Counterfeit Wife ms-14

by Brett Halliday

  “Yes. A Mr. Slocum. He rented it this afternoon.” The little man didn’t ask how Shayne knew this. The years had accustomed him to the fact that the detective often knew all sorts of amazing things.

  “But he hasn’t taken possession yet?”

  “I believe not. He took one grip up when he rented the apartment, but I believe the rest of his luggage is at a local hotel and he’s coming in with it in the morning.”

  “Have you anything else for me? I may decide to stay in town for some time.”

  The clerk spread out his thin hands helplessly. “Nothing, Mr. Shayne. Not a single thing.”

  Shayne reached up and slowly massaged his ear lobe. “I’m not my usual fashionable self, as you’ll notice, Henry. I had to leave a certain place rather suddenly and I had to grab what was handy.”

  Henry looked at him primly, his gaze sliding down the stiff, dirty coveralls to Shayne’s bony ankles and his feet clad only in a pair of socks. He nodded with a sober man-to-man air and murmured, “One might deduce the lady’s husband is not as tall as you, Mr. Shayne, and a trifle bulkier in build.”

  Shayne grinned and said, “That’s a fair job of deduction, Henry. Do you suppose Mr. Slocum would mind if I took my suitcase up to his apartment and borrowed the bathroom and put on some clothes that fit me a little better?”

  “I don’t see how he would ever know about it. But I’m afraid he has the only key. You didn’t turn yours in when you checked out.”

  Shayne frowned. “Force of habit, I suppose, from carrying that key in my pocket for so many years. But don’t worry about that-But wait a minute,” he added sharply. “I left my key ring behind with my clothes. You must have more than one extra key.”

  “We’ve a master key, of course.”

  “Of course,” Shayne repeated. He reached for the large brass ring Henry lifted from a hook behind the desk. “Now if you’ll get my bag-”

  “It’s right here.” The clerk opened a wooden gate and slid the suitcase out. “Joe is probably asleep on the top floor,” he added as they went toward the elevators. “He has a cot up there in the corridor.” He put his finger on the signal button and held it there.

  “One more favor,” Shayne said as they waited for the buzzer to waken Joe. “I need a drink, Henry. You know how it is when a man needs a drink.”

  Henry said, “I can imagine,” in a tone that told Shayne he couldn’t imagine at all.

  “And I’m broke. There’s an all-night restaurant around the corner where they keep a few bottles under the counter for emergencies like this. Just mention my name.”

  Henry nodded wisely. There was a clanking overhead, indicating that the elevator was coming down.

  “How about slipping around there and getting a bottle for me while Joe takes me up? I’ll send him right down to watch the desk.”

  Henry’s pale eyes twinkled. “I can do better than that, I believe. I have a small stock in the safe for emergencies. As I recall, you prefer cognac.”

  Shayne looked at the neat little man in utter amazement. “After all these years,” he murmured. “One does live and learn. Yes, Henry, I do indeed prefer cognac. Send it up by Joe right away,” he added as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open to reveal a yawning Negro boy in a blue uniform.

  Joe said, “Howdy, Mistuh Shayne. Yo’all back again?” with a sleepy grin, and took him up to the third floor.

  Shayne got out and said, “Henry has something for me downstairs, Joe. Bring it up, and then you can take this key ring back to him.”

  The lad nodded sleepily and closed the doors.

  Shayne strode down the corridor to the familiar door and put the master key in the lock. It opened easily, and he padded inside with suitcase in hand. He set it down and turned on the light. The living-room was just as he had left it more than twelve hours earlier.

  He felt an odd restlessness and realized that he hadn’t had a cigarette since his incarceration in the men’s room of the underground garage. He hurried to the telephone, asked Henry to send some up with the bottle, and then gave a deep sigh of relief as he hung up and began unfastening the metal buttons on the coveralls.

  He let them drop from his body in the middle of the living-room, kicked off his socks, and went into the kitchenette where he turned on the cold water faucet and inspected the ice trays in the small refrigerator. They were full of cubes. He pulled one out, set it in the sink under the stream of water and got two glasses from the cupboard. He put four cubes in one glass, filled it with water, and went back into the living-room just as Joe knocked on the door.

