“Just a minute, Inspector,” Shayne interrupted smoothly. “It may prove that Denton’s mistake was just what we needed to crack the case. By giving the murderer a feeling of false security, perhaps he has made the mistake we needed.”
Quinlan turned his cold blue eyes on Shayne and demanded, “But what could have possessed the girl to commit suicide and say those things to Denton if she wasn’t guilty?”
“I think I can explain that.” Shayne looked at Henri Desmond. “Evalyn Jordan was in love with Desmond. God knows why, but she was. Desmond was playing around with Margo. He came to Margo’s apartment at ten o’clock, quarreled with her and threatened her when he learned she had another date later that night. Evalyn heard all that. She killed herself because she thought Henri had carried out his threat. Isn’t that a fact, Desmond?” Shayne’s tone was ruthless.
Henri Desmond shrank from the accusation. “I didn’t do it.” His voice cracked on a high note of fear. “I swear I never went back to her apartment.”
“Whether you did or not it explains Evalyn’s suicide. She saw herself as the central figure in an ugly scandal and murder. She was given to morbid spells during which she took dope furnished by you, Henri. You killed Evalyn Jordan just as surely as if you’d forced the poison down her throat.”
Shayne’s attention was attracted to the door, which was opening. A man came in quietly. He was well over six feet tall with a loose-jointed figure which carried an unpressed suit of clothes with the inelegance of a scarecrow. He had dark, saturnine features and deep-set, glowing eyes. He carried a paper-wrapped parcel under his arm and stepped forward to set it on the table with a thump.
Harry Veigle nodded to the inspector, who said with cold irony, “Come right in and make yourself at home, Veigle.”
“Thanks, Inspector.” Veigle grinned broadly as Shayne came forward to grip his hand. He complained, “It’s been dull around here the last few years without you, Mike.”
Shayne said, “That’s all over now.” He introduced Veigle to the others briefly, adding, “Mr. Veigle is one of the foremost authorities on fingerprint identification in the country. I’ve asked him here to make an experiment for me.”
He went to the table and unwrapped the empty cognac bottle which was smeared and crusted with the blood of the murdered girl. He said, “I have an apology to make, Inspector. I withheld this evidence last night after I found it in the girl’s apartment.”
Quinlan made a loud noise deep in his throat.
“I don’t blame you,” Shayne interrupted, “but here’s the way it was—if you’d got hold of that bottle last night I’d be in your jail charged with murder. It’s got my prints all over it—mine and Margo Macon’s. That right, Veigle?”
“That’s right. And one other set.”
“That’s what I had to find out,” Shayne went on swiftly to Quinlan. “I can explain how her prints and mine got on the bottle. We drank out of it that afternoon. But the murderer is going to have a hard time explaining how his prints got on it.”
From the other end of the table Denton scowled with black anger. “How’d you snatch it?” he demanded. “Where was it hid when we searched the joint?”
Shayne continued to Quinlan, “I discovered her body when I went to my room to clean up from the beating Denton’s strong-arm boys gave me. And I found this bottle. You can see where that put me. Right square behind the eight ball. Damn it, there’d never have been an investigation if I’d called the cops right then and turned this over to them.”
Quinlan said, “Keep on talking.”
“Veigle wants to make a little test.” Shayne looked slowly at the faces around the table. “He wants to compare your fingerprints with the third set found on the death weapon.” He turned to Veigle. “Got your stuff with you?”
“Sure.” He groped in a sagging side pocket and brought out a small tin case. He opened it and got out an inking pad and a dozen small rectangles of paper. “Pass these around and I’ll get the prints.”
Shayne started at the head of the table with Henderson. “Just write your name on it,” he said pleasantly. “That way, there’ll be no mistake.”
“I’m afraid there’s already a mistake,” Henderson protested austerely. “Surely I’m not involved.”
“Just for the record. We need enough extra samples to show there’s no hocus-pocus in Veigle’s comparisons.” Shayne passed on to Joseph Little and Edmund Drake. He paused beside Lucile Hamilton.
