Shayne felt carefully along the top of the coffee table until his fingers fastened on the bottle. He uncapped it and poured by ear.
“You don’t have any idea where this place in the country is?”
“Not the foggiest,” Powys said cheerfully.
“You heard both ends of those phone calls. That was Slater’s girl he was talking to, as you probably gathered. She did a lot of the talking. Did she—?”
The Englishman interrupted. “The easiest thing would be to see what you think yourself. I was mulling it over before you came. I’d just about put together a tentative conclusion, but I’d like to see if you concur. The fact of the matter is, as soon as the Camel started talking I thought I’d turn on the tape so I’d have a record of it, if it came to that.”
Shayne’s eyebrows rose in the darkness. “I’m glad we’re working the same side of the street,” he said with a short laugh. “I’d hate to have you for an enemy. Let’s hear it.”
“Strike a match, that’s a good chap.”
Shayne felt for his matches. He lit one on his thumb-nail, and before it burned all the way down, the Englishman had found the spot on the tape where Alvarez, the phone in Shayne’s bedroom off the hook, was telling the detective to go to the other room and bring him some ice cubes in a towel.
Shayne blew out the match and settled back. He heard the Camel give the operator a number.
“That’s the nightclub, by the way,” Powys put in.
A voice said hello. Apparently recognizing the voice, Alvarez began speaking in Spanish.
“Do you understand what he’s saying?” Shayne asked.
Powys adjusted the volume and translated the quick flow of question and answer. “First of all, are the police still there? Yes, he is told. One, posted at the front entrance. How about the people who were taken in for questioning? Have they returned? Only Al, whoever he is. An American. The police didn’t want to take a chance on holding him longer. Then Alvarez says to bring Vivienne to the phone, and from now on it is in English.”
He turned up the volume again. Shayne waited. There was a faint whirring sound from the machine.
A girl’s voice came on, and before she had spoken a dozen words, he knew it was the French girl he had met at the Pirate’s Rendezvous. He quickly fitted her into place beside Paul Slater. Alvarez had undoubtedly pulled those strings, arranging the connection so he could keep an eye on his courier and make sure he would be in need of money. Shayne, who made few moral judgments in this field, knew from his brief talk with her that she would be an expensive hobby for a man without much legitimate income.
That was all the rearranging he had time for before the Camel’s voice was saying, “Are you alone? Is the door closed?”
“Yes, yes,” the girl answered sulkily. “You understand that they have started my music. I must begin singing in one moment.”
“Never mind that. When did you talk to Slater?”
“On the telephone, this afternoon for five minutes. His wife—”
“I know, I know. What did he tell you?”
“About what?”
The urgency in the Camel’s tone came through clearly. “You know very well about what. You know that I have a business arrangement with this man. I received a notice in the mail setting a date for delivery—eleven o’clock tonight. When you talked to him he had already mailed the notice. He must have referred to it in some way.”
“No,” the girl’s voice said, still sulky. “You do not tell me about times or deliveries or such stupid matters, and I wish to have nothing to do with that side of the affair. Nothing whatever, do you hear me? When you want me to ask him what he will be doing at eleven o’clock or something of the sort, tell me what I must ask and I will ask it.”
“Why did he call you, then?”
“Oh, to warn me not to phone him at the hotel. His wife, you understand, had discovered about me and our meetings when she was gone. They had a great quarrel about it. He felt great remorse.”
“Yes, yes,” the Camel said. “But yesterday. Yesterday. I want to know his exact words. Did he say he had not decided? Or precisely what?”
Shayne had heard this question as he brought in the ice cubes and handed them to the Camel. From this point on, he had heard the Camel’s end of the conversation. He leaned forward, intent on the girl’s answer.
