The Corpse That Never Was

by Brett Halliday

  Gentry said, “Let’s take a look.” He moved back to the other file and pulled out the top drawer. He thumbed through the folders and grunted with satisfaction. “Here it is, Elsa Armbruster.” He pulled the folder out, hesitated with his gaze fixed on the next one. “And here’s an Eli Armbruster, by God. Two… three folders for Eli.” He opened the folders to glance inside, and whistled softly. “First one’s a check-up on Paul Nathan a year ago. Next two are on a couple of names I don’t recognize. Pierson and Lobb. Mean anything to you, Mike?”

  Shayne frowned to indicate deep concentration. “I think… Tim Rourke was checking back on Elsa in the newspaper files this morning. I think Pierson and Lobb both made a play to marry her and the weddings both fell through.”

  “And I bet these folders will tell us why,” Gentry said triumphantly. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face that old Eli checked up on any man that wanted to marry his precious daughter, and these two both flunked out.”

  “And Nathan didn’t,” guessed Shayne.

  “Probably not. We’ll know when we read it. But this first one… for Elsa…” He turned to the desk and opened it. “She had Max tailing him the last couple of Friday nights,” he mumbled over his shoulder.

  Shayne said, “If Max tailed him last night and it checks out with what Nathan told you…”

  Gentry turned the pages inside the folder, glancing at each one. “Nothing for last night. Just the two previous Fridays.”

  Shayne looked at his watch and said, “In that case I’m going to beat it. Last night is the one that interests me.”

  Gentry turned around abruptly and expostulated, “Wait a minute, Mike,” but Shayne was half-way out the door and he kept on going.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It lacked a few minutes until four o’clock when Michael Shayne walked into the lobby of his apartment hotel on the north bank of the Miami River at Southeast Second Avenue. At that time on Saturday afternoon the lobby was deserted except for Pete behind the desk.

  Pete grinned widely as the rangy detective strode toward the desk and said, “I been reading the papers, Mr. Shayne. That was somethin’ you busted into on the Beach last night, huh?”

  Shayne said, “It wasn’t a very nice something, Pete. You stay away from married women… hear?”

  “You don’t have to tell me. There’s some woman phoned you a few minutes ago. She sounded right fussed you weren’t in.” He turned and extracted a telephone message from a pigeonhole and slid it across to the redhead.

  Shayne smoothed it out and read, “Call Mrs. Grogan at once.” And there was a local telephone number. He didn’t know anybody named Grogan that he could recall. Wait a minute though. The name was vaguely familiar. He had heard it recently… or seen it… in some connection. He nodded absently and told Pete, “I’m expecting a couple of calls. Be in my room for awhile.” He went back to the elevator and up to the second floor, and was unlocking his door when he remembered where he had seen the name of Grogan, and in what connection.

  He went into the shabbily pleasant sitting room and directly to the telephone on the center table, laying the telephone message down in front of him. He dialled the number written on it, and a softly feminine voice answered almost immediately. He asked, “Mrs. Grogan?” and she said, “Yes. Who is this?” her voice rising, tight and high.

  “Michael Shayne. I just got your message.”

  “Oh. Mr. Shayne.” She sounded momentarily let down and confused, and there was a brief silence before she spoke in her normal, soft voice. “I wonder if I could see you right away, Mr. Shayne. It’s about my husband… Joe.”

  Shayne said, “Let me get one thing straight. Does your husband work at the Hacienda on the Beach?”

  “Yes, he does.” Now she sounded frightened. “How did you know? Has something… happened?”

  Shayne said, “I’d like to talk to you. I’m at my hotel right now… waiting for a couple of calls.”

  “I know right where it is. I’m only a few blocks away. I could come there if you like. Do you have any news about Joe?”

  Shayne said, “Not exactly. I’ll be waiting for you in my suite on the second floor.” He replaced the receiver, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, then turned away and went into the kitchen where he got a tray of ice cubes from the refrigerator, ran water over them and put two cubes in a tall glass. He filled it with water from the tap, lifted down a four-ounce wine-glass and carried them both back to the table. His telephone began to ring as he got a bottle of cognac from a wall cabinet near the kitchen door. He uncorked the bottle as he went back to the table, lifted the receiver with his left hand while he poured cognac into the wine-glass with his right.

