The Corpse That Never Was

by Brett Halliday

  “Then you’ll give me whatever you’ve got?”

  “Sure I’ll give you everything we’ve got. Haven’t I always cooperated, Mike? But the truth is, you know more about it right now than I do. You saw the couple in that room. Read the suicide notes, didn’t you? I wasn’t visiting my pretty secretary on the floor below when it happened.”

  “I got out as fast as I could,” Shayne soothed him, “and only know what I saw when I broke the door down.”

  “That was enough, wasn’t it?”

  “For me, yes. Until I got a sizable check from Eli this morning. Now I’ve got a job to do. What about fingerprints in the apartment?”

  Gentry shuffled papers on his desk, picked one up to glance at it. “Pretty clean. The woman’s were on the empty cocktail glass beside her, Lambert’s on the other one. His were on the shotgun barrel in the right position for holding it up to put the muzzle in his mouth with his bare toe on the trigger.”

  He paused and Shayne asked, “No other fingerprints turn up in the entire place?”

  “Nothing mentioned here. Hell, I don’t suppose Deitch dusted the whole goddamn place. Why should he?”

  “No reason,” agreed Shayne lightly. “Except maybe to prove that no one else had been around.”

  “I know. Eli tried to feed me that theory too. That Paul Nathan was there at the time and engineered the whole thing and ducked down the fire escape while you were busting in. For God’s sake, Mike. You can’t buy that?”

  “I’m not buying anything. Mind if I borrow Deitch on his time off to give it a real going-over? He’s a good man.”

  “I don’t care what he does in his spare time. Look, Mike, I’m not putting any roadblocks in your way. Go ahead and earn your fee. But I’m warning you right now, Eli Armbruster isn’t going to be satisfied with anything less than a murder rap against Paul Nathan. He hates that guy who married his only daughter.”

  “I gathered that much,” Shayne agreed equably. “But I don’t hate him, Will.” He met the chief’s cold stare with equal coldness, and then relaxed with a shrug. “Know what killed her?”

  “They did a simple stomach analysis. Potassium ferricyanide. Enough of it mixed with rum and crème de menthe to kill a couple of mules.”

  “Potassium ferricyanide?”

  “One of the fastest acting cyanides known,” Gentry informed him, “and one of the easiest to get hold of. Photographers use it for something.”

  Shayne asked, “Was Lambert a photographer?”

  “We don’t know what Lambert was.”

  “Or Paul Nathan?” pursued Shayne.

  Chief Gentry snorted eloquently.

  “What do we know about Lambert?” persisted Shayne. “You say he gave a phony address in Jax when he rented the apartment?”

  Gentry nodded, shuffling the papers and looking down. “A little less than a month ago. He came directly to the manager of the building in answer to a newspaper ad. Took a quick look at the apartment and rented it for a month. Cash in advance. Hundred forty bucks.” He read slowly from a typed report in front of him. “Quiet, pleasant type. Medium height. Medium weight. Medium everything. Small dark mustache and lightly tinted blue glasses. Left-handed, the manager recalls, but that’s about all he does recall. When he signed the lease.”

  “Those suicide notes?”

  Gentry looked up and nodded. “Written by a left-handed man according to our expert.”

  “Did you compare the signatures with the lease?”

  Gentry scowled and studied the report in front of him. “I guess not. Why in hell would they? It was open and shut. You saw it yourself.”

  “That’s what Eli pointed out,” Shayne muttered, staring across the room. He turned his head to smile placatingly at Gentry. “Let’s not get off on that tangent again. What else did the manager remember about Lambert?”

  “Not much. It was a month ago. Something about him being a salesman with his territory recently enlarged to include Miami so he needed a headquarters while in town. The inference being that he would only be occupying the apartment occasionally. And that seems to be just what he did. From what my men picked up, it was a weekend hangout… more-or-less.”

  Shayne nodded. “A convenient place for Mrs. Nathan to visit him every Friday night.”

