attempt?” Gentry demanded. “Who knows she wrote it or what she wrote?”

  “It was just a thought. If her murderer knows she mailed me a letter with pertinent information, he might try something. The strychnine in Wanda’s chocolates reminds me of Helen Taylor,” he went on swiftly. “How did she get her dose last night?”

  Gentry shook his graying head soberly. “There weren’t any chocolates around, if that’s what you mean.”

  “What did the stomach analysis show?”

  “Between a quarter and half grain. Probably swallowed very shortly before a heavy dinner which retarded the poison’s action considerably. Around nine o’clock is the doc’s best guess.”

  “At least an hour before Wanda was shot,” Shayne muttered. “That would seem to do away with the possibility of murder and suicide on Helen’s part. Have you traced her movements during the evening?”

  “We haven’t had much luck. Apparently she was in her room getting ready to go out—according to the Devon girl’s story. We know she had an audition at eight o’clock, and is supposed to have left there about eight-twenty in high spirits. After that, it’s a blank until her roommate returned around midnight and found her too far gone to be saved.”

  “What sort of audition, Will?” Timothy Rourke asked.

  “For a radio show. The producer called us this morning as soon as he read about her death, and volunteered the information. He says she seemed perfectly well and in good spirits when she left his place, and he had no idea where she went.”

  “What’s the producer’s name?” Rourke asked in a worried voice.

  “It’s a good Irish name. Uh—Flannaga
n, I think. Pal of yours, Tim?”

  “If it’s Ralph Flannagan,” said Rourke, “it just happens that he is.” He compressed his lips and his cavernous eyes sought Shayne’s imploringly, but the redhead was busy sipping cognac from the paper cup and refused to meet his gaze.

  “Seemed to tell a straight enough story,” rumbled Gentry abstractedly, looking at his watch again. He stood up and his florid face was grim. “It’s now nine twenty-five, Mike. I checked with a couple of other offices here in the building before coming here. They say the mail is never later than nine-fifteen. How do you account for that?”

  “Why should I account for it?”

  “Because, by God, I think you’ve planned some hocus-pocus to keep that letter from being delivered while I’m here,” fumed Gentry. “You gave it away when you suggested a while ago that something might happen to the mail. If you’ve pulled a fast one on the United States mail, I’ll make it my job to see that they put you under Fort Leavenworth.”

  At that moment the telephone rang, and Lucy Hamilton answered it. Gentry paused, breathing heavily, to listen.

  She said, “One moment,” and held the instrument out to Shayne. “It’s for you, Michael. Henry Black.”

  “I’ll take it inside,” he told her, stalking toward the door of his private office. He added over his shoulder, “You listen on that phone, Will. I think you may be interested in what Hank has to say.”

  Hurrying to his desk, Shayne dropped one hip to the desk, picked up the receiver, and said, “That you, Hank?”

  “Right. I thought you’d want to know how your hunch paid off, Mike. Just a block down Flagler. Two hoods waiting in a car to blast the postman. They had him spotted, all right, and if Matty and I hadn’t been right there and heeled, it would have been curtains.”

  “What happened?” demanded Shayne, hearing a quick intake of breath from Will Gentry listening on the outer phone.

  “The postman got one slug in his shoulder. They’re sending a substitute along with the mail. Nicky Calloni was one of the boys. Matty got him square in the heart. I don’t know his pal, but he’ll live, and the cops are talking to him now.”

  Shayne said, “Fine, Hank. Send me a bill.” Then he said harshly to Will Gentry, “Still going to put me in Leavenworth, Will, for interfering with the mail?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Shayne cradled the receiver and turned to face the police chief who came stamping in and exploded, “What did Hank Black mean? Why did he phone you?”

  “You heard him,” Shayne snapped. “Nick Calloni and another man tried to hold the postman up on Flagler. If Black and Mathews hadn’t been on the spot, they would have succeeded.”

  Gentry’s beefy face was a study in conflicting emotions. He said slowly, “Calloni is Jack Gurley’s right-hand man.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Shayne told him dryly. “But he isn’t any more, according to Black.”

  “Are you saying that Gurley arranged the holdup? Just to prevent Weatherby’s letter from being delivered?”

  Shayne shrugged. “Why don’t you try thinking for once? In the meantime, you might apologize for suspecting me of fixing something to prevent your seeing the letter. Unless you think I hired Calloni and his pal to make the snatch—and then put Black on it to prevent it.”

  “Damn it, Mike, if you suspected Gurley might do something like that, why didn’t you warn me? I would have put guards on the postman. That’s what we’ve got cops for. You didn’t have to call in private ops for a job like that. It isn’t going to look good.”

  “Because your men would have scared Calloni off,” the detective told him evenly. “He’d never have tried it if they had been around.”

  “And he’d still be alive,” rumbled Gentry.

  “Exactly.”

  “Damn it, you mean you sucked him into making the try hoping there’d be a shooting?”

  Shayne lit a cigarette and explained dispassionately, “I couldn’t swear to it, but I’m morally certain Calloni was one of the thugs who tried to blast me last night. I’m also morally certain that Gurley sent him to do the job. By sending Black and Mathews to guard the postman instead of a couple of cops—or going myself, I pulled Calloni out in the open where you can see him. And you can cut the moral indignation about his death. If I’d done it your way, you might have a couple of dead cops. You’d do better to pin a medal on me,” he added dryly, “and you know it.”

