“Yeah. After she was pretty drunk. Must have been around five.”
“Who did she call?”
“I don’t know. I swear I don’t. She went in a booth. But when she came out she asked me how to get to a—a hotel in Miami.”
“What hotel?” Shayne’s voice was like the lash of a whip.
Preston told him, adding nervously, “I knew that was where you hung out. I didn’t know what she might do. I mixed her one last drink before she left—and fixed it.”
“But not strong enough,” Shayne commented dryly. “You need a supply of special drops for these tough debutante guzzlers. All right. I want it straight. Who’d you call when she left?”
“I telephoned Mr. Stallings. I thought he ought to know. I—I told him she had started for your place but I didn’t think she’d make it.”
“Is that all you know about it?”
“That’s all. I swear to God it is. I told Arch as soon as he came in—about six-thirty. I thought he might be sore because he’s been carrying the torch for her. He wasn’t, though. He said I done just right.”
Shayne slid the gun back into his pocket. Lounging to his feet, he crossed to the windows and draw the shades down again. “Go ahead with your beauty sleep. I may want you to repeat this before witnesses later. Don’t forget any of it.”
Outside the darkened room he nodded reassuringly to Mrs. Preston who was loitering in the hall with the gurgling toddler in her arms. “It’s okay, Mrs. Preston. Your husband isn’t in any trouble. But I advise you to have him lay off work a day or so and stay close to home. He’ll be safer here than at the Bugle Inn.”
Back in his rented car again, Shayne hesitated for a few minutes, then made up his mind and drove to the south end of the Beach, the Coney Island of the resort city; a section of bathhouses and hamburger joints, shooting galleries and other carnival concessions.
He went into a beer parlor and arched his brows at the bartender, got a nod that sent him to a back room where he knocked twice before going in. The room was large and airy with rows of empty cane-bottom chairs lined up facing a huge blackboard on the rear wall. The board was divided into sections, and each bore the name of a well-known race track operating in the United States. There was a large desk in one corner of the room with half a dozen telephones lined up in front of six chairs. A man was seated at the desk talking into one of the phones. He jerked a rosy head at Shayne and kept on talking with his lips close to the mouthpiece.
Shayne pulled one of the chairs away from the desk and tilted it back against the wall, sat down and lit a cigarette.
Joe finished his conversation and hung up. He mopped his face with a silk handkerchief and complained, “This business will be the death of me, Mike. Nothing but crooks and two-bit punks yapping when their ten-to-one shots don’t come home. It makes a man want to puke.”
Shayne said, “Yeh? Well, I’ve got another worry for you. I won’t have a chance to get to the bank and pick up the two grand I laid on Marsh last night. I guess you’ll have to carry me for it.”
Joe Parkis had broad, flat features with a bilious tinge. He squirmed uneasily in his chair, looking away from the redheaded detective. “Can’t get to the bank, huh? It’ll be open pretty quick now.”
“Yeh, but I’m going to be pretty busy. Expect to be tied up most of the day. I just wanted to tell you I didn’t think I could make it.”
Joe glanced at him sharply and then away again. It seemed to Shayne there was a look of relief on his face. “You know I got to run my business on cash, Mike. I’d go broke in a week if I started taking markers from every sport that wanted to lay a bet. I got a strict rule—”
“I’m not ‘every sport,’ God damn it,” Shayne interrupted harshly. “You know I’m good for two lousy grand.”
“It ain’t that, Mike,” Joe held up a placating hand. Sweat was forming on his forehead and trickling down his flat features. “Sure you’re good for it. I’m not saying you wouldn’t pay off cash on the barrelhead if Stallings wins. But if I take a marker from you and somebody else finds it out, then they think I ought to take theirs. See what I mean? Once you get started it’s hell to stop. I run on a strictly cash basis,” the bookmaker reiterated doggedly.
Shayne’s eyes narrowed unpleasantly. “All right, Joe. I’ve got ways of making things tough on you, too.”
Joe Parkis mopped his face and begged, “Don’t get sore, Mike. Hell, if you want to borrow a couple of grand—” He made a gesture of generosity.