  “That’s what it sounds like. There’s a Mrs. Conrad across the hall…”

  Shayne grimaced. “I heard her on the subject last night. She just happened to have her door cracked open every Friday evening… but, hell, Lucy knows her and says the old biddy can be trusted to know what goes on in the building. So…?” He leaned back and spread out both hands expressively. “That’s all we’ve got. You read those notes, Will. Did they sound authentic to you? The sort of thing a man would write under those circumstances?”

  “How in hell would I know? I’m not a psychiatrist. And we don’t know what kind of man Lambert was.”

  Shayne scowled and leaned forward to rub out his cigarette in a big ashtray. “That’s right. We don’t. Where was Paul Nathan last night?”

  “On the town. His regular Friday night out… so he says. Drifting around here and on the Beach donating his wife’s money to the gambling tables. He made out a list of the joints he’d been to in the course of the night, with approximate times at each place. It looks pretty good for an alibi from eight o’clock on. Want to see it?”

  Chief Gentry selected a sheet and slid it over to Shayne. The redhead glanced down at the list of nightspots, and asked, “Did you check this itinerary out?”

  “For God’s sake, Mike! On Saturday morning?” Will Gentry gritted his teeth together so hard that they bit through the chewed end of the cigar and a portion of it fell to the desk in front of him. He glared down at it, picked it up with stubby fingers and threw it toward a spittoon in the corner, spitting the fragment from his mouth after it. Then he rested both elbows on the desk and nestled his blunt chin against his palms.

  “No,” he grated. “We didn’t check Paul Nathan’s alibi for the time of his wife’s suicide. Eli Armbruster didn’t pay us for that particular little chore.”

  Shayne nodded imperturbably, folding the sheet of paper. “Mind if I keep this?”

  “Hell, no. You’re welcome to it. Anything else you want?”

  “I’d like to take one of the suicide notes, Will. Preferably the first one.”

  “How about this one to go along with them?” Will Gentry scrabbled among the papers in front of him, pulled out a square sheet of heavy white notepaper folded into four thicknesses. The creases were deep and it showed signs of much handling. Shayne unfolded it slowly and saw that the handwriting looked similar to that of the suicide notes he had read last night. The letter was dated a month previously, and the salutation was: “Elsa, My own sweet.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and three vertical creases formed above his nose as he settled back to read it.

  “I cannot endure to continue existing as we are at present. My body cries out for your body, and my need for you is not fulfilled during the fleeting and fragmentary moments we are able to steal together.

  “I am going to make different arrangements, darling, so we will have hours instead of moments lying in each other’s arms. I will find a private place known only to us where we can meet freely and happily.

  “I will telephone you next Friday at the regular time.

  “I love you more blissfully each passing day and can scarcely wait to hold you in my arms again.

  “Your own

  “Bobbie-Boy”

  Shayne put the letter down and demanded, “Where the devil did you get this?”

  “In a zippered side compartment inside Mrs. Nathan’s purse, along with a couple of credit cards. And here are the two suicide notes.”

  “Did you show this letter to Eli Armbruster this morning?”

  “No,” Gentry admitted sourly. “I hated to hit him with that, too. He’s so damned certain that his daughter couldn’t have been carrying on that sort of affair.
This clinches it, seems to me.”

  Shayne shrugged. “I’ve still been paid to do a job. He’ll never be happy until he has absolute proof that Paul Nathan couldn’t have had anything to do with it. That’s why I’m going to go over his alibi with a finetoothed comb.”

  Gentry exhaled a long breath and nodded slowly, rubbing his chin with the back of his left hand. “Guys like Armbruster rub me the wrong way,” he rumbled. “Just because it’s his daughter. An Armbruster, by God. Like I said before… if it was Mrs. John Smith…”

  “The basic difference is,” Shayne told him cheerfully, “that Mrs. John Smith’s daddy couldn’t afford to write a check the size Armbruster wrote this morning.” He got to his feet slowly, folding the papers in his big hands. “Can I get into the apartment?”