She turned a worried face up to him. “That bottle,” she whispered, “I remember Margo showing it to us. Do I—have to—sign my name, too?”
“I can’t force any of you to give us your prints,” Shayne said, “but refusal is going to look like an admission of guilt.”
Lucile shuddered and said, “Give me one—then.”
At the other end of the table Shayne grinned as he passed out slips to Desmond and Rudy Soule. “If you guys refuse, we’ll go take a look at the records.” He stepped back from the table. “I guess that’s all. Mr. Rourke was in Miami and I haven’t got around to suspecting Captain Denton or the inspector.”
There was tense silence in the room as Veigle moved from one to the other, deftly rolling their finger tips on the inked pad and transferring the prints to the slips of paper signed by each.
When he finished with Rudy Soule and started shuffling the slips in his hands, Shayne said hastily, “Why don’t you go in the next office to make your comparisons, Harry? You’ve got to be damned sure you’ve got evidence that’ll stand up in court—if you do find the right set here.”
Veigle nodded and said, “I’ve never lost a case in court,” and went out.
Shayne took a deep breath and said, “The fingerprints will only be the clincher. I think I know who the murderer is. I hope I can prove it.
“Two things about this case have puzzled me from the first: the telephone call Barbara made to her uncle’s hotel just before she died, and a photograph which was stolen from my hotel room at about the same time. That telephone message—” Shayne stepped closer to Drake. “You haven’t explained why she called you.”
“I presume she wanted to see me. I’ve explained how her father kept her away from her aunt and me.”
“But you claim you hadn’t contacted her previous to that call.”
“I hadn’t.”
“How did she know where to reach you?”
“I don’t understand that either,” Drake confessed.
“Be careful,” Shayne warned harshly. “Be damned careful, Drake. This isn’t any time for covering anybody or anything up. Your life or someone else’s may depend on the truth.”
“What are you driving at?” Drake twanged nervously. “Are you suspecting me?”
“Why not? Mr. Little has told us frankly that he suspected you might harm Barbara to get your hands on that insurance money. Fifty grand makes a hell of a good motive.”
Drake laughed shortly. “You’ve forgotten something. My dear brother-in-law also told you that not one penny of that money goes to me. My wife’s death before Barbara’s nullified the effect of the policy.”
“But, were you aware of that technicality?”
“Of course I was aware of it. Do you think I’m a complete fool?” Drake asked testily.
“No,” said Shayne, “I don’t think that. Knowing that provision in the policy, it meant a difference of fifty grand to you if Barbara died before your wife. Isn’t that so?”
“Well—yes. That’s the point I’ve just made.”
“And your wife was on her deathbed. You knew that. So you made a hurried trip away from home. You went to Miami and demanded that Little put you in touch with Barbara. He refused, but you knew she was in New Orleans and came here to locate her.”
“Those are partial truths,” Drake admitted. “I knew my wife had little longer to live. She wanted to see Barbara again before she died. I pleaded with Little in Miami to give me her address. But he refused his only sister that final consolation.�
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“Yet your visit to New Orleans so alarmed him that he hired me to rush here and protect her from you. That’s a fact, isn’t it, Little?”
Joseph Little said, “It is,” with compressed lips.
“You’ve got one more chance,” Shayne told Drake slowly, “to explain the telephone message.”
“You still seem to miss the main point,” Drake said with dignity, “that at the time of the murder I had no possible motive. It was then too late even if, as my brother-in-law has charged, I had had such a plan. Good heavens, don’t you see? Elizabeth had already passed away.”
Shayne shook his head. “You’re the one who is missing the real point, Drake. You didn’t know about your wife’s death until after Barbara was murdered.”
Drake’s face blanched. He had left off his make-up, and his skin was gray and withered.
“That gives you a perfect motive,” Shayne went on harshly. “Now do you want to explain how Barbara knew how to reach you—or do you still believe you’re not the logical suspect?”
Drake shook his head laxly. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know.”
“Think hard,” Shayne urged him. “Your guide to the Club Daphne was Henri Desmond. He knew Margo Macon well. Did you have some conversation about your niece? Did you say anything to him that might have given him the idea you were her uncle?”
