Murder by Proxy

by Brett Halliday

  “Look, Mr. Harris.” Johnson pulled a chair forward and seated himself in it. He spoke quietly and reasonably, striving to strike through the man’s panic. “There’s no reason to think anything’s happened to your wife. Get that through your head. Wait a minute.” He held up a big hand as Harris started to protest angrily. “I know how you feel. I know just how you feel. But stop and look at it for a minute. All we know is that she’s spent the last five days and nights away from this hotel. You admitted she didn’t know you were coming down to surprise her. If you had let her know, why, maybe…

  “Goddamn your soul to hell,” grated Harris viciously, swinging off the bed and surging to his feet with clenched fists. “What you’re saying is, in effect, that all this is her doing. Her choice. You’re just covering up for your goddamned hotel, for your own inefficiency. If I’d been informed last Tuesday morning… He moved forward with blazing eyes and drew his right fist back to swing it on the stolid detective seated in the chair.

  Johnson swung to his feet and easily warded off the infuriated blow. “Take it easy,” he grunted. He pushed the man backward to the edge of the bed where he dropped down and lay whimpering like a child, both hands over his eyes.

  Johnson stood beside the bed looking down at him commiseratingly and said, “All right. So you don’t want a doctor. How about a drink? You need to relax and start thinking straight. I can call down on the phone and get a bottle…”

  Herbert Harris writhed on the bed and moaned, keeping both hands clasped tightly over his eyes. “I could use a drink.” He spoke wonderingly. “There’s half a bottle of rye in my bag.”

  Johnson said, “I’ll get some ice. You want soda, or some kind of mixer?”

  “No. Just water will be fine.”

  The house detective went to the telephone and relayed a brief order over it. He turned to the chair drawn up close to the bed and reseated himself. “Start thinking straight, Mr. Harris,” he urged. “We’re not covering up for anything here. There’s no real evidence that anything has happened to your wife. Maybe she ran into some friends last Monday evening. Maybe they were throwing a party, or going on a yacht cruise or something like that. She was on vacation. No reason she shouldn’t go along.”

  Harris sat up on the edge of the bed again. He rubbed a tired hand over his eyes. “I could use a drink. You want to open my bag?”

  Johnson got up ponderously and put the man’s bag on the other bed and opened it. He found a fifth of rye about half full, and was turning toward the bathroom when there was a knock on the door. Turning back, he opened the door and took a pitcher of ice cubes from the bellboy standing there, growled his thanks, and got two clean glasses from the bathroom. He put two ice cubes in each glass, filled them near the top with whisky, and topped them off with tap water. He went back and put one into Harris’ lax hand as he sat on the edge of the bed staring down at the floor, sat back in the chair again and said as cheerfully as he could, “Drink up, Mr. Harris. You been thinking over what I said a little while ago?”

  “I’ve been thinking it over,” agreed Harris hoarsely. “And every bit of it is pure horse-shit. Ellen doesn’t have any friends down here. If she had met someone unexpectedly and decided to go off on a jaunt, she would have notified me at once. Goddamnit, man, don’t you understand that?” He glared at Johnson and then half-emptied his glass and coughed loudly.

  Johnson took a hesitant sip from his glass. He marshaled his thoughts and spoke carefully:

  “Get this clear in your mind, Mr. Harris. I don’t pretend I know all about this. I’m just a hired hand here. All I really know about the whole situation is what I’ve told you. Mrs. Harris just hasn’t been seen back here since Monday evening. Maybe there’s a lot more to it that I don’t know. My boss, Mr. Merrill, will be in his office at eight o’clock. He’s Chief Security Officer here, and there isn’t much goes on in the Beachhaven he doesn’t know about. A lot of it he doesn’t tell me. Now what I suggest is that you finish that drink and then take another one just like it. Take off some of your clothes and lie down and relax an hour or so. Leave a call for seven-thirty and get yourself a shave and a shower, and maybe things will begin to look a hell of a lot better. I don’t know what further dope Mr. Merrill may have on Mrs. Harris.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders ponderously.

