The Corpse That Never Was

by Brett Halliday

  There was no sign of a struggle; nothing appeared to be out of place. The desk was bare except for a telephone on one corner of it; a swivel chair was pushed back from behind the desk. There were three straight chairs in an orderly row against the right-hand wall, and two metal filing cabinets against the opposite wall.

  Shayne circled the body to stand in front of the filing cabinets. Each one had three drawers, and an oblong of cardboard in a slot at the top of each drawer. They were lettered consecutively, A—D, E—H, etc.

  The top drawer of the second cabinet was the M—P file. Shayne put his pencil inside the handle and pulled. The drawer was unlocked and slid out easily on roller bearings. The drawer held two or three dozen cardboard folders, some very thin and some bulging with papers, each with a name tab on it in alphabetical order. The first one was tabbed Mason, J. M. They were held upright by a metal divider inside the drawer, and Shayne flipped through half a dozen M’s to Nederov, P. He hesitated with a frown, checked back on the last M to be certain he had not made a mistake, then went past Nederov to Nelson and to Nestiger.

  There was no file tabbed Nathan in the drawer. Either Wentworth had not got around to starting a Nathan file, or else the folder had been removed from its proper place.

  Shayne pushed the drawer shut with his pencil and stood back, tugging thoughtfully at his earlobe. There was no logical reason, of course, to connect the detective’s death with the fact that he had received a $250 retainer from Mrs. Nathan a month previously. Yet the thought was strongly in Shayne’s mind because that was the circumstance that had brought him to Wentworth’s office, and he didn’t like the coincidence of a third death that had no connection with the two deaths the preceding night.

  As he stood there scowling, it came to him suddenly that Elsa signed her checks with her maiden name. Also, he recalled the question he had asked himself previously… whether Wentworth was the detective Eli had employed previously and whether he had recommended the man to his daughter.

  He tried the top drawer of the first cabinet and hit pay-dirt at once. The third folder in the drawer was labeled, Armbruster, Elsa. Shayne lifted it out carefully between his fingernails and laid it open on the desk. The first item was a letterhead with scribbled notations on it in pencil. Clipped to the top of the page was a 4x6 photograph of Paul Nathan. Below, the detective had scribbled, “Paul Nathan. V.P. Beach Devel Corp.” with a Lincoln Avenue address on Miami Beach, followed by the Nathan residence address and a telephone number which Shayne recognized. After that was written, “White Thnderbrd Conv.” and a license number.

  Below this was scrawled, “Tail Friday nights, 5:00 on. Exec. Pkng lot, office. $100 & exp. $250 pd.”

  And below that was the additional notation, “Chek Miss Mona Bayliss for possble contact with subject past months & presnt.”

  Shayne turned that page back and found a carbon copy of a neatly typed report dated Friday, two weeks previously. He eased one hip down to a corner of the desk and read every word of the two-page report carefully.

  It was headed, SUBJECT, Paul Nathan. Movements from 5:00 p.m. until 4:20 a.m.

  It began: “Subject left office 5:10 to car in lot. Proceeded on Lincoln to ocean, south to Hi-Lo Bar corner 6th. Three drinks at bar alone, evidently killing time, checking watch. Out at 5:52 and across Causeway to Red Cock Restaurant Miami. Met young girl in lobby, evidently by prearrangement. Blonde, 5-2, 110 lbs. red cocktail dress. (Later ascertained she is Suzie Conroy, secretary in office. Newcomer in Miami from New York. Employed six weeks ago. No previous contact with Subject can be traced.) Cocktails and dinner to 7:47. Drove to apartment building 267 Northwest 17th St. (Later ascertained Miss Conroy’s address, apt 3-D.) Parted at front door with friendly good night.

  “Arrived Fun Club 8:02. Upstairs to gaming rooms where Subject purchased $100 in $5 chips. Craps, blackjack and roulette, making $1 to $5 bets and losing slowly but steadily until chips were gone at 10:25. Spoke casually to various people, seemed known by housemen and liked.

  “Drove north on the Boulevard to Bay Breeze. Arrival 10:42. Purchased another $100 in chips (also cash), and lost at various tables until out of chips at 12:10. Downstairs to dining room for three drinks and sandwich.

