Guilty as Hell

by Brett Halliday

  “You fool.” Hallam gave him a baleful look. “Just because this wild man makes an improvable assertion—”

  “You’re the only one who could have done it,” Shayne said roughly. “That’s been obvious all along. Jake.”

  The bartender looked up vaguely. “Want me?”

  “When you were keeping that time sheet on the Despard executives last April, was this man in the club on either of the important days?”

  Jake’s eyes swung to Hallam, who returned his look stolidly. “Mr. Hallam Senior? His name wasn’t even on the list.”

  “I know that. Nobody suspected the president of the company of selling company secrets.”

  “Well,” Jake said slowly, rubbing his chin, “I wouldn’t be too surprised if he was in. I didn’t see him so much lately, but when I first went to work there he was in and out all the time.”

  “All right, Jake,” Shayne said. “You can go home now.”

  “No, thanks, Mike, I’m having a good time just sitting here.”

  Shayne went on, “Hallam had to be sure his son was in the club the day he planted the report, and again the day he picked up the money. That wouldn’t be too hard to arrange. The reason he’s drinking whiskey so soon after breakfast is that he tried to do two things at once, out-maneuver a business rival and disinherit an illegitimate son.” His voice hardened. “Sit down, Hallam.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’m not staying.”

  “How long have you known that Forbes isn’t your son?” Hallam took a step toward the door, trying to leave. The whiskey had hit him hard. He stayed to hear Shayne supply his own answer.

  “A year at least. Candida’s no dumbbell. You couldn’t just send her the report anonymously through the mail. She had to be convinced that she was dealing with somebody who needed money and didn’t care where it came from. This part of the plan began to move when Forbes told you he needed money because his girl was pregnant. You said you’d take care of it, as you’d taken care of so many other emergencies for him. There’s one book in Ruth’s room—the only book. It’s called Thirty Easy Steps to a Richer, Fuller Life, and she read it so many times it’s falling apart. She was a setup for a father who claimed to be at his wits’ end about what to do with his irresponsible son. Somehow Forbes had to be made to realize that this is a cold world. He needed a taste of real trouble. How about this? What if he lost some money to a professional gambler, and his father refused to help? Nothing too serious would happen. He’d have to sell his car and pay off the debt in monthly chunks, and maybe he’d finally settle down to work. Ruth agreed to set up a poker game.” He turned to Forbes. “How does it sound so far?”

  Forbes was chewing on a knuckle. “Go on.”

  Perkins put in, “I’ll promise you one thing, Candida Morse. I’ll put you and Hal Begley out of business if it’s the last thing I do.”

  She raised her glass to him. “Hal doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve resigned.”

  “Everything went according to schedule,” Shayne continued. “You probably thought everything would be out in the open by now, didn’t you, Hallam? It must have seemed to you that Forbes would stick out like a sore thumb, as the only real possibility. The trouble was, both Jose and Langhorne were also under suspicion, and Forbes himself was conducting the investigation. That’s why you brought me in. You were afraid Perkins might get cold feet at the last minute. If Forbes, Junior, your only son, was fired and cut out of your will for stealing that folder, it would remove any lingering doubts in Perkins’s mind that the material was genuine. Everything in this case has been the opposite of the way it seemed. You ordered me off last night, not because you really wanted me off, but because you knew that was the surest way of pointing me at Forbes and keeping me going.”

  Forbes’s face was working. “Dad—”

  His father refused to look at him.

  “It’s a question of principle,” Shayne explained. “He’s worked too hard all his life. When his wife was in the hospital, he stumbled across her diary. It must have been a bad shock. He didn’t want everything he’d worked so hard for to go to somebody else’s son. But it wasn’t simple. Because of his shaky position in the company, he couldn’t just change his will without explanation, without the approval of the rest of the family. He couldn’t get that for a small matter like a pregnancy or losing too much money at poker. Those are typical Despard jams. But betraying the company, betraying the family’s financial interests—you wouldn’t stand for that, would you, Jose?”

  “Absolutely not. If any son of mine did a thing like that, I’d disinherit the bastard myself.” He giggled. “Don’t take the word literally, Forbes.”

  Hallam managed to speak at last. “I don’t apologize for turning Forbes down when he asked for money to buy back those IOU’s. I should have drawn that line years ago. Why not talk to the Di Palma girl? She’ll tell you how little truth there is in your trumped-up story.”

  “She’s dead,” Shayne said bleakly. “She died at one-thirty this morning.”

  Hallam reached for more whiskey. Shayne poured it for him and let him drink in silence.

  “And she’s not our only death,” Shayne said. “We don’t want to forget Walter Langhorne.”

  “You were there. You know it was an accident.”

  Shayne shook his head and said wearily, “Nothing you’ve done has been accidental. When Forbes read his mother’s diary, all he saw was a set of exclamation points. You saw something else. You’re the kind of man who keeps careful records. I think you checked the dates on those excursions your wife took the year before Forbes was born, and I think you came up with a name.”

  Jose protested, “Shayne, if what you’re trying to say is that my sister committed adultery with Walter Langhorne”—he checked himself and finished more tentatively—“you’re wrong. You’re dead wrong.”