  “In the meantime,” said Harris bitterly, “nothing’s being done about finding my wife. God knows where she is… what’s happened to her. The police should be notified.”

  “Now, look, Mr. Harris.” Johnson tried to be understanding and sympathetic. “It’s just good daylight. There’s no one on duty at police headquarters except some punks like me. This isn’t any sudden emergency. It’s been four-five days already. Now, we got a hell of a detective chief here on Miami Beach. Peter Painter, his name is. He’s the one you want to talk to. Mr. Merrill first, and then Chief Painter. Hell, like I say, Mr. Merrill may have all the answers right on his desk already. You just relax for a couple of hours, and when you wake up the sun will be shining and maybe everything will look a lot different.”

  Herbert Harris emptied his glass and dropped it onto the floor with a dull thud. He rested his head wretchedly on his hands with elbows propped on his knees. “I’m just… knocked out,” he muttered as if to himself. “I can’t believe it. Not Ellen. Goddamnit!” he exclaimed hoarsely, swinging his head up to glare at Johnson. “You don’t know her. You wouldn’t talk that way if… you knew her…”

  “No,” said Johnson. “Maybe I wouldn’t, Mr. Harris.” He got up and retrieved the New Yorker’s empty glass from the floor, put ice cubes into it from the pitcher and filled it to the brim from the whisky bottle. He carried it back to the distressed man sitting on the edge of the bed and said as cheerfully as he could, “Drink this down. Then let me help get some of your clothes off. I’ll check with Mr. Merrill the moment he gets in his office, and the chances are we’ll have Mrs. Harris back here before you ever wake up.” Harris accepted the glass and slopped some of the drink down his chin as he drank from it. He held it out in front of him with the fingers of both hands laced tightly around it, and stared at it, and tears formed in his eyes and ran unabashedly down his cheeks.

  He dropped the glass to the floor and sank back onto the bed, sobbing like a frightened child.

  6.

  Lucy Hamilton had not come in, and Shayne answered the phone when it rang on Saturday morning. A man’s voice asked, “Will Mr. Shayne be in today?” When Shayne told him “until noon,” the voice said, “I’ll be right over,” and a few minutes after eleven o’clock that morning, Herbert Harris strode into the waiting room of Michael Shayne’s office on Flagler Street. He had shaved and changed to a clean shirt, and the hotel valet had pressed his gray suit. His eyes were still a little bleary from lack of sleep, but he looked self-contained and determined as he advanced toward Lucy Hamilton and demanded, “Is Mr. Shayne in?”

  At her desk behind the low railing, Lucy appraised him as a young man with a lot on his mind. She got up from her chair and said pleasantly, “Yes. Whom shall I say?”

  “Mr. Harris. From New York. It’s extremely urgent that I see Mr. Shayne at once.”

  She unlatched the gate and went past him to a closed door marked PRIVATE. She entered and closed it behind her, and reappeared a moment later to hold it open invitingly. “Come right in, Mr. Harris.”

  Shayne was rising from a swivel chair behind a wide, bare desk when Harris strode in on hard heels. The detective was in his shirtsleeves and his collar and tie were loosened at the throat. He leaned forward over the desk to hold out his hand, and asked, “What can I do for you, Mr. Harris?”

  “Find my wife.” Harris shook hands negligently, and Shayne found his palm cold and lax. He sank into a chair and stared across the desk at the redhead and said coldly, almost arrogantly, “They tell me you’re one of the best men in your field in the entire country.” Shayne realized his visitor was under a tremendous strain, and probably suffering from shock. He reseated h
imself and said mildly, “It’s nice to hear I have that sort of reputation. What about your wife?”

  “She’s disappeared. Vanished right into thin air. Five days ago and no one has done anything. They’re not doing anything now. They seem to take it for granted that women disappear without leaving a trace in Miami.”

  “Who are ‘they’, Mr. Harris?”

  “A man named Merrill at the Beachhaven Hotel. And that nincompoop of a detective chief… Painter, I think his name is. They don’t care.”

  Shayne said, “Start at the beginning about your wife. Is she staying at the Beachhaven?”

