The missing letters appeared to sober Rourke completely. He shook his head slowly from side to side. “They’re gone,” he said again. “I remember sticking them under those shirts. What in hell is this all about?” he added irritably. “What do you know about those photostats? Why do you want them? Can’t you see I’m in no shape for guessing games?”
Shayne said soberly, “This isn’t a game, Tim. A girl has been murdered. What did you do last night?”
Rourke took a few steps backward and sat down on the bed. “I got drunk, for crissake,” he muttered.
“Where?”
“I was at the Play-Mor. Didn’t I see you there? It’s sort of dim but I think you were there, too.”
Shayne nodded. “About ten o’clock. How long did you stay?”
Rourke shuddered and said, “I don’t know exactly. I won a little money and went to the bar. Somewhere along the line I pulled a black-out.”
Shayne pulled up a chair and sat down. “Do you remember a tall blonde at the roulette table? Not too good-looking. Her hair was sort of frizzled.”
Rourke closed his eyes for a moment, then said despairingly, “There may’ve been a dozen blondes at the table. I wasn’t noticing.”
“She was across the table from us when I talked with you,” Shayne reminded him. “Later on I saw you talking with her. She had too much perfume on.”
Rourke complained, “I can’t think. Maybe if I had a drink—” His eyes looked greedily at the bottle which Shayne still held in his hand.
Shayne hesitated, then said, “Okay,” and went to the kitchen. He poured a portion of whisky in the coffee mug and filled it with hot coffee and took it in to Rourke. He said, “Drink this down as hot as you can take it. You’ve got to start thinking.”
Rourke looked up, amazed by the urgency in his old friend’s voice. He took the mug and drank the coffee royal without removing it from his lips.
Shayne took the mug, set it down, lit a cigarette and stuck it in Rourke’s hand. He pulled the bedroom chair closer to the bed, sat down and said, “Now then—about last night. The blonde who talked to you for awhile and then beat it in a hell of a hurry—what do you know about her?”
The reporter nodded slowly. “I’m beginning to get it. Sure. It was that maid from the Hudsons’ house. I didn’t recognize her until she told me who she was.”
“Was she at the Hudsons’ the day you found the letters?”
“I guess so. Yeah. I noticed her downstairs when we first went in. But she didn’t go upstairs with us.”
“But last night she reminded you of seeing her there?”
“That’s right.” Rourke pressed his fingers against his eyes briefly. “She moved in on me while I was winning. I remember her perfume now. She was broke and her guy had run out on her and she wanted me to stake her.”
“Did you?”
“Hell, no. I told her to run along and peddle her stuff some place else.”
“And?”
“That’s when she reminded me who she was. As if it made some difference—as if it was important.” He frowned uneasily. “I didn’t get it. I don’t know just what she said, but it was something like I’d better play ball and slip her a stake—or else.”
“Or else what?”
Rourke spread out his thin-fingered hands defensively. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t. I told her to get the hell out before I called the bouncer. So she got.”
Shayne considered this for a moment. “Did you get tough enough to scare her half out of her senses?”
Rourke grinned. “I don’t know just what I said. It probably wasn’t a very gentle admonition.”
“And you stayed on at the table?”
“That’s right. That is, I don’t remember much about it, Mike. Things’re mixed up. What’s this all about?”
“The girl was murdered last night after she left the Play-Mor.”
“The blonde—the Hudsons’ maid?” gasped Rourke.
Shayne nodded gravely. “Within half an hour after you were talking with her. Did anyone overhear your conversation with her?”
“How the hell do I know? There were a lot of people around. Look here, Mike, you act as though you think I bumped her off.”
“Somebody did. And if Painter gets wind of your hookup with her he might think you did. Now—let’s get back to those letters you found. Give me the whole picture—from the beginning.”
“Nothing much to it,” he said. “I ran into Angus Browne one day in a bar a couple of weeks ago. You know Angus?”
Shayne nodded.