“He said he had decided to give it up,” she said. “It is finished. What happened the last trip frightened him severely, so no more dealings with that devil Alvarez. I sighed and told him this was bad news, I must consider how I am to live. You told me to make it clear, and so I made it clear. It is connected, the business with you and the pleasure with me, although I think sometimes it is not such a great pleasure to him, after all. And it is only common sense. If he gives up making money, he must give up seeing me. I spoke to him of another American, who unhappily lives only in my imagination—fat, bald, with much money. This man Paul does not like. Nor do I, to speak the truth.”
“And in the end? How did you leave it? You persuaded him?”
“No, no. There wasn’t time. I did the best I could. In another hour’s time he would have promised anything, though whether he would keep this promise is yet another matter. He is not exactly the Rock of Gibraltar, Paul. But I have no chance to get even a promise. The phone rings. Erring! His wife has returned. She is downstairs in the lobby. I must dash about here and there, picking up clothes, shoes. It is like a comedy on the stage, though I am the only one of the two of us who thinks it is funny. For Paul it is most extremely serious. This wife of his must be truly formidable. I assure you, with my dress half on, in only one shoe, with the fearful Mrs. Slater entering the elevator, I did not ask him if he had changed his mind and would handle one more shipment for you. This would be much to expect, Luis.”
“All right, I understand that. Still, you had a feeling that he would go ahead with it as planned? This is important. I must know exactly.”
The reels revolved in silence for a moment. The girl’s voice said reluctantly, “I wish very much to have the commission you promise me. So of course I wish that Paul would not be such a great fool. Why he is so frightened, I do not see. But I must not seem to care too greatly, or I will lose him. He is a complicated one, our Paul. Before our tête-à-tête is brought to a sudden halt, I think he is convinced at last that if he must choose, he will choose Vivienne Larousse, lately of Paris, France. He knows this is possible only if he has money to spend, and he has no rich uncle who is likely to die in the future, I believe. As I hop out the door with zipper unzipped, one shoe off, one shoe on, I am giggling. Now I have him in my pocket, now he will do as Uncle Luis wants, he will make money, he will give it to me, not to that dried up stick of a wife. But then I think some more. He is in confusion, this young man. One can turn him easily. And Martha Slater had him all night, all morning. Perhaps she used different methods from me, but perhaps not, do you know? And now I think that perhaps you and I should both look for someone new.”
Alvarez made a noncommittal sound. “And today on the phone?”
“It was nothing. He babbled about his wife, she worked so hard, she stuck to him and he was worth nothing—all very boring. He said nothing about you or your affair. I am surprised, you know, that he had arranged to meet you.”
Shayne went on listening to the exchange between the Camel and the girl, but his mind was no longer on it. The Englishman’s pipe had gone out again; another match flared in the darkness. The Camel cut the conversation off abruptly when he learned that Slater was leaving St. Albans, and asked for another number.
“Need any more, Mike?” Powys said quietly.
“I guess not,” Shayne told him.
The Englishman sat forward and turned off the machine. For a moment they sat in silence.
Shayne said, “I think I’d better have a talk with that girl.”
“My idea exactly,” Powys said. “I was thinking it might be interesting to have a whack at her myself. I saw he
r performance—quite educational, actually. But you’re the logical man. Wasn’t she the one you were dancing with?”
“She was doing the dancing,” Shayne said. “I just gave her moral support. Too bad you don’t have a car. Brannon’s probably shown my picture to all the cab drivers who are still working.”
“More than likely. But we are going to need a car, Mike.” He struck a match. He seemed to be having a hard time getting his pipe to draw. “Stay where you are. I’ll run out and steal one.”
10
Michael Shayne smoked a cigarette sitting in the darkness on the Englishman’s front steps. When he heard the crunch of tires on the gravel, he gulped the last of his drink and put the glass on a window sill. Powys was driving without lights. He coasted to a stop at the gate, and Shayne got in.
“Nice little Morris,” Powys said with satisfaction. “Amazing how easy it is to steal a car. Never did it before. I think it belongs to Miss Trivers, so let’s try not to get any bullet holes in it.”
