“Not so fast now,” said Jenson uneasily. “I’m the law here in Sunray Beach. I won’t stand for no lynching.”
“What are you doing to prevent it?” demanded Shayne bitterly. “Have you called the State Police? Have you asked the governor to send troops?”
“I got no call to do that,” Jenson argued doggedly. “May be some hotheads talking lynching around town, but shucks! You know how that is. I guess I can handle things in my town without no outside help.”
Shayne said flatly, “You can’t, and you know it. What are the chances of getting the prisoner out of your jail and into a safer place?”
“He’s staying where he is,” Ollie Jenson said stubbornly. “You’re from Miami and you don’t know people up this way. Mighty fine, law-abiding citizens we got here, I can tell you for a fact. It’d be an insult to them and to my police force was I to admit it wasn’t safe for a murder suspect to spend the night right here locked up in the Sunray city jailhouse.”
Shayne said grimly, “Suppose you knew that colored boy was innocent, Chief? Suppose you had absolute proof that he had nothing to do with the Blake murder? Would you feel just as good about leaving him in jail overnight, if that were the case?”
“If I had any way of knowing that,” said Jenson weakly, “I reckon I’d figure he was safer out of town. But shucks, it stands to reason he’s plumb guilty. He’s got a bad reputation around town, and folks’ve seen him watching Ellie the way a nigger does a white woman sometimes. You know how them buck niggers get when they want a piece of white stuff real bad.”
Shayne said coldly, “I know how a lot of damn-fool southern white men think a Negro is about a white woman, but I’ve never encountered it personally. This is no time to argue that point,” he went on harshly. He reached in his pocket and drew out Blake’s confession and pushed it across the desk in front of Sunray’s Chief of Police. “Read that, and then let’s decide how we’re going to get your prisoner out of here without getting somebody killed.”
Chief Jenson’s fat fingers trembled as he unfolded the sheet of paper and read the words that Blake had written under Shayne’s direction. All of the color fled from his cheeks and jowls and he looked up at the detective in utter disbelief.
“Where’d you get hold of this?” he managed to say.
“From Marvin Blake about ten minutes ago. I watched him write it out and sign it.”
“Not Marv,” muttered Jenson brokenly, “He wasn’t even here last night. Him and Ellie…”
“He was here last night and he strangled his wife just as it says there.” Shayne spoke slowly and precisely, giving each word space and impact to strike through to Chief Jenson’s muddled mind. “He came in on the ten-twenty from Miami and walked up to his house without seeing anyone. He found Harry Wilsson upstairs in bed with his wife. He stayed outside the house until Harry left, and then he went up and strangled her. Then he walked back to the station with his suitcase and caught the one o’clock train back to Moonray where he got off and spent the night.”
“Harry Wilsson and… and Ellie?” Jenson’s eyes were round and protruding. “Oh, my God. Poor old Marv. What’ll become of Sissy now? That poor little girl… knowing that her mama… and her daddy…”
Shayne said harshly, “It’s a mess any way you cut it. But right now you’ve got an innocent Negro prisoner to think of. What’s going to happen to him?”
“Yeh.” Jenson looked across the desk at the detective without seeing him, it seemed to Shayne. The police chief narrowed his eyes to slits and said again, unhappily, “Yeh. Sure does look like Pristine’s in the clear, don’t it? Soon’s word gets around town…” He gestured to the sheet of paper in front of him unhappily. “You say Marv just give this to you? Whereabouts is he? Whyn’t you bring him in. According to what he wrote here, he’s a… a…”
“Murderer,” Shayne finished for him coldly. “I felt it was up to you to arrest him, Chief. This is your territory, and your case. He’s at his own house waiting for you to come and pick him up, I think. I left him there just a few minutes ago.”
Chief Jenson said, “Yeh. I guess I… got to.” He paused and then straightened in his chair and squared his shoulders resolutely, reached down to open the whiskey drawer and lift out the quart bottle of uncolored whiskey.
He set it on the desk in front of him and removed the cork, then pushed the bottle toward the redhead detective from Miami and said politely, “You first, sir.”
Shayne reached for the bottle and put it to his mouth. He took a long swallow and his eyes watered. He lowered the bottle from his mouth and ceremoniously wiped the neck of it on his shirt-sleeve, and passed it back across the desk to Jenson. The chief tilted it up to his mouth and gurgled until the bottle was empty. Then he dropped it back into the drawer and got up. He said to Shayne, “I reckon I’ll take my car that’s parked out back. That way we can come and go without nobody noticing us.”
He led the way out of the office and down a corridor to a rear exit where they went out to the chief’s sedan parked in the alley.