  “Some day,” Gentry said gruffly, “you’re going to guess wrong.”

  “That’s better than never guessing at all,” said Shayne blithely.

  Gentry walked stolidly around him and picked up the phone. He said, “Get me police headquarters, Lucy,” and waited.

  Timothy Rourke lounged in the open doorway, listening with feverish interest. While Gentry waited for his call, the reporter said to Shayne, “Have I got all this straight? You had Henry Black and one of his ops guarding the postman, and they killed Nicky Calloni and shot another hood when they tried a holdup on Flagler?”

  “Not for publication,” Shayne told him flatly. “Not my part of it. Let it come out that Black and Matty were on the scene accidentally and were just lucky enough to prevent the snatch.” He stopped to listen as Gentry spoke into the telephone.

  “Chief Gentry. Get me Lieutenant Barnes.” He waited a moment, chewing on his soggy cigar stub, then said, “Barnes? … Take some men and pick up The Lantern. Jack Gurley. That’s right. Find him wherever he is and bring him in. Don’t book him for anything. Hold him.” He hung up and turned away from the desk.

  The three men heard the front door of the office open and a voice drawl, “Mawnin’, ma’am. Sorry the mail’s late, but there was a little trouble.”

  Gentry went out hurriedly, with Shayne on his heels. A wiry young man with a bulging mailbag was in the act of handing a sheaf of letters across the railing to Lucy Hamilton.

  “I’ll take that mail,” Gentry said sternly, his pudgy hand outstretched.

  The substitute postman turned and looked at him in openmouthed surprise. His mouth gaped wider as Shayne shouldered the police chief aside and said angrily, “Not that way, Will. This is still my office, damn it. Is that mail for Michael Shayne?” he demanded of the postman.

  “Y-Yessir.”

  “I’m the chief of police,” fumed Gentry. “I’ll be responsible.”

  “But I’m Michael Shayne,” said the redhead to the confused postman. “If those letters are addressed to me, you’d better hand them over.”

  “Yessir.” The man thrust the sheaf of letters into his hand and fled.

  “Now, by God, Mike—” Gentry began, but Shayne cut him off coldly.

  “Stop making an ass of yourself. You’ll see Wanda Weatherby’s letter if it’s here. But you’re not going to paw through the rest of my mail at the same time.”

  Shayne passed the packet of mail to Lucy. “Go through them and see if you find a letter from Wanda Weatherby. Give it to me if you do.”

  Timothy Rourke stood behind the two men, an interested spectator. Lucy laid the letters on her desk and began glancing through them. She studied the fourth envelope briefly and said, “Here it is,” and handed her employer the square white envelope he had mailed to himself early that morning.

  Shayne studied it gravely, holding it out for Gentry to see. “Here it is. No hocus-pocus. No sleight-of-hand. No nothing. It just happens I don’t like to have a cop pawing through my mail.”

  He slid his forefinger under the flap and tore it open, took out the two sheets of folded notepaper before Gentry’s eyes, and extracted the check. He glanced at the check and waved it in the air, saying cheerfully, “This explains the stub you found in Wanda’s checkbook.” He handed it to Lucy. “Better put that in the safe,” he advised, “before Will tries to grab it.”

  “Keep the check,” Gentry said angrily. “I want to read her letter.”

  “You shall,” Shayne soothed him, “just as soon as I finish it.” He unfolded the first sheet an
d glanced through it rapidly, raising his ragged red brows and grinning widely as he reached the postscript. He passed it on to Gentry, but warned, “Better get your blood pressure under control before you read the postscript.”

  He unfolded the second sheet while Gentry read the first one. His expression was grim when he handed it to the chief, remarking, “Now we know how Gurley knew what was in the letter and why it was so important to keep it from reaching me. I think you’ve got a charge you can book him on, all right.”

  Timothy Rourke had withdrawn, standing aside with a look of worried puzzlement on his long, thin face. Shayne grinned briefly, for the moment forgetting that the reporter knew nothing of the replacement of Wanda’s letter by this forgery, and that he believed the letter Gentry was reading was the original copy of the one she had written accusing Ralph Flannagan of planning her death.

  Rourke glared and muttered sotto voce, “I thought, damn it, you were going to do something—not just hand it over to Will like that.”

  Shayne shrugged and went past the reporter into his office, calling over his shoulder, “Let Tim see the letter when you’ve read it, Will.”

  He went to the filing-cabinet and pulled out the second drawer, took out three paper cups, a bottle of rye, and one of cognac. He poured two cups of rye and set them on the desk, filled his own cup with cognac, and closed the cabinet as Will Gentry came in, rubbing his heavy jaw reflectively and exuding clouds of noxious smoke from a fresh cigar.

  Shayne gestured to the cups and said soberly, “Let’s have a drink together and forget all this, Will. We’ve been at each other’s throats ever since last night, and I don’t like it. You’ve got to admit that I didn’t hold out on you.”

  Gentry hesitated, then picked up the whisky. “I give you credit for a smart play in having Black follow the postman. That pulled Gurley into the open, and now, by God, we’ve got him.” He tossed the whisky off, sputtered, and crumpled the paper cup in his palm. “That bastard has been thumbing his nose at us for years. I never thought he’d be dumb enough to walk into a murder rap. What the hell do you suppose the Weatherby woman had on him that forced him to bump her?”