Michael Shayne's Long Chance

by Brett Halliday

  He stood motionless for a long moment looking down upon the outstretched corpse, then sank to his knees and cupped a lighted match in his big hands.

  Barbara Little lay on her left side. A pool of blood circled the faded carpet around her head. Her right foot held the screen door slightly ajar. A bright yellow dress of some sheer material was ripped downward from her shoulder. Her right eye was wide open, the lid drawn back as though held by some mechanical device. The pupil stared up at him in death.

  The left side of her face was cruelly bludgeoned, indicating the use of a weapon too light to kill with one blow—her murderer had struck again and again with insensate fury. Or the killer might not have been strong enough to bring death with one blow of a heavy weapon. It was clear that she had been dead not more than half an hour.

  Shayne glanced at his watch as the match burned down and went out. The time was 10:58.

  As he waited for his eyes to become adjusted to the semidarkness, he cursed himself for neglecting the girl, for his failure to take J. P. Little’s earnest warning seriously enough. He should have insisted upon her breaking the dinner engagement with her girl friends so that he could be with her, or at least watch over her from his hotel room.

  Accustomed to violent death, Shayne had acquired a superficially impersonal attitude toward murder in the practice of his profession. But this was different. Only a few hours ago he had blatantly assured the girl’s father that she was safe under his protection.

  He stood up, strolled aimlessly around the small buffet apartment to get a general idea of the layout without making more light. There was one large room with an in-a-door bed, a tiny kitchenette, and a bathroom. The few furnishings were heavy, richly carved antiques. A stuffed owl watched him somberly from a plaque above an ornamental fireplace. A card table near the balcony doors held the remains of the evening meal. There was service for three.

  He went back to the girl’s body and leaned down, struck another match and turned slowly, making a circle of light which disclosed nothing he had not seen previously. He shook the flare out and dropped the charred matchstick in his pocket, eased the French door farther inward to return to the balcony.

  The bottom of the door struck some object and would open no farther. He struck a third match and held it behind the door.

  Shayne stared with bleak eyes at the squat Monnet cognac bottle which he and Margo Macon had emptied that afternoon. It was smeared and sticky with fresh blood. Bending down, he saw a few short strands of brown hair tangled in the crushed blood, and knew he was looking at the death weapon.

  He let the match burn out, worrying his left earlobe between thumb and forefinger, then abruptly strode to the bathroom and felt around for a towel. Returning hurriedly, he dropped it over the blood-smeared bottle, gathered it up loosely and went out onto the balcony.

  Light streamed through the French doors which he had left open, outlining his body clearly as he leaped across the railings and went into his room. He laid the towel-wrapped bundle on the bed and closed the doors, then searched swiftly through the dresser drawers in the hope of finding a piece of wrapping paper.

  Finding nothing suitable, he carefully cradled the awkward bundle in the crook of his arm, locked the door, and went down the corridor to the rear stairway and on through the narrow service alley. He hesitated at the end of the alley, glanced across the street at a lighted liquor store almost directly opposite, then went a few steps back into the alley where he placed his bundle on the ground behind a barrel of trash.

  Crossing the street, he entered the liquor store and brusquely ordered, “Wrap up a couple of quarts of your cheapest gin. Use plenty of paper so it won’t break, and tie it up tight.”

  Shayne turned his back to the clerk and pulled his hat brim low over his eyes, took three dollars from his wallet, and when the clerk said, “Here you are—is this wrapped to suit you?” he half turned, shoved the bills across the counter, said, “It’s okay, thanks,” and picked up his change.

  In the darkness of the alley he untied the gin bottles, tossed them into the trash barrel, and wrapped the murder weapon neatly in the paper, tying it securely. He then sauntered to the street with the package inconspicuously under his arm, hailed a loitering taxi, and got in.

  He said, “The St. Charles Hotel,” and laid the bundle on the floor as the cab slid away.

  Three blocks away, Shayne suddenly exclaimed, “Hold it, buddy. Sorry, but I’ve just remembered something. I’ve got to get out here.”

