Murder by Proxy

by Brett Halliday

  “Wait a minute, now.” Dawning comprehension was beginning to replace the stubborn disbelief on Rourke’s face. “By God, Mike. By God, it would work.”

  Lucy was nodding too, and her face was rapt as she held out her cup. “Let me have one more drink and I think I’ll understand exactly what you’re talking about.”

  Shayne poured her cup full. Timothy Rourke got to his feet slowly, his eyes glittering with happy excitement. “Harris is taking off for New York this afternoon. He told me he planned to drive straight through with maybe a stop-off for a few hours to sleep. His wife was cremated this morning. If we call Painter, it may not be too late to grab him.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Well, hell. You just outlined the whole thing.”

  “In theory, Timothy. What do you think Painter would say about one of Mike Shayne’s drunken theories? No, let Harris take off. He’s not going to disappear. He’s a very contented and happy man right now. Everything has gone off without a hitch as he planned. His wife’s body is cremated, and there’s a hundred grand check to be collected from the insurance company. We need a picture of Ellen Harris that we know is a picture of her. Get Tim Gifford on the phone, angel.”

  Lucy went in to her desk to put the call through. Rourke looked at his watch, pacing the floor excitedly. “It’s too late to hit today’s edition.”

  “Save it for tomorrow, and you’ll have the whole story with a picture of Ellen Harris to prove it.”

  Shayne’s buzzer sounded and he lifted his phone. “Jim? One more small chore and we’re going to hang a murder rap on Herbert Harris.”

  “But I’ve told you, Mike…”

  “Forget everything you’ve told me. Just do this one thing. Get me a recent picture of Ellen Harris pronto and send it airmail special delivery. There should be plenty around, with her being an ex-model.”

  “Sure. They showed me a batch at the agency where she used to work.”

  “Get one of Ruth Collins, too, if you can. Be damn sure to mark each one of them carefully, which is which. But if you can’t get Collins in time, see that one of Mrs. Harris gets on a plane tonight. I’ll be waiting for it in my office tomorrow morning.”

  Gifford said, “Will do,” and hung up. Shayne reached for the half-emptied bottle of Cordon Bleu and drank from the neck of it.

  18.

  Michael Shayne reached his office at exactly nine o’clock the next morning, just as Lucy was unlocking the door. He was clear-eyed and cheerful, and when she mockingly said, “No hangover, Michael?” he looked properly shocked.

  “On Cordon Bleu? That would be sacrilegious. By the way, when are you going shopping for office glassware?”

  “Maybe when I go out for lunch.” She preceded him into the office, but he caught her by the arm and swung her about.

  “Go get some now. I’m sure Tim will be along in a few minutes, and we should be getting a Special Delivery very soon. We’re going to have some celebrating to do and common, old paper cups just won’t do. Get some snifters. Not the big ostentatious kind, but regular ones… you know.” He cupped his hands to indicate the size.

  Lucy laughed and said, “Genuine crystalware, I presume?”

  “Nothing less. Get half a dozen, angel, to allow for breakage.” He pushed her out of the office exuberantly, and went through the door to gaze fondly at the cardboard case of Cordon Bleu still sitting in the middle of his desk.

  When Lucy returned with a large paper-wrapped parcel half an hour later, she found Timothy Rourke sitting with her employer, and they had a single bottle of cognac on the desk in front of them with no paper cups in sight. The rest of the case had been modestly removed from sight, and Shayne said reproachfully, “We’ve been waiting, Lucy. It took you long enough.”

  “No picture yet?”

  Shayne looked at his watch. “Any minute now… if Jim got it on a plane.” He helped her open the package and take out half a dozen spherical glasses of thin, rock crystal, which she insisted on rinsing at the water cooler before allowing liquor to be poured in them. She dried and polished them lovingly with paper tissues from her desk, and set two of the shining receptacles in front of the cognac bottle just as a voice called, “Special Delivery,” from the outer office.

  “Perfect timing,” beamed Shayne, reaching for the bottle. “Bring it in, angel.”