Shayne said, “I don’t want to borrow two grand. I only want to lay it on Jim Marsh. Make it easy on yourself.” He tilted the chair forward and got up.
“Wait, Mike. For God’s sake, wait a minute. I’m trying to give you a tip-off, see? You’ve always leveled with me. I’d be a hell of a friend if I let you walk into something. I’m telling you to lay off the election.”
Shayne hesitated, dropped back into the chair. “What’s on your mind?”
“Take my word for it,” Parkis pleaded. “I see all sorts of funny things in my business. I got things I can’t talk about just like you got things on your clients you keep under your hat. But I’m telling you to lay off. I don’t want to see you drop two grand. You’d be sore if you found out afterward I knew the fix was on and didn’t tip you.”
Shayne lit another cigarette. His nostrils flared, and smoke dribbled out. Suddenly he looked happy. “So the fix is on? I get it, Joe. Maybe I can change that. I’m still willing to bet two grand I can.”
“Money on the nose ain’t no better than counterfeit if your nag don’t break away from the post,” Joe Parkis warned him sententiously.
Shayne nodded cheerfully. “I see what you’re driving at. But I’m on the inside, too, Joe. Don’t believe everything you hear. Thanks for tipping me, but my bet stands.”
“Don’t be a schlemiel,” Joe groaned. “You been around enough to know that when the owner lays heavy sugar on another horse he’s pretty sure his ain’t going to run.”
“So,” said Shayne thoughtfully, “it’s that way?”
Parkis wriggled in his chair and mopped his face. “All right, so you’ve got the picture. Now will you lay off?”
“How much has Marsh bet against himself?”
“Plenty. That’s what knocked the odds down yesterday. Damn it, Mike, I ain’t got no right to spill this.”
“It won’t go any farther.” Shayne leaned forward, his eyes boring into Joe’s. “That funny stuff last night—about no bets being off if Marsh withdrew—that was his idea, too? Eh?”
“That’s right. His jack has to be covered that way. And that gives him a cinch, Mike. I don’t like that kind of business, but hell, the suckers’ll get took anyway. Only I hate to see you ride with the suckers.”
“I never have,” Shayne said harshly. “I’ll change my bet, Joe. Make it five grand.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Joe looked completely unhappy. “But I’m telling you flat Marsh stands to lose fifty thousand by winning the election. No man’s going to cut his own throat. All he has to do is withdraw.”
Shayne smiled. “I get the angle without your drawing me a picture. Marsh is going to stay in and he’s going to win. And my five grand will be that much sweeter coming from him on his double cross.” He stood up. “Want me to sign something?”
“You know that ain’t necessary.” Joe looked up at him reproachfully. “I was just trying—”
“And I appreciate it,” Shayne told him. The smile on his gaunt features grew broader. “You’ve cleaned up the last angle that had me worried. So long. Just hold my winnings for me. But—do this, Joe. Call Marsh right away and tell him I’ve increased my bet to five grand and tell him I said I’d break his neck if he withdrew and caused me to lose—and that I mean it. He still has time to cover some of his money.”
On his way out Shayne stopped at a telephone booth and called Timothy Rourke at the Miami News.
Rourke sounded worried. “I was just starting
down to headquarters to sign the complaint against Marlow. They picked him up a little while ago.”
“Good. How about the Stallings maid?”
“Nothing on her, Mike. I’ve tried every agency. None of them supplied servants for the Stallings ménage. That looks like a blind alley.”
“Okay, Tim,” Shayne told him cheerfully. “The accusation against me hasn’t broken yet, eh?”
“Guess not. We’re ready with another extra as soon as Stallings and Painter make the kidnap note public.”
“Meet me at the Miami Beach police station as fast as you can make it,” Shayne suggested casually.
“What’s up?”
“Fireworks,” Shayne told him succinctly. “I’m about to give myself up.”
“What the hell? Are you kidding?”
“I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.” Shayne hung up before Rourke could ask any more questions and strolled out of the booth. He killed ten minutes drinking two beers.
Timothy Rourke was just jumping out of his car in front of the Beach headquarters when Shayne rolled up in his rented car. The lean-faced reporter hurried to meet him, panting.
