Shayne squatted on his heels and frowned at the clipping while Cassidy moved nervously around the room. Rourke read the item over Shayne’s shoulder, asking, “Is that what you’re looking for?”
Shayne shook his head. “I’m looking for something that’ll tie this sax player up with Arch Bugler.”
“Bugler?” Rourke’s interest quickened. “You haven’t told me anything,” he complained.
“You had a chance to go along with me and turned it down,” Shayne reminded him. He tugged meditatively at the lobe of his left ear, then closed the scrapbook and laid it on the pile of other articles taken from the grip. He rocked forward and explored the interior of the bag carefully, drawing the fitted toilet articles from their niches to be sure that nothing was concealed beneath them.
A sudden exclamation escaped his lips. He bent forward to examine a slit in the silk lining. The room telephone shrilled as he did so.
Cassidy leaped to answer it. “Yeh?” he barked, and then, “Okay.” He dropped the instrument into place, exclaiming, “Marlow’s on his way up!”
Shayne stubbornly remained on his knees beside the empty grip. His fingers were exploring behind the lining. With a grunt of satisfaction he drew out a folded sheet of heavy paper.
Cassidy was dancing up and down near the door in a fever of impatience, begging, “Hurry it, Mike. It’ll be worth my job if we get caught in here for no good reason.”
Shayne shoved the folded document into his pocket and dumped the contents of the grip back in a jumble. He closed the bag and buckled it swiftly, then darted for the door behind Rourke. The trio stepped out just as the elevator stopped at that floor.
The operator appeared to have trouble opening the elevator door. Cassidy had the door of 214 locked and was strolling leisurely down the hall behind Shayne and Rourke when Whit Marlow stepped out and turned toward them.
The young man’s face was a sickly white. He wavered past them toward his room without looking at the three men.
Cassidy sighed when they entered the elevator. “That was a close shave,” he said.
Shayne’s short laugh was sardonic. “That was once over light, Cassidy. I’ve had closer shaves in my own bathroom.”
“And what did you get for your trouble?” Cassidy asked anxiously when they reached the lobby.
“I don’t know. He had it stashed away as though it might be the secret plans for our bomb.” Shayne stepped to a secluded corner and took the paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and then swore with disgust. A pair of cupids frolicked together at the top of the sheet beneath a pink wedding bell. An ornate scroll proclaimed to all and sundry that the Reverend J. Hammond Fitzhugh of Endicott, Connecticut, had united in holy wedlock one Whit Marlow and Helen Devalon on the 14th day of April.
Rourke chuckled at the expression on Shayne’s face. “Maybe it’s a code,” he suggested sweetly. “Secret Agent X is pleased to report—” He ducked Shayne’s swing while Cassidy wrinkled his forehead at the document.
“Do you mean you think this Marlow is one of those fifth columnists and this is not a wedding certificate but some sort of devilish spying code?”
“I’ve quit thinking,” Shayne growled. “Damn a sentimental sax player who hides a wedding certificate as if it was something important. Come on, Tim. Let’s get out of here.” He strode to the door, and Rourke followed, still chuckling over Shayne’s discomfiture.
“Where’s your buggy parked?” Shayne demanded when they were outside.
“Right up the street.” Rourke stopped abruptly. “Wait! What are you after? What about the corpse?”
“By the grace of God I had time to get her out of sight before anyone got there. But we’ve got to move her. She’s bound to be discovered if—”
“Not me,” Rourke demurred stoutly. “Not in my car, either. Damn it, Mike, rent a hearse if you insist on ghouling around with cadavers.”
“Come on,” Shayne growled. He caught the reporter’s arm and urged him on, occasionally turning his head and straining his eyes to see whether the wreck scene was deserted. “It may be too late already.”
“That’s my one fervent hope,” said Rourke. “What’s it all about? Why should someone snatch her from your room and then stage a wreck to toss her back in your lap? It doesn’t make sense.”