“We had a couple of drinks and Angus asked me what I was doing and I told him nothing much. He asked me if I’d like to get hold of a juicy story. I told him sure. If it was something I could sell. You know I’ve been free-lancing on feature stuff for the local papers since I left the hospital. Well, he said it was plenty hot and I could have an exclusive on it when it broke.
“Browne didn’t tell me exactly what the deal was. A divorce—involving a couple of prominent families. He needed a witness to tie it up for good. All he wanted was my promise not to break it until he gave the word. It sounded good enough to me so I said okay and we got in his car and picked up another guy named Hampstead. He’s a lawyer, I think.
“We drove over to the Beach to a big house on the Bay-front. Browne flashed his tin on an old lady who must be the housekeeper, and bluffed his way in. On the way over he’d told us we were looking for a small packet of letters that would be hidden somewhere in the house. He said they’d been written to Mrs. Hudson by a millionaire named Victor Morrison from New York, and Morrison’s wife was after them for evidence in a divorce suit against her husband.”
Shayne was staring at Rourke, the disgust he felt showing in his eyes.
Rourke shrugged and grinned wryly. “Hell, I admit it was nasty business, but I figured I might as well have the story and make a few bucks on an exclusive as someone else. So we poked around down in the library and then went upstairs to the lady’s bedroom and went to work on it. I took the vanity, and just happened to find the letters. Four of ’em tied up in a pink ribbon.”
Shayne held up a wide palm, “Wait a minute. Think back. Are you sure they were there in the house all the time—not planted in that drawer by Browne or Hampstead when you weren’t looking?”
“For crissake, no. I was the only one who went near the vanity. They were there, all right. The old lady saw me find ’em.”
Shayne said, “Go on.”
“We looked at them and saw they were signed ‘Vicky,’ and Angus said they were the ones he was looking for. He had all of us initial each letter right there for identification in court later. We took them to the Magic City Photostat Company and had a set of copies made for me. I swore I’d keep the whole thing quiet until they were ready to break the story in court.”
“Who else got a set of photostats?” Shayne demanded.
“No one. They had the originals. We had only one set made and I took those. Damned if I can understand them not being in that drawer where I put them.” He paused to frown deeply, and again pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I dropped in at a bar,” he resumed, “for a couple of drinks, and read them through. They were juicy, all right. More than Angus promised. Then Ted Smith came in and we had a couple more drinks, and I came back here and ditched the photostats. Right under that pile of shirts.” He waggled an emaciated finger at the drawer.
“When did you see them last?”
“That evening. I didn’t bother to look at them again. Angus said it’d be a few more weeks before Mrs. Morrison would have her Florida residence established so she could file suit.”
Scowling deeply, Shayne got up and stalked into the living-room and over to a littered typewriter desk in the corner. He sat down and rolled a sheet of paper in the machine, got the envelope containing the three remaining photostats from his pocket and copied exactly the typewritten address that was on the envelope.
Rourke staggered after him and pee
red over his shoulder as Shayne tapped out the words. When Shayne pulled the sheet out and began carefully comparing the two typed addresses, the reporter growled, “What’s this hocus-pocus,” steadying himself with his hands on the desk chair.
“This,” said Shayne, showing him the envelope, “was sent to Mrs. Hudson the next day after you found the letters. The photostats were in it. It was followed by a blackmail demand for ten grand.”
Rourke let out a loud whistle. “The photostats were mailed to her? My photostats?”
“Evidently. You claim you had the only set,” Shayne reminded him.
Rourke stumbled over to the couch and sat down hard. He glared angrily at Shayne and demanded, “Do you think I sent them? Is that why you’re checking my machine?”
“If you did, you were smart enough not to use your own typewriter,” Shayne told him “Did you?”
“Do you think I’m a blackmailer? Goddamn you, Mike, I’ll knock your block off—” He tried to get up, but sank dizzily back on the couch.
“How do you know whether you are or not? You’ve been drunk ever since you got out of the hospital and by your admission you don’t remember much. Living like a damned pig. How do I know what you might do? Maybe you were drunk enough that it looked like a good way to pick up some spare cash.”