“Is this a gag, Mike?”
“Not at all. As a reputable citizen my conscience forces me to appear voluntarily.” Shayne grinned and got out. He took Rourke’s arm and led him into the outer office, where he leaned on the counter and asked the desk sergeant, “Painter in?”
“Yeh, but he’s busy right now. Mr. Stallings is in his office.”
“Okay. We’ll make it a foursome,” Shayne answered and strolled back to a private office in the rear. He pushed the door open, and the two men entered.
Painter was sitting behind his desk and Burt Stallings sat in a chair near him. A plain-clothes man was using a typewriter in the rear of the office.
Painter and Stallings came to their feet when Shayne and Rourke entered. There was an expression of loathing on Stallings’s face, a look of exuberant triumph on Painter’s.
“This is pretty nice,” the chief of detectives crowed. “Mr. Stallings is just swearing out a warrant for your arrest. Sit down until he signs it and we’ll serve it right here.”
Shayne said, “Sure,” and sat down. The typist rolled a printed form from his machine and laid it in front of the chief. Painter glanced at it, then passed it to Stallings. “Sign right here,” he directed.
Stallings shot a glance at Shayne, then affixed his signature.
Peter Painter leaned back with his black eyes snapping happily. In a formal tone, he pronounced, “You’re under arrest, Michael Shayne—charged with the murder of one Helen Stallings.”
Shayne looked at Rourke. “I want you to witness this. False arrest on a fraudulent charge made knowingly and maliciously.”
“Fraudulent charge?” Painter choked. “You’ll have a hard time making that stick. We’ve got enough evidence to hang you.”
“For the murder of Helen Stallings?” Shayne asked gently.
“Of course. You know damned well—”
Shayne turned to Tim Rourke who was sniffing in the conversation with a look of dazed incredulity on his face. “What the hell are you waiting for?” Shayne demanded. “There’s one of the headlines I’ve been promising you.”
Rourke sprang past Painter to a telephone on the rear desk. He snatched it up and gave the number of his office, got the city desk, and ordered, “Let that extra go. Michael Shayne arrested for murder of Helen Stallings on warrant sworn out by her stepfather. I just saw it happen. Shayne gave himself up in the office of Peter Painter. And keep the presses open. I’ve got a hunch there’s another story making.”
Rourke pronged the instrument and came back to stand beside Shayne. The detective grinned up into his concerned face.
“How long will that be hitting the streets?”
“Two minutes. They were printed and loaded on trucks waiting for the word.”
Shayne said, “Good. Then I don’t need to hold out any longer. I wanted to be sure people actually had a chance to read the charges against me. Defamation of character and so forth.”
“What are you kidding about?” Painter demanded. “We’ve got you dead to rights.”
“First you’ll have to prove that Helen Stallings is dead,” said Shayne. “The corpus delicti, you know.”
Stallings’s face suddenly went ashen. He sank back into his chair breathing heavily.
“You’re crazy,” Painter snapped. “The body was found this morning where you’d ditched it. We’ve got her safe enough. And if you’re figuring on pulling a fast one by snatching the body, you’d better start thinking again.”
“Why, no,” Shayne disclaimed pleasantly, “I wouldn’t snatch the body for anything. That corpse will bust your case wide open. It just happens that the body is not that of Helen Stallings at all.”
THIRTEEN
MICHAEL SHAYNE’S FLAT STATEMENT that the body of the murdered girl was not that of Helen Stallings brought a moment of stunned silence to Peter Painter’s private office.
Then Burt Stallings blustered, “The man is mad. Stark, raving insane. Of course the girl is Helen. There can’t be the slightest doubt.”
Timothy Rourke also was staring at his friend with a dazed look of incomprehension on his hard-bitten face.
Painter, however, reacted differently. His slender body shivered with wrath. He caressed his tiny black mustache with a trembling forefinger, and baffled fear spread over his features. His voice held a squeaky note of hysteria when he counseled, “Wait, Stallings. Shayne may be up to one of his hellish tricks again. He has a way of pulling elephants out of a thimble when you least expect it. If she isn’t Helen Stallings—”
“But she is. God, man! Don’t you think I can identify my own stepdaughter?”