Shayne sat beside him in silence while Chief Ollie Jenson drove the winding route to the Blake house. It was just after sunset and the cool of dusk was descending on Sunray Beach when he parked his official car behind the Mercury that was still standing in the driveway.
No lights were visible inside the house as they got out and went up to the front door which stood ajar as Shayne had left it not more than twenty minutes before.
The detective held back and allowed the chief to enter in front of him. Jenson paused just over the threshold and switched on a light in the hallway, and he moved forward very slowly to stand over the body of Marvin Blake that lay in front of the bureau with its drawer still standing open, again as Shayne had left it.
The heavy. 45 automatic was clutched in Blake’s right hand. He had carefully placed the muzzle inside his mouth before pulling the trigger, and the exploding gases had blown most of the top of his head off.
Beside him on the hallway floor was the scratchpad from the sitting room, and written there in precise and unwavering letters, were these words: “May God and my darling daughter Sissy forgive me, but I cannot go on living without my beloved wife.” It was carefully signed “Marvin Blake.”
Kneeling beside the body and reading the note aloud, Chief Ollie Jenson looked back over his shoulder at the detective from Miami and said thoughtfully, “With just this here farewell note to go by, Sissy could grow up to be sorta proud of her daddy… and mama.”
17
FAMOUS SLEUTH ADMITS FAILURE
by Timothy Rourke
For the first time in the memory of this reporter, Miami’s best-known and most successful private detective threw in the sponge today and confessed his inability to solve a case of murder.
Michael Shayne, who was privately retained by this newspaper to assist the local authorities at Sunray Beach and to conduct his own private investigation into the brutal rape-murder of Mrs. Marvin Blake two nights ago, stated in an exclusive interview this morning:
“I am withdrawing from the case. It is my conviction that it would be a waste of time and money to carry the investigation further. The murder of Mrs. Blake was apparently unplanned, unpremeditated, and unmotivated. There are no clues pointing to the identity of her killer, and there is nothing in the background of this well-known and highly-respected couple which leads me to believe that the solution of the crime will be found in Sunray Beach.
“I found Chief Ollie Jenson and his capable police force extremely cooperative and efficient, and I am satisfied that if a solution to the crime is ever found it will be due to their dogged and persevering efforts rather than to any outside investigative agency.”
A tragic aftermath of the brutal crime was the suicide last night of the bereaved husband. The body of Marvin Blake was discovered by Chief Ollie Jenson and Michael Shayne in the hallway of the once-happy home where the devoted couple had lived with their six-year-old daughter, Sissy.
> Marvin Blake had taken his life with a bullet from a. 45 automatic, a relic of the First World War which had been brought home as a souvenir by Mr. Blake’s father. A suicide note lay beside the body.
It said, simply and graphically: May God and my darling daughter Sissy forgive me, but I cannot go on living without my beloved wife.
It was signed, Marvin Blake.
Mrs. Henrietta J. Jurgen, a married sister of Mr. Blake’s, arrived from her home in Jacksonville later in the evening to take charge of fair-haired, orphaned Sissy Blake who was the first to discover her mother’s violated corpse in an adjoining bedroom early in the morning after the tragedy occurred at midnight.
Pristine Gaylord, a local suspect who had been held for questioning several hours late yesterday afternoon, was released from custody at eight o’clock last night. Because of the brutal nature of the crime, the indignation of citizens of the community had been running high since news of Gaylord’s arrest had spread like wild-fire during the early hours of the evening, and ugly violence might easily have erupted in that peaceful resort area had not Chief Jenson acted promptly and courageously to stamp it out.
Standing on the steps of the City Hall on Main Street and facing an angry group of his fellow-citizens, many of whom were armed and threatening lynch law, Chief Jenson upheld the finest traditions of law enforcement in the South by issuing the following public statement.
“Pristine Gaylord is an innocent man and has been released from custody. Michael Shayne, a private investigator from Miami whose incorruptible reputation is known to most of you, has worked closely with me on this case, and together we have unearthed indisputable evidence that Pristine Gaylord had nothing to do with the murder of Mrs. Blake.
“We have no further suspects at this time, although I solemnly pledge you that this case will never be closed until the perpetrator is brought to justice.
“I now order you to disperse peacefully and go on about your ordinary affairs, leaving the dispensation of justice to the duly constituted authorities.”
Chief Jenson’s order was obeyed, and by ten o’clock last night the streets of Sunray Beach were as quiet and as empty as on any ordinary week-day night.
At this time the News is withdrawing its offer of $1000 reward for the arrest and conviction of Mrs. Blake’s murderer. It is convinced that the investigation is in good hands and proceeding in an orderly fashion, and that no good is likely to come from a continuation of the reward offer.
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Michael Shaynes' 50th case ms-50 Page 14