Shayne didn’t reply. When they reached Rourke’s car muffled sounds were emanating from the short-wave radio which the reporter had left turned on. Shayne jerked the door open and got in, turned the dial up just in time to hear the words, “… body of unidentified young woman. That is all.”
Rourke, behind the wheel, glanced sideways at Shayne. A look of defeat settled over the detective’s gaunt features. For a moment his defenses were down and he looked old and weary.
The expression on Shayne’s face shocked Timothy Rourke out of his flippant mood. Deprived of his aura of invincibility, Michael Shayne was no different from lesser men, and Rourke averted his eyes quickly, ashamed that he had witnessed the change. He felt as low as if he had peeped through a keyhole and watched a beautiful and glamorous woman become haggard with the removal of her make-up.
With as much cheerfulness as he could muster, Rourke said, “We’re jumping to conclusions, Mike. We don’t know that it’s Helen Stallings. Might be some other unidentified body.”
“Yeh,” Shayne agreed tonelessly. “Might be. Drive down the boulevard and we’ll see what’s happened. If she has been found there—that close to my car—I’m sunk.” He put a cigarette between his puffed lips and struck two matches before getting a light.
Rourke drove forward slowly. The crowd of spectators had disappeared from the scene of the wreck. A wrecking-car had hauled away the twisted ruins of Shayne’s car, and the only evidence in sight as they rolled slowly past was the glitter of splintered glass and the broken lamppost.
“I don’t see a damned thing,” Rourke muttered. “Can you tell if she’s still there?”
“Christ! You didn’t think I’d leave her where she’d show from the street?” Shayne’s voice came to life again. “Turn left, down this side street.”
Rourke swung to the left on a shadowed residential street. Shayne directed, “Pull in to the curb. I’ve got to go back and see what’s up.”
“You’re liable to walk into a trap,” Rourke warned. “The tail end of that call we heard—it must have been directing a patrol car to the spot. Probably some passer-by saw her lying there and phoned in.”
Shayne conquered an upheaval under his ribs and said, “I’ve got to find out,” and jumped from the light sedan. “Maybe I can get to her before the cops get here. If anything happens,” he went on harshly, “get the hell out in a hurry.” He ran swiftly across the street and dodged into the shadow cast by trees on the corner. He found an opening in the hedge where the alley ran through. Bending down to hide his upper body, he crept along the hedge toward the front.
There was no sound except the beating of his own heart and the night wind soughing through the palm fronds. He could see nothing in the black shadow behind the hedge, now that the street light was gone.
He began to think that the body had been removed—that this was not the right house—or the right hedge, when a black shadow moved in the darkness ahead. There was a faint rustling of the grass, an intangible something that caused him to freeze in his tracks. An automobile cruised lazily past. That would be the patrol car checking on the call. No, it was cruising on without slackening speed.
He could discern the dark shape on the grass now, not more than fifteen feet ahead, and suddenly there was the horrible glint of yellow eyes in the darkness just beyond the still body.
As Shayne lunged forward, a lean gray cat leaped aside with a defiant mew, sped away across the lawn lashing her tail angrily.
Bending over the rigid body of the girl, he lifted her up. There was no challenge from the darkness, no outraged outcry from a near-by householder.
As he reached the opening into the alley and started toward the st
reet, another car was stopping. Shayne dropped back into the shadow of the hedge as the lights on the car went out. Then he heard footsteps coming toward him and Rourke’s loud whisper, “Mike, where are you? I brought the car over to this side.”
“Here.” Shayne leaped forward, and Rourke jerked the rear door open, Shayne awkwardly crammed the body inside, and Rourke looked on, shaking his head in disapproval. He muttered, “She looks like country come to town for fair. First time I ever realized how indecent a gal could look without make-up. Hair stringing down around her face and no nail polish—” He shuddered and averted his face.
“Don’t forget she’s been hitting a fast pace since she was murdered,” Shayne growled. “You can’t expect her to be in the best of trim.” He slammed the door shut, swore when her dress caught in the hinge and wouldn’t let it latch. He leaned in to throw the hem back out of the way, and Rourke whistled shrilly.