  She hurried out, and reentered with a large manila envelope marked PHOTOGRAPHS. DO NOT BEND. She tore it open and pulled out two thin sheets of cardboard with two glossy studio photographs between them.

  They were two poses of the same young woman. A very beautiful young woman… and very definitely the same young woman whose picture Herbert Harris had already furnished them.

  The trio stared down at the two photographs in stricken silence. Shayne opened the center drawer of his desk and took out one of the blown-up prints of Ellen Harris and laid it beside the two which had just arrived.

  There was not the faintest doubt in the minds of any one of the three that the same woman had posed for all of the pictures.

  Shayne snorted loudly and lifted a snifter of cognac high into the air. “Here’s to more and better theories.” He drank deeply.

  “That’s not the way to use a snifter,” Lucy protested. “You’re supposed to…”

  “Right now, I’m supposed to seek inspiration,” Shayne told her grimly.

  Timothy Rourke nodded solemnly and lifted his glass high. “To the clarification of ultimate evaluations,” and tossed half of it down.

  “I don’t understand, Michael,” Lucy said hesitantly. “You made it all so clear and logical yesterday. And I thought about it during the night and I just knew you were right.” She puckered her forehead and looked down at the prints again, then drew in her breath sharply. “If one of those is of the secretary…” She turned them both over. On the back of each print Gifford had sent was printed boldly: “Miss Ellen Terry one month before her marriage to Herbert Harris. Said to be an excellent likeness.”

  “No such luck,” muttered Shayne. “No identical twins in this one.”

  Lucy peered inside the Manila envelope and said, “There’s a note inside.” She withdrew a single sheet of paper with a typed message which she read aloud:

  “Mike. I enclose two poses of Ellen Harris taken shortly before her marriage. Unable to locate a picture of the elusive Ruth Collins, but probably can, if you want me to keep trying. It’s signed, Jim,” she ended, dropping it to the desk.

  Shayne grimaced and seated himself in his swivel chair. He leaned forward with his forearms on the desk, idly turning the cognac snifter in his hands. He said slowly, “I’ve always distrusted theorizing. But this one seemed to fit so damn perfectly. What else does fit?” he demanded. “Why did Ruth Collins disappear from New York last Monday afternoon, if she didn’t come down here masquerading as Ellen Harris? Where is she all this time, damn it? If that was Ellen Harris at the Beachhaven… and I guess there isn’t any doubt about it now… why did she set herself up as a sitting duck for murder? Don’t tell me,” he groaned, “that she loved her husband so much she set out deliberately to get herself bumped off, just so he could collect insurance on her and have his secretary, too. This, I refuse to accept.”

  “I guess I haven’t got any new lead for today,” Rourke muttered morosely.

  “Not unless Painter’s got one for you. Talked with him lately?”

  “Just before I came here. For the first time in his life Petey cautiously admitted that all his clues had petered out. He’s about ready to mark it off as the work of a homicidal maniac.”

  Shayne tossed off the rest of his cognac and set the fragile glass down gently. He lifted both of his palms to his face and said in a queerly subdued voice, “Both of you go in the other room. I’ve got thinking to do.” They looked at each other and Rourke shook his head and led the way out. Shayne sat there for a long time with bowed head and closed eyes. There was a faint smile of satisfaction on his rugged features when he got up and wen
t into the outer room where Rourke was perched on the low railing, talking quietly to Lucy. They both looked up at him expectantly.

  He said, “Call the airport, Lucy. Book me on the next jet flight to New York that has a vacancy.”

  She nodded alertly and started dialling. Rourke slid off the railing and demanded, “Another brainstorm, Mike? You got another answer?”

  Shayne said, “It’s a brainstorm all right.”

  “What is it?”

  Shayne shook his red head and said flatly, “No. I made a damned fool out of myself yesterday by jumping to conclusions without any proof.” He drew in a deep breath. “Think where I’d be today if I had let you call Painter and persuade him to hold Harris.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I shot off my mouth to you and Lucy,” Shayne growled. “I sat in there and guzzled cognac and outdid Sherlock Holmes with my deductive prowess. This one, I’m keeping strictly to myself.”