  He said, “Shayne speaking,” and a voice came over the wire:

  “Sergeant Deitch here, Mr. Shayne.”

  “What have you got, Sergeant?”

  “Not very much, I’m afraid. I’ve checked all the prints out and there’s not a single one except Lambert’s and the officers who were in the apartment last night.”

  “None of the woman at all?” Shayne frowned and lifted his glass to sip cognac.

  “Nothing clear, and nothing very fresh. Not last night, certainly. A few indeterminate smudges that might have been made by her a week or so ago. But no certainty of that. They didn’t do very much in that apartment, or else they cleaned up pretty carefully after they did.”

  “How about Garroway?” asked Shayne. “Is he through in the lab?”

  “He’s sitting right here to tell you himself.” A moment later the younger man’s voice came to Shayne’s ear:

  “I’m afraid I haven’t got anything for you either, Mr. Shayne. The cocktail that was spilled on the rug for one thing. It contained exactly the same proportion of cyanide as we estimate was in the one the woman drank. The clothes reveal absolutely nothing. They’re all new… never laundered or cleaned… and apparently worn only a few times. I made some further laboratory tests on samples from the bedding with negative results.”

  Shayne said, “All right. My client is paying for negative results just the same as positive ones. I’ll see you.” He hung up.

  Then he sank down into a chair and lit a cigarette, took a drink of ice water and idly turned the cognac glass around and around on the table. He wasn’t disappointed in the reports from Deitch and Garroway. He hadn’t actually expected or even hoped for anything different. It was just as cut and dried as a double suicide now as it had been before he started his own investigation of the affair. The only new element was the murder of Max Wentworth in his office. And that didn’t necessarily have anything at all to do with Paul Nathan or his wife. Any one of Max’s clients might have had a motive for bumping him off.

  There was just the coincidence that it had happened on the heels of the double suicide last night. Shayne didn’t like coincidences in homicide investigations.

  And there was the further coincidence that the blow that had crushed Max’s skull had been delivered by a left-handed man.

  Robert Lambert was left-handed.

  But Robert Lambert was dead. It was a cinch he hadn’t killed Max.

  This reminded him that he was to call Harry Brandt, and he looked at his watch. A few minutes past four. He dialled the number and said, “Mike Shayne, Harry. What’s the dope on those notes and the signatures?”

  “It’s open and shut, Mike. The notes and the rental agreement were written and signed by the same man. A left-hander. You want one of my famous character analyses as deduced from his handwriting to go along with that conclusion?”

  Shayne said, “Sure. Let’s have it.”

  “He’s under forty, but not too much.” Harry Brandt spoke with quiet assurance. “Middle-class background, I’d say. High school and maybe college. Not a brilliant intellect, but not stupid. A romantic who has become embittered by the role life has handed him and is continually looking for a way out… a way to break the bonds. Not an active criminal type, but certainly a passive one, without too many scruple
s if he saw a chance to get away with something. How’s that for a character analysis in one brief nutshell?”

  “Sounds all right,” growled Shayne. “If we ever find out who Robert Lambert is, I’ll let you know how close you hit it. Send me a bill, Harry.”

  “Will do.”

  This concluded the conversation, and again Shayne sank back with a frown and returned to his cognac and its ice-water chaser.

  Both glasses were almost empty when he heard a hesitant knock on his door. He went to it to admit a pleasant-faced woman of about thirty, with a direct gaze that pleased him, and a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose that somehow gave her a wholesome and ingenuous look. She wore a simple cotton dress and sensible shoes with Cuban heels, and her only jewelry was a plain gold wedding ring on her left hand.