“Lookit! That dress is all she’s got on. Not even any pants.”
“This,” said Shayne, “is a hell of a time to get technical about a thing like that.” He slammed the door shut again and shoved Rourke under the wheel, ran around to jump in beside him. “Get moving,” he panted. “As far as the bay, then south.”
The short-wave radio came to life again as the car surged forward. Both men bent their heads to listen.
“Calling car sixty-three. Car sixty-three. Go back to your position. Disregard previous instructions. Disregard previous instructions. Body of young woman floating in the bay has been cared for. Emergency ambulance answered call. That is all.”
Shayne sat erect and emitted an explosive sigh. Rourke laughed shakily. “God! What a coincidence. I needed a diaper while I was waiting for you back there.”
Shayne said musingly, “I wonder if Phyl will like me with gray hair. By God, I can’t—”
“Careful of your language, there,” Rourke interposed. “We have a lady with us.” Then his bravado cracked. “I can’t stand much more of this, Mike.”
“We’ll get rid of her quick,” Shayne promised. “But we don’t want to leave her too close to where my car was wrecked. Why don’t you cut back across the boulevard and drive out into the residential section? We’ll find a nice quiet lawn where corpses are a novelty and deposit her there.”
Rourke turned east across the boulevard, forcing himself to hold the car to a speed within traffic restrictions.
After he had driven some twenty blocks Shayne suggested, “This looks like a respectable neighborhood where people have sense enough to go to bed early. There’s not a single light showing and not a car in sight.”
“Sure,” Rourke grunted sourly. “These people lead drab lives. Everybody is entitled to some excitement.” He slowed in the middle of the next block at a point where the corner street lamps did not interfere, edged to the curb, and stopped in front of a row of small stucco houses.
Shayne leaped out and took the mortal remains of Helen Stallings from the rear seat and deposited her gently on a damp green lawn.
When he returned to the car Timothy Rourke had moved out of the driver’s seat. “You take over, Mike. I’ll come unhinged if I try to drive another foot.”
“We could both use a drink and some quiet meditation,” Shayne decided. “Home is just the place for that, and we’ll hope no more bodies have popped up during our absence.”
EIGHT
“WHY,” ASKED TIMOTHY ROURKE for the fifth time, “did the killer first snatch the body out of your possession and then stage a public wreck to give it back to you?”
“When we know the answer to that we’ll have something.” Mike sat relaxed in a deep chair in the luxurious corner apartment which he had taken after his marriage to Phyllis. Rourke was sprawled out on the lounge across from him. A low coffee table was between them, bearing up under an array of ash trays, a cognac bottle, a heavily depleted quart of Scotch, a siphon bottle, and a large bowl of ice cubes. They had been sitting thus for more than an hour, and Rourke had put a lot of Scotch inside of him. Shayne, tormented by his two-o’clock appointment with Lucile, had been more sparing with the cognac.
“It doesn’t add up to anything,” Rourke insisted. “He had you where the hair was short with the girl’s body in your room. Yet he conveniently carries the body away, then changes his mind and gives the gal back to you. It’s crazy, Mike.”
“Sure it is.” Shayne picked up his cognac glass and looked longingly at its contents, set it down, and took a long drink of ice water instead. “Trouble is, we’ve got a wrong slant somewhere. We can’t see any motive behind any of it. Our unknown factor is why. We’ve got a string of seemingly senseless events that won’t add up until we know the value of X. A simple algebraic equation.”
Rourke yawned and rattled the ice cubes in his tilted glass. He reached out waveringly for the bottle of Scotch and tipped it up, let the liquid gurgle into his glass.
Shayne frowned at him and warned, “You’re taking on a heavy load, Tim.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” He shuddered complacently. “I’m just beginning to feel human again after dealing corpses off the bottom of the deck.” He squinted at Shayne over the top of his glass. “Let’s solve for X since it’s a simple equation. How many people knew Helen Stallings was coming here to give you some dope against Stallings?”