  “12:45 across 79th Street Causeway to Bel Luna on Beach. Another $100 dribbled away (only craps here) and departed at 1:52. Drove to El Cielito, and another $100. Had run at blackjack and more than doubled stake, then lost at crap table shooting up to $20.

  “To the Hacienda at 3:03. Purchased another $100, tried blackjack and then roulette. Played low stakes at roulette, seeming to stretch stake to closing time at 4:00. Appeared particularly friendly with croupier, and when play stopped at 4:00, they left together. Downstairs to bar for two drinks in a booth and ten minutes of conversation. Subject left at 4:20 and drove directly home where he put car in garage and went in side entrance. (Later ascertained croupier at Hacienda is Joe Grogan, lives in Miami with wife, steady worker at Hacienda, can discover no outside contact with Subject.) END FIRST REPORT.”

  The next page was headed, “INTERIM REPORT. SUBJECT Miss Mona Bayliss.

  “It was necessary to go back more than a year to trace Subject to present address, which is 729 Hibiscus Road, Miami, Apt. 511.

  “Interviews with former friends and coworkers indicate that Subject was badly broken up when jilted by Paul Nathan a month prior to his marriage. Consensus is that she was bitter about treatment by former fiancé, began going out with other men, and absenteeism from work led to loss of her position as insurance secretary six weeks later.

  “Subject then moved from modest apartment she shared with another girl, and cut off old ties and friendships. Rented a rather expensive apartment ($300 per month) and did not seek another job.

  “Source of income not known, but indications are that she may have become ‘party’ girl. She is believed to entertain a man (or men) frequently, and often into the late hours.

  “Found nothing to indicate she has had any contact with Paul Nathan since he broke their engagement. No conclusive proof otherwise, but his photograph not recognized by employees in building. Possibility that they have met clandestinely elsewhere will be explored if you direct. Will await instructions.

  “END INTERIM REPORT.”

  The next page was again headed: “Subject, Paul Nathan.” It was dated the previous Friday and there was the notation: Movements from 5:00 p.m. until 3:36 a.m.

  Shayne glanced through this report quickly, confirming his impression that Paul Nathan followed very much the same routine on each of his Friday nights “out.”

  This time he had left the office soon after five o’clock, driven directly to the Red Cock where he sat alone in the bar and nursed a couple of drinks until he was joined for dinner at 6:15 by the same Suzie Conroy who had dined with him the preceding Friday. After leaving the Red Cock and depositing her at her door, he had followed the same routine as before. First to the Fun Club, then to the Bay Breeze; across Biscayne Bay to the Bel Luna, then El Cielito, and finally to the Hacienda.

  At each one of the five places he visited, he invariably bought a stack of chips for $100, and remained until he lost that exact amount. This night he reached the Hacienda at 2:30, and ended up at the roulette table presided over by Joe Grogan just a few minutes less than an hour later.

  In his report, Wentworth noted that he was the only player at the table during his last fifteen minutes of play, and that he and the croupier had engaged in conversation while the wheel was going around and he was losing the last of his $100. From the table he had gone downstairs alone and had a single drink before driving directly home as before.

  When he finished reading the two reports, Shayne didn’t have to check the notes on last night which he had in his pocket to know that Paul Nathan was a methodical and losing gambler who evidently set himself a loss limit of $500 each Friday night, spreading that amount equally and doggedly at each of the five places he visited each night, remaining at each one until he had l
ost exactly a hundred dollars, and then moving on.

  It wasn’t a very exciting or imaginative way to spend a night gambling, and Shayne wondered why he bothered to make the rounds at all. He supposed the guy felt he had to do something with the one night of freedom allowed him by his wealthy wife each week, and he evidently felt a certain compulsion to fritter away the five hundred bucks his wife allowed him for each night “out.”

  All in all it seemed to shape up as a rather dreary sort of married life, and Shayne found himself beginning to feel an unwilling sort of pity for the man who had jilted another woman to marry an heiress.