  “She checked in there last Monday afternoon. She telephoned me in New York about five o’clock to say she had had a pleasant flight down and that everything was fine. That’s the last communication I’ve had from her. According to the people at the hotel, she rented a car and had it brought around, and went out for a drive after changing into a dress from her travelling clothes. They have a record of her signing for four drinks in the lounge about seven o’clock. That’s all. No one has seen her since. Her bed hasn’t been slept in… her bag isn’t even unpacked. They’ve known this ever since Tuesday morning when the maid went in to do her room, and reported it… and they’ve done absolutely nothing about it. Didn’t notify me that my wife was missing… haven’t notified the police. They evidently just sat around on their dead butts, goddamnit, lecherously assuming that Ellen had rushed out as soon as she reached town to shack up with some man.” He pounded Shayne’s desk with a doubled fist, his voice savage and his face contorted with anger.

  “And you don’t accept that explanation?” Shayne asked flatly.

  “No, I don’t. And if that’s what you think, I’ll find someone else to help me.”

  “I don’t think anything yet, Harris.” Shayne made his voice sharp to get through to the man. “I don’t know your wife, of course.”

  “That’s just it. None of them do. They simply assume she must be a round-heeled floozie who could hardly wait to reach Miami before jumping into bed with some other man. That’s what they want to think. They aren’t even checking other possibilities.”

  “I know Bob Merrill at the Beachhaven,” objected Shayne. “He’s a very competent and conscientious man.”

  “I’m sure he’s competent for the job he holds,” Harris sneered. “Security Officer. All he’s interested in is the hotel’s security. He practically admitted to me that as soon as he discovered last Tuesday that my wife’s hotel bill was on her Carte Blanche card, and payment was thus guaranteed, he didn’t bother to investigate further. It wasn’t any of his concern what had happened to one of their guests.”

  “Well,” said Shayne thoughtfully. “Was it, Mr. Harris? Let’s try to put this in its proper perspective. A hotel could get itself into a lot of trouble and lay itself open to libel suits if it jumped to the wrong conclusion in a case like this. A guest has a right to a certain amount of privacy. There’d be hell to pay if hotels made a habit of reporting back to a husband or wife every time a guest spent the night out of his or her room.”

  “You’re like all the rest of them,” said Harris bitterly, shoving himself erect. “If that’s what you think about Ellen…”

  Shayne said harshly, “Sit down and try to stop acting like a juvenile if you want me to help you find your wife. I’m pointing out why Bob Merrill acted correctly in not reporting this situation to you or the police. Now that it’s out in the open, you can be sure Merrill is doing everything in his power to find Mrs. Harris. And while I have no personal liking for Chief Painter on the Beach, he is a good policeman who has resources at his command that I don’t have. I’m sure he’s doing what he can.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Harris bitterly, reseating himself with reluctance. “He’s going through the motions… putting out a flyer on her rented car. Good God! that car may be any place in the United States by this time… five whole days.…” He gritted his teeth and folded his arms together. “It’s Painter’s damnably insufferable attitude that frightens me. Practically patting me on the back and saying…” Here he savagely mimicked a soothing voice: “Now you just stop worrying, Mr. Harris. Leave her alone and she’ll come home, dragging her tail behind her. That’s what they think about Ellen, Shayne. And that’s why they’re not stirring themselves properly.”

  “And you know differently?” Shayne’s voice wasn’t sarcastic or exactly disbelieving, but he did put enough skepticism into it to bring livid anger to his visitor’s face.

  “Yes, damn you! I do know differently. We’re married, Shayne. We’ve been married just a year. Ellen loves me. She didn’t want to come on this trip. I had to urge her… actually insist on it… God help me. I had the foolish idea that it would be good for our marriage for us to be separated for a week or so once a year. Not that our marriage isn’t complete and perfect, but just on principle… to keep it that way. She has never looked at another man since we were married… and I haven’t looked at another woman. I know it’s the fashion nowadays to play around with adultery, and you probably don’t believe me, but it wasn’t that way with Ellen or me.”

  He stopped abruptly and drew in a deep breath, then leaned forward and asked with shaking earnestness: “Have you ever been in love, Shayne? With a woman whom you knew loved you… and whom you knew could not possibly be unfaithful?”