  The driver muttered something under his breath and pulled to the curb. Shayne got out and give him a dollar, saying, “That’ll make up for the short trip.” He noted the name of the cab and its number as it carried the damning murder evidence away, wrote them down in a small notebook, then whirled and long-legged it back to the Peloine Apartments.

  The time was 11:14 when he strode briskly to the front entrance—16 minutes had passed since he first discovered Barbara Little’s dead body.

  The Peloine entrance was on a corner of the building, wide double doors standing invitingly open at the top of stone steps. A small foyer was lighted by a naked bulb in the ceiling. He found Margo Macon’s name over the mailbox numbered 303, and pressed the button. He waited a moment, wiping sweat from his face, then held the button down with a knobby forefinger for a long interval.

  After another short wait, he deliberately pressed the button of apartment 301, under the name of Madame Le-grand, and started up the stairs, pounding his heels loudly on the worn carpeting.

  A middle-aged woman confronted him in an open doorway as he reached the third floor. Her untidy black hair was shot with strands of white and she wore an exotic negligee which was grossly inept on her hard, thin body and accentuated her sharp features with snapping black eyes. She looked at Shayne with anger and suspicion and demanded, “What reason have you for ringing my bell at this time of the night?” She spoke with a pronounced accent and a nasal twang.

  Shayne grinned. “I wasn’t ringing your bell.”

  “You certainly—”

  “I’ve been trying to get an answer from Miss Macon in three-oh-three. I have a date with her. I’m a little late and thought she might have fallen asleep,” Shayne explained.

  “There has been enough bell ringing to wake up the dead,” the woman snapped. “It’s quite evident she doesn’t want to see you. If you are forcing yourself upon her—” She left an unfinished threat hanging in the air.

  “She said she’d wait up for me,” Shayne persisted. “She knew I couldn’t get here until quite late.”

  “I think you lie,” she said flatly. “Miss Macon had two girls for dinner, and she has already had one date since they left. This is a respectable house, young man, and I intend to report—”

  “You say she has had a caller since her dinner guests left?” Shayne interrupted angrily. “A man?”

  Her black eyes shifted away from his hard gaze. She wriggled her pointed nose. “It isn’t for me to say,” she began weakly, and started to back away.

  Shayne caught her bony arms and said harshly, “You’ve intimated that Miss Macon hasn’t been acting in accordance with the rules of a respectable house. What are you hinting at?”

  She lifted her chin and answered in a spiteful tone, “I am a respectable woman who works hard all day and need my sleep at night. Such things that go on—men coming and going the back way. With my apartment next door I can’t help seeing what happens.”

  Shayne held her arm, pulling her with him to Barbara Little’s door. He knocked loudly, and while he waited, asked, “The back way, you say! On the third floor? What are you hinting at?”

  “It isn’t a hint. With my own eyes I saw the man leap from her balcony to the hotel balcony opposite. And now you come—”

  “And wake you up ringing her bell,” Shayne interrupted. He let go of her arm and rattled the knob, calling, “Margo! Wake up. It’s Mike.”

  “See,” said the woman. “She pretends to be out to avoid you. I
f you are a gentleman you’ll go away.”

  “You don’t understand,” Shayne told her wearily. “It’s important that I see—” He was rattling the knob again. It turned and the door opened. He shoved it wide, saying, “There’s something strange here. She was expecting me.” He reached inside and found a wall switch, flooded the room with light and exclaimed, “My God!”

  The woman pushed past him, screamed, and swayed back, crying wildly, “Mon Dieu! It is she! The blood—murdered! La pauvre enfant!”

  Shayne said grimly, “It’s murder, all right.” He went directly to the telephone and called police headquarters. He reported, “There’s a dead woman at number three-oh-three Peloine Apartments.”

  The woman was jabbering hysterically, “Mon Dieu—de penser que je dormais so pres d’elle pendent qu’on la tuait!” She waved her arms wildly, sank into a chair, and buried her face in her hands.

  “What are you saying?” Shayne demanded. “What do you know about this?”