  Her look was frankly appraising and her handclasp was firm as she said, “It was kind of you to see me, Mr. Shayne, I’m afraid I’ve come on a fool’s errand, but… I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Shayne said, “Come in, Mrs. Grogan.” He closed the door behind her and said, “I’m having a drink. Can I get something for you?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t hardly… I hardly ever take a drink in the afternoon.” She paused in front of a chair close to the table and turned, clasping her hands together in front of her. He saw now that she was striving to conceal an inner nervousness or fright. “You said on the phone about the Hacienda… do you know my husband, Mr. Shayne?”

  “No. I simply happen to know that there is a man named Joe Grogan who works as a croupier at the Hacienda.”

  “Has that got anything to do with… with the case you’re working on? That is, it said in the afternoon paper that you were investigating that double suicide last night.”

  Shayne said, “Please sit down, Mrs. Grogan,” and moved to his own chair and poured more cognac into his glass. “Before I answer your question, tell me about your husband. Why are you worried about him?”

  “Because he didn’t come home last night. And never a word from him all day. And I called the Hacienda at noon and they said Joe never turned up for work last night and he hadn’t told them beforehand and they hadn’t heard from him either.”

  Shayne said, “A lot of things might have happened.”

  “Joe’s steady. He’s never done anything like that before. He liked his job the best of any job he ever had. It gave him, oh… a feeling of being important. Seeing people lose more money in one night than he ever earned in a year… and not turning a hair either. But it’s more than that. He’s been funny… this last month he has. Like he had a secret he wouldn’t tell me. But he had some extra money and he kept hinting about I wasn’t to worry because there was going to be a lot more where that came from. And last night I could see he was keyed-up. Before I went off to work, I could tell. I’m a cocktail waitress in the Griffin Hotel lounge from six to twelve, and have to leave for work at five-thirty. He kept saying I wasn’t to worry and maybe he’d tell me all about it today. And then… he wasn’t home when I woke up this morning.”

  “What makes you think it has anything to do with the suicides last night?”

  “It’s not much, I know. It’s just… well, when I read about that Mrs. Paul Nathan in the paper this morning, it came to me suddenly. That’s the name of the man he mentioned a month ago when this all started, like I said. It was another Saturday morning I remember because we always go to the beach on Saturdays, and Joe began talking about the rich people that gambled at the Hacienda, and how lots of them got real friendly with him at the roulette table while they were playing, and not uppity at all.

  “And he mentioned this Paul Nathan as an example, and he hinted that they were cooking up something together that was going to make him a lot of money. But he clammed right up and said I was to forget all about it when I begged him not to do anything foolish because he was sure to get caught. Like fixing the table, you know, or some trick to make this Mr. Nathan win at roulette instead of lose. And he said it wasn’t like that at all, and I wasn’t to say another word about it, but maybe things were going to be so I could quit working as a waitress. So when I read about Mr. Nathan’s wife last night… and Joe not home and no word from him at all, I got to thinking back and I got worried. Do you know anything about Joe, Mr. Shayne?”

  Shayne said, “No. I’m sorry, Mrs. Grogan. All I know is that Paul Nathan played roulette at your husband’s table the last two Friday nights; and the first night they went down to the bar together and had a couple of drinks and a talk at the bar after the gambling room closed at four. And last Friday Nathan was playing alone at your husband’s table just before closing and they were observed talking together. That’s nothing in itself, but with what you’ve told me it may add up to something.”

  “Like what, Mr. Shayne?” She twisted her hands together in her lap and caught her lower lip tightly between her teeth.

  Shayne said honestly, “At this point, I don’t know. I can’t even make an intelligent guess. You said you thought they might have some scheme for Nathan to win money at roulette. Do you mean the table is crooked and the croupier can fix it so a certain person will win if he wants him to?”