“No,” Drake muttered. “I’m sure we didn’t.”
Shayne turned to Henri Desmond. “How about it? Do you recall anything you might have said to Margo about Drake’s presence here at the Angelus?”
“I don’t know nothing about that,” he answered sullenly. “I got mad at her, sure. But I never went back. I can prove—”
Shayne turned from Henri and explained to Inspector Quinlan, “That point has bothered me. I realized there was a chance Barbara might have learned about her uncle through Henri. If she didn’t, there’s just one other answer,” he ended slowly.
Shayne took a cigarette from his pack, snapped a match on his thumbnail, and the sound was like a small explosion in the intense stillness of the inner room. He swung on Joseph Little and said, “That leaves you.”
The editor smiled wanly. “Are you joking, Mr. Shayne?”
“I don’t joke at a time like this. You knew Drake was in New Orleans. You knew he was at the Angelus Hotel—you phoned him there as soon as you hit town today. You saw a chance to drag him into it—to complicate the picture—so you had Margo Macon phone him just before you murdered her.”
“I?” Little exclaimed, frowning over his pince-nez. “Surely you’re not serious, Shayne. I was on the New York train at the time. Inspector Quinlan’s telegram was delivered to me on the train.”
“At two o’clock. On the other side of Jacksonville. Time enough, Little, to have flown here after I talked with you over long-distance—and after learning your sister was dead and the insurance would revert to you. Time to commit the murder and fly to Jacksonville in time to make that same train out and complete your alibi.”
Little said stiffly, “This is hardly the time for such preposterous and unfounded statements.”
“Timothy Rourke just flew here from Miami in a little over three hours in a chartered plane,” Shayne told him placidly. “It’s no use, Little. It’ll be easy enough to find the pilot and have you identified.”
Little threw up his hands in resignation. He said wonderingly to Inspector Quinlan, “Do I have to sit here and listen to such an infamous accusation? That I murdered my own daughter for her insurance!”
“Not your daughter,” Shayne corrected him. “A girl named Margo Macon. Remember? An unsuccessful writer who was ready to give up her writing and her life a month ago until a kindly editor gave her new hope by financing a trip to New Orleans—planting her here for a decoy marked for slaughter as soon as your sister died, to make the job worthwhile.”
Little was leaning forward, staring in incredulous amazement. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying that Margo Macon was not your daughter. Barbara Little committed suicide in Miami a month ago. When her body was dredged up from the bay, you refused to identify it, for that would have given the $50,000 policy to your sister and eventually into the hands of Edmund Drake. You let your daughter be buried in a nameless grave while you thought up this brilliant plan. You knew your sister could not live long, and all you had to do was pretend that Barbara was alive until after your sister’s death—to cause the money to revert to you.”
A series of sighs shook Joseph Little’s frame. “You have a remarkable imagination, Mr. Shayne,” he said wearily. “I can’t believe you’re serious.”
“The hell I’m not. What really makes me sore is that you picked me out for a stooge. You knew Drake was here looking for Barbara and you had to work fast. You sent me here to keep Drake away from Margo and to use me as a witness to identify the girl as your daughter after you’d mutilated her so that definite identification of the corpse was impossible. You gave me a photograph of Margo Macon, telling me it was Barbara. After killing her, you had to steal that photograph so no one who knew the real Barbara would see it.”
Mr. Little compressed his lips primly. His reaction to Shayne’s accusation was, apparently, complete boredom and annoyance. He said dryly, “I’m afraid you’ve been reading some of the magazines I edit.”
Shayne said, “Like most intelligent men who plan the perfect crime, you made a couple of mistakes. That phone call to Drake was one. Stealing the photograph from my room was another. You were the only man who knew I had that picture, Little. You were the only man involved who knew my room in the Hyers Hotel was directly across the balcony from Margo’s apartment. It had to be you.”
“Please, Inspector,” Little appealed to Quinlan, “am I compelled to listen any longer?”