He kept the lights off until they were a quarter of a mile from the Lodge. Then he decided not to run the risk of going through the town. Once again Shayne circled St. Albans on back roads.
“Don’t forget there’s a cop in front of the place,” Shayne reminded him.
“Never fear, never fear. That man is very much on my mind.”
They came in through the straggly unpaved streets of the Old Town. “Everybody asleep,” Powys observed. “Wouldn’t mind being asleep myself.”
They passed through the native market. After rejecting several possible parking places, Powys parked on a steep street beside the old church.
“I’ll look the situation over. Back in a tick.” He glanced at Shayne as he got out. “Pity you’re so bloody big, Mike. And that red hair. There’s no getting around it, you don’t look much like a tourist.”
He latched the door softly and disappeared. They were several blocks from the nightclub district; Shayne could see the fitful reflections from the big electric signs, which would go on blinking for another few hours. He heard a goombay band, perhaps playing in the Pirate’s Rendezvous. Beginning to feel trapped in the little car, he got out and stood waiting for Powys in the side doorway of the church. After a time he saw the Englishman coming up toward him rapidly. Seeing Shayne, Powys signalled. He turned and started back in the direction he had come. Shayne followed, keeping close to shop-fronts.
Powys stopped at the entrance to a narrow cobbled alley. “You’d better go in through the back,” he said as Shayne came up to him. “I couldn’t make out what kind of guard they have on the door, but with all those pretty gels in the floorshow, they must have something. I’ll pave the way. Another sudden attack of drunkenness is called for, I’m afraid. I’ll have quite a reputation before the night’s over.”
He nodded and plunged into the alley. At the next intersection he looked around the corner with care, and walked briskly across. A car went by. The instant Shayne heard the sound of the approaching motor he dove for a shadow and pressed hard against a damp wall. He waited until the car was well out of the neighborhood before he continued to the corner. Powys, across the street, waved jauntily. Without waiting for Shayne, he turned into the continuation of the alley. Shayne crossed the street at a run and saw Powys going up a short flight of steps that led into one of the buildings, probably the one that held the nightclub. The goombay band was resting between numbers, but even without the music there were muffled indications that the building was alive.
The Englishman’s walk suddenly became lurching and uncoordinated. He was gone by the time Shayne reached the top of the steps. The door was open, and the redhead looked into a long hall, poorly lit by a single 25-watt bulb. Powys was dancing solemnly with an old colored woman, who had apparently been watching the door. Shayne grinned. This was clearly a dance step of the Englishman’s invention, a weird combination of a cha-cha and a waltz. He held her in both arms, whirling her around and around while she shrieked with laughter and tried to push him away. He danced backward into an open doorway, looking down at her with his usual owlish solemnity. Shayne heard him say, “My good woman, you dance superbly.”
The redhead slipped past. Glancing to the left at the end of the hall, he saw a stove and a man in a chef’s hat, and heard the clatter of dishes. He turned right. A moment later he found himself at the foot of a steep iron staircase. Sticking a cigarette in his mouth, he looked around. A man in the costume worn by the orchestra came through a doorway mopping his forehead. A drum began to beat slowly.
“Where’s Vivienne?” Shayne asked casually.
“Working,” the man told him, without giving Shayne a second glance. “Her dressing room upstairs. First door.”
Shayne thanked him and went up. This part of the building, which the public never entered, was in a bad state of repair. The paint was peeling, the floors were dirty. He stood aside on the landing to let a dancer go by. She was barefooted, and wasn’t wearing much in the way of a costume. The first door at the top of the stairs was unmarked and without a latch. Shayne pushed it open and went in.
It was little more than a large closet. An unshaded bulb was burning above a make-up table with a fly-specked mirror. Clothes were thrown carelessly over the back of a chair. A small window that looked out on the alley was open as far as it would go, but the air in the room was heavy with the smell of cosmetic preparations and stale tobacco smoke.