  “Oh, no. It wasn’t that. I’m sure it wasn’t. The games are all straight at the Hacienda. Joe always said that. It’s one reason why he liked to work there. But… well, it’s something that Joe might do. I don’t want you to get me wrong, Mr. Shayne. He’s a good man. Never been arrested in his life.” She said this proudly. “He isn’t what you’d call a gambler. Not like a lot of the others that hang around those joints. It was a job to Joe. Pure and simple, a steady job. He wouldn’t do anything he thought was wrong or really crooked. Not for all the money in the world. But you know how it is working in a place like that every night. Money gets so it doesn’t mean very much. In the first place, they’re all breaking the law. The ones that run the games and the ones that come to play. So you get a sort of different slant on things, I guess. It wouldn’t really seem like stealing money… to maybe fix it to get a little of it for yourself. I know Joe felt that way. Him getting just a regular salary while the house was raking in thousands of dollars every night. So when he kind of hinted that he and Mr. Nathan were into something that would make him rich, I just thought it might have to do with gambling.”

  “But you said,” Shayne reminded her patiently, “that the croupier had no control over who won or lost on the wheel.”

  “That’s right, too. Well, it came to me what Joe had mentioned once before… oh, it was months ago, when he was saying how careful the house had to be about the men they hired. It would be easy enough, he said, for a crooked dealer to pretend a man had won when he hadn’t. You know how fast at roulette those balls go around and drop into the slots… with piles of money spread out on the table on numbers and combinations. They have spotters around, of course, to see it doesn’t happen, but it would be easy enough, Joe said, to get away with it a few times before they noticed and started watching. And just a few times, with the odds they pay on a single number, would mount up mighty fast to a big killing.”

  Shayne nodded slowly. “I can see that possibility. But we happen to know, Mrs. Grogan, that Nathan didn’t win at your husband’s table. In fact, he was a consistent loser.”

  “Well, it was just the only thing I could think of. Like I say, it couldn’t have been anything really bad or Joe wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole.”

  “Do you have a picture of him?” Shayne asked.

  “I brought one along… just in case.” She lifted a large handbag from the floor beside her and withdrew an enlargement of a snapshot taken on the beach.

  It showed a smiling, clean-faced young man of about her age, squinting into the sun and wearing a tight pair of bathing trunks. He was of medium height and build, and had a likable, open countenance.

  Shayne studied the picture carefully, wishing to God that the shotgun had left more of the dead man’s face for identification last night.


  Because, although it couldn’t be, of course. All logic told him it couldn’t possibly be so, but as he looked at the photo he had an uneasy realization that with the addition of a mustache and a pair of blue-tinted glasses, Joe Grogan would fit Robert Lambert’s description quite well.

  He put the picture down and asked her casually, “Do you know if Joe had his fingerprints on file anywhere? Chauffeur’s license? Or was he in the army?”

  “I’m sure he never was fingerprinted. He missed the draft, you see, on account of a heart murmur. It made him mad because he said he was as good as the next man, but they turned him down.”

  “How did you and your husband get along, Mrs. Grogan?”

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before answering. “You mean… at home and all? We got along real well. Joe was a steady worker and we were saving up to buy a house of our own. We wanted to have kids, but… we’ve been waiting until I could afford to quit work.”

  “Your husband is quite an attractive young man,” Shayne told her, looking down at the picture. “Did he ever… get mixed up with other women?”

  “We’ve been married five years,” she told him placidly. “During that time I’ll swear my Joe never looked at another woman.” Her steady gaze met his candidly and unflinchingly. “A wife knows about a thing like that, I guess. And then besides,” she added with a quiet smile, “there he was, working steady every night in the week. And us doing things together in the daytime. That’s why I worked night shift. So I could be more with him.”

  Shayne didn’t press the point. He asked instead, “Did he have any scars on his body? Any distinguishing marks that would identify him?”

  “No. He didn’t. And if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you can stop it right now. It wasn’t my Joe that called himself Robert Lambert and was meeting that married woman on Friday nights. In the first place, he wouldn’t. In the second place, he hasn’t missed a night at work for the past two months. In the third place, I heard over the radio that he said in his suicide note that he was married to a Catholic who wouldn’t give him a divorce. I’m no Catholic, and Joe and I have agreed lots of times that if it ever was to happen one of us fell in love with someone else that he could have a divorce just for the asking.”