  Setting the glasses on the center table, he went to the door to get the bottle and two packs of cigarettes from Joe.

  The cognac was Martell. Shayne’s nostrils flared as he got the bottle open and poured a generous draft in the empty glass. He needed this drink. Just as he needed a bath, some clean clothes, and a period of relaxation. He had a lot of thinking to do, and there wasn’t any place he could do it better than right there in the familiar living-room with a glass of cognac and ice water at his elbow.

  Without consciously realizing it, he had resolutely thrust all thinking about what had been happening from his mind after talking with Will Gentry on the telephone. He needed time and quiet to digest the things Gentry had told him, to see how in hell they fitted into the curious pattern of events that had engulfed him.

  He drank the cognac slowly and appreciatively, took a sip of water, and then went into the bathroom which opened directly off the living-room beside the closed bedroom.

  He fixed the shower as hot as he could stand it and got under the spray, stood there for a long time, and then cooled it by degrees until it was as cold as water will run out of the pipes in Miami.

  The telephone rang while he was drying his rangy body with a rough towel. He went into the living-room and answered it.

  Henry said from the desk phone, “That policeman from the Beach and your newspaper friend are on their way up to see you, Mr. Shayne. They came in just now and seemed to know you were here, and I hardly dared pretend you weren’t.”

  Shayne said, “That’s all right, Henry. Just so you don’t suddenly remember about the suitcase.” He hung up as a knock sounded on the door, went across to open it, holding an end of the towel in each hand and leisurely moving it back and forth to dry his back.

  Peter Painter stood officiously on the threshold, and immediately behind him was the tall, emaciated frame and the melancholy face of Timothy Rourke.

  Shayne said, “Hello,” stepped back, and continued drying himself.

  Painter, chief of the Miami Beach detective bureau, was short and slender and exceedingly well dressed. He had a thin black mustache and piercing, inquisitive black eyes. He said angrily, “I thought we were rid of you, Shayne. You made a great to-do earlier this evening at the Leslie Hudson home about catching that midnight plane.”

  Shayne said, “I decided to come back. I had a hunch there might be some more schoolboy stuff you’d be needing my help on.”

  Painter bristled and entered the familiar room with short, deliberate steps, darting his sharp eyes around inquisitively.

  Timothy Rourke stood in the doorway, narrowing his feverishly bright eyes and chuckling when he saw the condition of Shayne’s mouth. “Do the stewardesses on National carry knives to protect them from lecherous passengers? Or did she get over-enthusiastic and chew when she should have been kissing?”

  Shayne touched his cut lip tenderly with the back of his hand. “I think she had panther blood, Tim,” he said soberly. They walked into the room together.

  In a self-satisfied tone, Painter announced, “I had a hunch all along that that clerk was lying about renting this apartment to someone else. That plane jump to Palm Beach was just a dodge to throw me off the track.”

  Shayne turned a look of innocent surprise on Timothy Rourke. “What’s your pint-sized friend talking about, Tim? Doesn’t he realize he has never been on the track?”

  “Very
funny,” snapped Painter. “You planned to come back all along, Shayne. Why did you make such an effort to make us think you were going back to New Orleans?”

  Rourke chuckled and went over to pour himself a drink of cognac. His clothes hung on his bony body like the ill-fitting habiliments of a scarecrow. “I don’t know why he’s got the wind up, Mike. Is Chick sore at you?” he ended casually.

  “Chick?” Shayne frowned, as though trying to recall the name. “Oh, Farrel? Chick has hated my guts ever since I beat his time with a redhead a few months ago. Why?”

  “Never mind that.” Painter strutted forward, smoothing his thready black mustache with his thumbnail. “What have you been doing since you got back to Miami, Shayne? How does it happen I find you here in your old apartment when it’s supposed to be rented to another man?”

  “It is rented to another man, but he hasn’t moved in yet. I’m simply borrowing it for a bath and a chance to change clothes.” Shayne gestured toward the strapped suitcase in the middle of the floor near Painter’s feet.