Rourke’s pinched face became livid, his fists doubled involuntarily. “Damn you,” he snarled, “we’ve been friends for a long time but I won’t take that from anybody.”
Shayne grunted disgustedly, got up and strode across the living-room. At the door he reminded the reporter savagely, “You can’t produce the set of photostats you admit having made—the only set.”
“Wait a minute, Mike,” Rourke implored. “Maybe I forgot where I put ’em. They could have been stolen.”
Shayne said, “There’s a murder mixed up in this thing, Tim. For God’s sake tell me the truth.” Sweat stood on his face. “We’ve been friends long enough for that.”
“Friends?” Rourke spat the word out contemptuously. “Get out if that’s what you think of me.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Tim.” Shayne kept his voice steady.
“Murder,” muttered Rourke angrily. “What good is the word of a goddamned pig and drunkard? Go ahead and run to Petey with your story. Maybe you can pin the murder on me, too. Sure. It all ties up. Somebody prob’ly heard her trying to put the bite on me last night. There’s your motive. She was threatening to turn me up as a blackmailer, so I let her have it.” He swayed to his feet and laughed hysterically, his thin lips drawn back from his teeth. “Big shot Shayne.”
Shayne said, “Cut it out, Tim.”
“Like hell I’ll cut it out. Why don’t you jump me right now?” He fell back on the couch and lay limp.
Shayne said again, “If you’ll give me your word—” Timothy Rourke didn’t say anything. He didn’t open his eyes. Shayne stood looking down at him for a moment, his gaunt face set, then went out and closed the door.
Chapter Twelve: PROBING FOR EVIDENCE
DOWNSTAIRS, SHAYNE FOUND B. J. Hampstead’s address in the classified section of the directory. He was the only Hampstead listed under Lawyers. He made a note of it and hurried out to his waiting cab. He directed the driver to take him back to Miami.
All the information he had thus far turned up on the case only muddled the waters a little more. Angus Browne, it appeared, had told Rourke he was working for Estelle Morrison; helping her secure divorce evidence against her husband. He knew that Browne was working for Victor Morrison, and that he had received a fat fee for collecting evidence against his wife.
The fact that Angus Browne had known about the letters and approximately where to look for them certainly argued that he had been ordered to turn them up, in the presence of sufficient witnesses, by Mr. Morrison. No one else could possibly have known about them. Whether they were legitimate and had actually been received by Christine Hudson was still a deep puzzle.
If they had been secretly prepared by Morrison and planted by the murdered maid in Christine’s vanity drawer, why? Why would he pay money to have them discovered by four reputable witnesses when they would become evidence against himself instead of his wife? Was Browne doing a double cross and working for both of them? And, added to this, blackmailing Christine? Shayne had no doubt that Browne was unscrupulous enough to do a thing like that, but Browne was not dumb. He had sense enough to know his actions would be revealed in the end.
Shayne tried to break the puzzle down both ways. If genuine, there was the possibility that Morrison was so deeply hurt and angered by Christine’s throwing him over and marrying a younger man, he might have written the letters to hurt her in retaliation. Putting the incriminating notes in his wile’s possession would be one way of accomplishing that purpose, but it was an expensive way of getting revenge.
With the evidence Morrison had acquired against his wife it would be impossible for her to obtain alimony or even a cash settlement from him when he divorced her. But with the letters as evidence in a countersuit, Mrs. Morrison would take him for plenty. Only a completely deranged man would put such a weapon in the hands of a woman whom he intended to divorce.
If the letters were a plant, the same conjecture held good. With one possible exception. If Morrison wanted a job like that done it was reasonable to presume he would arrange with Browne to attend to it. There was a possibility that he had no intention of allowing them to reach his wife—that he was merely laying the groundwork to bring pressure on Christine to leave her husband later, after his divorce had been granted. Browne might well have been lying to Rourke about representing Estelle Morrison just to get him to play along and be a witness to finding the letters. That, too, would explain why Morrison had not let his own firm of lawyers in on the frame-up. He knew that the majority of lawyers had ethics about such things.