Painter shook his head dubiously, darting a shaken look at Shayne’s placid self-assurance. He muttered, “You don’t know him like I do. This sort of stunt is right down his alley.” He paused reflectively, then pounded his desk with a small fist. “If he has managed to switch corpses—”
A look of comprehension crept over Rourke’s face. He breathed a soft, ecstatic “Oh, my sweet grandmother” and began scribbling rapidly on a batch of folded sheets drawn from his pocket.
Burt Stallings shook his head decisively. “There’s no chance of anything like that. I came directly from the mortuary here. The girl is my stepdaughter. I can’t be mistaken. She’s wearing the same clothes she had on when she disappeared from home yesterday. A bluish-green silk dress. The same garment described in the News story of her discovery this morning,” he ended triumphantly.
Rourke stopped scribbling. He cocked a worried eye at Shayne, but the redheaded detective was wholly unperturbed.
“That’s right. You described the dress when you reported the kidnap note.” Painter was beginning to breathe more easily, and his manner began to assume its normal aggressiveness. His slim padded shoulders strutted as he whirled upon Shayne. “How about it, Shamus? How are you going to get around Mr. Stallings’s positive identification of her?”
Shayne lit a cigarette before replying. He said calmly, “If you would stop trying to hang something on me you might solve a case one of these days without a blueprint from me. I still say the corpse of the murdered girl isn’t Helen Stallings. I can prove it.”
“But you’ve just heard Mr. Stallings—”
Shayne waved the interruption aside. “Mr. Stallings can prove she is the girl who left his home after lunch yesterday, angry at him and at Arch Bugler. The girl who has been masquerading for a month as Helen Stallings. I don’t deny that. I haven’t looked at the body, but from Rourke’s description in the newspaper this morning I’m assuming that’s who she is. She came to my office yesterday afternoon just before I took my wife to the train.”
Burt Stallings’s tall, handsome body was rigidly upright and tense. Only his lips moved when he said bitterly, “I repeat—the man is insane. Someone masquerading as Helen? Bah! Utter nonsense.”
>
Rourke’s nose quivered on the scent of headlines. His head was slightly cocked toward Stallings as his pencil again raced over the notebook on his knee.
“You admit she came to you yesterday?” Painter again pounded the desk. “Last night you denied knowing anything about her disappearance.”
“Barking up a tree again,” Shayne said. “I denied knowing anything about Helen Stallings’s disappearance. I didn’t at that time, though I’ve doped it out since. Also, I didn’t even know where the girl was. She was snatched from my office while I was at the depot.”
Painter’s delicate mustache quivered upward in a sneer. “A likely story. By God, Shayne, I don’t know what you’ve cooked up to cover yourself this time, but we’re not going to swallow any preposterous tissue of lies.”
“Ask Stallings what actually became of Helen,” Shayne said easily. “He got rid of her a month ago. He and Arch Bugler together.”
Stallings fumed. “Must we listen to this man’s absurd accusations?”
“You’re Goddamned right you’re going to listen.” Shayne swung on him angrily. “I’m not only accusing you of getting rid of your stepdaughter, but of doing away with the girl who was posing as Helen. Baldy, from the Bugle Inn, telephoned you yesterday afternoon that he had doped her and that she was headed to Miami to see me. You were desperate. Your whole house of cards was tumbling down if she talked.”
“I did not. I can prove I didn’t leave the Beach. A bartender did warn me that my daughter was making loose threats against me and was going to you with them. I told all that to Mr. Painter at once. My hands are clean.”
Painter’s black eyes were glistening. They stalked the redheaded detective relentlessly. “Are you fool enough to think you can make anyone believe another girl has been pretending to be Helen Stallings for weeks and the deception has been successful? I suppose you’re going to pull an identical twin out of your sleeve now.”
“It didn’t take an identical twin—nor a twin of any sort. All it took was a girl who looked enough like Helen for a newspaper picture of her to pass for a previously printed picture of the real Helen Stallings. Here’s what I mean.”
Bodies Are Where You Find Them Page 13