  Painter snorted and went into the bathroom to look around. Shayne looked at Rourke with lifted eyebrows. Rourke shook his head slightly and lifted his own brows in response.

  Painter came briskly back from the bathroom and demanded, “Where are the clothes you wore up here?”

  Shayne said, “You seem to forget this apartment has a bedroom. A man usually undresses in his bedroom, but it so happens that the clothes I wore up here are there on the floor.” He pointed a bony forefinger to the dirty coveralls lying near the suitcase.

  Painter went over and stooped to touch the dirty garment with his manicured fingertips, but instead, moved the coveralls with the tip of his shoe. He saw the pair of discarded socks and nothing more. “You were wearing more than this when you left to catch the plane. What have you been doing in this outfit?”

  “One of these days,” said Shayne with disgust, “the city fathers on the Beach are going to catch on and give your job to the night clerk downstairs.”

  “What?” Painter’s small mouth gaped open.

  “Henry,” Shayne explained patiently, “deduced that her husband must be a mechanic and that he came home too soon.”

  Timothy Rourke laughed happily and sat down. Painter started to speak, but didn’t. He looked Shayne’s naked body up and down and then snapped, “Don’t you have any decency? Get some clothes on so I can question you formally.”

  Shayne said, “I’m sorry if my nudity offends you. What the hell are you doing up here, anyway?”

  Painter retorted angrily, “Get into some clothes and I’ll be very happy to explain.” He turned away stiffly.

  Shayne threw Rourke an amused look and said, “I’ll bet Petey used to undress behind a bush when he and the boys went swimming.” To Painter he said, “All right. I’ll put on a pair of shorts and make this formal.”

  The big towel fell to the floor as he bent over to unfasten the leather straps and loosen the metal catches at each end of the bag and press the center lock to release the catch.

  It didn’t release. Shayne frowned and pushed it back and forth, trying to pull the bag open, muttering, “It can’t be locked. I lost the key years ago.”

  Rourke got up and came over to him. “Maybe it accidentally locked itself,” he offered. “Let me try one of my keys on it. Nearly all these locks are the same.” He squatted beside Shayne, took out a ring of keys, and carefully selected one.

  Shayne shrugged and settled back on his haunches to watch. Suddenly he stiffened; his eyes widened with surprise. This was not his Gladstone. He was positive his had been unlocked. He saw, too, that this was a little newer than his. The same color and size, but not quite so battered. He was certain of it when he looked at the leather straps. One of his straps was badly worn in one place where it had been buckled for years. Neither of these straps was badly worn.

  “There you are,” said Rourke triumphantly. He removed his key and pressed the knob. The bag came open a few inches, and Rourke lifted the top half which had a center layer of leather snapped in place to separate the contents of the two sides.

  Shayne saw the contents at the same moment Rourke did. Neat bundles of bank notes spread across folded clothing in the bottom of the Gladstone. The top bill on each bundle was a hundred-dollar denomination, and a single glance told both men they were looking at a lot of thousands of dollars.

  Shayne glanced at Peter Painter. He was still standing with his back turned on Shayne’s sinewy and lanky body, waiting for him to get some clothes on.

  Timothy Rourke expelled the long breath he had been holding, gently and noiselessly. He let the Gladstone close itself. His eyes burned more feverishly than before as he turned them on the grimly set face of the detective.

  Shayne moved his head negatively and his bleak gray eyes bored into Rourke’s. He pressed the Gladstone shut with a click and said, “Just to save Petey further embarrassment, I’ll go in the bedroom to dress.” He stood up with the Gladstone in his hand.

  Rourke sat on the floor and watched him speculatively. He didn’t say anything, and Painter didn’t turn around until Shayne reached the bedroom door and opened it.

  Shayne reached inside, turned on the light, and hesitated an almost imperceptible second before stepping in and pulling the door shut. He stood looking down with blank amazement at the bloody and battered face of a man he had never seen before.