  Shayne looked away from the man and his eyes were bleak. He said, “Yes, Harris, it happened to me once.”

  “Then you know what I’m talking about? Will you help me?”

  A muscle twitched in the hollow of Shayne’s right cheek. He said, “I’ll do what I can. Do you have a picture of your wife?”

  “Just a snapshot. But it’s a very good likeness.” He got out his billfold and eagerly removed a small picture of an extraordinarily beautiful young woman which he passed over to the detective. “I happened to have two pictures of Ellen with me. The other is a different pose… both taken a few months ago. Painter kept the other one… though he didn’t seem much interested in having it reproduced in a newspaper as I suggested. He kept promising me in that reassuringly snide way of his that I needn’t worry about the matter being given any publicity.”

  “And you don’t mind publicity?” Shayne was studying the picture carefully, liking what he saw.

  “Mr. Shayne.” Harris’ voice was low and intense. “I want to find my wife. That’s all in the world that matters to me. Of course I don’t mind publicity if it will help. I’m not afraid of the truth. Don’t you understand? I trust Ellen. I know something terrible has happened to her. I… I’m afraid to let myself think what.”

  “All right,” said Shayne briskly. “I think this picture will blow up fine and reproduce well in a newspaper. If we haven’t something by this afternoon’s deadline, I’ll see that it’s on the front page of tonight’s News. Now, I need some facts about yourself and your wife. I’ll have my secretary come in.” He pressed a button on his desk, leaned back and lit a cigarette. “Could you do with a drink?”

  “No, I… thank you, I think not. I had two drinks at the hotel earlier.”

  Lucy Hamilton came in with her notebook. Shayne said, “Take some notes, Lucy.” And to Harris, “I want all the facts I can get.” He waited until Lucy was settled with pencil poised above her open book, and then said, “Your full name and New York address?”

  “Herbert Harris.” He gave the residence address in the East Seventies, and slid a business card out of his wallet. “My business address.”

  Shayne glanced at it before sliding it across to Lucy. “You’re a partner in this brokerage firm?”

  “It’s a relatively small firm, but moderately successful. Most of our accounts are out-of-town clients whose business we handle on an annual basis.”

  Shayne nodded. “You live in an apartment? Have a maid?”

  “Part-time. She comes in twice a week. Her first name is Rose. I don’t know her last name, but she does work part-time for other tenants in the building. She hasn�
�t been in since my wife left. They gave the place a thorough cleaning on Sunday, and Ellen had arranged for her to come in next Saturday…” He broke off with a frown. “Is our maid important?”

  “I don’t know what’s important at this point. Your wife’s maiden name?”

  “Ellen Terry. She was a professional model and a very successful one when I met her about a year and a half ago.”

  Shayne nodded. It was very easy to believe that the original of the snapshot had been a successful model. “What agency did she work for?”

  “It was one of the big ones… located in Rockefeller Center.” Harris knitted his forehead in thought. “Noble,” he announced. “Noble and Elliot. But she stopped working when we were married.”

  “That was just a year ago?” Shayne said. “Let’s have a physical description.”

  “She’s thirty-one years old. Rather tall, five-eight, I believe, and weighed just under a hundred and forty. She wore a size fourteen dress, I believe, sometimes a twelve. Her hair is blond and she carries herself beautifully. Every movement she makes is grace personified. She… was a woman people looked at when she entered a room.”

  Shayne nodded, glancing over at Lucy whose pencil was racing over her pad. He leaned back and tugged at his left earlobe, and said, “Fine. Now give us the names and addresses, if you can, of her closest friends… male and female.”

  Harris looked at him sharply. “See here, Shayne. I’ve told you she had no men friends. And anyhow, I fail to see how her friends in New York have any bearing on what has happened here.”

  Shayne said flatly, “If I came into your brokerage office, a complete novice about stocks and bonds, I don’t believe you would welcome my advice on how you should do your job. I have to do my job my way. Now, start giving Miss Hamilton a list of your wife’s closest friends. Going back to her modeling days, if you can.”