He said to the taxi driver, “Let me off here,” just before they reached Miami Avenue where it crossed Flagler Street. He paid the fare and a generous tip and dismissed him. The young and attractive girl at the information desk was horrified that anyone expected to see Mr. Hampstead without an appointment. She asked Shayne to leave his name and telephone number and said she would call him after she had arranged a time suitable to her employer.
“I’m leaving town on the midnight plane, sister,” Shayne told her gruffly. “I’m seeing B. J. Hampstead now. Which is his office?”
She glanced fearfully at the end door of a row of four opening off the anteroom “But it’s impossible,” she exclaimed. “He’s in conference now, and—”
Shayne was already moving away from her toward the door she had looked at. He reached it and turned the knob and walked in. The light gray carpeting was thick, and soft light entered the windows which were wide and hung with oyster-white curtains.
A gray-haired man with a benign face sat at a big flat desk across from two young men. He had a ruddy complexion and the “bit of a stomach” which Mrs. Morgan had described. He looked up, frowning, as Shayne walked in unannounced.
One of the young men had several typed sheets in his hand and was reading aloud from them. He stopped reading when he saw Mr. Hampstead’s frown of displeasure.
Shayne said, “I’m here on police business, Hampstead. A homicide investigation. I think it had better be private.”
“I’m exceedingly busy,” Hampstead said in a clipped voice.
“So am I. Trying to catch a murderer.” Shayne stopped beside the big desk, his gray eyes cold and steady on Hampstead’s face.
The lawyer said to the man who had been reading, “Come back in five minutes,” and dismissed both men with a wave of his hand.
Shayne waited until they disappeared through a side door and closed it. He remained standing, and said flatly, “It’s the Natalie Briggs case. The Hudsons’ maid.”
Hampstead folded his pudgy hands across his stomach, leaned back and said, “Yes?”
“I want to know whom you represented when you went to the Hudson
house and entered illegally a couple of weeks ago—with a private detective named Angus Browne and a reporter.”
“Are you with the Miami Police Department?”
“I’m private,” said Shayne. “Michael Shayne.”
The lawyer smiled frostily. “What is your interest in the case?”
“I’ve been retained by Mrs. Hudson.”
“Indeed,” said Hampstead, with a trace of sarcasm. “What has my visit to the Hudson house to do with the death of their maid?”
“That,” said Shayne harshly, “is what I intend to find out.”
Hampstead raised his thin gray brows. “I’d be glad to aid in a murder investigation, of course, but I fail to see the connection.”
“You entered the house illegally and purportedly found some private letters belonging to Mrs. Hudson. You and your accomplices stole them. Stealing private property is illegal.”
Hampstead said, “I’m fully aware of the legal aspects of my conduct, Mr. Shayne.”
“Were you acting for Mrs. Morrison?”
Hampstead smiled slyly, but made no reply. He gave no indication that he intended to answer.
Shayne sat down in the chair vacated by the man who had been reading the document to Hampstead. He said, “You can talk to the police if you’d rather.”
“I’d much rather,” the lawyer assured him.
Shayne said, “All right, I won’t try to bluff you. If I can prove a plausible connection between the letters and the maid’s death, will you talk to me?”
“I prefer to listen first and then make my decision.”
“I think those letters were planted in Mrs. Hudson’s vanity drawer where Timothy Rourke found them. I think it was arranged through Browne and the Hudsons’ maid, Natalie Briggs, with you and Timothy Rourke acting as uninformed spectators. An attempt has been made to blackmail Mrs. Hudson by threatening to send the originals to her husband, and I believe the blackmailer killed Natalie Briggs last night to prevent her from talking.”
Hampstead’s expression remained benign and inscrutable and somewhat insolent. “Those are a lot of assumptions,” he said.
Blood on Biscayne Bay Page 9