Shayne turned to Timothy Rourke. “Where’s that picture of Barbara Little?”
“Right here.” Rourke drew a Manila envelope from his pocket. Shayne opened it and drew out an unmounted photograph. He looked at it, then handed it to Lucile, asking quietly, “Ever seen that girl?”
Lucile looked at it steadily for a moment, then shook her head. “There’s a slight resemblance to Margo, but I never saw this girl.”
Shayne took it from her and slid it down the table to Henri. “How about you?”
Henri Desmond said, “Never saw her before.”
Joseph Little took off his glasses and began polishing them. He said, “You’re smart, Shayne. Barbara did commit suicide in Miami a month ago. I couldn’t stand the thought of Drake getting his hands on that money. I did arrange to have Miss Macon come here where she was totally unknown. I planned merely to keep up the farce until Elizabeth died. After that, she could simply disappear. It wasn’t fraud,” he went on anxiously. “Payment on the policy was legally due the moment Barbara died. It was simply a stratagem to prevent Drake from getting something that was legally mine. My money had paid the premiums on that policy for a number of years. What had Edmund Drake done to deserve it?”
“You were worried when he insisted on coming here to look for Barbara.”
“Of course I was. I tell you, I knew he had murder in his heart. He was desperate—with Elizabeth nearing the end rapidly. I couldn’t stand the thought of harm coming to the girl whom I’d placed in danger. I was frantic with anxiety. That’s why I tried, in a veiled way, to warn you against him.”
Harry Veigle entered the room quietly. He had a large sheet of cardboard in one hand and one of the fingerprinted slips in the other.
Shayne asked, “How about it, Harry?”
“I’ve got it. There’s no question about it.” He laid the sheet of cardboard on the table. It held a blurred set of prints, greatly magnified.
Shayne sighed deeply. “Let’s have it.”
“This is an enlargement of the third set of prints on the death bottle. They’re still on the bottle for you to check, Quinlan. And here,” he laid the slip of paper beside the cardboard, “are
the same set of prints.”
The slip of paper bore the neat signature of Joseph P. Little.
The editor shuddered and made a squawking sound. “It can’t be,” he cried. “Not on that bottle. It can’t, I tell you. I wore gloves all—” He stopped suddenly, staring around in stricken fright.
“That,” said Shayne, “is what we wanted to hear. I know the killer wore gloves. There weren’t any prints on her balcony or mine.”
Mr. Little’s pince-nez fell to the floor from his trembling fingers. He said dully, “I—I confess. I did it.” He put his face in his hands and began sobbing.
Shayne caught Rourke’s eye and motioned him to a far corner of the room. He said, “There’s your story, Tim. Sell it to the Item for a scoop and put it on the wire,” loud enough for Denton to hear, then lowered his voice. “And if it isn’t worth what the plane cost, I’ll make up the difference. I had to have that picture.”
“But the one he gave you in Miami, Mike. I saw it when he handed it to you.”
“Only a glimpse,” Shayne reminded him. “I remembered afterward that he was careful not to let you look at it. And if you wonder why I didn’t have Veigle take your prints with the others, Tim—I was playing with dynamite. I couldn’t remember whether you took a drink out of that bottle in Miami or not.”
Rourke’s sharp nose twitched. “You mean that’s the same bottle? The one Little drank from in your office?”
“Sure. That’s when his prints got there. The poor devil framed himself trying to put on a near-fainting act in my office. Go ahead and get on a phone, Tim. Call me later.”
“Same number?”
Shayne looked around for Lucile. She was standing close to him, her eyes starry. Shayne lifted his brows. “Will I be there—later?”
She nodded emphatically. “You still don’t know what I can do with a real steak.”
Shayne went back to confront Denton and Soule on their way out. He said, “I guess this round was a draw, Denton. I’ll come out swinging next time.”
Captain Denton scowled. “Next time? I thought you were moving on after this was over.”
Shayne rubbed his lean jaw. “I’m beginning to like it here. I may open up an office and stick around.”
Michael Shayne's Long Chance Page 16