  “No reason why you can’t. See Lieutenant Hawkins down the hall. He’s got the keys and all the dope. Keep me up-to-date, huh?”

  Shayne said, “Sure,” and went out with a wave of his big hand, and down the hall to the office of Homicide Lieutenant Hawkins where he was given the key to the apartment above Lucy Hamilton’s. He also ascertained that Sergeant Deitch, the department fingerprint expert, who had answered the call the night before, was off duty until four o’clock that afternoon, and got his telephone number at home. Garroway, the lab technician, who had accompanied the Homicide Squad, was on duty in the police laboratory at the end of the hall, and Shayne found him alone and idle when he walked in a few minutes later.

  Garroway was young and alert and serious and college-trained. He knew the redheaded private detective by sight, and got to his feet quickly. “It’s Michael Shayne, isn’t it? I saw you at that apartment last night.” He studied Shayne with frank curiosity from behind thick-lensed, horn-rimmed glasses.

  Shayne nodded casually. “When do you go off duty?”

  “At noon.”

  “Want to do a little job for me? Over-time rates,” Shayne added with a grin.

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “A follow-up on that suicide last night. I know you gave it a superficial once-over last night, but I want the works.”

  A faint flush crept into the young man’s cheeks and he answered guardedly, “I think we checked it out pretty well. It was perfectly obvious…”

  “Let’s forget the obvious. Did you analyze, for instance, that wet spot on the carpet near the kitchen door beside the empty cocktail glass?”

  “No. But the glass contained traces of the same poison mixture as the other glass beside the woman. Potassium ferricyanide. The second suicide note explained clearly…”

  Shayne shook his head with a grin that was intended to take the sting out of his words. “That’s the sort of thing I mean. I know the lieutenant pushed you through last night, but this time I want everything. Could you meet me there with your equipment about twelve-thirty? I’ll have Deitch, too. A hundred bucks for an hour’s work.”

  “Well… sure. But you don’t need to pay me. That is… if you think I overlooked anything…”

  Shayne said, “My client can afford to pay you. Fine. Twelve-thirty.”

  He left police headquarters by a side door, glancing at his watch as he went to his parked car at the curb. Not quite eleven o’clock. The News was an afternoon paper and Timothy Rourke might be at his desk in the City Room.

  And he hadn’t yet telephoned Deitch at home to enlist the fingerprint expert for the job that had to be done. He’d call him from Rourke’s office. And then he had to get hold of Robert Lambert’s signature from the apartment house manager…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The elongated reporter was slouched at his desk with a cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth, languidly tapping out copy with one nicotine-stained forefinger when Shayne pulled up a chair beside him. He stopped his typing and leaned back with a wide yawn.

  “Just the man I want to see. I’m finishing off the Armbruster story. You got anything new from last night?”

  “Is the News going to make it the Armbruster story? It was Mrs. Paul Nathan who died.”

  “Who’s Paul Nathan to our readers? Armbruster makes it front-page. Did you know the old goat is screaming it can’t be suicide. It’s gotta be murder. Any comment on that?”

  Shayne said, “Not for publication, Tim.” His gray eyes were alight with interest. “Who’s he screaming that to?”

  “City Editor. Had him on the phone at eight o’clock this morning to lay down exactly how he wanted the story handled… loaded with innuendos, mostly directed at his son-in-law.”

  “You handling it that way?”

  Rourke snorted his disgust. “There are libel laws in this country. I’m writing it just like you gave it to me last night… unless you’ve changed your mind this morning?”

  “I’ve changed it only to the extent that I can be influenced by a big fee.”

  Rourke sat up straighter and shook cigarette ash down the front of his jacket. “You mean the old man’s retained you to clear the smirch from the family name?”

  “Something like that. He’s hell-bent on hanging it on Paul Nathan somehow… anyhow, I guess.”