  Chapter Eight

  THE CORPSE IN THE BEDROOM

  The man lay on his back, half on and half off the bed. Both arms trailed on the floor, the stiff fingers of one hand just touching a heavy ornamental vase which had stood on a shelf just inside the front door of the apartment ever since Shayne could remember. The vase lay in a pool of blood.

  The man’s features were a pulp. He wore yellow silk pajamas which were blood-spattered. His face and the front portion of his head had been smashed by several heavy blows, and death must have come slowly and with great agony.

  “Slocum. He did come back to sleep in the apartment after all,” Shayne muttered to himself.

  The muscles in his gaunt cheeks quivered involuntarily. He was probably responsible for the man’s murder. He recalled the lie he had told Irvin and Perry about the source of the hundred-dollar bills they were interested in. It had seemed an innocent enough lie when he was desperately fighting for time, the best he could evolve on the spur of the moment. He hadn’t expected them to come to the hotel before morning, especially since the clerk had said Slocum hadn’t yet moved in. Even then, he thought they would only question the man, not murder him.

  Yet there was mute evidence all about the bedroom that it had been one of the senator’s crowd looking for more of the same kind of bank notes. There was an overturned Gladstone on the floor, and clothing and toilet articles were scattered all about the floor and on the bed. There was no doubt that it had been done by someone looking for the rest of the fifty grand mentioned by Bates over the telephone from the Fun Club.

  And Shayne suddenly realized that the money the murderer had been looking for was almost surely in the Gladstone he still held in his hand-the one the porter had given him at the airport. More precisely, Dawson’s Gladstone, for Shayne was convinced that the porter had got the two suitcases mixed up, somehow, while he was supposed to be changing one for the other at the last moment before Flight Sixty-two took off.

  Shayne turned, opened the door, and went out, carrying the closed suitcase. He set it down near the bathroom door. Rourke and Painter looked at his stony features and naked body with questioning interest.

  Shayne said, “One of you had better call the police.”

  “Police?” Painter bristled and strutted forward. “If you’ve anything to say to the police, you can talk to me.”

  Shayne gestured wearily, as though to brush the little man aside, and said to Rourke, “This is a job for the local boys. Homicide. And see if you can catch Will Gentry at his office.”

  Rourke whistled shrilly, studying Shay
ne’s face, then went obediently to the telephone to make the call.

  Painter echoed, “Homicide?” planting himself solidly on his small feet and thrusting out his chin.

  Shayne nodded. “There’s a dead man in the bedroom.” He went over to pour himself a stiff slug of cognac.

  Rourke was speaking rapidly into the telephone. Painter’s narrowed black eyes followed Shayne’s naked body to the center of the room, then he swung around to the closed bedroom door. He went toward it slowly, as though afraid of being hoaxed; as though he strove to convince himself this was another sample of Shayne’s morbid sense of, humor but he couldn’t quite succeed in doing so.

  Rourke hung up and walked swiftly to Shayne just as Painter hesitantly opened the bedroom door and went inside.

  “What goes?” whispered Rourke. “I saw that dough in the bag.”

  Shayne held his glass to his lips, glancing over his shoulder at Painter’s stiff back just inside the bedroom.

  “The stuff’s still there,” Shayne told him in a monotone that didn’t carry more than four feet, then added in a louder voice, “Damned if I know who the stiff is, Tim. The man who rented this apartment out from under me, for a guess.”

  Rourke said, “That’s one way to get an apartment, Mike.” His voice was steady and he laughed at his own wit, but his hand trembled as he took the glass away from Shayne and put it to his own mouth.

  Painter whirled and came back to stand accusingly in front of Shayne. “Do you intend to sit around here naked all day? And I thought you said that the man who had rented your apartment hadn’t moved in yet.”

  “That’s what the clerk told me. It may be someone else entirely,” Shayne went on with a shrug of his naked wide shoulders. “Why don’t you have Henry come up to identify him?”

  “I will.” Painter thumbnailed his little black mustache and his eyes were full of suspicion. “How long had you been in this room before we arrived? It’s my guess that man hasn’t been dead more than fifteen minutes.”