  He closed the file reflectively, digging out a cigarette and lighting it. There was nothing to indicate whether Max Wentworth had been on the same tailing job last night or not. If so, his conscientious and carefully detailed report of Nathan’s movements would probably provide the husband with a perfect alibi. There hadn’t been time for him to type up his report, of course. Perhaps that was what he had come to the office to do. That might indicate he would have his notes on the evening with him, because he would have to keep notes as the evening progressed to make up an exact timetable such as the other reports provided.

  Shayne took the folder carefully by its extreme edges again, and replaced it in the drawer where it had been. He hesitated before closing the drawer, recalling his former question about Eli Armbruster and the detective. He looked behind the folder he had just studied, and nodded with grim satisfaction when he discovered that the next folder was tabbed, Armbruster, Eli. He opened it and saw that it was dated a year before, and was headed: SUBJECT, Paul Nathan.

  He lifted it out, glanced at the next folder to note that it was also labeled, Armbruster, Eli. He opened it enough to see that it went back three years and the Subject was a man named John L. Pierson. The following folder was also Armbruster’s, dated four years previously, and was a report on someone named David Lobb.

  Shayne opened the Nathan folder on the desk, leaving the other two in place. He wondered if Paul Nathan realized that he, also, had been investigated by a private detective, as well as the other two men who had evidently sought to marry Elsa.

  He skimmed through the report swiftly and found that it contained no derogatory information about Paul Nathan who was described as 33, 5-9½, 145 pounds, from Sandusky, Ohio and a graduate of the State University. He had lived in Miami three years at the date the report had been made, employed continuously during that time as an insurance salesman by a Miami Beach broker on a drawing account of $100 per week against commissions which averaged between $125 and $150. He lived quietly in a bachelor apartment, was well-liked and industrious, and for six months had been engaged to a girl employed as a secretary in the same office whose name was Mona Bayliss.

  The report noted merely that the engagement had been broken off just a month before without indicating whether this had occurred before or after Paul Nathan had met Elsa Armbruster.

  Shayne replaced the folder in its proper position in the file and pushed the drawer shut.

  Nothing he had found so far proved very much of anything. Except that Eli hadn’t missed a bet in checking up on prospective sons-in-law, and it seemed likely that Elsa had come to Wentworth on her father’s recommendation when she decided to hire a private detective to tail her husband on his Friday nights away from home.

  He sighed and turned back to the stiffening corpse on the floor, not liking what he was about to do, but knowing it had to be done before he called the police in.

  A careful search of Max Wentworth’s pockets, however, failed to reveal any notes the detective might have jotted down the previous evening. He either had not kept any… or he hadn’t brought them to the office with him… or his murderer had found them first.

  Shayne rocked back on his heels while he considered this possibility. It was still, he conceded to himself, far out in left field to believe there was any connection between the Nathan case and the murder of Max Wentworth. He had no doubt that Max had made dozens of enemies in his somewhat checkered career who might have been happy to do the job. Max wasn’t, he told himself grimly, above trying a spot of discreet blackmail if the occasion arose… and the opportunity for blackmail often did arise during the course of a private investigator’s daily work.

  He got to his feet and stretched out a big hand toward the telephone on the desk, halted the movement before he touched it.

  Thus far he had touched nothing in the office. Better leave it that way. Gentry would be happier if he didn’t find any of Shayne’s fingerprints in the room, possibly smudging some others.

  He pulled the door open with the tips of his fingers on the edge of the wood, went back down the stairs to a telephone booth in the lobby.

  There he dialled the number that gave him a direct line to Will Gentry’s private office, and was pleased to hear the chief’s gruff voice a moment later.

  “Mike Shayne, Will. I’ve got one here that I think you’ll want to look at.”

  “Got one what?” demanded Gentry.

  “A stiff.” Shayne made his voice sound surprised, as though Gentry should have guessed without being told.

  He groaned and said sourly, “Who, and where?”

  Shayne told him, and ended cheerily, “I’ll be waiting to fill you in,” then hung up quickly and went back up the stairs to wait for the police to arrive.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Shayne was standing in the hallway outside of Max Wentworth’s office when Chief Will Gentry came heavily up the stairs five minutes later. He glanced in the open door at the body lying on the floor, and drew back, nodding to the two detectives who accompanied him to go on into the office.