  Lucy told him, “The first flight that has space will put you in International at four-forty this afternoon.”

  He nodded and said, “Fix it. Then get Gifford on the phone.” He stalked back to his desk, picked up the cognac bottle and corked it tightly, deposited it in a drawer of a filing cabinet behind his desk. Turning back to see Rourke observing him from the doorway, he said with a wry smile:

  “Mighty potent stuff… Cordon Bleu. Induces delusions of grandeur and pipedreams. I’m strictly off the stuff until I tie this case up in a knot.”

  “Which you’re going to do in New York this afternoon?”

  “Which I hope to do in New York this afternoon,” Shayne corrected him.

  His buzzer sounded and he lifted the phone. “Jim? Those were mighty pretty pictures you sent me, but they were a real monkey wrench. No chance you made a mistake, huh?”

  He listened a moment and nodded glumly. “All right, Mike Shayne rides again. You got a pretty good pipeline into the New York Police Department?”

  “Couple of guys there will give me the time of day… if I pay for it,” Gifford told him cautiously.

  Shayne grinned at the phone. “I know you better than that, Jim. Listen. I’m arriving by jet at International Airport four-forty this afternoon. Lucy will give you the airline and flight number. I want you to meet me, Jim. Wangle a duplicate set of Ellen Harris’ fingerprints from Headquarters. Miami Beach sent them up for positive identification of the body. And have a fingerprint man at the airport with you. It would be nice if you could bring along the same man who took the comparison prints from the Harris apartment in New York.”

  “Would you like the Police Commissioner to come along, too?” Gifford demanded sarcastically.

  Shayne said cheerfully, “Bring him, by all means, if he wants to come along. See you at four-forty, Jim. Lucy, give him the flight dope.”

  He hung up.

  “Won’t you give me an inkle, Mike?” pleaded Rourke. “You’re beginning to look as though you’d swallowed a whole cage full of canaries.”

  “That’s the reason you don’t get even an inkle,” Shayne told him firmly. “I felt this same way yesterday afternoon, and look what happened.”

  19.

  Jim Gifford, who met Michael Shayne with a hearty handclasp at the International Airport in New York that afternoon, was a big, smiling man with an intelligent face and an easy grace. They had known each other since the old days when both were operatives for Worldwide, and had retained a mutual respect and liking for each other after they both branched out on their own.

  With Gifford was a short, somewhat stout man with an olive complexion, a bushy, black mustache and an affable smile. Gifford introduced him as Angelo Fermi, a detective on the New York police force, and he told Shayne as the three of them made their way out of the crowded terminal toward Gifford’s car in the parking lot, “Only inducement I could hang in front of Angelo’s nose to get him out here this afternoon, was that that you’d tell him how to get a Fermi show on television.”

  Shayne grinned and told the New York detective, “You wouldn’t like it. If you ever watched my show, you’d know why I don’t.”

  “I’d like the money that is in it,” Fermi told Shayne with conviction. “I have this idea for a series built entirely on the use of fingerprint evidence to solve otherwise insoluble cases. Everything authentic and taken from the records. I have been gathering material for twenty years, but I do not know how to approach the networks.” His liquid black eyes were hopeful.

  Shayne said, very seriously, “I’ll tell you what, Fermi. If this thing comes off this afternoon the way I think it will, Brett Halliday will be up here getting the dope from you to help him make a book out of it. Brett is the one who knows all the T-V angles. You talk it over with him and he’ll give you the straight dope.” Gifford had stopped beside a plain, black sedan in the parking lot, and was opening the door on the driver’s side. Shayne let Fermi get in first, and followed him. “You’ve got a set of Ellen Harris’s fingerprints?” he asked as Gifford pulled out of the lot.

  “Yes. And my kit in back.” Fermi hesitated, his dark eyes alertly curious. “Jim has not told me exactly why I am here with you this afternoon.”

  Shayne spoke past him to Gifford at the wheel. “I want to go to Ruth Collins’ place on the West Side first. Will her room-mate be home?”