  “Forgive me,” she said meekly, “I was only saying that it is oh! so horrible that I slept next door while it happened. If only I had called the police when I saw the man—” She shuddered violently.

  “The man who jumped from her balcony to the hotel?”

  “Yes. I saw him clearly. Mon Dieu! Forgive me for the bad thoughts I had about Miss Macon. But how could I guess? In these days one does not know what to think or do.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Half an hour—an hour ago.” She shook her head despairingly. “If I had but known,” she moaned. She pulled herself up from the chair and straightened her shoulders as though shock and grief had suddenly been whipped from her. She moved resolutely to the table and started to stack the dinner dishes.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Shayne said sharply. “The police will want everything left as it was—for fingerprints and such.”

  “But these dishes,” she protested, “can have nothing to tell the police. It is my duty to clear the table. They are from dinner which I cooked and served with my own hands.”

  “You’ll have to wait until the police have come and gone. You say you served the dinner here tonight?”

  “Yes. It is my living—catering with my most excellent French cuisine. Miss Macon, poor child, was not good with cooking.”

  Shayne said, “Come sit down. Who did you serve here? Tell me what happened this evening.”

  She sat stiffly upright in a chair and Shayne sat opposite her. She said, “I know nothing. The dinner was very informal, as you see. Three girls only. Miss Macon dismissed me after the serving. In my room I heard her guests leave and I came to inquire whether I might clear away the dishes. She said, no, that she expected another visitor soon. So I retired and was wakened by some sound. I got up and looked to see a man going from her balcony to the hotel. I thought it a clandestine assignation and made no report. I was on the verge of sleep again when your ringing wakened me,” she ended in a resentful tone.

  “The girls—Miss Macon’s guests—do you know them? Know where they live?” Shayne persisted.

  “I do not think I should answer more questions from you. To the police I will tell everything. I will be in my room when they come.” Madame Legrand started to get up from the chair.

  Shayne said, “No. You must stay until the police come. They will want you to verify my story. It won’t be very long now.”

  As he stopped speaking the scream of a siren swelled and faded to a low moan in Dumaine Street. Shayne lit a cigarette and stepped back unobtrusively into a corner as feet pounded up the stairs and Captain Denton bustled in through the open door.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE PRECINCT CAPTAIN was followed by Sergeant Parks and a burly officer whom Shayne had not seen before. None of the three men noticed Shayne in his corner. Denton walked to the murdered girl and stood over her. He grunted, “She’s plenty dead. Call Doc Matteson, Parks—and tell Homicide to get on the job.” Captain Denton turned to the Frenchwoman as Parks went to the telephone. “Who are you? Did you phone in the report? What do you know about it?”

  “I am Madame Legrand,” she answered, “and I know nothing. He called the police.” She nodded toward Shayne.

  Denton turned slowly. He reached into his breast pocket for a cigar, bit off the end, and savagely spat a fragment of tobacco on the floor.

  He said, “I might have known you’d be mixed up in this.”

  Shayne shrugged and said, “I always like to get in on the ground floor.”

  “Why did you bop her?” snarled Denton. “That the only way you can handle a dame in the Quarter?”

  Shayne said, “That lacks a hell of a lot of being funny.”

  “All right. Give.” Denton crossed the room and set himself solidly before the redhead and chewed his unlit cigar across his mouth.

  “I had a date with Miss Macon. I was detained by a couple of your boys.” Shayne touched his bruised face tenderly with the tips of his fingers. “Before I could get back here to keep my date, somebody else had got to the girl.”

  “Macon, eh? That her name?”

  “Margo Macon.”

  “Friend of yours?”

  “Sort of. Daughter of a friend. He asked me to look her up when I hit town.”

  “And your story is gonna be that you just walked in by chance and found her like this? Hell, you’d better think up a better one fast.”

  Shayne nodded toward the Frenchwoman. “She’ll verify my story. I punched her bell by mistake when I was trying to rouse the girl. She came in with me.”

  Denton took the cigar from his mouth and frowned at it. He turned from Shayne to face Madame Legrand and barked, “Well, what about it? What are you doing here?”