  He said, “All right, Mike,” getting a black cigar from his pocket and glaring down at it. “Business so bad you got to start knocking your competitors off?”

  “Max wasn’t much competition,” Shayne protested mildly.

  “All right. How-come you’re in on it?” Other members of the homicide squad were coming up the stairs and Gentry and Shayne moved down the hall out of their way.

  “I was out at the Nathan house,” Shayne told him, “and found a check stub for two hundred fifty bucks Mrs. Nathan had paid Max as a retainer last month. Her husband claimed to know nothing about it… and I wondered. I tried Max’s home, but he wasn’t there… and came up here. He’d been dead a couple of hours before I got here.”

  “Door standing open and you just walked in, huh?”

  Shayne said carefully, “I knocked and then… I walked in when there wasn’t any answer.”

  Gentry was putting flame to his cigar and he grunted something indistinguishable without looking at the redhead. When black smoke billowed out of the side of his mouth, he settled himself truculently on wide-spread feet. “So what’d you find out… in his files and all?”

  Shayne gave him a hurt look. “You know I know better than that, Will. It’s strictly against the rules to touch anything at the scene of a homicide until the police get there.”

  “You didn’t, huh?”

  “You won’t find a fingerprint of mine in the place,” Shayne assured him heartily.

  Gentry said, “That, I’ll buy.” He rocked back on his heels and surveyed Shayne glumly. “You trying to tie this in to the suicides last night?”

  “I’m not trying.” Shayne shrugged. “I told you how I happened to find Max. Have you traced Lambert yet?” he went on swiftly.

  Gentry shook his bullet head. “Nothing on him yet. Preliminary report from Washington is negative on his prints. That’s only the active criminal file, you know. May be something in a day or so. You dig up anything?”

  “Nothing you haven’t got. Except three telephone calls from Lambert to the Nathan residence the last three Friday nights. About nine or nine-thirty, they were made.”

  “Um. And the woman turned up at the apartment about half an hour later each time?”

  Shayne said, “That’s the way it is.”

  A detective came briskly out of
the office and said, “They’re ready to cart him off to the meat wagon, Chief. Okay?”

  “Sure.” Gentry rolled the cigar to the other side of his mouth. “What you got so far?”

  “Been dead about two hours. One lick on the side of the head with something like a lead pipe or the butt of a pool cue. Dropped him in his tracks. Left-handed blow.”

  Gentry took the cigar from his mouth and echoed gently, “Left-handed?” and a puzzled look spread over Shayne’s face.

  “That’s right,” the detective told them. “That’s about all they got for sure. No sign of a struggle. Door was on the night-latch. Boys are just about through dusting for prints.”

  Gentry turned to Shayne with a scowl as two ambulance attendants came out of the office carrying a stretcher with a sheet-covered body on it.

  “Those suicide notes were written by a left-hander.”

  Shayne nodded. “And Lambert has been dead for more than twelve hours. You know, Will, I’m beginning not to like this.”

  Gentry started to respond, then shrugged eloquently and went into the office.

  Shayne followed close behind him. The fingerprint man was closing up his kit. He shook his head and told the police chief, “Nothing at all. Only the dead man’s prints. Whoever slugged him just walked in and… whammo! Then walked out.”

  Gentry nodded absently, his gaze going all around the small square room. He circled around the blood and chalk marks on the floor to stand in front of the two filing cabinets and studied the alphabetical listing on the drawers. He pulled the top drawer of the right-hand cabinet open, and Shayne kept his expression blandly disinterested.

  Gentry pawed through the cardboard folders and snorted in disgust. He turned to Shayne and said accusingly, “There’s nothing on Nathan in here.”

  “Isn’t there?” Shayne frowned. “Maybe Max didn’t keep his files up to date. But that was almost a month ago.” Then his expression cleared. “I just thought of something, Will. Mrs. Nathan keeps her bank account in her maiden name… Elsa Armbruster. The check she gave Max was signed that way. Do you suppose…?”