“That would be guesswork. Jim Marsh for one—That is, he sent a girl to see me after talking with her on the phone. He claims he didn’t know who she was at the time—” He broke off, staring past Rourke, his features tightening.
“Then Jim Marsh is one man we can leave out. He sent her to you. If she had some low-down on Stallings that would give him the election he’d be the last man in the world to shut her mouth before she gabbed.”
Shayne said, “I wonder.” He cocked his head as if listening for a sound which eluded his big ears. He drummed finger tips on the arm of his chair.
Rourke stared at him in blank amazement. “You’re determined to complicate things,” he complained. “Seems to me Marsh is the one man we can eliminate.”
“I told you how he acted tonight.”
“Sure. He’s got the willies about the election. Every amateur politician gets that way. I’ve seen plenty of them ready to give up the day before the votes were counted.”
“It was more than that, Tim. Damn it, Marsh acted like a man who wanted to lose—who was afraid to win.” Shayne gave himself a hunch which brought his torso upright and he sat staring queerly as he continued.
“I don’t even know he sent the girl to me. He called me and said she was on her way. We don’t know but what he tried to prevent her from coming—that she insisted—” His voice trailed off. There was a faraway, questing look in his eyes.
Rourke swore angrily. “God, Mike, if you start suspecting Marsh where will you stop? Here’s something that knocks that theory into a cocked hat. The threatening note to Stallings, warning him to withdraw from the election. I suppose Marsh killed the girl so Stallings would win, then sent the note to force him to withdraw.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm.
Shayne shook his head stubbornly. “Someone else could have sent the note,” he pointed out. “Someone who knew Helen Stallings was on her way to my apartment.”
“It had to be the killer,” Rourke argued. “The note was sent to Stallings to hang a frame on you—by someone who knew the gal was dead and couldn’t testify that you hadn’t kidnaped her.”
“That’s right, too.” Shayne mopped his seamed forehead, then meditatively emptied his cognac glass. “Here’s what happened. Someone followed her here and waited until I started to the station with Phyllis, then came in and choked her with her own stocking. There was a struggle and she made an outcry, overheard by someone who pounded on the door and then called Gentry. I had left the door unlocked, and the murderer locked it. He was trapped in here, with the door locked on the inside. He had to unlock it in order to throw full suspicion on me. He escaped by the fire escape and hung around watching. He knew the body w
as undiscovered when I came back. Afterward, one of Bugler’s men followed me away, and as soon as the coast is clear the body is snatched before you can get back and take it away. Oh, hell! It’s not a simple equation. It’s got a dozen unknowns.” He poured another glass of cognac.
“And Arch Bugler is one of them,” Rourke reminded him. “He keeps popping up. He’s had enough practice in murder.”
“But he wouldn’t have killed a society girl who was pulling him up out of the gutter,” Shayne protested. “According to those newspaper accounts you gave me, he and Helen Stallings were practically engaged. And she’s due to come into a wad of money soon, isn’t she?”
“On her twenty-first birthday, I think. A couple of weeks from now. I think the whole story was printed in the paper when she started the suit against her stepfather and then dropped it.”
Shayne reached in his pocket for the sheets of newsprint he had wadded together at the Wildcat earlier in the evening. He looked at them curiously. It seemed very strange that he had seen them for the first time only a few hours ago.
Spreading them out, he found the one he wanted and began reading the story. He nodded thoughtfully and said, “The bulk of the estate was left to the girl in trust until her twenty-first birthday, in the event she didn’t marry sooner. If she married or died before then, it reverted to her mother. After Stallings married the mother, he adopted the girl legally, thus gaining control of the trust fund.” Shayne sucked in his breath sharply. “Do you recall her name before it was changed to Stallings?”
“Nope.” Rourke’s eyes were bleary and he had difficulty focusing them on Shayne.
“Get this. It was Devalon. Helen Devalon.” The note of suppressed excitement in his voice brought Rourke up straight on the couch. He blinked and shook his head roughly from side to side.
“That ought to mean something—Damned if I know.”
Bodies Are Where You Find Them Page 8