  “That’s an angle,” Rourke said alertly. “Real newsworthy. Let’s see…” He cleared his throat, frowning down at the half-typed sheet in front of him. “Displeased with the apathy displayed by the local police department in the investigation of his daughter’s unseemly demise, we are confidentially informed, as we go to press, that the grieving father has retained the famous private detective, Michael Shayne, to search for evidence proving that Elsa Armbruster did not take her own life last night. In an exclusive interview obtained by your reporter this morning, the redheaded private eye expressed his personal conviction…”

  Shayne said, “Cut it out, Tim. I haven’t got any personal convictions. Not at this point.”

  “So you’re not convinced it’s suicide,” said Rourke triumphantly. “That’ll do for a sub-head.”

  Shayne shook his head from side to side. “Nothing like that.” He hesitated, getting out a cigarette and narrowing his eyes, thinking it out as he spoke: “But it might stir something up if you’d drop in a simple statement at the end of your story to the effect that I have been retained by Armbruster to make an investigation, and that I will welcome any information about Lambert or the movements of any of the principals last evening.”

  “Including Paul Nathan,” suggested Rourke briskly.

  “Don’t stress it. If I get information that builds an alibi for him, I’ll be glad to have it.”

  “Papa won’t like.”

  “I don’t give a damn what papa likes,” said Shayne amiably. “I’m being paid to do a job. What do you know about Nathan?”

  “Not much. We may have some stuff in the morgue. He made news when he married Elsa Armbruster.”

  “Nothing since then? No rumors about marital rifts… infidelity on either side?”

  “The News,” said Rourke stiffly, “does not print rumors.”

  “I know. Nose around anyhow, huh, Tim? Society editor? I’d like to back-track the guy.”

  “Why not get it from the horse’s mouth?”

  “I will. First, I want to get a few things straight in my own mind before I tackle Nathan. Use your phone?” He stretched a long arm out for it and got a slip of paper from his pocket.

  Rourke said, “Sure,” and pushed a button that gave him an outside line. Shayne dialled a number while Rourke listened curiously. A man’s voice answered the ring, and Shayne asked, “Sergeant Deitch?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Mike Shayne, Sergeant. I was up at that apartment last night…”

  “I remember. You found them, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right. I’ve just come from Will Gentry’s office, Sergeant, and he said okay if I asked you for some off-the-record help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “A complete and thorough fingerprint job on the apartment for one thing. I’ve got a client who’ll pay for your expert help. Can you me
et me there about twelve-thirty?”

  “Wait a minute, Shayne.” Deitch’s voice was harshly defensive. “I dusted for prints last night. The Chief’s got my report. If you think I slipped on the job…”

  “I don’t think you slipped at all,” Shayne said patiently. “I wouldn’t be asking you now if I didn’t know you’re the best man in Miami. You got what the lieutenant wanted last night. But I want everything… proof, if we can get it, that no one except those two were in that place last night.”

  Deitch said cheerfully, “Okay. I don’t mind picking up an extra buck. Twelve-thirty?”

  “See you there.” Shayne hung up with satisfaction and stood up. Timothy Rourke leaned back in his chair grinning up at him. “Mind if I join you at twelve-thirty? See how a real, honest-to-God detective works?”

  Shayne said, “Come along. Bring anything you can get on Nathan, huh?” He went out through the City Room and down to his car.

  The building in which Lucy Hamilton lived was a short distance from the newspaper office. Shayne parked in front where he had parked many times in the past, went into the small foyer and found a button “Manager. Gnd. Flr.” He pushed the button and in a moment the front door release clicked. He opened it and went across a bare, unoccupied lobby toward the self-service elevator which he never used when visiting Lucy in her second-floor apartment, and found a sign that said “Manager” with an arrow pointing down a narrow corridor to the left.

  There was an open door at the end of the hall showing a rather plump girl wearing horn-rimmed glasses busily typing in front of a small switchboard which she could handle without moving out of her chair.

  She looked up to greet him with a pleasant smile, and he asked, “Is the manager in?”

  “Certainly.” She nodded her head toward a closed door on her right. “Go right in. I don’t think Mr. Barstow is particularly busy.”