  Shayne went on speaking directly to Hallam. “That shooting-blind setup was too good not to use. Langhorne had been talking about leaving the company, and you might not get another chance. So you shot him. There was never any question about that. The only thing missing was a motive. Why would somebody murder an old friend and frame his own son? Put the two things together and the answer is obvious.”

  “You’re lying!” Hallam spat out.

  “You know I’m not lying. You told him why you had to shoot him. When he couldn’t argue you out of it, he tried to grab your gun. You shot from the hip as he came at you, and honor was satisfied. There may even be people who’ll think you did the only possible thing you could do. But nobody’s going to like hearing what happened to Ruth. You’ll go to the gas chamber for that, Hallam. You probably took the precaution of burning the diary. Ruth was the only person left who could tie you to any of this.”

  Hallam wet his lips. “I was in Washington last night. How could I have anything to do with—”

  Shayne broke in. “And I’ve been wondering why you went all the way to Washington for a legal conference which you could have handled just as well by phone. Especially since somebody told me you don’t pay much attention to lawyers’ advice.”

  He pulled out Ruth’s circular pillbox. “Do you know what this is?”

  Hallam’s eyes flicked down to the box, then back to the detective’s face. “Some kind of medication? Get to the point. I have people waiting at the office.”

  “I have a feeling they’re going to be waiting a long time.”

  He took a step toward Hallam. The smaller man stood his ground for only a moment before falling back toward the terrace.

  “If you hit me, Shayne,” he warned, “I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.”

  “When Ruth died you were a thousand miles away, and I’m sure you arranged to be seen, at intervals on and off all night. These are birth-control pills, for the benefit of those who may not know. Hallam knows. Each one is dated. Last night’s pill is missing. You’ve been seeing her right along, haven’t you? Carefully, very very carefully, the way you do everything.”
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br />   “No.”

  “You’ve been giving her money. Yesterday was the tenth day of her new cycle. You saw her sometime during the last ten days and switched pillboxes. It’s a standard drugstore item. Both boxes were precisely the same, except that in the new box the tenth pill wasn’t the usual hormone preparation. It looked the same, but it actually contained a lethal dose of barbiturates.”

  Hallam, his eyes held by Shayne’s, was breathing shallowly. The room was quiet until Despard said coldly, “Talk about sneaks.”

  Hallam made an effort. “You can’t be serious. How could anybody—”

  “An ordinary person probably couldn’t,” Shayne said. “For the head of a chemical company it wouldn’t be hard. So Ruth took the pill, along with a few of her regular sleeping pills, and died. All the autopsy will show is an overdose of barbiturates.”

  “Brilliant!” Jose exclaimed. “Not the kind of thing I could do myself, but it shows a certain warped intelligence.”

  Shayne waited, his eyes on Hallam’s. Now he would see if the long night’s preparation had paid off. Hallam had to be forced to justify himself. The atmosphere was beginning to affect him. This was a room where a half dozen people had spent the night speaking the truth. His jaw muscles flickered.

  Jose gave his idiotic half giggle. “His wife betrays him and he shoots the man. Naturally. But twenty-five years later! And a birth-control pill. Jesus God. Hallam, everybody always knew you were nothing but a twerp.”

  Veins stood out on Hallam’s forehead. The unexpected mildness of Jose’s condemnation had an odd result. Some of his tension left him. His eyes had closed, but now he opened them and looked at Shayne mildly.

  Jose said, “I always did like murder trials. I surely expect to enjoy this one because I’m going to be in it. I never would have thought of it without your inspiration, Shayne—you’re a wizard, man, I mean it—but I stayed late one night to catch up on my correspondence—no, to tell you the truth I had a date later—and I saw him.”

  “Hallam?” Shayne said quietly.

  “Who else? In the laboratory. With the pill mold.”

  Hallam broke his connection with Shayne with a twitch. He looked at his son. His lips parted in a terrible drawn smile.

  “Well, I’m sorry he stayed late. I’m sorry about Ruthie. She was better than everybody. If you want to be a literary man, Forbes, go ahead and be one. If you hate businessmen, you have no right to live off dividends. Do you understand? I didn’t change my will. Too many things to do. Offer Perkins eight million for his company. No more than eight. He has to accept. Don’t let the Despards—”

  He whirled and broke for the terrace, moving fast. Shayne, who was nearest, reacted slowly. He collided with Perkins in the doorway, and Hallam was over the railing by the time the detective reached it.

  Shayne swiped at him awkwardly with his hook, but missed. Hallam fell away, face up, arms and legs splayed outward, an expression of astonishment on his face. A girl screamed in the room. Shayne turned without waiting to see Hallam hit the concrete twelve floors below. Jose, rubbing his mouth, was watching him.

  Shayne said, “Did you really see him in the lab?”

  Jose snorted. “Don’t get high and mighty with me, Shayne. You know as well as I do you couldn’t get a conviction. You were a little slow there, I thought. I’ve seen you move, man. You move like a rattlesnake—when you want to.”

  After a moment Shayne said heavily. “It’s been a hard night. Now it’s time for the cops.”