  Madame Legrand’s black eyes flashed angrily. She shook a trembling finger at Shayne and burst into a wild babble of French. She stamped her foot and her eyes glittered with fear.

  Denton yelled, “Hold it! Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you can’t speak English. I heard you a while ago.”

  Shayne said, “Madame Legrand always has hysterics in French. She can go faster that way. If you wouldn’t scare the living daylights out of her you might find out something.”

  “Shut up,” Denton barked. “I’m running this show.” He turned to the woman again. “Let’s have your story.”

  “He made me stay,” she screamed. “He made me come in. I live in the next apartment and I know nothing about this. Only what I have told him.”

  “Tell me everything you told him,” Denton ordered. She lowered herself into a chair and began a tight-lipped recital. When she told him of seeing the man leap from the balcony of 303 to the hotel balcony opposite, Denton pounced.

  “Get out on the balcony and take a look, Parks,” he ordered. Then to the woman: “Describe the man you saw. What time was it?”

  “There was not much light. Not enough to see him well. It was, perhaps, an hour ago. I was in bed and did not look at the time.”

  Parks came back from the balcony. “Looks like a good bet. Not more’n two feet from this balcony to a dinky one in the next building.”

  “Get the number of that room. Look it over. Find out who’s in it—all about it.”

  The sergeant hurried out. Denton turned and scowled at the dead girl. “Been dead about an hour. That checks.” He said to Shayne, “Where were you an hour ago?”

  “Do I need an alibi?”

  “You’re likely to.”

  “I’ll dig one up when I need it,” Shayne promised, and demanded in disgust, “Why in hell doesn’t Homicide get on the job so we can have an intelligent investigation? I have a personal interest in this case.”

  Denton clamped his teeth hard on his cigar. He turned to Madame Legrand and asked, “What time did this man come up? How did you get into this apartment?”

  “It was a little after eleven. I asked him why he disturbed decent people at so late an hour and he was most anxious that Miss Macon should reply to him. He pounded on the door and turn
ed the knob and it came open.”

  “Unlocked, eh?” Denton transferred his suspicious gaze to Shayne.

  The detective nodded blandly. “I didn’t jimmy it if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  Light suddenly flashed through the French doors and windows of Shayne’s hotel room across the way. As Denton whirled in that direction, Sergeant Parks’s excited voice came from the opposite balcony: “I don’t think you’re going to need Homicide to hang this case up to dry, Captain. Didn’t you say that redhead’s name is Mike Shayne?”

  Denton stepped onto the balcony. He nodded to Parks. “That’s it. How does it tie up?”

  “In a tight knot.” The sergeant’s voice was exultant. “This is Shayne’s room—rented this afternoon. And get this, Captain. He acted plenty suspicious when he rented it. Asked the clerk about Apartment three-oh-three in the Peloine and wanted the room adjoining it. He slipped the clerk a ten-spot to fix it for him to have this special room. How do you like that?”

  “I like it fine,” Denton told him. He went back into the room to face Shayne. “Got an answer to that?”

  Shayne said, “Sure. But I’m not wasting my answers on you. You’re nothing but a goddamned precinct bull. When the dicks come I’ll do my talking.”

  Denton’s face reddened. He thrust his head forward, glaring at Shayne. He started to close the gap between them when the sound of tramping feet on the stairs and in the hallway stopped him.

  A slender, middle-aged man sauntered through the doorway with his hands in the pockets of a blue serge suit. A cigarette drooped laxly from one corner of his mouth. He nodded curtly and said, “All right, Denton, I’ll take over.” Men tramped in behind him—photographers, fingerprint men, and Doctor Matteson, the medical examiner. They shunted Denton and his harnessmen aside as they began a methodical investigation of the body and the death scene.

  “Sure, Inspector. Sure,” Denton said to the slender man in plain clothes. “This is your baby, all right. But there’s not much left for your smart boys to find out. If you’re looking for a killer, there you are.” He gestured toward Shayne, his black eyes triumphant.