Shayne lit his cigarette and made a quick survey of the room. One of the several dresses hanging along one wall had a Paris label, a sign that he was in the right place. He opened a small trunk, and found it filled with a jumble of costumes. He continued around the room, his deeply trenched face clearly showing his distaste for the job. He almost missed the small purse on the dressing table, amid a litter of jars and tubes and crumpled tissues. He cleared a space on the table and turned it inside out.
Below, the drum-beat had quickened. Shayne disregarded the few coins, the hairpins, lipstick and eye-tools. There were several torn scraps of newspaper and a folded letter. The drum-beat was now very fast; the girl’s number must be nearing its climax. He pulled the letter out of the soiled envelope and read it quickly. It was on a letterhead of the American consul, addressed to Mile. Vivienne Larousse at a St. Albans hotel. In stiff official language it listed the conditions under which French citizens could be assigned a quota number for permanent admission to the United States. Mile. Larousse’s chances, the consul seemed to feel, were not good.
Shayne thrust the letter back and picked up the newspaper clippings. The lines on his face deepened. They were radio schedules, like the one he had found in the Camel’s desk, and a light pencil-line had been drawn in the same way around several listings. The drummer in the main room of the nightclub was slapping his drum with mounting frenzy. He beat out a complicated series of rhythms in a final excited flurry, and there was an abrupt burst of applause. Shayne swept the assortment of objects back into the purse. Before he snapped it, he looked at the radio schedules again. One of the little circles had been drawn around the six o’clock news on Wednesday in the previous week. That was the exact moment when Albert Watts had locked his travel agency and walked off toward the bay, not to be seen again alive.
Closing the purse with a snap, Shayne stepped back against the opposite wall. His eyes were bleak. The crowd continued to applaud, and mixed with the clapping there were a few drunken shouts. Gradually the noise died. A moment or two later, Shayne heard the click of high heels on the iron steps. The door opened.
In addition to high-heeled slippers, all she seemed to be wearing was a light cotton wrap, which she wasn’t bothering to hold together. When Shayne had seen her earlier that evening, her face had been alert and interested. Her eyes had been alive. Now, coming into a mean, sordid room where she believed herself to be alone, her face sagged and was without luster. She seemed years older. Sitting down at the dressing table, she leaned forward to look without pleasure at her reflection in the mirror. Sh
e had reached up to take off her eyelashes when she saw Shayne.
“Hi,” he said.
She whirled. Her eyes were wide with shock.
“Now take it easy,” Shayne said. “I just want to ask you a couple of questions.”
She wet her lips and took a deep breath, pulling the wrapper across her breast. “Mr. Shayne. You gave me a bad moment, do you realize that?”
“Sorry. I didn’t think I ought to walk in here with a brass band.” He pulled the trunk out from the wall and sat down. “How was the show? You got a nice hand.”
Some of her quick expressiveness came back to her face. “It was not too bad. But this last show is difficult, after midnight. All the undrunken ones have gone home, and the pigs who remain—I feel that we have been wallowing all of us in the same sty. It will be hours before I can sleep.”
“Maybe you ought to go into some other business.”
She gave him an angry look. “Unhappily, I have never learned to operate a typewriter. I do not wish to be a clerk in a store. That is not my talent. But I begin to think I have been wrong, I am a third-rate artist and such I shall always be. And yet, here in this third-rate place, is it possible to be anything else? If I stay here much longer, I predict what will happen. One night after this last show, I will come up here and I will not have the courage to look myself in the face, which is necessary to change my make-up. And I will shoot myself.”
“I doubt if you’ll do that, baby,” Shayne said. “Not so long as half the population of the world is male. You may not make it in show business, but I think you’ll make it.”
She gave him a suspicious look. “This I hope is a compliment.”
“Have the cops been bothering you?”
She made a scornful sound. “I am not bothered by flics, of any nation. Somebody told them you and I danced together, so they asked me questions. They showed me a picture. It was bad, very fuzzy, on one of those little police placards. I did not recognize it. And you? Did you see the Camel?”
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