  “I think so.” Gifford looked at his watch. “The only time I’ve been able to catch her there is between five and seven in the evening.”

  “Are you the one who was assigned to check the dead woman’s prints in the Harris apartment?” Shayne then asked Fermi.

  “Yes. A routine assignment. Do you have any question about the validity of the identification, Mr. Shayne?”

  Shayne said, “I’m sure you know your job. But there’s some hocus-pocus here that I hope I’ve got figured out. I don’t want to tip my hand beforehand to what I’m hoping to find because I don’t want you to be influenced in advance. Let’s just say I want you to do the same sort of job on Ruth Collins’ apartment as you did on the Harris apartment last Sunday for the Miami Beach police.”

  At that time in the afternoon, Gifford chose the Triborough Bridge as his best approach to the upper West Side, and he was able to make fairly good time through traffic so that it was slightly before six o’clock when he drew up in front of an old four-story brown-stone building on West 76th Street.

  They all got out, and Angelo Fermi got his black leather case from the back seat that looked like a doctor’s bag, and they mounted the steps leading into a small foyer with mailboxes on either side. Gifford checked the boxes and found one with the typewritten names, Collins-Cranshaw, under the number 1-C.

  He pressed the bell button under the number, and after a moment there was a buzz from the automatic door release. Shayne turned the knob and led the way into a dim-lighted hallway with numbered doors on either side. A door on the left-hand side opened down the hallway and a striking brunette peered out. Shayne was in front and close to her, and he asked, “Miss Cranshaw?”

  “Yes… I’m… Kitty Cranshaw.” She peered curiously past him at Gifford and Fermi, and half-closed the door, asking, “What is it?”

  “Police, Miss Cranshaw,” Shayne told her pleasantly. “About your room-mate who appears to be missing. May we come in and ask a few questions?”

  “Have you found Ruth?” She opened the door and drew back to let the three men file past her into a large, high-ceilinged room in a pleasant state of disorder.

  Shayne said, “Not exactly, Miss Cranshaw. It’s a matter of identification,” he explained. “This is Detective Fermi, who would like to collect some fingerprints. And Inspector Gifford,” he added casually.

  “Fingerprints of whom?” she demanded suspiciously, following them into the sitting room.

  “You first, Miss Cranshaw, if you don’t mind,” Fermi said briskly, crossing to a center table and opening his bag. “Just for the record, so we’ll be able to definitely distinguish between your room-mate’s prints and you
rs.” He removed some articles from his bag and placed them on the table. “It’ll only take a moment, if you’ll just come here and put your fingertips on this inked pad.”

  Miss Cranshaw stood back with her hands nervously clasped behind her. “Isn’t that an invasion of personal privacy? I think I’ve read that no one can be forced to have their fingerprints taken for the record unless they are charged with a serious crime. You’re not charging me with any crime, are you?”

  “This isn’t actually for the record, Miss Cranshaw.” Fermi smiled disarmingly. “We have to positively identify Miss Collins’ fingerprints from those we can find here, and in order to do so, we must have a set of yours, so they may be eliminated. You should be able to understand that.” He didn’t say, “Even you,” but is was implicit in his tone.

  She smiled dubiously and said, “Well, I guess so.” She advanced hesitantly and let him expertly ink the tips of her fingers and get her prints on his pad, and he thanked her and then asked, “Do you have separate bedrooms?”

  “Yes. Ruth’s is there.” She pointed to a closed door, “On the right. I don’t think… I’ve been in there since she left.”

  Fermi thanked her and disappeared with his bag through the door she indicated. She turned to Shayne and Gifford and asked in a worried voice, “What have you found out about Ruth? Didn’t she go to the Catskills at all?”

  “Apparently she didn’t, Miss Cranshaw. In fact…” He hesitated. “Detective Shayne is from Miami, Florida,” he told her firmly. “There is some reason to think… did she ever say anything to you to indicate that she might be planning to go to Florida instead of the Catskills? Did you notice, for instance, whether she packed things more suitable for the South than the mountains?”

  “No,” she said instantly. “I didn’t notice that at all. Quite the contrary. What do you think has happened to her?”